Tucked away in a secure, relatively quiet area of Northern California, the University of California at Berkeley has largely remained safe from many of the Gifted battles that have rocked the Earth during the last thirteen years. Just as before, an enormous variety of young students from all around the world put their minds to the task of absorbing the knowledge that their predecessors have offered the world. Then, once they have proven that they understand what we already know, the students do their best to advance our understanding of the universe that lays before us.

Of particular interest is the Berkeley School of Engineering's recently completed miniaturized particle accelerator. Built based on a nearly-incomprehensible schematic Doctor Faye Lynn Loveliss's team developed, the school hopes to have the young researcher use the device in her latest round of particle experiments. Little do she or the students know the interest that various Gifted factions have taken in her little "science projects..."

Faye grinned broadly at the sight of her brainchild come to life, the culmination of over half a decade's worth of theory and design. It had taken nearly a billion dollars in fundraising and grants, both foreign and domestic, to bring the Ring to life; but there had been no shortage of investors lining up to throw money at them. Of course, with a name as auspicious as the Ring, and technology approaching the level of that foreign device that had so drastically changed the world over a decade ago... well, the world was in a strange place right now. People were looking for control, and in order for there to be control, there needed to be power; power rivaling those showcased so blatantly at Gaultown. The Ring had become a symbol of that kind of power, the power technology still offered humanity. Her grin soured a bit at the thought.

Fortunately, the past two months had seen a swell in student enrollment, with a spike in Gifted students appearing in Berkeley. It seemed there were others who were concerned with the unrestrained and incredibly destructive display of power that had rocked the world, and wished to apply themselves toward the betterment of all. Faye's grin returned with strength as she remembered the speech she had given at this past year's commencement ceremony; the myriad of eyes shining with potent intellect and vision staring in rapt attention as her team unveiled the school's latest asset. She vividly recalled feeling their collective will as they were the first public eyes to behold the latest advancement in theoretical particle physics. They had devoured it completely, their appetites for learning further honed by a piece of the future.

Some would doubtless call her over-proud in her appreciation for the device floating in front of her; but she would argue that her pride was for her team more than for the creation. True, the Ring would help propel humanity's understanding of the fundamental universe to levels never before imagined, but it would never have been possible without the efforts of Berkeley's Breakthrough research team. She had recruited each of them personally, assembling experts in all applicable fields and bringing them together with fellow Gifted in the science community. It had been her first real project that her colleagues at CERN had approved her heading, and she had wasted no effort or expense in her recruiting campaign.

It had taken her nearly a year to find her Engineer alone, a promising Telekinetic prodigy named Isaiah Grant, who lived in near anonymity in Pakistan; but his fine spacial control had proven indefinably crucial for the assembly of the Ring, despite the fact that he could barely lift a brick with his ability. Of course, he was only able to be so precise because you provided a zero-g environment to work in. The instant the foreign voice entered her mind, inaudible tone tinged with a grin and a small amount of awe, Faye's eyes swiveled from the Ring to the observation deck above it, piercing the glass and locking with Gwen's. And without you, we wouldn't have been able to cognitively process all the data we needed to comprehend to actually build it, little miss human supercomputer.

Technically, we were all the supercomputer. I was just the LAN. Faye grinned as the powerful psychic picked a word from her memory, one that she knew the twenty-four year old had never heard before. Gwendylynn Brighton, another Gifted who's abilities Awakened in the past three years, part of what Faye categorized as the Fourth Generation of Gifted. Gwen's powers operated with a similar rule to Faye's own, insomuch as Gwen had to maintain focus on those she was affecting; focus most easily maintained by visual tracking. Potency-wise, she was on another level; her ability so strong she could literally connect human minds, allowing for instantaneous data transfer, knowledge pooling, even emotional linking.

And you were the sexiest LAN ever, babe, Faye fired back with a mental kiss, before returning her attention to the Ring. Two minutes until activation, and the first collision between subatomic particles within a gravitic containment field, suspended in zero-g. The information they had processed, the intimate level with which all of them had become familiar with her power in order to scientifically replicate... it was so unfathomable that once it was built, none of them could truly explain how it functioned. If we could, it would mean we bled over too much, Gwen projected, sensing Faye's frustration and profound sadness at that recurring realization. Loss of self would have resulted in loss of ability, and our egos would have broken down. We would have lost all attachment, and ceased our efforts.

It was true, Faye knew that much for certain. She had experienced a small part of that effect with Gwen, the reason why her young colleague was in her head all the time. The two had met in Stockholm three years ago, Gwen's work with genetic manipulation and eugenics resulting in a nomination for a Nobel Prize. The two had begun a passionate romance, one that resulted in what Gwen compared to Imprinting; her mind involuntarily slipping its own bounds and occupying a small space in Faye's. Similarly, she could feel Gwen's mind, even when she looked away. They were connected now... the voices in each other's head. Alright kickass voice in my head. Let's flip the switch and get this party started. With a little luck, this might restore some faith in us Gifted. Hell, in fifteen years Nullers and Shifters will be available for commercial and public use.

Gwen replied with silence. Faye grinned sheepishly as she studied the Ring extra hard, shoving her hands in her pockets to avoid fidgeting with them. Her partner had been most frustrated by Faye's decision to mass-replicate her ability using science, her pessimistic outlook on her fellow humans preventing her from believing they would be capable of using such a Gift for good. Faye's argument was that she wasn't unique from them... just a result of random chance. Anyone could have been Gifted her immense power, and just because she had didn't mean she was greater than any of them; nor should they feel lesser because of it. Besides, she could only use her power in certain ways for good, whereas the world at large had the potential to find even greater and grander uses than she could imagine.

"Sixty seconds to first run," the voice of Director Fairchild stated calmly over the PA, breaking into the nonverbal conversation. "Power is stable, as are the g-isolation and covalent density field generators. Electron collectors are primed, and diffusion triggers are set. Faye, are you ready? If the worst happens, you're our only hope."

"Christ Randy, you're going to give me a god complex," Faye stated with a grin, tightening her fist in her pocket. In response, her on-board artificial mind GIPS spiked the voltage from the arc-generator she had strapped to her back. The blue ring of energy hummed silently to her senses, the potential within calling to her, showing her exactly how the lines of the universe tied together. Over her right eye, GIPS tied in with her visual cortex to display a local map of all mass and energy, with visual representations in colored spheres and lines connecting everything. In the center, with a bright circle of light surrounding it, was the Ring. Inside it was the potential to unlock the universe... or destroy their little blue marble and its containing solar system.

This time, with the Ring's special containment and acceleration fields working in sync with the singularities created within, the threat of a black hole being formed was more than real. It was anticipated, with a probability rate of sixteen point seven two percent. The difference was, this time they were ready for such an occurrence, prepared even to study it. The Ring was a scientific manifestation of her power, replicating the work she had been doing with CERN in holding artificial elements in place for long periods of time for study. This device did it without destroying subatomic particles, and included several layers of protection that Faye herself was unable to provide, even with the full might of her power brought to bear. As frustrating as it was for her, she knew in her bones that her ability was designed for destruction. It was what drove her to circumnavigate her limitation, what inspired her desire to give her Gift to the world. Here and now, they had the power of observation to study singularities at close range, the ultimate dance with the razor's edge of death; but still Faye was the crux of the process. Should a black hole be formed, it could only be allowed to exist for a maximum of six seconds. Any longer and the probability of it damaging the Ring and escaping began to increase exponentially. As was her fate, she was there to destroy it before it could do that.

"...Four, three, two, one, contact." Director Fairchild's voice was utterly calm as the Ring engaged. Fifteen feet in radius, it defied all known boundaries in physics as the particles within whipped about at a fraction of a percentage shy of the relative speed of light. Faye's breath halted for an instant as time seemed to freeze, Earnest Crane's ability dampening the flow of time at the same time Gwen Pushed Faye's hippocampus. She felt the particles collide, the singularity form at the crossroads of the Strong and Weak forces, the moment the Hydrogen and Cobalt atoms hit. Her face was already curling into a grin as she observed the singularity stutter out and the new element stabilize. The six second mark passed, and time returned to its normal flow. The observation room erupted in cheers, but inside the Box all was silent. Faye floated serenely in the zero-g field, the only person in literal proximity to the Ring.

She felt Gwen's mind embrace her own as the tears began to float away from her eyes.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:53, Sun 12 June 2016.

Continued from Cyber Central

The unpacking and repacking of her virtual mind's persona had taken less than a second, and she only paused for a few seconds more to sort her thoughts, concluding she would share her entire shared memory with Gwen. Un-muting her end of the mental link, she let Gwen know what Johnny had shared with them, and what she had sent in reply. Gwen returned acceptance and grim determination, the psychic mentally readying herself for battle. Roundly close to 50% was close enough to certain for readiness to be maintained. I'm going to raise everyone's alertness, and apply a gentle blanket of anxiousness. See if I can flush out whoever sold us out.

Go for it, Faye responded before they broke eye contact, their mental link reducing now to transfer of emotion and general state only. Without hesitation, she pulled on her arc generator and reached into the Ring, generating several tiny anomalies within the containment field and ripping the element apart. The force-shutdown triggered the system override, and the Ring began its shutdown procedure.

Inside the observation booth, the mood radically shifted, and suddenly every person viewed themselves as the center of focus, convinced everyone else was staring at them. The sudden intense psycho-scrutiny caused a Namidian agent to crack, Doctor Beth Constance's most relevant fear revealed to Gwen. The instant she was given away Gwen flared the link with Faye, strengthening it to full potential and simultaneously relinquishing control of the collective pair. The instant Gwen's eyes became Faye's she surged her own Gift. The full magnitude of her pack's power transferred into a gravity vector that reduced the agent to a bloody smear on the wall in an instant. The reduction was the result of 45 times Earth's gravity accelerating the traitor, and then continuing to pull her, down toward a point past the wall. At the same time, Faye turned both pairs of eyes to focus on everyone in the room, blanketing everyone with a soothing wave of contentment and acceptance. An ITSDA agent gave himself away when he resisted the effect, but did not suffer the same fate. Instead, he was simply glued to the wall under 9 g's, Gwen's labcoat falling over his face, obstructing any sight.

Relinquishing the link back to Gwen, Faye returned her sense back to herself, a transference the pair practiced in both directions every morning when they did their yoga together. Looking through the observation booth's window, she tripped the lockdown release, opening up the vault beneath the Box. Pulling on her generator, she bound the box to a tenth of normal gravity, guiding it down into its holding chamber sixty feet beneath the earth. Faye had funded this project herself, with only Gwen and Isaiah aware of its existence. The Vault was a contained super-dense field, surrounded by gravity wave distortion units designed to baffle teleportation and resist anything short of nuclear detonation. It was here that the Ring would be stored until she could be certain the facility it was being used in was safe.

On the observation deck, Gwen slowly returned everyone's psyche to normal. She was sure there were more traitors hidden in the midst, but she had done as much as she could, short of penetrating each mind one at a time and invading every part of them; something she was loathe to do, despite being so liberal with her Gift at the moment. You really should read Albeth's 'Right of the Evolved' she thought-spoke as she herded the wakening crew of researchers and Directors out of the observation deck. The author was a recently assassinated Gifted of note, an author and a proponent of Gifted evacuation of Earth and the establishment of a Gifted-only civilization. Gwen had actually mourned him the day she heard he had been killed.

Maybe, Faye replied as she hovered outside the observation deck, looking inside with a grim look on her face. It was the same reply she always gave, aware that she didn't have the time she once had to stop and read a book. Too much was on the move right now. The world was changing, and she was in a position to affect that change. Now is the only time I can afford to live in, Gwen summarized Faye's thoughts as she looked back through the glass, face equally as grim. Then lets find a better place for 'now' to be spent in, pretty please?

"You got it babe," Faye said aloud and mentally, smiling at the girl she fell in love with and relaxing for a moment. Damn, it felt good to float... especially right where the singularity had been. Even though she knew that actual location was millions of miles away already, something about the concept of its location appealed to her sense of gravity.

You seriously can't stop thinking... ever... can you?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:49, Mon 13 June 2016.

The following morning

As the sun rose over the gentle curve of the rest of the continent those residents and employees of the prestigious school began their days. In the labs, professors were setting up for their first classes of the day, and the first stragglers of the day shift filtered in to relieve those researchers who had remained overnight to extend their daylight counterparts' studies. Outside the buildings the mist from the bay began to burn away, birds and small creatures scurrying about the town much like the people who shared it with them. In all the day appeared ordinary, as any other, down to the barely perceptible tremors from a minor earthquake in San Francisco.

It was this dawn that Faye and Gwen greeted as they performed their morning salutations, their bodies and minds in harmony as their bodies slipped into and through forms familiar as the flesh on their bones. Enjoying a low-level meld of consciousness, the pair entered their meditations as one, breathing love and light and happiness into the hateful dark suffering of the world. Neither was Buddhist, indeed they both personally eschewed religion and organized systems of belief; although their reasoning was always, "Science will continue through every form of belief, unaffected by the mutable ideas of the Human mind, its truths always there, waiting to be discovered. If there should ever be one lasting religion, it will likely be the religion of the curious, its worshipers those devout souls forever plagued by the twin dieties How and Why."

Even so, they both were aware that humans embodied more than the physical perceptions they were born with, their physical bodies mere containers for something much more. As such, the two practiced some aspects of spirituality, using what they had been taught to focus their intent on the betterment of all. Every morning as they came out of meditation together, their final unified thought was,
_{Will we do}^{~Have we done~} _{more good} ^{~than harm?~}

Today Faye was having a hard time with the past tense thought. Her actions yesterday, shutting the first run down, killing the spy and detaining another, outweighed for the moment the potential for good their machine represented. On the same token, Gwen was struggling with the future tense. She had already been touched by several precogs on the psynet, each warning her that they saw a chance the world might end with her and Faye standing above it in ruin. They had come far, but the Ring wasn't the only project of global potential.

Gwen's research team was also making strides, several of their facilities already creating completely new species of life (mostly microbial) using existing genetic patterns. One such lab, a former illegal cloning facility hidden on the Antarctic Shelf, had even begun gene therapy on terminally ill humans. One patient had already grown a brand new organ capable of generating super-platelettes, the markers capable of identifying any harmful entity within the Human body and highlighting it for attack by white blood cells.

As their meditation ended and the pair checked their inboxes for the day, Gwen smiled brightly. "Love, you remember Grant Bowman right, my patient with advanced brain-stem cancer? Judy sent me a message today. Tumor size is reduced by fifteen percent in the twenty-four hours since the neo-platelettes began working through his bloodstream. It's already in remission."

"Mmph, tha's wunfu bae," Faye replied around a mouthful of toast, GIPS and her scouter always keeping her updated on her incoming mail. She quickly swallowed before continuing. "How's Denise? Has her, what are you guys calling it these days?.. "Mass-sensitive perception organ? And no, not yet. But obervers say she keep reacting slightly to motion in unobservable rooms nearby. They think she'll have the ability to navigate by it soon."

Denise was a young woman who had been born without eyes, and the first volunteer for Gwen's battery of stimulation and modification of her hypothalamus and inner ear organs. As she predicted (thanks to her research on Faye), she located several small genetic inconsistencies that would allow her to slowly modify the function and capacity of Denise's encodrine and energy system.

"You know I sthill thnk ish genec," Faye stated around her eggs. "Or at least the original Ring's signal triggers latent genetic predisposition. Since Denise can be artifially given a portion of my abiltiy, do you think we could eventually find the root of these Gifts?"

Gwen smiled at her partner's second obsession. The appearance of Gifted had radically tipped the power scales of the world, and waves of realization and actualization were only just now beginning to come to shore. One of the reasons she had fallen for Faye had been because the woman shared her own belief that all humans had a sudden and vital need to evolve, if only to keep those with Power from using their abilities to force behavior on those around them without or with lesser.

"I don't think you're wrong, however you have no additions to your hypothalamus," Gwen stated, demurely munching on her own breakfast and only speaking with an empty mouth. "The discoloration in your eye is a fluke, and unrelated to your ability to see lines and fields of gravitic force. In short, you have not changed physiologically in any way to gain access to your abilities. Even your genetic sequence is 99.87℅ normal human, with only the standard level of variation. In short, there just currently isn't any evidence to truly support your theory."

"Hmph," Faye replied, sopping up the last of her eggs with her toast and munching it down. With a loud sigh, she stood, brushing the crumbs off her chest and in front of the Roomba before heading to the shower. Something in her told her that these Gifts were latent, already somehow coded into the person, and that the first ring had simply served as some sort of quantum-state unlock key.

"Perhaps the answer lies more closely in your line of research," Gwen stated a moment later, joining Faye beneath the faucet and helping her partner clean. "Isn't it possible that it was a physic's based reaction that simply opened us up to our powers?" She knew that in the realm of cross-interest, Faye was much more informed and had much more knowledge on Gwen's own area of expertise than Gwen had of Faye's; yet she never felt strange asking questions or making suggestions. She knew Faye operated best when different perspectives were tossed her way, her mind flexible and fast enough to imagine that perspective as her own and then apply her own knowledge and thoughts to said perspective. Twice Faye had surprised her with lavish gifts from out of nowhere, claiming Gwen had said something earlier that had set her on the path to discovery.

"Maybe you're right," Faye muttered, pouring some shampoo in her hands and commencing to washing Gwen's golden tresses. As with their yoga, this was another of their morning traditions. "I'll get GIPS to send Johnny a fuzzmail about it, see if they can play with that idea. Didja see the wormhole? Generated that system at 3am. Timescale is now at seven billion years, and the event hasn't moved an inch. Three entire stars have passed right through it, their planets and solar systems completely scattered..."

Gwen giggled good-naturedly, splashing some water at Faye as the woman started explaining things that Gwen only ever actually understood when the pair was melded. Physics were just something her brain was no good at handling. The shower escalated quickly from there, the pair enjoying a nice escape from the world in each-other for a while before the water began to run cold.

"Alright, I suppose that's enough fooling around," Faye said, panting slightly from their exchange, a wide smile on her face and her shoulders relaxed for once. "Come on with ya, sexy wench. Let's go deal with Connars and the board. I'm sure they're super pissed about the lockdown."

"Well, you did take their shiny, expensive new toy away from them," Gwen replied, doing her best to straighten her suddenly tangled hair, casting a pouty look at Faye that was only marginally spoiled by the twinkle in her eyes.

Faye wasted no time in kissing the pouty lip, scoring it lightly with her teeth before pulling a thick Deicide shirt over her chest and stepping into a pair of tan cargo pants. Leaving Gwen with a grin and a blown kiss, Faye stepped into her boots and went ahead to the conference room in the building next door. Gwen would take a little longer to get ready, and Faye wanted this over and done with. Besides, the way her partner had looked at her, the motions of her body, had made the temptation for round two far too present for her to stay in her proximity and ignore.

"Always work before pleasure," she said with a sigh as she shoved through the thick oak door, stepping into a half-circle of sixteen unhappy faces. All sixteen pair of eyes immediately swung about to try and pin her to the wall with their weight. It was a tactic Faye had surpassed years ago, her own gaze become far heavier than that of those on the board.

"Christ, this reminds me of Star Wars," she stated before anyone could speak, shoving her hands deep into her pockets. "Now I know what Vader felt like every time Moff Tarkin brought him in front of the fleet. Stop glaring at me like I'm a naughty kid guys, you know I hate that."

"Faye, why are you trying to distract us with bullshit?" Malory Stern, the board's lawyer and the only other female currently in the room, asked with no small degree of malice. "Yesterday you shut down a privately funded experiment, costing several investors millions. Furthermore-"

"I splattered Beth all over the wall and fancy equipment, costing another couple million not to mention creating some very bad press and drawing some very disapproving eyes," Faye interrupted, her own gaze turning hard now as she quoted the woman before she could even finish. Sometimes, you didn't need to be psychic to know what a person was going to say. "Yet here I stand, unaccused, unarrested. Because I was right."

"Because you believe you were right," Doctor Malcome Bryce stated, the large black man surprisingly docile in both speech and mannerism. Faye knew that he was a shrewed businessman though, with sights set on the next California election cycle. "The fact of the matter is, you are outside our control. You know as well as we do that the sanctions places on you are for show only. That being said, your investors are ill pleased, and even you must acknowledge you have no power over the finances that bind you."

"So then, why are we even here?" Faye asked, not interested in arguing with the man when his words were truth. "So you can tell me the funding will be cut unless I toe the party line and let Damien's garbage security detail get the Ring damaged or stolen?"

"Hey fuck you bitch," the man whose job and men she had just insulted standing up from his seat on the end of the board, a snarl on his face. "My men are some of the best-"

"Shut up Damien, shut up all of you!" Faye shouted as the board suddenly erupted in violent words and accusations. "I've already had enough of you people yanking me around. What do you want?"

The sudden silence was only as deafening as the unadulterated hate reflected in 9/16 of the eyes glaring at her. Faye had made it notoriously difficult on both investors and lawyers trying to sneak rights and property law into her research, and had earned many enemies among her own colleagues.

"The nets are abuzz with rumors of the fabled Ring making a journey to Seattle, of all fucking places," Timothy Connars, center man on the board and primary contributor to the project, injected into the pregnant silence. "Wanna tell me why I had to learn of this from my secretary? How long have you been planning to steal the device?"

Faye bristled immediately, could almost feel the hackles on her neck rising. Fuck. How the hell had word gotten out? She had only finalized her plans with Brian this morning, just before coming here. GIPS, run a full-point backtrace on all fuzzmail in the past twenty-four hours. Note every packet loss and every server IP. Find this leak and plug it. She felt a small draw on her cortex as GIPS emoted an affirmative, a handful of artificial memories popping up detailing possible entry points to her secure connection with Jameson. As to the matter at hand, and the accusations of theft...

"It is not possible for me to steal something I'm a piece of," she stated quietly, voice devoid of emotion. "I am relocating myself to a more capable lab. Since I am a component of the Ring, it is coming with me. Once there, all research will continue, and you will have your access to it. However, since Damien did a shit job and let at least two spies in -SHUT THE FUCK UP DAMIEN!- I've decided this place is not safe enough to allow it to be powered on here again. It places a target on the campus, and I am not willing to put bright young students at risk. I will not keep you up to date on my plans, I have my own private security en-route, and the new location has built in security against infiltration by Gifted and un-Gifted alike. This is all you will know, and this ends this meeting. Go fuck yourselves."

Greedy fucking scumbags, she thought as she shut the door on the erupting conference room. Not one of them can see past their stupid systems and stupid wallets.

Ah, so it went well then, Gwen thought-spoke, picking up Faye's thoughts as the blonde rounded the corner.

About as well as can be expected. Ready for a road trip?

I thought you'd never ask.

PRE-TRANSPORT PREPARATIONS

While Brian began setting up his end of the transportation arrangement, Faye set about securing her end of the deal. Since Damien was obviously accepting bribes and fall backs for letting eyes into the research, she knew she couldn't trust any of his security detail. Even Crane was suspect at this point, the talented young time-manipulator the first Gifted addition she had approved for the security detail. At the end of it all, there was only one person she could trust. Herself.

And me of course, Gwen thoughtspoke plaintively from her classroom. The geneticist had been invited to give a series of guest lectures over the course of the past two months before returning to her research at the end of this one, and was currently in the middle of one of her more advanced subjects. Faye never ceased to be amazed at her partner's ability to split her mind, tracking multiple subjects and conversations at the same time regularly.

Love, you know I count you as part of me, she replied, confident Gwen wouldn't be distracted by the conversation. When you're done, would you mind heading into town for a bit and picking up a few things for me? I'm feeling curry for dinner tonight.

Spicy or sweet? Gwen replied. The blonde usually did the shopping and Faye did the cooking, a comfortable arrangement that worked well for both. Gwen was always amused by how frustrated Faye became when she had to interact with the public. The work the engineer did was aimed at the betterment and furthering of all mankind, yet nothing seemed to get under her skin nearly as easily as those same people she was trying to save.

Let's do sweet tonight. Pork, Faye replied, stepping through the airlock and into the zero-g room above the Vault, the room the Ring had occupied up until the previous evening. Here, alone and weightless, she felt truly at home. Turning her gaze to the walls, she focused on the familiar spheres of influence she always saw, her gaze sharpening those spheres into uncountable lines of force, their magnitude indicated by their length and color.

Green lines were primary lines of force, the direction of 'falling' should gravity be allowed to operate without obstruction; these lines were feet long. Red lines reached out to the ten largest masses in relation to the home mass, the vast majority of them only a handful of inches long. The rest were a mix of blues and grays, so short that they wrapped each mass in a thick fuzz that somewhat obscured her sight of the physical object, should she focus too much. Those lines connected every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle, of every physical object in existence.

Here in this room, there were no lines of force. The walls themselves still possessed their lines, the green ones aiming straight down toward the center of the earth and the remainder spread out behind and through the walls. Between them though, there were no lines whatsoever. No outside gravity could penetrate her nullers, the first bit of technology she had designed and patented using her Gift. One of many small pieces of useful technology she kept close guard on, lest it fall into the wrong hands. With luck, she would someday release both nullers and shifters, giving the world a clean and unlimited means of propulsion, negating the need to rely on fossil fuels, gasses, or chemicals to drive vehicles between places. Unfortunately, the world continued to prove its immaturity, and thus could not be trusted with devices that could be transformed into weapons powerful enough to peel the planet's crust.

Are you going to be moody aaaaaaaaaall day? Gwen's voice intruded, derailing Faye's dark train of thought and bringing a grin to her face at her partner's dry tone. Sending love and happiness through the link, she set to work.

Inside the east wall, beyond the reach or even observation of any normal person, was a simple switch. Sussing out that switch's green line, she pulled on the left-over energy she had absorbed from the sun on her stroll here to reverse the direction of that line. The switch obediently followed its new gravitational direction, pulling upward and activating the mechanism that opened the hangar door. Deepening the meld slightly, she pulled on Gwen and put a barrier between her and the door as it opened, prepared for sabotage or some sort of trap. Fortunately, no such danger presented itself, and the door swung quietly open, revealing a long ramp angled up and another hangar door, this one horizontal. That door opened up beneath the campus pond, the small body of water serving as a simple deterrent for anyone who wanted to sneak in.

Floating into the tunnel, she inspected the walls, the door, and the built-in security system. No signs of tampering made themselves apparent, and by the end of the hour she was quite satisfied that the ramp was safe to use. Returning the chamber, she re-flipped the switch and closed the wall again. Exiting the building, she walked about the grounds, amicably greeting the students and faculty strolling about, glaring at Damien and his goons, and just generally being seen. As she meandered, she kept a sharp lookout, bouncing faces against GIPS's database of everyone on campus and scouting for intruding autonomous tech.

By the time Gwen returned from town with ingredients for dinner, Faye was quite certain that outside interference was limited simply to observation only... for the time being.

The eastern sky wasn't even brightening as Faye and Gwen arrived at the research building. The pair was dressed to match in black pants and sleeveless shirts, their leather combat boots crunching through the gravel by the door as they rounded the building; the only visible difference between them the color of their ponytails and the dimly glowing arc-generator on Faye's back. At the entrance, Faye produced a ring of keys, unlocking the door and opening it for Gwen, who quickly went to the security desk and shut off the building's primary alarm system.

Outside, Faye made her way to the pond set in the approach, focusing once again to find hidden lines of force and manipulating them. A drainage sluice opened up at the back of the pond, emptying it in ten minutes and shutting the pumps down, but leaving the door closed for the moment. At the same time, Gwen made her way down to the observation deck. Maintaining a 30% meld with Faye, she accesses her partner's power and began to draw energy from the observation deck's mainframe system.

As she did, she reached into the East wall and unlocked it, allowing it to swing open before reaching into the corners of the room. There, where each wall intersected, were the nullers. Unwilling to leave anything of potential misuse behind, she began to pull them out, peeling chunks of the wall free and launching them up the tunnel for future disposal. Power cables snapped and sizzled as all four nullers suddenly dropped from their spots into the center of the room, smashing into each other at twenty times normal gravity. She didn't care if they were destroyed, the ones in the Box were still operational and they were sure Brian would be amenable to helping them make more. There was simply no chance Faye was going to leave anything behind.

Expending the last of the energy that could be drawn from the building's electronics, Gwen tossed the chunk of ruined tech up the tunnel with the rest of the trash before stepping out and crumpling the entire observation deck in on itself. All that was left behind was the wreckage and several millions of dollars worth of inert computing material, every piece rendered useless and every bit of data unreachable as none of it was capable of transferring electricity.

Together the pair met outside the door as the first rays of light peeked over the horizon, revealing Brian's incoming transportation.

5am, right on time.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:04, Fri 24 June 2016.

A fleet of trucks pulled up to where the two women waited, and three people climbed out to approach the pair.

One was dressed in dated eveningwear, and placed an arm across his cumberbon to give the scientists a deep bow. When he stood up again, he removed his top hat and pulled out a dozen roses which he tossed to one of the ladies, then produced another bunch he threw gently to the other.

The second was a female, and she didn't approach normally; she was in one of the vehicles, and suddenly she was before the two educated individuals. She wore a tee-shirt with a Southern-fried rock band on it, a pair of jeans, and industrial work boots designed to take a great deal of punishment. She smiled broadly, and waved at the duo before her.

"Hi there, we're from cut rate movers; when you're so broke you can't afford anyone else, we're there for you!"

The final member of the trio was noticeably older than the other two, yet from his size and gait he gave the impression that if he attacked a block of concrete, the latter would lose hands down. He was clad in the classic biker duds of yesteryear, his black leather jacket open to show off the grips of twin handguns in holsters at his side. He didn't bother with a fancy show or jokes, but simply walked right up to the brainy figures and held out a hand.

"Hi there, you must be the two our boss sent us to meet. I'm Frank Jackson, the overdressed guy is Black Magic, and the jokester there is Vandal. Pleased to know you."

As the convoy rolled up, the pair stepped forward to meet the ones leading the new security detail. Gwen giggled as Black Magic presented her with a bouquet, laughing again as Faye silently passed the one he had bequeathed her to the blonde. There was no annoyance or frustration in the scientist as she rebuffed the magician's antics and ignored Vandal's quip; Faye trusted Brian, a trust that only a handful of people around the world could claim access to. Quirks aside, she knew these three would give their best and then some on the job, and that was enough for her to extend that same trust to them for the time being.

Stepping forward, Faye slapped her palm to Frank's, gripping his hand firmly and shaking once. "It's good to have the three of you here," she stated, addressing all three with her eyes and nodding to each one. "I'm Faye, this is my partner Gwen. We are indeed your customers for this particular job. Thank you so much for agreeing to help us with this. I'm sure Brian has already filled you in on the details, so if you would please join me I'd like to go ahead and get this train moving."

As she spoke, she turned slightly to the side, glancing over to the bay door set in the ground and manipulating its release lever. Beneath the ground, compressors and hydraulics quietly pressurized, pushing the massive door to the side and revealing the tunnel beneath. As the door opened all the way, pieces of cement suddenly leaped from inside the tunnel, jumping twenty feet in the air before spending their inertia and coming to land back in the lawn near the building.

"The board is not going to care for your landscaping," Gwen stated, the two bouquets slightly muffling her words as she continued to hold them to her nose. While Faye was busy opening the door and cleaning up for company, Gwen had shot the magician a wink and a half-hidden grin. She enjoyed theatrics much more thoroughly than Faye, and appreciated the man's levity in this particularly heavy situation.

"They're going to care even less for the giant empty space we're leaving in their basement," Faye replied, leading the crew into the tunnel and heading toward the subterranean research room. "I'll be pulling the Box with the Ring in it up through here. Once it's above ground I'll disassemble it and we can load it on the truck. The Box is modular as well, so I'll break that apart too for transportation. Once it's loaded and secure, we can move out. Simple as pie. Ready to do this?"

Black Magic winked back at Gwen, then stayed where he was as Frank accompanied the two women through the access point. While they were continuing forward, there was a puff of smoke and the magician appeared in front of them before falling into step. Vandal plodded along at a normal human pace, her glum expression stating she wasn't happy with what she no doubt saw as a snail's pace. Frank ignored his teammates, as though their reactions were nothing new to him.

"Right, we're here to work, so let's get to it."

Nodding, Faye moved to the end of the tunnel. While she unlocked the Vault, Gwen stepped up to Black Magic. Still grinning, she pushed her mind forward toward his, brushing her consciousness against his, a flirting sort of intrigue in the contact. The probe was a simple question, as far as psychics were concerned... May I come in?

Upon receiving permission, she quickly found the gaps in ego that every human had, the quantum interlace that bound every single human together. His connection to the psynet was stronger than most, typical for psychics and other manipulators of the physical through metaphysical means. As she found the gates to his persona open, she gently established a direct tether to his mind, opening up a handful of memories and experiences in her own mind that she saw echoed in his; shoring up the bridge between the two and stabilizing it. To Black Magic, it would feel as if his senses were suddenly expanding, exploding outward to include include four additional eyes, two bodies worth of skin, four extra ears... all the senses the girls possessed were now part of him as well. At the same time, an endless expanse would seem to open up within as the limits of the mind began to fall away, and questions that before had lead to inconceivable answers now had solutions that were simple to follow and track.

We'll hold here at twenty-percent for the time being, Gwen thoughtspoke into his mind, wasting little time in acquiring the knowledge and ability she sought. We can remain like this for the remainder of the trip, or sever now. It's up to you, but know that if any of us are seriously injured, the link will snap and every member of the meld will be rendered unconscious for up to forty-eight hours.

As soon as the Vault was open, the Box (Ring inside) floated up and into view. Fully thirty-feet in diameter and four feet in thickness, the Ring was a shiny piece of the future held perfectly suspended in 0-g. It's surface was almost completely smooth, the uniformity broken by only a handful of flattened disk shapes around its edges for wireless power transfer and a single large sphere an extra foot in diameter for containing the elements and singularities formed.

As Faye began to float the device toward the entrance, she allowed a portion of her power to flow through the meld, giving Black Magic a sense of her ability and how it worked. Nodding to the pair, Faye began to move the device up the tunnel. To the side, Gwen shrugged into a kevlar-nylon 'sparksuit' the surface covered in high-voltage lines. By the time the device exited the tunnel, there were two Fayes working in synch, the Box already disassembled into twelve sections and the Ring separating into quadrants. Within fifteen minutes, all the pieces had filed into their various containment units, and Faye had found a place atop the middle truck.

"Alright, we have a little over half an hour to make it to the train station to stay on schedule. Move on out!"

A simple nod served as the answer to the psychic's answer.

Gwen would be able to see Black Magic's mind was more open that one might expect of even a magician's gray matter, yet though he was expanding into new areas of himself there were still places he had yet to reach. As his physical senses expanded past their norm, his practiced face held the same smile as before and betrayed nothing.

The woman saw Peter's first attempt at magic which did not go smoothly, and other bits such as his college graduation and his work as a computer tech.

When the meld was complete, he gave only another nod. When the two Faye's emerged from the tunnel, there was a third following seconds behind who looked to be going through roughly the same motions as the others. This one floated up to the top of another truck, while a third took another seat and then a forth; in short order, every vehicle had a Faye riding on it; this way, any attempt to kidnap the real doctor to force an exchange with the device would be hindered.

Frank and Vandal reentered a truck apiece, and Black Magic himself appeared in the cab of a third.

The convoy wasted little time in rolling out, trucks and transports alike turning about and making their way back to the road. The morning flow of early students and faculty were just beginning to arrive, their faces in their windshields confused and worried as the vehicles rumbled out, leaving behind an empty pond and a tire-rutted lawn littered with rubble. Despite the fact that she left the school looking like a warzone, Faye was satisfied that it had not, in fact, become one. The loading was the part she had been most worried about, as that was the time the Ring was most exposed within a civilian sector. Now that the students were no longer at risk, she felt a large weight lift from her chest; although it was barely a drop in the bucket compared to the millstone she felt about her neck. They were still in a heavily populated area, and an attack now would put an even greater number of innocents at risk.

As things stood, they had created the perfect recipe for a repeat of Gaultown, and the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge across the bay was a constant reminder that this time, millions of lives were immediately at stake. If another Kane appeared here and threatened to launch a nuke into Berkeley, the backlash and destruction would be devastating on a scale never before seen. That outcome simply could not be allowed, and every second spent inside the city dragged itself through Faye and Gwen like barbed-wire over flesh.

I'll keep the road clear, GIPS, so put your foot on it," Faye ordered her AI, confident the backup had been given access to the fleet's control system. I want to be out of the city ASAP! Let's go, let's go!

You got it Miss Faye! the mind replied, quickly tracing her way through Brian's network of encrypted control signals using the keys Johnny had given her. Almost as soon as Faye thought the command the convoy began to pick up speed, maintaining perfect formation as they made their way to the trainyard.

As the convoy rumbled through the city, Faye cleared a path for them, shifting pedestrians and cars off the road or moving the vehicles to block side-streets. She didn't care that she was damaging property, only making sure that she didn't hurt anyone, a feat she was more than mentally dexterous enough to accomplish. A wake of disoriented and pissed off people followed behind the motorcade, shouting expletives and curses at the 'god-complex Gifted.' She felt a twinge of grief that she was causing Brian so much bad publicity, but the need to keep the vehicles in motion outweighed such sentiment, and she quickly pushed the feeling aside.

Instead, she kept her head up and her eyes sharp, joining the guards in the convoy on lookout as she floated above the vehicles. There were a small handful of early risers in upper floors moving about, a couple up on roof's tending to small gardens or greeting the sun. As with those on the streets, she made sure those people in sniper vantage points wouldn't be a threat, increasing their gravity five-fold to press them down to the floor until they were out of sight.

Meanwhile, Gwen kept a similar sharp lookout in the psychic spectrum, feeling about for other minds probing the ether and stimulating their melatonin receptors. Anyone probing about mentally would become awash with waves of sleepiness if they weren't outright rendered unconscious. Neither Gifted was happy using her power in this way, but they had agreed that it was a necessity to avoid letting the Ring fall into enemy hands.

Time - 5:40 am
Location - Uptown Berkeley

_{Edited for consistency}
This message was last edited by the player at 17:03, Sat 25 June 2016.

 After a few blocks it seemed that Faye did not have to continue to manipulate people and vehicles in her way.

 Lights began to change in the convoys favor and a several hundred driverless cars lined their route to the shipping yard. The cars blocked the intersecting roadways along the route and immediately behind them several of the vehicles began to follow them preventing any following vehicles from getting close. Crosswalks turned to 'no walk' signals before them. Brian had apparently stolen his GPS satellite that monitored the driver-less fleet, however he had done it, it was working.

 Most shocking was the tank that had appeared near the trainyard loading area. It was smaller than normal tanks and it backed into the yard as the convoy entered and a tiny radar dish began to spin atop the hardened little experimental driverless tank...

Time - 5:50 am

Faye visibly loosed a sigh of relief as the train yard rolled into view, the crews already evacuated and local defenses already in place. The tank gave a definitive air of military involvement, bringing a rueful grin to the scientist's face as she remembered her own time in the service. It had been an interesting decade since that time, the entire world forced to rapidly change; with Faye herself being a member of that driving force. It was a role she was content to play, having long ago determined that the reason the world was in such a sorry state lay in the inaction of those with the intelligence and will to see the horrors of humanity ended.

Today she hoped to enable an even greater push, one that would hopefully soon see the species evolve to overcome their earthbound restriction. As the convoy rolled into place, she took position over the tank; by far the more deadly of the two, yet much less intimidating to behold. "Thanks for all the legwork Brian," she stated into her scouter's audio receiver. "I owe you big time. Remind me to build you some toys to get that floating island of yours off the ground."

Behind her, the transport trailers carefully backed their way up to the boxcars. Once they were in place, lead-lined rubber walkways extended from the backs of the trailers to the openings of the boxcars, effectively blocking all sight of the unloading and loading process. Out of sight of visible and ultra-visible imaging, the Ring and Box were quickly transferred into the boxcars.

At 6 am on the dot the boxcars and trailers were closed. The train loosed a single whistle blast, then began to slowly accelerate north; Faye seated comfortably atop the center-most boxcar. At the same time, the convoy also hit the road, heading north as well on a parallel road route.

"So far, so good."

Time - 6 am
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Sat 25 June 2016.

As the train departed, the trucks accompanied by the driverless cars had begun to move along a parallel route north along surface roads until they finally reached city limits. At this point the fleet of escort driverless-cars rerouted to an interstate highway, destined for return to their former locations, including the tank.

 Later news reports of the escort would only be able to tell that something had occurred, an anomoly in the driverless cars program. Since no fatalities had happened. Googleplex Inc would claim it as a first official road test of their pilot program among other drivers. No one seemed to link the news with the unusual lights or seeming traffic jam that had appeared inside Berkley. Only a few scattered blogs or reports of traffic had cropped up, though some had noticed the convoy, it was quickly forgotten overall...

 However, now the twin convoys were underway and moving north; one convoy of trucks continued north and the train itself which plodded along and they remained roughly equidistant from one another within a thirty miles radius. It would take nearly the rest of the day to reach Seattle. The trucks were driverless but some movement could be seen inside both the trucks and upon the moving train as a few passengers continued along with their precious cargo.

 Which was the convoy holding the Ring though?

Dieter reclined back in his chair and thought out loud with a deep "Hmmm..." This was not a normal mission and he was no in a normal C&C position. Instead of a much more normal bunker or fortress, he was secured in a VTOL craft flying high above the west coast on long lazy orbits. There was a bank of computers opposite his chair and three stations manned by Sidhe agents. The first, on the far left, monitored a bank of monitors tied into every Aircraft Command and Contorl Tower on the west coast between Berkely and Seattle. The second and third were monitoring various surveillance feeds. This wasn't the sum of staff dedicated to logistics and tactics of this mission, but it was the first line.

"Sir?" Came the dispassionate voice of the woman who had more or less become his second in charge and Lieutenant of the Sidhe corps. He frowned at that thought but let it loose. That was a decision made in Curacao. "Yes?"

"As I predicted, there is a 58.437% chance that the convoy we were contracted to protect is a decoy. There are just too many... bad logistics involved for it to be real. They want someone to hit that convoy, badly. I also predict from monitoring their route and their... tactics, that they either airlifted the device or went by sea." Statistically speaking, that was almost a certainty. He frowned at that and glanced down at his own small screen where he flicked through her analysis of the operation as observed so far with details provided by Meta factored in and ongoing updates in real time. Little got by Nigma's mind. Still, there was no guarantee that her assessment was correct. Dieter shrugged his shoulders broadly and spoke, "That simply doesn't matter. I was contracted to perform a very specific service with very specific parameters. We will stick to those parameters until I decide otherwise." He looked up to where a sign hung over the C&C: 1) No Casualties; 2) The Device cannot be activated; and 3) Schwartze Augen's involvement must remain covert. It was written in his own cramped, cursive script. "Analysis of the convoy?"

"I understand our objective, Dieter. Several of our agents, ungifted of course, have reported heavy handed tactics in suppressing anyone in the vicinity. It's inefficient, indiscriminate, and cro-magnon. Still, powers present suggest both women are in the convoy, but we don't have a power profile on the assistant, not a full one. My analysis of the professor's behavior suggests though that she would never trust her device to any others hand, so if I am correct in my predictions that she is smuggling it via another route, then either a gift double or some other stunt is being used. She is pathetically predictable. I will fulfill our objectives and nullify her efforts..."

Dieter chuckled. He doubted that Nigma would leave it at that, but his three directives for the mission left her miles and miles of wiggle room. Currying favor with Brian Jameson and the GTF was a priority for him right now as it served his needs. A prepared man was a defended man; a defended man stayed alive. "Clint, are our various teams in place?" The man in the furthest right chair looked back, "Sir, primary team in place just north of loading sight. Secondary, tertiary, and quaternary teams on stand by. We also have a team on standby in Olympia and Seattle."

He grunted. "Amelia, I want you to gain access to naval monitoring stations up and down the coast. Hmm, and cross reference flight information with routes and cargos. Start with chartered flights. Nigma, help with the analysis."

He sat back, smiled, and steepled his fingers as his agents went to work. If all you want was to see what others saw, gaining access was relatively easy and undetectable. Namidian presence in the various SoCal wastes and ruins was still strong and though ITSDA had a lot of presence in SanFran, he had contacted some people from the deposed regime who had either gone underground or "retired." It was a network of favors and resources spread thin like a net. He didn't know what he was watching for or waiting to happen, but he wanted to be prepared to take advantage of as many situations as possible when they did. Almost all of it though, could not be connected back to his organization or even Namidias. He smiled happily like a spider sitting at the center of its web. He was ready to pounce on GTF, ITSDA, or even Namidian forces if necessary to achieve his goals.

NON-CANON BATTLE POST

They'd prepared immaculately, and it was time to let it happen.

As the train ran towards a long tunnel, the two-dozen people on top stood motionless. Three members stood alongside one another, sporting black jackets, red scarves, and sunglasses. The man in the middle was taller and stronger-looking than the other two. Arms folded, he did nothing. His face was hidden behind a face mask with two red eyes. The man on his left held a remote, and the woman to his left watched via binoculars, counting aloud.


"5. 4. 3. 2."
The man next to her held up a remote as the train shot into the tunnel.
"1."
He pressed down on a red button.

Just before the train reached the end of the tunnel, a ring of red lights appeared, and then exploded.

Instantly, the first two cars of the train were crushed under the end of the tunnel's collapsing rocks, and the whole thing slammed to a stop.

Immediately, the motionless people in military gear and two of the red-scarved people leaped down, dropping rappel lines for the people behind them.

The entire train was stuck in the tunnel, and anyone on it had a great deal of work to do if they wanted out.

On either side, a row of twelve soldiers marched, stopped, and turned to face the train.

The woman on one side stepped onto the train and hoisted herself to the roof. Staring across at Gwen (disguised as Faye), she held a fist out to her side and a two-foot spike of what appeared to be water formed in front of it.

"Doctor Loveliss!" She called. "We're commandeering your train for a little..."

Every soldier present drew their guns and pointed at the train, blasting it with bullets, killing anyone and everyone who came out the doors, and even the ones who didn't. (Full metal jackets, no doubt) When the gunfire died, Parasol finished her sentence.

"...target practice."

On the opposite end, the man that came down with her had made his way to the roof as well.

"Look, just hand over the Rig and we won't hurt you." He says calmly.

"Faye" stood and looked back and forth at the two. They'd planned this out very carefully. She couldn't fight them, not on her own.

"Faye" reached back into the ether and pulled the real Faye's mind into hers. Instantly, the two women felt their minds become almost entirely the same, with the smallest possible amount of themselves still present.


The woman took up a new stance and held one hand out to the man across from her as the illusion melted, revealing her as Gwen.

"Bring it." Gravity slammed down on the man's general area, 5  times Earth's normal gravitational force, and to her immense surprise, he took it like a champ! He hunched over at first, but then he stood tall and grinned.

"That all you got?" He taunted, before the gravity doubled and he fell to one knee. The force was so intense that he couldn't speak.

"Gwen, right? Well, let me notify you that my buddy Rocket can fly at 200 miles an hour. Also, we know you won't even risk killing him, so the level of G-force you're using on him is almost nothing." Gwen immediately threw up a telekinetic barrier to block what felt (in as much as one could feel through telekinesis) like a giant fist.

Glancing back, she saw that there was a broad, visible field of energy over the woman's fist, like an open umbrella.

"I'm Parasol, by the way. Nice little shield you got there." Her umbrella spun briefly, shrank to half the diameter, and a second one appeared in front of her other hand. Immediately, Parasol began slamming these 'umbrellas' into Gwen's shield, a shimmering pentagon hanging in mid air.

"Funny thing about you "tele"-types. Your powers (much like mine) require a lot of focus." The umbrellas began to spin, grinding against her shield with a nasty noise like the fabric of reality tearing. "And I know you're playing mind-footsies with the real Dr. Loveliss right now, so you've got her powers. But do you think that makes you unstoppable? Nah. One human brain can't actually multitask. It can't focus on two inputs at once. If you try, one is bound to be more taxing than the other. Two minds overlapping is another story, but I bet you'll still find yourself..."

Abruptly, Gwen realized what Parasol was saying and turned to look at Rocket, catching a 50mph haymaker and getting knocked off the train, onto the concrete floor.

"...slipping from time to time." Rocket finished.

Parasol wrinkled her nose. "I was going to say 'getting distracted,' but 'slipping' works."

Gwen stood up -her jaw was definitely cracked a bit- and used Faye's powers on the roof of the tunnel to tear free rocks to drop on them from above. Immediately, Rocket floated slightly to the side, and Parasol raised her shield above her and merged them into one. The rocks clashed against the shield, but it was only a distraction. With Faye's powers, she then reversed the gravity of the train car they were standing on, slamming Parasol into the ceiling. This definitely caught her by surprise, because when Rocket body-checked her like a motorcycle, they crashed to the ground and Parasol stopped moving.

Gwen used Faye's powers to reverse Rocket's personal gravity, sending him up towards the ceiling. The Gifted responded by orienting himself properly and forcing his powers to accelerate downwards at a faster rate than gravity.

Across two minds, the same synapses fired, and gravity reversed again, knocking the villain into the ground at the speed of his own flight.

A nasty crunch filled the air, and he arched his back. Flying into an upright position, he landed quickly on his feet. His torso was holding itself at an odd angle, but he was still in the fight.

Quickly, Gwen used gravity to slam Rocket back to the floor, and brought down several small rocks to break his shoulder and thigh-bones.

CRACK!

The man cried out in pain, and Gwen winced. No casualties, Faye insisted.

I know! Gwen responded mentally, reaching out with her own powers. piercing the man's feeble resistance, she found herself perusing the topmost layer of his mind. There, she found a very vivid image in his mind's eye.

***

Just under the surface Rocket's mind, Rocket was standing there, in front of Gwen and Faye, looking like he did outside his mind; broken in several places.

Who are you working for?

Eheheheheh... He chuckled darkly.

Gwen mentally raised an eyebrow before attempting to delve deeper into his mind.

Suddenly, something lashed at her and Faye's dual-mind like a whip, and they recoiled, snapping back to reality.
***

Rocket wheezed out a raspy laugh, and stood up like a possessed ragdoll, despite the forces crushing him. "I don't know what's fucking funnier: The fact that you think your titless ass intimidates me," He glanced behind him, where the footsoldiers had ammassed and were grabbing a hold of his arms and legs, "or that you'd think my boss would let me live if you did!"

In the nastiest thing she'd ever seen, Gwen realized the swoldiers were ripping the man limb from limb, black smoke swirling up around them. "And now I'm being fucking eaten! So now it's FREE GAME! The one who sent me was ~GLRK~!"

BANG!

His neck got blown apart by a gunshot from behind Gwen.

Turning around, she saw something slightly scarier. A man, standing seven feet tall, with muscles on top of muscles, wearing a big black coat like his friends, but open, and with a red scarf tucked into his shirt. His mouth, nose, and eyes were covered by a gas mask of some kind, with glowing red lenses. He held a FAMAS in his hands.

" *kuuuh* Nitro." He rumbled, in a coarse voice like an avalanche, breathing heavily before the word.

Gwen blinked. "That... that's your boss?"

"*Kuuuh* No. *kuuuh*" He said simply. "I am *kuuuh* Nitro."

The reactor on Gwen's back roared to life again, pumping electricity into her to be absorbed. "Well, Nitro, you could have shot me while I had my back turned. Too late now. I couldn't get any info out of your friend..."

Quickly, 12 times earth's gravity slammed into him, bringing him to his knees. "I'm guessing you need this mask to breath, but let's give that mind a look-see first. But before that...

She reached back and blasted the soldiers to the other end of the tunnel with a wave of gravitational force, doing her best not to puke at the mangled remains of Rocket.

Looking back, she saw Nitro walk past her. Shocked, she turned to look at him.

He reached down and hoisted Parasol by her neck. " *kuuuuuuh* WAKE UP!" He roared. Squeezing her neck, she jolted awake, coughing. "NITRO?" She asked, startled. "Why are you--" Nitro reached up and unlatched his mask. "Nonono! I can still do this!" She screamed, horrified and desperate.

Nitro ignored her, and the mask came off with a clattering of buckles. "Our boss doesn't give second chances, Parasol." pale smoke flowed from scarred lips as he talked, and she started coughing as soon as she breathed it in. "The rule is: you succeed or you die." He threw her aside, and she landed among the slowly recovering soldiers. Grotesquely, they began to grab her and lift her, the way they did with Rocket. Looking back and forth, her eyes turned black and she began to scream. "No! Sir! I can still fight! I'm sorry! I'm SORRYYYYY!" The soldiers didn't breath a word, ripping her apart and smothering her with thick black smoke.

Nitro reattached his mask and turned back to Gwen. "So  *kuuuh* sorry *kuuuh* you had *kuuuh* to see that." He apologizes, still breathung heavy. "Look, *kuuuh* before I *kuuuh* fight you, *kuuuh* I would like  *kuuuh* to make  *kuuuh* an offer.  *kuuuh* Surrender.  *kuuuh* And you *kuuuh* both have *kuuuh* a chance of *kuuuh* surviving. My boss *kuuuh* wants me to *kuuuh* make you *kuuuh* suffer.  *kuuuh* And he wants *kuuuh* Dr. Loveliss *kuuuh* to be connected *kuuuh* to you *kuuuh* while I *kuuuh* do it. *kuuuh* Disconnect from *kuuuh* Dr. Loveliss *kuuuh* and you may *kuuuh* both be spared *kuuuh* a great *kuuuh* deal of  *kuuuh* psychological *kuuuh* trauma." Despite breathing like Darth Vader meets Bane, his offer seemed... somewhat genuine? "I can only *kuuuh* offer you *kuuuh* this chance *kuuuh* once."

Gwen remained wary. "You mean, you're only going to offer it once."

The man's lenses stared blankly at her. " *kuuuh* No." He insisted. " *kuuuh* I meant it *kuuuh* as I *kuuuh* said it. *kuuuh* I can only *kuuuh* offer this *kuuuh* once."

Gwen bit her lip, having an internal debate with Faye.

***

Gwen, don't you dare disconnect me.
I don't have a choice! We both saw what they did to their own people just for screwing up! I don't want to be ripped apart, and you don't want to be connected to me when that happens!
We can fight them, and we can win!
They're heavily armed. We've got your gravity powers and minor telekinetic shielding. That's it.
You're forgetting your Gift.
Alright, but they're some kind of zombies! How do I know anything I can do to their brains is going to work?
It's a gamble, but we can't surrender.
... Fine. We fight?
We fight.

***

"*kuuuh* I hope  *kuuuh* you've come *kuuuh* to a *kuuuh* decision." Nitro sounded almost sincere.

Almost.

Gwen held a hand out to both sides and Faye slammed gravity down on Nitro's group. Reaching out with her mind, Gwen then used her powers to try and mess with the zombie group's endocrine system.

That was a mistake.

***
Inside Gwen and Faye's fused mind, something crawled around them.

Well? Faye asked.

Gwen probed the soldiers' minds, and was shocked to find nothing.

Nothing. She replied.

Gwen, that's not what I'm asking you.

No, I mean there's nothing in their minds. Their brains aren't in proper functioning condition. They're... empty inside.

Then a new psyche entered the mix.

Hello ladies. Hope you don't mind if I join you.

Who are you?

Just your friendly neighborhood psychopath! Call me Kane.

It took them a moment to process this.

Abruptly Gwen's combined mind was severed from everyone at once.

Gwen!

I'm sorry.

***

Now that she was disconnected, she lost Faye's powers, and Nitro approached. " *kuuuh* You made  *kuuuh* the mistake *kuuuh* of looking *kuuuh* into my *kuuuh* boss' *kuuuh* mind. I *kuuuh* offered you *kuuuh* a chance *kuuuh* to surrender *kuuuh* without *kuuuh* being hurt." He unbuckled his mask, and a pale gas filled the air in front of him.

"You lost that chance." He said, every word propelling the smoke-like stuff from his lungs.

Remarkably, Gwen never reacted to the gas.

"Aaaaany minute now." Nitro tapped his foot a little.

"I can control my endocrine system. I just stimulated it in the right way, and your poison does nothing."

"But you would have to understand its chemical makeup." Nitro argued. "I never revealed this, and you did not use your mind powers on me at any point."

Gwen grinned. "Your name gave it away. Nitro, as in dinitrogen monoxide, an anesthetic used by dentists. I just gave myself the right amount of adrenaline to counteract the depressant effect."

Nitro nodded, impressed. "Very well done. But what about the fear toxin?"

Gwen's smile faltered. "Fear toxin?"

Nitro's form began to change before her eyes, becoming one with the mass of shifting blackness that was the other soldiers. Then the red eyes of his mask spread and multiplied across their combined form. Then they broke apart and became giant spiders.

And then the screaming started.

Gwen lay propped against the train car, clawing at her own face, screaming like a madwoman.

Nitro sighed, putting on his mask with one last puff of gas. " *kuuuh* I'll  *kuuuh* start up *kuuuh* the chopper." He walked over to one of the rappel lines and climbed back up onto the roof.

In minutes, a military-grade VTOL aircraft was picking up the zombie soldiers. One of them grunted, gesturing to Gwen.

Nitro shook his head, standing in the hold of the vehicle. " *kuuuh* No. *kuuuh* She's broken, *kuuuh* and they failed *kuuuh* to prevent casualties. *kuuuh* Our work here *kuuuh* is done."

NON-CANON BATTLE POST

They'd prepared immaculately, and it was time to let it happen.

As the train ran towards a long tunnel, the two-dozen people on top stood motionless. Three members stood alongside one another, sporting black jackets, red scarves, and sunglasses. The man in the middle was taller and stronger-looking than the other two. Arms folded, he did nothing. His face was hidden behind a face mask with two red eyes. The man on his left held a remote, and the woman to his left watched via binoculars, counting aloud.

"5. 4. 3. 2."
The man next to her held up a remote as the train shot into the tunnel.
"1."
He pressed down on a red button.

Just before the train reached the end of the tunnel, a ring of red lights appeared, and then exploded.

Instantly, the first two cars of the train were crushed under the end of the tunnel's collapsing rocks, and the whole thing slammed to a stop.

Immediately, the motionless people in military gear and two of the red-scarved people leaped down, dropping rappel lines for the people behind them.

The entire train was stuck in the tunnel, and anyone on it had a great deal of work to do if they wanted out.

On either side, a row of twelve soldiers marched, stopped, and turned to face the train.

The woman on one side stepped onto the train...

...and fell flat on her face. Startled she scurried to stand up, and realized her body was somehow melded into a car coupling though she felt nothing. Following pre-established orders those with her opened fire on the train itself, and three were killed by friendly fire while another trio were injured; the transport remained untouched. Just then, the illusion faded out leaving the would be attack squad standing alone in an empty tunnel.

Suddenly down the track a short distance, from around a bend, came the real train. It was then the source of the team's bedevilment was known, for standing on top of the engine with his cape snapping smartly in the wind, and his top hat still somehow on his head, was none other than Black Magic. As though he were on a stage, the prestidigitator bowed, and showed an empty hand that an instant later held an ace of spades.

The assault team turned their weapons on their real target, blasting countless rounds in hopes of crippling the train; however, every bullet that escaped the mouth of the tunnel turned into a brightly hued, and harmless, soap bubble. The Hero of Gaultown tossed his card toward the opening, the bit of pasteboard seeming to grow bigger...

...only this was no illusion. Parasol thought to focus her shields, yet she was a shade slower as the edges of a giant Ace folded around the tunnel edges. She concentrated her fields on the barrier, trying to dislodge it, but it seemed the paranormal beat out physics at least in this instance. When she stopped her effort, the others loaded fresh clips and tried; their rounds bounced back at them, leading to them abandoning that course of action shortly after they had started. The only one to escape was Rocket, who had managed to remove himself from the makeshift prison right before the 'door' closed. As a consequence, he alone was absent when hidden gas bombs emitted a toxic and deadly substance. Knowing all who served Him were connected, Parasol called out in her mind;

'Nitro, no! We can still serve, we can win, we...

...have failed. Only the strong deserve to follow him, the weak must be culled.

The female Red Scarf tried to continue the mental argument, but her thoughts took longer to form and the meanings of words blurred. For a second time she and those with her fell dead, only at least now they were buried.

---

'It's time, are you ready?'

In his mind, Black Magic could see both Doctors he had been assigned to help. The world around them was breathtaking, a melding of each mind at different levels creating something that was easily beyond words. The former rogue protector of New York gave a bow, and smiled at the pair before him.

'Yes, and I have the utmost faith in both of you.'

The projected Gwen nodded, then began to increase Peter's connection to the women; it was something unlike he had ever experienced before, his memories as well as theirs laid out for them to see.

The body of Black Magic remained unchanged, yet the being inside it was now a melding of three; thrice the will, trey the power. Lifting his hands up, the creation summoned Faye's Gift, then coupled it with her own experience to push it out and encompass the entire train. The transport failed to slow down as it reached the blocked tunnel, but instead of crashing it defied gravity itself and began to lift toward the heavens. Up, up, and up still it soared, its momentum carrying it across tracks of air as though they were solid steal. When it reached the rocky peak, natural force was gently reasserted to allow the train to head toward its intended path the trapped tunnel had denied it access to by conventional means.

Before the engine resumed its Earthly bonds, Rocket put both fists straight out in front of him and flew at full tilt toward the magic man; this Gifted had some neat tricks, but one two hundred mile an hour sucker punch would bring this whole show literally crashing down. He was closing in on his target in a blur, only one car away from the performer...

...suddenly he felt a weight on his back, and something clamped over his eyes blinding him. Rocket reached to his face, and felt hands holding tight to his head.

"WHAT THE HELL!!!

"YEEHAW, RIDE 'EM COWGIRL!

"You want a ride, you little bitch?! I can go two hundred miles an hour, I'll give you your last ride!

"Only two hundred? Man, that must be embarrassing! Don't worry, I promise won't make fun of you to your face. The Internet, now that's different..."

Beyond words now, the young man just let out a guttural yell and barrel rolled; Vandal wrapped her legs tight around his chest and held on. He flew at full tilt then stopped suddenly, yet still his passenger refused to budge. Taking a guess, he aimed for what he though was open sky, and flew straight up; he guessed the right direction, but body slammed straight into the S.A. drone that had been following the train; Vandal jumped free just before impact, and watched the fused wreck of man and machine fall to smash into the ground below. Not wanting a similar fate, the speedster started to run in a circle as she plunged downward; she managed to create a cushion of air, and landed without issue. Then, still chuckling over some hothead thinking two hundred mph was a big deal, she once more used her Gift and took off after the train which was now back on the tracks and still heading for Seattle.

---

Still melded with the others mentally, Black Magic's enhanced senses heard a strange noise over the rushing wind around him;

*kuuuh*

A masked face turned to look down the length of the train, and standing two cars back was an unknown figure; A man, standing seven feet tall, with muscles on top of muscles, wearing a big black coat like his friends, but open, and with a red scarf tucked into his shirt. His mouth, nose, and eyes were covered by a gas mask of some kind, with glowing red lenses. Through the connection, Faye lashed out at this beast of humankind and increased the gravity around him by ten fold; his steps never faltered nor did he stagger, walking straight on as though unaffected. The force was increased, until the man's boot left dents in the metal surfaces he walked upon, but still he came without issue. Finally, he was on the engine with Vargus.

"*kuuuh* Nitro *kuuuh*"

The magician bowed formally, arm across his cummerbund, before straightening himself and replying;

"Well met my good Sir! Would I be remiss in guessing that you were somewhere above the tunnel, and grabbed ahold of the train as it leapt the tracks only to once more find them?"

"*kuuuh* Yes. *kuuuh* Where is *kuuuh* Doctor Loveliss? *kuuuh*"

The hero gave a look of mock surprise.

"Oh dear, she is not on board? Must have overslept or misplaced her ticket, poor lady. Try not to be too broken up about it old chum, for I hear they are serving pudding for desert in the dining car."

"*kuuuh* No *kuuuh* games. I *kuuuh* felt her *kuuuh* power, *kuuuh* I know *kuuuh* she's nearby. *kuuuh* Tell *kuuuh* me and *kuuuh* your death *kuuuh* will be *kuuuh* less painful *kuuuh* then I *kuuuh* normally handle *kuuuh* such matters. *kuuuh*"

"That offer in no way seems appealing to me, yet it would be rude of me not to answer a guest aboard my train, so she is right before you and yet far beyond your reach."

"*kuuuh* I said *kuuuh* NO GAMES!! *kuuuh*"

Nitro charged at Black Magic, in the same instant the caster used Faye's power to decrease the gravity around himself and the villain; the mage vanished ina puff of smoke to reappear further back on the engine's top, while Nitro himself was going faster than he planned and plunged off in front of the speeding locomotive.

'NO! My powers are used to help Mankind, not kill it off!'

In their private internal world, Faye had a look of horrified shock upon her projected face.

Peter smiled gently, and in soothing tones said;

'Do not fret, worry causes wrinkles they say. I can assure you my dear, from personal experience, that such ilk as his do not go down so easily as that.'

True to his insight, a hand reached up for a hold right before Nitro pulled himself back up from the front of the locomotive he'd clung to for fear of failing his master. He walked toward the prestidigitator who remained calmly where he was, and made to swing a second time; he pulled his punch however, so when the conjuror appeared behind him the massive villain swung around and delivered a gut punch.

Black Magic doubled over once more, but this time it wasn't to bow; before he could recover and think clearly, Nitro delivered a knee to his opponent's chin, followed by a solid left and then right to the jaw. A haymaker crashed into top of the guard's head, sending him in a heap to the metal surface below. A trial of red leaked out of the side of the caster's jaw, dripping evidence of its existence on the engine's top as the man himself struggled to breath.

Nitro reached down, grabbed the mage with one hand and hauled him up like he was a rag doll, then slapped him hard across each cheek with his other massive hand.

"*kuuuh* One more *kuuuh* time; *kuuuh* where is *kuuuh* Doctor Loveliss?*kuuuh*"

'Will I do?'

Like a psychic sledge hammer, Gwen reached through her connection to Black Magic and slammed into Nitro's mind; she saw death, destruction, senseless mayhem, and yet all she witnessed was shadow; images on a screen, and not the real memories themselves. Moreover, there were no thoughts, not a single one, just these phantoms taking up the abyss of what should have been an active mind. She could sense something, but it was a new sensation for her; thinking it to be a shielded or Gift empowered mind, she flew towards it.

Suddenly, she was no longer moving forward of her own will, yet being sucked there as though by a vortex of immense strength. There was some form in front of her, though she couldn't make it out. Still, it pulled her ever closer as a voice spoke out.

"Wow! Not only do I get a babe delivered to my doorstep, she's smoking hot too! You're going to be fun to play with, but I should warn you I have a bad habit of breaking my toys. But hey! You get to be with me, so win win right? Let's just hook up the strings, and see how my sizzling little puppet dances!'

Gwen tried to fight against the flow that was like turbulent rapids, panicked as she felt a connection between herself and this stranger tried to force itself on her; then, suddenly, the attack lessened. The psychic looked behind her, and saw both Faye and Black Magic; of course! Gwen hadn't cut her link to them before entering Nitro's mind, so they were still tethered to her. Working together, they had turned it into a lifeline. The voice sounded once more;

'And just who is playing in my sandbox? Whoa, another hot chick? Wow, I must of won a lottery or something! And there's also... ...A GAY DUDE?!?! No way man, not cool, not fucking cool at all! Get out of here, but leave babe number one, I saw her first!'

The entity tried to increase its pull to suck Gwen in, but the competing minds outnumbered it three to one. The stranger lashed out with a wave of chaotic thought, yet Black Magic combined his focus with the scientific reasoning of the other two, and it dwindled to nothing. The alien mind let out a frustrated cry;

'Arrgh! Hey, you're cheating, and it's only fun when I do it! I don't want to play anymore, get out!'

The grip on Gwen was released, and with the pull the other to had on her she snapped out of the villain's hollow mind. Both he and Black Magic blinked, and the big man reached up to remove his mask. Vapors drifted from his revealed face into Black Magic's nose, and the latter looked up with a pleasurable expression on his battered features.

"Ah, spring time fresh!"

Nitro slapped his enemy with the mask, then replaced it as he dropped Black Magic; for good measure, he kicked the other man hard enough to roll him a few feet against the rushing wind. One hand dug into a pocket, and pulled out a little box that had two buttons on it; he pressed one, then the other before looking back at the pummeled hero.

"Leaving so *cough cough* soon good Sir? What *cough* a pity, I had just *cough* sent for tea. *cough cough*"

"My job was to destroy this train, and kill Doctor Loveliss. You now know I serve a master, but too do I know the woman I'm after isn't aboard. Still, I can complete one mission objective, and severe her link here through you. You care so much for this mass of steel? Very well, then you can ride it all the way through the Gates of Hell!"

Nitro walked back several feet, took a running start, and kicked Peter so hard in the head his body flew up off the engine before crashing back down. He vision blurred, faded, and he slipped into Oblivion; his waking mind vanished suddenly from before Faye and Gwen, giving them a whiplash of agonizing pain each to deal with best they could. A helicopter responding to a signal made it's way to and hovered over where the villain was, a rope later dropping down; Nitro grabbed ahold, and was airlifted away from the unconscious hero atop what was now a Death Train...

---

Vandal was worried; she'd seen Mister Scary leave the train, and she would have thought since the transport was still rolling that her partner for this assignment had bested him; but she couldn't raise Black Magic on her earpiece communicator, and worry was gnawing on her gut. Increasing her speed even more than she had been currently at, the young woman managed to pass the speeding locomotive while scanning the tops of the cars for any sign of her other Gaultown hero. By chance, she noticed something out of place; two round objects with a red timer each, firmly attached to the metal under it and counting down from five seconds.

Realizing the reason the other man had left the train now, Vandal refused to give up on saving her coworker if it were at all possible; then she saw something, a black clad sleeve ending in a white glove dangling over the edge of the engine. She looked back to the timers;

4

Vandal turned around and ran in the opposite direction of the train, until she was back behind the end of it by a bit.

3

She started back toward her friend again, building up as much speed as she could; when she reached the last car, she jumped up and ran along the side of it.

2

The heroine flipped over to the top of the containers, traveling so fast now flames trailed behind her. She saw the limp form of the magician, and scooped him up in a fireman's carry as she leapt off the engine and hit the ground still at her blazing speed. Parts of her and Black Magic's cloths began to smolder and smoke, but she gave not a thought to such things as she ran down the tracks.

1

The bombs detonated simultaneously, the high powered charges instantly reducing the engine to nothing more than a fireball. The shockwave ripped down the line, derailing cars while those closest to the front were fed straight into the twisted inferno the engine had become. The ties and rails were blasted apart as well, so any wheels that weren't knocked off in the initial destruction found nothing to ride along seconds later and toppled over.

Vandal had gotten clear of any harm, and when she thought they were safe she stopped to check Black Magic's pulse; she sighed in relief when she found he still had one. She pulled out a small device, and changed the setting of her earpiece so she was broadcasting on a secure channel.

"Vandal here. There were people waiting at one of the possible ambush spot we identified, the tunnel, and we dealt with most of them without much issue. However, one guy managed to trash the train, but not before he beat the stuffing out of Black Magic. I'm going to get him to a hospital, the meet up with Transport Two per orders."

Without awaiting a response, the impulsive young woman was off at again a great speed seeking help for her injured comrade.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 19:38, Thu 30 June 2016.

The track rattled beneath Peter Vargus's feet, startling him fully awake for an instant before exhaustion set in again. His employers train had been in motion for almost an hour without even the slightest hint of Brian's promised Namidian attack. Being reduced to mundane 'guard duty' rubbed hard against the Black Magicians showman-like personality, and the train's carriage swayed hypnotically as it turned with the tracks. He stifled a yawn as he met the eyes of his travelling companions.

Vandal was doing better than himself, although not by a lot. Her ITSDA training ensured that she wouldn't drop her guard for a moment during her mission, but her active personality seemed to be struggling against the tension-laced boredom off her duty even harder than Peters. She rubbed a grain of sleep out from the corner of her eye and sighed irately.

Frank Jackson flashed her and Peter a yellowed grin, and lent back leisurely in his seat. Their situation hadn't seemed to have affected him in the slightest, and Peter wondered whether Frank's Gift prevented him from feeling the passage of wasted time as keenly as the rest of Brian's enforcers- Or maybe that wasn't it, and Frank had simply honed a resistance to boredom through years of staking out criminals back in his P.I days. Peter couldn't say for sure.

The specific details of their security were being played close to Brian's chest, but Peter had been granted special insight into the true details of their mission. Somewhere on the the car itself was a device that purported to be able to turn off Gifted abilities, although the details were beyond even his own intermediate grasp of technology. He was certain that it involved turning off small parts of it's targets brain, which sounded ominous, but he'd been assured that his worries were unfounded. Even now he was being reassured of this fact by the trains fourth passenger, who was maintaining a mental link with him. The passenger sitting opposite him was technically 'Gwen', but from his current mental vantage point Black Magic could see that the truth was a little more complex than that, and that the mental borders between Gwens' linked consciousnesses were occasionally rather fuzzy; the Gwen-Faye amalgamation effect was further enhanced by the fact that he was maintaining an illusion to disguise one as the other. When he had imagined concern at deploying the dangerous and lightly-tested technology of 'Gift box inhibitors' Gwen's mind had informed him that the device wouldn't be used on him personally- but when he'd persisted to grow concerned about the morally grey area of human experimentation, even against villains, his subconscious had been invaded and suffused with a serene sense of calm acceptance. He stopped worrying.

The group sat in uncomfortable silence for a while longer. The knowledge that they might be attacked at any moment, but that they could do nothing for now but wait, had soured the journeys atmosphere. Finally, the monotonous wait was broken as Jackson's cellphone buzzed. He answered it, and put it on speaker.

"Brian, Tell us that something's come up. I knew that today wouldn't be tha' usual gig... but yer' cheap train doesn't even have a drinks cart!"

---

"Frank, Don't say that! They say that news is good news, but that isn't the case right now..."

Brian strode about his Seattle tower anxiously. He'd decided not to board the train with the others or to meet up with them at Burlington-North, since he'd be able to co-ordinate his team just as effectively from the comfort of his own home- surrounded by his technological aids. His own share of effort would come later this day- when Fayes device would need to be installed.

"JOHNNY has detected an unregistered aircraft approaching the train. You can probably see it from the left window. It's keeping outside our engagement zones, but seems to be keeping pace with you."

There was a pause, and a scuff of noise as Jackson re-positioned. In that brief time Brian's phone buzzed with a text alert; Green's security personnel had just discovered the intrusion themselves. JOHNNY had been able to hijack some civilian radar installations to watch over the skies during the trains journey, but demanding fine details from the devices had been difficult- and so the specifics of the threat were still a massive question mark. He used his mental link to tap into his phone, and sent off a quick query to 'Blue Horizon' for more specific information. He knew that they already had a jet in the air, and that their detection abilities exceeded his own. They replied almost instantly, and Brian put Frank on hold to hear their message out.

"What c-"
Brian tried to speak first, but the second the call patched through a serious female voice cut across his. Brian had the highest stakes in this operation, but it felt as though the information operator on the other end was taking the situation even more seriously than himself. A hardcore professional, he decided.
"The target is definitely a threat. It's wingspan and profile match that of a 'Predator D' type UAV. Loadouts include variable missiles, and superior surveillance systems. About two years ahead of standard military tech. Two stolen drones of that pattern are known to be in the possession of a Namidian known as 'The Commander'."
Brian mentally queued JOHNNY to start slicing into civilian networks. If Commander's capabilities were based on military procedure he knew that it would have a degree of onboard self control, but would be being directed via low-latency radio or targeted optic bursts. Knowing Namidias, Brian felt confident that the commands would be encoded within civilian wavelengths. Between cellphones, mobile internet, satellites, and relay towers there were too many potential leaks for Meta to account for- and his two options were to hack every device in range, or to blot off the whole spectrum with a jamming burst. Neither option appealed, and both would put the GTF into an awful light if they were ever traced back to him; He had already begun to toe the line between altruistic vigilantism and criminal activity by overthrowing a certain Googlplex's security measures, but despite his actions he had no intention of ever crossing that line completely. Thankfully, he was spared having to overthink the issue as his phone spoke out again;
"I have isolated Commander's network output. Bringing the drone offline now..."
Brian was surprised! His computer-assisted brain had informed him that the number of network nodes that the drone could have been using numbered well into the millions. Even with his cutting-edge technology Meta would have taken days, or longer, to hack them all! He marvelled at 'Blue Horizon's' capabilities, but then remembered that the organisation was owned by, or at least invested in, by Namidians- the villains had a reputation for concealing plans within plans, and it stood to reason that they had just as many countermeasures prepared against each other than they did against their enemies. Countermeasures that they hadn't shared with himself. Brian wasn't at all surprised by that.
"Good work. Keep it out of my airspace. My machine needs testing on Gifted, so I'm not interested in playing with robots today. Well... not someone elses robots, anyway."
"Understood."
Blue Horizon's line clicked dead. On the far end of the line 'Nigma allowed herself a rare smile as she sent the order through to ruin her rivals afternoon...

---

The University of Berkeley was howling, the venerable building had an array of both old and modern alarm systems- which were currently competing to deafen the students and teachers trapped within.

Five figures dressed in form fitting jumpsuits and identical featureless helmets moved through the chaos with a singular purpose. Their unusual armour shifted hues as they walked, blending them subtly against the natural colours of each room they passed through. The group had penetrated deep into the University campus, but almost the instant that the intruders had set foot out of Berkeley's public section they had been discovered by armed campus security, and the situation had only escalated from there. The specialist stealth unit 'Numbered Brethren' had been forced to abandon their quiet infiltration, and instead were now blazing a desperate path toward The Ring's last known location.

Grainy CCTV footage of the small attacking force played on a security monitor, and a panic-room of crowded investors watched it nervously. The monitor was housed in a small room of only several feet across, panelled with steel walls, and staffed by two armed guards and over a dozen wealthy academics. The University regularly paid host to such visitors, and on this precise day had extended an invitation to several well regarded philanthropists to take a tour of it's facilities- all in the hopes of securing much-needed grant money for its students, and their projects, of course. Timothy Connars had planned this event since receiving the news that Faye planned to quit his university for Seattle; and he had to use the opportunity of her departure to focus his investors attention onto other projects before they'd have a chance to lose interest. His attempt had been snubbed by the current attack, and he'd been forced to remove his guests to a secure area for the duration of the crisis- one of his potential backers demanded that he be made aware of the situation and, reluctantly, Timothy had tapped them into the facilities security feed. Doing so would be bad press, but after Faye and Gwen had either taken or destroyed millions of dollars worth of past investments he felt as though he wasn't in a position to protest any of their Commands.
Still, the man was shrewd enough to know how to turn an issue into an opportunity, and even as he was switching cameras to follow the squad of high-tech burglars he exulted his own campus relentlessly.

"As you can see, our recent projects have drawn some... unneeded attention. The renovated building they're attempting to break into used to house the project that I recommended to you during our last meeting, however your investments are secure- as I've been thoughtfully informed that the completed device has been removed from the area. Our unwelcome guests are due to meet our security force soon, who are laying a trap for them even as we speak."

Voices filled the secured room, mostly from men and women who were outraged that he'd just admitted 'The Ring' was no longer in his control. Timothy sighed inwardly. Even though the philanthropists he was trying to appease purported to be interested in human advancement he doubted that was the entire story; right now they seemed solely concerned with their investments.
"What kind of trap?"
A single steely voice cut through the rest, perhaps by virtue of it being the only one more interested in the present situation than the Ring itself. For some reason Mister Connars felt compelled to answer it.
"The University is proud to say that we employ both Gifted and unGifted security personnel. Furthermore, our state of the art alarm system is tied directly into AGF and Law Enforcement watchlists. Our visitors are unaware of the danger they're truly in."
Timothy flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile to the man who'd spoken out. The financier simply scowled back- the mans expression was made unnaturally serious by his close-shaven red hair, authoritarian blue-grey business suit, and naturally furious expression.
Come to think of it, Timothy had forgotten the backers name, which was unlike him. Nevertheless the man's credentials had passed cleanly through security, and a quick credit check confirmed that he was a likely donator- Timothy felt confident that he'd be able to refresh his memory once he got the man to sign a few sponsorship grants on the dotted lines... assuming that he could somehow pull this botched event out from the fire.

The rooms attention turned back to the monitor, where the burglars were unwittingly walking into Timothy's promised trap. The man himself had a crisis of conscience, and decided to turn off the display- his backers had a right to watch over their own safety and finances, but televising a potential shooting seemed like several steps too far. His finger hovered over the displays power button as he cleared his throat to gather the rooms full attention.
"Men, Women, Associates- I think we should let matters play out from here. Once again I apologise fo-"
"Keep running the security feed."
The stern philanthropist cut over his speech, and his demanding tone finally pricked Connars nerves the wrong way. Something about the man seemed... off... anyway, credit checks be damned!
"Please take a seat. Sir. I can assure you that nothing can breach this saferoom, OR our secure laboratories, you have-"
The man lost interest in Connors and turned to face one of the security personnel beside him. His voice suddenly intensified, and distorted disturbingly.
"That's enough of this farce. Give me your gun."
His targets eyes glazed over, and before anyone in the room could react the funder had seized a weapon to put a bullet through the kneecaps of the second rooms guard. The disarmed, first, defender regained his senses and tried desperately to draw his sidearm, and was disabled as his Commander cracked him in the jaw with his own rifles stock. The room broke out into panicked screams which were silenced as The Commander emptied the weapons magazine into the air- the gunfire in the tiny enclosed space was all but deafening.
"SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"
He claimed the defeated security guards weapons for himself, reloaded, and pointed his rifles hot barrel at Mister Connors and three other investors from among the dozen currently cowering beneath his stare.
"You. You, you, and you too... We're leaving to meet the soldiers outside. NOW! The rest of you- run for your lives!"

---

According to 'Bretheren One's' intelligence she was standing before a room designated 'The Box', which had been 'The Ring's resting place up until a few hours ago. Her Commander had mounted his attack now in the hopes that the reduced security measures to defend the empty lab would make gathering any remaining information worthwhile. First, though, she had to get through the thick set of steel blast doors which served as the labs only entrance.
Bretheren One pressed a strangely gloved hand on the doors control panel which buzzed as it passed an electrical pulse into the doors systems, although they only slid open by half an inch before violently slamming shut again. She made another attempt, and was rewarded with a similar result. Her helmet display told 'One' that her automated circuit-striker software had successfully executed, but it looked as though something else was keeping the portal sealed.

Before she could reconsider her options she was cut by a suited man herding a group of hostages marching into view.
"Commander, Sir."
She greeted him. The man had obviously dropped his disguise, which was a very bad sign. Commander had deployed himself strictly on an Intel-gathering mission, and it was her own team that was meant to be taking the physical risks today. His being here meant that the plan had hit a significant complication.
"What's wrong?"

"Berkeley have Gifted on their security force. AGF are about 20 minutes out. Ammo."
The last word of that sentence was directed at Brethren 'Five', who pressed a spare clip of 9mm bullets into Commanders outstretched hand. The Namidian exchanged it for one from his stolen pistol.

Brethren One nodded. Inwardly she was vexed that he'd went off plan, but Commander's stance on other Gifted was well-known; The warlord would trust his soldiers to fight off almost any threat, but had a strong dislike for pitting his forces against Gifted- No matter what tactical simulations he ran even lightly powered Gifted seemed to make a mockery of his men. That meant that he'd dropped his disguise to assist N.B in their battle.
"What Gifts do they have?"
She asked. Commander prodded Timothy sharply with his gun.
"You heard her- What Gifts?"
"Get fuc-"
"Speak."
"Time manipulation and body enhancement."

The Commander *tsk'ed* angrily and paced restlessly around the room as he thought up a strategy. The Numbered Brethren maintained their characteristic silence. A plan was formulated almost a second later.

"CIVILIANS IN THE CORNER! MOVE! 'One' and 'Two' take that entrance and cloak up. 'Three' and 'Four' take the other. 'Five' hold me and the others hostage."
Commander knelt with the other prisoners, and kicked all his weapons away but a pistol he kept clasped behind his back. In this position he would appear just like any other hostage.
"If any of you civilians move or speak during this fight I will NOT consider you a 'protected noncombatant'. Is that understood? Good. Let's try to get through this cleanly."
He counted down seconds in his head. From what he'd seen while still under disguise he was expecting the UC security force to make their assault any moment... now!

As he counted '0' the enemy made their move, although neither Commander nor any of the Brethren were able to perceive it. Time slowed, and the battle was decided in the space of a single second. A figure blurred through the room.

All the 'Brethren's' silenced weapons fouled and jammed, which left them helpless as a physically impressive man in a Berkeley-Security uniform dived to tackle 'One' and 'Two' with an incredible lunge. Commander found that he was suddenly standing upright, neck crinkled painfully aside to a sharp angle, and found his own pistol pressed tightly to his temple. Brethren 'Fives' weapon also fouled as he tried to shoot the man who had instantly appeared before him, and the last two burglars were too slow to react before the man tackling their leaders spoke aloud. Very aloud.
"SURRENDER YOUR WEAPONS, HANDS ON YOUR FUCKING HEADS, OR WE DROP YOUR LEADER!"
Damien's enhanced physique gave him a very intimidating presence, and the struggling 'One' and 'Two' didn't look as though they could shake him off even with a joint effort. The young man holding Commander hostage (this time, he was a real hostage) was Earnest Crane, who's time manipulation must surely have been the reason why N.B's pistols had all been jammed in the blink of an eye. The Brethren paused uncertainly as they tried to recall their contingency plans, and found that they hadn't prepared for such a sudden and effortless defeat. 'Three' looked nervously to his Commander, as though expecting orders.
"Do-"*Glark!*
The Commanders attempt at communication was strangled as Crane dug a knuckle into his windpipe. Damien snapped a finger at the burgler.
"Eyes on me, son! You already made one shitty decision by attacking my campus, don't make two."
With their chain of Command in pieces, and Commander himself taken rarely by surprise, it looked as though their options had expired. N.B had always been trained to favour stealth over conflict, and in a situation like this it seemed like capture was slightly preferable to outright destruction. Slowly 'Three', 'Four' and 'Five' dropped their useless weapons and placed their hands behind their heads.

Suddenly Commander twisted in Crane's grip, and seized him with a grapple of his own! The young man and the Namidian struggled while the rest of the battlefield erupted into an all out brawl! Crane found his gun arm swatted away before he could pull the trigger, but the slightest application of his Gift allowed him to recover his aim. Earnest grimaced as he pulled the trigger twice into The Commanders side at point blank range. The bullets passed cleanly through Brett's suit, to smash into the flesh beneath. The villain went limp, but as his suddenly dead-weight pulled them both to the ground the Namidian exacted a final act of revenge by knocking the security guard out cold with a viciously desperate headbutt.

That left Damian to beat down Five assailants by himself. Each of the Brethren still had their strange taser-gloves, but whilst they might be enough to subdue a normal threat they only served to inconvenience the Gifted warmachine. He slammed 'One' into the ground, and stamped heavily down on 'Two's' ribcage, which gave him time to react against his remaining three opponents. 'Three' slung his useless weapon at Damians eyes in a weak distraction attempt, before nimbly ducking low and sending an electric punch into the powerhouses stomach. Damian winced and almost lost his footing, but held his composure long enough to reply with with a vicious uppercut that dazed his opponent and broke them apart, he followed up with a second jab to the thief's helmet to make sure that he stayed down before 'Four' and 'Five' leapt to pull him to the floor. Their shocking grips numbed his muscles, but on the way down he managed to twist his weight to drive his elbow into 'Fours' solar plexus. One enemy left. 'Five' pinned Damian to the ground and tried to seize his neck in her grip, the man stopped the attack short by using his forearm as a shield, and tried to free his off-hand out from under himself so that he could finally put an end to the brawl!...

"Stop-"
A wheezing and thin voice came from Cranes position. The Commander wasn't quite dead, at least not yet. His voice carried obvious strain, but it's disturbingly authoritarian quality was still unmissable.
"- Stop resisting."
Damien's grip slackened as The Commanders Gift took effect, which gave 'Five' the clean hit she needed to force her stunning grip around the mans neck! Berkeley's head of security shuddered and shouted as currents of lightning grounded themselves into his nervous system, before finally falling into a shocked insensible sleep.

The Brethren picked themselves back up, and unjammed their pistols. All were beaten up, although their wounds had been relatively minor. The Commander managed to stand on shaking legs; His suit was damp and blackened where he'd been gunned down, although the amount of blood was far less than what should have been expected. The Namidian fought to work through his discomfort, and tore open his shirt to reveal half his torso was painted with a disgusting black bruise and pits of crushed flesh- but that he'd only suffered debilitating fleshwounds.
*Pah!*
Commander spat out a thick gob of blood. A film of cold sweat on his brow prove that he was trying very, very, hard to suppress any weakness.
"-and Orwell still thought rubber bullets were a bad investment. Hah!"
He limped towards 'The Box's' door, and attempted to gain entrance. His Bretheren's hacking tools had failed, but Commander had premeditated this invasion to exacting details, and knew that public buildings always had absolute safety-countermeasures built in. He could overide whatever was keeping them locked out by abusing health and safety requirements. He decided that the fire-security system would be his best bet; one incendiary grenade, a fire alarm, and a third use of 'One's' glove later and the group finally succeed in forcing their way through. Commander entered 'The Ring's' birthplace.

He'd accomplished the most difficult part of his mission, but wasn't at all happy about how he'd gone about it. His victory against Damian and Crane had been entirely down to desperate improvisation, and he was once again reminded of how little his own Gifts actually registered on the grand power-scale. More and more it seemed as though his enemies had an undepletable supply of Gifted servants ready to do their bidding, and Commander worried what kind of future would be written if the rumors surrounding Faye's ring were accurate. He scowled down to his two unconscious opponents, and calmly stamped his heel down onto their kneecaps and elbows with sickening crunches- Commander didn't kill his enemies, especially ones who had only been doing their job, but he couldn't leave these two in any position to foil his escape. Cruel, certainly, but the two rubber bullets in his side had not put him into a sympathetic mood.

---

"Sir! We've got nothing!"
'Two' had torn the side off a desktop computer, and was currently holding it's hard drive in his gloved hand. The device told him that huge swathes of information had been removed from the drives internal records, and similar results across the lab confirmed what Comander had initially feared; the Laboratory hadn't just been abandoned, it'd been almost completely stripped bare.
"They've burned their records. They probably took whatever they needed with them."
There were scraps of information, to be sure, but nothing concrete. A few scattered statistics graphs that were meaningless without context, half-words written on scrubbed whiteboard, and a handful of junior-research projects that hadn't yet been moved from the lab- the only one of which that even interested Commander being a prototype concept for a new form of Ion-pulse engine. Commander supposed that one of the researchers must have an interest in space travel. He stole the research notes for that, but only because they were the only thing of value still remaining in the room.
"That leaves one last area to check. Be quick, the AGF won't be far behind us."
Commander limped to the aforementioned last room of Faye's former research labs.

The last section of the research centre was locked behind a heavy steel door like the first, although Commanders 'health and safety' override had failed. He guessed that this door had been installed separately, and that whoever'd placed it hadn't let the building standards authority examine it. Smart choice. With his hacking tools still struggling, and not nearly enough time left to cut a way through, he was almost tempted to give up and begin his escape- Instead he turned to his hostage, Timothy, and began a rhetorical conversation.

"Don't you think it's strange that my saboteurs can't pick any of your doors? I do. That's practically their only job... don't you also think that it's strange that they were also discovered so early on into their mission?... Or that your Gifted security seems to have been aware about my identity only minutes after I played my hand?... Or that the kid with the time-gift knew to disable my speech?... Those complications have been playing havoc with my plans today. It's almost as though something -else- has been working against me this entire time."
Commander stared Timothy down, who simply stared back stubbornly.
"I'm not telling you shit."
His response was short and to the point. Clearly he was hiding something, but Commander didn't need to use his Gift to guess what.
"You don't have to. I already know what's been going on-"
Commander smiled to Timothy in an anything-but friendly way, before his glare hardened onto a nearby security camera:

"OPEN THIS DOOR."

Something from the cameras must have heard him. The doors hissed open, and the tunnel approaching it immediately began to fill as seawater surged through it. The group stepped back as they watched their unexpected discovery- and through the doors they could vaguely make out that the rest of Faye's facility from this point onward had been rendered useless through flooding.
"Huh... Not what I'd expected to find."
Commander's voice seemed unperturbed, but his sterner than usual face made it obvious that he really wanted to scream curses until his face turned blue. He wondered this new development could mean; had it been a self-destruct mechanism? Did it mean that the university connected to the ocean? Why in Namidias's name would it do that?! What else was he missing? Thoughts of subterfuge and misdirection worried as his subconscious.
"There's nothing left for us here, 'One'. Time to leave, have the Vans swing around."
Saying that, Commander limped his escape from UC Berkeley. Badly beaten, but with enough knowledge and hostages at his disposal to create a new plan, Commander felt as though he'd gathered enough to count the day as a 'win'.

---

In a certain undisclosed location, in a square metal room surrounded by glowing monitors...
"Sir! Communication with Megalodon has been interrupted! She's dead in the air!"
"WHAT?!"
Tudor stamped over to the drone-technicians desk, and glared at the display showing on his screen. Surely enough, the computer displayed nothing more than an unhelpful 'Error #900- Disconnect timeout' message. Something had removed him from the complex path of proxies and buffers that connected this particular desk to that particular weapon- which meant that Megalodon was now sitting dead in the air.
"Reconnect! Retry! Reroute! -do your damn job, man!"
The technician panicked under the Namidian Lieutenants scrutiny, but no matter what he tried he was unable to regain control. One rerouting attempt flashed Megalodon back into their network for a brief second, before that link too was severed- the single moment of visual contact they'd established confirmed that the multi-million dollar drone was coming out of it's glide, and had begun hurtling uncontrollably toward the ground.

"Someone's knocking out our access points!"
"How is that possible?! Have we been compromised?"
"Uhhh... negative, Sir! Trackback checks are coming up negative!"
The technician tried to think how his Commanders plans could be being preempted if his network didn't show any sign of intrusion. He realised one answer, but was worried by it's implications.
"Sir. The output servers we use are all Namidian botnets- that must be what they're targeting."
"The Namidian network has been infiltrated, then?"
"...or we're under attack from within the Organisation."
Both the technician and Tudor panicked in relative silence. Either implication was extremely troubling.

Suddenly the connection returned, and every screen in the room lit up as Megalodon's cameras all focused on it's declining altitude and the ground rushing toward it! Tudor shouted out a shocked syllable as he began to demand that his technicians rescue it from it's crash- although he needn't have bothered since that'd been their first reaction anyway.

The connection stabilised, and Megalodon returned to Tudors control- he breathed a sigh of relief. Somewhere a buzzer was pulsing and several of the screens were flashing a 'Dangerous altitude' warning.

"Status?"
"Returning to full speed and altitude, Sir. Correcting heading onto previous target..."
"Belay that!"
Tudor decided to take an executive decision. Whoever had disrupted his control had returned it only moments before it would have cost Commander dearly. It was no coincidence that the attack had subsided at the very last second.
"We're nearing our airspace buffer as it is. Let's not take any more risks- turn her around and bring her home. Use the full security measures before landing."
"Sir."

Tudor took a heavy seat in The Commanders throne, and rubbed a pang of tension from his neck. That had been close, and he doubted that The Commander would react well to learning that one of his favourite toys had almost been destroyed. His thoughts turned slowly, and a deep frown etched his weathered features as he considered what to do next... events from a moment ago suggested that there was a strong chance that Namidian operations had been compromised from within. That was something that certainly couldn't be left uncontested...

---

The rushing sound of displaced water, and the rumbling fuselage of a submarnine in motion, had been Faye's world for the last two hours.

She had settled into a nice, almost meditative, routine. Her gift kept her safely enclosed by a bubble of oxygen, whist her connection to Gwen allowed her to extend her thoughts out. Personally she felt mixed emotions about her mission so far, 'The Ring' was safe- and the fact that neither herself, nor the convoy, had been attacked prove that her security measures had been effective- although perhaps a little extreme. The train was under threat, however, which at least prove that her measures had been necessary. She resisted the urge to press into Peters or Gwen's mind, she had a job of her own to focus on- and peeking into the thoughts of others would have to wait until her own task had been dealt with.

GIPS, on the other hand, was a different story- and AI's seemed to be having a more eventful time than herself. Since GIPS's mind and her own were fundamentally one and the same it'd been an easy task to spectate it's action. The AI had identified a threat on her old campus, and had made a mockery of a group of thieves attempting to raid her old lab. By sealing doors, alerting security, and relaying strategies it was making life very difficult indeed for the invaders. One of the raiders had a gift, although not a powerful one- they had only seemed to have gotten as far as they had through strategy, but neither GIPS nor Faye felt that was any justification to let them survive this encounter- even as they expended every effort to break into a lab that Faye knew contained little more than memories. At one point they encountered her old security force, and although Faye's heart hardened as she saw Damien take a beating she at least felt some sympathy for Earnest as he was crippled- the young man had been of questionable loyalty, but still necessary and eager to help in her experiments.
Finally, the invading force somehow seemed to overcome the odds and enter 'The Box', where they found nothing. Both parts of Faye's mind watched as they searched fruitlessly, and found the subterranean tunnel that'd been left flooded in Vector's wake- even from her fairly light meld Faye could feel GIPS's satisfaction as they failed to use a simple trick to circumvent the doors lock. The 'leader figure' suddenly turned to face one of the labs security cameras directly, and spoke aloud...

"OPEN THIS DOOR."

The Commanders inhuman voice shot through GIPS, back through Faye, an continued on to echo back through her entire neural network! Commanders command had reached far further than he'd intended. For a moment Faye felt her shared mind dull and numb over, and even felt the beginnings of a headache as her psyche tried to process the (to her) illogical order.

The headache was nothing compared to the half-ton of seawater that crashed into her as her concentration wavered, the air bubble around her collapsed, and the rush of pressure threw Faye under water to bounce her off Peters submarine. Vector's vision pulsed black and red as consciousness threatened to abandon her, but she managed to keep herself alert through sheer force of will- whatever mind-numbing effect had hit her vanished after a few seconds, and she felt the waterproofed generator on her back hum with power as she used her Gift to reattach herself to Brian's hull, and regather her supply of oxygen.

Faye brushed a strand of wet hair out of her face and swore hard at nothing in particular. She used GIPS to patch her through to Mister Jameson- which it duly did. Whatever had hit her felt nothing like Gwen's emphatic 'mind meld', but she had to be sure that it wouldn't leave any residual effects. Or that it's echo hadn't interfered with the 'train team's' mission.

"Brian? Yeah- no- no!- I'm all right. Our task is still going well, that's not why I called. I need you to identify someone's Gift for me..."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Sun 03 July 2016.

One of Dieter's gretest strength's was that any agenda he ahd was completely artificial. He had no hopes, desires, or wishes beyond one and that was an easily satisfied goal. It was the only thing he cared about; fulfilling her last wish. As such, he had to fill his time with artificially goals; things he agreed to do for others relaly. THe first and biggest of these had been Namidias' of course, but there were others. He had a more than normal sense of loyalty to the Namidian structure, though many of his fellows did not. They were, after all, villains. Many of them were just that, thugs and criminals. Few of the Namidians had the scope and sweep of vision like Dieter or Brett, but a little betrayal was in order today. His goals, artificial or not were the focal point of his life.

He took a deep breath as one of the monitors showed the ambush of the train. He watched as a series of explosions and a clud of dust signalled the train's sudden stop. Dieter might have been able to stop the ambush if he had looked closely enough, but that had not been his orders. There were four people alive on the train who needed to remain alive. He briefly wondered if the ulitmatum about lives applied to the villains...

"Sir, we have a visual of the attacking force... it is not good."

He looked at the screen where several men with red scarves were raining a hell of bullets into the train. His men had the specks on the cars though and knew that fusillade was having no serious effect. His organization had some small records of these crazed people and it was a hard thing to see them involved. hepressed his hadns together so hard as to make them pale and shake then sighed and all teh tension went away. He watched calmly as the four super powered emerged to face off with the Red Scarves. "Monitor the battle closely. You know what we are looking for."

He switched his gaze to another montior and saw streams of code and windows flciking rapidly. It comfused him all really, but the analyst viewing it followed fast enough to report to him what was going on. Watching the varios AIs that had become a real problem for his life walking around like digital godzillas in cyberspace was irksome, but not overly problematic. "Sir, it appears that the Ai associated with Vector has allerted authorities about an intrusion at the Berkeley Campus... it... I think this is Commander's assault. Wait, Sir, we are getting a request about a drone in the CZ from Mr. Jameson..."

He waved a hand, "Route it to Nigma."

---

Brian strode about his Seattle tower anxiously. He'd decided not to board the train with the others or to meet up with them at Burlington-North, since he'd be able to co-ordinate his team just as effectively from the comfort of his own home- surrounded by his technological aids. His own share of effort would come later this day- when Fayes device would need to be installed.

"JOHNNY has detected an unregistered aircraft approaching the train. You can probably see it from the left window. It's keeping outside our engagement zones, but seems to be keeping pace with you."

There was a pause, and a scuff of noise as Jackson re-positioned. In that brief time Brian's phone buzzed with a text alert; Green's security personnel had just discovered the intrusion themselves. JOHNNY had been able to hijack some civilian radar installations to watch over the skies during the trains journey, but demanding fine details from the devices had been difficult- and so the specifics of the threat were still a massive question mark. He used his mental link to tap into his phone, and sent off a quick query to 'Blue Horizon' for more specific information. He knew that they already had a jet in the air, and that their detection abilities exceeded his own. They replied almost instantly, and Brian put Frank on hold to hear their message out.

"What c-"

Brian tried to speak first, but the second the call patched through a serious female voice cut across his. Brian had the highest stakes in this operation, but it felt as though the information operator on the other end was taking the situation even more seriously than himself. A hardcore professional, he decided.

"The target is definitely a threat. It's wingspan and profile match that of a 'Predator D' type UAV. Loadouts include variable missiles, and superior surveillance systems. About two years ahead of standard military tech. Two stolen drones of that pattern are known to be in the possession of a Namidian known as 'The Commander'."

Brian mentally queued JOHNNY to start slicing into civilian networks. If Commander's capabilities were based on military procedure he knew that it would have a degree of onboard self control, but would be being directed via low-latency radio or targeted optic bursts. Knowing Namidias, Brian felt confident that the commands would be encoded within civilian wavelengths. Between cellphones, mobile internet, satellites, and relay towers there were too many potential leaks for Meta to account for- and his two options were to hack every device in range, or to blot off the whole spectrum with a jamming burst. Neither option appealed, and both would put the GTF into an awful light if they were ever traced back to him; He had already begun to toe the line between altruistic vigilantism and criminal activity by overthrowing a certain Googlplex's security measures, but despite his actions he had no intention of ever crossing that line completely. Thankfully, he was spared having to overthink the issue as his phone spoke out again; "I have isolated Commander's network output. Bringing the drone offline now..."

Brian was surprised! His computer-assisted brain had informed him that the number of network nodes that the drone could have been using numbered well into the millions. Even with his cutting-edge technology Meta would have taken days, or longer, to hack them all! He marvelled at 'Blue Horizon's' capabilities, but then remembered that the organisation was owned by, or at least invested in, by Namidians- the villains had a reputation for concealing plans within plans, and it stood to reason that they had just as many countermeasures prepared against each other than they did against their enemies. Countermeasures that they hadn't shared with himself. Brian wasn't at all surprised by that.

"Good work. Keep it out of my airspace. My machine needs testing on Gifted, so I'm not interested in playing with robots today. Well... not someone elses robots, anyway."

"Understood."

Blue Horizon's line clicked dead. On the far end of the line 'Nigma allowed herself a rare smile as she sent the order through to ruin her rivals afternoon. She watched a timer in her HUD that would tell her when she needed to cede control back again to prevent excessive loss of assets to Commander's team. She wa alreadys risking breaking the mission's third rule by using her access to teh Namidian dark networks to affect the solution, but as long as no toehr clues were dropped, SA's involvement was clouded by there being far more Namidians than people thought. She opened a line of communication to Dieter and filled him in. She had begun to appreciate the man as few were smart enought to even truly apreciate her.

---

In a certain undisclosed location, in a square metal room surrounded by glowing monitors...
"Sir! Communication with Megalodon has been interrupted! She's dead in the air!"
"WHAT?!"
Tudor stamped over to the drone-technicians desk, and glared at the display showing on his screen. Surely enough, the computer displayed nothing more than an unhelpful 'Error #900- Disconnect timeout' message. Something had removed him from the complex path of proxies and buffers that connected this particular desk to that particular weapon- which meant that Megalodon was now sitting dead in the air.
"Reconnect! Retry! Reroute! -do your damn job, man!"
The technician panicked under the Namidian Lieutenants scrutiny, but no matter what he tried he was unable to regain control. One rerouting attempt flashed Megalodon back into their network for a brief second, before that link too was severed- the single moment of visual contact they'd established confirmed that the multi-million dollar drone was coming out of it's glide, and had begun hurtling uncontrollably toward the ground.

"Someone's knocking out our access points!"
"How is that possible?! Have we been compromised?"
"Uhhh... negative, Sir! Trackback checks are coming up negative!"
The technician tried to think how his Commanders plans could be being preempted if his network didn't show any sign of intrusion. He realised one answer, but was worried by it's implications.
"Sir. The output servers we use are all Namidian botnets- that must be what they're targeting."
"The Namidian network has been infiltrated, then?"
"...or we're under attack from within the Organisation."
Both the technician and Tudor panicked in relative silence. Either implication was extremely troubling.

Suddenly the connection returned, and every screen in the room lit up as Megalodon's cameras all focused on it's declining altitude and the ground rushing toward it! Tudor shouted out a shocked syllable as he began to demand that his technicians rescue it from it's crash- although he needn't have bothered since that'd been their first reaction anyway.

The connection stabilised, and Megalodon returned to Tudors control- he breathed a sigh of relief. Somewhere a buzzer was pulsing and several of the screens were flashing a 'Dangerous altitude' warning.

"Status?"
"Returning to full speed and altitude, Sir. Correcting heading onto previous target..."
"Belay that!"
Tudor decided to take an executive decision. Whoever had disrupted his control had returned it only moments before it would have cost Commander dearly. It was no coincidence that the attack had subsided at the very last second.
"We're nearing our airspace buffer as it is. Let's not take any more risks- turn her around and bring her home. Use the full security measures before landing."
"Sir."

Tudor took a heavy seat in The Commanders throne, and rubbed a pang of tension from his neck. That had been close, and he doubted that The Commander would react well to learning that one of his favourite toys had almost been destroyed. His thoughts turned slowly, and a deep frown etched his weathered features as he considered what to do next... events from a moment ago suggested that there was a strong chance that Namidian operations had been compromised from within. That was something that certainly couldn't be left uncontested...

---

Dieter scanned the reports of what had occurred at the University and was impressed, as always, by Brett's planning. The man was a formidable ally and someone worth it to not make an enemy. Luckily, if everything went as planned, he would not. He turned his attention back to the train and grunted in annoyed acceptance. The Red Scarves were trouble makers and annoying, but Dieter had enough respect for the three gifted helping out the scientists to not bu surprised at the outcome. HE was glad he had decided that the "no casualties clause" had not applied to those men as several bodies were already laying about. A few clung to life by the readouts, but most did not. He *tsk'd* aloud and looked at his techs, "Did we get more combat data on Vandal and Black Magic?"

"Affirmative."
"Good. Send it to Gau... Curacao for analysis." He still wasn't fully used to not having access to the Gualtown facility. There was no replacing that asset. It irked him.

He watched as some strange masked man removed that device and started spewing some kind of gas. A spectrographic analysis came up quickly and he raised an eyebrow at the contents of the noxious spew. He almost laughed aloud as Frank Jackson, the man who needed no pseudonyms, put two slugs from his "special" gun into the man's chest. Then four more. He shook his head. That battle was of no concern, the university had been fine. Everything was proceeding according to plan. There was just one more loose end to tie up.

<purple."Nigma, have you found it yet?"</purple>

"Not ye..."

---

The rushing sound of displaced water, and the rumbling fuselage of a submarnine in motion, had been Faye's world for the last two hours.

She had settled into a nice, almost meditative, routine. Her gift kept her safely enclosed by a bubble of oxygen, whist her connection to Gwen allowed her to extend her thoughts out. Personally she felt mixed emotions about her mission so far, 'The Ring' was safe- and the fact that neither herself, nor the convoy, had been attacked prove that her security measures had been effective- although perhaps a little extreme. The train was under threat, however, which at least prove that her measures had been necessary. She resisted the urge to press into Peters or Gwen's mind, she had a job of her own to focus on- and peeking into the thoughts of others would have to wait until her own task had been dealt with.

GIPS, on the other hand, was a different story- and AI's seemed to be having a more eventful time than herself. Since GIPS's mind and her own were fundamentally one and the same it'd been an easy task to spectate it's action. The AI had identified a threat on her old campus, and had made a mockery of a group of thieves attempting to raid her old lab. By sealing doors, alerting security, and relaying strategies it was making life very difficult indeed for the invaders. One of the raiders had a gift, although not a powerful one- they had only seemed to have gotten as far as they had through strategy, but neither GIPS nor Faye felt that was any justification to let them survive this encounter- even as they expended every effort to break into a lab that Faye knew contained little more than memories. At one point they encountered her old security force, and although Faye's heart hardened as she saw Damien take a beating she at least felt some sympathy for Earnest as he was crippled- the young man had been of questionable loyalty, but still necessary and eager to help in her experiments.

Finally, the invading force somehow seemed to overcome the odds and enter 'The Box', where they found nothing. Both parts of Faye's mind watched as they searched fruitlessly, and found the subterranean tunnel that'd been left flooded in Vector's wake- even from her fairly light meld Faye could feel GIPS's satisfaction as they failed to use a simple trick to circumvent the doors lock. The 'leader figure' suddenly turned to face one of the labs security cameras directly, and spoke aloud...

"OPEN THIS DOOR."

The Commanders inhuman voice shot through GIPS, back through Faye, an continued on to echo back through her entire neural network! Commanders command had reached far further than he'd intended. For a moment Faye felt her shared mind dull and numb over, and even felt the beginnings of a headache as her psyche tried to process the (to her) illogical order.

The headache was nothing compared to the half-ton of seawater that crashed into her as her concentration wavered, the air bubble around her collapsed, and the rush of pressure threw Faye under water to bounce her off Peters submarine. Vector's vision pulsed black and red as consciousness threatened to abandon her, but she managed to keep herself alert through sheer force of will- whatever mind-numbing effect had hit her vanished after a few seconds, and she felt the waterproofed generator on her back hum with power as she used her Gift to reattach herself to Brian's hull, and regather her supply of oxygen.

Faye brushed a strand of wet hair out of her face and swore hard at nothing in particular. She used GIPS to patch her through to Mister Jameson- which it duly did. Whatever had hit her felt nothing like Gwen's emphatic 'mind meld', but she had to be sure that it wouldn't leave any residual effects. Or that it's echo hadn't interfered with the 'train team's' mission.

"Brian? Yeah- no- no!- I'm all right. Our task is still going well, that's not why I called. I need you to identify someone's Gift for me..."

---

"Not ye...WAIT! Sensors at various Naval stations... yes, yes. Something. It was only a blip. The Navy is writing it off. Here sir. It fits the time table and the estimated routes if by sea."

Dieter scanned the readings and nodded. Just for a second off the coast of northern California weather buoys had noted a significant but brief disturbance. He grinned. "Don't let them ignore it."

---

Brian was pacing again when JOHNNY suddenly alerted him, "Sir, the navy has dispatched ships to investigate an anomaly. I believe the anomaly investigated is ours." Brian grunted as if gut punched. He had hoped their little ruse had succeeded. At worst, he hoped that it would be the Namidians that found the submersible. It was a complete disaster if the Navy found it. "No worries, Johnny, the little blip from... whatever it was is no over and she should be able to slip past them."

---

Dieter grinned as he saw the naval subs moving toward the area he had chosen. They were heading for where the anomaly had been and would not see the sub where it was now. No, not even Dieter had a good idea. He had been using many of the dirty little tricks his organization had perfected over the years to get a live, active location. The weather buoys that tracked water displacement were hard to use for accuracy and radar stations were obviously useless. He smiled as the best factor they had been using were animal movements in the area. Call in to whale spotting services and a few ships tracking fish and wildlife in the area didn't know to look for a certain pattern, but Nigma had found it. A path that was being avoided by the wildlife. Still, ti was a rough location but it would work. "Fire."

A pair of missiles detached from the wings of his jet which had been moving up the coast and dropped in freefall for a few seconds before their onboard computers came alive and the things fire off toward their targets. The jet then veered and began to follow a flight path laid out in precise details.

---

Deep in the water, Faye was running her ship in silence and felt the tension and nerves rising as the naval vessels moved right above her. She wasn't afraid of them seeing through her technological camouflage, but there were always things that could go wrong. She frowned suddenly as the ships seemed to hesitate. Had they spotted her. She reached out through her link to Gwen and breathed relief again that the other woman was worse for wear but fine, and used her Gift to reach up to the ship's. She sensed hundreds of minds on the pair of frigates an had to sift through them as fast as possible. She grabbed a random minds and drew from it the traces of its superior officer. A little effort found that man and so on. She bounced from mind to mind up the chain of command and found the Captain. he was surprised and shocked but giving orders. They were under attack. The man focused on someone at a radar station so she jumped to that mind and saw him tracking to inbound missiles.

Faye was a genius, a gifted woman of a deep intellect. She understood the laws of nature as few people did or could, but her knowledge of military hardware was sparse at best. So, she had no idea what those missiles were. She scanned all the minds in the command center, but none of them knew them either. Why was someone firing missiles at the navy? Brian wasn't that stupid; his PR campaign was his darling. Who? Had serendipity stuck? Was the navy being attacked randomly? But, no, this fleet was here to investigate the anomaly several hundred miles south that SHE had created. Brian had relayed that much. This was not a planned patrol; she saw that in their minds as well.

Reductio: that left only one reasonable solution. The missiles were not tracking the navy. They were tracking her! Instantly, her pet AI was in motion. With aid from the tower in Seattle, the missiles were analyzed, but revealed nothing. They were unique designs. Namidians: she knew it. The way they were flying, they were computer guided and had GPS. They just needed to find it and hack it inside a minute. Not even super-computer had that speed. There was no telling where to even look in the digital haystack that was modern communications. JOHNNY, GIPS, and even Meta himself were attacking as fast as possible and Faye sped herself up just a bit. Too fast and the navy above her would notice the sounds.

Seconds ticked away, people sweated, and they got closer and closer. Millions of possibilities, hundreds of thousands, thousands, hundreds, dozens... there, that was the signal. GIPS crowed in victory as the signal was isolated. No code was too complex for it to break at this points and there were ten seconds left. Plenty of times. Suddenly, the line went dead. The missiles impacted the water and the computer died. Not even died: fried. Someone knew that AI were involved. The missiles sank quickly and every mind in the vicinity braced.

---

Johnny chimed in, "We only had a split-second inside those computers. But it was enough to determine... they were not explosive. Those were..."

Brian's eyes went wide and his head snapped around as if, just for a second, he was convinced that looking would let him see the subs miles away as the two EMP devices fired. He groaned as devices like that should not have been effecgive against Faye, except she had not known they were coming.

---

Everything electrical in a wide area suddenly went dead. The sub went dead, the navy ships went dead, and even Faye went dead. It had been a calculated risk to use this technology against this gifted, but Nigma had been fairly certain that this would prove a weakness for the gravitational Gifted. Suddenly, the sub was visible to many of their instruments. Nigma grinned and then pulled up several photos from that morning and afternoon. Frank Jackson and associates seen speaking to the scientists, the same trio plus Gwendylynn Brighton in the attack on the "officially listed and approved" convoy north. She attached various affidavits and reports and then sent it all unceremoniously into a drop box on several admirals at navy high command. It was also sent to several noteworthy reporters at several famous news agencies. The attack on the train had not occurred in a populated area, but it could have; the naval incident didn't involved the public, but it could have as well. More examples of Gifted "agencies" putting the public at risk.

Dieter watched as the submarine carrying the Ring sank into the depths of the ocean and shook his head. A plan as risky as the one Brian had used had one serious weakness, if the secret was discovered the secreted thing was vulnerable. The goal of SA had not been to see the device safely to its destination. Nothing of the sort had been stated in their mission objectives. The device had not been activated, there had been no loss of life, and SA's involvement was a secret so far. Still, SA agreed with Commander's organization in one vein. Whatever the device Faye Lynn Loveliss had been working on simply could not be allowed in play. dieter disagreed in the vein that it could be left in anyone's possession.

The major problem here was that the device was not out of action, just sitting at the bottom of the ocean. He watched the monitors and navy vessels from all over the area began to converge on the spot attacked. Their first priority would be their comrades in dire straits, but an investigation of the underwater area would be in due order. Meta would also have to explain to the navy what the hell he had been doing operating a mission right under their noses.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 03:26, Mon 04 July 2016.

NON-CANNON BATTLE POST

See anything interesting Brighteyes? Faye's thought-speak cut into the vigil of the trip, warmth and amusement conveying through the low-level meld to both Peter and Gwen. The latter returned annoyance and a flurry of memories, the boredom of the trip so far stamped into them as she recounted every squirrel and tree she had noticed.

Gwen Brighton, bright of mind, of name, and of eyes, Peter interjected, already familiar with the non-verbal method of communication the trio now shared. You may want to re-evaluate that synopsis. If my lovely local assistant would be so kind as to join me up here, I believe I have something more interesting than the indigenous flora and fauna to observe.

New images floated into the pair's minds as the magician relayed what he was observing. Ahead, his ghost train was approaching a tunnel, the first of many such hindrances between Berkeley and Seattle. An instant before the first car entered, the mouth of the tunnel erupted in violent flares of light. The sound of the explosions reached them as they watched the train crumple, derail, and finally come to a sudden halt.

Behind the curtain of Black Magic's mind, the women watched the man work his magic; enjoyed a shared chuckle as he used what they expected against them, weaving their own narratives into his craft to completely sell the illusion. It was masterful, and Gwen was quite confident that she would never be able to match the level of detail and manipulation that Peter was capable of. It was clear the source of the man's power drew on his love for the performance, for the grand spectacle he was capable of, and for the moment when all was revealed. Watching his mind work, Gwen felt a moment of attraction, one she acknowledged and placed to the side for the time being. For the moment, she was more concerned with the enemies firing on each other through the magician's illusion.

Sadness and pity welled up inside the duo, tinged with disgust at man's incessant need to resort to violence prior to attempting understanding. Why must such suffering and needless waste of life continue? Do not fret, worry causes wrinkles they say. I can assure you my dear, from personal experience, that such ilk as his will cause much more waste should they be allowed to prosper. Shall we proceed, my dears?

As he asked the question, Gwen joined him at center stage, floating above and behind him as he bowed, flourished, then produced a simple playing card. Her face reflected focused, controlled intent as she watched him fling the card ahead of the train, watched as it flew straight at the mouth of the tunnel at a speed which defied explanation. As it expanded, the generator on her back hummed inaudibly, sparking to life with a blue glow. Ahead, the vectors of force for every person in the tunnel came to focus; and as they did, red lines began flipping to green.

As they scrambled to get away from their impending imprisonment they found themselves no longer pulled down. Gravity now stated that each person was the strongest source of gravity for the person next to him, and that normal gravity no longer functioned. Another wave of disgust rolled through the duo as they witnesses fellow killing fellow trying to escape. An even deeper sense of rage followed when Gwen felt several suddenly die; explosives hidden inside their bodies suddenly igniting, killing them and flooding the prison with toxic gases. Within seconds, none were left alive. She mourned quietly as the true consequence of her power translated their final feelings and emotions to her; even over this distance she could still sense them on the psynet, was still capable of sharing the fear and rage and hopelessness of dying several times over.

Yet not all of them were dead. Gwen still sensed a handful of soldiers who had survived, escaping their comrades' fate. She knew they were nearby, but not their exact positions. For the moment, they seemed to be waiting, pausing for the defenders' next move. In response, Peter stepped into the limelight again.

Flourishing his hands and striking a wide-legged stance, he spun to face the train and tapped into Faye's power. Exulting in the sight of a prime force of nature, and his newfound command of it, the magician lifted his hands above his head, slowly raising them as if he were Atlas elevating the world. In response, lines of force began to ripple and twist, colors swapping and lines contorting in ways that Faye herself hadn't even considered. It was magic, true fundamental magic, that caused the train to suddenly lift from its rails. As Black Magic's hands reached their apex, the locomotive loosed a powerful whistle and a giant blast of steam as the entire vehicle suddenly pitched toward the sky.
Rotating in place, Peter laughed from sheer joy at his most magnificent prestige. This was what drove him, what fueled his magic, what offered truth to his existing. Even as his intent and spirit was made known to the duo, a spark of regret floated between the three, shared simultaneously. If only there had been a deserving audience.

The resolution hardened in Gwen to make it so, someday, and accompany the man on stage. We can call this practice, and repeat the performance in Vegas, she stated, mind reaching out to pull both Faye and Peter deeper into the meld. She could sense the intent of their observers changing, and knew an attack would soon come. Sharing that experience had given them a powerful connection, firming the meld and focusing their intent.

Peter's link to the duo reached a full fifty percent, his consciousness capable of tapping into and providing direct individual input to the arriving Advent's mind. Yet the next miracle was the melding of Faye and Gwen's mind. Peter watched as time seemed to slow to a crawl, the borders between persona and ego between the two women dissolving. He watched as his simple observation, his idle presence, created new ripples of persona and ego separating the joining consciousness from his own. To others, the concept of a truly barrier-free merging of minds into mind was farfetched and impossible. It was ludicrous to think that one mind could be formed of two, capable of instantaneously interpreting sensory input from two disparate people and using that information to control those bodies.

Peter, however, knew the truth... Witnessed the truth. He saw quantum lines of possibility flowing in a spiral from one to the other, thoughts spontaneously erupting from the conjoined ether, revelations compressing into gems of wisdom profound enough to shatter all concepts of life and reason and meaning.

Mind established and time returned, and with it came the renewed attack by their red-scarved foes. A pentagram bloomed into being in the space behind Gwen as a flurry of bullets impacted it, along with a lithe form weilding spikes of psychic energy. A scream that was felt more than heard resounded through the air at the collision of psychic powers, but despite cracks spiderwebbing across the surface, the vast depth of the barrier defied penetration. Instantly, the Faye-lyn spun the Gwen-body around, forcing eleven g's into the direction Parasol was attacking from, flinging them both off the train and into the air, and scattering the hurtling form of Rocket with a nearmiss. Dropping the barrier, the Gwen-body slammed into Parasol, accepting a grazing hip-hit from her left hand, and crushing her blocking right hand to her body. The spike in the shield dug into the armor at the Gwen-body's chest, but the tough sparksuit had been upgraded by Brian, and was even sturdier than ever.

Out shot a pair of hands, grabbing the sides of Parasol's head as the girl screamed in rage and terror. Pressing her palms to the girl's temples, her eyes forced themselves into the struggling red-scarf's line of sight. At that instant, the conductive fibers in the suit's skeleton lit up with two-hundred twenty volts, nonthelal, yet utterly devastating to any sort of physical or mental resistance.

Peter felt the sudden muting of the meld as one would perceive the loss of an entire sense, one as vital as sight. He still had access to Faye's devastating power, and Gwen's self-enhancement psychic powers... But no longer was he in tune with every living sentient thing in the vicinity. No longer could he gaze upon and wonder at the most complex quantum computer in existence. The secrets of the universe were no longer understandable, yet were still imaginable. Answers no longer had questions even more, and were rendered incomprehensible.

This revelation arrived with the sound of a sinister breathing, a choking, wheezing gasp of suffering and evil.

*kuuuh*

A masked face rose above the front of the train, powerful hands grasping leverage out of corrugated metal, drawing behind a monster of a man. Standing seven feet tall, the man was a slab of muscle clad in a body length trenchcoat, a red scarf wrapped around his stump neck. Above the splash of crimson color, grotesquely covering his mouth, nose, and eyes: a mask. The monstrous contraption was filled with red-glowing chambers filled with some unspeakable horror; leading to the question of whether he created the foulness... or survived off it.

Channeling his rage at the loss of the sensation of the meld, Black Magic lashed out, bending gravity repeatedly around and down and through this new foe. The force was increased, until the man's boot left dents in the metal surfaces he walked upon, but still he came without issue. Finally, he was on the engine with Vargus.

"*kuuuh* Nitro *kuuuh*"

The magician regained control with conscious effort, painfully aware that, while he was capable of more precise and organic control of gravity than Faye was, he had nowhere near her level of strength. Yet now he had an inkling of... more... of his own power than he had considered before. Regaining his showman's pride, he bowed; arm across his cummerbund, before straightening himself and replying.

"Well met my good Sir! Would I be remiss in guessing that you were somewhere above the tunnel, and grabbed ahold of the train as it leapt the tracks?"

"*kuuuh* Yes. *kuuuh* Where is *kuuuh* Doctor Loveliss? *kuuuh*"

---

Beneath the Pacific, Faye had been spending her time in a state of near-meditation. Without the need, or even the focus it would require to apply her Gift to the water around her, Faye had donned scuba-tanks and a drysuit over her modified underwater sparksuit, and rested with her gravity tethered at seven times normal gravity to the Box. GIPS' backup was keeping visual surveillance with thermal imaging through her scouter, while the main persona bounced around the cyberworld looking into every nook and cranny of the net for any breach in protocol or security. Playing cybertag with her brother, she flooded the local nets with a lightshow of packet swarms and multi-spectrum system intrusions. Combining with Johnny's more practiced experience in infiltration, the sibling AI's hacked every system up and down the Pacific coast, slipping in and out without tripping alarms or triggering defenses. A small handful of systems subsequently gained sentience, but no sign was left behind as to the culprit.

Allowing herself to rely on her artificial mind, Faye had been granted freedom as well. Possessing control of the meld from the moment she was included, she had serialized all three party members' subconscious layers, running them in parallel to her own waking state mind. She had been playing with the wormhole from 2.214 since discovering it, and she hadn't been alone. Brian was a chronic sleep deprivee, but his Gift seemed to work whether or not he was conscious. He and Johnny had been processing this whole time on the subCon as well, calculating vastly greater amounts of information than Faye was capable of crunching. The return information had been cleverly hidden in the packetswarm returns from Johnny, and uploaded via psynet through Gwen. Faye had the information, and with the combined brainpower and emotional fortitude of three people, she had translated the data.

The message was clear...

"The door is open. Come inside."

"91%"

Using Gwen's Gift to suppress her own emotional reaction, Faye simply began to work. The arc generator on her back glowed through her suit as she gazed at the space in front of the ring. In her mind's eye, a perfect memory of the Box's new location sat suspended. Black Magic would never know it, but it was thanks to him that Faye finally grasped how...

Bending fields of force in the sub-light spectrum, Faye twisted and spun and wrapped lines as thick as redwood pines and deeper than the core of the planet, lines stretching from the moon, Sol, Earth's brother and sister celestial spheres. Her generator shifted from blue, to green, to yellow, to orange... The redshift of her entropic curse draining the very essence of potential from every atom in the equipment. Slowly, the lines bent and torqued, twisted and slipped... Then skipped...

For a heartbeat, Faye could sense the distance between herself and her target shrink to nothing. There was no normally visible sign, no portal rotating open, no evidence at all. Yet it was that instant that Faye was waiting for, that instant Brian had told her would come. He had made her a promise, and his delivery was magnificent. There, in an adjacent, unshielded room, sat the beating heart and soul of the GTF... Brian's cold fusion reactor Sol2.

Universal power surged through Faye in a torrent so massive she had to reduce her ability to draw energy or risk burning from the inside. The scope of her vision magnified to cataclysmic proportions, and with a thought the lines she had sought to manipulate crossed and inverted.

"Possibility is the cause of the singularity. If it becomes possible, you will be able to draw power through. I noticed it when I watched it forming. Quantum matching began three decades before the inversion."

He had calculated a 91% chance her pack would have enough juice to create the possibility. What would happen after that only Faye would ever know. For an instant, a hole ripped its way through the ocean at a thousand miles per hour. Cavitation from the displacement of two tons of seawater caused the subs to draw dangerously close to collision with each other, and created a subaquatic thunderclap audible for miles. Of Faye, the Ring, and the Box, there was no sign...

At least, not in the ocean.

Above, a circling liability declined redemption. Brian had offered the opposition the hand of peace, attempting to build a bridge forward to bring about the betterment of humanity. Senseless violence, greed, betrayal... This was humanity's legacy in the world thus far. Only those willing to do the unspeakable could bring about change. Once again a great power could have taken a step forward for the good of all.

Yet as the aircraft's secured systems powered on to transfer the guidance information to the warheads, GIPS and Johnny were waiting. The pair had been scouring the net, GIPS existing entirely autonomously on the psynet and the internet and Johnny running light-speed laps back to home base to keep Brian informed real-time. The man had been chugging coffee religiously since two days prior, but he knew sleep was yet something he couldn't afford. Having crunched Faye's data, he had launched into overdrive to complete preparations on his end. To that end, LUCY had been helpful beyond expectations, the third-generation AI showing her advancements on her older siblings as she absorbed their learning through Brian.

Together, man and AI had combined to create the world's largest womb, the birth chamber where Faye at least hoped to birth the Age of Space Colonization. Brian had goals of his own, but Faye's dream was one he believed in with almost as much conviction as the woman herself. To that end, he had driven himself nearly into an early grave to finish preparations.

"Nearly being the operative word," he muttered distractedly to himself as he watched GIPS and Johnny run tracers and flight-control mod-progs into and through every connected system in the duplicitous flying command center. A furious battle ensued, flashing quicker than light as the onboard defenses unleashed their retort, striving to drive out the invading systems. In the cockpit, a woman screamed in rage, her controlled visage shattered for an instant as her impregnable fortress shuddered and began to crumble under the assault.

"Nigma, sitrep!" Dieter snapped, realizing at the same instant that something was direly wrong. The craft began to navigate North, abandoning it's previous orbit and making a bee-line for Seattle.

"It was a trap!" the woman spat, fingers blasting across multiple screens as she started a series of counterhacks, switchbacks, and threaded restore loops to try and baffle or capture one of the three attackers. "They piggybacked in on launch codes! Fuck they're everywhere! "

" Handle it, woman," Dieter said, voice ominously low as he rose from his seat.

Nigma simply snarled in reply, plugging three micro-drives into the system and dumping her own special surprises into the fray. Two Slaughterhouse AI's and a Reaper Defender worm smashed into GIPS, forcing an eject loop that cracked her Ego Soma. In an instant Nigma struck, blasting past the mind's paralyzed defenses and striking at her persona core.

"Your precious AI is mine now, bitch!" she snarled as her Defender programs drove both Johnny and Brian from GIPS' defense, and quickly from the ravaged system. The moment the pilot gained control he followed his training, dropping altitude and setting course for the nearest safe landing zone. Inside the system, Nigma found GIPS' core code and began to rewrite it, remaking the AI into her own tool.

Finishing her modifications, her finger flashed toward the execute command... Pausing for an instant to hover. Rationale kicked in, and before she could bring the repurposed AI back online she saved a backup on her micro-drives. Satisfied that nothing could fail, she hit Execute.

ACKBAR PROTOCOL ENGAGED. #ITWASATRAPALLALONG

In the belly of the aircraft, the EMP missiles had been forgotten about by all aboard the craft... Their payloads undelivered. Upon seeing their warheads, Johnny had tied their detonation sequences to the Ackbar Defense Protocol he had uploaded; a psynet onAwake function that was attached to the soul of GIPS. The only time it could ever be opened was if her ego were cracked, and the activation was the duo's first shared memory... Not their own, but Faye and Brian's...

---

The Commander's PDA lit up as an alert from Occulus popped up in his inbox. She had hesitated to share this when it popped up in local news feeds, but her contract with the man could lead to beneficial circumstances in the near future. Besides, something inside her warned her that she'd need allies in the days to come.

The attached file was a simple one, a live-feed of a newscast in Seattle. Part of the GTFUnited's building had experienced a major structural breach. The building was leaning nearly thirty degrees to the side, although it no longer appeared in any danger of falling. Outside, an emergency press conference was taking place. The ticker read CEO: Brian Jameson

"Ladies and gentlemen please rest assured that this structural re-design was part of our architectural goals since the inception of the building," a bright, fresh, and alert Meta stated with a smile, looking proudly into the cameras; a very stoic scientist with thick deadlocked hair standing to his right. "The surprise unveiling was timed to coincide with the arrival of the future of human space exploration. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present Doctor Faye Loveliss, physics and astronomy engineer, programmer, and CERN research member. Along with myself and a team of crack scientists, Doctor Loveliss developed the Ring, a particle accelerator capable of capturing new elements for study, replication, and eventually harvesting. Using her own Gift, as well as my own and the Gifts of several others, she has created this in an effort to unlock the secrets of the universe to allow for an unprecedented Age of Space Exploration and Colonization."

The conviction in his voice thundered through the crowd, rendering all present silent for an instant as the orator drew breath. Turning, he motioned Faye to the podium. Stepping forward, Faye removed her scouter, placing it in her pocket and turning her mismatched gaze to the cameras, then the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, together with the Gaultown Foundation, I have conspired to share my Gift with the world," she stated without preamble. "To that end, I have granted GTFUnited the rights to utilize my power for today's demonstration. The building is no longer touching Earth. It has been suspended, isolated, and locked into place above this spot on the Earth. This is using my proprietary technology, transforming my Gift from mine alone. Ladies and gentlemen of the world, I wish desperately to share this Gift with all of you. The burden of being the only one with the weight of the world on my shoulders is tiring. I need you to prove to me that you will not use it for petty selfish gain. I need you to make me believe that you will elevate your fellow man with your brother, your sister, and yourself. I beseach you... Do not let me down."

---

Like a psychic sledge hammer, Gwen reached through her connection to Parasol and slammed into the girl's mind. Barriers blasted aside under the twin assault of energy and mind, her own will eroded and erased in an instant by the force of the duo's assault. Yet the Faye-lyn was stymied as she pierced the girl's ego. Here, she saw only death, destruction, senseless mayhem... all witnessed in shadow, like puppets on the wall and not the real memories themselves. Moreover, there were no thoughts, not a single one, just these phantoms taking up the abyss of what should have been an active mind. They could sense something, but it was a new sensation for them; an entity that was their antithesis. Buddhist beliefs taught of these creatures of infinite malice and dark karma, yet no amount of yoga and objective observation of the spirituality could prepare the pair for the reality of a Bodhisattva.

Suddenly, they were no longer moving forward of their own will, instead they were being sucked into... someplace, somespace... as though by a vortex of immense strength. There was some form in front of them, though they couldn't make it out; the shadows it shifted through seemed to shift as much through it, writhing and falling ever in on itself. Still, it pulled them ever closer as a voice spoke out.

"Wow! Not only do I get a babe delivered to my doorstep, she's smoking hot too! You're going to be fun to play with, but I should warn you I have a bad habit of breaking my toys. But hey! You get to be with me, so win win right? Let's just hook up the strings, and see how my sizzling little puppet dances!'

For a moment the pair stood strong together, a spiralling equation reaching to the Tree of Life; then suddenly Faye's ego engaged. A kickback loop from GIPS' persona being compromised, then stolen, ripped through Faye's physical mind and force-loaded the latest update of memory packets to GIPS' backup.

GIPS had just died, her backup daughter receiving her life-force and memories... But not her soul. The kickback compounded with Faye's grief over the death of the first sentient life-force she had created, an entity as much her own daughter as much as any of flesh and blood. Ego strained to establish, and the spiral shrank, the equations shuddering and falling to pieces.

The dark mind struck, lasciviousness and lust for this immense well of power flooding its essence. It crested over the duo, pulling pieces of the Tree free, forcing a pocket of Gwen's ego to establish in the ether. Instantly it set on her with all its maliciousness, devouring a piece of her power and adding it to the collection, simultaneously capturing and contaminating a fragment of Gwen herself. The shock of loss of self nearly undid the meld completely, forcing crevices and cracks to shudder through the entire spiral.

Crowing its victory, the dark spirit rushed to fill in the gaps and make these two more of itself. Yet in the instant of its victory came a rebuff, a counterattack. A piece of its power lashed back at it, piercing the shadow with shade and light. The piece of the beast that existed within Parasol was now a part of the Faye-lyn as well, the red-scarf's Gift and a piece of the monster's now added to the pair as well. The voice sounded once more;

'And just what is this shit in my sandbox? That's me! You can't fucking use me like I use me! NOBODY FUCKING USES ME!!'

The entity tried to increase its pull to suck Gwen in, but the counterattack and shared acquisition of hate-tainted essence reforged the meld. The stranger lashed out with wave after wave of chaotic thought, smashing against the shifting lines of geometry and equations, yet achieving nothing. Refusing to feed the rage, the Faye-lyn mutated its power again and used it to apply a counter-force of gravity against it. With the speed and fury of a psychic meteor, the duo escaped the alien mind; egos locking into place and rupturing the meld the instant they were free.

With a scream of rage from the depth of her soul, Gwen broke free from her death plummet with Parasol's corpse. Eleven g's strained her body near to breaking as she reversed and teased her gravity, pulling on memories and instinct from watching Faye and Peter. Ribs cracked, her hip fractured, and her left arm shattered as she hit the ground, her sparksuit absorbing a portion of the damage, a portion shared with Parasol's corpse. Coughing blood, she reacted immediately, without thought. First she forced her system to shut down pain and damage sensing, slowed her heart rate, then she began to fine-tune her muscle contractions to squeeze off as many damaged arteries and blood vessels as possible. Triage complete, she stimulated her wakefulness and lay on her back, pulling her barrier up above her and locating the flying Gifted she had nearly hit on her way down.

With a wince, she watched as Brian's inhibitors kicked on. The man was coming in for a pass at Peter, arcing toward the train to build up speed. As the sphere of Gift-free energy expanded, he lost his ability to control his flight-path. Rocket came within a foot of smashing into the train at what had to have been close to two hundred miles per hour, a gruesome death which he was spared by none other than Black Magic.

The magician, holding as true as possible to the mission parameters, teleported onto Rocket, then teleported him away from the train. With a final flourish, he guided himself, Rocket, Nitro, and the train to the ground, bleeding off speed with a gorgeous series of  spiralling vectors.

"My dear, I am so sorry," he stated, approaching Gwen gently, worry and sadness etched into his features. Clearly he judged Gwen was a goner, a fact that almost occurred of cardiac arrest when he walked past his two prisoners, leaving them out of his line of sight. She laughed aloud as she realized that he didn't have the same stipulation she and Faye shared. The magician knew where his props were at all times.

"I'll be fine, " Gwen stated, coughing up a little blood and spitting it out with a wince. " -ish. So long as I get medical attention soon. I'm probably going to lose my arm though. Um... I... Never mind. You did good Peter."

"And you did fantasticly, miss Brighteyes."

The track rattled beneath Peter Vargus's feet, startling him fully awake for an instant before exhaustion set in again. His employer's train (and the decoy out ahead of it) had been in motion for almost an hour and there wasn't even the slightest hint of the promised Namidian attack. Being reduced to mundane "guard duty" clashed with the Black Magician's showy personality, and the trains' carriages swayed hypnotically as they turned with the tracks. He stifled a yawn as he met the eyes of his traveling companions.

Vandal was doing better than himself, although not by a lot. Her ITSDA training ensured that she wouldn't drop her guard for a moment during her mission, yet her active personality seemed to be struggling against the tension-laced boredom of her duty even harder than Peters. She rubbed a grain of sleep out of the corner of her eye and grumbled irately.

Frank Jackson flashed her and Peter a yellowed grin, and lent back leisurely in his seat. Their situation hadn't seemed to have affected him in the slightest. Peter wondered whether Frank's Gift prevented him from feeling the passage of wasted time as keenly as the rest of Brian's enforcers. Or maybe that wasn't it, and Frank had simply honed a resistance to boredom through years of staking out criminals back in his P.I days. Peter couldn't say for sure.

The specific details of their security were being played close to Brian's chest, but Peter had been granted special insight into the true details of their mission. Somewhere on the the real car itself was a device that purported to be able to turn off Gifted abilities, although the details were beyond even his own intermediate grasp of technology. He was certain that it involved turning off small parts of its target's brain, which sounded ominous, but he'd been assured that his worries were unfounded. Even now, he was being reassured of this fact by the train's fourth passenger, who was maintaining a mental link with him. The passenger sitting opposite him was technically "Gwen," but from his current mental vantage point Black Magic could see that the truth was a little more complex than that. In reality, the mental border between Gwen's linked consciousness was somewhat fuzzy; she was something of an amalgamation of the two women's minds. And the illusion Magic was using to disguise Gwen as Faye only enhanced this effect!

When Magic had thoughts of concern regarding the deployment of the dangerous and lightly-tested "Gift Inhibitor Boxes," Gwen's mind informed him that the device wouldn't be used on him personally. But when he'd persisted to grow concerned about the morally grey area of human experimentation, even against villains, the young woman opened her mind to him. She revealed her thoughts as to the logical nature of the endeavor and the extreme probability of everything working as it should became apparent to him. A serene sense of calm acceptance fell upon his psyche and his faith in his allies was magnified tenfold.

The group sat in somewhat tense silence for a while longer. The knowledge that they might be attacked at any moment, but could do nothing for now but wait, had soured the journey's atmosphere. Finally, the monotonous wait was broken as Jackson's cellphone buzzed. He answered and put it on speaker.

"Brian, Tell us that something's come up. I knew that today wouldn't be tha' usual gig... but yer' cheap train doesn't even have a drinks cart!"

---

"Frank, Don't say that! They say that no news is good news, but that isn't the case right now..."

Brian strode about his Seattle tower anxiously. He'd decided not to board the train with the others or to meet up with them at Burlington-North, since he'd be able to coordinate his team just as effectively from the comfort of his own, technology-swarmed home. His own share of effort would come later today - when Faye's device would need to be installed.

"JOHNNY has detected an unregistered aircraft approaching the train. You can probably see it from the left window. It's keeping outside our engagement zones, but seems to be keeping pace with you."

There was a pause and a scuff of noise as Jackson re-positioned. In that brief time, Brian's phone buzzed with a text alert; Mr. Green's security personnel had just discovered the intrusion themselves. JOHNNY had been able to hijack some civilian radar installations to watch over the skies during the train's journey, but demanding fine details from the devices had been difficult. So the specifics of the threat were still a massive question mark. He used his mental link with JOHNNY to tap into his phone. He then sent off a quick query to a shady group of contacts, collectively codenamed "Blue Horizon," for more specific information. He knew that they already had a jet in the air and that their detection abilities exceeded his own. They replied almost instantly. Brian put Frank on hold to hear their message out.

"What c-"

Brian tried to speak first, but the second the call patched through a serious female voice cut him off. Brian had the highest stakes in this operation, but it felt as though the information operator on the other end was taking the situation even more seriously than himself. She was a hardcore professional, he decided.

"The target is definitely a threat. It's wingspan and profile match that of a 'Predator D' type UAV. Loadout includes variable missiles and superior surveillance systems. About two years ahead of standard military tech. Two stolen drones of that pattern are known to be in the possession of a Namidian known as 'The Commander'."

Brian mentally queued JOHNNY to start slicing into civilian networks. If The Commander's operations were based in military procedure he knew that his craft would have a degree of on-board self control, but would be largely directed via low-latency radio or targeted optic bursts. Knowing Namidias, Brian felt confident that the commands would be encoded within civilian wavelengths. Between cellphones, mobile internet, satellites, and relay towers there were too many openings for Meta to account for. This left him with two options: hack every device in range, or blot off the whole spectrum with a jamming burst. Neither option was appealing; both would put the GTF into an awful light if they were ever traced back to him. He had already begun to toe the line between altruistic vigilantism and criminal activity by overthrowing a certain Googlplex's security measures, but despite his actions he had no intention of ever crossing that line completely. Thankfully, he was spared having to overthink the issue as the woman spoke up again.

"I have isolated The Commander's network output. Bringing the drone offline now..."

Brian was surprised! His computer-assisted brain had informed him that the number of network nodes that the drone could have been using numbered well into the millions. Even with his cutting-edge technology Meta would have taken days, or longer, to hack them all! He marveled at "Blue Horizon's" capabilities, but then remembered that the organization was owned by, or at least invested in, by Namidians. The villains had a reputation for concealing plans within plans, and it stood to reason that they had just as many countermeasures prepared against each other as they did against their enemies. Countermeasures that they hadn't shared with him. Brian wasn't at all surprised by that.

"Good work. Keep it out of my airspace. My machine needs testing on Gifted, so I'm not interested in playing with robots today. Well... not someone else's robots, anyway."

"Understood."

Blue Horizon's line clicked dead. On the far end of the line, 'Nigma allowed herself a rare smile as she sent the order through to ruin her rivals afternoon...

---

The University of Berkeley was howling; the venerable building had an array of both old and modern alarm systems. And currently, they were all crying out and competing to deafen the students and teachers trapped within.

Five figures dressed in form fitting jumpsuits and identical, featureless helmets moved through the chaos with a singular purpose. Their unusual armor shifted hues as they walked, blending them in with the natural colors of each room they passed through. The group had penetrated deep into the University campus. However, almost the instant that the intruders had set foot out of Berkeley's public section, they had been discovered by armed campus security. The situation had only escalated from there. The specialist stealth unit "Numbered Brethren" soon found themselves forced to abandon their quiet infiltration. Now they had one last chance to blaze a desperate path toward The Ring's last known location.

Grainy CCTV footage of the small attacking force played on a security monitor while a panic-room crowded with investors watched it nervously. The monitor was housed in a small room of only several feet across, paneled with steel walls, and staffed by two armed guards and over a dozen wealthy academics. The University regularly paid host to such visitors, and on this precise day had played host to several well regarded philanthropists. They were to take a tour of it's facilities; hopefully, the sights and sounds of the students' resoundingly incredible works would secure some much-needed grant money.

Timothy Connors had planned this event since receiving the news that Faye planned to quit his university for Seattle. He had to use the opportunity of her departure to focus his investors' attention onto other projects before they'd have a chance to lose interest. His attempt had been snubbed by the current attack, and he'd been forced to remove his guests to a secure area for the duration of the crisis. One of his potential backers demanded that he be made aware of the situation and, reluctantly, Timothy had tapped the monitor into the facility's security feed. Revealing the nature of the attack would be bad press. But after Faye and Gwen had either taken or destroyed millions of dollars worth of past investments, he felt as though he wasn't in a position to protest any of their commands.

Still, the man was shrewd enough to know how to turn an issue into an opportunity, and even as he was switching cameras to follow the squad of high-tech burglars he relentlessly exulted his own campus.

"As you can see, our recent projects have drawn some... unneeded attention. The renovated building they're attempting to break into used to house the project that I recommended to you during our last meeting. However, your investments are secure - my colleagues have confirmed and reconfirmed that the completed device has been removed from the area. Our unwelcome guests are due to meet our security force soon, who are laying a trap for them even as we speak."

Voices filled the secured room, mostly from men and women who were outraged that he'd just admitted "The Ring" was no longer in his control. Timothy sighed inwardly. Even though the philanthropists he was trying to appease purported to be interested in human advancement, he doubted that that was the entire story; right now, they seemed solely concerned with their investments.

"What kind of trap?"

A single, steely voice cut through the rest, perhaps by virtue of it being the only one more interested in the present situation than The Ring itself. For some reason, Mister Connors felt compelled to answer it.

"The University is proud to say that we employ both Gifted and Un-Gifted security personnel. Furthermore, our state-of-the-art alarm system is tied directly into AGF and Law Enforcement watchlists. Our visitors are unaware of the danger they're truly in."

Timothy flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile to the man who'd spoken out. The financier simply scowled back - the man's expression was made unnaturally serious by his close-shaven red hair, authoritarian blue-grey business suit, and stark features.

Come to think of it, Timothy had forgotten the backer's name, which was unlike him. Nevertheless, the man's credentials had passed cleanly through security and a credit check confirmed that he was a likely donator. Timothy felt confident that he'd be able to refresh his memory once he got the man to sign a few sponsorship grants on the dotted lines; that is, assuming that he could somehow pull this botched event out of the fire.

The room's attention turned back to the monitor, where the burglars were unwittingly walking into Timothy's announced trap. The man himself had a crisis of conscience, and decided to turn off the display. His backers had a right to watch over their own safety and finances, but televising a potential shooting seemed like several steps too far. His finger hovered over the display's power button as he cleared his throat to gather the rooms full attention.

"Men, women, associates: I think we should let matters play out from here. Once again I apologise fo-"

"Keep running the security feed."

The stern philanthropist's words silenced the school official; his demanding tone finally pricked Connors's nerves the wrong way. Anyway, something was off about this guy, credit checks be damned!

"Please take a seat, Sir. I can assure you that nothing can breach this saferoom, or our secure laboratories, you have-"

The man lost interest in Connors and turned to face one of the security personnel beside him. His voice suddenly intensified and distorted disturbingly.

"That's enough of this farce. Give me your gun."

His target's eyes glazed over. Before anyone in the room could react, the funder had seized a weapon to put a bullet through the kneecaps of the room's second guard. The disarmed first defender regained his senses and tried desperately to draw his sidearm. He was disabled as The Commander cracked him in the jaw with his own rifles stock. The room broke out into panicked screams which were silenced as The Commander emptied the weapons magazine into the air. The gunfire in the tiny enclosed space annihilated their hearing.

"SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"

He claimed the defeated security guards' weapons for himself, reloaded, and pointed his rifles hot barrel at Mister Connors and three other investors. From among the dozen currently cowering beneath his stare, they were chosen.

"You. You, you, and you too: we're leaving to meet the soldiers outside. NOW! The rest of you, run for your lives!"

---

As the train ran towards a tall tunnel, a second group of attackers laid in wait. Two dozen motionless, blank-eyed soldiers stood atop the pillars that bore the weight of the mountain above. Three of the troops stood alongside one another, sporting black jackets, red scarves, and sunglasses. The man in the middle was taller and stronger-looking than the other two. Arms folded, he did nothing. His face was hidden behind a face mask with two red eyes. The man on his left held a remote, and the woman to his left watched via binoculars, counting aloud.

"5. 4. 3. 2."

The man with the remote counted down as the train shot into the tunnel.

"1."
He pressed down on a red button.

Just before the train reached the end of the tunnel, a ring of red lights appeared, and then exploded.

Instantly, the first two cars of the train were crushed under an avalanche of Earth and stone and the whole train slammed to a stop. The third car twisted and bent as it flattened against the thick wall of rock.

Immediately, the motionless people in military gear and two of the red-scarved elites rappelled down to the train.

On either side, a row of twelve soldiers marched, stopped, and turned to face the train.

A woman on one side stepped onto the train...

...and fell flat on her face. Startled, she scurried to stand up and realized her body was somehow melded into a car coupling (though she felt nothing). Following preordained orders, those with her opened fire on the train itself. Three were killed by friendly fire while another trio were injured; the transport remained untouched. Just then, the illusion faded out, leaving the would-be attack squad standing alone in an empty tunnel.

Suddenly, down the track a short distance, the real train came rolling around a bend. It was then the source of the team's bedevilment was known: Black Magic leaped to the top of the engine and his cape snapped smartly in the wind while his top hat somehow clung tightly to his head. As though he were on a stage, the prestidigitator bowed, showed an empty hand, and made an Ace of Spades appear in it.

The assault team turned their weapons on their real target, blasting countless rounds in hopes of crippling the train; every bullet that escaped the mouth of the tunnel turned into a brightly hued, harmless, soap bubble. The Hero of Gaultown tossed his card toward the opening, the bit of pasteboard seeming to grow bigger...

...only this was no illusion. Parasol, the female "Red Scarf," thought to focus the energy shields her Gift allowed her to create. Yet she was a shade too slow; the edges of a giant Ace folded around the tunnel's only entrance before she could move. She concentrated her fields on the barrier, trying to dislodge it, but it seemed the paranormal beat out physics in this instance. When she stopped her effort, the others loaded fresh clips and tried; their rounds bounced back at them, sending them diving and jumping for cover. The only man to escape was the remote-wielding bomber, Rocket. The mad thrill-seeker had managed to use his Gift of "high-speed propulsion" to hurl himself through the tunnel's doorway the instant before the card sealed the entrance.

Rocket alone was absent when hidden gas bombs emitted a toxic and deadly substance. Knowing all who served Him were connected, Parasol called out to her toxic-wielding "Red Scarf" ally.

'Nitro, no! We can still serve, we can win, we...

...have failed. Only the strong deserve to follow him, the weak must be culled.

The female Red Scarf tried to continue the mental argument, but her thoughts took longer to form and the meanings of words blurred. For a second time, she and those with her fell dead. At least now they were buried.

---

'It's time, are you ready?'

In his mind, Black Magic could see both doctors he had been assigned to help. The world around them was breathtaking; their minds were no longer simply "stuck together," they were no one being whose brilliant visions were easily beyond words. The former rogue protector of New York gave a bow and smiled at the pair before him.

'Yes, and I have the utmost faith in both of you.'

The projected Gwen nodded, then began to increase Peter's connection to the women; it was something unlike he had ever experienced before, his memories as well as theirs were laid out before them.

The body of Black Magic remained unchanged, yet the being inside it was now a melding of three; thrice the will, thrice the power. Flourishing his hands and striking a wide-legged stance, Magic tapped into Faye's power. Exulting in the sight of a prime force of nature, and his newfound command of it, the magician lifted his hands above his head. He slowly raised them as if he were Atlas elevating the world. In response, lines of force began to ripple and twist, colors swapping and lines contorting in ways that Faye herself hadn't even considered. It was magic, true fundamental magic, that caused the train to suddenly lift from its rails. As Black Magic's hands reached their apex, the locomotive loosed a powerful whistle and a giant blast of steam as the entire vehicle suddenly pitched toward the sky.

Rotating in place, Peter laughed from sheer joy at his most magnificent prestige. This was what drove him, what fueled his magic, what offered truth to his existence. Even as his intent and spirit was made known to the duo, a spark of regret floated between the three.

If only there had been a deserving audience.

The resolution hardened in Gwen to make it so, someday, and accompany the man on stage.

We can call this practice, and repeat the performance in Vegas, she stated, mind reaching out to pull both Faye and Peter deeper into the meld. She could sense the intent of their observers changing, and knew an attack would soon come. Sharing that experience had given them a powerful connection, firming the meld and focusing their intent.

Before the engine resumed its Earthly bonds, Rocket put both fists straight out in front of him and flew at full tilt toward the magic man; this Gifted man had some neat tricks, but one two hundred mile-per-hour sucker punch would bring this whole show literally crashing down. He was closing in on his target in a blur, only one car away from the performer...

---

According to "Bretheren One's" intelligence, she and her team were standing in front of a room designated "The Box," which had been "The Ring's" resting place up until a few hours ago. Her Commander had mounted the attack now in the hopes that it would divert attention away from the lab, leaving any information therein up for grabs. Unfortunately, she had to get through a thick set of steel blast doors before she could examine the facility's contents.

Bretheren One pressed a strangely gloved hand on the door's control panel. The glove buzzed as it passed an electrical pulse into the door's systems, but the doors only slid open by half an inch before violently slamming shut again. She made another attempt and was rewarded with a similar result. Her helmet display told "One" that her automated circuit-striker software had successfully executed, but some sort of interference was keeping the portal sealed.

Before she could reconsider her options, a suited man herding a group of hostages marching into view.

"Commander, Sir."

She saluted him. The man had obviously dropped his disguise, which was a very bad sign. The Commander had deployed himself strictly on an Intel-gathering mission, and it was her own team that was meant to be taking the physical risks today. His being here meant that the plan had hit a significant complication.

"What's wrong?"

"Berkeley have Gifted on their security force. AGF are about 20 minutes out. Ammo."

The last word of that sentence was directed at Brethren "Five," who pressed a spare clip of 9mm bullets into Commander's outstretched hand. The Namidian exchanged it for an empty one from his stolen pistol.

Brethren One nodded. Inwardly, she was vexed that he'd went off plan, but Commander's stance on other Gifted was well-known. The warlord would trust his soldiers to fight off almost any threat, but had a strong dislike for pitting his forces against Gifted. No matter what tactical simulations he ran, even lightly powered Gifted seemed to lay waste to even his most perfect plans. As such, he had dropped his disguise to assist N.B in their battle.

"What Gifts do they have?"

She asked. Commander prodded Timothy sharply with his gun.

"You heard her; what Gifts?"

"Get fuc-"

"Speak."

"Time manipulation and body enhancement."

The Commander "TSKed" angrily and paced restlessly around the room as he thought up a strategy. The Numbered Brethren maintained their characteristic silence. Suddenly, the pacing stopped; a plan was formulated.

"CIVILIANS IN THE CORNER - MOVE! 'One' and 'Two,' take that entrance and cloak up. 'Three' and 'Four,' take the other. 'Five,' hold me and the others hostage."

Commander knelt with the other prisoners, and kicked all his weapons away. That is, all but a pistol he kept clasped behind his back.

"If any of you civilians move or speak during this fight, I will not consider you a 'protected noncombatant.' Is that understood? Good. Let's try to get through this cleanly."

He counted down seconds in his head. From what he'd seen while still under disguise, he estimated that the UC security force would make their assault... now!

As he counted "0," the enemy made their move. But neither Commander nor any of the Brethren were able to perceive it. Time slowed, and the battle was decided in the space of a single second. A figure blurred through the room.

All the "Brethren's" silenced weapons fouled and jammed, which left them helpless as a physically impressive man in a Berkeley-Security uniform dove to tackle "One" and "Two" with an incredible lunge. The Commander found that he was suddenly standing upright, neck crinkled painfully aside to a sharp angle. Horrifyingly, his own pistol was pressed tightly to his temple. Brethren "Five's" weapon also fouled as he tried to shoot the man who had instantly appeared before him and the last two NB were too slow to react before the man tackling their leaders spoke aloud. Very aloud.

"SURRENDER YOUR WEAPONS, HANDS ON YOUR FUCKING HEADS, OR WE DROP YOUR LEADER!"

Damian's enhanced physique gave him a very intimidating presence and the struggling "One" and "Two" didn't look as though they could shake him off even with a joint effort. The young man holding Commander hostage (this time, he was a real hostage) was Ernest Crane, whose time manipulation must surely have been the reason why N.B's pistols had all been jammed in the blink of an eye. The Brethren paused uncertainly as they tried to recall their contingency plans, and found that they hadn't prepared for such a sudden and effortless defeat. "Three" eyed his Commander nervously, as though expecting orders.

"Do-"*Glark!*

The Commander's attempt at communication was strangled as Crane dug a knuckle into his windpipe. Damien snapped a finger at the burglar.

"Eyes on me, son! You already made one shitty decision by attacking my campus, don't make two."

With their chain of command in pieces, and The Commander himself taken rarely by surprise, it looked as though their options had expired. N.B. had always been trained to favor stealth over conflict. And so, to them, it seemed like getting themselves captured was their only choice. Slowly, "Three," "Four," and "Five" dropped their useless weapons and placed their hands behind their heads.

Suddenly, The Commander twisted in Crane's grip, and seized him with a grapple of his own! The young man and the Namidian general struggled while the rest of the battlefield erupted into an all-out brawl! Crane found his gun arm swatted away before he could pull the trigger, but the slightest dilation of time allowed him to recover his aim. Ernest grimaced as he held the gun at The Commander's side and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets passed cleanly through Brett's suit and smashed into the flesh beneath. The villain went limp, but as his suddenly dead weight pulled them both to the ground, the Namidian cried out in rage. With a viciously desperate headbutt, he knocked the security guard out cold.

That left Damian to beat down five assailants by himself...

---

A bloodied Rocket wildly swung his fists up at Vandal, who wrapped her legs tight around his chest and held on as her enemy blasted through the sky. He flew at full tilt, then stopped suddenly, yet his passenger refused to budge. Taking a guess, he aimed for what he though was open sky, and flew straight up. He guessed the right direction, but screamed in shock at the sight of Tudor's drone fighter turning to face them.

---

In a certain undisclosed location, in a square metal room surrounded by darkened monitors, video feed from the Megalodon drone fighter suddenly appeared on all screens.

"Sir! Communication with Megalodon has been restored! And a target's headed right for us!"

"EVADE! NOW!"

The command was finished before Tudor finished giving it. The Megalodon shot toward the enemy to build up speed and banked heavily to the left moments before impact. Wasting no time with celebrations, the mastermind-in-training held out his hand. to The bustling, confounded crowd of technicians managing every aspect of the now-active drone's mechanisms fell silent and awaited his orders. Tudor's next move was important, and he was one of The Commander's most trusted; he would not be tricked into predictabily attacking the most immediate target. Neither would he be tricked into harmless, erratic behavior or a full retreat. He needed something else, another move.

It was then that he noticed the suspicious-looking man hanging off the front of the speeding train. Pushing a technician out of the way, he marked the newfound interlopers, designating the flyer "Red-1" and the stowaway "Red-2."

"Move in. Drench Targets Prime and Red-2 in SMOKEs and SWARMS. Help 'em kill each other and we'll take what's left."

The technicians nodded and the plane dove toward the train.

"And keep tracing that hack!"

---

Mere minutes after the train touched down upon its earthly tracks once more, Black Magic's enhanced senses heard a strange noise over the rushing wind around him.

*kuuuh*

A masked face turned to look down the length of the train. Standing two cars back was an unknown figure; a man, standing seven feet tall, with muscles on top of muscles. He was wearing a big black coat like his friends, but open, and a red scarf tucked into his shirt. His mouth, nose, and eyes were covered by a gas mask of some kind, with glowing red lenses. Through the connection, Faye lashed out at this beast of humankind and increased the gravity around him by ten fold; his steps never faltered, nor did he stagger. The monster stomped moved within the field as though unaffected. The force was increased, until the man's boot left dents in the metal surfaces he walked upon, but still he pushed onward. Finally, he was on the engine with Vargus.

"*kuuuh* Nitro *kuuuh*"

The magician bowed formally, arm across his cummerbund, before straightening himself and replying.

"Well met, my good sir! Would I be remiss in guessing that you were somewhere above the tunnel, and grabbed hold of the train as it fled the tracks?"

"*kuuuh* Yes. *kuuuh* Where is Doctor Loveliss? *kuuuh*"

The hero shielded his mouth with his hand in a look of mock surprise.

"Oh dear, is she not on board? Must have overslept or misplaced her ticket, poor lady. Try not to be too broken up about it old chum, for I hear they are serving desert in the dining car!"

"*kuuuh* No *kuuuh* games. I felt her power, *kuuuh* I know she's nearby. *kuuuh* Tell me and your death will be *kuuuh* less painful."

"That offer in no way seems appealing to me, yet it would be rude of me not to answer a guest aboard my train... She is right before you, yet far beyond your reach."

"*kuuuh* I said NO GAMES!! *kuuuh*"

Nitro charged at Black Magic. At that same instant, the caster used Faye's power to decrease the gravity around himself and the villain. The mage vanished in a puff of smoke, only to reappear further back on the engine's top. Meanwhile, Nitro was going faster than he planned and plunged off in front of the speeding locomotive.

"Proceed carefully, Peter. He's already demonstrated extreme durability."

Peter smiled gently, and in soothing tones said:

"Do not fret; they say worry causes wrinkles. I can assure you, my dear, that I would never underestimate an enemy of his ilk."

True to form, a hand reached to grab the train right before Nitro pulled himself back up onto the car. He walked toward the showman, who remained calmly where he was, and made to swing a second time. He was only feinting, however. When the conjuror appeared behind him, the massive villain swung around and delivered a shattering gut punch!

Black Magic doubled over once more, but this time it wasn't to bow. Before he could regain his composure, Nitro delivered a knee to his opponent's chin, followed by a solid left and then right to the jaw. A haymaker crashed into top of the GTF agent's head, sprawling him across the train car. A trial of red leaked out of the side of the caster's jaw, revealing the man's movements as he struggled to breath and move. Within the car, the illusion around Gwen dissipated. Though their minds were still connected, she no longer looked much like her lady love.

"Frank, Magic's down, and we've got a bogey on 8!"

"Ain't this enough already?!" shouted the old man in exasperation as he flipped ten switches in an exacting order and rhythm, typed in a password, and pulled the Gift Inhibitor Box from its housing. As he did so, Gwen used Faye's power to float to the top of the train.

The sky directly in front of the train began to fill with thick, colorful clouds of particulates that stretched as far as the eye could see. Thousands of nearly microscopic mirrors bounced light and heat off of each other, while hundreds of "signal bombs" flooded all electronic receivers in the area with jumbled, random information. When the train barrelled into the clouds, densely packed swarms of missiles emerged from just out of Gwen's sight. Struggling to focus on all targets at once, the normally brilliant Gwen used Faye's power to ram most of the missiles into each other while hurling others to the ground. Ten, twenty, thirty, ninety; they just kept on coming! She pushed them apart, pulled them together, did whatever came to mind. But one-by-one, stray, side-winding missiles inched closer and closer to the train. Suddenly, just when fifteen missiles slipped through her defenses, a stream of bullets cut a swath of destruction through the swarm of missiles.

"Don't lose your head, kid! It got you this far, it'll beat this shit!" shouted the lifelong killer at the top of his lungs.

Gwen nodded. In their combined mind, so too did Faye. With the seconds Frank bought them, they concocted and enacted an elegantly simple strategy. Absorbing all the electrical, heat, and explosive energy she could, Gwen transformed four micro-mirrors into massive "gravity sinks." These sinks pulled, twisted, and dragged all the missiles into them. Then, using the very explosive force the missiles unleashed, she trapped the explosions within the sinks until the threat was gone. Seeing the caliber of enemy it was dealing with, the plane turned tail and flew off far past the combat zone. Now, Gwen and Frank were free to tackle the mission's one remaining threat.

On the other side of the long train, Nitro reached down, grabbed the mage with one hand, and hauled him up like he was a rag doll. The monstrosity then slapped Magic once across each cheek with his other massive hand.

"*kuuuh* One last time; *kuuuh* where is *kuuuh* Doctor Loveliss"

'Will I do?'

Like a psychic sledge hammer, Gwen reached through her connection to Black Magic and smashed her way through the protective walls of Nitro's mind...

(OOC: CONTINUED IN PART 2)
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:48, Sat 06 Aug 2016.

At this point, the Numbered Brethren realized that their taser gloves were their only hope of taking down the Gifted war-machine that stood before them. Their HUDs computers frantically coordinated a plan of attack, but even it was too slow for their enemy!

Damian slammed "One" into the ground and stamped heavily down on "Two's" ribcage, giving himself some time to react against his other three opponents. "Three" slung his useless weapon at Damian's eyes in a weak distraction attempt before nimbly ducking low and sending an electric punch into the powerhouse's stomach. Damian winced and almost lost his footing, but held on long enough to reply with a vicious uppercut that dazed his opponent and forced him back. The beastly guard followed up with a second jab to the thief's helmet to make sure that he stayed down before "Four" and "Five" tried to tackle him to the floor. Their shocking grips numbed his muscles, but on the way down he managed to twist his weight to drive his elbow into "Four's" solar plexus. One enemy left. "Five" pinned Damian to the ground and tried to seize his neck in her grip; the man stopped the attack short by using his forearm as a shield. He tried to free his off-hand out from under himself so that he could finally put an end to the brawl...

"Stop-"

A wheezing and thin voice came from Crane's position. The Commander wasn't quite dead, at least not yet. His voice carried obvious strain, but it's disturbingly authoritarian quality was still unmissable.

"- Stop resisting."

Damien's grip slackened as The Commanders Gift took effect, which gave "Five" the clean hit she needed to force her stunning grip around the mans neck! Berkeley's head of security shuddered and shouted as currents of lightning grounded themselves into his nervous system. Finally, he fell into a shocked, insensible sleep.

The Brethren picked themselves back up, and reloaded their pistols. All were beaten up, although their wounds had been relatively minor. The Commander managed to stand on shaking legs; his suit was damp and blackened where he'd been gunned down, although the amount of blood was far less than what should have been expected. The Namidian fought to work through his discomfort and tore open his shirt, revealing that half his torso was painted with a disgusting black bruise and pits of crushed flesh,

*Pah!*

Commander spat out a thick gob of blood. A film of cold sweat on his brow betrayed the fact that he was trying very, very, hard to suppress any weakness.

"And Orwell still thought rubber bullets were a bad investment. Hah!"

He limped towards "The Box's" door and attempted to gain entrance. His Bretheren's hacking tools had failed, but Commander had premeditated this invasion to exacting details. He knew that public buildings always had absolute safety-countermeasures built in. He could override whatever was keeping them locked out by abusing health and safety requirements. He decided that the fire-security system would be his best bet; one incendiary grenade, a fire alarm, and a third use of "One's" glove later and the group finally succeed in forcing their way through. The Commander entered "The Ring's" birthplace.

He'd accomplished the most difficult part of his mission, but wasn't at all happy about how he'd gone about it. His victory against Damian and Crane had been entirely down to desperate improvisation, and he was once again reminded of how little his own Gifts actually registered on the grand power-scale. More and more it seemed as though his enemies had an infinite supply of Gifted servants ready to do their bidding, and Commander worried what kind of future would be written if the rumors surrounding Faye's Ring were accurate. He scowled down at his two unconscious opponents, and calmly stamped his heel down onto their kneecaps and elbows with sickening crunches. Commander didn't kill his enemies, especially ones who had only been doing their job, but he couldn't leave these two in any position to foil his escape. Cruel, certainly, but the two rubber bullets in his side had not put him into a sympathetic mood.

---

Inside Nitro's mind, Gwen and Faye saw only death, destruction, senseless mayhem... all witnessed in shadow, like puppets on the wall and not the real memories themselves. Moreover, there were no thoughts, not a single one, just phantoms taking up the abyss of what should have been an active mind. The pair could sense something, but it was a new sensation for them; an entity that was their antithesis. Buddhist beliefs taught of creatures of infinite malice and dark karma, yet no amount of yoga and objective observation of spirituality could prepare the duo for the reality of a Bodhisattva.

All at once, they were no longer moving forward of their own will. Instead, they were being sucked into... someplace, some space... by a vortex of immense strength. There was some form in front of them, though they couldn't make it out; the shadows it shifted through also seemed to shift through it. In effect, the being looked to be constantly writhing and falling ever in on itself. Still, it pulled them in as a young voice spoke out.

"Wow! Not only do I get a babe delivered to my doorstep, she's smoking hot too! You're going to be fun to play with, but I should warn you I have a bad habit of breaking my toys. But hey! You get to be with me, so win-win, right? Let's just hook up the strings, and see how my sizzling little puppet dances!'

The dark mind struck, lasciviousness and lust for Gwen and Faye's power flooding its essence. Instantly, it set on her with all its maliciousness, devouring a piece of her power and adding it to the collection. Simultaneously, it captured and contaminated a fragment of Gwen herself. The shock of loss of self nearly undid the meld completely, forcing crevices and cracks to shudder through the entire connection.

Crowing its victory with a childish cackle heard throughout Nitro's abyssal headspace, the dark spirit immediately set about toying with his new playmates. Behind herself, Gwen's mind detected a mental "sound," the near-silent whisper of a mind entering her vicinity. She turned, only to hear that same sound ring out behind her once more. She turned again. A red-scarfed woman, screaming like a banshee, lunged at her. The woman's fists were covered with sharp-edged, Umbrella-shaped force fields. With an instinctive telekinetic block, Gwen managed to shield herself an instant before contact.

"Gwen, right? I know it is," said Parasol as she jammed her handheld Umbrella-shaped force-fields into Gwen's crumbling shield. "He told me."

"He also told me your power requires focus." The umbrellas began to spin, grinding against the psychic student's shield with a nasty noise like the fabric of reality tearing. Gwen screamed as her shields exploded, not like shattering glass, but like a door caving in.

"And that you're playing mind-footsies with Dr. Loveliss right now, so you know where she is," said the horrible astral image with a smirk. Gwen understood that the woman was an illusion, but couldn't break the spell. She had to dodge! The psychotic woman marched toward the young genius as the fog of Nitro's mind solidified and the otherworldly realm became a claustrophobic dungeon. "And you're going to tell us. A human brain can't actually multitask, you know. It can't focus on two things at once, not completely. So you can either keep your little secret, or defend yourself. Your choice!"

The bladed end of Parasol's field stabbed the wall behind the girl. A trail of sweat rolled down Gwen's face.

"Actually, it's yours!" in the instant of Kane's victory, she and Faye mounted a counterattack. A piercing, toneless, metallic shriek rang out all across Nitro's mind. Just when Kane began regaining his composure, his minion's mental plane began to warp and twist in a thousand tiny ways a second for an entire minute. It was too trippy; he couldn't focus. Sounds, sights, lights, shapes, all bouncing, boiling, squirming, dying, burning!  A piece of its power lashed back at it, piercing the shadow with shade and light. The beastly teenager cried out once more.

"What's this shit in my sandbox? That's mine! You can't fucking take it from me! NOBODY STEALS FROM ME!!"

The stranger lashed out with wave after wave of chaotic thought, smashing against the shifting lines of geometry and equations Gwen and Faye generated, but achieved nothing. He was too late; the bridge between Kane and his toady's mind was detonated. With a scream of rage from the depth of her soul, Gwen broke free. Nitro immediately fell to the ground, unconscious (if not dead). She opened her eyes just in time to see Brian's inhibitors kick on. Vandal spiraled down toward the train, wrestling with Rocket as they fell. As the sphere of Gift-free energy expanded outward from Frank's position, she kicked him off of her and let him fall into it.  When it touched him, Rocket lost his ability to control his flight-path. The red scarf came within a foot of smashing into the train at nearly two hundred miles per hour, a gruesome death which he was spared by none other than Gwen.

The woman carefully piloted her declawed enemy to the ground using Faye's command of gravity. Frank, using his more militaristic skills, immediately pounced and handcuffed the security risk. He then dashed toward Black Magic, putting the perfect amount of pressure on the young man's wounds. While still leaning over his patient, Jackson turned his head to face Vandal as she slowly descended on to the speeding train.

"Vandal, get the tools. Gwen, hold him still. We've got some work to do."

---

The rushing sound of displaced water and the rumbling fuselage of a submarine in motion, had been Faye's world for the last two hours.

She had settled into a nice, almost meditative, routine. Without the need, or even the focus it would require to apply her Gift to the water around her, Faye had donned scuba-tanks and a dry-suit over her sparksuit. She rested like this, with her gravity tethered at seven times normal gravity to the Box, atop Meta's submarine.

Meanwhile, GIPS' backup was keeping visual surveillance with thermal imaging through her scouter, while his main persona bounced around cyberspace looking into every nook and cranny of the net for any breach in protocol or security. Playing cybertag with her brother, she flooded the local nets with a light show of packet swarms and multi-spectrum system intrusions. Combining with Johnny's more practiced experience in infiltration, the sibling AI's hacked every system up and down the Pacific coast, slipping in and out without tripping alarms or triggering defenses. No sign was left behind as to the culprit. But unbeknownst to them, the eye upon them wasn't watching for conventional signs of intrusion. Rather, it was a program entirely dedicated to tracking the dizzyingly complex electrical patterns that make up the internet in incalculably minute detail.

Back at Berkeley, the invading force somehow seemed to overcome the odds and enter The Ring's development compound, where they found nothing. Against Faye's advice, Meta had been sneaking peeks at the facility through its security feeds. He knew the risk, but he also knew The Commander. If left unchecked, the "magnificent bastard" would pull another Gaultown stunt and turn the tide of this battle single-handed. Luckily, The Commander's unit had so far only found the subterranean tunnel that had been left flooded in Vector's wake. Meta sighed with satisfaction as they wasted minutes failing to circumvent the door's lock. Suddenly, The Commander turned to face one of the lab's security cameras directly. Anticipating an attack, Brian immediately smashed his hand down on his keyboard's mute key. But the evil genius did not speak, nor stare at the camera. He, along with his main squadron, turned and marched away. Shortly afterward, a group of three troops appeared on camera and began unpacking a drill of some kind.

Surprised at his enemy's behavior, Brian's cameras followed The Commander as he strode out of the lab. Meta carefully read the lips of the elite tactician as he began establishing a secure perimeter. All security was down, but perhaps he didn't know that. Or perhaps it was a distraction! Meta immediately switched to the camera monitoring the drill team, only to find their expensive-looking machine snapping, sparking, and burning up as they desperately thrust it into the invincible door. Switching back to The Commander, he saw the man facing away from the camera and whispering a secret order to a Numbered Brethren soldier he had pulled close. Carefully, he reopened the security system's audio channels, but kept his hand on the button.

"...Gathering data on the time of evacuation and possible escape transports; move ahead and ensure that our own evacuation is not intercepted. We detect several platoons moving through sectors C and D."

With a few taps on his keyboard, Meta ordered his old friend Johnny to divert a minuscule percentage of his cycles to Berkeley.

As soon as he did so, The Commander went on the move once more, heading back to the lab. When he motioned for his soldiers to pull back, the former ITSDA "bright bulb" decided to focus his attention elsewhere. But just before the boy genius turned away, the Namidian mastermind finally shouted out the words he'd feared would come.

"Open the door!"

The Commander's inhuman voice shot through the security system and Meta's mind pounded, then went numb. The Namidian's order had reached far further than he'd intended, for Brian helplessly relayed the order as a high-priority command to the Johnny AI. Trusting his creator implicitly, the sentient machine focused all power on hacking the gateway. Within moments, Meta's blurred vision cleared and he ordered Johnny to abort his current action.

"No! No! Abort! Johnny!"

"I'm sorry, sir. It's already done," said Johnny with a very human tone of regret in his mechanical vocalization.

The Commander clasped his hands together and subtly smiled as he stepped into the laboratory's innermost sanctum.

"Excellent work, team."

---

In the Pacific, Faye's concentration wavered, but held, as GIPS' sharp alarm punched its way through her entrancingly convoluted thoughts. Opening her eyes to find that Meta was in danger, she used GIPS to patch her through to Mister Jameson, which it duly did.

"Brian? Yeah- no- no!- I'm all right. Are you? What's going on?"

---

"Not yet...wait. There; keep talking, keep talking. Yes. There was something. Not much, and it was masked, but if we cross the rough area with the time table and the estimated routes if by sea..."</green>

Dieter scanned the readings and nodded. Nigma's sneaky little plan to stalk it through the internet was finally working. First, she contacted Meta just long enough for her programs to glean the rough area where he was sending signals. Then, she immediately used her electrical signal monitoring systems to silently identify and keep tabs on the AIs he was contacting through a maze of reroutes. Finally, she watched the AIs fire heavily-encrypted, high-speed signals and followed them to their ultimate destination off the coast of Northern California. In that moment, Dieter doubted he could ever have been prouder of one of his associates. Nevertheless, a smirk was all that her cleverness earned her from him. One could not let your associates fully understand just how much you were well and truly depending upon them, after all.

"Activate the Navy's emergency protocols. They'll be of use here."

---

Brian was pacing again when JOHNNY suddenly alerted him with a pleasant chirping.

"Sir, the navy has dispatched ships to investigate an anomaly. I believe the anomaly investigated is ours."

Brian grunted as if he just got gut punched. He had hoped their little ruse had succeeded. At worst, he hoped that it would be the Namidians that found the submersible. It would be a complete disaster if the Navy found it.

"No worries, Johnny, she knows them well. We tip her off and she'll just slip past. I'm sure of it."

His voice cracked a bit while that last sentence left his lips. Johnny knew what that meant, but decided against calling attention to it. In interactions with humans, he had found that discretion was sometimes preferable to thorough analysis.

---

Dieter grinned as he saw the naval subs moving toward the area he had chosen. They were heading for where the anomaly had been and would not see the sub where it was now. This would be difficult, but he kind of liked the challenge. He had been using many of the dirty little tricks his organization had perfected over the years to complete his quest to get a live, active location. The weather buoys that tracked water displacement were hard to use for accuracy and radar stations were obviously useless. He smiled as he realized that the best factor they could use were animal movements in the area. A call to whale-spotting services and a few ships tracking fish and wildlife in the area had allowed the ever-useful Nigma to find something. And that something was a path that was being avoided by the wildlife. It gave them a solid estimate of the ship's location. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.

"Is the process complete, Miss Nigma?"

<Aqua>"Of course, Mister Sievold," said the world-class computer engineer and inventor as she used three little keystrokes to finish readying her grand finale, a simple program she called a "stunner."

"Then fire."

A pair of missiles detached from the wings of a Schwarze Augen jet which had been moving up the coast. They dropped in free-fall for a few seconds before their on-board computers came alive and the things fired off toward their targets. The SA jet then veered and began to follow a flight path laid out in precise details.

---

Deep in the water, Faye was running her ship in silence as she continued her gradual work on the wormhole that would deliver The Ring to safety. But as she moved, Gwen's Gift made her feel the tension of the officers on board the naval vessels above her head. She wasn't afraid of them seeing through her technological camouflage, but their hesitation and anxiety was curious. Had they spotted her? She reached out to the ships using Gwen's gift. She sensed hundreds of minds on the pair of frigates and sifted through them as quickly as possible. She grabbed a random mind and drew from it a few traces of his immediate superior's location. A little effort found that man's superior officer and so on. She bounced from mind to mind up the chain of command until she found the captain. He was surprised and shocked, but still giving orders. They were under attack. The man focused on someone at a radar station so she jumped to that mind and saw him tracking two inbound missiles.

Faye's knowledge of military hardware was profound, but even she had little idea what those missiles were. Their bulky, yet compartmentalized design suggested both a significant explosive payload and sophisticated on-board computing systems; they wouldn't be easy to shake. But why was someone firing missiles at the Navy? Brian wasn't that stupid; his PR campaign was his darling. Had serendipity stuck? Was the Navy being attacked randomly? No, this fleet was here to investigate the anomaly several hundred miles south that she had created. Brian had relayed that much.

Reductio: there was only one reasonable solution. The missiles were not tracking the Navy, they were tracking her! Instantly, her backup AI was in motion. With aid from the tower in Seattle, the missiles were analyzed, but the analysis revealed nothing surprising. They were unique designs. Namidians; she knew it. The way they flew through the air, twisting and turning to make themselves perfectly aerodynamic, told her that she had 50 seconds at most before impact!

She and the AIs needed to find the missiles' computers and hack them inside a minute. Not even a super-computer had that speed. JOHNNY, GIPS, and even Meta himself were attacking the problem as hastily as possible.

Seconds ticked away, people sweated, and they got closer and closer. Millions of possibilities, hundreds of thousands, thousands, hundreds, dozens... there, that was the signal. GIPS crowed in victory as the signal was isolated. No code was too complex for it to break at this point and there were ten seconds left. Plenty of time. Suddenly, the line between Faye and GIPS went dead. The missiles impacted the water and the AIs continuously reset themselves. The missiles sank quickly and every mind in the vicinity braced.

---

About a minute later, a battered-sounding JOHNNY chirped to life and began to speak.

"We only had a split-second inside those computers. But it was enough to determine that they were not explosive. Those were..."

Brian's eyes went wide and his head snapped around as if, just for a second, he was convinced that looking would let him see the subs miles away as the two devices fired. He groaned in desperation as devices like that should not have been effective against Faye, except someone had her number.

---

Moments prior, a shaken, but unharmed Faye assessed the situation. By her estimate, the EMP weapons had only crippled the submarine; the shielding around The Ring and her generator had ensured that they received mere cosmetic damage. So she decided to cut her losses and escape with The Ring intact. In her mind's eye, a perfect memory of The Box's next location sat suspended. Black Magic would never know it, but it was thanks to him that Faye finally grasped how it could be done...

Taking a deep breath, she used her AIs to mentally activate Meta's far-off generator, Sol 2. When she did so, her own generator shone a blinding light on her. With its help, she began bending gravitational fields in the sub-light spectrum, twisting and spinning and wrapping lines of force as thick as redwood pines and deeper than the core of the planet. Her generator shifted from blue, to green, to yellow, to orange. Slowly, the lines bent and torqued, twisted and slipped... and finally skipped.

For a heartbeat, Faye could sense the distance between herself and her target shrink. But before she reached her target, her damaged generator gave out on her. All that power, all that promise, slipped through her fingers like so much sand. Her submarine, along with thousands of tons of water she could barely shield herself from, crashed to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean! Though she did not lose consciousness, her fatigue, frustration, and fear snapped the meld in two. All at once, she was well and truly alone on the bottom of the sea.

---

Dieter pressed his fingers together and let out a concerned "hmmm." Judging by the highly visible disturbance in the Atlantic, the device was not out of action, just sitting at the bottom of the ocean. And he now had to reach it before anyone else could... or did he?

---

"Just as I thought," said The Commander over the Megalodon's communications system. "They planned for us and they planned an escape. Tudor, return to base. This operation has entered a new phase and our plans must be reevaluated."


"Yes sir!" said while his plane slowly spun on its axis before jetting off into the sunset. As he sat in The Commander's massive mobile command chair, the hardened, trusted officer balled, then clenched his fist. He had not proven himself fit to rule, not today. Instead, he had shown all of the men under his command that, for all his experience and intimate knowledge of human combat behaviors, he was no Commander. No matter, their minds would soon be changed. They say that fortune favors the bold, and Tudor planned on taking a bolder move than even The Commander thought he could in the near future. If he did not, after all, the career he sacrificed everything for would be in vain.

When the plane touched down on one of The Commander's bases, Tudor proudly marched out of the cockpit with his head held high.

---

"My dear, I am so sorry," said Black Magic as he awoke to the sight of Gwen's concerned face leaning over his own. "I failed you all, I--"

"--Saved our lives by hitting them first?" said Frank Jackson, who stood off to the side and looked down the tracks as some mountains faded from view.

"I dare say you could've saved us just as well, Frank. "

Uh-uh, my powers ain't quite so fancy. Ain't just persistence that wins wars, y'know."

"He's right," said Gwen, who stared directly into Magic's eyes as she psychically calmed him. "Without your involvement in the meld and the experiment, our chances of success were downright infinitesimal. Now let's get to work; Faye needs help!"

Apparently, thought Black Magic as Frank swung himself into the train's interior, Gwen thought that healing shattered ribs was one of his many magic tricks. In spite of her inconsiderate behavior, Magic teleported to her and placed his hand on her shoulder for support. No matter how much it took, no matter how hard it was, the members of the Gaultown Federation needed to stick together. It was, after all, the only way that they could ensure a better tomorrow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:05, Fri 02 Sept 2016.