The rest of the menagerie seemed to take forever to arrive, forcing Cass to spend agonizing moments wondering whether to pipe up and start a conversation.  In the end, she took the easy way out, staring off into space as she rode out the awkward silence.  When someone finally did pipe up- the handsome elf, who appeared to have hooked up with a similarly surly young woman -it was even worse: they'd [i]already[/i] decided to call her 'glasses girl.'  Usually it took at least a day or two for someone to stick her with that nickname.

Luckily, before she could bleat out some cringey greeting of her own, the alien guy showed up, followed quickly by Merlovich and his fancy airplane.  Calculus's face seemed to light up as she saw the machine, her eyes sweeping over every visible detail, widening a little more with every moment as she took in the design, the aesthetics, the sheer [i]cost[/i] of actually building the damn thing, and the fact that she would now get to ride around in it at insane speeds.  Maybe he'd even let her learn to fly it, if she explained what she could do with such a powerful thing...

Her attention quickly shifted back to Kaden as he uttered her 'hero' name, along with a list of others and a job they were supposed to do.  Immediately, her face lost all its excitement, along with any hint of other emotion.  [i]Shit.[/i]  Not only did she have to go and stop a robbery- a robbery with hostages, which meant guns, which meant fighting followed shortly by her funeral -but they'd put her on the team with all the other wimps.  So not only was Calculus being sent straight into a terrifyingly dangerous situation with orders that amounted to 'fix it,' she was going without any of those bullet-tanking hulks who might've been able to actually handle the situation.  [i]Shiiiiit.[/i]

Barely breathing at all, she stumbled slightly towards the plane, resigned to her fate, when the kind man from earlier started speaking to her.  When Merlovich listed their names, she'd quickly noted which was which, and now knew this guy to be Skillshot.  Maybe his power was being super good at shooting things, then?  His next words seemed to confirm this, and visibly cheered her up a little, as she breathed out in relief and stood up in a vague imitation of confidence.  "I... can do that.  I think."  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.  This guy could just set himself up with a sniper rifle hundreds of meters away from the action, and then she'd point out targets until all the bad guys were dead and the team could all go home without getting shot!  

Then he demonstrated that his power was throwing marbles.  Hopefully, he missed the look of utter horror on Cass's face as her last hopes of survival were dashed.

[i]Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.[/i]

Walking as if in a daze, she made her way towards the plane.  She'd already figured out where to sit for the best odds of survival in a crash, but there wasn't really any point in that any more, was there?  She felt numb, almost as if she were dead already.  Why couldn't the damn billionaire have sent them to go rescue lost cats, or at least do something that didn't involve them all getting slaughtered?  Maybe she ought to just quit now, and take her chances.  Except then, nobody else would hire her, and she'd likely end up homeless.  At least it would be marginally better to go out with a bang.

Behind her, Cass heard Skillshot talking again, asking whether they should all take the plane if they were heading to two different places.  Come to think of it, how did one get to a crime scene on a plane?  They were in a city, it wasn't like there were places to land a jet everywhere...

Then she remembered what Merlovich had said earlier, as he showed off his fancy wing-jet.  'Tactical troop deployment.'  In the current context, that sounded a lot like 'I'm going to drop you out of a freaking plane onto a building full of armed criminals.'

[i]SHI-
...
...
...
Crap.[/i]