Jen sighed, looking around desperately. The rest of the conduits seemed to be doing their best work. Launching shrapnel. Shooting shadow. Blasting light. What else were they to do? She began to pace the rooftop she was standing on. It was directly by the tornado’s path. Nearby, a conduit attempted to launch itself at the tornado, gripping a green blade. The hurricane simply absorbed the person, adding it to it’s growing mass of rubble. If she- Jen paused. A massive, deafening boom echoed through the ruins of the street. Nearby, merely one rooftop away, a conduit launched a massive lightning bolt at the tornado. A crackling, arcing bolt of pure electricity. The lightning didn’t seem to do much, at first. The twister shrugged it away like the rest of the attacks. But on closer examination, the lightning did seem to be doing.. something. The rubble absorbed by the tornado was beginning to act more wild. No longer did it seem to be in check by the rogue conduit. The man had lost all control of the rubble. The lightning had thrown him off, the light blinding him. “He’s done for!” Jen yelled over the turmoil of fighting. “He’s done!” Jen watched as the rest of it began to continue. As she hid, it occured to Jen how stupid she looked right now. While the rest of the conduits seemed to be fighting in sleek jackets and shirts, she was launching blasts of dusty sand in a Starbucks Uniform.

 It continued on like this for several minutes. Conduits throwing all they had at the rogue. The man stumbling about in his tornado, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The tornado was getting wilder now, as he began to lose control of it. The figure was getting fainter and fainter. Finally, the man was done in by one of his own scraps of rubble. One particular piece of shrapnel had gotten close to the center of the twister and had launched itself at the man. The man, along with the rest of the shrapnel, were all launched from the tornado. It was hard to make sense of what was happening. Jen dived behind a nearby generator on her building, taking cover. Several pieces from the hood of a car flew over her. She peeked out from behind it. Jen spotted the figure of a man being flung over to a nearby alley. It seemed that all of the conduits who had been fighting immediately converged to the alley where the man had been flung. Only one of them could get the prize money for turning him in. It was as if one soldier had finally thrown out an enemy troop in his tank, and the rest of his allies were converging on the one man. Jen herself was kind of hoping to turn him in. It would pay the bills for a long while.

Jen morphed into a continuous stream of sand and flew over to the alley. [i]Man, he really did some damage..[/i] Jen thought, looking over the destruction as she flew to the man. The area the twister had ravaged was in tatters. The dark alley was one of the few untouched areas. Jen arrived to it. However, the rest of the conduits seemed to be in a massive crowd by the beginning of the alley. They were all staring awestruck at what was happening. Jen pushed her way through the crowd. She could hear what sounded like sobs at the end of the alley? Why were they just standing there? Why didn’t they help? Jen arrived at the front, and what she saw was awful. “I.. hey.. uh..” Jen began in a meek voice. At the end of the alley, the rogue conduit was on his knees. He wore an old hoodie and tattered jeans. His hands were on his lap and he was staring straight into the sky, his mouth hanging open. His eyes had rolled into the back of his sockets. A man was holding his scalp. He wore the traditional garb of a Syndicate – the trademark mechanical mask and the clean suit. He wore the same gloves seen in the video about a year ago. He held the rogue’s scalp tightly, and a blue neon energy was seeping from any available orifice from the rogue right into his glove.

Jen slowly raised her hand, but she was too late. The man let go of the rogue’s scalp and the conduit dropped to the ground, unconscious. One conduit by her raised a hand and let loose a swirling blast of shrapnel. The Syndicate member raised his glove, who’s neon lines now glowed a dark, shadowy grey. His arm morphed into a swirling tornado, and simply absorbed the shrapnel. The tornado disappeared just as quickly as it turned. The Syndicate member flexed his metal gauntlet, forming a claw in his hand, staring down at it. He slowly rose his mask to face the crowd. “The Syndicate sends it’s regards.” He said. And with that, the man turned around and walked off, suit fluttering behind him. As he melded into the shadows of the alley, most of the conduits launched their attacks. Paint, rubber, smog. All of the attacks hit a brick wall at the end. It was as if the man had simply disappeared. Jen and the rest of the crowd just stared at the alley for a long while, the unconscious rogue [i]norm[/i] lying on the ground.