Power Chip Liberation

[etcircenses]

WHO| Everyone
WHAT| Power Chip Liberation plot; and you get superpowers, and YOU get superpowers...
WHEN| After D7 breakout
WHERE| District Six, Distrixt Thirteen, the Capitol
WARNINGS| Death, cannibalism.

The manufacturing plant in District Six takes nearly a day to get to for the District Thirteen soldiers; there's word that the Capitol has invested in better radar and anti-aircraft technology, so the hovercraft has to stay low, barely above the line of trees and then, once in the flat desert of the District, only feet above the ground and moving slowly enough not to kick up a visible trail of dust.

When they spy the line of anti-aircraft guns ringing the plant, the soldiers know that they made the right choice in not rushing. The plant is guarded well beyond what a normal factory here in District Six would be, which is a dead giveaway that they've come to the right one. Thankfully, the hacking team back home has carved out a small blind space that the combat team can sneak in through, and from that point the first wave of Peacekeepers defending the command system aren't effective in keeping the soldiers from the controls.

It's only after that that things begin to go wrong. The remaining Peacekeepers in the cramped, busy plant full of machinery and materials start attacking with powers that certainly didn't come from Panem. The factory workers, innocents, run for cover behind assemblylines and hide under tables, and on the second floor of the three-story building they take leaps out the window for safety. Chaos reigns. Holes are blown in the walls; shrapnel flits through the air and takes blood and flesh with it; Gowan Stevens, an unimpressive-looking man with rolled-up sleeves, grabs something from the control panel and a gun from one of his security guards and runs, protected by the mania around him.

Every offworld Tribute will be able to feel it - either the return of their familiar powers, or a rush of intuition and power that they never before had but that seems as easy to come to as riding a bike. From District Thirteen to the Capitol, the rush of power comes heady and wild - and just in time, because disaster strikes both in District Six and in the city.

Comments

HACKERS

[etcircenses]

Away from the action, the District Thirteen hackers are far from done with their work. They may have blinded the security system earlier, but now they have to take control of it, which proves much more difficult. They can't see what's going on in the factory, and currently are working only with the reports they're getting from the headsets on some of the soldiers.

It doesn't sound good.

The camera access is behind a wall of puzzles and security features. The system prompts password: and blinks its cursor bar at them.

Re: HACKERS

[biiowiired]

Psii slowly dragged a hand down his face. He thought this would be a simple job. There was a reason he didn't like working with too many people, and with his powers on the fritz, he felt extra testy today. But he knew he had to help do what needed to be done. There was no point in crippling the security system with Linden's virus if they couldn't also use it to their advantage. He kicked open an audio channel.

"Ok athholeth, anyone who thurvived the giant, thith ith your time to shine. We're stuck over here with no vithual, and you have no hacking capability. You need to find an actheth terminal before we can help you. I'd like to get thith done in time for dinner. What do you see?"

[dead_black_eyes]

Testy or not, time is of the essence and they have an important job. Linden's not known for his excellent attitude himself, but his virus has him behaving more professionally than usual. Snappy and alert, he has no powers to worry about the unpredictability of, and there's a skid of wheels as he moves monitors.

"I really could use some visuals," he mutters. Dinner's the last thing on his mind, but he's restless and impatient, in that he has a lot of hard work and reputation riding on this. "Psii? Keep me updated on their situation, I'm going to start working on some of these security features. It's not a simple cipher, but I think I can at least make some headway."

MONSTER

[etcircenses]

Near the front of the factory Peacekeepers are turning on the factory workers, believing that soldiers are escaping from the plant in their midst. Metal doors slam and clank down, trapping everyone - Districter, Peacekeeper and District Thirteen rebel. Gunshots and lasers and fireballs rip into the crowd.

But above all the chaos, no one can miss the immediate threat that rears up. One of the Peacekeepers, imbued with impossible power, violently increases in size, clothing rending off and face turning to a Glasgow grin. He stands five meters tall, a titan, and he grabs the nearest person (one of his comrades) and jams him into his mouth. There's a crack and a squelch as the Peacekeeper is ripped in half and then consumed, and before the creature has even finished swallowing his hand is reaching towards the next target.

He turns on everyone, rending people apart with teeth the size of bowling balls, indiscriminately devouring and murdering. Two hundred Districters remain alive, and they scream in despair and fear, but pinned down as they are between machines and bullets and the metal doors, they're helpless against the monster that descends on them.

[silberfuchs]

Throughout the mission, Albert's been eerily silent. He hasn't been granted a leadership position on this mission and so he remains taciturn, eyes always forward. Even when the powers had overtaken them and he'd felt the tell-tale feeling of his mechanics warping into what he's more used to, the metal crawling under his skin, the fingers of his right hand turning hollow, all he'd done in reaction was unshoulder his gun and load its ammunition into a popped-open slot on his right forearm.

Even the titan's appearance, monstrous and terrifying as it is, doesn't prompt a flinch. Instead, he opens up on it as it lifts its enormous hand to go for another person, bullets flying in a hail. He doesn't really bother to find cover either, simply pumping round after round into the beast and only vaguely aware of his comrades and civilians enough to keep them out of his line of fire.

He's already lost so many, he's not sure he cares what happens to him here.

[wizardplease]

Haruto had kept as close to Albert as he could on this mission, because it seemed like a good idea. He trusted the man and his judgement. He knew that he could be counted on in a fight. And... honestly, given how things have been going? He thinks that Albert could use the moral support. So he's not far away when the powers flicker on, and far more visibly reactive when one of the Peacekeepers erupts into... whatever the hell that thing is.

"I guess it's showtime!" He's actually excited about it, and can't keep a grin off his face. He has his rings, he has his magic, he just needs to activate his belt and transform... and so he does, passing the ring on his right hand over the palm-shaped device at his waist, triggering it to come alive with a noisy chime and a call of "Driver On, please!" He's already starting the flicking motion to shift the hand to the other side, setting it up for a proper cast of magic when everything becomes one enormous singing note of pain. He gives a strangled shout and doubles over, curling into himself, trying and failing to somehow fight the feeling off. It shouldn't be like this. Someone must've gotten something wrong somewhere. But he can't give in to the urge to panic, nor the fear that he might never truly get his powers back, after all. There is too much at stake. Too many people that he needs to save. If he can just get control back of his left hand and swipe it over the driver....

Alas, because he'd gone through with that flicking motion, his driver is now in standby-for-magic mode. Which means that it's singing, waiting for him to do something. "Shabadoobie, touch to henshin... Shabadoobie, touch to henshin..." Here's hoping the titan's not a big fan of music.

[the_marshal]

Even if Wyatt couldn't see the rest of the team in the chaos - bodies and blood and metal everywhere - he heard the rat-tat-tat of their rifles and he could see the pockmarks erupting over the beast's body. And he could also see how little it seemed to be doing to stop it. Pissing it off, sure - It roared in displeasure and it flung half a mutilated body in the direction of the volleying rounds, but still it moved with furious determination. No slower, no weaker.

They needed more - they needed something...

And there, suddenly, was a whisper in the back of his mind. Words he'd never heard, but knew as well as his own name. His gun slipped from his hands, falling to his hip on its sling, and his arms were lifting, his fingers curling. He'd only ever been just a man, but there, in that moment, Wyatt conjured fire from nothing. A wall of searing red flame, jumping up from the dark floor to form a wall between the monster and it's intended prey.

Magic.

Suddenly his, as readily as if he'd been born to it.

"Holy Mary Mother'a--"

[yoknapatawpha]

"Lord Almighty." The blanch that Bayard's face takes might suggest that he's never experienced anything but comfort in his life. But it's not that Bayard hasn't seen suffering. He's known hunger, both community-felt and personal. He's slept brief shifts on stone before pressing on daylight to sundown in pursuit of vengeance, and he's carried a corpse with him across fields and through fen.

Bayard has never seen carnage before. It kicks his guts up into his throat and makes his heart slam around inside his chest, enough to almost drown out the sudden new power that seems to course through him like a flush of warm blood.

He puts his hands forward, almost feeling as if someone else is moving his body, and the ground beneath the titan buckles, dropping a foot and a half. It's child's play, and the titan barely stumbles, instead turning on another cowering Peacekeeper and dismembering her.

"What is that? Are you doing that?" He asks the man next to him, one whose name he only briefly learned as Earp during the mission briefing. "Can you turn the fire on him?"

[carnagecarnival]

Evacuation - OTA

He shouldn't be here. He thinks that through the flight, all through the district. He shouldn't be here. He vibrates, running on raw nerve. He's got Terezi's words and Sam's words and Jet's and none all of them actually up and being by him. He's got so little to hang on to. He should've stayed back, out of the fight like he wanted. But the Psiioniic is here and so is Albert. Terezi told him to believe in miracles, believe in his duty to this world of theirs. Jet told him not to let the anger burn him up. Sam and Signless told him both would be there.

He doesn't know what else to do and the fear drowns him in his shell.

Until then, all at once, that fear is an ocean, the waters spreading wide. It's a hundred textures and flavors and colors bright. It's a breath to his lungs as suddenly he can feel everything for the first time in what feels like forever. It lights him up internal and it shines through his eyes, pink and indigo flashing. He's aware of each soul in his presence.

And he's very aware when one of them is snuffed out. The giant, something making him feel truly physically small as he's never been, crunches down upon the screaming Peacekeeper. He doesn't flinch. At least that's something he's seen before and has before he even had a name. He's not sure he can fight this thing but he ain't figure he's going to. Not before his true job is down.

His arms go out with his voodoo, fear shooting in the heads of every civillian motherfuck in proximity immediate, ally or enemy. He fills their heads with a panic, a directive singular and exclusive that eclipses all else.

GET OUT. GET WHO YOU CAN. GET FAR THE MOTHERFUCK AWAY FROM HERE.

As his words sound in their minds, their eyes light too. He is everywhere at once. His grip is firm for all the fear is fresh there. One by one, the people begin to quickly start away. In the minds of those fighting with him, he breathes, CIVILIANS TAKEN CARE OF. SEE TO YOUR ENEMIES. He folds there upon the ground, extending himself outward far beyond his own mind, and an idea takes root.

Outreach - Sam, Jet, Terezi, voodoo conversation reaching the Capitol

He's never reached this far before. Not in his whole life has he extended voodoo so far, not even when he ruined his voice forever, but he has to try, he has to do this, and he's willing to accept that however it motherfucking goes it is going to motherfucking hurt.

He brings his finger tips up, above his temples and just at the base of his horns, focusing as they sing and his pan sings with them. His muteness keeps any cry from slipping out through his teeth. He pushes out and out and out and a grim part of him thinks how a troll stretching this far physically would've been torn to bits a hundred times over now. Fear readily supplies the images associated.

The names go around his head in circles, Sam, Jet, Terezi, SAM, JET, TEREZI. He knows the feel of their minds, if only so very dimly. He has to find them. Their fear should be bright...

Pass out - For Bayard and whoever wants to thread with Initiate's passed out self

And just like that, like the lash of a wire, like a crush of bone, the voodoo snaps. There's no voice for it to lash upon this time, but he feels it nevertheless, rocking his frame through the marrow of his bones. It's a sudden fissure in his pan like the earth splitting apart and it runs so deep that the only reason he doesn't scream is that he can't. All along it are all his own fears biting back but it doesn't matter much.

At some point in reaching the others, he stood up, but now he sways. The light in his eyes fades and flickers like a dying bulb. He crashes right on down. The scar he signed up to receive may have been just a bit too much after all.

Outreach

[pythianjudgment]

The fear first piques Terezi when she's in the middle of the Capitol, navigating the streets to the next location that she needs to be at. It feels like a bit of dread settling in her stomach, a tension buzzing on the edges of her mind. It causes her to stop, checking over her shoulder and then bracing against a nearby wall to keep her steady while she scans the future for nearby dangers.

Nothing. Well, nothing close by, anyway.

The backlash of pain comes as expected and she waits for it to subside with clenched teeth and balled fists. Gradually, feeling returns the her limbs. The fear is still there, lingering in a way that's almost familiar--except the person responsible for that familiarity was hundreds of miles away, as far as she know. It couldn't be him.

There's one way to check, but even as she starts to think of a way to send a message back, she knows there's no need. Her fear is already speaking for her, a creeping dread at the idea of Kurloz being back in the Capitol. She hopes she's wrong. She hopes he's still miles away from this place.

Outreach

[metalicarus]

The grugs running through synthetic and organic veins cause a range of emotions at any given time, depending on what Jet's brain comes up with. It had been something peaceful, something blank as he thought he was sitting on the edge of a cliff near Gilmore's house. He was home and there was nothing to worry about or think about, certainly nothing that might be going on outside of his perception or at the back of his mind. At least until something disturbs that peace.

The fear trickles in like a ribbon carefully wrapping around everything. What if he failed to protect his family? What if he lost them all again? What if he became a somnua like his Original? A monster and not a puppet like Albert had been. What if he thought too hard about the beeping in the back of his mind or how, if he thought on that beeping, the little alerts at the corners of his vision became visible to tell him something wasn't right. Something was tampering with his cybernetics.

The fear became stronger and he stood on that cliff as the sky grew dark in response, thunder and lightning coloring the clouds and deafening the air. He couldn't fly in this weather safely, he couldn't be free which meant he was trapped. "No."

He turned towards Gilmore's mansion only to find it on fire and nine burning corpses of various sizes lay strewn across the yard. In the middle of them stood a man, Jet's height with matching blue eyes and hair only a few shades darker than his own. Terror pooled in his stomach and engulfed his heart and the next moment saw him kneeling at Kirk's feet like the subservient dog he'd once been compared to.

The thunder crashed but it was different, changed, a voice that was almost a comfort despite the fear in him made up the crash and Jet could almost make out his name in it. The thunder was calling him and something in him wanted to reach back. He covered his ears with his hands like the child who'd hid in his closet when the storms hit New York and whispered to himself. "Stop. Just make it stop."

Outreach

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam's sitting in his cell when he feels the brush of fear against his mind. It's hard to discern at first, because in the day or two since he's been shot down he's felt a hell of a lot of fear - but he knows this, he knows the feel of someone else tapping into that fear. He's felt it before.

"Kurloz?" He says it outloud, but it's easy to pull up the jumble of feelings of what his brother means to him, to focus on the fear there - fear that Kurloz had gotten captured too, fear that he's gonna get himself captured, and even fear that Sam wasn't able to keep his promise the way he'd meant to, that he'd never leave Kurloz alone.

It's too damn easy to focus on fear here, to try to give Kurloz something to hold on to.

[yoknapatawpha]

It's become clear through this awful battle that Bayard doesn't have the constitution his father did. It's all the more obvious when he runs back into the fray and watches one of his squadmates collapse, sway for a moment and then drop to the earth as if all of gravity has chosen a focal point below him.

Bayard's father might have called a retreat, been practical instead of humane. His father won battles, had strategy, had a head on his shoulders that could weigh the abstracts of loss instead of only carrying the immediate tragedy. Bayard's heart is closer to the surface than that, so close under his skin that it seems to be the source of exhausted flush in his face.

He pushes past his innate fear of the demon-man before him, the revulsion that a good Christian upbringing has inculcated in him and allowed him to overcome.

"I have you," he whispers to the prone body, pulling Initiate up as much as he can over his shoulder. Initiate towers over him even without the horns, and Bayard isn't terribly tall or strong to start, but what he lacks in stature he recovers in persistence and gumption. With a grunt, he starts to drag Initiate away from the locus of danger.

He pauses a moment to catch his breath, Initiate still leaning over his shoulder like a hobo's possessions. "I have one injured! I need help!"

DREAM

[etcircenses]

In another corner of the factory, one of the Peacekeepers comes into powers that aren't so flashy or obvious as the fireballs and sprays of ice or lightnings ripping across the space. He places his hands to the side of his head and, unlike some of the other Peacekeepers, knows immediately what to do.

Immediately, the soldiers in the surrounding area feel it - something like drunkenness as they're taken out of waking and into another lucid world that doesn't feel quite right, that doesn't react as quickly, but looks the same as what they have now. But their nightmares are lurking in the corners, waiting for a moment to spring up and twist the screws to them.

The Peacekeeper plans on keeping these soldiers at bay in their own heads as long as possible.

PUNCH-OUT

[etcircenses]

Beneath the factory, there's a garage and a secondary exit. That's where the CEO of the company is heading, along with the failsafe for special abilities. The basement of the factory is a veritable maze of hardware boxes, machines, cargo crates and hallways, and it doesn't take long for Gowan to disappear. Thankfully, at least one of the District Thirteen hackers has access to the factory's security cameras.

Gowan Stevens is a man without much to look at or to offer the world, but he's been perfectly without convictions when it comes to fair labor practices, and he has a good family name, so he became the leader in the industry less by hard work than by falling into it. Right now he casts his jacket off and holds his gun, then, shaking, tucks it into his belt, knowing full well he'll never have the guts to pull the trigger, even at himself.

His security team, thankfully, floods the labyrinth of halls and materials in the basement to protect him, and with powers that wouldn't be out of place in a comic book, launch themselves at any Rebel they see.

Re: PUNCH-OUT

[theflyingone]

"I will stay on Stevens." Altaïr rarely spoke into his mic except to give vital information in his usual cold, clear voice. If it wasn't for the responses he received, he wouldn't believe he was being heard.

He was a professional at chases, but he never had to deal with a mob of super-powered soldiers. Dodging lasers was a little harder than dodging arrows. He darted to the high ground, leaping from forklifts to the tops of shipping containers and swinging from metallic rows of lighting fixtures. Malik would give him hell for even instigating a chase in the first place, but they hadn't known where the failsafe was before Stevens grabbed it. He wondered if he should try killing all these Peacekeepers, but he didn't dare let Stevens out of his sight. His usual technique in a chase was to eliminate his target first, then either draw his pursuers into a line and finish them one by one, or simply escape them all.

His training had also prepared him for the possibility of death after killing his target. It was more useful for an Assassin to return alive, since so much training had been put into them, but in the end they were more expendable than a bureau leader or Mentor. The exact tenets and traditions of his Brothers might be lost with his death, but the idea that safety and peace must not come at the price of all freedom would resurge again and again as long as humanity existed. Altaïr did not fear death per se, only that he would fail.

Stevens was not an athlete; Altaïr felt he could spare brief moments to lob a couple throwing knives at his more dangerous pursuers, particularly the one with the lasers.

[dead_black_eyes]

Linden's eyes narrow; the adrenaline rush of the process is still going strong, but years of conditioned dislike for the man on camera are at work. While he was never what one might consider possessive of Gowan's wife, Temple, with whom he has had an ongoing affair for years, there's a certain kind of person he doesn't like to share with. Gowan represents everything about the Capitol he hates, entitlement and false indignant morals and endless, excessive abuse of his own power and influence. Admittedly, he has fantasized about taking this man down, and it's his pleasure to watch him scurry toward his doom like a panicked rat in a maze rigged to crush him at the end.

The gun is especially amusing. Do it, I dare you. Pull the trigger. Do you even know how to aim? A taut smile pulls at Linden's lips as he imagines taunting the man face-to-face, methodically taking everything from him and forcing him to watch. As someone who grew up in District 6 and has had a secret but intimate view of his family life, he has every reason to detest him, every reason to use his more comprehensive view of the situation to ensure that Gowan Stevens doesn't just bite it, he chokes on it.

He wouldn't shoot. He couldn't. Linden knows he doesn't have the balls, and he would be easy to take as a prisoner. But Gowan's pursuers don't share Linden's knowledge.

He speaks precisely and firmly into the mouthpiece, noting that at least one highly-trained soldier is pursuing Gowan in particular. Once he catches up, the winded CEO won't be any match for the seasoned assassin.

"Please approach cautiously. The target is armed and cornered, and I have reason to believe he's likely to shoot," Linden says, gnawing the pad of his thumb and staring hard at the petrified, desperate man on camera.

THE CAPITOL

[etcircenses]

In the Capitol, it's just another day under the new, tighter regime. People shop, gossip, watch television, get manicures and go to their mostly less-than-demanding jobs. The world continues on with that same ill-at-ease monotony that it has for the last few weeks.

Until some of the Peacekeepers on beat are overloaded with power and, untrained to handle the sudden mad abilities running through their bodies, try in vain to keep all the force of the elements and the superhuman body under control. Two Peacekeepers with ice powers accidentally freeze a shopper to death before turning on each other to try and stop the problem. One other Peacekeeper explodes into a spatter of gore and a scorch of energy against a wall. Another finds himself on fire and runs through the street, screaming for an extinguisher.

Throughout the streets, Citizens scream and run for cover as the people who once defended them lose control entirely and become conduits for acts of God. A fireball incinerates a quarter of a building, and the entire structure tilts and begins to collapse. Debris from the top scatters down in a deadly rainfall. A thunderbolt crashes into an electrical main and it explodes, sending the wires and telephone poles toppling onto buildings and civilians. The air fills with the screams of men, women and children.

A Silent Hill Puppet with Jeremy Fitzgerald as the Puppeteer

[inrestlessdreams]

The air is thick with the pain and suffering of the Capitolites but James finds himself only helping them out of basic human decency. He doesn't cooperate with the Capitol, who benefited from the suffering of the Districts out of his own free will...he fights for Clara and Mary's memory. He knows that they're holding her hostage and they know of his affection for her and for Vivi...

Sunderland is leading a group into a shelter as he grabbed the nearest blunt object, a broken table leg and slamming it into a deranged Peacekeeper heads. He was pretty damn sure that if anyone could help him, he had to call out. "Hey!" he yelled, "I need help fending these guys off! Can you help me!?"

dance puppet dance

[leiche]

At least it's easier now. It's an absolute warzone that he's never seen the likes of before, and the arenas were nothing compared to this - he's lucky the Capitol were kind enough to bring him back after what happened to him last time, but Jeremy knows that won't always be the case. He has to prove himself worthy of the Capitol's generosity, prove his loyalty and determination to do right by them, if he ever wants that security from death again.

Everyone else, on the other hand, is losing their minds from the looks of it. It's a shame - for them. They can't see the benefits to their newfound abilities and can't use them properly. Ah, well. That's their loss.

Jeremy doesn't need his weapons. He has the knife in his belt, the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to his back, but he hasn't had to use a single one. Instead, he has his own new abilities that he's been experimenting with all day, and he's pleased with the results that's left his clothes stained from dirt and blood, enough so that he walks the warzone in confidence as he looks for conflicts and dangerous, out of control Peacekeepers to deal with. It's a situation just like that he stumbles upon now, with another (presumably) Capitol soldier fending off a few troublesome Peacekeepers, and he shouts for them to stop - which they do, in an instant.

"All of you," he addresses the offending Peacekeepers as he approaches, who pay rapt attention to his words. Each order he gives, they obey immediately. "Drop your weapons. Leave this area."

He'd give them more orders as proper punishment, but the Capitol's resources are getting fewer with every battle, and he shouldn't be telling all of them to jump off rooftops. Some ... but not all of them.

[futilecycle]

When Sigma leaves the comfort of his home to join the fray he doesn't consider how he is a marked man or that it would do his image well - only that people need his help, and that perhaps a cyborg would be more likely to hold his own against a peacekeeper than a would-be civilian rescuer. It is once he finds himself at odds with an electrified Peacekeeper that he wonders if he has made a mistake.

The first idea Sigma'd had to keep civilians alive was to distract the Peacekeepers long enough for the evacuation to finish, but here stood a woman against which the strength of his cybernetics was completely useless. Mistakenly believing the Peacekeepers' powers are tied to their fear, Sigma decides to lower the tranquilizer gun that Quintus authorized him and convince the Peacekeeper that he means no harm and neither does she.

"Please, stay calm. You must recognize me: I am Sigma Klim, and we are on the same side. This is not a weapon, I am here for your prote-"

His vision erupts into bright white light and he instantly knows what is happening. The Doctor drops his gun to grasp the sides of his head, expecting the suffering that came with his prophetic powers. Instead he can see, in perfect clarity, what happens when the Peacekeeper unleashes her full potential, which of those running from her are struck, and how feels to have every inch of his body fried in a torrent of electricity.

His return to reality buckles his knees and sends his heart racing. Such power, and none of the pain he had known in his world. He had forgotten what it had been like to view time as a three dimensional space - a space he could manipulate to his advantage even after his physical body was gone...

No sooner than he can blink again does he lift his gun to shoot where her neck would be the next moment, but the drug would take some time to work its way through her body. He turns to the closest evacuee as he prepares to finish the fight. "Get down! She's about to kill you!" He would force them to the ground himself if he must. Now that death was of no consequence, Sigma is not daunted by power nor sheer numbers. The Capitol would know what the ruler of infinite time could achieve...
[OOC: Please check here for details regarding Sigma's powers! His handicap is that he will become "addicted" to his powers and lose his reason.]

[whatisay]

Since everything went to hell, Jason's had no idea what to do with himself. He's out of a job, and aside from the time he spends with Swann and the increasing times he's been driving around the highways of the city just to kill time, he's mostly been sleeping or watching the news. A sort of pointlessness has covered his life like a thick layer of snow, but he still has animal needs, and after two days of not leaving his house he's finally gotten up and gone out to at least grab something to eat.

That's where he was, grabbing something cheap at the Capitol equivalent of a gas station, when the world seems to explode. The building down the road collapses, and Jason tries to sprint down an alley away from the chaos towards where he parked. Someone tries to tell him the safe way to evacuate, and he shoves past them and moves towards the only emblem of freedom he's ever had, in complete ignorance, when he sees Sigma Klim shoot a woman. He stops, watching Sigma's mouth move, barely hearing the words over the echos of the chaos he's just run from.

His city is falling to pieces. It's something he never even realized he was taking for granted. It blots out his instincts, his cognitive function, everything in a smear of disorientation.

"What?" he asks, and he can't hear himself, and then he sees the spark of electricity in the woman (still not down - drugs, those must be tranquilizers, he thinks) and he lurches back, away from where the explosion will be in moments but with no grace or foresight. Sigma will have to take him down.

Shepard / Open

[earthborn]

The world was the rush of blood in her ears, ice and fire in her veins, that horrifying full-body pins-and-needles as biotics that had been forced dormant suddenly reengaged. Eezo didn't sleep deeply enough to dream, but maybe it napped-- and by god it woke bitchy.

Shepard lifted her head, panting after her staggered introduction to the life of a biotic, and found that the sensation of fire and madness wasn't just a screaming numbness along her arms, it was real. It was so real, with that same dream logic; and how did you get here? And how does that matter? A Peacekeeper stood for a moment, ten yards down the walkway from her, leaning on the wall, and she felt the moment when he inhaled like a burn against her retina, and in the next she flinched away as blood and chunks of gore spattered across her face, painting it red. Another Peacekeeper stood just next to her, the guard at the door, dumbfounded with his gun loose in his fingers, face red, and white under the blood.

Well, then.

"Excuse me," She took the gun from him, expression steely, brooking no argument; he didn't try to offer one, and she clocked a man-on-fire with the butt of the rifle as he ran past. The flaming peacekeeper fell in a steaming heap, clothes more ash than substance, unconscious, but alive, "Alright, kid. You're with me."

His badge said 'Culver', and so it went, over the next hour or two. She'd find a few men, cornered by their own, panicked, uncertain, and with typical aplomb she'd solve the problem. Shepard only had to shoot one peacekeeper, when he refused to back down. The man only kept blasting her little group, advancing despite increasingly ardent protest, like a child with a grenade, too stupid with fear not to pull the pin. Shepard did it herself when they hesitated, knowing they were looking to her, and felt the weight of command settle back onto her shoulders more honestly. Never once had she ever asked someone to do something she wasn't willing to do, and Shepard knew these men were hers, at least for now, when none of them questioned it. Less than half a dozen of them, perhaps, but enough to work with. Enough to make a difference.

But even so equipped, with borrowed weaponry and at least this little group of men temporarily under her command, she can't foresee everything. And she's certainly looking for friendlies to protect, to defend, or to recruit. Welcome to Panem.

[futilecycle]

Again Sigma found himself entirely unlike his hero - prophetic, yet unprepared for the crucible of war.

By the time they cross paths Sigma has stumbled through the rescue of a dozen civilians... by sorting through infinite possibilities until he found the one that satisfied him. Shepard will discover him just as his drive is beginning to fray, slouched against a wall and catching his breath. He was rather sick of dying, of watching death, and the more he did it the harder it was to leap back into the future. One could become allergic to this, he supposed. There was no comfort for what he'd seen in worlds these people would never know.

Still, as he finds Shepard with a trail of saved lives in her wake, he rises to greet her respectfully. He cannot salute when he does not know how, or when he lacks the etiquette to know if it was appropriate, but hopes an admiring nod will communicate his regard for her all the same. Black blood soaks his back and wets the fabric of his red silk shirt. There are scorch marks on his tailored Gamemaker jacket and flecks of dried fat in the whorls of his hair. He reminds himself that this was all made to plan.

He shifts the tranquilizer gun from his shoulder into his hands and smiles in spite of himself. Here was one to whom he owed a great deal. "...Commander." Sigma may have once protested the need for titles in Games, but this was war. He'd seen her biotics at work and had reflected on the meaning of the words there is one I could call king.

[didnothing]

For the first time since her revival in the Capitol, Luna leaves the Detainment Center. Nobody's told her she could leave, but also nobody's told her that she can't - and with chaos raging in the streets and sudden knowledge in her mind, Luna thinks that for once she might better serve people outside the infirmary than inside it. She isn't the kind of robot that has superhuman strength or genius-level intellect, and she never considered the possibility that she could be upgraded with anything of the sort either. But here she is, suddenly aware of something new she can do and how to use it, and it's only right that she do everything she can to prevent any further harm to others.

[For Terezi Pyrope]
She's not far from the Detainment Center when she recognizes a particular head of hair and horns. This one isn't as familiar as Karkat or the Initiate but Luna's able to place it for a moment, and she realizes that she may not be the only one taking a bit of freedom while there's an advantage to be had in leaving. She runs forward towards the figure, calling her her name as she does: "Terezi!"

[For Sigma Klim]
There's so much to do in all the havoc, but eventually things start to wind down though and towards the end Luna finds herself with just a spot of time to herself as she takes a rest from spreading her awareness to every fearful trapped victim in the past several hours. She's gotten a handle on her new powers by now and that includes the understanding that even machines require time to recharge. A little leftover strength is more than enough to give her room to think, though, and as Luna sits down something occurs to her: she can't communicate with huge crowds at this point, but one person is less of a problem. Now would be a good time to see how people are doing. And in particular, this could be a good opportunity for a long-overdue talk.

She takes a deep breath, tries not to think about how long it's been, and focuses on a particular mind she finds familiar for all she's never encountered it today. Sigma! Sigma, can you hear me?