Seeing the object rolling out Suzukaze's mind begins to race... Shit... This can't happen. It can't... She charges the object as it comes to the stop she grabs a hold of it and takes off. I've got to get it away from everyone... Far away... So far...

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Figure if my mega strength of 1 isn't enough to pick it up since it's on wheels I can hopefully push it like a nuclear battering ram.

---

Zero is impressed. Thoroughly impressed. What minds could have constructed such wonders? It was a wonderful days to be a Nova! (All that remained of it, at least.)

How to proceed? That was up to the hostiles all around the bad Doctor. If Zero had slipped in just so, and was not spotted, Doc would camouflage itself as another guard, and see how best to sabotage the whole affair.

Or perhaps trying to assassinate the Teleporter was the best course of action. They could not send more bombs without his support, but Zero had little way of knowing the creature's power. Oh, wait. Yes it did. Camouflage (if not shot), then Z would see what this Nova could do.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
The Doctor will activate the Copy-cat Enhancement, & change it's uniform via Eufiber, to match the soldiers. Zero will then try to use Quantum Attunment to see what the Quantum, Node, Taint ratings, and description of Q-Powers the Teleporter has.

Medical Prodigy Roll: 3 successes (3rd Meg was a 9)
15:32, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 2 successes using 8d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 1,2,9,5,1,7,4,1. Medical Prodigy, 3 Mega .

Q-Attunement Roll: 6 successes. Wow. Only Meg exploded at 10.
15:35, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 3 successes using 14d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 10,8,5,1,2,1,3,8,2,4,5,1,2,1. Medical/Q-Attune, 1 Meg + 1 Will.

[Private to Rydi: Cool. That sounds like a fun Enhancement. Thank you. :)]

---

"Sue, no, wait, the timer's probably too short to..." Imp cried in warning as his lightening quick team mate grabbed the bomb and attempted to whisk it away. Knowing he was too late and too little he triggered his force field and tackled Gale, figuring that, unaided, she would have the least chance to survive the impending blast.

Comstock charged as fast as he could.  Jam the detonator, stop the bomb, transmute it ... anything.

Solitaire watched her teammates scrambling about with interest. She wasn't particularly bothered by the (presumed) nuke, after all, if it could be dealt with, they would handle it, if not, well, there was no point worrying about things you couldn't stop. And anyway, its not like it would kill her.

Upon further consideration however, it probably would kill Suzukaze, and while that might be the whole point of her insane little maneuver, as the girl had a martyr complex a mile wide, she was still part of the team, which meant she was under Solitaire's protection.

"Seems things are heating up, I'll be just a moment, make yourself comfortable, and ready any Nuclear level defenses you might have."

With a jaunty little salute, Solitaire streaked off on an intercept vector with 'Kaze, keying her radio as she went.

"'Kaze, hand off to me, I'll fling it out of the atmosphere."

Well, if there's time, that is. She thought.

Too slow, too slow! Gale cursed inwardly as she watched her teammate sweep the device away.  " 'Kaze, don't--oof!"  Whatever warning she had been about to shout was cut off as Imp tackles her.  About to protest, she realized almost too late the danger she was in, and activated her own force-field, putting the wall of solid air above the duo to protect them both.

There was no way that Flare could stop Sue, and very little she could do about the nuke. "This is going to be bad" Flare pulls a fire wall around herself and as many of her teammates as she can.  Hoping, rather than believing, that the extra protection would have any effect in stopping a nuke.

Suzukaze hearing Solitaire's voice quickly looks to spot her teammate. She hesitates but lets go of the nuke. She turns the other direction and looks for a ditch or something to hide behind before activating her forcefield. She closes her eyes and tucking herself into a ball her elbows on her knees and her hands behind her head.... "Please God.... Please"

Hanging in that seemingly endless moment from when the bomb appeared and whatever was about to happen happened the strangest things took prominence in Imp's mind.  His daughters, both of them, would he see them again?  Would anybody fulfill his dream of surfing a solar flare?  Would mother move back to Seattle?  And, my goodness, didn't Gale smell good.  "If we're going to die right now there's something you need to know," he said at super human speed, "you smell great."  He flashed her that trademark grin, then prepared for that awful white flash that he was pretty sure was coming.

Quentin, too spent to be able to exercise any of his otherwise-great power, turned his head and watched silently as the mechanism rolled out of the gate. He could feel, to some degree, the gate's opening and closing, and knew that the Doctor was leaving a split-second before he actually did, probably tracing back along the gate to find their would-be assassin.

As it was want to do, his brain kicked into overdrive analyzing the device, determining what its external mechanisms and probable internal composition. Of course, given the amount of time he had available, his analysis would not have time to be completed - and it would avail him little in any event.

Bereft of his defenses, Quentin was at the mercy of his teammates and could only hope that they would find a solution before they were all reduced to ash.

Low on energy, and too slow to keep up with what will likely happen over the next few seconds, Phantasm digs deep into her suit and pulls from the environment around her, putting up her shield and projecting a half formed moaning soul from it.  The phantasm flies toward Suzukaze, reaching the weapon and wrapping itself around it just as 'Kaze hands it off to Solitaire.  Phantasm then leaps to tackle Gravitas, attempting to cover him with her own shield.

The entire time from the opening of the gate until Solitaire could grab the device took perhaps 3 seconds.  Unfortunately, the reaction that would cause a massive explosion was set to go off after only 10 seconds.

Comstock is able to turn some of the exotic material to inert lead, but the material was not very pliable under his seeking quantum fingers, especially when the work was done from yards away.  Solitaire manages to fly it higher, but even moving faster than the speed of sound, she is able to move only a small distance in the time remaining.  Those nearby can feel the energies building within the device through their nodes a split second before the blinding flash of white fire sweeps over the area.

Even with Comstock's manipulations and Phantasm's quantum cocoon around the bomb, the device is incredibly powerful, overwhelming Solitaire's energy absorption and burning into her flesh.  Even as her clothing disintegrates and her flesh begins to sear off, it never occurs to Solitaire that this explosion would be her death.  Perhaps that confidence, and the Marvelous display of a woman standing in the heart of a nuclear explosion, is what allows her to live.  As the energy coruscating over her skin forms into a glowing energy matrix, wrapping her in a protective shield and replacing burnt skin, Solitaire feels a strange transformation beginning to occur as she drops from the sky like a falling star.  Only a short bit of time remains to Solitaire before becoming... Other.  Minutes, perhaps an hour; enough time to see the end of the war, and to say goodbye.[Private to Solitaire: you're alive, but that threw you into chrysalis.  I was planning on downtime after the war anyway, for people to go into chrysalis, so not as bad as it sounds.]

On the ground, the blast is incredible, searing all life within a mile of the blast.  Or at least all life not infused with its own internal quantum fires. Solitaire's energy absorption reduces the blast enough that most of the T2M members come through mostly intact.  Forcefields buckle under the blast, eufiber bubbles and screams, skin blisters under the heat and debris thrown by the shock wave pierces bone and breaks skin.  But through their combined efforts, most of the team lives.  The army, and the forest around them were not so lucky however; the ground is littered with skeletons of the dead and the earth is a twisted and scorched mockery of the verdant jungle it once was.

Comstock, one of the few who remained standing through the blast, looks around at the holocaust before him, and despairs.  At least his orders to move people had saved lives; much of the army was out of range of the blast, though radiation treatment would be required by virtually everyone in the area.  Slider had ported out moments before the blast, saving many.  But there were still so many dead, even a few of their own: Giesha and the Commander, lacking significant defenses and staring at the sky when the blast hit, were scattered to the winds.

Of the Americas team, injuries are severe, with multiple broken bones and severe burns, but all are alive.  Quinten is perhaps the most injured of the group; his left leg below the knee and the fingers on his right hand were outside the area of Phantasm's shield.  Now those parts are simply... gone.  He is also severely burned and likely suffering radiation poisoning and broken ribs from having Phantasm pressed into him.  Cruelly, he is still conscious, his superior brain no longer capable of 'turning off' in the face of trauma.

The others are at least intact, but are still badly injured, crippled by the wave of destruction.  After a few moments, Slider reappears, Saul following close behind.  They look in awe at the destruction, marveling at the damage, then averting their eyes in horror and shame.  Silently, they begin helping those left alive to stand, and healing those they can.  The earth rumbles, and seems to moan, almost as though a sentience bound to it is crying out in agony and impotent rage, and then goes still.

For those left standing and who can think past their pain, the inevitable thought now is: what now?  They were broken and battered, and the enemy still could have more of weapons like these.  But Utopia did have 2 advantages... First, they had allies nearby, the Teragen.  And second, the enemy thought they were all dead.  With that in mind, another question loomed in the minds of the T2M members still conscious: how much more were they willing to endure, and how far were they willing to go to see this war finished?

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
How far indeed.  Everyone, even after healing (both from Flare and Saul), will be down at least 3A wounds.  Grav is down 5A after healing.  And quantum is running short for many.  There is plenty of tainted Quantum for a recharge lingering in the area (hey, maybe the background radiation of the area would even go down a notch); I'll even give you a once in a lifetime deal, and let you take a point of Permanent Taint to refill your quantum to full.  There might be time to spend an hour recharging, if you want to leave Zero to his own devices (they think you're dead, and they're going to want to posture and threaten for a while).  Up to you on how you want to finish things off.  Oh, and for those wondering, the deus ex machina that is Anteaus is out of the picture, his senses overwhelmed by the blast.

---

---

Zero was spotted shortly after its arrival, but quickly disguises itself, taking the form of a nearby soldier and diving into their ranks.  In the moments of confusion before the Nova orders both the soldier and his new twin shot, Zero does manage to intuit the powers of the Teleporter however.  While far more durable than a human, the 'porter is hardly a peak specimen of nova virility; rather, he seems to have a very strong talent for teleportation, one rivaling that of Slider, but little else to defend himself with aside from slightly superhuman speed of thought and reflexes.

As it analyzes the 'porter, and the soldiers shove their teammate and his double from their ranks to shoot them, Zero feels the wash of quantum energy as the nuclear blast hits its former location.  What happened?  Did its friends survive?  What about the helpless baselines?  This war had claimed far, far too much, and all in the name of petty power struggles and wealth... A cold anger rolled across the Doctor's skin as the soldiers' guns barked, tearing through their fellow and bouncing off of Zero's armored skin.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
You take no wounds from the gunfire, but your position is exposed (the minimal successes on your stealth roll didn't hold up unfortunately). Oh, and you're trapped inside this quantum bubble, 'porting out won't work, though you can 'port around inside it.

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 03:26, Tue 16 Nov 2010.

Everything happened in slow motion for Gravitas - that wasn't terribly unusual for him. What was unusual was the utter sense of helplessness he felt as he watched events unfold. It was ironic, he thought, that he was unable to do anything to save himself or anyone else because of his actions in preventing a very similar problem only minutes earlier. He watched as his teammates attempted to disable or damage the device, and ultimately as Solitaire grabbed it and attempted to fly it out of range of the team, the army unit, and the ground. In a way, Gravitas knew that things would actually get worse that way. Most nuclear weapons were air-detonated for a reason. The calculations running through his mind changed in real time as he watched her rocket up. He heard the sonic boom a split second later, a harbinger of what was about to come.

Though a part of him, the scared and human part, wanted to close his eyes it was overruled by the rest of him. Instead he watched, opening himself to the quantum of the world. He'd been near nuclear reactors before; he knew that it was often possible to siphon off some small amount of their emitted radiation and re-purpose it for his own needs. He doubted that such a technique would do much good here, but he wanted to know what it was like to have that much power wash over his node before the heat wave hit and killed them all.

Some amount of regret hit him - rather hard in his midsection. He readjusted his gaze briefly to see that Phantasm had thrown herself on him and was extruding a force field. Perhaps that might help. The calculations adjusted again.

Then he felt - and saw - the initial wave of the explosion just as the calculations produced solutions; pure black-body radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum washed out at the speed of light from the point in the distance that Solitaire had managed to get to. The power he felt coursing through his node was immeasurable and certainly well beyond his ability to harness.

He could already feel that parts of his body were not shielded from the blast, he jerked in his right arm as far as it would come to protect as much as he could from what was to come. They were all being heavily irradiated, but the worst would happen when the heatwave/fireball arrived in a short moment. His expression hardened in a wince and he whispered hoarsely: "This is going to be bad."

Then the shockwave hit them, slamming the prone Phantasm into him, and him into the ground. The heat came with it. Terrible heat beyond imagining. Excruciatingly, he could feel that parts of his body were evaporating in the heat - an extreme of temperature too alien to the environment for his adaptive physiology to deal with and far, far beyond the tolerance of even his nova-enhanced tissues. He felt the fingers no his right hand leave him, he had not been able to bring them all under Phantasm's now-buckling protection. His left leg was beyond his ability to save. Phantasm had landed on him at an angle and her smaller body was simply unable to cover him entirely. Skin, muscle, and bone vanished in the blink of an eye.

Everything caught on fire. Vehicles, trees, and anything that remained of the army units were tossed around as if at the whim of a child in a tantrum.

Later, Quentin would be unsure as to exactly why he remained conscious in the aftermath of the explosion. Perhaps the overdrive under which his brain operated was sufficient to allow it to continue operation even when every pain receptor in his body was singing in harmony. This possibility would mark the first time he would ever regret his abilities - they had deprived him of the mercy of unconsciousness. Perhaps worst of all: he would never be able to forget even a single moment of the experience for the rest of his life.

The terrible animal scream he emitted was scarcely a human thing. It was a primal expression of distilled agony that went far beyond the thresholds of what the human brain had ever been designed to cope with. Quentin's unblinking eyes, black and cold, stared upward at the sky as it lingered, exhausting the air in his lungs and somehow continuing despite the expenditure thereof.

When it finally ended many seconds later, he coughed up blood and began to shake uncontrollably. Truly this had been the worst day ever.

Solitaire felt no pain, there was only the memory of it, a moment of agony so intense that she could not even scream, and then, peace. It was the actualization of the power she had brushed against at the reactor, a raw, elemental force of destruction, dispassionate and pure. But it had not consumed her. Nothing could, and she knew it to be true. She smiled as she fell. Perhaps it was a good thing she didn't know much about physics...

---
Upward, faster, faster. MOVE IT! You can do this. You can do this, Solitaire does NOT fail. The throbbing in her Node told her time was short, too short. Harder. Faster. Spin for additional momentum, a whiplike throw... Bright light.

Pain Pain PAIN.
---

The wind felt sensual, caressing her skin, but perhaps that was the wrong term. Her whole body was covered in the same opaque, indefinably colored energy as her left arm, and she emitted a soft silvery glow. Solitaire also realized she was naked, and felt a sharp pang of loss. Being nude didn't bother her, after all, few looked as good as her wearing anything or nothing, and modesty for its own sake had never been a particularly large part of her character. No, it was the loss of her jacket that hurt more than any physical pain, and her deck of cards. They had been her talismans, her keepsakes, her last links to Alex.

Alex...

---
The explosion seared her flesh, her clothes disintegrated, her hair burned away, her eyes went milky white as they were blinded. It was impossible to tell where she ended and the tempest surrounding her began. There was only the slow crumbling of her body before the onslaught. "It's not over, not for you." Who? There was only fire, no. Was that a face? "You always were too stubborn for your own good. You will find me, when the time is right. But you must live."
---

Solitaire knew she wasn't thinking clearly, if she were, she would not be studying her hands or her hair (well, the fine, billowing strands of energy that her self-image demanded of her no longer existing hair). She would be flying back to her friends. Odd, she couldn't think how to do that just now. It had been so natural before. Ah well, falling wasn't too different, and everything felt so peaceful at the moment.

---
Phantom hands cupped her cheeks, and the face seemed to lean forward and kiss her forehead, then. Clarity. Pain ceased, Solitaire knew what to do. It was not the fire or force that was destroying her, it was the energy. Energy didn't hurt her, it empowered her. She concentrated, and the explosion roiling about her coalesced, replacing the burned away flesh the same way her left arm had 'fixed' itself. "Find yourself, then find me."
---

"We become who we are meant to be." Solitaire whispered.

The crater she made when she hit the ground was rather substantial.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:43, Tue 16 Nov 2010.

One minute he was hanging in space, heart racing, waiting for whatever was going to happen.  Then it did.
First there was light.  Searing, burning, all encompassing light.  Gale vanished from before his eyes, he was unsure if she had been vapourized, or if he was the one who had been reduced to atoms, or merely been blinded.
After the light came the heat.  An impossible wave of heat.  He tried to assimilate, acclimatize, to adapt but it was too much, too fast.  Then something smashed into him like the fist of an angry Sol.  They were removed from the sky and crushed down into the earth with a terrible finality.  Like a fly that had been batted out of the air and crushed under the heel of an impossibly strong, capricious child.
he tried to twist, to make himself land first, but the ground came up too fast and all he managed to do was to crash into the earth beside Gale.  Everything went black.
He opened his eyes, judging from the mushroom cloud ascending immediately above him he had only been out for a few seconds, he got a glimpse of blackened wings and blood beside him before he was quite literally blinded by pain.  It felt like he had been skinned and broiled, from the top of his head to his heels wave after wave of agony rolled over him, threatening to overwhelm his sentience with simian howls of pain and fear.  He tried to find that inner spark within himself, the vital core of his node, something to allow him to surpass his baseline self, but was unable to do so.  An improbably close, impossibly distant howl of pain brought him around, he was intitiall unsure if it was his own or not, but the distraction it granted allowed him to ever so briefly regain the higher self and assert contol over his meat once more.  He found he could see again, although everything was bathed in a very strange milky haze, even though all was black and burned around him.  He raised his hands to his ears and felt instead a sticky mass of something that he could only assume was his own blood and the radioactive ash he was now wallowing in.
He sat up, fought against the flood of agony, and failed to overcome the wave of nausea and disorientation that hit him when he moved.  he lay back down until the world stopped spinning and he stopped vomiting, somewhere inside he was glad to have been facing away from Gale.  He once again tried to sit, and found he could do so, if only just.  A groan from beside him told him Gale had survived.
He forced himself to stand, the effort nearly overwhelmed him once again, but he managed to claim hsi feet, then to help, and receive help from Gale to struggle out of the crater they had made when they landed.
He looked around, saw other figures in the wasteland.  He tried to cry out, but all that emerged was a hoarse whisper.  He looked down at himself, realized that he was naked, but didn't care.  He stumbled over to the only thing he could see that was standing straight, glowing with heat, but seemingly unharmed.  Comstock.  It was good to know that somethings would always be there, even if some crazy sonofabitch dropped a nuke on them.

On reflex, a thin film of silver and gold formed over Comstock's eyes and melted again, flowing in rivulets down his face as he watched the explosion.  As he let go of his additional mass, he extracted himself from the ground where he'd sunken in, smoke billowing from his skin and eufiber as it smoldered.  The wind picked up and he breathed in, and as the hot gas burned in his lungs he was glad, for once that he could neither smell nor taste it.

It was too much.  All just too much.  And so he pushed it away, his fury, his fear, his grief, and his despair growing more distant and small until he could deal with the world again.  Now secure behind the mental shield he'd been determined to avoid, he tried to reason out what had happened.

In his panic, he'd reached deep.  His node was swollen, probably a result of maxing out to manipulate the bomb.  He had never managed to do it from such a distance before.  The improvement was something positive at least, and he had found enough reserves of quantum to keep going.  He'd never had much luck with attunement though, so despite his best efforts his hand radio was destroyed.

No matter.  After a few moments, he was listening on all frequencies again.  Methodically, he made his way over the rubble.  The rising cloud of superheated gas would rain heavy particles over a considerable distance, but the jungle should be able to recover.  He sought out his team, a simpler task with the burning of the landscape, and counted.

"Impetus," he called to his friend over the roaring wind.  "Take cover and standby."  As he searched, his eufiber colony busily consumed the slagged metal and ammunition and other equipment he'd been carrying, then restored itself to the black-with-blue-stripe T2M:A uniform, smoke still rising off of it.  He tried to review the events leading up to the blast to see where people were, but it was a fair amount of action in mere seconds.  Impetus had tackled Gale, Suzukaze and Solitaire had fled with the bomb, Phantasm and Gravitas he had no idea.  Dr. Zero had disappeared, who knew where it was now.  Flare had covered herself in a shield -- ah, there she was.  Ferocious winds tore across the landscape again, ash and debris obscuring his vision, but when they cleared he started taking note of the larger craters and resolved to investigate them.

The radios were giving him nothing, something alarming until he recalled the nuclear EMP and ionized air would jam up traffic for a time.  Even still, he did his best to broadcast back to Allied command This is Comstock.  Status good.  Be advised bomb delivered by portal.  He repeated himself a few times, even once in Morse code, to try and make sure something got through.

That done, he marched toward Impetus so he could be heard better.  "Help find the team," he shouted.  "Need to get the wounded to safety, minimize the aftereffects of the bomb and prepare counterattack while they still think you're dead."  He paused a second, Impetus' nakedness registering with a painful psychic twinge.  "Your eufiber has died.  Once we have everyone, exit the blast radius.  You are unprotected."

Gale had just enough time to turn pale and then red at Imp's comment before the blast.  How could he joke at a time like this?  How could he smile?  She was about to stammer something in reply, but all hell broke loose.

Gale closed her eyes against the flash.  She honestly didn't know that much about nuclear explosions, other than they were bad, but anything that bright shouldn't be looked at.  Her grip on Imp tightened, claws digging into his eufiber, and she hid her face in his chest.  Bracing herself for the blast.

It took longer than she expected, or maybe it just seemed that way because all she could hear were her own wingbeats.  Those stopped too as the heat washed over her.  Having no adaptive abilities, no extreme strength of body, and just the force fields and eufiber to protect her, the pain was unbearable.  Each silver-gray feather turned to a scorched black.  The dark patches on her uniform etched into her skin as burns before crumbling away entirely.

She didn't have time to scream, not that she didn't want to.  Barely conscious as the pair fell from the sky, she didn't remember hitting the ground.

A moment later, maybe longer, she didn't know, wakefulness returned to the battered winged woman.  A groan, a sound that didn't even begin to express the pain she was in.  Oh god, she thought at first, I can't feel anything.  Thinking herself paralyzed, she quickly tried to move one of her wings and gave a yelp.  It wasn't that she couldn't feel it; her brain was having a hard time sorting out that much pain.

As Imp helped her up, she tried to get the extent of her injuries.  Her whole left side, the side that had hit the ground first, felt broken.  Arm, leg, maybe a couple ribs, probably small fractures.  Her left wing was definitely bent at a wrong angle, and given the ringing in her head, possibly a concussion was on the list as well.  And all that was aside from the burns.  Her eufiber was in shreds.

"I'm afraid that was too gnarly for me," she mumbled as an apology to Impetus as they climbed, no, crawled from the crater.  While he went to go talk to Comstock, she looked up at the sky.  The mushroom cloud was pluming, she could feel the fallout being carried by the faintest breath of wind.  "I gotta stop it."  There wasn't much she could do, but she could lower the temperature to stop the cloud from growing more, and still the winds to keep the effects from getting spread even farther.  She spent what little power she had left on that effort before falling to hands and knees.  She had never spent all her juice before, but now was as good a time as any.

Phantasm curled around Quentin, trying her best to protect him.  Her shield was strong.  No one really understood how much damage she could take, and she'd always tried to keep it that way by being smart enough not to be in the line of fire if she could help it.  But now she'd test her limits.  Her brain processed idly, much as Quentin's must have been doing, as she contemplated the energy about to be released.

As she attempted to pull her shield tighter around both of them, molding it around her friends face and torso to create a seal with the ground to protect from the heat wave that would wash over them, two things occurred to her.  First, if he survived, Quentin was going to lose his leg; she hadn't been able to cover him completely, and though her brain processed it, her body was far slower than her mind, preventing her from doing anything about it.  Second, she realized that she didn't really now the man she was protecting very well.  He seemed like a good person she supposed, but she never really much about him, or at least the human part anyways.  Even the nova, Gravitas, was not much closer, despite the fact that she was one of the few people on the team that could understand him.  But instead of getting closer, they just lived parallel lives.  Maybe if we survive this, we can hang out more.

The blast wave hit.  Phantasm could see the light even with her back turned, behind her shield and closed eyelids.  The heat, thankfully, didn't touch her, washing over her shield.  The blast and debris bent her shield inward, and she felt debris pierce it, cutting her, going through her and being stopped by her shield on the other side.  Microseconds later, but still slow enough for her brain to process, she felt the full force of the blast wave hit, slamming her down on Quentin, and pushing them both several inches into the ground. She could feel ribs break from the compression, and knew her friend had to be doing far worse.

When it was over, she weakly pushed herself up, trying not to touch Quentin any more than she had to.  God,he is so messed up, will he even live?

"We'll have help here soon Quentin, just... Hang on.  Just hang on..."

Then her eyes caught the area around their small crater, and what remained of the allied forces nearby.  Flashes of the disaster after the EQ Wars came to her, and she couldn't help thinking that if this was all there was, all that their work had led to, maybe they should leave this world behind.  It was wonderful, this power, but the cost was growing too high.  She didn't know if she could go on as a normal person anymore, but maybe the world would be a better place without people like them in it.

And perhaps the worst and most glorious part of it all: She stood.  They lived, and though wounded, she wasn't even burned.  She walked through the destruction like a god.  It was enough to convince her that she might actually live forever; she had survived the greatest weapon known to mankind, walked away from it in fact.  The thought was just crossing her mind when she felt her hungry suit defy her will and spin tendrils of agony into her flesh, trying to rip out the life sustaining quantum it needed so badly.  But of course there wasn't any quantum left, so it fed on her body instead.  When it was done, Phantasm fell to the ground.  Confused she thought to herself that it was a good thing Quentin lost that leg, or she would have fallen on it, and that would have really hurt him in his condition.

Unable to muster the quantum necessary to shut off the pain centers of her brain, Phantasm simply screamed.

Zero looks over at the dead soldier who's form it now held. The stolen face of the dead man scowls in disgust. Zero's head buzzed with the intensity of the quantum that washed over it's senses, and the fear of the fate of it's comrades.

It puts it's hands behind it's back, and pulls the pin to the flash grenade, holding it long enough to shorten the fuse, and teleports, leaving the grenade hanging in mid air right before it flashes. Hopefully it will throw off the Nova & guards.

Zero will try to appear behind the Nova and attack with one blow.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

Activates: Quickness, Combat Teleport, Precision

Event Horizon 3 successes
15:23, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 2 successes using 9d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 6,3,8,3,6,7,1,4,2. event horrizon, 3 meg.

Flash Grenade: Unless they have special protection, everyone in the radius is Blind. No damage (roll failed).
15:26, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 1 success using 8d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 4,4,4,6,4,7,1,3. Flash Grenade 1(Wit)Meg.

15:28, Today: Dr. Zero failed (no successes) using 2d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,4. Flash Grenade damage, 2d10B.

Combat Teleport, then strike

Strike: 11 successes
15:31, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 8 successes using 11d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 10,9,10,1,7,1,9,3,8,8,9. MA Strike, 1 Meg, 1 Willpower spent.
15:31, Today: Dr. Zero failed (no successes) using 2d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,6. Reroll, Agil Quality.
15:45, Today: Dr. Zero failed (no successes) using 2d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 2,3. Forgot Rear Attack Bonus, +2.

And it that connected with the slippery little so-and-so...

2 Str Damage + 1 (Pistol whip, this will break it's handle) +5 MegaStr + X extra attack successes= _Damage.
15:35, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 2 successes using 5d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 6,9,5,1,8. Strength damage roll.
15:38, Today: Dr. Zero rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,4,7,2. Pistol whip damage (like a Club).

---

Please God... Please... Suzukaze keeps thinking in her head as she tries best to protect herself.

Her mind goes blank at the sound of the blast. The light is blinding even through her closed eyelids. She screams in agony as the heat pierces her force field. The blast hits her slamming her against the ground.

She is out for a moment and awakens with the sounds of her own screams from the burning and force of the blast. She clenches her teeth. God it hurts so much... I'm alive ...I'm alive.... She starts to cry at the thought.

Regaining her senses she opens her eyes and blinks a few times. She tries to push herself up, but falls back down. After a few attempts she finally succeeds in turning over on her hands and knees.

She looks down at the torn bits of eufiber trying to pull itself together. She turns her head searching for Nokemono. She finds the pool of boiling titanium near her she knows Seiatsu suffered the same fate. No... I'm completely useless without them.

She manages to get to her feet, but can only make a few steps before falling back to the ground. Getting back up is again a struggle. She manages though and takes a slow step. She stays still gaining her balance before moving any more.

Solitaire was the closest to her and she knew Impetus and Gale were not far behind. "Sol! Imp! Gale! Anybody! She turns her head as she calls out looking for any sign of the rest of the team.

Imp nodded heavily, First, find survivors.  He looked around, saw signs of life and smiled, black teeth glinting in the unholy light of the cloud above them.  He tried to call out, but failed as his throat was parched by the toxic ash.  He cleared his throat, spat black, then tried again, "T2M, gather by Comstock, lets get a headcount, we need to sort the wounded, walking wounded and combat ready."  he stumbled over to the source of the screaming, found Phantasm and Grav.  "Medic!" he shouted, noting Grav's missing appendages.  he crouched down and touched Phantasm's shoulder, "'Tasm, you still with us?" He inquired quietly.

Eventually, slowly, Quentin stopped shaking quite so much. He lifted his right hand and held it in front of his face, examining its new form. His fingers and a small part of his palm were simply gone, as was most of his thumb. It had clearly been bleeding, but his physiology was apparently beginning to catch up to the damage, as the bleeding slowed and the wound clotted even as he watched it. He imagined the same thing was probably happening somewhere below his left knee. Quentin wasn't sure if he wanted to look down there to see how much of his leg was left.

His throat felt raw and dry. "Lost lots of blood," he self-diagnosed, the sound came out as something like a pained whisper. "Everyone still alive... needs to be treated for radiation poisoning." Captain Obvious to the rescue. He lay still for a few moments, breathing and coughing. He spit out mouthfuls of blood at intervals. He hurt everywhere. The pain was beyond his imagining.

Impetus heading in one direction and Gale working on the mushroom cloud.  Good start.  Comstock headed for the other screams, and as he crested a small hill in the uneven landscape managed to spy the source.  "Suzukaze," he shouted over the vicious windstorm.  "Come with me," he said, kneeling down to lift her up.  "You are unsafe here."

Venturing a few steps away, he found the large crater Solitaire had left.  Not knowing precisely what to make of its contents, he kept his distance for the moment.  But the crater was deep enough that it offered a degree of shelter, so he designated it as his regroup point.  After setting Suzukaze gently down, he marched a few feet away to the lip of the crater where others could see him and kept checking the radio frequencies for anything intelligible through the static.

"Just... AARGH...hurts..." was all that Phantasm could manage to say to Impetus as she gritted her teeth against the pain and waited for the promised medic.  After Gravitas and she were patched up, and she could move again, Phantasm looked up at Impetus again.  "I was fine, then my suit tried to eat me.  Anyway, I can move now, but what are we going to do?  After we regroup that is?  I'm... I can't be without power like this, I'm pulling in some of this energy.  Not sure what it's going to do to me, but it can't be worse than sitting here helpless."

That was it.  She had nothing left.  She'd done what she could to minimize the damage.  An attempt to stand up failed miserably as her broken leg refused to support her weight, dropping her back to the ground.  She was going to have to wait for someone to come help her.

While she waited, Gale finally got a good look at the blasted area around her.  The landscape was almost like an old photograph, everything was black and white.  Here at the epicenter, the image was especially startling.  She could see bodies, no, skeletons, shadows of the men and women they had once been.  The trees themselves looked like bones, jutting up out of the ground.

The young woman was in such shock, she didn't realize she was crying until one of the tears dropped onto her hand.  Who was she crying for?  The dead forest?  The people who died?  That it could have been her, probably should have been her, had it not been for the quick thinking of her teammates?  Even Gale wasn't sure, underneath it all.