Prepare or Perish [IC]

The Unites Nations, New York City

Like the rising of the sun, the end of the world returned.

As it always had. As it always will.

Annihilation came in many forms for humanity, often disguised as a savior; but simply too extreme to justify their goals. But in each dark moment, those who would fight to the end stood tall.

Those who would oppose and refuse to allow the last chapter of the human saga to be written and lost to time, like an old book, collecting dust within a labyrinth of libraries.

The world had faced many threats, one after the other fell, only to breed new threats to conquer us all - Luckily many defeated.

A culmination of events had caused everybody on planet earth to combine their resources and take Iceland. Spawning a new empire, the legacy of which was still being written.

But now the inhabitants of planet earth would have to face a new threat - One from the stars, one unlike any other before....

....But humanity would not be ill-prepared...

...At least so the messenger hoped.

Five minutes prior to addressing the United Nations

The international community had been summoned to the UN headquarters by the new Chancellor of Iceland, the request legitimized by allies that X had amassed within the United Stations of America and other nations, the world unaware of what they were about to be told.

The Devil's Heir in this moment, may have been easily mistaken as an altruistic individual.

A man poised to inform the world of a threat out of nothing but survival and survival itself.

Alone, the late Supreme Chancellor's son knew that he could not defeat the Time Siphons, but together?

The entire might of the world, combined like they had done in toppling Iceland? A nation so powerful not even the world's last superpower, the United States of America could defeat alone, had been devastated beyond belief by the unmitigated power of Earth.

A mere glimpse of what dominance a combined planet held.

But X knew that given the chance offered in the wake of this invasion.... He would gambit the very fate of the world.

All, for his mutant bredrin.

The address: Prepare or Perish

The Maestro of Magnetism stood, overlooking the entire combined political weight of the world.

A few mere months ago and X was a relatively unknown entity. But now? A man with enough support and sobriety to address the globe.

The United Nation's had been convened. For what may be the most important discussion in human history.

Or the last.

"Excellencies, distinguished delegates, Mr Secretary General, ladies and gentlemen, today I will not start this address by historically stating what an honor it is to speak before you. The 71st session of the General Assembly of the United Nations is one of calamity, one of obligation."

His studious eyes glowered red, making sure to look into every camera, every eye -- His voice echoed through the room like a titan. "A session which will mark, not the first, but hopefully the second united front of humanity. We call this the United Nation's despite a senseless number of wars raging outside these prestigious walls. There is a threat coming from the stars, ladies and gentlemen, and only a united Earth may stand in it's way. We have done it before." Behind him a screen showed the images of Iceland. The fall of Iceland. X spoke. "And we must do it again."

But he knew, where he stood and spoke for power, other would scrutinize and speak of conspiracy. X was addressing the world, a combined world. Many had lots to lose in peace, power... Money. "Even without my gifts, I can sense the suspicion and doubt within your minds. Many of you would sooner hide than face the truth. But know this. A threat known only as the Time Siphons comes to enslave this world. Their reign of terror stretches across time and space and they bring with them an armada of mercenary warriors drawn from almost one hundred different races. They control the very fabric of time which we are bound by. We must prepare, and if we do not? We will perish."

At the conclusion of his introduction an array of documents, expertly presented and delivered to each person standing, sitting or merely residing within the room was offered. The documents were twelve pages long and filled with indubitable and conclusive proof that an alien force was coming to invade the earth. Both government and independent authorities commenting, renowned telepathic figureheads pointed in the right direction by X, allowed to access the insight which he had when sensing this threat. All data, combined, pointed in one single direction.

Invasion.

If only X had known.... That the Time Siphons, were already here...

@supreme_chancellor:

Prime Minister Kanos entered the room with seven others. They had been cleared of all weapons by the guards, and allowed in, due to their agreement with one of the allied leaders, the 'good' Time Siphon. His daughter was at his side, as they entered.

"I agree. This man invaded my home and killed my friends, and I agree. Our probes have detected a fleet the size of several suns coming towards us. Frankly, anything but a coordinated attack with all of our combined firepower behind it would implode. I pledge the support of Iceland."

They rounded the dais and climbed a short few steps to take a place behind the Unsung King, though his guards took the time to quietly spit on the ground near X. Kanos waved for them to stop, and begun scanning the room, waiting for someone to speak next.

"Anything yet?" Moya asked.

"Nothing as of yet, Ms. Hawkins." A lone shadow company member replied.

The perimeter was under constant surveillance from every angle. Active, silent sonar pinged off the walls, each and every shadow company member present able to see three hundred and sixty degrees around themselves at all times. Prometheus was present, sending, processing and exploiting ambient electromagnetic waves that enabled the Artificial Intelligence to have.

Yet, no men with railguns and rocket launchers walked about the building, at least not in plain sight.

Prometheus sat atop the buildings, holding his SABR Directed Energy Rifle and scanning the environment from a concealed position, his rather large frame crouched behind concrete cover and knees bent, ears twitching and adjusting themselves constantly to most ideally position themselves. Shadow Company stood in the building itself, cloaked from the electromagnetic spectrum, and conspicuously lacking in metallic components in their armor and cloaking devices, standing out of the way of the staff over their very heads, the bottom of their boots enabling them to stick to stick to ceilings and walls with ease. The Elite Special forces unit, even went as far as to walk through the halls utterly beneath notice of the staff.. Star In buildings near by, platoons of M.O.R.S. stood by, masks concealing soul-less red eyes and razor sharp-teeth.

Everything was in place, and Maverick's presence remained pronounced and practically unnoticed by anyone who did not need to know.

Incoming transmission:

(Eric Bradshaw) "Remember the briefing I gave you all about this. The man came to talk about time siphons, and I don't know if one is ballsy enough to show up, but I wouldn't put beneath them. Prometheus. Unknown cloaking mechanism that, given their temporal abilities that we think might revolve around the slowing of light, electromagnetic and potentially even psionc waves, but they still exert physical presence on the world. If one gets close, scan the air for distortion or any voice in sound. Everyone, be prepared for the thing to suddenly appear or teleport.

If somebody teleports directly into the building, shoot to kill. Anywhere outside of that? Immediately alert everyone and ID the subject. Prometheus, speedster? Call it, and don't hesitate to tag his or her ass. Got it?"

(Prometheus) "Okey dokey."

(Moya) "Outside of that, do not forget the conventional threat in your searching, or the threat of having so many metahumans in a single place, particularly a telepath. Last thing we need is to be thinking about portals and plasma, then someone to get a bomb in here.3-D printed guns are getting pretty popular now-a-days as well. Keep sniffing the air for any gunpowder that isn't ours."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Roger."

(Moya) "Prometheus, going to need to keep alert for snipers and sniper rounds as well ,as you'll be likely the first to see it before anyone else. So, let's not forget the big picture now...."

(Prometheus) "Yuppers."

(Moya) "Feeling well today? I know today is the first time you've been back in the field since the Atlantis Invasion. Are you feeling up to this?"

(Prometheus) "Relaaaaax. I've been through some VR while I was down. I got this! It's good to be back, and if anyone tries something. BAM!"

(Moya) "That's what I like to hear."

Moya smiles, her R-Telepathy device turning with a click of her shades, opting out of the conversion. Pencil skirt and blazer, she walked about the exterior of the conference room with a suitcase in her hand, it's contents registered with security but not with anything from the outside. Should anyone try something, she'd likely be the first to respond, and being human, quite frankly, she had to always be prepared. Always ready. Always on guard.

Her eyes scanned the area and ears constantly keen on the conversation going on within the walls next to her, everything constantly streamed and recorded.

Elsewhere...3 hours ago

"Everyone got it?" Maieria asked of the gathered Time Siphons. Some had come with her on the journey to Earth, a young group intending to learn the scout trade. Like all young Time Siphons though they enjoyed challenging their superior, it was both expected and annoying. The thought went that the younger ones were vying for position within their predatory pack. Maieria was Alpha, it was a matter of who could become beta...and who could eventually replace the alpha.

One of them muttered something and Maieria turned her eyes to the young male. "Excuse me?"

"I said, it seems to me like Varikass has his fingers all over this one. Just like he has his fingers all over you." Dead silence from the others. The male had become a little too arrogant of his position. There was a difference between pushing the alpha and insulting her.

Maieria reached up and pushed her hood back. "Let's get something straight." She said. "I am no one's book , you are all my books. I'll let you slide on that comment this one time..." She stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. The others all stepped back. Between Time Siphons, putting her hand on his shoulder in this context was a threatening gesture, she was telling him he was one step from death. "Don't do it again." She said firmly. "Right now we need everyone we have here, but I'll risk the success of any mission to keep some upstart piece of trash from insulting my integrity."

She turned her attention back to the others and removed her hand from his shoulder. "Remember your assignments, don't stray from them. If this mission fails we get to answer to Varikass and he's not as kind as I am."

Maieria turned her back on them as a form of dismissal and walked over to a packed suitcase. She picked it up and smiled a little. I love a good show. We'll see how ready these cattle truly are. Maybe I can get one of them to moo a little before I eat him. I always like it when they moo. Maieria shrugged out of her rob, letting it slide to the floor and put on her temporal armor, adjusting it to the appearance that she needed for her outfit. She smirked and picked up a small recording device, an I-Phone and an ID badge that she pinned over her left breast.

Maieria slipped a pair of ear buds into her ears with the cord slipping into the pocket that she put the I-Phone into. "This is the house, built on sin, this is the house...come on in..." She started singing perfectly on tune, smiling a little as she checked her appearance in a mirror. "This is the house, nobody lives, this is the house, you get what you give..." She reached down and turned up the volume. Time to get a move on, got things to do, places to be... She smirked and turned on her heel and headed for the door. In three hours, everything would begin.

The United Nations, New York City

For such an important affair, this party was a little too easy to crash. Devoid of any type of weaponry, I chose to trade in the red, white, and blue combat suit for a much more traditional look. Although the lack of security outside is clearly meant to symbolize a “we’re all in this together" type of mindset, I’m sure that somewhere in the shadows, an army awaits, ready to deal with any threat that may arise. Pestered by my current status as an official "Enemy of the State," I'm not sure if that should make me feel safe, or pants-shittingly apprehensive.

I walk through the aisles of the famed U.N. meeting room, claiming a desk near the back as my own. The sign on the front of my work-space reads "Democratic Republic of Congo," but I quickly turn it around to the blank side. With a nearby sharpie, I write in big, bold letters, "The United States of America."

“Hey, aren’t you Orion Savage?”The representative from Burkina Faso inquires, curiosity dancing in his tired eyes. “No, sir, but thank you, he's quite the handsome fellow."I respond with a smirk and a shake of my hand.."Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be seeing Savage around here anytime soon.”

The man at the podium was not one that Jacob Grayon trusted. In fact, the Lightforce Warrior was positive that it was X that had been behind the false flag attack that had claimed the lives of six U.S. Ambassadors in Gothic City. In time, the son of the late Supreme Chancellor of Venezuela would get his comeuppance, but tonight they had congregated for a much more important issue.

It had come to Jacob in a vision, a gigantic armada of impressive alien technology slowly making its way through the cosmos towards the world he called home. So when he heard of this grand event that had been orchestrated by the self-proclaimed Mutant Messiah, he knew he had to come and lend his voice to the cause.

A few more international representatives spoke up after the dignitary from New Valhalla but once there was a lull in the action, Jacob quickly seized the opportunity.

"Uh...hello, leaders of the world. You all look...very nice tonight. My name is Jacob Grayson, you may know me as the Last Guardian. I am here on behalf of the United States of America, at least the portion of it not in bed with mutant extremists, but that's an issue for another time."

"Right now, I'd like to echo the concerns presented by the evil man at the podium and by these impressive documents. I've had some experience with Time Siphons. They are an impressive bunch. Their mastery over time is unparalleled, as is their hunger. I want to urge every man and woman in this room to look past their nation's borders, look past who is human, and who is mutant, and focus up. We are facing nothing short of an apocalyptic event and it's time we all band together. Despite my differences with a few you in this very room, I pledge my sword and shield to the cause and I will urge every hero that I can to join me. This is for our Earth, cause it's the only one we got."

THE PROBLEM OF TIME

One Month Ago, the Rimefrost Dimension

The orange-yellow glow from a lamp’s light illuminated the subterranean chamber. The fiery gleam ebbed and flowed as the flame devoured the blackening wick, oil slowly burning away to nothing. Glimmering red eyes moved in the dim atmosphere, pouring over ancient parchments piled upon the old, wooden desk. The scene painted was of anachronism, the recollection of an older time being lived within the modern world. Such was the existence of the millennia-old lich, the necromancer named Rezurrection. For someone so old who had endured the waxing and waning of empires, one who had long since sacrificed the fragility of the human soul upon the alter of immortality, there was a calmness in the ancient dark that consumed the shadows and the night without fail. There was no fear, no evolved emotion, there only was purpose and patience, the propagators planned action.

A thud within the shadows of his underground study arrested his attention. A deeper shadow fell, finally parting to reveal the pale face of a man in the flickering firelight. The ancient, time-manipulating mutant known as Q had appeared suddenly, his body falling weakly to his knees. Two thin trails of red trickled from his nose, vermillion drops clattering to the floor with a splash. The red and black haired man crumbled, his hands bracing his frame against the cold, stone floor, his chest heaving with laboured breaths. Amidst the panting came the whispered French, “aidez-moi…”(“help me…”)

The Nefarious Necromancer stood to his feet quickly, his brows furrowing. “Brother. What happened? What have you seen?” He stepped hastily to his kin, gathering him up in his arms as he stooped. Cradling his head, the sorcerer manipulated the blood within his half-brother’s body to restore the damage done.

Mr. Q gripped Reza’s shirt, his ruby eyes gazing deeply into those of his undead family. “The Devourers. T-time Siphons. They are coming. I stepped into the future, and I saw the unravelling of the Earth.” He held the fabric tighter until his knuckles blanched. “Humans and mutants alike raised and farmed like cattle to feed the alien force. They feed off the time of life forms. I narrowly escaped, my signature, time manipulation and distortion, seeming only to lure them to me.” His nostrils flared, his eyes blazing with intensity. “We must stop them, g-gather the forces of the world to combat this evil.”

Devoid of human concept of emotion, the weight of time lifted from the mage’s shoulders, the severity of the situation rested only slightly upon him. “The world is in turmoil. We must wait until the Rimefrost can reassemble to shift the balances of power into a more conducive environment for a unified force.”

The master of time’s jaw tightened. He had lived long, seen much. He lived a life of timelines budding from each other in a grand temporal tree of which he had explored. But this truly scared him. “Start recruitment. Stir the imaginations of the world leaders however you can. They will fall in line. My brother, this is one war even we are unlikely to survive. Do what needs to be done… and do it now. We have no time.”

Present Day, Venezuela

Alexandra slithered into a white cut-out dress, the tailored fabric clinging tightly to her voluptuous form. He brushed her platinum blonde hair over one shoulder. “Zip me up, please, darling.”Xenon absent-mindedly obliged the request, the pair maintaining the relative silence that had become so familiar. This was the exact scene she had envisioned in a long-term relationship, the monotony a sign of commitment and resigned satisfaction. Instead, the predator felt stifled with the sameness. An air of melancholy lingered upon her tawny countenance as she gazed into the mirror at herself, smearing a metallic shade of silver upon her crimson lips. The dynamic coupling of the former king of Venezuela and the renown mutant psychiatrist had become stale in her opinion, both doing little to retain what had been. The shared history between the two only left a few threads of commonality, Xandra’s own unspoken indiscretion furthering the divide the cold, distant mind of Xenon seldom sought to reconcile.

Her shapely feet slipped into her ivory heels as she prepared to join the Venezuelan elite at the United Nations. The doctor’s luscious lips curled into a pearly smile as she stepped toward her lover, her manicured fingers straightening the Shadow Sorcerer’s collar. Alexandra’s body leaned into him to kiss him upon the cheek. “Are you ready, my love? We’re going to be late.”

Xenon sighed, wrapping his arms around her. “We won’t be late. The bloviating politicians will spend at least the first fifteen minutes congratulating themselves on their own illustrious arrival.” His gaze wandered. “I do not miss the tedious sphere of politics. Were this matter not of dire concern, I would not be in attendance.” His attention returned to his lady. “We should arrive separately. I do not wish to mire your reputation with rumours of dalliance with my genocidal regime. I will not be a popular person.” A wry laugh caught in his throat. “And given the vapid company of politicians, I cannot say I lament the designation.”

The mutant masterminds parted, Xandra teleporting away first then soon after Xenon to arrive at the UN building in New York City.

Alexandra took her seat amongst the Venezuelan diplomats, her icy blue eyes darting around for the familiar faces she would see. Folding one leg gingerly over the other, her French manicured nails tapped anxiously upon her thigh awaiting the start of X’s speech. As the words poured from the mouth of the liberator of Iceland, Xandra cast a glance toward Xenon. His fascinating mind taking it all in with vibrant detail, hyper cognition working in overdrive on the problem of defeating this alien menace. She had a weakness for such genius minds. She coveted his attention. The allure of joining with a genius mind was that the mind would be focused upon her. But now is not the time for selfish ambition. This was a time of war, an invasion they had not seen since the time of the Third Society. Alexandra shivered remembering her imprisonment, the sundering of her psyche. Though even that had not been for nothing. She had found her daughter, Sophia, the girl who would aid in the downfall of one of the Society’s chief members, Aphasic.

Her brows furrowed as she caught sight of General Kanos. It seemed the world even needed defeated military leaders to join the cause of protecting the planet. Maverick's forces were lurking about. As much as she loathed the involvement of the mutant hunters, she knew their presence would be vital. If her father was correct, the UN might become the first contact between the peoples of Earth and the Time Siphons. Her fist tightened. There was no time for prejudice or petty squabbles. Time itself was on the line. Time would tell if they could come together to form an unprecedented alliance to defeat the extraterrestrial evil.

The United Nations, New York City

Madalena Miranda; the Neo Achilles' bodyguard. Tall and elegant, she was wide at the hips and thin at the waist. Her ebony dress clung to her curves without flaw, and as she strode, her pores exuded a presence of overpowering voluptuousness. Her mahogany hair hung past her shoulders like a waterfall of liquid silk, and her emerald eyes cast a mesmeric gaze. Her full, pouty lips wore a shade of red, and her features of singular beauty were prominent like a force of nature. Though beautiful and ladylike, her muscle fibers twitched with the power of a born warrior. And the perfumed air that hung all about her left many imagining more than there actually was to her. His hand held by hers as she strode forward, Rafael was dressed to impress.

He donned a black, three-piece, two-button Ermenegildo Zegna suit tailored to the lean and muscled contours of his body. Diamond studs twinkled on his ears, his raven hair was styled smooth and swept to the side, and his features of devastating, Adonic charm wore a countenance of impenetrable confidence. Led by his bodyguard, Rafael's hazel eyes took in the sight of politicians and men of power as all strode inside for the press conference. And whereas theirs were gazes of worry and hope, his was a predatory one, one that mystified and cast the presence of a man all too confident in his odds of victory; an Achilles. He kept his posture global, and once inside, he and Madalena found their eyes glancing at X and then briefly at Jacob Grayson whose speech had just been echoed.

As the Finance Minister of Venezuela and the founder of a superhuman task-force dedicated to defending the Shogunate from it's enemies, Rafael was keen on hearing the suggestions of those present. Retiring to a desk whose sign read 'The Shogunate of Venezuela', the Neo Achilles sat, Madalena by his side, both in relative silence, their features held in earnest as Jacob spoke. For now, both X and Jacob had made their joint efforts in persuading the world's nations to come together to face the threat of the Time Siphons. But no plan of action had been offered yet.

The United Nations, New York City

Unlike in his home city, the prince of power was a virtual unknown in the former colonies. In this, situation he found himself placed in an advantageous position a telepath who would fly under the radar. A powered individual of little reputation who would draw no added attention over than if he had the correct paperwork and who sent him. His papers of the highest order representing the sovereign nation of England and its remaining sister nations of the United Kingdom. His orders from the highest and crowned source his mission to attend and take in, to prepare and uncover. To show the nation's strength if needed but use good old-fashioned wit and charm unless called into anything more hostile.

Cameras flashed at him as he walked through the doors head held high like this was nothing new to him his Saville Row suit pristine and precise to the inch settling him to the surroundings like any over dignitary or minister that approached. It felt alien to him light and unprotective, tight and uncomfortable. His mind pulsing with the thoughts of those around him some that flattered some that insulted but none that really mattered at this moment. Pushing these thoughts to one side he walked towards his seat and prepared himself for the meat of this meeting.

Speakers came and went some endearing some subtly hostile and seemingly not much safer than the problems they addressed. His hand scratching every muttered syllable and every thought he could safely feel. His mind pulling back as it felt the presence of others like its own in the room. His mind closing its extra perceptive properties as a form of personal protection and to continue his covert assessments of the power players and what was to come when the timelords, or whatever they were called would engage their forces and make their own plays.

He would sit and listen and report... that is all.

"I wonder what they're talking about in there," Robert muttered under his breath, tired as hell of the summer already.

He looked through old binoculars that he modified with modern glass and magnifying technologies, to the point where the leatherbound style concealed more high-end gadgets than most handheld cameras. He licked his teeth impatiently, and some guards started to notice him with his pair of farseeing eyes seeming a bit too comfortable across the way from the United Nations building.

"Excuse me sir, you can't stay here. A meeting's in progress, and for the security of those involved you have to leave,"

"What? I'm expressing my right as a free citizen to sit where I Goddamn please you gorillas, don't f---ing touch me!"

"Sir, you have to relocate,"

He sighed in pure agitation, knowing arguing would get him nowhere and outright killing these idiots with the metal hooks he had under his forearms would attract too much attention. He even scoped out the perfect place to plant the sharpened stakes, right near the optic nerve and digging perfectly into the brain cavity. A quick twist, and everything inside would be scrambled eggs. Without anything further to say, he backed off a bit.

"Alright,"

He felt grass under his thick leather boots instead of concrete and saw that he had entered part of a luxury greenery area.

"There. I'm not on your front porch anymore. Let me watch the f---ing birds you morons, go eat bananas back in your habitat or something," he grunted shortly, taking out his binoculars again.

This time, things got ugly. One of the guards grabbed them and smashed the mechanical device on the ground, wasting about four months of work on aligning all the miniature pieces of glass just perfectly. Robert felt his skin crawl a bit with raw anger, but he didn't say anything.

"Like I said, get out of here. You're being very suspicious and disrespectful of the boundaries we clearly already established for you. Get out. Now,"

Robert smiled a bit, and even started laughing. These guys were easily over 6' 4", 250 lbs. Solid walls of muscle and aggression ready and waiting to fight anything that came near them if they were barely cognisant of potential threats to "national security" or something. People were beginning to stare.

"Now, this is just like a video I saw about two beefheaded jackasses who thought they were big enough to handle a scrawny high schooler minding his own business during a speech about public safety,"

He put his hands behind his head, and just as he expected they moved in to handcuff him. Probably a holding center inside or something until the police came.

"Sorry for the trouble boys. I'm sure we can work something out,"

"Shut up already."

Without further notice, they locked his hands behind his back and took him to a rear door to a level underneath the main entrance. Sitting him down in a quiet room with a heavy door, he sat there on the cold bench as they called the cops. Except, instead of just keeping to himself, Robert managed to pick his cuffs apart and unlock his one-man cell. There were about three more of these rooms, and an office at the end of the hall where he suspected the guards were staked out. He stepped into that office, sealing the exit as he did so. With a few mild grunts and sounds of a struggle, he managed a headlock onto the gentleman until he fell completely unconscious and stripped him of his clothes, replacing his own streetwear with that uniform. Robert dragged the knocked-out security guard into the nearest cell without incident, making sure to disfigure his face with a few well-placed punches before locking the door again.

He took a nametag off the wall, "Bob", and started whistling as he patrolled the halls towards the assembly area.

The UN Building

Silently stepping through waves of delegates, Klaus kept a low profile, a small light-manipulating holo-projector on his lower belt subtly obscuring his jumpsuit and supplanting the image with formal pants and a black t-shirt. Not about to announce himself to any potential threat as the Deputy Director of the CIA, he held no readily-seen identification, taking silent joy in perpetuating the rumored existence of the men in black. In his hand was his Death Ray, cleverly disguised as a regular firearm through simple aesthetic additions. Painted matte black and now boasting a useless ammunition clip, his weapon appeared no more threatening to a metahuman than a regular gun. Black gloves on his hands, though, were ever-present, the lithe fingers of the Delver of Secrets hidden away from the world.

"Nothing to report," he said quietly into a communications device, flicking it back under a concealed fold in his glove as instantly as he'd pulled it out. He quietly inspected the convening politicians, astute eyes scanning every detail.

Alien invasion, he thought, shaking his head quietly. Again.

The UN had been called into session regarding extraterrestrial invasion before in the past as well, before aliens who seemed to take after Imperial Rome had besieged Washington DC. The fight, however, had lasted no more than a day, and with nearly all the citizens evacuated beforehand, the only thing to worry about afterwards had been property damage. The Washington Monument had fallen, yes, but it had been easily repaired through the powers of other super-beings. In the face of adversity, people simply adapted.

The evacuation plans had been put in order; people had simply been conditioned to anticipate and overcome threats from beyond the stars.

And this time will be no different. A few busted buildings. Maverick will handle the logistics while the government handles the social aspect. And the Earth's antibodies, the superheroes...they'll repel whatever comes our way. It's a pattern, he mused silently to himself. He smiled derisively.

Maybe a well-known cape will go down swinging, he thought, raising an eyebrow. To one who did not know him, this would seem a callous thought, but in reality, it was more a pragmatic one. He didn't often attend metahuman funerals anymore; if you wore a mask, odds stated that if you died, you would eventually get better.

There was no popcorn, but it wouldn't have been out of place.

@thisisgonnahurt:

*Ping. Ping. Ping*

The area presented an ideal location for the Shadow Company. The bustle and bustle of the U.N. in the midst of a city like this didn't overwhelm the area with sound waves. On the contrary, it was like shining a light, just enough for someone to see everything at all times. And what they saw drew the attention of all Maverick as a shadow company seemingly caught sight of a man getting the crap beaten out of him down below, brought into the building by security no less.

Damn idiots.

(Moya) "Where is he? We have any idea what he is yet?"

(Shadow Company Trooper) "He's in the hall. ID'ed this guy as being named "Bob."

(Moya) "Have a list of the staff, and their faces streamed to me. Get me the streams of every camera in the building. And run a bit of facial recognition on all of their cameras."

A few moments later, and it was done. She walked through the halls adjusting her glasses as she scanned the halls for a man by the name of bomb, slow in her approach. "Looks like we have a match." She had no idea who the man was, yet. They hadn't delved into any kind of large database. But every move from there on was carefully calculated, each crossing of the corner timed as she walked down the hall at a hurried pace, until.

"Oomph!"

Moya cut a corner sharply and bumped into the man named "Bob" mid patrol, stumbling back onto the ground and dropping her suitcase. The one that secretly contained every weapon the now unarmed and with nothing but her glasses that identified the man as human.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Officer." Moya rose quickly, dusting her blouse off and an expression of humiliation across her face amidst the seemingly sense of urgency. "But I need your help. I think I saw something suspicious. It looked like an IED in a janitor's closet, but I didn't want to get too close. Can you....have a look at it for me, and call someone in, if you need to?"

No need making much rucus, yet. Let's try to do this as quietly as possible. Unless shit hits the fan some how.

But, what are the chances of that happening?

@maverick_6:

Rob raised his eyebrow at first, smiling politely as he helped the woman pick up her suitcase. It was... surprisingly heavy. He listened intently as she described what she had apparently seen or suspected behind a door somewhere and his earnest grin dropped. He unclipped the radio on his belt and held down the button. Having nothing better to do that memorize the traffic, he had deciphered his call number to be E-44.

"Dispatch, this is E-44. Potential IED, request for squad to be on standby," he said into the microphone before a bored-sounding "10-4," replied back.

He nodded his head sternly, confirming that he was ready to follow her to where she said the bomb could be. Rob was no stranger to situations like this, after all. She could be lying, and God-knows-what she had in that suitcase. Turning his back on her could be dangerous if he let on that he didn't belong here. It all remained in the psychology now. If he could bluff his way beyond her, the rest of this would be cakewalk. She was different, after all. She seemed... dangerous.

Finally they came to a door in an isolated hallway and he took out a small plastic card before running it through the crack around the entire portal ever so slightly, checking for wires or a trigger mechanism hooked up to the knob or anywhere else. Finding nothing that would blow up in his face once he pulled it open, he did so slowly and instantly looked around for something suspicious before he turned back to the woman.

"Do you have any idea what it looks like? Did you see who planted it?"

@thisisgonnahurt:

"Do you have any idea what it looks like? Did you see who planted it?"

Moya walked forward, allowing the man to have eyes on her the entire time, a slight smile on her face as she progressed further, her face having shifted back to one of dismay whenever someone walked by or when she turned back to face him every now and again, to confirm that he was still following her. As she communicated, no words were needed. Nothing beyond thought, as she relayed her orders.

(Moya) "You. On me."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Roger."

She looks about as the area become more, between the two, and to themselves, making sure to keep tabs on the man as he did her. As he questioned her, she was sure to turn on the light the lights, and to make sure none could hear her. That if most people would attempt to sneak up on them, they would fail.

Most.

"I never really saw anyone plant a bomb in here-"

The statement was as clear the building's air. Moya smiled, holding one hand in the air. "...But I do think that we've found our domestic terrorist. Wouldn't you saw so, Robert Cannigan?"

The man sat over 6 feet behind her, on the ceiling. He knew the drill. Don't get too close to the point where he can CQC you, even if the member did have the enhanced strength, he didn't want that risk. Moya herself backed away, with her still up, and the man threw her a gun, while she dropped her brief-case, aiming it squarely at the man. It was a Maverick Specific weapon, an HK47.handgun. Large, gas operated and chambering the notorious man-stopping .45 caliber. She put her case down, and aimed it with two hands, not daring to leave herself vulnerable to extract it's contents. Her hip swayed as her stance crossed, feet staggered.

Her smirk grew wide as data streamed along her eye-glasses and she processed it, while being sure to keep her eyes trained on the guy. Specifically towards his eyes. "I could go on about all the things you've done, but, I must say, I am impressed you managed to enter such a...secure building, Mr. Cannigan. And we both know what you've done. So, why don't we make this easy?"

@maverick_6:

Something snapped in "Bob's" eyes just then. He tore off his nametag and held up his hands, smiling without regret. The fact that his clumsy entrance into the building had been deciphered so quickly left him a bit disappointed, but not in the way he first imagined. She, the woman responsible for this little bit of detective work, did her best to seem intimidating. Hell, if he had been caught unawares he might have just pissed himself. But as it stood, he suspected everyone and everything from the moment he laid eyes on them - especially redheads.

"Ouch," he admitted, tossing away his now-useless nametag. He picked up his radio.

"Dispatch, this is E-44, cancel that squad, it's just some dumb joke kids were playing on us," escaped his curled lips as he crushed the telebox with one hand, the long cruel fingers of which were accustomed to swinging baseball bats over 100 miles per hour. The cheap China-made plastic nearly crumbled to pieces.

As of right now, he seemingly cut all ways out of his situation. The nametag a very temporary and almost useless distraction, and the radio his only connection to an outside world lying just beyond the cusp of a distant and winding hall.

"Domestic terrorist is such a harsh term. How about... homeland-based military agency?" he fired back.

"Difference between you and me is so small you'd laugh about it. Hell I'm laughing right now. What's keeping you from taking that gun and shooting that guy in the rafters instead of me? You know his kids or something? You afraid that Bold will put you in time out? Go ahead, shoot me all you like,"

He stared past the firearm like it wasn't even there. He had been down the barrel of large caliber rounds before, and he stood in front of Moya without a skip in his step or a glitter of anxiety in his steely grey eyes. Robert Cannigan, every muscle in his body relaxed to the point of ridiculousness, marched up to Moya's gun and planted the muzzle right into his chest. Leaning into her field of view like a vulture, not a single fiber of his being could be identified as being frightened or overwhelmed in this situation. He seemed as if he were sitting in his own living room, watching cartoons, instead of here with a gun next to his heart.

"I'm the last antibody in a dying chemo patient. I've been in this fight longer than you realize, and I won't stop no matter how hard people make me try to quit. You don't scare me."

He cast an eerie glance at the metahuman Shadow Company Trooper, as if mentally marking him for later.

The plan was long in the making, longer still because it took into account all the expected people and forces that would be at this meeting. The first organization to deal with was Maverick. They had forces and scanners everywhere, they had experience with Time Siphon's ability to cloak themselves between the seconds of time...so Maieria didn't do that. In fact, she cloaked herself in a fashion much more similar to a human than an advanced temporal predator. She went out and forged an identification for herself. That identity, a nearly perfect representation, produced a Human Blogtivist with just enough press credentials to get into the meeting.

So she didn't evade security...she went right through it. Her documents were perfect, the ID fully prepared to be scanned by every manner of security and forgery identification system known to man. She adjusted the appearance of her temporal armor to match that of her persona and followed the rest of the press corp into the building. She had no weapons on her and had even gone to the lengths of powering down her plasma and anti-gravity systems to give off no particular energy signature.

The rest of Maieria's force had a different approach. The mercenaries were split into two groups. By far the largest of these groups wore caped crusader costumes, they looked like a walking army of cos-players and they carried with them the deadliest of weapons...big signs on wooden sticks. Every UN meeting, even this one, had its protests and this one already had the usual mutant vs anti-mutant protest and counter protest. The mercenaries in costume approached as one to join the anti-mutant protest. They held the usual signs, if anything was wrong with them it was they were almost too stereotypical. "Mutants don't belong" "mutants are dangerous" etc. As the protest wore on outside the building a few of these people managed to land brief interviews, declaring their membership in the Humans First Foundation.

Unlike Maieria though, these people were armed with concealed weapons. These were not weapons of the normal variety, not the sort that could be detected by looking for non-Maverick gunpowder or strange energy signatures. They carried, concealed beneath their unusual and colorful clothing...bricks. The weapons of a riot.

As X waxed on inside the building about the Time Siphons, one was already there. Maieria listened as intently to his speech as the rest of the press corp, she even took notes on a little notepad. Her eyes occasionally scanned the room, careful to avoid falling on her target for any longer than the other people in the room. All the while what she was really doing occurred on a plane invisible to most. She was quietly coiling around the temporal lines of the building, its occupants and everything on the entire block, right down to the flag poles. She wove her Time Siphon ability like a weaver making a fine tapestry and smiled a little to herself as the process reached completion. It was ready, it was time.

She moved her finger to a button on her recording device and pressed it twice. This sent a signal that Maverick would have no trouble picking up. Layered below that was a second signal, concealed in the white noise it was dramatically weaker and went out in one very swift pulse. The first signal hit a team of six Time Siphons under her command, it wasn't structured and ordered, just a beep, no text to decipher but it was loud to scanning equipment, practically like sending up a "lets attack!" flare. That was, of course, the purpose, draw attention of the local security and of the Maverick security forces. Get them talking, get them to worry. Let them look right when they should look left. She mused and put the device away.

Meanwhile, the second team of mercenaries attempted to infiltrate the building. This team consisted of ten men wearing devices to make them appear human and clothing that would make them appear as janitors and other custodial staff. Their disguises weren't perfect, but they weren't meant to be. Likely Maverick eyes would spot them, find them suspicious and act. The building security on the other hand wasn't bright enough to pick up on anything unusual and if left unchecked would simply wave them in. Each man carried a concealed rapid fire laser weapon hidden beneath their bulky clothing.

When Maieria sent the signal the protestors moved first. They began ramping up the tension between the two groups, shouting curses, pushing and shoving and getting in people's faces, generally threatening the stability and peaceful nature of the protest. They finally pushed too far when one of them fished out a brick and sent it flying for someone's head. In that moment peaceful protests became a clash between groups threatening to turn into an all out riot.

Maverick's careful sensory scans looking for Time Siphon effects on the world suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree as the team of six Time Siphons materialized inside of the building and spread out, making their way quickly towards the main event. Finally, Maieria herself acted. There was no visible effect and no one inside the building would have any reason to notice...but she'd just temporally displaced the entire UN building. To the outside world, it appeared as if the entire building had simply vanished. It was there one moment, the next it was gone, shifted through time, out of phase with the world around it...cut off from reinforcements. Perhaps the second team of mercenaries would have been detained and prevented from entering, but Maieria didn't care, they were on their own. Their orders, if detained, were to break out and cause as much death as possible before they were taken out, they would not surrender.

Maieria stepped out of line with the other reporters. She smiled a predatory smile and pointed her hand at the secretary general in the shape of a gun. It wasn't necessary, she could kill the leader of the UN without so much as a twitch, but she liked a show, so she made a gun shape with her fingers and acted as if she'd pulled the trigger. She coiled around his temporal line, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. The Secretary General, elected leader of the UN, began to scream in horrific pain, dropping to his knees as his body began to visibly age...

@maieria:

The moment the woman made her presence known, Klaus was already moving, swiping his holographic disguise away with his empty hand and drawing his protective hood back up over his face. Charging forward, he raised his Death Ray...and promptly withdrew another one from within a holster on his chest, sending a barrage of crimson beams towards the Time Siphon.

But the young von Lichter was not so foolish as to directly charge an enemy; as he ran, he moved one of his fingers in a particular way on the handle of his gun, the circuitry in his yellow gloves picking up the motion and activating blink protocol. After three seconds of rushing forward, Klaus would teleport to the side, vanishing from place with neither flash of light nor echo. After firing his barrage, he'd roll evasively, already anticipating a counterattack.

And if his beams had no effect overall? A tactical retreat would be in order. Subtly, if all were to fail, he'd drop a smoke pellet and teleport out from within the sight-obscuring mist, working to mislead his opponents and buy time to work out a new strategy. If his molecule-breaking guns were to fail, his retreat location would be outside the farthest doorway from where they stood.

@maieria:

In a second the room was panicked, with representatives fleeing and guards firing wildly at attackers. The Prime Minister and his guards were gone in an instant, with several squads of reinforcements replacing them. Kayla switched into combat mode, as someone handed her a rifle. She pointed a wrist at a balcony, and a grapnel shot out, pulling her up and towards a mercenary, who she promptly shot several times, before cloaking and crouching down A scope and elongated barrel protruded from her gun, and she took aim at the Time Siphon leading the attack, who was draining the Secretary General of his time. Se could care less for him, but a Time Siphon corpse would be both useful for research and look nice on her wall. The rest of her guards fanned out, eliminating threats and 'porting in and out with backup and heavier guns, kicking over desks and podiums to make room for cannons.

@maieria:

An abundance of good willed capes were informed and called in to the UN meeting. Not as representatives, but as a safeguard if any heat were to be dealt with. Especially under the circumstances of an distinct foreign sovereignty were to besiege against the nations of this world. He would be one of the first to be called. They never saw any of his performances that brought down penniless spirits that sought to bring down their melancholic ambitions to the world. Perhaps he was too fast or they were all beat in a single strike. However the verdict were always the same, with him on top of toppled super villains defeated by his brawn without a scratch in sight. That made him popular in belief that Shot was overwhelmingly powerful but underestimated because of his good heart to never go to his full potential. He was a supportive of the commonwealth and his uncontested strength would surely destroy what he protected if he landed a serious blow. So with every good deed he handled with a slight movement of his arms would be met with his laughter and grand smile towards the audience. However the United Nations would be no exception to his friendly demeanor.

He was scrolling down the hallways handing out his stores freshly made coffee and desserts to the awaiting reporters and guards that stood in the super dense environment. Pushing his coffee cart and waved away with a good bye smile, he was a rather strange man but at least proficient when the time would soon come. A time that he could obviously predict as the sounds of a protest were getting louder and more aggressive as he wandered down the halls handing out the sugary sweets to those that welcomed it. He thought the streets of the city were evacuated, why are there citizens still here? Grodd wanted to check it out trying to step outside but the Maverick guards persisted that he stay back and let them handle it, his accidental strength might cause more unwanted attention. Alas he had to obey but before he knew it as he carried himself away, bricks were being tossed through windows. The quantity of rioters were a major distraction and bricks in flight were troublesome to deal with.

Not even a few seconds later guns were heard being shot that accompanied screaming. He suspected it was the rioters outside crossing the lines of military soldiers. Grodd turned the corner to ready to yell at the guards but instead he faced what seemed to be armed janitors. The bright sirens from outside windows basked Shots towering shadow over them, making them aware of a supers presence. Blaster shots as bright as lighting pressed against the frame of his indestructible body only to gleam the intense reflecting smile that faced before them. “Oh nono! My friends! This is no way to behave when the world is trying to unite!” Shrugging off the assault as if it were just a bright flashlight rapidly flicker on and off to him. “We need you!" The maestro of muscle shouted at the janitors as he flicked the coffee cart, bursting the cart at impressive speeds towards a group of the mercs. "To clean up your act!!”

Casually walking into the room he was surprised to see just a blazing storm of hell fire being rained upon the position of a woman without the consideration of the lives of the reporters. There was no communication just assault. "Come my friends, we must make haste!" Grodd was just walking among the storm getting hit by friendly fire, but to him it was like taking a warm gentle shower. He shouted at the pedestrians to use his large body as cover as he led the cowering group out of the line of fire.

The mans smile hid his concerns.

The Time Siphons were here and he’d hope that they had already got a plan before the real invasion started instead of blindly firing.

@thisisgonnahurt:

Moya tilted her head slightly,watching as the man made his call on the radio, and crushed it garnering a slight tensing of the trigger finger from the Shadow Company member who was behind him. The man had an interesting perspective, and a better way with words that she had originally anticipated. He was smart, and clearly a bit unhinged. Not too difficult to see with the fact that he walked up to the woman and grabbed her gun, this being the only time her grip would tense, as if to prevent him from ripping the weapon from her hand if he had so desired, but she didn't think he did. Such a situation wouldn't have much of a winner and he knew. The Shadow Company told the man to stop, but it's not like he'd listen. He was this close to putting two into the back of his skull, right between the skull and spinal cord, before Moya waved him off.

(Moya) "Hold your fire. Let's wait for him to do something, first."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "The guy's a nutcase. Be careful."

"Ballsy." Moya said outwardly to Rob

Before, she wanted to keep her distance, but now, it seemed very much as though she wanted to get closer, as she reached towards the guy's collar pulling him towards her and seeking to bring him down a bit to her level as she wrenched him forward. Her strength was less then Rob's and there was no debating that. And yet still, being wrenched forward by Moya felt more like being wrenched forward by a grown ass six foot, two hundred man, than a five foot nine, one hundred and thirty five pound woman. She ripped the gun away as the barrel twisted towards the weakest digit of any human, the thumb. It was the only lone digit. Two clacks of her heel and she was in optimal position to toss the monster of a man over her hip.

As the gun pressed up into his chin and the woman drew him closer, the fragrant scent of the woman's perfume melded with the scent of the weapon's gunpowder. It seemed as though Moya's own smirk grew just wider. It went without saying that if Moya was to place her shots, her intent to fuck up his frontal lobes worse than Phineas Gaige was plain as day. She didn't approach the man as if he was just an Average Man. In her mind, he was functionally superhuman and should be treated as such. The ultra-advanced nanomaterial constructed terahertz scanner in her glasses would tell her that he's a normal man. But her own developed instinct and eyesight told her otherwise. And yet still, this did not deter her .Only make her want to go forward.

"I like to follow a philosophy of effectiveness. Of what works, and what does not. I answer to higher power, and I can't just do as I please. And nor can these higher powers do as they please. Checks and balances...a more even distribution of power. As opposed to leaving it all in the hands of one man to assess. " She replied bluntly, and straightforwardly. "We have similarities, operating of our own accord and doing as we see fit in some attempt to remedy a world not ready for what is thrust upon it. But, that is where most similarities end. Though, I could go out on a limb and say that you can attack people I can't. So, maybe in some ways, you can be more effective." Her eyes looking at him from above.

"Ms. Hawkins." The Shadow Company told her of all that was going on. Gunfire, lasers and chaos. It was all as expected. Her look remained coldly, yet fervently locked on Rob, as she continued to speak among distant screams as if nothing was happening. The gun comes from off his chin, and she playfully taps it on his cheek.

"The last anti-body? Hardly. There are others like you, and you should do best to keep aware of that. But" Her cold, devoid expression slips into smile. "I think there is still room for you to be a very productive cell."

Her clenched fist on his collar relaxes, and the Viper uncoiled it's grip walking past him, and leaving him. She was needed elsewhere.

Meanwhile....

(Shadow Company Trooper) "We have numerous potentially hostile entities attempting to approach, armed with what appears to be hidden DEWs."

(Moya) "Move in to incapacitate, and if any weapons are drawn, eliminate them."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Understood."

(@maieria) (@supreme_chancellor) (@lichter) (@shot)sent

The United Nations was one of the most secure locations on earth, and walking in as a janitor or seemingly minor staff was an easily forseeable way for weapons to be smuggled in. Most top secret places didn't even allow janitors in, and the military tends to not have hire janitors in anywhere of political importance at all. Even with a lack of sensors, bulky clothing when a janitor is often just wearing a loose set of coveralls is a dead give-a-way and in a world where people were terrorist attacks were so prevelant and no one seemed safe. Complacency had no place among even conventional agencies and security.

Some guys were lucky and smart enough to not draw when the manifested, knocking men down and bringing them to the ground while security forces moved in with the cuffs. A few of the ones tried firing on both some of the members and shots in a brief lapse of judgement and found their results ineffective. Shot was superhuman, and the shadow company? Their armor functions by manipulating all spectrums of electromagnetic radiation, including light. You could shoot them with a laser that can cut a tank in half, and it wouldn't do a thing to their cloaking devices and metaflex. Most of them got gunned down, while others got hit by a shopping cart. One attempted a rifle butt and the man in turn received a kick that sent him several meters across the room and sent the entire left portion of his ribcage shooting back into his body.

The outside was a different matter, as Maverick could not lethally attack them, and they were forced to rely on U.N.'s own heightened security force, obviously able to forsee something like this and have riot shields at the ready, where as Maverick did not originally intend to make themselves known and necessary. However, while they lacked shields, they most certainly had an army, and the U.N. Security forces would soon start tossing tear gas and other agents that would induce blindness and nausea among the crowd as eyes would involuntarily shut and stomachs would curl, and that anyone who could stand this would be hard pressed to stand straight, let alone fight.

Conference Room

Moya walked forward in her Soft suit armor, people rushing past her as she shoved them aside, trying to get into the room. The signal had been tracked to one single solitary location, and they isolated it to that room. Soon after, the room was lit ablaze with blaster fire from Lichter, and Moya. She swapped the rounds of her magazine, changing out conventional .45 ammunition for metaharming and armor piercing .45 Caliber around. Would probably have overpentrated a man like Rob, but if Moya liked to think she knew her timesiphons, she'd know that she had some type of armor on, and if not? It wouldn't be too bad.

She aimed squarely at the woman, positioning herself near the large muscular man. Her target acquired as the discreet signal sent was picked up by Prometheus and sent to Moya, the lone timesiphon already

"Be careful of getting close. The closer you are, the easier it is for them to drain you."

Her feet anchored her to the floor, and the armor locked itself to absorb the weapon's recoil fired on her from across the room with rounds that impacted with multiple tons of force, traveling at very high supersonic speeds, trying to draw her attention, so that one of the men could move in and draw the general, all the while the building was being totally cleared and evacuated, and some shadow company allocated themselves to scanning for any newcoming threats, constantly updating Moya. If her shots didn't blow the woman across the room more and more with each shot. Any opening to the face? And she'd take it, for the opportunity to put a not so neat holes through her skull, big enough that you can see clean through to the other side.

So it begins.

@lichter: @maverick_6@team_sigma@thisisgonnahurt@shot@supreme_chancellor

Temporal Vision was advantage like few others, greater than three hundred sixty degree vision, it cared not for flashes of light nor walls or smoke. The first shot Lichter fired hit home without interruption and the woman's shirt cracked as if it were made of glass or metal rather than fabric. The second shot struck and caused a spiderwebbing effect and finally broke Maieria's concentration. The UN Secretary General fell gasping to the floor, now somewhere around the age of eighty years old.

Maieria appeared not to act as the other shots from lichter came for her, but it wasn't so. When she'd shifted off target she adapted her temporal vision and now saw everything and everyone in the room. That's Agent Braum, he likes to teleport a lot...She pivoted around to face her attackers just as Moya opened fire. The bullets slowed in mid flight as she tapped into her temporal reserve, dealing with both of the initial attacks at the same time and displaying the lethal skill of a Time Siphon. The remaining bursts of death ray shots dissipated before they ever struck their target, their time consumed until they were reduced to ineffective movement of light and scattered magnetic fields. All weapons had a range at which they were no longer effective and by aging these blasts, she effectively jumped them to the point in their life span where they ceased to be coherent and threatening.

As for the bullets, they never stood a chance. They were consumed as well, breaking apart as the component metals were reduced to their most advanced state of decay, becoming weak and soft, they effectively fell apart and splattered against her armor as tens of thousands of years of life span were robbed from the metals in the blink of an eye. The second round of attacks launched by Moya were more effective, one struck home and nearly sent her flying but at almost the same moment Maieria tapped into her temporal reserves and slipped through time, disappearing in the space between seconds. There she recovered and moved. Her reappearance was swift and had the effect of appearing as if she'd teleported.

She brought with her company...a fiend and her armor had changed its appearance out of its disguise. Maieria released the leash and the fiend moved swiftly, leaping across the room in an effort to land ontop of Lichter. As it moved, the air around it rippled and distorted as the fabric of space/time warped by its mere presence. The creature was a walking temporal paradox, it existed but wasn't supposed to. If it landed on its target, it would do so with a claw trying to sink through his chest. The claw itself would phase through solid matter and temporally distort everything it passed through, resulting in skin, metal, bone and organs all being variously younger or older, usually older. The claw's passing would also leave a 'temporal tunnel' through its target, threatening to break it down and crack open space time inside of it victim, the results of which would be extremely gorey and unpleasant.

Maieria focused her attention on Moya, launching a double attack. She flicked her right wrist, launching a ball of plasma from her right palm as she brought her armor's systems back online. The ball of plasma distorted the air around it, super-heating everything it passed near and threatening to flash boil anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. While the plasma ball made its way for Moya's body, the Time Siphon's temporal drain assaulted her weapon. She sought to break down not the entire gun but its most critical components, the small and often thin pieces necessary to cause the weapon to fire in the first place. Maieria's focus was on breaking down the assault of her opponents before she'd ultimately break them. The reason for this was simple, her study of these opponents had indicated the skill to possibly extract themselves from a temporal drain attack on their person but one on the interior components of weapons? Much harder to realize was happening before it was too late.

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

Outside, the UN building had vanished and most of the rioters ceased in amazement and horror. The mercenaries kept up their attack, they charged through the riot control methods, many of them fell to its effects but not all of them had the same anatomy as humans, even if they looked the part and were at least partially, in one way or another, immune to the tear gas and mace. Rubber bullets were ignored, pain was nothing to those determined to die in the service of their master for to flee or surrender would be a fate far worse than simple death or pain. More than two hundred mercenaries charged into the riot shield wall, producing clubs and other such weapons in an attempt to kill as many riot police as possible. There was no tactical goal, just kill, spill blood and cause chaos. Demoralization, disruption, these were the keys to their attack and nothing more. The fact many of the rioters had been innocents were now running on panic or writhing on the ground from the suppression systems? All the better.

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

Those evacuated from the building and the Maverick forces evacuating them found themselves in a region previously view by select few. They left the doors of the UN building only to find themselves in a world of grey. All around them they could see the events that were unfolding but participation was impossible and no one seemed to notice their presence. In addition, all those in the real world moved like they were stuck in slow motion. The evacuees and all Maverick forces that had been inside the building were now introduced to the realm of time between seconds, the space between the beating of a heart...Time Siphon territory. No medical attention would find them here, nor reinforcements. They were trapped.

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

Inside the building two developments were occurring, first, Maieria's slave was allowed to leave the realm of time between seconds by her mistress. She would find herself in a hallway and had been given specific orders. Find and pin down all possible elements of Maverick operating inside of the building. The other event? Six Time Siphons moved through the building. When they encountered UN security the guards never stood a chance, they screamed and collapsed into piles of bone and ash while the Time Siphons moved on without so much as glancing at the piles. When they eventually ran afoul of Maverick forces it was another story. They coiled around their temporal lines and began an all out temporal drain assault, but they didn't stop there. Plasma rounds were launched from the palms of their hands and the assault was pressed, always moving. They warped time around their bodies, allowing them to move as if they were speedsters, far faster than the human eye could track.

(Moya) "Recover the VIP. Prometheus, I need you as crowd control."

(Prometheus) "Alright. I'm on it!" He disembarks, landing behind the riot troopers, as bricks were tossed in the air, deflected by shields as the men simply pushed forth. Bricks shattered harmlessly against Prometheus' skull, and he pushed harder, throwing one man into the others and moving forward, his strength enough to toss cars about, held back as he moved against them. His SABR Directed Energy Rifle At this distance, rubber bullets would not merely cause pain. They killed, and they shattered the bones of anything human. An immunity to tear gas was odd, and he sought to scan them.

"Back off!" He shot now, sending off paralyzing bolts of pulsed energy projectiles, enough to cause the skin to EMP

---

Her gun fired, emptying it's small but potent magazine to some a degree of distress as she saw the woman cloak and leave to perhaps recover or ambush. Either way, it seemed an oppertunity to exploit as the U.N. Secretary general fell to the ground, a shadow company member appearing by his side and picking him up, slinging the VIP over his shoulder and bolting off with him at Olympic speedws, out of the room in two blinks of an eye.

A clack was heard as a clip hit the ground among a sea of spent shells. Her weapon aimed squarely at the target as she prepped her. She held the gun up in front of her head and pulled the trigger, but...nothing happened. A profane swear escaped her lips as time seemed to slow from her perspective as her weapon dropped and the searing hot ball of plasma came ever closer. Almost instantly, she assessed the situation, and upon attaining a combat picture in an amount of time that many would call instant, she reacted.

Her glasses scrambled and distorted as the ball got closer and closer to her, it's light glowing ever brighter as everything near it boiled and burned. Her gun clacked to the floor and hands reached out towards the sphere of ionized gas, arcing with electricity. All plasma is, is molten air, free of electrons, and strong with charge, it was subject to the manipulation of her gloves. She closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth in pain as she "caught" it with her gloves, manipulating the ball magnetically with her gloves and holding it as far as humanly possible, her gloves' own magnetic field containing the sphere of hot gas the closer it got

Moya's eyes opened, no longer cool and collected, they were angry, and ripe with murderous intent as she threw the ball of plasma right back Maeira at the same speed it came at her, and then bolted out of the room.

Her form remained excellent as she moved through the hallways, her face half steaming, the water of her own skin, boiling off her face. Her breathes rabid, and teeth gritted, she stopped one alone, slumping against the wall. Her breathes deep and ragged, the woman's gloved hand almost instinctively reached for her face, and sharply drew back upon contact. The burn was at least second degree. Her eyes went in front of her, and her back to the wall. Moya wanted desperately to sit, and rest. To curl up, and revel.

(Shadow Company Trooper) Ms. Hawkins, we have several Speedsters suspected to be timesiphons here. We can't reach outside the building. It seems we're trapped almost in what appears to be another dimension-"Yelling occurred in the background, and horrified screaming accompanied as the soldier's words were cut short. She knew the voice wasn't his. It was quick, at least.

Her eyes scan in front of her, looking for any near by enemy. "So, this is what fear feels like...." Her breath deepens, and slows. "...I think I like it." She cleared her hair from in front of her face, joining the COMM channel as she immediately spat out orders.

(Moya) "Gather any survivors and muster them in the building's cafeteria. We have to survive and protect as many people as possible. We'll think of the rest later."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Roger."

I need a weapon.

She wanders through the halls, and comes across the killed or incapacitated bodies of a mercenary who attempted infiltration out in the front, along with a searing hole in the head of one such soldier carrying an Acoustic Pulse Rifle. Eyes narrow, and Moya approaches the area, scanning the building's security cameras with her visor. She stoops down picking the rifle up, and looking it over. She taps into the security cameras of the area and then upon observation, learned how to use the laser weapon in mere moments. She picked it up, adding it to her collection as she ran forward through the halls.

Dining Hall. Confrontation

Moya had managed to buy them time and allow them to organize themselves most appropriately in a matter most would say efficient. There were the tip of the spear, and the Crimson haired Viper served as the hand that guided them.

(Moya) "No guns. Some effectiveness, but to a questionable extent. I'm moving in. Keep them out of the Cafeteria and protect all survivors."

The slow drawing of blades from their sheathes were heard, as some men laid prone on the ground aiming guns, and the ones holding blades stepped forward as the timesiphons would soon appear, moving at speeds imperceptible to the human eye could contemplate. And their hands moved the same and blades whirred and glowed, repulsor mechanisms and super-capacitor coatings sparking with electricity upon the nearing of balls of molten gas.

Every single shot fired towards their direction dissappatted harmlessly upon coming in near vicinity of their swords, was deflected off to the sides or outright sent back towards their senders. A line of men in body armor and weaponry looked were swatting at plasma is a misasma of rapid motions that made it look as though it were a sci fi movie. Not a single round of their own fired at the time made it past, at the moment. Their opponent attempted a temporal drain, and it was indeed successful, but not inhibiting, for each shadow company member was biologically immortal.

the while Moya moved forward. Aware they were moving at superspeed, she requested the resonant frequencies of the weapons they were carrying, and indeed, upon receiving this, she tuned her rifle appropriately, approaching her enemy with her from a hallway off to the side, the human eye could hardly process what their movements. But, the distortions in the air? The noise they made upon rapid travel? Their presence couldn't have been more obvious, and she was trained against this sort of thing. She popped out and aimed down the hallway, and fired. No projectile was release. Nor was any electromagnetic energies. The weapon sent invisible, hazardous vibrations through the air itself. Almost all of the power in Moya's armor went into the gun as she fired it's shot off into the hall.

Plasma dissipated from the change in pressure, heat leaking into the air, as the wave consumed the hallway. Their targets? To vibrate the power cells of the plasma weapons the timesiphons used, opting to turn the advantage of abundant energy into a disadvantage, as she sought to make all of their weapons explode catastrophically, seeking to make them all 6 of them go up in flames like stars.

@supreme_chancellor: @thisisgonnahurt: @maverick_6:@maieria@shot

It's time

Dove let out a sigh as she was called forth by her overlord Maieria, she was unsure of what the Time Siphon wanted her to do until she was told on such short notice. She was just on her way to return to the Academy after the left eye injury the Time Siphon inflicted when she received the order and found herself in the realm of time between seconds.

Rather than dressed for combat she was dressed elegantly, a nice view for her Master as she formed a sword out of ice in this hallway she manifested from.

Find and pin down all possible elements of Maverick operating inside of the building

"As you command" she stated calmly as particles of ice projected outwards from her body and began spreading across the facility at incredible speed while bumping into objects, every bump had a texture that Dove was capable of feeling and understanding what it was that was being bumped into.

It was not long until she felt the intense heat of a firefight going on in a cafeteria "I'm sorry but I have orders" she said with a sad tone through the ice that began to manifest in the cafeteria, in seconds a several meter thick dome trapped the Maverick forces inside their position

"Freezer-Burn" Dove stated her Cryokinetic skill with little regard to those trapped in the ice trap, the air began to super cool and those with out some sort of defense to intense cold will soon find themselves having a very hard time breathing BUT the skill being used was modified.

Rather than kill the Maverick forces present, Dove decided to put them in a state of suspended animation. Frost will begin attempts to form on the bodies of the brave fighters and slowly but surely slow down all vital functions until they were placed into a deep hibernation similar to how a bear hibernates for winter.

@maieria: @maverick_6: @team_sigma:

The Altissimo of technological warfare was the wage of war that has reached its climax. It was disrupting and bullied the imaginations of the survivors that were amassed in the cafeteria. The only thing that would possibly have the inhabitants muster up their courage and stay calm was the jaunty man that worshiped their safety. His tone was amicable as he serviced them with an announcement and a grand smile. “There is no need to worry my friends! For we have Maverick at our side keeping us from harms way, After this, We shall go to my home and drink coffee oouya?!” Shot Caroled to them trying to keep the spur of vibrations of the traumatizing battlefield off their minds. For now he was the only representation of a man that would not be overruled by the cacophony of combat that echoed through the walls. He could tell it was barely working, they were trapped in a corner against the elusive mana of the time manipulators, not even his enterprising smile could blind them of worries in its phosphorous gleam. This was a battle that not even Shot could relentlessly win with just sheer strength, it was an encounter of wits that he would be deemed unworthy, just a following cape that would act like a pawn compared to the splurge of nations that were present.

But not even the nations that united could perceive a power that left the outside world detached from the institute inside. Shot would keep his painted smile on like a mask, but his worries would grow. They were like a morsel of life inside of a void dimension. No trace of color and only trimming movements could be seen from the flames of the riot outside their walls. He could hear the tattle of the crowd and other commands try to correspond with the outside world, but no dice. Trapped in the grasp of time, anchoring them in immobile pocket dimension.

Just to make things even more worse while being frozen in time, was the issue of literally being frozen. The Cafeteria was descended in an instant shivering environment. Blocking the population inside against a scour of unsound ice construction. Caging them in an emanating artic situation. The extreme colds had stiffen the formal clothes of the survivors as the moisture of the air turned into frostbiting snow. They were gently being suffocated and forced to rest in the slowing winds. However Grodds physical trait would deem the anchoring attempt ineligible against his titanic potency. Shot winded back his index finger in a flicking motion, it may not look like much, but in that pressure in his super strengthed hands held the impact force of a high speed super train. “Stand back my friends, I shall make us shredded snow cones!” The impact roared as his flick pressed against the glistening barricade that trapped them. The attempt fully deconstructed the defense and shattered it like ‘ice’ against his brawn. Prying open a large hole, he assumed they did not have time and he didn’t plan to stay here any longer, it was safer..and warmer to be behind the shielding frame of Grodd instead of the freezing sleep that awaited them. “Let’s go! Pronto my friends! IT IS under Con-trol!” He tried to sound positive, but in his mind this was even worse. They were trapped and squeezed between a rock and a hard place “Where to now? Is there no other place that is secure? My Maverick friends?" He questioned.

@maverick_6 said:

@maieria said:

@lichter:@team_sigma@thisisgonnahurt@shot@supreme_chancellor

(Moya) "Recover the VIP. Prometheus, I need you as crowd control."

(Prometheus) "Alright. I'm on it!" He disembarks, landing behind the riot troopers, as bricks were tossed in the air, deflected by shields as the men simply pushed forth. Bricks shattered harmlessly against Prometheus' skull, and he pushed harder, throwing one man into the others and moving forward, his strength enough to toss cars about, held back as he moved against them. His SABR Directed Energy Rifle At this distance, rubber bullets would not merely cause pain. They killed, and they shattered the bones of anything human. An immunity to tear gas was odd, and he sought to scan them.

"Back off!" He shot now, sending off paralyzing bolts of pulsed energy projectiles, enough to cause the skin to EMP

---

Her gun fired, emptying it's small but potent magazine to some a degree of distress as she saw the woman cloak and leave to perhaps recover or ambush. Either way, it seemed an oppertunity to exploit as the U.N. Secretary general fell to the ground, a shadow company member appearing by his side and picking him up, slinging the VIP over his shoulder and bolting off with him at Olympic speedws, out of the room in two blinks of an eye.

A clack was heard as a clip hit the ground among a sea of spent shells. Her weapon aimed squarely at the target as she prepped her. She held the gun up in front of her head and pulled the trigger, but...nothing happened. A profane swear escaped her lips as time seemed to slow from her perspective as her weapon dropped and the searing hot ball of plasma came ever closer. Almost instantly, she assessed the situation, and upon attaining a combat picture in an amount of time that many would call instant, she reacted.

Her glasses scrambled and distorted as the ball got closer and closer to her, it's light glowing ever brighter as everything near it boiled and burned. Her gun clacked to the floor and hands reached out towards the sphere of ionized gas, arcing with electricity. All plasma is, is molten air, free of electrons, and strong with charge, it was subject to the manipulation of her gloves. She closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth in pain as she "caught" it with her gloves, manipulating the ball magnetically with her gloves and holding it as far as humanly possible, her gloves' own magnetic field containing the sphere of hot gas the closer it got

Moya's eyes opened, no longer cool and collected, they were angry, and ripe with murderous intent as she threw the ball of plasma right back Maeira at the same speed it came at her, and then bolted out of the room.

Her form remained excellent as she moved through the hallways, her face half steaming, the water of her own skin, boiling off her face. Her breathes rabid, and teeth gritted, she stopped one alone, slumping against the wall. Her breathes deep and ragged, the woman's gloved hand almost instinctively reached for her face, and sharply drew back upon contact. The burn was at least second degree. Her eyes went in front of her, and her back to the wall. Moya wanted desperately to sit, and rest. To curl up, and revel.

(Shadow Company Trooper) Ms. Hawkins, we have several Speedsters suspected to be timesiphons here. We can't reach outside the building. It seems we're trapped almost in what appears to be another dimension-"Yelling occurred in the background, and horrified screaming accompanied as the soldier's words were cut short. She knew the voice wasn't his. It was quick, at least.

Her eyes scan in front of her, looking for any near by enemy. "So, this is what fear feels like...." Her breath deepens, and slows. "...I think I like it." She cleared her hair from in front of her face, joining the COMM channel as she immediately spat out orders.

(Moya) "Gather any survivors and muster them in the building's cafeteria. We have to survive and protect as many people as possible. We'll think of the rest later."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Roger."

I need a weapon.

She wanders through the halls, and comes across the killed or incapacitated bodies of a mercenary who attempted infiltration out in the front, along with a searing hole in the head of one such soldier carrying an Acoustic Pulse Rifle. Eyes narrow, and Moya approaches the area, scanning the building's security cameras with her visor. She stoops down picking the rifle up, and looking it over. She taps into the security cameras of the area and then upon observation, learned how to use the laser weapon in mere moments. She picked it up, adding it to her collection as she ran forward through the halls.

Dining Hall. Confrontation

Moya had managed to buy them time and allow them to organize themselves most appropriately in a matter most would say efficient. There were the tip of the spear, and the Crimson haired Viper served as the hand that guided them.

(Moya) "No guns. Some effectiveness, but to a questionable extent. I'm moving in. Keep them out of the Cafeteria and protect all survivors."

The slow drawing of blades from their sheathes were heard, as some men laid prone on the ground aiming guns, and the ones holding blades stepped forward as the timesiphons would soon appear, moving at speeds imperceptible to the human eye could contemplate. And their hands moved the same and blades whirred and glowed, repulsor mechanisms and super-capacitor coatings sparking with electricity upon the nearing of balls of molten gas.

Every single shot fired towards their direction dissappatted harmlessly upon coming in near vicinity of their swords, was deflected off to the sides or outright sent back towards their senders. A line of men in body armor and weaponry looked were swatting at plasma is a misasma of rapid motions that made it look as though it were a sci fi movie. Not a single round of their own fired at the time made it past, at the moment. Their opponent attempted a temporal drain, and it was indeed successful, but not inhibiting, for each shadow company member was biologically immortal.

the while Moya moved forward. Aware they were moving at superspeed, she requested the resonant frequencies of the weapons they were carrying, and indeed, upon receiving this, she tuned her rifle appropriately, approaching her enemy with her from a hallway off to the side, the human eye could hardly process what their movements. But, the distortions in the air? The noise they made upon rapid travel? Their presence couldn't have been more obvious, and she was trained against this sort of thing. She popped out and aimed down the hallway, and fired. No projectile was release. Nor was any electromagnetic energies. The weapon sent invisible, hazardous vibrations through the air itself. Almost all of the power in Moya's armor went into the gun as she fired it's shot off into the hall.

Plasma dissipated from the change in pressure, heat leaking into the air, as the wave consumed the hallway. Their targets? To vibrate the power cells of the plasma weapons the timesiphons used, opting to turn the advantage of abundant energy into a disadvantage, as she sought to make all of their weapons explode catastrophically, seeking to make them all 6 of them go up in flames like stars.

Redirected plasma was not something the advanced scout had expected. When it was thrown back in her direction there was little she could do to avoid it. Destroying the magnetic field with a temporal drain would take too much time at this short range and stepping back into the time stream would not only burn more energy but might also fail, resulting in burning energy twice. So instead she allowed it to strike her full in the chest. The shot exploded and sent her backward with a wave of released heat that rivaled the sun. Everything around her melted and warped and she crashed to the floor a dozen feet from where she'd been standing. Smoke rose from her body as she forced herself to her feet. The supposedly bare midriff was now spider webbed to hell and back, the armor had taken a significant hit that had stressed its limits to survive and it had actively broken in some places, though the protection still held. Unfortunately the armor had re-routed damage to other areas, burning out the plasma weapon system in the process so that the armor itself would survive more intact.

By the time she was on her feet, everyone was out of the room. Maieria twitched, her temporal armor was absorbing energy from her reserves and she could feel that one of her memory shards was close to slipping away but wasn't quite there yet. Oh that little...I'm not gonna kill her, I'm gonna break her. Maieria walked over to the intercom and flipped it to broadcast to all levels of the UN building. "Attention all human and mutant Cattle, this is your Time Siphon overlord speaking. Not only will I spare the life of anyone who brings me the Maverick woman in charge of the defense of this building, I'll grant you an extra lifetime to live. One time offer. Bring her to me or moo like the rest." She said and shut off the intercom.

Maieria cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders and then walked from the room, casually strolling through the hallways in search of the Maverick defensive position. Given Maverick tactics, the position of the building outside of time and the organization of this structure, she'd take the survivors to a central room, perhaps the cafeteria, and attempt to make a stand there. The problem for her is she doesn't know how to get everyone home yet. She hasn't worked that out.

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

The plasma weapons of all six Time Siphons over heated but three were faster on their feet than their counterparts, they deactivated the plasma systems of their temporal armor and jettisoned the plasma coils entirely. They'd lose their plasma weapons but save their hides. Without leadership six rival Time Siphons of relatively equal power were predators of opportunity...when three began to regenerate the other three destroyed them, consuming their temporal energy like parasites and strengthening themselves in the process. The remaining three reached to their belts, drew their temporal blades and activated them. These weapons were holes in space time, temporal drain weapons that could only be wielded by a Time Siphon. They looked for all the world like Guardian lightsabers, but they weren't. There were no moving parts to distort, there was no feedback to cause, they were safer weapons but took much more skill to use.

The remaining three rushed the Maverick defenders, intent on cutting down everyone that stood between them and Moya. Their blades slashed through the air with more brute force than actual skill, older Time Siphons such as Raeyn, Varikass and even Sahi were exceptional with their blades but younger Time Siphons? They wielded them because their elders did so and to anyone with sword training it would be rather obvious, not that they were total amateurs, but they were certainly mimicking the skills of those who knew them better. Even so, anything the blades touched would age instantly to the point of uselessness and decay. Mere contact could turn metal into worthless rust, skin into desiccated flesh, bone into dust and so on. One among them used his blade with more skill than the other two, he charged high but brought the blade low at the last moment, intent on jamming it through the torso of the enemy directly in front of him.

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

The riots were slowing at last, the mercenaries were poorly armed on purpose, not equipped to destroy or even take on major Maverick players but they had done their job and were now callously left to die. They knew this but even so they fought on, pressing towards their attacker in an attempt over come skill with numbers. Their attacks were fully intent on killing with whatever was at hand. As the Maverick agent waded through the chaos the alien nature of these so called rioters quickly became apparent. Blood of varying colors splattered on the ground and their holographic projections began to fail, revealing the scaled and sometimes entirely otherworldly appearances beneath.

@shot: @maieria: @maverick_6:

I got a live one here, Dove thought as she felt her construct break and so she began her steady jog towards the populated area while she multitasked actions rapidly. She knew she had to slow down Shot some how for the longer the battle continued the greater her chances of success would be so she used her second super power which was telepathy and quickly began dominating the minds of not the defenders but the civilians present.

One by one she controlled them with flawless efficiency and caused them to run away from Shot and back inside the cafeteria while spreading out to make sure Shot would have a difficult time rounding them up. Dove surely believed this would atleast cause some distraction to the hero and opened up with her Ice Trinity technique, pressured gas released from underneath the hero but it was not meant to harm him but rather attempt to push him back inside the ice trap and if that did not work she followed up by melting nearby ice beneath Shot's feet and attempted to slip him onto the ground and wash him back inside.

"Stay down" she spoke through the ice towards Shot as she once again began the reconstruction of the destroyed barrier that now in moments would be fully repaired and thrice as strong as before.

@team_sigma: @maieria:

"Oh my." Moya murmured, as there was nobody between her, and she did as she best assessed immediately, not taking a moments hesitation to drop the gun and go full sprint down the hall. Before she knew it the time siphon were on her. And she saw one twirled and dropped to the floor in a roll, evading one swipe. A blade down and she rolled swiftly as it pierced into the floor. "Shit." She mutters, her eyes wide as a Timesiphon is already in the midst of bringing her blade down on her, far too quickly for her to move, as all she can do is raise her gauntlets in attempt to block.

*CHINK*

She opened her eyes, only to see one of her men holding the blade at bay. Aggregate diamond nanorod. The blade never decays, and the Maverick Shadow Company trooper was glad that His eyes staring deeply into his opponent's."Ngh." A torso was seperated from hip, as several of the few remaining shadow company members of their squad was struck down, his body going into stasis as he falls to the ground. Two of them are met in a bind. Moya rises within a moment's notice, taking aim as others follow suit, clashing with the Timesiphons' own blades, and engaging in a bind for brief periods of time, and those few winks of a lash were all Moya needed.

She aimed and each shot of was a headshot, three ptulls of the trigger in under a second, seeking to gun the Timesiphon's down all instantly, or to at least impede them. Given the Resonance's blade's ability to, with sufficient energy, cut through any conventional material, they made short work of walls as they all crashed forward and left in every direction, Moya stoops down, slinging a man over, as others stand by to defend while carrying their wounded.

(Moya) "We're being overwhelmed, everyone scatter and regroup we have too much to cope with."

(Shadow Company member) "One Dove Sinclair has appeared, and she's trying to freeze us."

(Moya) "Eliminate her."

(Shadow Company Trooper) "We're moving these civilians. Encountering difficulties in taking them to another location. They keep running away and the Ice Mutant is in the way."

As the girl attempts to wash away shot and the rest of the civillians in the area, a grenade goes forward within the water, detonatin with such temperature as to warm the room and still flash melt any water into molten vapor.

With knife already drawn, and the Shadow Company member having constant sight on her, the unnamed soldier adapts where Jackal failed, and evolved their tactics as they did everything else. His eyes kept her constitution in mind, and her scent. All that was about, as he tracked her, moving and weaving past any puppets she made have created, sound dampening boots reducing his capacity to act as he would then stab her.

The blade relied not on force of the user, it would sheer through most whatever it touched short of Adamantium itself. The blade would pierce the hide of many a superhuman who could hold hundreds, or thousands of tons over their head. However, if she had armor dawned blade can only be one frequency at any given moment, and a stab wound from the blade would be a hot blade wound like any other. It was his intention to wound, if not kill her, and then disappear from plain sight irregardless of the success of the attack.

@shot

Just after everyone had said everything was fine, Moya was the first to enter, carrying one of the modern knights over her shoulder, her breath increasing as her eyes scan the of the rarndom office building. She walks forward for a bit, and sets a one of the fallen special forces troopers down with a lesser degree of ease than the men who sprint in, covering their flank. Blades where exchanged for HV Loaded, reinforced ACRs and some semblance of a "last stand" was clearly being made, as Maverick gathered, not all within the room, but around it. Swipes of icicles came off them. The men had begun to fortify the area, only leaving a few entrances and then shoving and tossing office equipment in others. Civillians with some semblence of trailning began tending to and helping the wounded move. Others, followed suit in barricading the area, all among the remaining security staff and simply...people who wished to help.

Moya walked up to the man the largest man in the area, looking up at him with her reddened, half burned face, narrow eyes ripe with fury and frustration at the affair. She just wanted all this to be over, but no end was in sight. She had no further support, no additional forces. It had seemed that anyone of any significant power who possessed the ability to rightfully turn the tide of the battle had all but abandoned the area, likely escaping before she was drawn into wherever she was. She looked at everything she a had at her disposal, and picked up more charges for her APR, and picked up a SABR, along with a hyperdiamond knife.

"I....need you're help." She began, her brows furrowed. "We're cut off, and I've narrowed it down to two key targets. An Ice manipulator and a timesiphon. I have confidence that now that we know our foe, we can hold our own. We're trapped in what appears to be another dimension, and the only way I can think of that might work for getting us out is killing the Siphon or beating the answers out of her. So, what do you say?"

Her head tilts to the side a bit.

"Our best defense is a good offense. So what do you say, muscle man? "Brawn and brain" as they'd say."

A smirk.

@maieria: @team_sigma: @maverick_6: The wide smile of Shot would be exposed with chilling winds that quickly poured into his interior body. The moisture of his mouth becoming cold and numb comparable to the highest degree of minty freshness. It would unfaze Shot until the up draft of the wind that he accidentally swallowed would contact his head giving him an unexpected brain freeze, as if he were chugging her element of cold like a sweet luscious slushie. "OO, Winter already? Playing in the snow?! No wonder the civies are going back!" He mocked at his slight intolerance and distress of the performance of bothersome telepathy, but it was quickly solved by a the sunshine of maverick warfare. Like a morning rise that opened his windows curtains in a gust of summer wind, it would radiate its microwaves and terraform the ice environment into a drenched settlement. Such usefulness that their military power revealed, it was something that Shot alone could not handle with just use simple tactic's of strength. He was thankful with an actual smile of relief as he saw the soldiers tend to the mind controlled victims.

Approached by an injured woman, she was convincing enough in her tone that she was able to handle herself. He liked that! Her gusto was of multiple muscle spirits! The only thing that he needed to hear was "Beat-" and "-her" The woman kept actual confidence during the situation unlike Shots fake avidity. He was just a muscle vs muscle type of hero, this was bigger than him, but it was his duty to accept such a quest for the greater ambition. He did not need words to reply to the indeclinable request that she gave him. Just a grand smile and a straight forward thumbs up, playing the role of "Brawn" Shot would accept his position that he came here for. "NO PROBLEM" Giving her his answer with certainty. He was now under her command, she just needed to give the order of attack when it would be proper to counter attack.

The woman actually requested his 'simple tactic of strength' and he would be proud to use it.

The three remaining Time Siphons were driven back by the counter attack, Moya's well placed shots penetrated the armor of two of them and killed them instantly, the third shifted back into a defensive stance as the other two regenerated. It was enough to buy Moya and her people time to escape. The Time Siphons remained where they were, hesitant now, their confidence replaced by fear. One of the Time Siphons fled entirely, leaving the building, convinced that pushing on would only get it permanently killed.

Maieria arrived on scene just as Moya was preparing her own counter offensive, though both women were unaware of the planning stages of the other. She remained in the hallway, glancing at the two remaining Time Siphons and their defensive pose. "Really?" She asked, shaking her head. "Fine." She said with a sigh. "Get the hell out of here, I'll deal with it myself." The others departed, leaving Maieria alone in the UN building with the remnants of Maverick's forces, Moya, Shot and her own ally Dove.

Maieria knelt down and placed one of her hands on the floor, closing her eyes. She focused on the temporal lines of the building's various materials and spoke loud enough to be heard in the Cafeteria, using her Temporal Armor to amplify the sound of her voice. "You know Moya, I've studied your profile, it's pretty impressive for cattle. Not everyone has to die, some people get rewarded. Look at Dove in there with you, she's not dead. There's a place for you at my side if you put your weapons down now." Like she'll ever go for that. Maieria mused with a grin. She was delaying, purposefully so.

"I really expected more of a fight I must say, I mean, there were so many powerful people in here. I had plans for all of them too, it was going to be quite the show...but they all turned tail and ran didn't they? Always leaving Maverick's forces to do the real heavy lifting, they'll probably swoop in if you survive to claim credit for driving me away. Don't you ever get tired of other people taking all your press?" I know I do. One of these days I'm gonna kill that son of a beet.

Maieria began to focus, coiling around the temporal line of the cafeteria's ceiling supports. The first effects would be immediately visible as large cracks began to run across the ceiling over the heads of the vary people Maverick was trying to defend. Maieria was not the strongest of Time Siphons though and her ability to temporally drain such long lasting materials was slow, there was time before the ceiling would cave in.

Flush her out, end this in one fight. No more cat and mouse.

@maieria: @shot: @maverick_6: Just as how this Maverick soldier adapted where Jackal had not, so had Dove in improving over her previous mistakes that were made in the past battle against Jackal and Dove would use newly evolved tactics.

Unlike most super human beings with advanced perception, Dove did not rely on vision or hearing to detect her opponents but rather relied on sensation. The Maverick soldier did indeed manage to track Dove for a undetected extended duration as she had her focus else where but the closer he got the more she began to feel something. It felt to Dove to what it would feel for a normal person sensing a tiny bug crawling against her skin and the closer the Maverick soldier got the more sensitive Dove felt.

Eventually he was completely detected two meters before reaching her as Dove was more aware of her surroundings since last fighting some one from Maverick and she dashed forward while leaving an ice puppet in place to get impaled by the sword, it seizured erratically before melting as the attacker vanished almost out of thin air. "Oh no you don't" Dove commented as she flash froze the walls as well as ceilings before creating a sheet of soft snow on the flooring in an attempt to see any foot prints implanted.

If she saw the prints then she would attack him by projecting numerous ice shards to mulch the man's knee caps but if he left no trace then she would turn the ice into water and completely flood the area in hopes of drowning him out "Now..where was I?" Dove commented as she finished her first counter attack and froze the area infront of her and behind in a near instant.

Dove was now sandwiched between two 30 meter walls of solid ice and followed up by manifesting a ice sphere around herself, the pocket of air outside of Dove's sphere began to fill up rapidly with freezing water and provided Dove with an exceptional defense and some breather room to concentrate in peace

The Attack

Dove took a seat in her defensive sphere and began to meditate, she now went back to her telepathy and used it again for reconnaissance What's the head count? indiscreetly she saw through the eyes of the civilians present to see all the visible defenders in addition to their equipment and positions with out revealing herself.

Once she got a good idea on where most of the Maverick forces present she continued her ice generation Make them run out of ammo and they're screwed. dry ice released a fog to obscure some muscular man's vision, who wore glasses so Dove attempted to fog them up and reduce his combat efficiency If he wears glasses he has to have some vision handicap right?

Soon physical ice copies of Maverick soldiers began to appear out of thin air, they were exactly similar in appearance even color and shape as the fog expanded across the room. They immediately began firing ice shards out of identical looking but still makeshift ice guns towards the limbs of Maverick soldiers, mean while other Maverick ice copies began to dog pile Shot in an attempt to give the hero confusion on why his allies were suddenly attacking him and since it was apparent this hero was only the musclevmuscle type it would make him handicapped for he would no longer be able to tell who is friend or foe and risk injuring allies if he decided to fight back.

@team_sigma: @maieria: @shot:

Bodacious. Self Assured. Enthusiastic.

Moya chuckles at Shot's rather simple reply. He oozed confidence from every fiber of his being and he gave this odd sensation that "everything would be alright", strange as it was to say.

"That's good to hear. Shot, is it?" She recalls him from the news, prominently from his time in hollywood heroes with Cade, her thoughts fleeting towards that man for a brief moment, before returning here. "I appreciate the help. It seems to only be those two, now. But given Dove's persistent nature and the fact we've one enemy remaining, we can't afford to hold back. For their sake." She points towards the civilians, before moving to garner a few more guns and small, albeit destructive bolts for her crossbow with as of yet unknown Maverick munitions.

"I'd say, you're one of the true heroes here, being that you're one of the only ones here that stayed. The plan, we're going to leave and my men will be the ones to protect every civilian. We leave on the word go. You and me."

Maieria begins to speak, and Moya turns her attention to the remaining eight or so shadow company. "Alright. Weapons free. Use of explosions, HV rounds and incendiaries is authorized so long as it is within reason. The preservation of the building is no longer a priority. The people in the building, however are. So we win this, and we win this now. By any means." "Roger."

"The last Siphon is the primary target. You are secondary target. You, you, you and you. Watch our six and keep eyes on everyone and everything. You, you, you and you? To the Siphon, open fire on my mark. Through the walls. HV."

The men did as she commanded taking aim towards the woman. Moya commanded them further. "Do you have the target?" "Yes." "Open fire.

With that, an onslaught of unconventional Maverick munitions were unleashed in the form of high velocity rounds that propelled a plasma sheathed package of 7.62mm NATO with energies of over 18850 joules. The bullets burned the air with merely their movement and tore through everything in their path as if meteorites, each shadow company member sending out a steady stream at 800 RPM. As the rounds ripped through the air, everything heated up immensely.

"CONTACT!!"

360 degree acoustic vision granted what would appear to some to be omniscience, and the remaining four watching everyone's back gunned down each cheap knock-off before they'd have any chance to do much of anything.

(Moya) "She's focusing us and trying to disorient everyone. Alright. Everyone cloak. Now."

"Oh shooooooooooooot~...Let's move! Stop playing with the knockoffs. They'll take this from here" OA SC-12 alternate it's ammunition, the impact of the Frag-12 esque HEAT munition impacting with a shaped charges that tore through whatever was in her way like hot butter as she dashed out the room. Each shadow company looked almost as if they teleported, as they simply dissappeared, leaving no visible trace of their presence, existing outside of the electromagnetic spectrum in it's functional entirety.

Allocating energy to strength.

The weight of the functional one woman's army's arsenal did nothing to slow her down now, as she ran through the entire building.

Deeper into the building....

That attempt at the back stab failed and he could see the hallway flash freezing along the floor in slow motion. Pure instinct told him to jump feet first into the ceiling as he did, invisibly bounding up and adhering to it like a beetle. Ice shards capable of cutting superhumans went right on by where was, as opposed to where he is. There were no footprints on the ground.

(Moya) "Still alive, my lone wolf?"

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Yeah. Bitch nearly clipped me. Seems to be mostly using non-lethals."

(Moya) "Same position in the room, right?"

(Shadow Company Trooper) "Right. Keep me informed."

With now augmented strength her arm provided, she kicked in bullet hole riddled wall and stormed the room, firing invisible infrared lasers towards a Timesiphon either weakened. The beam moving at exactly the speed of light. 671 Million miles per hour. And with her aim, the rifle would fire milliseconds after Moya acquired her target. The Timesiphon's chest, Moya's sprinting across the room, constantly strafing her target. A steady set of invisible shots going straight for Siphon, aiming to distract her, weaken her armor and maybe if Moya was lucky, down her outright. If not, this can prove opportune time for Shot to intervene.

" I don't really fight for fame, I must say. So, if everyone leaves us to do the dirty work, it's business as usual."

The first dozen or so rounds to penetrate the wall slammed into her armor, bleeding heat into it like a dozen tiny stars. Maieria recoiled and stumbled backwards under the impact, spider web cracks appearing all over the chest of her armor. I wondered when she'd pull out the fun stuff. The pure heat they put off was what did most of the damage to her armor. Maieria broke her concentration from bringing down the ceiling and promptly turned her full attention to the bullets. Because of their nature they had two temporal lines, one for the ammunition and one for the plasma sheath. A snap decision made in the time it took for the first rounds to hit and the second rounds to cover the distance altered Maieria's plan of defense. Attacking them would reduce the heat impact but the bullets would still cause trouble for her already damaged armor.

She needed to avoid them. She tapped into her temporal reserves and dramatically increased the flow of time for herself. It made the bullets appear to slow down, 'bullet time' visual effects allowed her to see their path and respond not because of some new gift of sight, but because she was moving at a much faster speed than the world around her. She felt a memory shard slip out of her memory pane and cursed quietly as she moved out of the line of fire of the bullets. She quickly discarded the extra speed and prepared to attack the soldiers through the wall.

Something in the back of her mind, an element of her studies, reminded her that the wall was likely the distraction. She pivoted again just in time to see Moya charging in with a laser weapon. She discarded the anti-gravity abilities of her temporal armor, allowing the armor to survive a bit longer before it would begin to tap into her temporal reserve. I need to close the gap, fight her up close where I can tear her apart and where they won't risk another bullet storm like that one. Then I need to consider a plan out of here. She was a scout, not a soldier and now that she was under sudden attack that was threatening to disable her armor the fear she'd suppressed since arriving was increasingly picking at her mind, telling her to flee.

First though...first she'd fight.

With her armor barely functioning and her reserves beginning to run low enough that she'd lost one of her powers already, Maieria stepped into time, vanishing from view...but she wasn't gone. She moved swiftly through the time stream and stepped out again, hoping to appear behind Moya undetected, wrapped in the cloak of temporal energy before she appeared again. She lashed out with a jab right for the center of Moya's spine (or chest, if she'd turned around). She wasn't striking for power, nor to launch a temporal drain attack. Instead she sought to use her temporal dislocation ability. If her hand struck it's target the physical damage from the attack itself would be limited but the temporal dislocation would replace her skin, flesh and bone in the impact sight with versions from a much older version of herself, effectively instantly aging whatever was struck to the old woman equivalent of the same thing.

Maieria didn't stop with one attack, she pushed her assault, stepping closer and seeking to grab Moya's laser weapon with her other hand and temporally drain it. She'd picked the weapon off a dead mercenary and none of their equipment was Time Siphon proof, just in case of a situation such as this one, or if they should turn against their masters. If she could age the weapon, she'd be able to restore her lost power and rob her opponent of a powerful weapon at the same time.

@shot: @maieria: @maverick_6: Dove remained in her meditative state as she still focused on attacking the defensive Maverick soldiers, indeed the superior equipment of the Maverick soldiers ripped apart the cheap knock offs with ease but their primary purpose was to be cannon fodder and so copy after copy manifested as every two or three rounds melted them into water only for more to be replaced over and over and over.

Dove kept a mental note as she saw through the eyes of the civilians present to examine the defending forces attacks, the cryo mutant kept a close eye on the amount of ammunition Maverick forces were expending and tripled the amount of copies being manifested in the battlefield so they would have to expend more ammunition, I have unlimited ammo, pretty sure they don't she thought as she manifested twelve copies for every Maverick soldier, and as suspected the ice copies would be replaced immediately after they're defeated.

If the Maverick soldiers had to reload then the ice copies would have their chance to shoot back at the knees of the defending soldiers while other ice copies attempted to tackle them, mean while a ice construct the shape of a ice sphere manifested in front of Shot and attempted to blow him backwards several meters via steam bomb in an attempt to get him away from Moya and disorient him enough to prevent him from following her in the dense fog present.

@maverick_6: @maieria: @team_sigma:

"CONTACT"

Shot stood in the middle of the room as the cold would pacify his reactions. Smearing his lenses in a dense fog that clouded around his head, he could barely make out what was attacking him. The so called knock offs continuously tried to tackle and stab at Shot with no worthy results, just a bothered and irritated man as if they were insects swarming him. Looking down at the army of well replicated clones that only paddled him with vibrations with their series of punches and icicle projectiles. The package of attacks would be met with a heroic and flexing pose of Shot. Spending the reserves of the accumulating energy out of his flexing muscles and into a tremendous force that shattered the ice clones around him without barely moving. The cool attacks were just a massage to urge the tense situation into an agile sprint beside the Maverick woman towards the time siphon. Their presence was removed from the blizzard and but the storm would follow.

Blazing bullets were sent towards the direction of the time siphon. Rippling the walls and incinerating the direction like a light house shining down on a murky boat, Shot would know where exactly to flank among the storm. Crashing through the waves of walls and into the tide of battle where he arrived behind the time siphon under fire by the salty air of bullets that came from their ocean of ammunition. Bursting through a wall for a surprise attack his fist would be stopped half-way as the time siphon vanished into midair and into her own dimension. Shot knew these villains were not the one that would take pleasure in fleeing. Something so well planned would not go down so easily, her disappearance pleaded that the time siphon was would muster some fight still left inside of her. “Watch out lady~!” He warned the maverick lady of the predictable maneuver.

Charging like a rhino to his damsel in distress another obstacle of ice would manifest in front of him. However what it did would only empower Shots mutant brawn. Creating a great vibrating blizzard was a running flow of kinetic energy that he would absorb during his mighty charge. Running through the ice sphere as if it were glass, he was blinded by the fog but he knew as soon as the time siphons figure magically teleported behind the maverick woman he would certainly know his target. Shot couldn’t perform a haymaker without hurting his ally, so a proper and well aimed jab would be executed from where he stood across the room. Not meant to land, but the air that emanated from the strength of his reserves was concentrated on that one accurate jab, releasing a sonic boom from his fist traveling at multiple times the speed of sound. The small air blast had the impact force of feeling a crashing jumbo plane point plank that would surely destroy the other half of the U.Ns facility. Maverick brought down suppressing fire, so Shot would attempt to bring the artillery with his uncontested punches.

She brought with her company...a fiend and her armor had changed its appearance out of its disguise. Maieria released the leash and the fiend moved swiftly, leaping across the room in an effort to land ontop of Lichter. As it moved, the air around it rippled and distorted as the fabric of space/time warped by its mere presence. The creature was a walking temporal paradox, it existed but wasn't supposed to. If it landed on its target, it would do so with a claw trying to sink through his chest. The claw itself would phase through solid matter and temporally distort everything it passed through, resulting in skin, metal, bone and organs all being variously younger or older, usually older. The claw's passing would also leave a 'temporal tunnel' through its target, threatening to break it down and crack open space time inside of it victim, the results of which would be extremely gorey and unpleasant.

To be programmed with the general personality and mannerisms of Klaus von Lichter meant nothing with regards to his brainpower or combat skill. The Simulacrum, built by Anthony Stark following the incidents in space, had been sent in his lieu to monitor the UN speech whilst also providing a CIA presence; it was not built at all for combat, and it would even fail at basic conversation. Relinquishing the Gottschwert and faux Death Ray, it hid behind the column wearing a pastiche of one of Lichter's suits, recording everything in progress.

That was, of course, until the hound-like alien landed upon its back, tearing apart the circuitry and slicing through it like nothing. Simulated blood leaked away quickly to reveal a plastic framework, the electric brain decomposing as the time-based creature ripped through its very existence. All data recorded would be lost, along with the very expensive gift Stark had sent him. The screaming robot stopped, eyes going dead as "revealed protocol" kicked in. The faked pieces of technology sputtered and died along with the automaton, the first of Lichter's robots dead where it lay.

(Not a cop-out. Was discussed that he was a robot with other writers before this happened.)

@shot: @team_sigma: @maieria:

(Shadow Company Trooper) "She's gone. Can't see her. I don't hear her, either. I don't know what kind of cloaking she's got, but it's not like anything we've seen."

Might be using her manipulation of time to alter speed of ambient waves around her.

Her eyes darted all around here and she remained in constant movement, Moya unable to truthfully tell if Maeira had just dimension jumped or only concealed herself. She couldn't rely on the eyes of others at the moment, nor would any technology she currently had be of much use for detecting her target. So instead, she used what was perhaps the greatest weapon of any mortal human being, her mind.

She vaulted into a slide over a desk, grabbing a set of papers and putting her back against a wall, with little obstacles in the way. Her eyes circled about the room and her breathes were deep and controlled. With one arm, she threw the stack of papers into the air, and watched. Each sheet fluttered through the air as it normally would. Until a clearing appeared, moving the papers out of the way. And with this mundane tool, Moya had acquired her target.

*PHEW*

The laser was fired off before Maieria appeared, aiming to go into her chest, before she manifested and jabbed Moya, who instinctively jerked to the side almost involuntarily, the Siphon's fist hitting the side of Moya's arm and aging it, causing a cold trembling feeling to resonate through her body. A strike from a human or anything similiar to her armor, posed no threat to it. But this had something different. It felt almost as if much of the youth and vigor left that section of her armor, and her body. The woman was stunned, as the Timesiphon took hold of her gun. Moya's grip remained firm on it, but as she saw it begin to decay, as rapidly as the attack came, she responded, assessing the situation and knowing exactly what to do in an instant.

She jerked her hip and put her foot behind Maiera's leg, and if she didnb't let go, she sought to toss the Timesiphon against the wall.

She smashed at Maiera's face moments later in what was clearly an attempt at doling out a savage beating, her fury apparent on her face. An unending set of fists from her Arc Knuckles was rained down upon her foe irregardless of whether or not the throw worked or not. The flurry thrown at every angle, with the proficiiency of a pro fighter. Skill with technology meant to liquify people who wore adamantium armor, bypassing the durability entirely to strike what ly beneath. Fists designed to allow her to punch jacked up metahuman straight in the jaw, blow for blow able to cause capillaries stronger than concrete to violently explode.

If Moya would have her way, she'd have functionally thrown Maiera into the wall and beat on her with gauntlets meant to bypass Adamantium and burst the organs of superhumans. At the cost of eating a blow of her own and losing the laser weapon as she'd likely grow in power.

Right on time.

Moya wasn't banking everything on her success, or on anyone's success, and she booked it straight towards shot, one jump putting one foot on the desk before she took another leap, her momentum and agility enabling her to jump clear over shot and evading his ultra-destructive attack that had such destructive power as to potentially level half the building.

*THUMP*

Like a cat, Moya lands behind behind on all fours. With a deep breath, she gets up and draws her acoustic pulse rifle, looking at the results of his attack and to see if it did indeed, work. Clearing hair matt with sweat from her glistening face. Her fatigue clearly beginning show. But, her resolve burned as hot as her blood.

@maverick_6 said:

@shot: @team_sigma: @maieria:

(Shadow Company Trooper) "She's gone. Can't see her. I don't hear her, either. I don't know what kind of cloaking she's got, but it's not like anything we've seen."

Might be using her manipulation of time to alter speed of ambient waves around her.

Her eyes darted all around here and she remained in constant movement, Moya unable to truthfully tell if Maeira had just dimension jumped or only concealed herself. She couldn't rely on the eyes of others at the moment, nor would any technology she currently had be of much use for detecting her target. So instead, she used what was perhaps the greatest weapon of any mortal human being, her mind.

She vaulted into a slide over a desk, grabbing a set of papers and putting her back against a wall, with little obstacles in the way. Her eyes circled about the room and her breathes were deep and controlled. With one arm, she threw the stack of papers into the air, and watched. Each sheet fluttered through the air as it normally would. Until a clearing appeared, moving the papers out of the way. And with this mundane tool, Moya had acquired her target.

*PHEW*

The laser was fired off before Maieria appeared, aiming to go into her chest, before she manifested and jabbed Moya, who instinctively jerked to the side almost involuntarily, the Siphon's fist hitting the side of Moya's arm and aging it, causing a cold trembling feeling to resonate through her body. A strike from a human or anything similiar to her armor, posed no threat to it. But this had something different. It felt almost as if much of the youth and vigor left that section of her armor, and her body. The woman was stunned, as the Timesiphon took hold of her gun. Moya's grip remained firm on it, but as she saw it begin to decay, as rapidly as the attack came, she responded, assessing the situation and knowing exactly what to do in an instant.

She jerked her hip and put her foot behind Maiera's leg, and if she didnb't let go, she sought to toss the Timesiphon against the wall.

She smashed at Maiera's face moments later in what was clearly an attempt at doling out a savage beating, her fury apparent on her face. An unending set of fists from her Arc Knuckles was rained down upon her foe irregardless of whether or not the throw worked or not. The flurry thrown at every angle, with the proficiiency of a pro fighter. Skill with technology meant to liquify people who wore adamantium armor, bypassing the durability entirely to strike what ly beneath. Fists designed to allow her to punch jacked up metahuman straight in the jaw, blow for blow able to cause capillaries stronger than concrete to violently explode.

If Moya would have her way, she'd have functionally thrown Maiera into the wall and beat on her with gauntlets meant to bypass Adamantium and burst the organs of superhumans. At the cost of eating a blow of her own and losing the laser weapon as she'd likely grow in power.

Right on time.

Moya wasn't banking everything on her success, or on anyone's success, and she booked it straight towards shot, one jump putting one foot on the desk before she took another leap, her momentum and agility enabling her to jump clear over shot and evading his ultra-destructive attack that had such destructive power as to potentially level half the building.

*THUMP*

Like a cat, Moya lands behind behind on all fours. With a deep breath, she gets up and draws her acoustic pulse rifle, looking at the results of his attack and to see if it did indeed, work. Clearing hair matt with sweat from her glistening face. Her fatigue clearly beginning show. But, her resolve burned as hot as her blood.

Armor's almost done. Maieria noted as the last laser blast struck her square in the chest, deflected by the swiftly dwindling armor. The ever slippery scout felt the trip attack as it came and took brief advantage of the physical contact to attempt to age Moya's leg armor. She had only a second before she had to break contact and barely avoided being tripped in exchange for her arrogance. Maieria was slammed into the wall and quickly tapped into her temporal reserve, accelerating the flow of time for her body to allow herself a much faster reaction time in what was quickly becoming a brawl. Many people believed that blows in close quarters combat had to be directly countered but the truth was, they could simply be deflected, robbed of the momentum and striking power and directed off course.

In a rapid fire series of motions the Time Siphon scout didn't back into a corner and raise her arms like some cornered cage fighter. Instead she used her forearms to slide up beneath each attack and push it aside so that full on blows became glancing hits or missed entirely, putting large holes in the wall all around her body. With each deflection Maieria sought to weaken her opponent. The golden rule in fighting Time Siphons was never touch a Time Siphon. Without that armor, we're on even ground. Many Time Siphons, less experienced and less self reliant, would have attempted to temporally drain the woman in the armor but not Maieria, she chose the tactical route. With each deflection she sought to age the armor itself. Her flurry of movement that came faster than the human eye could track was precisely placed, each contact aimed for critical components of the armor, the plan to break it down, make it useless and rob it of its power.

Self Reliant, powerful, slippery, stealthy and tactical...these were all things Maieria considered herself. What she was not was an expert combat fighter, that wasn't in her job description. True she was fast and adept at deflecting but she wasn't the flawless fighter she needed to be. One final attack came and Maieria realized she'd compounded a mistake in an earlier deflection that left her wide open. In near panic she brought her right arm around and forced it to take the full brunt of the impact. Her armor cracked and then collapsed beneath the strike and her shattered in her arm, drawing a sharp cry of pain from the young Time Siphon...and then Moya moved back out of the way for Shot's own attack. The attack was devastating, the sound wave sent her through a wall and then the ceiling above them, as well as a number of other rooms and items inside of them, collapsed on top of her as several floors, already strained by the battle, came crashing down on her body.

She felt several bones break and at least one organ puncture or burst. It would mean almost certain regeneration but the remains of her armor prevented any immediately fatal wounds. Unfortunately it spelled the end of her armor, rather than let it cannibalize her already weakened temporal reserves Maieria made the decision to allow it to shut itself off and fold itself away for later repairs. Unable to breath, stuck in the dark and with a body broken by the attacks that had put her in this situation, Maieria should have been out for the count...

But Maieria was a Time Siphon and Shot had made a miscalculation. Burying her in rubble meant putting a pile of food on top of her. The very tomb they'd hoped to build for her was what would ensure her rise. For a moment all was still...then the decay began. It was slow at first, difficult to notice as metal beams grew spots of rust, wooden floors began to decay...but then it sped up to much faster speeds. Seconds instead of years. Maieria slowly rose from the collapsed heap that had been several rooms, a fire of anger burning in her eyes and a smirk on her face. Broken bones repaired themselves, ruptured organs returned to an earlier state. They could see the healing begin as obviously broken bones (some of them protruding through her skin) reset themselves in the time it took to blink an eye. This was not true regeneration, it was costly...Time Siphon healing was common to all Time Siphons but it was expensive, it took hundreds of years, if not more, to repair this level of damage and it was not something most Time Siphons would have done unless given no other choice. Maieria had no other choice. She needed to do just a little more damage to satisfy Varikass's demands.

Her armor was disabled, she'd lost one of her powers along with the attendant memories, Maieria knew she couldn't keep this up for much longer and deflecting any further attacks would consume massive amounts of power. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. The Could Have Been Fiend had been ignored all this time, but Maieria had not forgotten it's presence. It came like a monster out of time, reality screamed around it as it ran from the room it had been in and tore through the hallway and its rubble like a comet through the atmosphere. Reality visibly warped around it.

The Could Have Been Fiend was a pet taken from an aborted time line, it was a travesty, a walking paradox...it was human. The Fiend of Calladan was taken from a time line in which humans had evolved into four legged creatures but it was intelligent, it contained the malice of entire race of completely evil humans. The thing's existence in a reality that tried not to admit it was alive caused damage to its surroundings and it launched itself at the squad of gun toting men and women Moya had used to weaken Maieria earlier. Even their bullets would be hard pressed to penetrate its hide and it would lash out with claws and teeth that phased in and out of time and space. Whatever flesh and bone and organs it touched would decay instantly...it was a horrible way to die.

"Dove dear, it's time you go." @team_sigma Maieria commanded. "I'll catch up with you later." She informed her and shifted her gaze to Moya. She wiped her bloodied lips on the back of her hand. "Look at you" she began with Moya. "All hot and bothered. I'm a scout, girl. Just a scout. Wait until you're dealing with the real thing." She smirked and sought to force Moya into a choice, pressing her attack on Maieria or saving her ally. She reached out (unnecessarily) with one hand and coiled around @shot 's Temporal Line. She began the temporal drain process and took her time with it, hoping to make the big man roar in pain. She wanted Moya to know what he was going through. If for whatever reason her attack didn't succeed, she'd prepared another surprise. At the same time the Could Have Been Fiend would try to rip Moya's men and women to pieces. It wasn't impervious to their rounds, but it would take a great deal to bring it down, or heavier weapons.

"So here's the deal." Maeiria said, even though she did not yet know any of her attacks were working. "Surrender yourself and I'll let everyone else leave, I'll even return the building to its rightful place in the time stream."

In truth, Maieria was as worn out and tired as Moya looked, her reserves were low and she knew she needed to evacuate if this didn't work. Moya's tactics had succeeded in disabling her armor and nearly totally incapacitated her once already. Even as she put on a brave face, she was as terrified as ever and her temporal abilities were silently at work in the background, preparing her plan C escape route.

@maieria: @maverick_6:

When Grodd was just a tinnie winnie boy they would notice that steam would force itself from his body. It caused the boy great pain as the energy inside of him would gradually grow until the time of over a minute would evaporate it from the hulls of his body. Cracking his skin every minute with an extreme wind that screamed out trying to relieve itself of pressure. Causing him great pain which also became the cause of his weak heart at such a young age. He became so focus and paranoid for the next pulse of pain during the next awaiting minute. The time so short was so valuable to him, while in that peace he tried to tolerate the inevitable pain, but it was always more painful than the next. Breaking down mentally he would go into a fit of rage punching his wall, it was then that he figured out how to control the timely demise as the burst of energy broke down his child hood home. Every punch would ease the growing energy inside of him to halt. The next pulse would soon be the next hour, he punched more, another hour where it wouldn't grow. All he had to do was release it before it overflowed through his veins. Pushing back the time gap of his passive regen to hours instead of minutes, but then he would feel it come back to him after all these years of forcing it away as the time siphon targeted him.

The pulse of pain would accelerate from hours into seconds. She was eating away his tolerance. Aging the process as she increased his time by hours as if a day were in seconds it would cause the energy growth in his body to rapidly pour out like a waterfall ripping open its concrete dam that was his skin. Multiple leaks of pressure soon turned his skin into ravines that tore open his body as the brawn tried to escape forcefully. The crack that blew great winds that was dormant in his body would stream out and tear through his costume. Splattering it in his blood that would rarely or never be seen before due to his physical nature of being high indestructible. His image was stained as the siphon took advantage of his internal weakness against time. His clothes covered in the blood of her attack. Vomit riddled over his chin and ripped torso. Sweat and tears of pain rained down his body. The man was on one knee still trying to stand up and fight, but the aging process put too much strain on his body, anchoring his strength to the ground.

What she wanted was his screams, but what she got was his grunts and a mocking smile. Shot was a hero and he was born to never quit no matter how devastating it would become. It was an honor to die in combat trying to protect and serve the people you love.

"NEVER SURRENDER" He coughed towards his newfound ally.

Shot would take the last effort of his strength to hit himself giving him an enormous boost of power that would instantly age away from the siphon. Its reserves turning into a red mist as it took his life away. He would hit himself again trying to recapture his strength. Attempting to absorb his own hits. The coast was clear. The woman stood in a wide open field with the sky above them. He would take his chance. Another hit against himself, it was extremely painful. Nausea, chest pain and fatigue. It wan an inevitable heart attack and his own cause to finish what they started was only going to make it ten times worse. Another hit as his power surge would scale trying to fight the intense pain that flowed out. Breaking his limits of absorption, to give himself more energy faster and stronger than it could escape, hitting himself as hard as he could. it would bring earthquakes to the setting, rumbling and cratering the ground below him. The last hit.

"OOUUYAAA!" Shot commanded his last move.

An uppercut to rip the clouds above. The sonic wave was the last move that he could make before he collapsed unconscious from the lethal heart attack and blood lost.

Cafeteria

@team_sigma

Ice filled the room, able to pierce through superhuman opponents.

Colliding with targets that simply weren't there. Office desks, walls. Random items. All while civilians and wounded Maverick personal remained crouched on the ground.

The Shadow Company had already cloaked themselves in the hectic ambush of deadly doppelgangers, who lacked quality but had the quantity to seemingly overwhelm

One Soldier, tackling a woman down who attempted to run was shot, the ice going through his body and out the other side, into the wall. He grunts, remaining down and relinquishing his weapon so long as his enemy decides to remain non-lethal.

The others were not however, so merciful. Blindgun gunfire was turned on others, as invisible hands seemed to turn the Ice Trooper's guns one another. Invisible fists shattered the weakpoints of Ice, as if a hammer striking into diamond. Leverage and strength ripped them from the grounds and slammed into eachother and into walls, tossing them all about into one another at dizzying speeds. Until, nothing. The room was silent, people shrunk back in fear. Wound Mavericks laying away from people, who were clearly not the target. Programmed not to fear and taught to act most effectively to the goal, half of them were in no position to help anyone. And them being near them would only harm them. An abscence of fear and an altered did not necessarily mean to inhibit belief.

The Fiend appeared and the tactic of shadow company remained the same. As per seeing it rip apart the robot as it did, it's mouth and claws reacting to sound and energy abnormally, they knew it was not something that attacked like most things on earth, and they didn't want to waste dwindling resources fighting it.

Conference Room

@shot: @maieria

A blastwave ripped the building apart, and Moya rose up from all fours to on two feet. Her hands raised, and rock hit the ground, as dust flew all around the area with debris, everything in sight obscured temporarily. Once everything cleared, the woman saw nothing, and thought that perhaps her opponent might have met her demise.

Yet still, she reached behind herself, and pulled out her rifle, an intuitive feeling alerting her that this wasn't over, not by a longshot. Soon, she was proven right her opponent appeared, taunting her once more and attempting to get into the battle hardened woman's head. Moya wasn't something of a woman who feared easily. Not for immortality, or invulnerability, as she was neither of these things. It is her mind, that has brought her this far. She often so, liked to look the opponent over, particularly towards the eyes, as no matter how seemingly alien, the woman was all too similar in mentality to the run of the mill, darwinistic superhuman. Peering into the eyes of her opponent, she could see fear, and past the act. The fact that she was but one human, constantly learning. Constantly seeking adaption, to overcome this new foe set before their race as any other. It was an impressive rouse, and almost anyone else would've been fooled.

Not her.

She began. "A scout. Are you trying to sell me your superiority? Trying to make me feel you are oh so much better?"Moya walked forward, her gauntlets deactivate and her acoustic pulse rifle brought to bear. Her vision obscured, and the room became like something of a Sauna. The man next to him had become something of what appeared to the woman to be like almost a bomb, bringing an ultimatum to the table. Save her friends and her allies, or continue fighting. Both presenting her a chance

Time seemed to slow for her, and she seconds to assess. To fight for her ally, someone who she at this point, wouldn't mind calling a friend, or to give up? To allow others to escape the unknown in exchange for herself to be taken in instead?

"NEVER SURRENDER"

I'm not gonna make this easy for her. I can't trust her.

She fired a shot, but unbenoust to her, she missed. An acoustic blast wave melted the wall right through to it's core, and choice was taken from her hands. Moya was trained to survive attacks that could take out an entire block. But this attack came quick, fast and from an unexpected angle. She was tired and ultimately, human, unable to perform consistently and optimally at all times. She moved evasively from the seemingly telegraphed and cinematic strike. The boom was deafening, and her vision swam as it's side effect hit her like an explosion going off next to her. Something crashed next to herself, and she rolled out of the way of the first. She raised her gun, her focus wavering for but a moment, as a piece of debris hit her head, bouncing off as her head mutually bounced away from it. Red trickled down her head and her eyes rolled up into her skull.

And then she fell to the floor, dropping her gun, and her shades flying across the room, sliding unto a desk. The she lay, unmoving.

@maverick_6 said:

Cafeteria

@team_sigma

Ice filled the room, able to pierce through superhuman opponents.

Colliding with targets that simply weren't there. Office desks, walls. Random items. All while civilians and wounded Maverick personal remained crouched on the ground.

The Shadow Company had already cloaked themselves in the hectic ambush of deadly doppelgangers, who lacked quality but had the quantity to seemingly overwhelm

One Soldier, tackling a woman down who attempted to run was shot, the ice going through his body and out the other side, into the wall. He grunts, remaining down and relinquishing his weapon so long as his enemy decides to remain non-lethal.

The others were not however, so merciful. Blindgun gunfire was turned on others, as invisible hands seemed to turn the Ice Trooper's guns one another. Invisible fists shattered the weakpoints of Ice, as if a hammer striking into diamond. Leverage and strength ripped them from the grounds and slammed into eachother and into walls, tossing them all about into one another at dizzying speeds. Until, nothing. The room was silent, people shrunk back in fear. Wound Mavericks laying away from people, who were clearly not the target. Programmed not to fear and taught to act most effectively to the goal, half of them were in no position to help anyone. And them being near them would only harm them. An abscence of fear and an altered did not necessarily mean to inhibit belief.

The Fiend appeared and the tactic of shadow company remained the same. As per seeing it rip apart the robot as it did, it's mouth and claws reacting to sound and energy abnormally, they knew it was not something that attacked like most things on earth, and they didn't want to waste dwindling resources fighting it.

Conference Room

@shot: @maieria

A blastwave ripped the building apart, and Moya rose up from all fours to on two feet. Her hands raised, and rock hit the ground, as dust flew all around the area with debris, everything in sight obscured temporarily. Once everything cleared, the woman saw nothing, and thought that perhaps her opponent might have met her demise.

Yet still, she reached behind herself, and pulled out her rifle, an intuitive feeling alerting her that this wasn't over, not by a longshot. Soon, she was proven right her opponent appeared, taunting her once more and attempting to get into the battle hardened woman's head. Moya wasn't something of a woman who feared easily. Not for immortality, or invulnerability, as she was neither of these things. It is her mind, that has brought her this far. She often so, liked to look the opponent over, particularly towards the eyes, as no matter how seemingly alien, the woman was all too similar in mentality to the run of the mill, darwinistic superhuman. Peering into the eyes of her opponent, she could see fear, and past the act. The fact that she was but one human, constantly learning. Constantly seeking adaption, to overcome this new foe set before their race as any other. It was an impressive rouse, and almost anyone else would've been fooled.

Not her.

She began. "A scout. Are you trying to sell me your superiority? Trying to make me feel you are oh so much better?"Moya walked forward, her gauntlets deactivate and her acoustic pulse rifle brought to bear. Her vision obscured, and the room became like something of a Sauna. The man next to him had become something of what appeared to the woman to be like almost a bomb, bringing an ultimatum to the table. Save her friends and her allies, or continue fighting. Both presenting her a chance

Time seemed to slow for her, and she seconds to assess. To fight for her ally, someone who she at this point, wouldn't mind calling a friend, or to give up? To allow others to escape the unknown in exchange for herself to be taken in instead?

"NEVER SURRENDER"

I'm not gonna make this easy for her. I can't trust her.

She fired a shot, but unbenoust to her, she missed. An acoustic blast wave melted the wall right through to it's core, and choice was taken from her hands. Moya was trained to survive attacks that could take out an entire block. But this attack came quick, fast and from an unexpected angle. She was tired and ultimately, human, unable to perform consistently and optimally at all times. She moved evasively from the seemingly telegraphed and cinematic strike. The boom was deafening, and her vision swam as it's side effect hit her like an explosion going off next to her. Something crashed next to herself, and she rolled out of the way of the first. She raised her gun, her focus wavering for but a moment, as a piece of debris hit her head, bouncing off as her head mutually bounced away from it. Red trickled down her head and her eyes rolled up into her skull.

And then she fell to the floor, dropping her gun, and her shades flying across the room, sliding unto a desk. The she lay, unmoving.

What...what is he...what is he doing? He's gonna get himself killed! What kind of a lunatic fights and is willing to die for people they don't even know?! You're supposed to surrender or she's supposed to try and kill me not...try to.. Maieria was lost, totally confused by Shot's actions. No one in their right mind, no Time Siphon anyway, would ever willingly die for people they didn't even know. She was completely stunned as he charged himself up, she could see his temporal line giving way, it became fuzzy, his future uncertain. "NO DON't!" Maieria shouted just before his final release of energy...not out of concern for herself...but because she needed to ask him a very important question...one that burned away at the child buried beneath thousands of years of hard living. The question was simple...why?

She threw up her hands and tried to duck behind a desk as the attack came, using her arms to cover her face and head. The attack exploded through the room, it destroyed walls and objects and it blasted her through the wall. She felt something, several somethings actually, break and nearly met the same fate she'd nearly met earlier, except the whole building was threatening to come down now, it's support structure and internal walls dramatically weakened by all the fighting. As she lay in the hallway staring up at a hole in the ceiling, she managed to reach out to a piece of steel rebar. She closed her eyes, focusing through the intense pain of a failing body and tried to drain away the metal. She tightened her grip on it, tensing as her body screamed for regeneration.

No...not this time...I like this body. She finally got the process to work, focusing through all the distractions of the combat and the failing building until at last the steel bar fell away to useless rust. She diverted the time gained into her own temporal healing, focusing on the fatal wounds and healing the most traumatic injuries. She left the rest, not willing to burn through even more reserve to restore her body when she knew the battle was more or less over. Did anyone even win?

She slowly forced herself to her feet, her left arm was still broken, her organs had ruptured from the violent explosion of energy but those had received the temporal repairs first. Her right ankle was also broken but she ignored the pain through bloody gritted teeth and focused on putting her weight mostly on the other foot as she pulled herself back into the room. Her entire plan C had been diverted, her attention stolen by the amazing attack by Shot. "ENOUGH!" She shouted at everyone still fighting."enough..." She said quietly.

She moved over to the body of Shot and carefully knelt down at his side. The Could Have Been Fiend moved itself to defend its master just in case. Maieria put a hand on the big man. His temporal line was all but gone, his body was failing. "You can't die. I need to know why." She said. She coiled the temporal line of his heart and carefully, slowly siphoned away energy from her reserves, just enough to funnel healing energy back into his heart. The heart repaired itself, its place in the time line reverted to before she'd caused his heart attack. She felt a memory shard slip away. Worth it, if he ever answers my question. She then turned her attention to the unconscious Moya and raised a hand to the remaining Maverick soldiers. "Hold." She said.

She moved to Moya slowly, careful not to anger them or draw their fire. She coiled around Moya's temporal line as well but it was still in tact, she was injured, unconscious but alive and not dying. "You know...you never got to make a decision. You guys beat the crap out of me, I don't have more fighting in me. Varikass can go kiss his own ass if he doesn't like the job I've done here." Maieria closed her eyes and released Moya's temporal line. Instead she began to focus on the building and surrounding area. Slowly, carefully and with the expert care of a woman who'd done this a thousand times, she unraveled what she'd done and slowly the UN building began to appear once more in the normal flow of time. Six minutes passed before at last the building was back in its proper place, though she did nothing to repair the damage and didn't much care about the rest of the dead or wounded.

"Next time I see you, we'll have to have ourselves a conversation." Maieria reached down and removed a small rose, kept in stasis, from her pocket and placed it on Moya's chest. "Something to remember me by." She then stood, her attention back on Maverick and Dove. "We're going to leave." She told the Maverick forces. "You can try to stop me if you want, but your leader is unconscious and I may look like crap, but I've got a bit more left in me, if you try to force it." Sure, more...right.