Reykjavik Renegades (Empire Claim IC)

Reykjavik

The glowing portal opened, a ripple within the middle of the room that seemed to suck all of the heat out of it. Silence fell across Parliament, guards reaching for their weapons, knuckles tightening as the leaders of the oldest parliamentry democracy in the world realized the truth: they were under attack, and may very well not live to see the end of the day. The armed guards pointed their rifles into the portal, hands shaking nervously, their mouths screaming into communicators for backup that would never arrive, an artificial radio silence initiated mere seconds before. A foot stepped through the portal, a black boot that seemed more apt to be seen in a modern arts show than in the midst of battle. It carried the dark-clad Mechanical Mamba forward, first to step through their wrinkle in time into Iceland. With an almost imperceptible, lazy flick of his wrist, he sent two miniscule darts across the room, embedding them in the faces of the two dutiful guards, their lives prematurely cut short simply because they had the audacity to raise a weapon in defiance of their quest. His allies, Valken and Orpheus, simultaneously made short work of the remaining guards, allowing the Hypermechanical Hedonist essential seconds to prepare his irresistible hostage-taking technology.

He practically sauntered into the middle of the floor, his allies already busy with their own intricate parts of the plan. Their meticulous plotting was quite apparent; with machine-like efficiency, they went about their tasks, preparing for the resistance to arrive. The Artificial Angel had calculated a 99.95% chance that at least someone would object to their seizing of Iceland. They were accurate odds, of course, albeit having been calculated sarcastically. He expected they'd have at least twenty minutes before the radio silence became noticeable. Guards would be sent to investigate, only to find the doors locked, then report to their superiors. And finally, they would reveal themselves to the world at large.

It was the Silicon Serpent's task to take the hostages, one he was both experienced in, as well as satisfied with. As he stood in the middle of the room, his micrometer-thin computerized lenses tracking every terrified target, he moved his wrists slightly. There were 63 members of Iceland's Parliament at any given time, and with a rapid flourish of his wrists, 62 of them found a small, almost imperceptible dart-like structure upon their forehead. Some screamed, others recoiling and pulling the tiny metal pin from their faces. It had done them no outward harm, the needle itself so small that it could pierce individual cellular tissue, rather than the skin layer itself. Their purpose was to inject a single batch of the very nanomachines naturally produced by the Mechanized Marvel's spinal fluid, each one a microscopic marvel in their own right. They multiplied, swimming their way through arteries and veins, carried across the vast expanse of the human body until they reached the spinal column. There, they would sit, directly upon the cervical cord, ready to instantly sever the synapses holding these beings together. It would take less time to happen than it took an ordinary man to process a thought, Percival's artificially-enhanced brain able to relay the kill command ten times faster than one of his victims would realize they were dead. In seventeen minutes, a message would be sent out, explaining that any attempt to free a hostage or to engage their group would result in the immediate deaths of 63 beings.

He still had to administer a dosage to the last member of parliament, a woman whose terrified eyes did not match her serene beauty. He walked slowly over to her, towering over her terrified frame. Slowly, he reached out his wrist, caressing her horrified, repulsed face, running black-gloved talons across her skin. Where they touched, a single nanobot leapt from his fingers to her cheek, slipping in between her skin cells, already on its way to her brain. He withdrew his hand, winking deviously at the woman, who it seemed was about to pass out.

"Morning," he began casually, once he'd reached the middle of the room once more. His slender, machine-like frame was akin to a statue within the middle of a crowded city, still within the vast, silent parliament. "Here's how it's going to work, ladies and gentlemen. You are all our hostages. Make the slightest wrong move, and you shall die," he paused, looking around the room. "Like him," he added, almost as an afterthought, gesturing lazily with his hand to one of the members in the front row, now slumped over his desk. Blood dripped from his nose into his papers, eyes lifeless. Screams filled the atrium, halted quickly as Percival held up his hand.

"Just don't do anything stupid, and you'll be alright."

He paused.

"Actually, I'm not sure if you can handle that last bit. Just...don't do anything. At all."

It was then that he began to lower the group's adrenaline levels. He knitted his brow for a moment, sending a signal to the nanomachines to stimulate their brains to produce more dihydroxyphenethylamine, or dopamine. This would serve to calm them down, as well as make them more compliant. Don't want any unnecessary casualties, after all.

He then activated the projector in the middle of the room, displaying the rogue group's objective for all to see. It detailed the terms of an immediate surrender, promising relative freedom for all of the citizens. They just wanted the land. It also detailed that any attempt to dethrone the group would be considered regicide, and would be illegal in the eyes of the UN, once they became involved. It wasn't his plan, and he didn't much care about the outcome, either; he was here because he wanted to be, a wild animal with the intellect of one of the smartest men alive. He'd accepted his basic instinct, shedding his inhibitions. He acted upon whatever impulse he had, and he was having the time of his life.

Slowly disappearing from sight, he walked over to a pillar, one of the tall structures holding up the ceiling of the vast atrium. His Nanotech Epidermis had entered stealth mode, disguising him from all means of detection. He leapt silently upon the pillar, grips spontaneously created on the bottoms of his feet. They dug into the white marble, anchoring him to the side, undetectable. Like a hawk perched over his prey, he remained there, silently hacking into the surrounding news and security feeds, monitoring activity outside the atrium and informing the group of new developments.

A small, twisted smile crept once more across his nanoskin-covered face, as melodic beats filled his ears.

Zex moved through the portal silently, letting his teammates do their job's as he did. While the nano technological memeber established their intentions towards the parliament and Orpheus provided darkness Zexion himself would phase through the roof of the building, sitting cross legged atop its roof, chewing intently on a bag of cheetos. "Iceland. How pleasant, I haven't been here since the Vikings. My how it's changed." Normally, someone such as the paragon of darkness wouldn't need substance, and he didn't in truth, but Zexion enjoyed it, as it reminded him, if in even a small fashion, of his previous life. Setting the bag down, he stood up, rising his large frame to full height. "Alrighty then, tis' enough snack-time, let's get to work."

From his hands shot beams of dark energy that went on and off, each one pinpointing a random civilian and turning their body into merely charred remains. These went on for miles in radius of the parliament house, until everyone within a mile dead. As common a tactic it was among "villains", it was a key move in both physiological warfare and proving a point. His point? Oppose and die. Those civilians served as examples to anyone heroic enough to dare venture within a miles radius of their location of what would soon happen to them. Of course, he knew for a fact they would come, many would in-fact. But they would fail, miserably so, in the efforts, twas a fact he sought to make sure of.

And, with carnage spread, he was sure panic would spread. And following that, those heroes would come as well. But not without a challenge. No, they would surely meet a challenge, as Zex would serve as an obstacle to those he deemed a threat. Anyone lesser would be handle by an ally. And now, in wait, two massive canines, conjured out of solidified darkness were thrown onto the streets, who would serve as alerts to the Embodiment of Death, who soon slipped through the roof and back into the room. The canines on their own could ravage a building in moments, and destroy cars wit the beams that pulsated from their maws. But they wouldn't last, and served the sole purpose of alerting his team of resistance from the outside.

The portal was a simple one. The original universe, what he had originally called it. Now, Maxwell's cold, unfeeling eyes looked through the large hole carefully- a hole that simply led to another part of the world. Watching his comrades go through, he eventually closed the portal as everyone had already made it inside, and now turned to open another one- raising his right hand and firing a white-hot blast from his arm, another hole opening up in the space/time continuum. His sleek metallic body standing tall, he walked through it proudly onto the roof of the Parliament building in Reykjavik, Iceland. A pitifully small mass of land, but he had known the plan from the beginning. Start with Iceland. Next, the world. If he could, he would very well smile at the prospect- total domination over Earth. And then, destruction of humanity.

"Now. Rise."The words were simple, and yet at the same held a very clear meaning behind them. For when these words were uttered, in another universe, at another point in time, the Planet of the Sages awoke. Hundreds of robotic beings similar to Maxwell, but at the same time different- whether it be the eyes that were constructed nanometers in different directions on one or an extra speck of dust on another. One of these drones- as programmed- raised it's right hand, and fired a universal portal from his own personal Bridge Cannon. The troops flooded into the portal and out into Reykjavik, soon filling the streets in which masses of people were dying thanks to Zex. Albeit, none of them minded. These people... Sacks of flesh... were merely ignored, as the drones got into fighting formations, awaiting whatever metahuman came in their way.

"Excellent."The main Sage nodded from the rooftop he stood upon as he started charging up his personal arm cannon. It did not take much preparation, luckily- he had charged it in advance, to get ready for the assault on Iceland. As the beam fired, a hole opened up in the sky- several different items falling out. A rifle from the future that fired blasts of dark matter. A sword of plasma. A shield that had once been used by a god. These things and more weaponry fell, cascading down onto the troopers below that grabbed their different weapons respectively. The Transcender himself needed no such thing as a weapon. No, the enemy would never get close to him- a ninety-four point five percent chance that they would die past his minions reigning strongly in his mind.

The Temporal Hound felt a sudden shift in its perceptive organs and it paused and cocked its head. The creature began sifting through the various bits of information pulled from the air by its sensory organs and shunted each type of information to a different portion of its brain for analyses. Less than a half second passed before it realized the source of the change. Ice Land had experienced a change in electronic signal relay. The Great Beast shrugged its massive shoulders, filed the information away in some part of its equally massive brain and was about to continue its walk when more information came in. Hidden away in the background noise, nearly imperceptible even to the advanced feat of genetic engineering...technology that had not been present before. Curious by the change in Ice Land's native state the Great Beast turned away from its walk and began a lazy approach to Ice Land by simple method of flight.

The Temporal Hound would have frowned if it was capable of doing so when it spotted the huge black dome that now surrounded the island. Something is certainly amiss. Perhaps I should investigate...there is something there that I need it would be a shame if the island sunk beneath the waves, vanished into space or simply ceased to exist. I should shift around my schedule then. It was an almost annoyed thought process, the Temporal Hound had had no intention of interacting with Ice Land for at least three months. The Great Beast approached the dome in the same lazy manner it had approached the island in general. The Creature did nothing to attempt to break the dome at first, to act without investigation would be foolish. Instead The Great Beast settled quietly ontop of the dome, handily invisible thanks to the all black nature of the force field.

Oh it tingles! The creature played one great claw over the dome, feeling its sensations and sensing its capabilities. A simple force dome, created by two satellites in orbit. I could go break them...but what if this is more innocent than it appears? I lack the currency to repay the damage. Best to try something different. The Great Beast knew of course that force field was designed to withstand attack, in fact that was its point, to resist kinetic and energy attacks, in essence, to prevent mass from entering. The Great Beast channeled its impressive strength into one claw and slammed it down ontop of the field. It was one of the strongest physical attacks in existence, strong enough that in the tiny amount of space his claw moved (relatively) it broke the sound barrier more than once. Great force drove into the energy shield and it rippled like a pond that had just been struck by a very large rock. The ripples carried all the way to the ground and then back up again, traversing the field several times before the energy was finally spent. The barrier held but repeated stresses of such a nature would likely bring it down eventually.

Yes I thought as much. The Great Beast tapped into its external structure and re-arranged the deficiencies in its cosmic string until its mass was reduced to a nice and smooth zero. The Creature reached down experimentally and observed happily as its claw passed through the barrier with some extended effort. The Great Beast forced its way through the field in this manner, basically pulling itself through. Once on the other side it returned its mass to ordinary levels. The effect was a force field that was still very much in tact and still very much a problem for anyone else that wanted to stop by. The Creature observed the artificial darkness and the lack of energy signals, except for those coming from the parliamentary building. At first it was content to lazily investigate, until it realized that everyone within a mile of the building was dead. Why? So many lives... Now angry, the creature shifted to the time between seconds and vanished from almost every possible means of detection. The Great Beast landed, the effects of its landing were shunted into the future by a month and it began to prowl ever closer to the building. It actually moved in huge concentric circles and passed invisibly as it sought to examine and analyze. It was not intent on rushing in at this moment. Tapping into the airwaves revealed the message that had been broadcast and the Great Beast shook its head. Politics. It continued the lazy circles, filtering out all background noise as it examined the building and waited, curious as to what responses might soon come and what the people in the building might do. Should have destroyed those satellites.

As the portal widened, the eyes of Valken narrowed in a predatory way as if a stalking tiger were about to pounce and take the life of man riding on the back of an elephant. As the portal has reached his full size, he strode out, taking his first steps on the ground of Iceland. He carried with him a certain aura - it was as if darkness followed him and was drawn to his very essence. Casually he strolled forward as the others conducted their individual tasks, and the helpless defenders attempted their one and only chance at stopping them. Their efforts were admirable in the face of such fear, but foolish.

Valken came upon a pillar which a guard swung out from behind, pistol aimed directly at Valken's head. "Hands up creep! NOW!" His voice wreaked of fear, and Valken was highly amused by it. In a playful, sadistic way he responded, "If you say so." As Valken lifted his arms up in the air, he made a simple but direct and highly practised motion with his right hand. A blast of silvery smoke emitted from his hand, pounding the guard hard in the chest causing him to be projected backwards before slamming to the ground unconscious. Another guard appeared several feet in front of the powerful Djinn; this one with an assault rifle and seemingly less nervous. Taking one step forward, Valken dissipated into a lighting-fast plume of smoke and ember. He projected through the guard and behind him; the guard began coughing violently and quickly became disoriented. Reforming behind the confused and disoriented guard and following up with instantly by snapping the man's neck. It seemed on par with the easiness of snapping the neck of defeated chicken.

Continuing with his casual waltz, the majestic Djinn made his way further into the building, carrying a low lying puffy smoke which danced around his feet. His path became blocked once more, this time by three guards. Their strength in numbers gave them boosted confidence that seemed severely lacking in the previous two. The concept of the group had made them less fearful - no harm, they would die regardless. As Valken stop, he allowed the small grey cloud to wander forward towards the feet of the guards who were to transfixed on their current target to notice. The cloud split into three smaller pieces and began wrapping up around the legs of the guards before making its way up their arms and into their pistols before disappearing. The sight of the fog which had rolled across their arms startled the guards, finally making them aware of its presence - but it was to late.

They attempted to fire their weapons, all of them jammed. They fumbled loosely with the weapons, attempting to remedy each of their jams. But their diverted attention had allowed Valken to close the distance between them. He drew a scimitar from his waist belt, driving it through the midsection of the leftmost guard. Withdrawing it from the blood-soaked abdomen, he spun and delivered a striking blow to the side of the middle guard, nearly cutting him in half. As the third attempted to flee, Valken casually sheathed his scimitar before drawing a small knife. Playfully, he twirled the dagger in his hand before throwing it and striking the back of the fleeing guard. He dropped instantly; the knife had struck his spinal cord granting an instant kill.

Windarugo, homeworld of the Green Sect

"Oh come on, is this really the best it can come up with?" The inexperienced knight yelled as he was faced with a featureless humanoid construct, his arms crossed with an unimpressed look on his face. "This is a training session, Connor. This is the same training method he gives all the other rookies, no reason to get your panties in a twist."

The normally peaceful forests of the living planet were today filled with angry banter and will constructs, the nature reserve being used as a training ground for Connor O'Hara, a headstrong Gothic native who to some might seem extremely out of place on this serene and healthy world. Indeed, he was only really here because of the recommendation of the former guardian of sector 2814... but he had a natural ability with the ring, and it was the duty of the Sect to train those with the power of will.

Connor rolled his eyes as he flew over to the green construct, his eyes catching the thin trails of energy that attached the unmoving figure to the Earth and trees below. He barely thought about the thing at all as he floated around it, his mind was focused more on what awesome thing he'd use to destroy it... mind filled with tanks and fighter jets and giant robots. Eventually shrugging, the emerald warrior decided to go with something a little bit more simple to start things off- creating a minigun and firing off a volley of rounds with a grin on his face.

With inhumanly fast reflexes, the humanoid construct snapped around and struck a standard Lantern pose, ring hand up and creating a shield to protect itself. O'Hara raised a brow at how quickly the thing had sprung to life, but he replaced his surprise with competitive eagerness in no time at all. Abandoning the minigun, Connor charged towards his opponent. "Get ready for a homerun, Windarwhatevr!" The overconfident rookie yelled, creating a huge baseball bat in his hands and getting ready for a big swing... only to find his opposite side being slammed into by a green whip.

Feeling the air get knocked out of him, he was sent crashing into the ground, rolling around like a ragdoll. It took him a moment just to figure out what had hit him, he didn't have time to notice the construct approaching him from above before it fired off a concussive blast, forcing Connor to eat even more dirt. "Oh for f#ck's sake, Sam! I thought you said this was for rookies?!" The headstrong knight grit his teeth as he created a bubble shield around himself, looking up at the construct bombarding him with blast after blast.

"Windarugo is using the most basic techniques, it's not his fault you're trying to be a flashy asshole!"Sam Barrett, retired veteran of the Sect and well-known hero of Earth, yelled back at his increasingly irritating protege. Shaking his head as his headstrong apprentice once again charged at the construct without any strategy whatsoever, this time creating a mecha straight out of an anime. "Connor, there is always a simpler solution, you don't need a big silly construct for everything. Try paying attention to what the construct is doing... y'know, instead of just thinking about yourself the whole time."

Swinging a giant, exaggerated sword at Windar's construct, only to have his attack easily avoided and his fancy mecha dismantled by centered blast. He didn't even have enough time to create another construct before he had an emerald fist plowing into his cheek, knocking the shield right off of him. Connor fell right onto his ass without the shield keeping him in the air... wiping the blood from his chin. He looked up at the construct just in time to see it dissipate into the forest around them, leaving him nothing less than furious.

"Where you going, Windar? Best three out of six!" O'Hara yelled out at the planet he was standing on, his personal shield snapping right back up. Sam walked up to his apprentice, patting him on the shoulder as he approached. "Training session is over, we'll start again tomorrow."Sam said, still trying to remember why he brought Connor here in the first place... that power he saw in Gothic, it was brought by a real situation, and he wasn't going to see it unlocked by Windarugo's training methods. They needed an actual threat or crisis... maybe if he gave Earth a scan, he hasn't looked it over in quite a while.

Skies over Iceland, present time.

"So what's the story here again, Sam?" Connor spoke into his ring as he flew down from the heavens, his shield visibly heating up upon reentry. He squinted through the searing flames outside his emerald protection, raising a brow as he saw the giant black bubble over the island.

"It's not really clear as of yet; there isn't any news about anything aside from the fact that there is a big black shield surrounding the island. If you could get a scan of it for me, I might be able to figure out what's producing it."Sam said from the safety of Windarugo, sitting at one of the many control systems for the Green Sect's operations.

Connor smirked as he slowed to a stop above the massive shield, brushing a bit of leftover fire off of his shoulder. Landing atop of the artificial barrier, he points his ring at it and scanning the energy signatures, walking around somewhat cautiously. "Yo, Sam, this thing tingles!" The emerald man-child said with a literal giggle, walking around and staring down at it with a grin on his face. Sam rolled his eyes and sighed at his protege's antics as he viewed the ring's data on the shield. "Yes, Connor, I'm sure it does. Alright, thanks for the scan, I'll try to figure out where the barrier is coming from, it'll probably take me five or so minutes... so if you'll just wait for a bit..."

"Five minutes? But I want to see what's going on in there, boss! Just give me a minute, this'll be easy as pie!" O'Hara spoke with confidence as he floated off of the tingly, black bubble, lifting up his ring and smirking before creating a whole fleet of jet constructs and bombarding the energy field with missile upon missile. Then he created tanks! And explosives! And-....! Five minutes later, and Connor is no closer to break the field than he was when he started, despite his over the top efforts.

"Wow, what is this thing made of Sam? It's taking everything I'm dishing out... starting to thing this ring is broken or something." The inexperienced knight looked down at his ring and stepped out of the bomber construct, reabsorbing it and floating around. "It's made out of some sort of antiphysical energy, real tough to just bust through with brute force, certainly nothing like what you were trying. Thankfully, while you were off acting like a child I actually tracked down the source of the energy, a satellite in the upper atmosphere."

Connor looked up, not seeing anything himself but feeling the ring tug him in the right direction. "My way is still cooler, y'know." Connor said before launching upwards in the direction his ring was pulling him, eager to get inside that bubble and deal with whatever alien monsters or unholy demons were hidden under that black bubble. "Sure it was, but you weren't getting anywhere just trying to blow it up, probably because you were using exactly whatever is inside was expecting. Speaking of which, you're Ring Capacity is at 87.5."

The portal crackled in it's last moments. Fainty sounding a rhythm of electric-like tones into the siezed room, followed shortly by heavy thuds of military-grade footwear. They came to a halt as the crackling stopped and Sage's portal collapsed onto itself. The last member of this stunning endeavor: Gallus, The Prodigal Soldier. Standing tall with his 6 foot 4 stature of lean musculature, he was man's shunned nature, his guile, given an Adónisian form and his purest ambition given purpose. Smoothly he looked around the room to find the situation already within their grasp, he would smile were a frown not his signature expression. In it's stead Gallus reached into the left front pocket of crye black multicam basics, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, Marlboro Gold, and graciously lit one.

He continued a short stroll from the center of the conference room to the press secrion in the far back, reaping the impressions of fear, anxiety and disgust along the way. "Steer clear of the windows and doorways." He began advising not only his compatriots but also the folk in the room. His voice was strong and stern but apathetic. "They'll be breached first.", The Son of Ares turned to one of the older male faces in the crowd and invaded his personal space. "You don't want a flashbang in your face." He straightened his posture and concluded his instructions. "Talking is a no-no. As is excessive movement inside the room. Stray bullets are a bitch.", as he reached his destination he turned his head sideways to the hostages. "I need a translator.", he paused and his voice became more menacing. "Mark: Won't get shot up.", immediately a sea of hands rose up.

Most of the recording equipment was already rendered dysfunctional due to the actions of both Valken and Zex, but on the floor layed a single beat-up camera that survived the esoteric assault. "Percy. If you will." ,Gallus nonchalantly gestured to the electronic apparatus and, with what appeared to the normal eye as a wave of the Walking Weapon's hand, the camera sprung to life. Every television on Iceland switched channels as Percival forcibly took over the majorily of the Icelandic broadcast for the moment.

At first? The screen was black, audio turned on first. "Oralé!", they could hear the voice of Gallus rejoicing. What followed was a reveal of his face from downwards up. The face distanced itself as he placed the camera on a tripod so both him and the translator could be seen. It tactically revealed as little of the room as possible so that their enemies were kept blind. "Hello there, I'm Gallus.", he lazily waved whilst leaning against a chair. "Me and my friends here took over this building to prove a point.", he paused to give the translator some speaking room before resuming.

"The system isn't working and we all know it. Chances are you are living hand to mouth with no sign of improvement on the horzion. Or better yet, you are a parent, you know what that means? It means you are stuck with the leftovers 'till graduation, you haven't had a full dish forever. Every day of your life you are hard at work to provide for others: your kids that need education, your parents that need care, your friends that need company, your company that needs slaves. But for what?", he paused briefly and exhaled angrily.

"So that another can sit at your table and eat full course meals? It's your table. You reserved it and paid for it. But there he is. Why? He's got the money and thus the connections. He always does that...", Gallus paused once again and queched the cigarette against the seat, exhaling furiously through his nose as he did. His eyes met the camera once again. "...the white-collar man. He's kind of an asshole, right? Anyways let's end this parable. We are going to create a place where you aren't subjugated by your monetary problems, a community that works and fends for itself.", he moved closer to the camera with an intent to shut it off.

"Please don't try to stop us. The dome around this place was meant to be a tool, but your attempts at bringing it down inadvertently turned it into a weapon, causing it to produce a pulse that caused the death of everything in a mile radius of the building. It's unstable and volitile...", he was decieving the audience, but acted perfectly. Even the most skilled analytics could hardly tell the accuracy of his statement through microfacial expressions. "We are gladly risking our death to bring about utopia, but don't put the lives of others at risk again.", with a simple ploy that not only intended to buy them time but also frame the heroes, the TVs returned to their normal schedules as Percival allowed it. The translator was told to return to his previous position.

Afterall no one knew what was going on inside the building. The population had no details due to the precautions of his allies. To them everything was possible it was just a matter of how quickly and in what form they recieved the backstory, real or not. The mass media was indeed a powerful instrument when wielded with a little ability.

Meanwhile Gallus found refuge in the magical darkness that enveloped the insides of the building. Personally he would patrol the halls for any sign of intruders while maintaining radio contact with Percival, Sage and the rest. The darkness, it hindred him very little as an inheritor of warfare. Over countless stealth missions under the cover of the night his eyes adjusted naturally and the rest of his senses calibrated to compensate. In the dark he was prowling tiger, ready to take down any prey unfortunate enough to enter his habitat.

"This is a rather difficult situation, isn't it?" Bold begins.

Bold said, pacing with Moya. It was the most dangerous, because not only of the magnitude of the opponents, but the nature of their attack is what proved this so difficult. It wasn't simply a matter of brute force, brute force that Maverick possessed in actuality, in spades. No, the enemy had hostages, and he could simply will them to be killed at any moment, from what they could gather. "Yes..." Nemaz replies. "However, we've already a plan in place. I cannot say everything is in hand. There are still many unknowns. The forcefield is blocking our satellite perception of the area, and we've deemed that the field is in actuality coming from Orpheus Knightfall."

"The man has some brass balls, I'll give him that. But he's getting rather irritating now, he's becoming an enemy. He's been traced using his orbital weapon's platforms and now he's projecting a forcefield to prevent access to iceland? Seems like he's apart of the incident rather than trying to evade it. Nothing really shielding him from being invaded on every front now. But, we'll have to look before we leap, it seems."

"Indeed sir. They have hostages and can kill any one of them at any given moment. Our plan is recon, and from the information we gather, we will decide what to do."

"How are you going to get through the field?"

"Oh, I won't be getting through the field. We've reason to suspect the involvement of such entities due to the descriptions given by witnesses who escaped, for some time anyway. I know who to send...."

Iceland

"Damn it." Prometheus murmured. He really wanted to finish that movie.

But nope. Mission time now.

He was disappointed in the fact that he'd have to wait until later, if he made it back after all. He had no idea of what would happen if he actually were to be destroyed, but hey, not existing is better than going to hell right? It didn't really mak sense to him. What could one being who's behavior was a result of DNA and responses to experience and their environment, possibly do to deserve everlasting punishment?

Still, it didn't mean that he was abhorrent to killing people. As long as it meant saving people. It's was he was made to do and raised to do. For this mission, near absolute stealth was required. Maverick very much had the capability of breaching the field through sheer force if they desired, or directing their force to other areas. But such a thing would be very noticeable and would mean more death. So they had to be inserted subtly. As such, they used one of their mutant agents, Apex, to just teleport them in as opposed to going directly through the field.

Bradshaw and Nemaz had devised the plan, Bradshaw advising Prometheus be sent with a group of soul-less cloaked M.O.R.S for maximum potential for stealth due to a description of a portal and potential of some spectral entities. Or aliens. Perhaps both. Who was to know? The recorded radio they were able to have sent towards them was rather vague. As if the people there did not have enough time to truly give a report.

There was a brief rift before they appeared dropping from the air and landing into the snow quietly. Prometheus accompanied by a team of twelve M.O.R.S. Prometheus took a brief moment to listen, listening to ambient vibrations his hypersensitive "ears" picked up as he ran across the grassy landscape accompanied by a small squad of soul-less soldiers. Indifferent to visibility where light is concerned, and all clad in Shadow Company cloaking devices.

To say the least, they were difficult to detect and require rather specific means to do so. Prometheus' body was inorganic and thusly could easily be made to produce no scent whatsoever. The M.O.R.S themselves, were organic, but not human. They did not have what some called "A soul" or produce stoic energies of any kind. They were machinations of flesh. Used in Tandem with scent trapping clothing and an oxygen supply to leave no trace of any scent, anywhere. This made them difficult to detect because quite simply, the only potential way of doing so was through the minute vibrations of their footsteps. And even then, they can easily white noise the sound, and negate it as easily at the cost of being functionally blind due to the fact that, anything they completely cloaked against, they were blind/deaf to.

Soon, they'd managed to get near the parliamant after some maneuvring past the creatures, and then Prometheus enabled himself microwave based vision for himself as he now tapped into the radio signals, listening passively as he treaded about and looked around the area, seeing that within the one mile Radius, there was nothing but death. This...angered Prometheus. Not just the fact that it was needless. The fact that right now, he couldn't do anything about it. He was trained to keep a cool head, to not let such things cloud his own vision.

His objective was recon work, and the M.O.R.S were thus ordered to stand via a beamed transmission of microwaves, meaning that it could not be intercepted unless there was somebody directly within the path of the beam. He then went completely silent and now only viewed the world through tetrahertz radiation, analyzing and remembering the facial structures of everyone here as he moved both invisibly and noiselessly. Gathering as much intel as possible, about the faces of the parliament and the perpetrators.

A few unknown, obscure figures. A few pulses and he almost immediately recognized that indeed, Orpheus Knightfall was there. His cloak alternating, never allowing visible light but briefly opening to allow him to detect vibrations. He didn't recognize the others, but many of them would can likely be identified with a compiled file from Maverick's own database and that of various governments and organizations across the world they had access to. If one didn't exist, it was going to now.

He paced in front of the hostages. They were terrified and helpless, and Prometheus could only really imagine what it would be like to be in their position. Empathize with them. He knew a country like Iceland would hardly get the resistance a country like America would. The best he could do right now, was keep gathering information of their defenses, numbers, deaths and the status of the hostages.

Nobody cares.....

For now, it was only recon work. He'd noted there was a hero outside, and could only hope he wouldn't burst through the field and unintentionally cause more death.

@orpheus_knightfall: @zexionstorm: @the_reality_sage: @_avatar_: @gallus: @maverick_6:

Unseen, Percival was curled against a column within Parliament, his boot grips effortlessly anchoring him to the side of the massive foundation for the roof. Every single inch of the Nanotech Epidermis was invisible, an artificial camouflage activated and maintained through a complex bundle of sensors and cameras. Each microcell upon the surface of his artificial skin projected an image of what would be seen were he not there, accurately depicting what would be empty space were it not for his presence. His lens-covered eyes rapidly kept track of every member of Parliament, his networked subconscious simultaneously monitoring both their heartrates and locations. His talon-like fingers tapped rhythmically on his elbows, his final song finishing in his ear. As it echoed through his head, he made note of the time. Twenty minutes had passed. He stared into the eyes of every last member of Parliament, watching them dart from side to side, searching for an exit that they would never reach.

Look, I was going to go easy on you (so as not to hurt your feelings), but our team might only have this one chance. He dropped silent from his perch, feet touching the ground like liquid. He drifted upwards, emerging from his quiet crouch, still completely invisible.

Something's wrong, I can feel it.

Twenty minutes had passed, and the only contact from the outside world they'd gotten were metahuman taps on Knightfall's shield. He'd estimated a breach by this point. His long, nail-like claws were out.

It's just...a feeling I've got. Like something's about to happen. But I don't know what. He grinned, stepping idly between Knightfall and his armored suit, silently striding towards the window. The odds weren't adding up. He'd expected contact, a breaching team. He hadn't told Knightfall, but a deflector shield of this sort would in no way make the invasion easy. Their own Reality Sage was proof that nowhere was safe.

If it means what I think it means, we're in trouble (BIG TROUBLE!). He kept up his pace until he reached the wall, idly opening a window. He stepped up effortlessly, even gracefully, sliding his slender form through the open pane and hanging on to the outside wall. Then, within moments, he fluidly reached his arms over his head, latching his fingers to the stone exterior and pulling himself up. Like a gymnastics champion doing some sort of vertical tumble, he scaled the wall, as though he were backflipping up the side.

And if he is as bananas as you say...I'm not taking any chances.

He now crouched upon the top of the building, overlooking the black-shrouded remnants of Reykjavik. They'd torn the city down, so that they could build it up greater than every. It would be constructed by Knightfall, and powered by Percival's own technology. They'd agreed to work on the new city together, to bring it to glory like so many men had talked about in the past. But now, they had the capability to do so.

I'm beginning to feel like a tech god, he mused, letting small swaths of nanomachines roll between his fingers. He had a feeling, he knew, that something was about to happen, but he couldn't afford to waste energy or resources finding out what. An enemy could mislead, playing on his paranoia, no, his mathematical certainty that he was being watched. Every calculation, every number added and subtracted, would point to a breach in their shield by this point. But in a world with so many variables, it would be impossible to pinpoint the location of said breach, or to counteract it. He could only lose an advantage by overextending. And so, he leaned back, sitting down upon one of the stone decorations on the roof, overlooking the city formerly known as Reyjkavik.

If more time passed, he'd start doing scans. With every passing second, the odds of an imminent attack increased. But for now, he could relax a little longer, his music on once again.

@the_reality_sage: @maverick_6@valken

The Great Beast observed the arrival of a machine army and knew immediately that it needed to analyze one of them. The Temporal Hound had two difficulties to deal with, first, it could not simply attack or the hostages inside would die before it could reach them and second...it was much too large to actually fit inside of the building. It would have to act as a tank and scout for any heroic forces that arrived. That did not mean it was left with nothing to do though and no way of helping out. When Maverick forces arrived it determined to act.

The Great Beast appeared from thin air among the ranks of machine warriors like a behemoth from a bygone age. It reached out and grabbed one of the warriors even while a legion of them opened fire on it. All manner of weaponry slammed into its hide but when one was firing at reality itself it was difficult at best to gain any traction. The Great Beast ignored the weapons fire and wrapped its massive claws around one of the machines. Just as quickly as it appeared The Creature vanished again, once more shifting to the time between seconds where it tore the head from the machine to make it cease being difficult.

The Temporal Hound appeared before Prometheus unbidden. It was curiously difficult to track Prometheus down, its stealth mechanisms were truly impressive, but there was one thing it could not hide, its Temporal Line. The Hound used this to find its location and materialized once more. He said nothing and simply placed the disabled machine warrior on the ground. If I say anything they'll know someone is here, I'll just leave this here and he can figure out the rest. The Temporal Hound placed the head down as well, regretting for a moment the severe damage to the head caused by his not so fine claws. That might not be useful, oh well, they have the rest. He turned and vanished again and returned to his prowl around the city.

@orpheus_knightfall: @zexionstorm: @the_reality_sage: @_avatar_: @gallus: @maverick_6:

Within moments of his sitting to rest upon the top of the building, he felt a ripple through the surrounding network, a breach coming through the serene air of 1's and 0's that constantly filtered their way through Percival's intrinsically networked mind. His eyes flashed open as he felt the Reality Sage's weapons of war destroyed, torn at by an uncanny, massive force. He had barely the time to register the attack before it was over, sitting up in a flash.

"Contact!"

He cried into his silent communicator, his words registering only to his allies. He hoisted himself over the side of the building with a flick of his wrist, his agile form lithely sliding over the side like an eel would move through a coral reef. His talons dragging on the building's outer wall, he slid down the side, leaping back into the building only to see Knightfall don his armor and leap through the roof, phasing between its atoms like some sort of phantom. He heard him engage Zex, their primary, and perhaps only, defense against whatever had torn through Sage's constructs.

"Dammit, you two, what are you doing? F#$%ing focus!"

Along with this message came a barrage of white noise, originating from Percival himself. Through mere thought, he'd send a millisecond-long blast of sheer sound through both of their communicators, not enough to harm them, but hopefully enough to snap them out of whatever idiotic fight they were about to begin. He spun to face Parliament, making sure they were all in place. He narrowed his eyes, broadcasting a message to all external forces surrounding the building, exclusively in Iceland airspace.

"Listen up, we've got sixty-two more hostages in here. All of you out there listening," he paused, zooming in with his lens-camera on one of the Parliamentary members, "Calm the F#$% down."

With that, he flatlined another member of Parliament, a nanomachine cluster piercing the synapses that kept him alive. The rest of the group would have cried out, were they not under heavy sedation. Percival was sure to keep the cameras focused on the dying man, broadcasting to all that such an attempt to intervene would only result in more deaths.

@maverick_6: @orpheus_knightfall:

Warned of the invasion Alex was given ten minutes to get ready. She could of been ready then and there on the spot but the corporation knew Alex would want to get involved in the event directly. She was constantly lured in by the prospect of adventure and of a challenge. More then anything she wanted to see the world and to take part in actions she'd otherwise never have experienced. Alex was the girl who didn't just want to perform a HALO jump but got almost giddy at the idea of it. Being such a thrill seeker she was given permission to tag along. She'd have a device of video feed of at least some of the squads in play. This would allow her to provide teleportational based support if need be. A factor that could expand further from Maverick to Iceland. She had no limitation on her rifts in regaurd to range at the time. Maverick she was familiar with so crafting a rift there wasn't to straining. Distance was a bit challenging but she'd prepared for that regaurd.

As for her own devices she'd opted for Arachnoweave as the dormant attire of gloves tanktop and cargo pants. To maintain her mobility and agility the outfit was loose and thus less resilient then standard to an extent. Good at absorbing kinetic energy it limited impact on her lithe figure while keeping her mobile the attire also easy replaced. It made for ideal scout/sniper attire. She'd considered looking into the stealth tech but she didn't desire that and as such went for instead guards and a vest of Kryon. Used on her elbows boots and dormant hand as well as the vest itself it maintained movement and protection. A collaboration of an aluminum copper alloy and carbon nanotubes it could withstand extensive punishment. She also now had the newly designed bow and quiver to draw upon later. Lastly resting on the small of her back was an oxygen tank do to her own insistence on what she'd do soon after arival.

Ready for deployment Alex met up with the others, various sources were present to smogs over the teleportation. With the barrier in place there wasn't going to be much artillery thrown in VTOL craft and the like were not ideal for the situation. Similarly the hostage situation made such grand actions problematic. No stealth and caution were needed, limited aproach and numbers was essential at least for this first half of the ordeal. Properly briefed and given a rundown Apex made the portal that would see Maverick forces delivered into Iceland.

With the militant faction making foot fall Alex closed the rift and opened another to the water around the island. The rift opened and for the briefest moment the room that the Maverick operatives gathered in found a surplus of water layered upon the floor. Alex had moved swiftly from one point to the next. And what had once been a well outfitted domain of technology and military might was now simply cold silence. Alex beginning the swim toward a near by submarine.

Personally Alex was somewhat ammused by the take over somewhat grim in her sense of comedy she thought it comical how often people claimed to want good. Yet operated in a fashion that was contradicting. If wanting peace and change, go for hostage negotiation a legion of robots and aparently six nuclear subs. No one had taken action against the subs so Alex opted to try and counter that contengency herself. Granted part of her thought also that maybe the land should be handed over. With all the threats in the world perhaps it would be good to let the well equipped have a stronger hold. She wouldn't sympathize with those who took hostages however all efforts she employed would be against the powers in play.

Submarines were designed for detecting and fending off other craft. They could detect subs and ships and maybe even planes, their technology was impressive and constantly improving. However they were not outfitted to detect a single person. After all getting into the submarine wasn't something one could usually just do with their hands. A boarding party wasn't something a submarine under water had to be concerned of. However the general layout of a submarine wasn't alien, technology to counter her teleporting was likely not something the ship had. With no probable counter she could think of the Maverick sharpshooter was confident she'd be boarding soon. An ends our she was looking forward to, how many others were able to say they'd tried to breach a submersed nuclear submarine on their own. Let alone with a bow, the thrill of such a hunt and challenge was why Apex was known by such a name. Activities like this were what she lived for.

@apex_:@temporal_hound: @orpheus_knightfall

This is exactly why untrained whatever the f*ck that was and vigilantes shouldnt' be involved in crap like this.

Prometheus as, upset. He disliked and wanton murder from what were functionally bullies. A utopia? Just another bullsh** claim by a bunch of social darwinists trying to make the world how they wanted it. Like a bunch of spoiled, grown children who just happened to wield powers akin to a god. Questions of why such a thing exists in this world, is irrelevant at the moment. He has to focus on the mission.

Prometheus to say the least, jumped back when the thing just appeared before him, wondering how on gods earth it detected him. He remembers the thing from the Asgard invasion, some large quiet beast. He jumped back, and he didn't look around, because he "saw" in all directions simultaniously. He was hoping what didn't occur, did just occur. Some dog bringing him the remains of some bot.

Stupid dog.

The engagement started by it was very clearly gonna start something that it wouldn't win. He's just gonna keep offing people and offing. At this rate, by the time the rest of the "heroes" get here, the entire parliament is going to be gone. And at that point, the ensuing battle would probably much the area into a wasteland. He felt like he had to do something to truly try to help the people and he kept an ear out. One of them is dead, and they know they are here because of the hound and company. He decided to find a nice hidden corner to bring the head and connect it to a small smartphone. He downloaded the file to the small phone and only used this as a way to download it onto a chip as opposed to the phone. This was to evade viruses and worms. If such a thing did indeed exist, it was downloaded onto the drive but not linked to anything. Prometheus only stored it. He didn't access it.

Meanwhile, he had put the M.O.R.S to work. Ordering them to drop manually written letters to all the families and people inevitably hiding near by. He knew where everyone was. He could see through walls, even the densest materials, such as lead, because of the fact that sound traveled through everything. It bounced back it enabled him to see the people around him, the area. To the point that standing next to someone, Prometheus could see their internal organs even. It was useful for search and rescue in that, he could very easily tell the locations of most individuals.

It was a slow, gradual process to move people. Not everyone wanted to move, and not everyone would take the message. Some were content to sit and hide, which, in reality. May be a better idea. But wanted to try something. He could only really hope it works. That shield is probably only gonna keep them out for so long. In the time, Prometheus ultimately simply kept aware of what was going on around him. He heard the man's of calm the f*** down loud and clear.

His ears twitched. He had detected an abnormality before. A wave of quiet, and with that wave, he was able to tell in actuality, a general idea of where the perpetrator was. Someone else was cloaking, and whoever they were, they were good.

Alright. I'll play nice for now. Until you screw up. Then, you're done.

Rather quietly, one of the M.O.R.S conceals a needle in his cloaked blanket and takes a blood sample from one of the hostages killed. And then quite simply, it leaves the room.

----

In light of the situation, Maverick always sought opportunity, benefit. Maverick lacked a Naval force, something Orpheus clearly seemed to have, likely in spades judging from how he was casually dolling out 2.4 billion dollar war machines. Maverick saw little reason to spend the money and saw greater benefit from dominating the sky. Orpheus, being rather certainly in the process of illegal matters, he was hardly in any position to sew them "confiscating" a few of the vessels.

As Apex was followed into the water, she found that she had company in the form of M.O.R.S, the synthetically bred super soldiers capable of possessing natural underwater breathing apparatuses, they were adept for this task. A submarine would have no way to communicate via radio while deeply submerged. Radio and radar do not work underwater, and only sonar could be used. However, any diver and small wildlife near a submarine using active sonar would be killed by the pressure waves it emits, simply by being near it.

However, with her teleportation abilities, it wouldn't be hard for Apex to get the underwater army aboard each vessel without harm. From there? They would kill off the troops involved and force the crew to operate the ship for them and thus, make the vessels leave, enabling them to send some from the government as well as discreetly keep some for themselves.

The troops were led by of course, human soldiers ultimately, but they'd be doing the bulk of the work. If the operation went well, they'd be able to blitz all the submarines before they knew what was going on.

---

"To think, so many of you ENCU are so adverse to allowing mutants and metahumans." Nemaz says.

"Pteh." He repies. "Not bad. So far."

"And Prometheus?"

"Jack's not doin' bad. Let's just hope he doesn't get hacked and go skynet on us."

@maverick_6:

The Temporal Hound was furious...mostly with itself. It was not used to making mistakes, it had believed the taking of a single machine would not cause the killing of hostage. The move was as much a miscalculation as anything. To think they would kill a rare hostage over something like that. What a waste, what an absolute terrible waste. I should have acted differently, I need to preserve the lives of the hostages not get them thrown away. Next time...next time will be very different...but how?

The Creature was effectively pacing around the city, much of its great mind bent to a singular task...resolve the hostage problem. Unfortunately the Temporal Hound was much too large to fit into the building, it was also too slow. While it could probably crush the building, that would only bring about the deaths of the hostages. It was a problem unlike any it had ever encountered before. Time Siphons did not take hostages, the greatest of Time Siphons, Raeyn, did not take hostages. The Temporal Hound was not built to deal with hostage situations.

The most obvious solution continued to rear its ugly head but the morality of the Temporal Hound would not allow for it. If it attacked until all of the hostages were dead, the hostages would no longer be a problem. Fortunately for all involved, the Temporal Hound was not evil and it greatly respected the lives of the mortal beings that played around its feet. The only solution is working together. The enemy is working together, we must work together. The enemy iscommunicating...we... Of course!

The Temporal Hound filtered out background noise until it had what it wanted. Every responding hero save one was generating some sort of signal, each signal was different but each could be tapped into and used for communication. The Temporal Hound was then left with the difficulty of determining how to communicate with Prometheus. If I were a major military contractor I would have some means of monitoring...The Temporal Hound looked up at the dark sky. The force field needs to come down.

The Great Beast accessed more signals and realized that someone already had that objective in mind. Once those come down I can communicate with whatever forces are observing the silent one. Perhaps we can begin organizing a plan at that time. The Temporal Hound felt better about what it was doing, but not about what had occurred so far. It reached down into the street and gently scooped up the body of a young girl that had been killed when someone decided to kill a thousand people for no reason. I am sorry. I have failed you. He took the body away from where it had fallen and gently placed it on the ground far from the conflict. The Great Beast appeared there and lowered its massive head. The lives of children were particularly precious to it and it hated anything and anyone that would harm them. The Great Beast turned its head slowly towards the Parliamentary building. "Is this your utopia? Anything built on the graves of children is evil, without exception." It was not actually speaking to anyone, but it was posing the question anyway. A small crowd gathered around in fear, unsure as to what such a massive creature was. Some of them recorded it on their smart phones.

The Great Beast was aware of their presence and aware that it would draw attention...but that was the point. The more attention focused on the Temporal Hound, the easier it would be for the others to do their jobs while the shield was still active.

@orpheus_knightfall: @zexionstorm: @the_reality_sage: @_avatar_: @gallus: @maverick_6:

Twenty-five...twenty-five...twenty-five...twenty-six. Dammit.

He stood in the middle of the vast, exuberant room, knees bent, his body hunched in a slight crouch, prepared to spring into action. Twenty-six minutes had passed since they had appeared in Parliament, the energy shield enveloping the airspace outside. The Sage's automatons had engaged an unknown force, only to be met with exacting, lethal destruction. In response, he'd slain another hostage, extinguishing his life as casually as one would put out a candle. His eyes darted from side to side, expecting at any moment that someone would breach the room. And yet, no resistance came. His message had been read loud and clear. And thus, it would be safe for him to operate, to begin the next part of the plan.

He straightened his back, broad shoulders now apparent, rather than the hunched, coiled snake he'd been mere seconds before. He stood instead like a statue, black nanomesh skin shimmering into being before the sedated Parliament. Now entirely visible, he stood before them once again, closing his eyes. In that instant, he sent out a signal to the machines within their spines, commanding them to recommence adrenal stimulation. Instantly, the members of the group awoke from their artificial happiness, coming to life as one would in a dentist's chair following a painful operation. All eyes were on the Silicon Serpent as he once again addressed his boundo treasures, his keys to power.

"Well, as you can see, nobody's come to save you, which you ought to be thankful for. This leads us to our next fine point, as previously detailed in the slideshow." He strode back and forth slowly, a confident grin playing across his lips as he continued his presentation. "In short, we're going to give you the option of signing over your country to us. I know I'm oversimplifying things; the procedure is more complicated than you simply signing a new age Magna Carta. But, all you need to know for right now is that you'll still have control over your lives. We'll just make a few executive suggestions from time to time," he said, pausing slightly, his machines translating his words into Icelandic as he spoke. His uncannily soft voice was tinged with a robotic undertone, as if his words were spoken through a long tunnel.

"Basically, you can give us your country, or we can rip it, bleeding, away from you. The choice is yours, in the end," he mused, turning away from them, hands clasped behind his back.

@percival@orpheus_knightfall@temporal_hound@zexionstorm@maverick_6 @TheRestOfTheClique

We're not gonna take it! Oh, we're not gonna take it!

The immortal chorus of the overly eccentric heavy-metal frontman Dee Snider laughingly echoed through the head of the Son of War as he listened in on the disarray among his own ranks. He found it amusing, terribly so, that what little existed in the mindscape of Orpheus incidentally spawned a moral conscience. Laughter, held in by his teeth, faintly escapde into the darkness as he continued his deliquent patrol. In form it was synonymous with a carefree stroll, but he kept his senses wary. Afterall, it has been little more than half an hour and there was no contact. No contact that was reported at least.

The outlook of the former child soldier was such: Death is needed to ensure progress. But the resulting casualties far outweighted the amount of progress his band of "brothers" achieved. In this world, bullets christened in the name of the western world are tools of so called peace. However, a force that kills thousands? In mere seconds? That is a tool of a something else entirely, a tool of mass murder for the sake of murder. There is nothing noble or justified in it's usage nor is it anything that would bear a benefit of strategical advantage. It was what he foung against and will do so again for the sake of retribution.

But now?

Gallus' nasal exhalation conveyed a temporal relief from the weight of his anger as he sat down in one of the office cubicals. His mind was clear for the moment, reluctantly determined and forewarned about the situation. Something was wrong and he intended to find out what.

Leaning back into the office chair he pointed outwards with his finger as a pinkish influx of energy gathered on the tip of said finger. Silently he incantated ever-so-briefly before the energy shot out directly against the cardboard wall. From thing angle the straight line should logically rebound back to him, but this feat of arcane prowess was not subjugated by the rationalism of man. The energy's trajectory changed as it rebounded to the right, hitting the neighboring desk and then rebounded again and again. The walls, the floors, the ceilings. Practically anything tagible found itself a target of atleast one of these rebonds. It would continue upwards and downwards to cover the whole building. It didn't lose trajectory.

And the beauty of this magic trick? Not only was it invisible to any sensor and any mortal that happened to be magically insensitive, but it was also all connected. The line continued with every rebound, forming a building-wide (with the exception of the hostage room) pseudo spider-web or, for the more tech savvy, an incredibly clustered physics defying laser grid. Anything that would continue attempt to enter, leave or even move inside the building from this point on would be revealed. Even better, should someone attempt to force their way out then this flexible, adhesive, bubble gum-like substance would continue to layer on top of them until, quite simply, the resulting counter-force exterted would become disabling.

Then? Well, we'll have to wait and see.

@I ain't taggin' anybody because I was never here

"Oh boy. If it isn't one thing, it's another.

Prometheus aimed at the building but from quite a distance. 3 miles away, and well outside the effective range of most any small arm in existence. At this point, his cloak only covered the visible light spectrum but he was simply too far away to be seen. From here he could watch. There were choices to be made.

For one thing, one of the M.O.R.S was stranded, and if found, it would indicate Maverick's presence. They'd been, up to this point, unseen, and the M.O.R.S felt some sticky, undetectable substance exerting minute amounts of force on it. It was telekinesis, which had no anchoring point and they have yet to act upon, with force that came out of seemingly nowhere. Clearly, this material was indeed physical, and it hadn't given him away already. Using a small scanner, said synthetic soldier proceeded to scan the sample of blood, however, finding it was nigh useless, unable to detect abnormalities in the DNA or any strange foreign materials, the sample was useless. They'd theorized the material to be some cloaked ultra-strong adhesive nano material devised by the man inside. Prometheus decided to have one use a SABR DEW rifle to cut a path for the lone being to at least exit the building.

As the laser cut through the invisible lines with temperatures similar to that capable of melting anything that would exist on the periodic table and mechanical pressures that would allow it to cut diamond, it was able to move but was not free. There was still signifigant residue on it. Residue that they hadn't the patience or desire to risk, to remove. And so the moved, it stumbled out of the building, falling a few floors down and thumping on the pavement. It found a hotwired truck and got in the back as said vehicle seemed to drive itself.

In the distance, one could see a brief blaze of fire as the M.O.R.S had self-destructed, activating all explosives on it's person and incinerating itself in it's entirity. Nobody would quite know why the explosion occurred, and no hostile forces were injured. It simply happened a safe distance outside of the city. The enemies traps lead to a loose end, but Prometheus had in turn, gained some insight on the enemy. And that was he was there for. Insight. Recon.

Then the man appeared in the room. The building was at this point, off limits in concerns to attempting to obtain a sample or even, a body. The area had been denied them, and in concerns to their response this "man" who had given the parliament of Iceland an ultimatum within the walls the Althing (the building's name) he could do....practically nothing.

Killing or attempting to kill the man could lead to more death. And it wasn't even a guaranteed success. If he was anything like M-174, he may even be capable of transferring copies of himself through his machines or constantly and changing his form. His body may be able to be completely obliterated and yet he may still find ways to live on. He might even have the capacity to see many of the attacks they've launched coming. Prometheus was at a loss as to what how to respond. How to stop this. He submitted a report, waiting an answer discreetly as he beamed his up. And one reply was beamed right back.

"You've fulfilled your objectives, now it's time to go. Pull out."

Prometheus' fist clenched. But he was forced to follow orders. A thought crossed his mind to kill all of them. All of them. Who knows what this can grow into? But, life was too valuable. Wtih no other alternative provided, Prometheus simply seemed to fade from existence with the rest of the M.O.R.S, leaving behind no information that they were ever present and for now, leaving the country to it's own devices and monitoring it for afar. The mission was considered a failure, as they'd done all they'd done what they were there to do. Apex and company had to successfully hijack each of the nuclear submarines sent by Orpheus and "confiscate" them for the custody of the U.S government, and for their own use.

And so they left.

@percival: @orpheus_knightfall: @zexionstorm: @the_reality_sage: @_avatar_: @gallus: @maverick_6:

The Temporal Hound sensed the evacuation of Maverick's forces and disappearance of The Avatar and realized it was alone. That was not a problem, it was used to doing things alone anyway. The problem was that it was not equipped to deal with a hostage situation. The limitation of being designed to hunt a singular type of being that fought in a specific way had become apparent to it. Hm... The Great Beast looked at one of the smart phones recording its presence and had a moment of inspiration that turned into a plan in the blink of its massive eyes. The edge of the dome was near by, the child was at its feet and there was an electronic device capable of reaching the internet within range of its sensory organs. The Temporal Hound might not be able to stop what they were doing, but it could reveal the truth to the world and to Iceland itself. The Great Beast closed its eyes and reversed the polarity of its sensory organs, specifically those designed to receive the signals of networked electronic devices, like the internet. It turned its sensory organs into a broadcasting system and seized control of all of the smart phones recording its presence, immediately setting them to live stream to the entire world what it was about to do.

The Temporal Hound stared into the cameras of a thousand phones, dramatically amplified their signals and forced them to connect to the internet through the blackout by tapping into its own great reserves of power. "I want to talk to you about Utopia." He told the world. "I am a Temporal Hound, in the hunt for the ultimate prey I have traveled across the universe and seen the truth. There is no such thing as Utopia. The people who have seized control of Iceland do so and talk about turning the island into a Utopia, they say they will be benevolent dictators, overseers even. They tell you they will make everything better, everyone will be happier. So called Utopias are built on one thing." He lifted the child in one claw carefully and held it up for the camera's to see. "The ashes of the fallen, the bodies of children. They told the people of Ice Land that the reason a thousand people died was because someone attacked the energy dome they erected and it caused a backlash that accidentally killed people. Let me show you the truth."

The Temporal Hound placed the body back down, tightened one claw and slammed it as hard as it could into the energy dome. Its claw didn't breach the sound barrier repeatedly, it destroyed it. Thunderous booms roared through the air and then its claw slammed into the energy barrier. Ripples danced through the barrier and raced all over its surface. "No backlash." It said simply. "No energy feedback, no death. This child was murdered, her parents were murdered...all in the name of Utopia. It is not my place to interfere in the politics of Earth...but I will not stand by and watch children die and have their deaths twisted into some accident." He turned his massive head towards the cameras and created the illusion of staring directly into the eyes of everyone watching. "I have seen your temporal lines, I know your scent. You have two hours to identify the individual responsible for the death of this child. If I do not hear from anyone within that time frame, I will begin the hunt. You will never know when I will come for you, for the rest of your days you will fear every shadow, every flicker of light...you will wonder around which corner I will come. I will find each one of you at my leisure and when I do, I will end your life. I was created to hunt, there is no prey I cannot hunt, no barrier that can hold me back, no where for you to hide. I will end each one of you and display your mutilated corpses for the world to see."

The Temporal Hound lashed out again, this time the barrier collapsed under the weight of its strike as it absorbed far more energy than it had been designed to. "Two hours. Give me their name and you are safe. Don't give me their name, and I will hunt you for the rest of your life until I feel like ending the terror I can instill in your mind. The only reason I am not killing you now is because it would kill the hostages you have taken." He shifted his gaze to give the illusion of once more speaking to a wider audience. "Do you want a Utopia built on the corpses of children and the concept of hostage taking?" With that the Temporal Hound ended the broadcast and returned its sensory organs to their usual mode of operation. The Great Beast dug a hole in the ground with one claw and gently placed the child's corpse inside. It filled the hole again and retrieved her slain parents and buried them next to her. Once done with this task the Temporal Hound found large rocks to mark their graves with. "I am sorry." He told them quietly. The Great Beast turned its eyes towards the capital city and shut its nostrils. It could smell the beginnings of decay on a thousand corpses, even those it had just placed in the ground. It was rare for the Temporal Hound to feel such sorrow.

The Great Beast marched completely visible from the capital city until it located the item it was searching for. It plunged itself into the heart of a volcano and retrieved the item from the magma before it took flight once more and departed Iceland with a mysterious object clutched in its claws.