[hr] [b][h1][color=a0410d]April Cooper[/color], [color=#ffe0bd]Rhea Harlow[/color][/h1][/b] [sub](Written in collaboration with [@Estylwen])[/sub] [hr] [hider=Epic background music] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veb8pFOUJ9g[/youtube] [/hider] [hr] [i][u]Havenfield Market, Roseview.[/u][/i] [i]"... Everyone get down!"[/i] Gunfire and smoke charged the air as panic tore through the night. The DOVE stage was abandoned, civilians ran for their lives, and the Black Hound continued its death march. Rhea watched, half-crouched behind a bench. Her teeth gritted as bullets shredded the tent beside her. One of the masked henchmen hovered over two children, one crying, the other defiantly holding a fireball in her hand. The man swiftly pistol-whipped the kid, the sound twisting Rhea's gut. "Stop!" She yelled, tackling the man and knocking them both to the ground. She lacked a weapon and had zero batteries. But by God, she'd slap him senseless if she had to. The second bullets started flying, April was running. The entire fair was compromised - there were bad guys all over the place and even the Black goddamn Hound had shown up, so it was fair to say that shit was officially 'tits-up'. She skidded into cover behind some carnival stand or another - this 'cowgirl' getup was causing way too much drag to use her powers properly - and attempted to survey the situation before some random civilian a few feet away tackled one of the death-squad looking goons. Great. April sprinted out and kicked the man in the head as the two grappled with each other, crouching down to beat him with the butt of her gun a few times until he was still. She roughly pulled the civilian to her feet and slapped her on the back, still crouching to avoid gunfire. "You got some balls on you," she chuckled in spite of the situation, before lifting the goon's pistol off the ground and passing it to her. "You know how to shoot one of these things?" Rhea received a punch to the mouth before a dressed up cowgirl expertly knocked the man unconscious. The pain felt like a hot fire-poker; she was only vaguley aware of being brought up to a crouch and back-slapped. Scrunching her brows, she touched her lips as white bolts fed the area to numb it. She wiped away a small amount of blood, taking the pistol and noting the security items on the cowgirl. "Ah, I'm in good hands. Thank you." She said. One of the henchmen noticed his mate go down and leveled a gun at them. Rhea snapped her pistol at the goon, elbows locked, and shot him in the leg. The man fell over, cursing. "Yeah, I can shoot." A smile flashed across her face. "I'm Rhea, by the way." Both of the kids were crying their eyes out, the fire-wielder cradling her head. Rhea gently pried the girl's hands loose to examine the gash. Sparks flew from her fingers. "Sweetheart, this will help with the pain. But I'm gonna need you two to run as fast as you can. Okay?" They both mumbled incoherently, voices quivering. "I think they're in minor shock. What should we do?" Rhea said. April scratched her jaw, regarding the mewling children coolly. "Now that ain't an easy question to answer," she muttered. "I reckon more RAVEN forces'll be showing up in a few minutes. The thing to do is-" Her sentence was cut off by a burst of gunfire, a reminder of the futility of having a conversation in an active shooting zone. A third henchman, armed with an assault rifle, apparently took issue with the girls' incapacitating his comrades and was charging them, spraying wildly. April threw her arms around the other girl and the kids and yanked them back behind the stand she'd been hiding behind a moment ago. "Hold onto these," she muttered, ripping her blouse off to reveal the blue tanktop underneath and shoving it, as well as her hat, roughly into the hands of the other girl before diving out from cover. April immediately dropped onto her back, activating her powers so as to go sliding towards the gunman while presenting as small a target as possible. She fired three times - the first going wild, the second taking the man in the arm, and the third in the neck, sending him spilling to the ground. April continued to slide forward before she kicked out and pushed against the man's body, reversing her momentum and sending her sliding back to the others. "Alright," she panted, "I forget what my plan was." Hidden behind the stand, Rhea watched the security lady dive back into the fray to kick ass. She dropped the pistol and costume pieces on the grass, undoing the butterfly cape around her neck. She tore a strip off the wing, using it like gauze to tie around the girl's head wound. "Take this," She gave her phone to the other kid. "When you've run far enough, call 9-1-1. Tell them you need a doctor." Their faces had a pale, sweaty sheen. Shallow breathing, dull eyes. Rhea sighed, pressing her face in her hands. As she pulled them away, a water-like, transparent energy hovered in the space. It shimmered as it half-clung to her fingers, and she breathed it onto the kids. It penetrated the skin, and disappeared. Colour returned to their faces, and focus to their eyes. They both smiled, nodded and ran, weaving among the tents. The security lady returned in time to see them leave. "At least you had a plan. Nice moves, by the way." Rhea said, a tone of fatigue in her voice. She picked up her gun. "I'm still hearing gunshots. Let's make sure everyone still alive got out." "Sounds good to me." By now, the fair had devolved into pure chaos - the likely outcome, really, when one stages a public attack in a city of metahumans. Clouds of meta-suppressant were filling the area, fire and ice and bolts of energy were flying as liberally as bullets, and that wasn't even getting into the storm cloud that was flying through the air. Some corner of her mind that wasn't preoccupied with the crisis took a moment to be jealous that everyone else had gotten the [i]cool[/i] powers. "Alright, let's get moving. Stay close behind me and we'll go look for survivors who ain't trying to kill us." April broke into a run, weaving through the disaster area and keeping her head under the path of any stray bullets. "This is Agent April Cooper, anyone still alive out there?" she asked, pressing the 'talk' button on her earpiece. No response. Yikes. Hopefully something had just happened to the line. She wasn't the only one who'd had the idea to try and ask their higher-ups what the hell was going on, though - just across the way were four more of the goons with their backs to her and Rhea, all hunched over some radio-looking contraption. They turned as April approached. "Take the two on the right!" April shouted as she dropped into a dead run and activating her powers, sliding wildly through and under a small hail of bullets. One shot took her in the side and she grunted in the pain - it wasn't deep, but it smarted. Her answering fire managed to hit one guy center mass a few times, knocking him to the ground, and April shoulder charged into the other she'd designated for herself and set about the process of brawling with him. [i]Huh, her name's April, and she's not just security staff...[/i] Rhea tilted her head as April spoke into her comms. Four henchmen stood between them and a possible eavedrop on enemy communications. [i]"Take the two on the right!"[/i] Said April as she attemtped neutralizing the other masked men. An upturned bench provided some amount of cover, which Rhea crouched behind. Pistol in hand, she aimed a limb shot at the goon nearest her. He fell over, and she switched targets. This man, however, saw her aiming, and dove to the ground as she fired. A clear miss. Empty clicks came from the pistol. "Shit." She said, watching the goon laugh and stomp toward her. Little to his knowledge she had one more ace up her sleeve, and as he closed the distance, a multitude of brilliant sparks raced across her body. With the barrel of the pistol in her grasp, she threw it unnaturally quick. The man's chestpiece fractured as the pistol appeared half-embedded in the armour, and he staggered back. In his confustion he didn't see Rhea leap over the bench to knifehand his neck. Like a deflated balloon, the man collapsed. Rhea snatched up his slightly larger gun and, scoping out the goon punching April in the face, fired off a shot.