[hr][h1][color=fff200]Alice Barrett[/color][/h1][hr] The petite blonde had been on the other side of town when the storm had erupted, it had been an emergency warning on the news, though she had received a message on her wrist computer before even the journos had. That alone almost guaranteed that it was a metahuman, and considering the scale of the storm it was either another disaster level meta, or another of the mysterious cases of metahuman overload. It had taken her longer than she would have liked to reach the area, and by the time she had it was becoming clear that the immediate danger of the storm was now gone. She walked past a bus that was on its roof, no natural storm could have done that, not here in Baybridge. Another car was halfway into a storefront, the shop manager would doubtless be unhappy and demand RAVEN or DOVE pay for the damage. The casual observer would have been surprised to see the agent simply disappear mid step, and reappear a hundred feet down the street, as though her legs were at one and the same time both one hundred feet long and normal sized. There were survivors here, yet apparently no one buried underneath the damaged and scattered vehicles. It looked like some enormous child had grown tired of his toys and simply strewn them about before moving on to the next entertainment. Most of the people she saw looked stunned, white faced, often marred by dust or blood, but alive, for a certain given of alive. They would be in shock. They lived in a world where gods masqueraded in mortal flesh, but never here, never to them. The catastrophe at the mall had been awful, but no one had ever thought they could be caught up in such a disaster themselves. Metahumans were hard to hate when it was just the girl who lived next door, your child’s best friend, the kindly old man who ran the local grocery store. That reversed when you remembered what they were. The girl next door seemed a lot less innocent when she could turn you inside out, your child’s best friend a danger when they could produce foot long claws from their wrists. The kindly old man who used his telekinesis to reach the high shelves could just as easily use it to hurl knives. Just witnessing the destruction caused by one metahuman was enough to turn trust to distrust, caution to fear, and even love to hate. Alice didn’t blame them. She terrified herself sometimes, and some metahumans terrified her. The Beast had brought an entire city to its knees, the Devil had threatened an entire planet, and all because of the strange green energy that flowed through them. The name Devil had been appropriate, since then things had only gotten worse, metahuman hate groups were gaining in influence, and there were political factions that believed RAVEN and DOVE needed to be replaced with something harsher. Sometimes she wondered whether Lucifer himself had risen in that form to wreak destruction upon man. She had faith, but had never been the kind to truly think angels and demons walked among them. She believed that human beings were often guided by her God, but with all the evil things that she was witnessing, and others were suffering… it felt like God was losing. She needed to find a superior. The rescue effort would have to be co-ordinated, she only hoped they didn’t run into anyone who believed the human race would be better off without metahumans in it… [hr][h1][color=92278f]Ellen Nile[/color][/h1][hr] The school girl stared at the TV screen in dismay. A clip was replayed of a bus being flipped over. Howling winds were tearing at people’s clothes, and an umbrella was torn past, somehow humorous in a scene that otherwise was complete carnage. The sound of the News Anchor’s voice cut back in over the sounds of destruction. “More carnage in Baybridge today as a meta-generated storm hurled vehicles and people through the air. Number of casualties is still unknown, as well as the identity at the centre of this terrible tragedy.” The man somehow contrived to say ‘attack’ while at the same time making no mention of it whatsoever. That’s what people would be thinking. And the news footage was carefully edited, it seemed to show little of the efforts to save people who had been injured, there was no show of the metahumans who had helped, or at least tried to. Ellen knew the footage had been edited because her laptop was also open on the bed beside her, a very similar video clip was playing, shot from a different angle. The low quality of the footage and the shaking camera suggested it had been taken by a phone. It showed the same bus hurled through the air, then scraping along the ground at speed until it was slowed by two shadowy hands. Then an enormous figure stepped up and halted the onrushing doom. Metahumans, helping. The phone on the bed buzzed. Mom. “Ellen are you ok!?” “Yeah mom, I’m fine, I was at the Academy.” “Thank God! I was so worried… I saw the news… “Mom…” Ellen rather unsuccessfully attempted to insert a word in edgeways. “They said lots of people had been hurt… I just didn’t…” “Mom!” She resorted to hammering it in with some verbal force. “I’m ok! I wasn’t anywhere near the storm, anyway, I think they’d need a nuke to get in here anyway.” Her mother sounded like she was at least calming down a little, “I was so worried about you. You should have tagged yourself as safe, Facebook has already got something for Baybridge.” “I’m sorry mom, I was gaming, I just found out about it now too, I thought it was just a thunder storm or something.” This was true, until it had grown worse, and the winds had reached far enough to rattle even her windows. She’d dropped her game and gone to look, then opened up her laptop to have a look at the latest news and… Another meta losing control? Another Devil? No one seemed to know, and there didn’t seem to have been time for an official DOVE or NEST announcement. Rumour was rife on the internet about what could be happening, but no one seemed to definitively know, at least not yet. She clicked into her emails, empty. She must have tried to get in touch with Agent Keagan four or five times. Each time she had either received no response, or a simple out of office reply. She’d been ignored. It took her a moment to cross to the chest of drawers and unearth the vial, it glowed faintly in the dark room. She sat back on the bed and placed it carefully before her, crossing her legs. There had been a small piece of paper with the glass tube, and she clutched it now. The numbers were distorted by the creases of the crumpled phone number. She rubbed her thumb over the digits, then looked towards the one thing that could help. The metahumans at the centre of everything that had happened over the last few days hadn’t been able to control their abilities, like her. The Academy could deal with her abilities, but she would possibly never be able to leave. She could never have a proper relationship with someone, for fear that she might develop an ability that might kill. And if a lynch mob came for her, or the Pure, she may not even have an ability that she could use to defend herself. It made her feel horribly powerless. The number in her hand promised power. There was a brief dialling tone, then a click. “I’m ready…”