[center][img]http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo63/NMShape/cooltext142067183038523_zpsiknawoc6.png[/img],
[img]http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo63/NMShape/cooltext141340328007740_zps3gxyewql.png[/IMG] & [img]http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo63/NMShape/cooltext136250037968154_zps7irjncxu.png[/img]
[h2]Part 1[/h2][/center]
[indent][h3][sub]Location: Sharman Square, in the apartments[/sub]
[sub]Timeline: During the Riots, Night[/sub][/h3][/indent]


Justine sat at her desk on an indigo colored exercise ball half dancing in it thanks to the beat piped through the studio-monitor style headset over her ears. Her fingers were fairly flying over the keyboard as she typed, apparently working on her latest article or piece. She’d finished up a couple phone interviews, called her boss to let her know what she was working on. She was a freelancer, but she still had people she regularly submitted work to. It made her life easier, as well as allowed her to operate as an independent, working for an outfit over the net as well as local hardcopy service.  She shot a couple files off with quick emails, and stretched a bit, then grabbed a drink from her bottle of water.  With the cap being screwed back on she sat it back down, only to frown as a vibration ran through the apartment. She took off her headset, then frowned as she heard the front door explode inward. **Crap** she thought. 

She got off of the ball and rushed to her nightstand, pulling out her pistol, a reliable pistol her father had helped her pick out and she had gotten quite comfortable with. Into her short gray cottony athletic shorts went an extra magazine, while she switched the tactical light on the pistol to strobe, and thumbed the safety off after racking the slide, chambering a round. She moved to the doorway, cracking it open an inch, peering out. 

The exchange she heard, only to see the man get blasted in the back by a bright blast of collimated energy. Some kind of ray weapon. From the sci-fi and all she read, she might have guessed it was a particle weapon. Plasma was a little less controlled. Laser made no sound, and she wouldn’t have seen the beam most likely. A particle beam though tore things apart, and caused it to throw off photons, as well as tear the air and more. She swept the strobe over the standing figure as well as the prone one. She couldn’t immediately tell who the aggressor was, but it seemed the one on the floor had been hit from behind. If anything he had been the first through the door. Was he fleeing, or breaking in? 

Rach had the knife, held down her arm. It was a defensive grip, and by the way she regarded Icarus and his position just outside the door,.. she trained her weapon on the prone man. She’d heard what Icarus said, the word hero, and it was then that the brief exchange of words caught up to her. [Color=b799cd]“Rach,”[/color] she shouted loudly, seeing her coughing and her hands were covered in what almost looked like dark, coagulated blood. What the hell was going on?!

The man, labeled Bozo by Racheli, merely stumbled slightly forward when he felt something nail him in the back. The particle beams had managed to heat through the leather duster, ruining it completely, as it burned through to his impenetrable skin underneath. In a normal human, the hex-feathers would’ve done greater damage and likely subdued them but he wasn’t just any human. He was a meta after all created by an overdose of drugs. It only reddened the surface in irritation causing Bozo to grunt in amusement when the tingling sensation rippled across his body where beams hit him. 

Almost chuckling, Bozo asked through his mask. “Is that all you got?”

His feet managed to balance, widening and stopping his step just before his face collided with the floor. The ‘hero’ was quick and that excited him, his face clearly showed it with a dark smirk. His head had turned to keep an eye on the coffin shaped machinery when his sight noted a woman, with a gun in hand, bearing down him. His right brow lifted in disbelief at seeing her consider a normal gun would even phase him. “Bitch, I suggest you better think twice. I have no problem tearing you up as well when I’ve finished with this hero wannabe.”     

Bozo spied the strange devices rotating and trying to keep between him and the woman coughing up blood. It seemed that would be one less whore to kill off later as he lifted his leg, then stomped down. The power in it was comparable to a compact car impacting the floor from a couple feet up, the foot breaking past the weaker wooden boards and burying it underneath. Bozo gritted in frustration when he realized his foot was stuck though he managed to send ripples through the apartment.

Gabriel flinched as someone suddenly called out to the girl leaning against the counter- at least, he assumed that’s who they were calling out to- he couldn’t conceive that Bozo’s name was “Rach,” or that someone would be calling out to him in such a situation. Keeping his Hex-Feathers trained on the enemy’s back, he turned to where he heard the voice coming from. Another woman was peeking her head through a cracked-open door, a pistol poked through, trained on the prone man, who already seemed to be stirring.

[color=teal][i]Great. One of the durable ones. And here I was hoping this building wouldn't be a total write-off…[/i][/color] He glanced back toward the other woman. [color=teal][i]And now, on top of things, we’ve got a civilian here. This has NOT been my night.[/i][/color] 

“Miss, I recommend you try and find some way out of here while you still can- things are about to get very broken, and I’d rather you’re not one of them.” As if that was the burly meta’s cue, he stood straight and tall, grinning at Gabriel from behind his mask (he assumed). The man even chuckled.

[color=teal][i]Prick.[/i][/color]

“Is that all you got?” he gloated, before turning toward the pistol-wielding woman, taunting her for her choice of weapon and insulting him in the same breath.

[color=teal][i]Yeah, sure. We’ll see how able you are at hurting anything once I take it up a few notches.[/i][/color] Just then, Bozo lifted his leg up, before bringing it down hard enough to shake the entire gods-damned building. Gabriel stumbled slightly before he levitated himself off the ground by an inch or two, avoiding the worst of the shocks, and was pleased to notice that the other meta’s stunt had gotten his foot lodged in the floorboards. He smirked and rolled his eyes, though the effect was somewhat lost since no one could see his face.

[color=teal]“Nice job, idiot. No, really, thanks- it helps to have a stationary target!”[/color] At that, he darted in and landed straight in front of the man, before bringing his foot up, then down in a savage axe kick on the top of the man’s head.

As soon as that foot had raised to stomp, Justine squeezed the trigger. The gun cracked loudly in the confines of the apartment. It racked back hard against her grip, but she was strong enough that it barely bucked. The jacketed round zipped forward to slam against the cheekbone, puddling there and causing the skin to ripple from the kinetic energy. Metal was very pliable at those speeds and so it simply deformed against him, energy spent, and dropped to the floor.  Then the foot slammed down hard. It was enough to jar her feet and make her stagger for a split second. A normal person probably would have gone down, but she had much better footing than most people. 

Recovering she realized he had enough physical power to do major damage to the building, and he’d just tried to take out the floor or drop the ceiling or something. He was definitely an immediate threat. Quickly she began drawing the trigger back, as she knew where the break-over point was and she was killed at combat shooting. Her daddy made sure she wasn’t a victim, and had spent plenty of time on the active shooting courses with the police department. She went into a line-drill of sorts, shooting for his chest first, the next aimed higher, the hollow of his throat, then again at his throat. Then around his mouth, then another shot at his nose, then eye level, and at his forehead. Each shot was right on the tail end of the one before it as her strobe light was on narrow beam and gave her a good reference point, as well as helped improve her sight picture, and if he looked her way the brilliant light flickering on and off at just the right speed to be completely disorienting.. he’d get it straight in the eyeballs! 

Bangbangbangbangbangbang! The rounds were powerful and the pistol she wielded was a hell of a naildriver. She only hoped that one of the rounds would find a weak point, or she was going to get rekt if she stayed in the fight for very long.. as her normal squishy self. 

The meta human tilted his head, but he wasn’t fast enough. The bullet nicked his cheek and thankfully missed his eye, not that he was worried about damage. Before this job he had literally been high enough to take a screw drive to each eye, trying to gorge each one out. The screwdriver's end had left little to no visible mark at all much to his excitement. Granted it wasn’t a bullet but it did a great deal to up his confidence. The bullet was nothing more than a flatten, dented piece of metal. 

Not worried about the woman that shot at him, Bozo was more focused on getting his foot loose. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed his stomp had at least brought down one of the three individuals in the apartment though the ‘hero’ had managed to gain the ability to fly. A fact Bozo had forgotten since they were on the fourth floor and it was the only way the man could’ve made his way up. The meta’s head bent lower and away from the two women, trying to see if he could twist his foot loose. That's when he spotted the small, petite female aim for his chest. 

He been shot before, his mind snapping in the light’s meaning, then abruptly jerked up his meaty hand to protect his lower face and neck. The bullets on his chest, eye and forehead popped him hard, condensing like the first one before dropping like flies. However, he had shielded his throat and mouth sparing them from the bullet’s impact. The rebreather was sturdy but not unbreakable much to his anger. 

Distracted by the trigger happy bitch, the ‘hero’ managed to catch his head back. Bozo lost his balance bring his body to one knee. It smacked hard into the floor as his one hand spread and nearly brought him to all fours, barely preventing his face from planting into the ground. His lungs inhaled more of the drug laced fumes into his system. His muscles seemed to increase in bulk as his  beady eyes narrowed in fury at Justine. This game was becoming far less fun now that his weakness was nearly hit and his fingers flexing in eagerness to struggle something. 

With his head bowed down from the impact, his voice out in a harsh, venomous tone. Without warning, his right hand whipped up to grip ahold of the ‘hero’s’ foot a few moments after it connected. The meta’s human’s head back still feeling like he had his skull split into two, Bozo ignored the pain though his sight slightly blurred from the impact. One perk, he didn’t need to see his target to get a hold of what had hit him. “You SOB, you’ll fucking pay for that.” 

In an iron grip, his fingers had latched onto  the ankle. Bozo shifted the leg from his skull base to rest on the shoulder, partly using the hero wannabe to cover his lower face, then lifted upright to off balance his attacker. His other hand came up in a fist and aimed right at the side of the capture leg’s knee cap, aiming to bust it into pieces. 

Gabriel suppressed a very unmanly yelp as Bozo grabbed his leg, shoving it into the air, which would have been [i]very[/i] uncomfortable before he'd gotten his "upgrade." His relief at that fact was short-lived as soon as he realized the meta was cocking his fist back. And there were really only two places that fist could go, considering their position, and he didn't like either option too much.

[i]Fuck. ARMOR!![/i] he thought frantically, calling his Hex-Feathers back to himself. They attached to the back of his jacket, a green aura pulsing across his body just as Bozo's fist impacted against his knee. He winced in surprise as he realized he not only felt the impact through the ARMOR function, but it actually [i]hurt.[/i] Granted, without the ARMOR, his knee would have been shattered into a million pieces (and he wasn't overly confident in how long it would take to recover from that, even with nanites), but still, that was a surprise. 

[/i]Huh. Interesting. Maybe I'll study it later.[/i] Speaking of, that reminded him of something. When the non-meta girl had unloaded a clip into Bozo's bulk, he'd actually seemed panicked when a bullet nearly grazed the mask he was wearing. A weakness, perhaps?

[i]Only one way to find out,[/i] he thought. He jumped up, cocking his leg back, aiming it straight at the meta bastard's face.

[color=teal]"Let go, asshole!"[/color] he shouted, unleashing the kick he'd chambered straight at Bozo's face.

Justine frowned as the strobe light (not a laser dot) played over Bozo and her shots hit their mark. He’d jerked his head out of the way or maybe he hadn’t .. for the shot that she’d tried to put through his upper lip. She still had half her magazine but then this mechanized person, who labled himself a hero was in the way. She grimaced as Bozo got a boot to the head, who then latched down on the machinery covered leg and slammed a fist into the knee of the big green weenie. ‘Hero’ then pulled a Jet Li maneuver and brought his other leg up and around in an airborne roundhouse or crescent kick to Bozo’s head. 

He was all kinds of in the way! 

She kept her weapon trained on Bozo as she moved to her right, circling toward the kitchenette and toward Racheli. Maybe she could get Rach out of danger if nothing else. Her ears were still ringing from the last shots she’d fired only a few second ago as the two figures battled in her living room. Her hands were steady though she was sure they’d shake later. Fight now, break down later. 

It only took a few seconds to find some cover and put one hand on Rach’s shoulder. [Color=b799cd]“Rach,”[/color] she hissed the girl’s name, holding her pistol  in a safe direction for the moment. [Color=b799cd]“What the hell is going on? Did you get shot or something,”[/color] she hissed more as she noted the woman was coughing up blood so dark it was almost black.


As Justine and Mr. Show off- the masked man Racheli labelled in her head-battled Bozo the invader, she was slouched down onto the kitchen tile. Every few seconds, through to Racheli they felt like minutes, another heaval of black blood would spurt forth and stain the apartment floor. She could barely stand upright when the ass ended up creating a mild quake through the fucking apartment. Her body crumpled into a heap as she barely protected her head from bashing into the hard surfaces of the kitchen. Racheli’s lungs felt like there was tar within them. Each time she inhaled air, she could feel and hear a rattling within her chest. Pain splintered off from her head down to her toes, the severity centered at her joints, causing her teeth to bite down hard. For a terrible, heart pounding moment, Rach considered the the fact she might’ve been bitten off her tongue at some point when the blood taste turned particularly sour in her mouth. 

She just lifted her head in time to see Bozo’s head jerk to the side. His meaty hands released the ‘hero’s’ leg, as he growled in frustration. Even from her down position, Rach spotted a small nick in his mask where the attack had clipped him. Bozo’s gas hissed into the air as the brute’s fury filled his eyes. Her attention was taken when Justine appeared like a damn ghost at her side. At Justine’s touch and hiss of her name, Racheli bit back the urge to scream out in pain. It was like the woman had stabbed her with a million needles just by touching her. However, to Justine, Racheli herself was almost colder than ice itself despite the sweat pouring off her surface. It didn’t help Racheli was on the brink of passing out during the raging battle still occurring. 

Another gagging sensation came, and Racheli bite her tongue once more and shoved away from Justine. Her body pushed against the floor, her figure curled into a ball. After a few moments she spoke out loud, her tone filled with strain to keep from snapping Justine’s head off. [color=indianred]“I don’t fucking know. Shit… fucking...hurts. Feels like my, damn.” [/color]

Racheli had rose upright long enough to abruptly vomit another round of black, tar like substance. It oozed across the floor’s surface  before she slumped back down, barely avoiding the sloppy, alien looking mess. Weakly turning to look at Justine, Racheli stubbornly continued. 

[color=indianred] “I just… woke up this way. Though… mother fuck,” [/color] the cursing woman turned over onto her back, stilling trying to avoid the mess. [color=indianred] “God damn it! I can’t breathe… it’s too hot! I can’t..breathe! Breathe damn it!”[/color] 

Meanwhile, when Justine was attending to Racheli, Bozo was livid. At being kicked his foot took a heavy step backwards and came to a stop as his eyes show little more than red in his vision at the moment. His mask had been cracked, a thin fracture made a jagged zigzag pattern along the lower side of the jawline. The spot where he hadn’t managed to clear in time. This meant he had only a limited time before his drug ran out and he was no longer a match for this wannabe hero. It was all or nothing, the invader realized as he shot forward with a right hook at the ‘hero’. His right foot lead putting much more power behind his punch this time which equaled the same force as his earlier kick, likely sending the man through the building’s wall should it connect. During his power punch forward at the man’s head, Bozo’s other was ready to block or grab at part he could the moment the ‘hero’ attempted to block him. All the brute’s mind could think about was getting the man in his paws and ripping him to pieces. 


Gabriel smirked as his foot connected with Bozo’s mask, especially given the fact that he felt the tiniest bit of give upon connecting. The meta bastard stumbled back, clutching at his mask. Gabriel zeroed in on what he could see past the meta man’s hand. 

A jagged crack, just barely wider than a human hair in thickness, stretching its way along the jaw of his mask. And from it…

[b]”gas,”[/b] intoned Daedalus in his head. [b]”perhaps that is the source of his abilities? some sort of… inhaled steroid, perhaps. interesting. permit me to study this further when we get him back to the forge.[/b]

[color=teal]If[i] we get back to the Forge,[/i][/color] Gabriel thought back, as Bozo got ready to assault him in some horrible manner that would likely result in him becoming little more than a black and green smear on the wall. Gabriel ducked under the vicious right hook, only to be caught off guard by his left arm snaking out and catching him in an iron grip.

[color=teal][i]SHIT![/i][/color] His suspicions were confirmed as Bozo began to squeeze, and it began to [i]hurt[/i]- the meathead clearly had fuel left to burn, even with his distribution system compromised. Which left Gabriel in a predicament.

[color=teal][i]SNIPER![/i][/color] he thought frantically as he started to feel his suit’s paneling start to buckle, then frantically sent a configuration to the Hex-Feathers. The devices arranged themselves in a circle around Gabriel and his opponent, pointing down. 

Toward the floor that the both of them were standing on.

[color=teal][i]I hope this works…[/i][/color] He fixed Bozo with a steely glare from behind his visor, though, of course, he couldn’t see it.

[color=teal]“Going down,”[/color] he muttered in a strained voice, before the Hex-Feathers discharged, blowing a hole in the floor under their feet, sending the two of them tumbling to the floor below.


Justine looked at Racheli and then the two power-brawling inside her apartment, then back to Racheli. They were wrecking her place, and somebody that was supposed to be in her care obviously had something terrible happening to her. Something that defied explanation. She hadn’t looked good earlier in the day, but now she seemed terribly ill with some horrid… infection or poisoning or something. Rach was ice-cold to the touch, in a fop sweat, heaving up black ..stuff. It could have been blood for all she knew. It was too dark for that though. Justine had seen really dark, coagulated or congealed blood at crime scenes and in photos. This was something else! As Rach snarled in pain and at her, more worry crossed her features. When the other woman tried to stand, and then fell once more, her hands went to catch her, but she just wasn’t fast enough, not to catch Rach [i]and[/i] avoid the stuff she was throwing up all over her kitchen floor. 

Half of the words coming out of Racheli’s mouth didn’t make exact sense, so she figured the woman was delirious. She was pretty sure she needed to get the girl to some help. And Bozo and Greensleeves needed to get out of her apartment, and really out of the building. Preferably out of the neighborhood or even city, before they caused too much collateral damage. She was about to yell at them to take it outside, after only a couple of seconds of Bozo squeezing on Hero’s arm, those floating… hexagonal things changed configuration and pointed down. 

[color=b799cd]”No!”[/color] The word had barely left her mouth when a blast of light and subatomic particles slammed into the floor, and who knew how many floors below, dumping both combatants into the space below. It was terribly brilliant even if only for a split second. Justine raised her arm to shield her eyes from the light instinctively but it was over before she’d even made the move, leaving her blinking bright spots from her vision. It was like a flash-bang grenade, leaving her ears ringing. The blast had caused the building to shake, leaving dust to fall down from the ceiling overhead, as well as fracture a few panes of glass, if not blow them out completely. 

Justine stood, her hair frazzling out some from the ambient electrostatic charge in the air from the blast while she picked her way out of hte the kitchen. Her entire apartment had just been compromised. If she had been agitated before it was nothing compared to the white hot anger that exploded into her chest at that moment. Choking in the dust that had been kicked up and knocked loose by the energy blast, Justine picked her way around the  wreckage of her  apartment’s interior, until she was sure that Rach didn’t have a good line of sight. 

A split second later she vanished with a small pop or rush of displaced air, appearing in her room. Justine quickly went to the false panel where she stored Edgewind and pulled the weapon free, murmuring it’s name. A blue-white sphere of energy flashed around her in the space it took to blink an eye only to leave another woman standing in her place. Six foot maybe a little taller, with the physique of a goddess. Justine was already a pretty girl, but the woman standing there in her place was nigh unearthly. The sword was strapped across her back in it’s own baldric and this time she appeared in the black and indigo she tended to favor. She could show up in the battle armor suit, but this time she didn’t seem to need it. She had a cowl and cloak, and a masking option available to her, but she appeared different than the original version. Justine could have easily been a model, and she had indeed done some, but  the woman that stood in her place made the journalist look plain and unremarkable by comparison. 

A couple of seconds later she reappeared in the wreckage of the living room, picking her way through only to peer down the hole. She flicked Edgewind in quick twirl of agitation while tendrils of lighting licked along it’s length and edges for a few moments, crackling menacingly. She waited for a few moments to see if either of them were stirring or they were taking the hint to move on. Or she would move them on, perhaps permanently.


Bozo was the first to stir as his mind recollected the last few moments before the tumble down. How many floors they had felled through, his aching mind couldn't recount but it hurt like hell to think about it. During the shoot downward, the druggie had lost his grip when he impacted the bottom and was nearly buried under the resulting rubble. The crack in his mask had grown slightly wider with the hissing gas increasing in volume. His bear like paw touched the damaged with surprising gentleness and gritted his teeth. His time had just been halved now, his eyes narrowed in fury, which meant it was time to leave.

His coat piled with dust and collection of broken floor as he rose to his thick feet, his steps heavily thumped against the solid ground under him. He shook his head then peered around for signs of the wannabe hero only to smirk. It seemed the idiot had buried himself under the last ditch attempt to thwart him or so Bozo assumed. His bulky frame turned toward the door when his neck rose in awareness. Instinctively, his head jerked upward to spot the dame staring downward at him. 

Haling a few more puffs of precious gas, Bozo spoke in this thick voice, "Alright pretty bird, where the hell did you come from? What happened to the rackless wonder and her bitch friend?" 

Finally, the dust had started to settle as Justine hovered at the edge of the hole in the flooring. Her eyes locked on the form of Bozo as he had lain there for  few moments. Hero had disappeared in the collateral damage. Likely he was buried. She wasn’t entirely sure she cared at the moment, with the agitation she felt roaring through her. At his comment, she simply stepped off the edge of the hole, into the open air and practically jumped. No sane person would do that right? Except before gravity really began to take hold, she appeared directly in front of him in the space between heartbeats. Her sword crackled with power as she inclined her chin. 

“[Color=b799cd]They’re sorting themselves out,[/color]” she replied cooly. “[Color=b799cd]Party-time is over.[/color]” With that, she considered her options. She could get ahold of him, teleport him out, probably outside the city. But then he’d be somebody else’s problem. She could teleport him to the precinct, any of them really, into one of the cells or holding cell. Still someone else’s problem, and of course… they wouldn’t be able to hold him, unless they made an actual arrest. Even then, could they really hold him for long? Physically… Well besides removing the mask. She was fairly sure it was what was juicing him up. Of course she could take that from him easily enough, she was willing to bet. - Still, subduing him and leaving him for local LEO’s would be an idea. Lethal force wasn’t an option she wanted to consider. Sure she’d shot him in the apartment, but that had been in defense of her home, he was an intruder, and was an imminent threat. Now, they were on a much different playing field. She was fairly sure she could crush him like a bug, with impunity. It was on her then, not to, unless he gave her no choice. 

“[Color=b799cd]You’ve got two options: Stand down, or get wrecked[/color]” she informed him, a hard edge to her tone,but still matter of fact, mostly calm. She clearly meant what she said. She was still trying to play nice, though she doubted Bozo would be smart and step down.. or at the least attempt to fly. She considered letting him go, but he was still a problem for somebody else. - And make no mistake, he [i]was[/i] a problem for somebody else. That mask was too well made to be a home project and she doubted he had the skills to do it himself. It was probably experimental, which means he had help. Somebody he probably answered to. 

After a split second, she raised her sword some, while it seemed to glimmer a sliver of golden light. She reached for the power held within the weapon to cut through and seek out the truth, activating the Words of Truth power held within it. “[Color=b799cd]Where did you get the mask,[/color]” she asked, and as she did, her words hit like a ton of bricks, cutting into him and his will, seeking to compel an answer, and a truthful one from him. It would be a difficult thing to resist, she knew, but not impossible, and he didn’t have to answer, or even answer that question. It didn’t always compel the truth, but when it worked, whatever was spoken was the truth, even if it didn’t pertain to the questions asked. Of course, she knew she could ask again, and each use made it harder to resist, cut through the lies more and more, and came closer to setting the truth free. 


Bozo squinted back. The hairs on his neck was rising while she refused to back down. His gazed intensified as his brutish stare continued. It made him unnerved to see her look down on him as he waited for an answer from her. She merely stepped off the edge into the air! Impulsively, he stepped back. His body moved  to clear a spot where he expected her body to fall and break into several pieces, his ear braced for the heavy thump. It never came. His eyes were immediately filled with the colors of brown, purple and black when the bitch appeared instantly in front of him! Bozo immediately twitched and retreated, nearly stumbling over himself when creating a gap between the woman and himself. His eyes widen in pure shock at her little stunt. The mask still leaking, his eyes were fixed upon her as she spoke. 

After she finished going him his options, Bozo’s sight considered the exit. He hadn’t counted on the teleporter being involved in this job and his mind was racing for a way out. It was pretty clear their powers were on completely different levels which meant, if he attacked than she was likely to cream him. A matter he wasn’t too enthusiastic about as his mind kept thinking about his ass being kicked half away across the ruins of the apartment. In the silence of his answer the gas started to run low, his muscle definition already fading slightly compared to earlier. A thin, red line dripped down where the mash had been clipped. Blood. 

While the woman stood, Bozo’s body went rigid when her sword was activated. His breath became shallow and harsh, nearly seeming to choke on the very air itself as he tried to resist. In a low, raspy voice, he uttered a single sentence. “Stolen from a GeneCorp shipment.” 

His head shook and his eyes became terrified, his body bolted for the nearest wall, intending on plowing through it. Even if it threatened to bring the whole building down in his carelessness. 
    
Justine noted the name GeneCorp. Then as he turned and headed toward the nearby wall, she shook her head. “[Color=b799cd]I’m not done with you yet,[/color]” she challenged. Reaching out, her left hand attempted to snare his right elbow as she moved to close the gap. If she managed to take hold, her plan was to jerk him back around to face her. 

Unknown to them currently, on the floor above, the particle beam had sheared through many materials, including flooring and ceiling. Among those things were wires in a few places, but more importantly a gas line had sheared off that had been run to a heater. It now leaked natural gas into the air, the smell of the marker chemical was leaking into the air. It hadn’t reached them yet, but the vapors would soon begin filling the ruptured apartments with an explosive and flammable mix that could go off at any moment with all the sparks, frayed wires, and of course, the lightning curling around Edgewind. 

The gas itself was heavier than air, so it would fall and fill the lower floors first, but who knew how long it would take to create a highly combustible mix for all the rooms. And when it went off… it would expand twelve to sixteen times its normal volume. It would set the air on fire, and plenty of other things, and who knew how many residents could be injured or killed. It was pure dumb luck that the other two apartments that Bozo and ‘Hero’ had crashed through had been  unoccupied, their owners out somewhere, perhaps in the rioting. Still, there were others… families living there. 
 
Bozo’s eyes had been focused on the wall and missed the reach for his elbow, yet his ears caught the brunette’s sickly divine voice utter her words. When the man felt the woman’s hand touch his right arm, his left hand instantly reacted. His fingers fisted and whipped about with an aim at where her head should’ve been. At the same time, his right  foot had been put in front and farthest out which he used to as a pivot, bring his left around to follow his fist, while her action was jerking him about to face her. He used her action to hastening his arm about to his intended target, punching at her head from where should be the right side. Doing this, he was hoping he would catch her off guard with his surprise attack.    

Justine saw his shoulders tense as he whirled about to his right. She half expected him to grab her left hand with his right. He didn’t seem trained for self-defense, not like she was. Seeing him start to turn, she slipped her left foot back, from where it had been leading when she’d made the grab. This took her about a foot out of range of his fist. It would have been a good reaction for a kick, which she half expected, but it never came. It was the long way around for a swing with his left fist. It might have been a wind-up for a follow up front-kick or roundhouse/power-angle kick. At least that’s what her kickboxing training told her. The fist sailed harmlessly past her face, leaving his power ineffective. Bozo still had inertia and momentum from his whirl and strike. 

She swept her sword up with one hand, light as a piece of paper to her, but weighing several pounds. She brought it up to ‘check’ his arm, just a brief touch with the flat of the blade, intending to keep his arm away from her and where he could immediately strike back with that hand, if successful. It cut his options down, but she didn’t immediately attack back. She was partially waiting to see if his strike had been reflex, or if he really was pushing the attack, deliberately trying to harm her. Justine was giving him the benefit of the doubt in such a tactic. The exchange took a little longer than it took to blink. 

Bozo hadn’t expected that. His arm, even coated by his duster, felt the sting when the sword impacted and the blow vibrated through his bones. He had expected the sword edge to severe bone and flesh when it stuck, not expecting her to use the flat side.  His eyes were shocked to note the blade propped up with the smooth side upright to prevent him from back handing her and uninjured. The fist had whizzed by, his arm sent  at an angle thanks to the super slapping it away. Her movement seemed as causal as it was quick compared to his brutish methods. The first had been pushed to the right and across his body, tossing him a bit off balance while she stepped into pin it in place before completing the movement. 

Bozo’s left foot stumbled forward, bring it to plant in front of his right, trying to keep himself upright. Already panic filled his core when his weakness had began to settle in. The gas had been tearing his insides up, slowly liquefying them, causing his lips to reddened more. Blood streamed down his chin now from the previous thin trickle it had been and stained his skin, though it was difficult to see in the darkness and against his darker skin. His tear ducts already started to dribble the same red from the corners through only a few small specks dropped onto the ruined floor. The gas’ hiss started to die when his knee crumbled underneath him and his body shifted to the side, causing him to slant awkwardly while staring at the woman. His free hand immediately gripped his throat while blood started to choke him, suffocating his airway, and collect underneath the mask. 

“Fucking bitch, look what you’ve done you whore!” He rasped through blood dribble along his lower face. 
    
It was then that Justine noted something was terribly wrong. He was starting to really bleed, blood leaking from around the edges of the mask.. and tears of blood were leaking from his eyes, which were beginning to turn red from the rupturing of blood vessels. “[Color=b799cd]What’s happening to you,[/color]” she said, moving to catch the weakened brawler with her strong hands, rather than continuing to  battle. She had only been fighting defensively anyway. Her deflecting slap and check of the blade didn’t have much power, and he seemed to be out of gas, when he had been going so strong against ‘Hero’. Something terrible was happening. Something was killing him. Likely the mask he wore. As much as it was amping him up… now it was taking all that it had given, and more. 

As she pressed the blade against him again, she quietly murmured under her breath. “[Color=b799cd]Edgewind give me the power to heal this man,[/color]” she half prayed, beseeching the blade and the forces within it. A moment later, healing light and energy radiated from iit, seeping into him, restoring some of the damage that had been done. With the drugs flooded through his system, there would be no saving him, even though she did not know this. His fate had already been sealed, and by his own hand.

A fresh wave of blood filled his mouth, preventing him from speaking to the brunette super, as he felt her soften his collapse to the ground. Part of him wanted to shove her off and growl for her to let him die in peace, knowing this was likely to happen when he volunteered for Sykes’ little task, yet he had no energy. Every ounce was stolen from him when the drug finally stopped surging through his system. His lungs were flooding with his own blood and smothering him, causing a cough fit when Justine’s blade began to glow then surged him with new energy. Through the superheroine expected it to last, he knew better at a deep, dark level that he was already dead. “Fucking drug is killing me and you stopped me from getting more. This is all your fault. If you had just let me go…” 

His mouth filled with a new wave of blood as his fingers edged to the corners of his mask, tearing at the flesh. It peeled easily away revealing the raw muscle underneath and a slightly sickening sweet scent from the wound. In a few grabs, the inhaling device was pulled off as it smacked into the ground with a hollow thunk. His chest rattled and his breath heaved, blood oozing from his mouth to trail upon the floor. He gave one last shudder before his eyes glazed over in an unfocused light and he slumped over, his body brought to the ground by gravity. He was still when his breathing ceased.