[center][h2][u]THE POWER PLANT[/u][/h2] [img]http://i.imgur.com/uvX201s.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/oM6nPmR.png[/img][/center] Location: Safe House Appartment, Lost Haven-Maine → Midas Industries, Lost Haven Maine Time: Morning (Around 7 am) → Afternoon (Around 1 pm) [hr] Midas led Racheli into the front entrance of Midas Industries. As he stepped through the front doors, the atmosphere within the company changed. People seemed more focused on the task at hand. As he stepped into earshot of any of his workers, he was greeted with a “Good afternoon, Mr. Midas.” to which he would nod back in acknowledgement. He made a straight line from the front door to a large set of heavy black doors which led to a hallway which only those with the highest clearance within Midas Industries had access to. The hallway itself was brightly lit and had an almost hospital-like quality to it. Racheli quietly walked behind him, her senses tuned off but she could still smell the sterilizing agents used. Everything looked overly clean that made her feel like her presence here was a pure insult and threatened to stain its very existence. It added to her growing anxiety from memories rushing to her awareness, ones from the CDC, causing her to instinctively keep her eyes dead ahead and ignore it. Everything seemed to go on endlessly that it seemed they would never reach the place Midas seemed to believe would help her. Silently she continued down the hallway, noting nothing different from a hospital’s. However, the one thing that would stand out to anyone who happened down the corridor would be that there were no doors. The long hallway seemingly only led to a single elevator door. As they reached the elevator, Midas placed the palm of his right hand into the biometric palm reader. The console flashed a green light and seconds later, the elevator door opened and Midas stepped in. Racheli paused and looked at him, seeming somewhat hesitant, but after a moment joined him in the elevator when he motioned for her to follow. Once they were both inside, they could see that the elevator was seemingly no different than any other elevator, other than the fact that there were no buttons. Instead, when the doors closed, the elevator began its long descent into the bowels of Midas Industries. After several long moments, the elevator came to a stop. Then it was another moment before the doors opened. When they did open, Midas stepped out and beckoned Racheli to follow suit. When they stepped out into the cavernous room, which looked to be constructed from a shiny obsidian metal. At the back of the room, there was another small room which was made entirely of glass. Inside that room, which was only large enough for about three or four people, was a set of controls. “Welcome to the Power Plant Racheli, this is where you will take your first steps into a larger world.” Midas told her as she stepped into the room for the first time. Racheli’s brow arched as she examined the room. The place looked like some military secret base one might find in an underground bunker, making her question what Midas had been truly up to under his offices and began to walk deeper in. Her steps echoed off the walls as she looked upward in slight awe, through she would never admit it. [color=indianred] “Alright, so we’ve got a glorified bunker. What now?”[/color] Rach said as she turned to face him, trying not to sound impressed. “Oh, I assure you it is far more than that. This room is a state of the art...actually, to be perfectly honest, it’s beyond state of art, nonetheless, it is the single most advanced training facility in the Western Hemisphere. This room has the ability to simulate any situation you could conceivably find yourself in. I think that you’ll find it most helpful in teaching you to control your powers.” Midas told her simply. [color=indianred] “Or something else for me to break,”[/color] Racheli mumbled, as she placed her hands on her head back and looked at Midas,[color=indianred] “Sssoooo, still didn’t answer my question about ‘what now’. How is this suppose to go?”[/color] “Oh, I doubt that you have to worry about breaking anything. This room was originally built for Icon to test his powers, sadly, he and I never could come to terms and work together, so it has more or less sat idle waiting for someone to utilize it.” Midas said matter of factly. “The glass room over there is the control center. That is where we make all the magic happen.” he said with a grin. [color=indianred] “I wonder [i]why[/i],”[/color] Rach mumbled again referring to her head’s explosive surprise. She sighed then waved her hand for him to lead the way, replying in a normal volume this time,[color=indianred] “Alright, so what do I do? You haven’t really gone into details over what I want to know or even explained in clear words how this is going to go. I don’t know if I’m suppose to stand here and wait or you going to give me a tour before we start or what?”[/color] “You don’t have to do anything, to be perfectly honest. I’m just going to go into the control room and start a program, and then we’ll have a little fun.” Midas told her with a hint of glee in his voice as he started to walk away from her and toward the glass encased room. Once inside the control room, he looked down at the control panel as he contemplated where to begin. “Let’s start it out nice and easy.” He said to himself as he activated the Power Plant’s training module at its lowest setting. Once the training module was activated, the lights within the room dimmed. Then there was a low buzzing sound as the room’s training system kicked on. Within moments, Midas watched as something began to form out of the side of the wall. It was what looked like a massive walking tank. Matte black and heavily armoured, the slow moving behemoth silently advanced toward Racheli. While the menacing tank, which had a strange, boxy structure with a rounded top looked like a twisted marriage of technology and heavy weaponry come to life, it was in essence a hologram. However, it was not your typical holographic light show, it was what Midas called a “Hard Light Construct,” or HLC, and it was more than capable of injuring, or even killing a test subject. Midas watched in awe of his own technological prowess before activating the intercom which allowed him to communicate with the training room. “Now Racheli, let’s just see what you’ve got.” Racheli stared for a long and hard moment. The damn thing looked like it had four spider like legs , through about ten times thicker, and a tank for a body and covered in black armor like some twisted nightmare an engineer had during his sleep. She noticed she could see through it which made it difficult for her to grasp how exactly she was suppose to hit it. Even how it was suppose to hurt her. Not trusting Midas in the least, she carefully walked to the right of it. Her head tilted and studied it deeply as she drew nearer. Immediately the tank’s cannon muzzle lowered and shifted in her direction. Shit, Racheli thought, as she was staring down it and watched the back of it heat up, rotate and fired. Everything happened too fast for Rach to turn her heightened senses on so instead she moved. Her right foot jerked forward and rushed to the right just when she heard the ball of light explode from the chamber. Adrenaline rushed through her system as she ran to the side, unaware of any pain etched across her body until she came to a grinding stop. In that dreadful moment, she realized she couldn’t move her arm. Her eyes shifted to the side and all color drained from her expression. She wasn’t fast enough and forgot to watch all her limbs. Where her arm had once been was only a black, bloody stump. It can clipped her left arm off at just the elbow and dangled like some useless thing. Her face twisted to spot the ragged thing charred, dead and useless. Shock immediately swarmed her awareness over her heavy wound causing her to fall to one knee. Her breath increased heavily and heart raced in her chest, her adrenaline pouring through her system in rapid pace. [i]Fuck...FUCK![/i] She screamed in her head unsure how she was still alive or thinking. “Get up.” Midas said under his breath as the walking tank construct advanced on Racheli. He hadn’t believed that the first level of the training program would be able to cause the young woman so much trouble, but as he looked over to the charred remains of her lower arm on the floor of the proving grounds, he realized that either she had underestimated the program, or he had overestimated her. Either way, that miscalculation would soon be rectified as he upped the training module to the next level. “Racheli, you need to move. Do something, it will not relent until you stop it, or you’re dead.” Midas said into the intercom. Still huffing from the shock trying to overwhelm her systems, her eyes snapped up. She sharply held a venomous sarcasm in her tone over the fact she just lost her arm while she spoke,[color=indianred] “Gee, thanks. I didn’t notice when I lost my arm! If this is your training for most metas, I get why Icon thought twice…”[/color] Her ears caught the humming sounds of something coming in from her right and left. The moment her eyes noticed the flicker of steel, her undamaged hand raised and jerked down. One drone hissed then spiral down and crashed a foot from her. Mumbling curses, likely about Midas and his mother’s sexual reputation, Rach darted for the drowned drone. Her hand flattened her palm at the surface as it quivered and in a few seconds, became liquid. The metal raced up her body and traveled to the other shoulder. It glided down the upper part of her stump to form a arm at her elbow just when the machine from hell decided to fire again. This time she was ready. Rach’s arm extended and the arm vanished, creating a half shield which the shell exploded on instead of her. Her feet dug in, the impact and force sending her to skid back a few meters before grinding to a stop. It scorched the metal a bit as she retracted it back into an arm. Her ears caught the other drone zipping back around to attempt to hit her and her right arm tore that one down in the same fashion when it came into range. Unfortunately, it landed a meter or more from her location. Sighing, Rach began to move toward the large machine while it was ‘recharging’. Her arm shifted into a large, over side blade then took a swipe at what she guessed was the machine’s joint. It crumpled to one side with an almost metal squeak as she continued to run, not looking back at the damage. It would be very clear shortly that she lacked any training in combat when the tank turned about and fired again. Barely missing. The explosion smacked the ground and the kinetic energy sent her crashing into the far wall with a dull smack. Rach felt something break on impact but unable to determine what, she slid to the ground and landed on her knees for the moment. [b] “You are going to get [i]us[/i] killed,”[/b][url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/212445072912809984/283496852643381249/richararmitagebatman1.jpg] Michael[/url] said as he stepped into view for everyone to see. For Midas, it would appear as if someone had managed to bypass his security and entered the power plant. Only after they did indications for life signs, or analyze her brain waves did they realize it was actually from Racheli. [color=indianred] “Shut up,”[/color] Rach spat blood through her lips. Her figure worked itself up against the wall and wobbled a bit until they steadied after a few moments. [b] “Try to not just bash your way through them and think about how to cripple them…”[/b] [color=indianred] “Tch.”[/color] Rach said as she began to turn on her heightened senses, every color, sound, and more sudden flooded into her attention. She squinted a moment, giving the tank machine time to lock on her. [b] “Might want to move… Now.”[/b] Midas looked on in disbelief as a second individual, this one a slightly older male seemingly materialized within the testing ground of the Power Plant near Racheli. Then her remembered what Ms Sparks had told him about her experiences with the young woman and the almost spectre like man who revealed himself to her. Using the sensors in the training room, Midas gauged Racheli’s vitals, and found something interesting...while he was looking at two people inside the room, the readings within the room only identified one life form within the vicinity. [i]Interesting.[/i] Midas thought to himself as he pondered what this could mean. While he didn’t know the relationship between Racheli and this man, from what he witnessed, and what he could put together from what Ms Sparks had told him, their relationship was a contentious one. It was also unclear where the man had come from, but he could only surmise that he was a projection of sorts, perhaps some sort of artificial intelligence that manifested from the alien virus that had infected her, but it seemed to show up whenever Racheli was in any kind of distress. He wondered if this was some sort of defense mechanism, however what kind of advantage his presence provided was unclear to Midas, as this “man” seemingly only served to aggravate and distract Racheli. “What the hell are you?” Midas whispered under his breath as he watched the construct of the tank continue its assault on the young woman. The construct fired at Rach again but instead of finding flesh and blood, it found the outside barrier of the room. Scorched and dented in slightly, the construct turned to the movement that stopped just in its peripheral vision. Rach, still focusing on her arm’s shape, breathed heavily then gashed her teeth in frustration. Her eyes briefly turned to the newly formed arm with a sickened expression before she turned back to the machine of light. [color=indianred] “You took my arm, it’s only fair I take something of yours.”[/color] Rach snarled then let her eyes go completely black once more. Her hand touched the nearest post. In moments it began to liquify and swirl along her arm. It curved before it rested on her torso, like armor. The surface seemed to resemble more flesh than actual metal. Each breathe caused it to swell then fall with her lungs. She whipped her arm about from left to right. Suddenly several quill like metal projectiles shot from her arm’s side. They zipped toward the machine and embedded into the surface, easily, until she focused on them again. Her nostrils flared while she extended her arm. She jerked her fisted hand open and made a claw gesture. No time to brace, the embedded quills oozed into the created wounds and immediately extended. The cracks were made bigger then shifted as new holes were made on different angles and surfaces. With each new whip of her arm, the liquid metal moved then erupted elsewhere. Without another thought of self preservation, the construct rose its cannon then fired again. Rach darted to the right and narrowly missed it. However, she didn’t count on the second shot that followed it up. It aimed just a few meters ahead of her and popped off almost instantly after the first. She barely had time to brace as she twisted her torso and all metal from it rushed out into a metal shield. It took the force but the impact abruptly tossed her from her feet. She collided with the dirt and rolled a few feet away, her skin torn by the rough surface. Her mind trying to orient herself, Rach feebly pulled herself upright into a wobbly stance. The metal within the construct ceased its inward attack the moment she was knocked from her course. She raised a hand to wipe away the black blood, letting it smear over her lip, as she glared at it. [color=indianred] “You fucking piece of shit!”[/color] Rach cursed. The virus, naturally not being in any true danger, didn’t move from his original position. His illusion unfazed by any of the explosions, he casually walked through the light construct and toward his host. Each step resembled the predator whose form he took on. “She’d be truly impressive if she actually knew how to fight. I’m amazed that War-Pulse didn’t mop Chinatown with her.” Midas quipped to himself as he watched Racheli battle the construct. “Fortunately, that’s something that can be remedied, still...she has a lot of raw talent.” he finished. Midas watched as Racheli tried to dodge and attack the construct, and from the way she seemed to drag herself around, he knew that he had seen enough, at least for now. He figured that she needed some time to recover, as he wondered if the fight with War-Pulse had taken more out of her than he had anticipated. So just as the construct brought its weapons to bare on her, he pressed the switch that would end the program. The battle tank flickered twice, and was gone. “Well, that was...educational.” Midas said as he stepped out of the control booth toward Racheli, who was gasping for air, trying to catch her breath. [color=indianred] “Personally, I could’ve lived never going through [i]that[/i],”[/color] Rach snapped as she turned to her missing arm. The metal remained and continued to retain the given shape, but she knew it would take a day or more to recover completely. Her mind, the part that remained human, doubted it would ever grow back. [b] “How many times must you be told? You’re not human. It will grow back,”[/b] The virus explained with a slight irritation in his tone, his path walked around to her left and there was where he stood comfortably. Midas looked from Racheli to the “man” standing beside her as he gently berated her. He was unsure what exactly this apparition was or how it worked, but his curiosity had been piqued. He just stood there for a moment and watched the two interact with one another, and noted that there was something odd about their relationship, but he was unable to pinpoint exactly what that was. “We’ll give it another go once you’re recovered.” Midas said to Racheli. “Considering everything that you’ve been through over the last few days, you did remarkably well.” Midas then turned to the mysterious figure standing beside Racheli. “And as for you, I’m very curious as to exactly what you are, and what connection you have with our dear Ms Desemona.” [color=indianred] “A thorn in my ass,”[/color] Rach mumbled, ignoring Midas’ comment for a moment, then flopped down into a cross legged position. [b] “If you run a background check, you’ll learn quickly who I’m projecting,”[/b] the virus began, then turned to focus on Midas’ figure,[b] “As for what I am… Let’s just say I came with the package when she became infected and it’s in my best interest she continues to live.”[/b] “Hmmph.” Midas nodded as he listened to the projection. “Well my friend, it would seem that our interests align. I have no desire to see any harm befall Racheli, much less see her killed. Quite the contrary, actually. I have very high hopes for our girl.” Midas told the projection, ignoring the apparition’s first comments. [b] “Really?”[/b] Came the virus’ answer, his lips narrowed into a frown. His right foot took a stepped toward Midas, his eyes hardened and predatory, as he closed the distance casually and his tone sharp,[b] “I fail to see how tossing her into a fight against a large, unknow structure is helping her at all. Especially since she’s already lost a limb. I assume you’ve seen her ability already and know she’s got no fighting experience or you would’ve never targeted her at all.”[/b] “Perhaps.” Midas acknowledged. “Or perhaps I see something inside of her that even you fail to see. I can provide her with training. I can teach her to control her gifts...maybe even to control [b]you.[/b] My methods may not be kind, but I assure you, I have nothing but her best interests in mind.” The virus’ lips curled into a wicked smile. His chest bubbled with amusement and into a hearty chuckle, it slowly faded as he sought the right words to reply,[b] “I doubt that, highly. As for her best interests, it won’t matter in the end.”[/b] “Just look around you.” Midas told the virus. “You seem at least self aware, I’m sure that it hasn’t escaped you that this world is changing. Men flying through the air, portals to demonic realms opening in the very heart of the city. How long before our so called protectors turn against us? Or worse, they attract something truly malevolent to us, something that is determined to wipes us from existence? You see, I believe that young Racheli may be the only thing capable of preventing that. She might be this world’s last hope when the shit really hits the fan. So yes, I have [b]NOTHING[/b] but her best interests at heart.” Midas finished, his tone harsher than before. [b] “And what happens when [i]she[/i] is the very thing attracting more trouble than she’s worth?”[/b] He asked, his eyes glinted with a hint of anger and assumption. The answer was clear to him to the end result and unfazed by the aggression. “That is a bridge that we will cross when we get there. But I have no intentions of harming her.” [b] “You’re human, your intentions are nothing but harmful. Even when they are pure,”[/b] Michael said in a venomous tone, his mind recalling the days he was ripped to pieces and experimented on as proof to his words. The whole human race would one day pay for their ‘intentions’, a promise he intended to use Racheli to carry out and wipe them off the face of the earth. Rach’s voice, laced with sarcasm, interrupted the pair’s conversation,[color=indianred] “If ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ are done talking, can I fucking leave so you can continue to pretend I’m not even here?”[/color] Her metal arm had already shorted into a sort of silver cap to prevent bleeding out all over the training area as she waited for their answer. “Of course Racheli. Two levels up is our medical wing. Why don’t you go there, we have hyperbaric chambers to encourage a speedy recovery. In fact, I’ll take you there personally.” Midas said with a half hearted smile, ignoring the apparition’s comments completely. [b] “Unless they can accelerate nanites into quicker speed and supply materials, it’s unlikely to help,”[/b] The projection stated, popping the bubble, then glanced about the area. His eyes landed on a few of the metal poles untouched in the chaos then pointed at them,[b] “Smear your blood on those posts and break them down. That should provide enough raw material for you to mend but it will still take time.”[/b] Rach gave him a look and it was clear she wasn’t about to listen to a damn thing he was going to suggest,[b] “Very well, do it your way and don’t say I didn’t give another method. Eventually, we’re going to have to learn to work together even if you despise the idea.”[/b] With those last words, Michael faded from sight. “Right…” Midas said as the apparition vanished before him. “Let’s get you upstairs. The chambers are quite comfortable, and even if they don’t help accelerate your healing, they will give you some peace and quiet, and I think that right now, you could use that.”