[center][u][b]July 8th, 4:32 PM
Sakakah, Republic of Arabia[/b][/u]

When the NATO forces had arrived, Lady Arcana had initially been tempted to fly down and have a word with them, to try and reassure them that she was here to help. Something in her gut, though, cautioned her against that. She was probably a terrifying freak to them, a woman who flew out of nowhere wielding a power they could barely force themselves to believe in let alone comprehend. No matter how much she might wish to calm people's fears about her, she just had to accept that maybe time was the best solution.

It had been around half an hour since then, and the heroes and their ostensible "allies" stood at an uneasy impasse while they awaited the arrival of the enemy. Although the situation on the ground wasn't [i]quite[/i] so hopeless anymore thanks to the reinforcements the city had received, Arcana still didn't like their chances against the force that was coming.

No, she was certain that if she and Emerald Knight left now, Sakakah would still be overran. Only with their help could they -

[color=orchid]"There!"[/color] Lady Arcana broke her thoughts, staring down from roughly a thousand feet in the sky. She could see the clouds of sand rising in the distance. They were here, and here in [i]force[/i].

Flying higher still, she used her keen eyesight - sharp as the finest bird of prey - to try and determine just how many they were dealing with. While she was no mathematician, she could hazard a guess that the approaching army numbered in at at least a hundred...no, a hundred fifty thousand!

Yeah, if she didn't act now, the city was [i]finished.[/i]

[color=orchid]"Grim, I'm going in. They'll overrun their position if I don't act [i]immediately!"[/i][/color]

The Grim Jet's engines roared to life at the call, having been hovering in a quiet standby mode to consume less fuel. Inside the vigilante Grim glanced up from the control panel she had been studying intently during their downtime, looking to the other heroine. Her gloved hands took the controls, feeling the powerful machine hum beneath her palms.

[color=IndianRed]"Go ahead, I've got your back."[/color] With that said the sleek black jet took off to the sky, racing toward the approaching forces.

From within his command vehicle on the front, Raymond also had an idea as to what was approaching the city. Satellite feeds displayed a large concentration on route, and though he could not determine their numbers or exact composition, it was large enough to stir up the desert sands and announce their approach. His strike group had set up position on the northern side of the city, anticipating a ground incursion not being far behind the bombing run. Black armored soldiers with LIS patches on their shoulders and chest moved between buildings, setting them up for urban combat and ensuring the last of the civilians had been evacuated.

In the span of half an hour he had seen at least most of them to the southern end of Sakakah where minor evacuation efforts were underway. A good number of people remained behind though, grimly clutching at whatever weapons they had within reach to defend their city from the tyrant's approach.

"NATO Air, this is LIS Ground. What's the status on incoming reinforcements?"

Static replied at first, and then the signal cleared up. Damned government channels, rarely ever funded as well as private security.

"LIS Ground, we've got your transport planes under escort to Riyadh and Al-Jouf air field on course and arriving in three hours. Hold position as best you can, we'll keep the skies clear for you."

Three hours. The enemy would be on them far sooner than that, and even then Al-Jouf was outside the city and would take some time to unload and mobilize. A glance upwards confirmed the heroes were still lingering, and he was hoping they would continue to remain and assist in the efforts to keep the city free.

Emerald Knight had been flying around the city of Shakaka for a few minutes now, watching the city at all sides to make sure the enemy didn't sneak up on them from a different direction. 

From below he could hear the soldiers marching around, getting ready. He looked out into the distance, and saw just what they were up against. He didn't have the finest vision, but the line of troops and their weapons of war was something to fear. He had to get out there and stop them before they hit the city.

Grim and Lady Arcana were already on the move. Emerald Knight needed to fly in and join them. It was rather fortunate that he had some time between his arrival and now to pick up an earpiece to communicate to the others with. Without it, the battle would surely be even harder to coordinate.

It took him a little longer than he'd have wanted, but he finally caught up to the flying duo, and offered a silent thumb's up as he flew in next to them.

Seeing that Emerald Knight was with them was a big relief for Lady Arcana, as the more they had on their side in this fight, the better. She had honestly never seen so many people in all her life, not even in stadiums, and they were [i]all[/i] armed to kill. While their weapons couldn't hurt her, Grim wasn't so invulnerable and she didn't really know all that much about Emerald Knight's abilities.

She supposed that this was where she would find out just what her teammates could do, though.

The challenge here would be disabling their fighting capability. It would be so simple to just blast through this entire mass of people and armor, wipe it all out in an instant...but that was the sort of way only a psychopath would think. She hoped Emerald Knight had similar convictions...but given that he apparently saved an enemy pilot, she wasn't too worried.

Upon seeing the trio's approach, the reaction was almost instantaneous - they had probably been warned by the bombers over radio. The first to open fire on them were the Armored Fighting Vehicles, unloading their heavy 25mm automatic cannons on the three incoming heroes.

Instinctively - though pointlessly - raising her arms to shield her face from the withering fire of the AFVs, she landed on top of the nearest one and seized the cannon. Ripping it free as the two pilots began screaming in terror, she quickly seized both of them - on in each hand - and knocked their helmeted heads together to incapacitate them.

She was just barely able to react in time to move them to safety as the other vehicles opened fire on the disabled armor, tearing it to pieces. [color=orchid]"Geez, they don't care very much about friendly fire here, do they?"[/color]

Dropping the men on the desert floor, she quickly rushed another vehicle and slammed her fist through the engine, ripping it clean out despite the armored shell. Taking several dozen 25mm rounds to her face from the panicked gunner, she actually found herself knocked back by several meters, tumbling along the desert as her cloak flipped up over her head.

Grunting in irritation as she threw it back, Lady Arcana quickly floated off the ground. It was a bad idea to stand here, as these weapons were powerful enough to toss her around without the Speed of Hermes to keep her rooted in place. 

Charging the vehicle again, she repeated her motion from before, disabling its turret and two operators. She then brought them to where she'd dropped the other two, deciding that she would destroy the army's fighting capabilities in a large circle with this growing pile of defeated men as its epicenter.

Lifting off the ground, she made a b-line for the nearest tank, smiling as she seized the entire turret section at the base, her nails biting into the armor as if it were butter. She was going to rip it clean off!

[color=IndianRed]"[i]Arcana! No![/i]"[/color]

Lady Arcana paused at the sound of Grim's voice, looking up in confusion. [color=orchid]"Huh?"[/color]

Grim's cursing came through loud and clear on the ear piece as she jerked the Grim Jet up further from the fighting to avoid any undercarriage damage, stopping her own assault. While she had no problem killing, Arcana being met with a spray of blood or the screaming of a man almost broken in half would probably not be well received by Miss Sunshine.

[color=IndianRed]"You'll kill them doing that. Just break the cannon - and [i]only[/i] the cannon part of the turret! Treads too to disable their movements - if you're in a hurry just flip the whole damn thing over but don't rip it in half!"[/color]

Feeling her blood run cold at the fact that she was just about to inadvertently murder the crew of the tank, it took her moment to regain her composure, the 25mm cannons bouncing off both her and the tank doing little to phase her in that period, thanks to her grip on the heavy armor.

Releasing it, she pursed her lips and followed Grim's instructions to the letter. Ripping the main gun free of the greater turret section, she quickly tossed it aside and rammed her fist into the treads of the tank, tearing enough free that it tilted down onto its side.

Exhaling after this, she shook her head. She needed to take this more seriously. She didn't know how these vehicles worked, so she'd need to use caution when disabling them.

To her side another of the tanks slowly began rotating its 120mm gun to bear on her, when an impact against the side of the turret detonated the ammo store, igniting the tank and the crew inside. In the city, the Stryker tank-destroyer that fired the shot slowly backed out of the shadows of the carport it had sat in and began moving to the next spot. Another two were already set up in similar areas, putting shots down range into the advancing army and sharing none of the reservations Lady Arcana had about putting them down permanently.

Emerald Knight was a little more hesitant to join in the fight. It wasn't because he was afraid of the fight, absolutely not. It was because he had to think of a way to deal the most damage to the enemy without killing them. He wasn't made of titanium, he couldn't just charge in fist first. However, he could protect himself with shields, redirect missiles, and even blow some stup up mid-air. Lantern's had to be creative, as well as willful. That was their power that the universe gave to them.

So on he went, flying in and hearing the noise of war and the commotion between Grim and Lady Arcana. His enemy was anything airborn. It was rather unfortunate that his plan fell flat almost as soon as it sprang into his mind. Oh well.

His second target was to help out Lady Arcana with the tanks. He planned on following her example by targeting the cannon barrels and the tank treads, leaving them gunless and immobile. 

With his ring forward, his right hand holding his left as if to steady himself, he conjured a large, polygonal face. He puppeted the face to laugh, and then proceeded to send panels of light flying down at the tanks. Maybe someone would get his dumb reference. Maybe not. At least he knew that he would inspire the sons of the soldiers here to one day take vengeance against him for safely rendering their fathers useless. He wasn't a killer!

The Grim Jet hovered above the battlefield, quietly taking in the actions of the two superheroes below - and the more destructive ones of the NATO reinforcements. It was no surprise, of course. Vigilantes, [i]superheroes[/i] as they were often referred to in whispers, wanted to help people. It was natural that they'd want to spare as many lives as possible, even when being faced down like they were. It helped that they could [i]afford[/i] to be picky about it - Grim saw Lady Arcana be hit by more ammo than she could count just hovering there listening to her, things that would tear a normal man or even military vehicle to shreds.

The normal men and women of NATO had no such luxury. Their shots were deadly, designed to put an enemy down and keep them down. Understandable, considering if Lady Arcana and Green Giant weren't distracting them the enemy would be doing the exact same - and likely succeeding to a far larger scale.

Grim was as human as any man or woman currently marching under the banner of their respective country, yet she was also a vigilante dedicated to protecting life. The tech she had even put her ahead of a majority of the non-powered players on the field. Grim exhaled quietly, and tapped at her on-board computer.

From the bottom of the Grim Jet two compartments slid open at the front, to the left and right. A pair of auto cannons emerged. Inside the jet the targeting system light up, Grim's fingers working over them at a rapid pace. On the very glass of the cock pit targets lit up, mostly red. A thrust of the controls had the jet manoeuvering overhead and hovering.

The targets changed to blue, and the thunderous roar of the auto cannons joined in to the cacophony of noise below. The 20mm armor piercing bullets punched their way through the thin armor above the tanks, piercing through to the engines. As soon as one was disabled the advanced targeting system of the Grim Jet already had the auto cannons repositioning to the next one, taking out a line of the machines in a quick efficiency. Re-engaging the motion controls Grim began moving to a set of IFV's, the auto cannons ammo changing at the flick of a button. These things were expensive to shoot, but not more expensive than a human life.

[color=forestgreen][i]A war as big as this is a good way to increase publicity, but dressed in [b]this!?[/b] I really need to ask my costume designer to make a suit fit for the desert, next time...[/i][/color]

A streak of yellow light zipped through the central group's infantry forces, pushing the soldiers into eachother and causing their guns to fly out of their grasps, either a couple of feet away from where they could grab it, or into another soldier's face. In just less than five minutes, about a quarter of their deployed infantry forces are left disarmed and disoriented, some even before they realized it.

The flash of yellow slowed down to a halt, just a few paces in front of a squad recovering from the onslaught of eye-pokes and nut shots. In front of them stood a man, wearing some sort of [url=http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=290040]vintage, superhero getup,[/url] complete with a face mask, likely to protect against sand, a pair of orange goggles, and a prop M1 helmet. Embroidered on his shoulder is a hastily sewn silver lightning bolt.

[color=forestgreen]"Sup,[/color] the costumed man said, holding a rifle that belonged to one of the soldiers and ejecting its rounds with double the speed. [color=forestgreen]"I'm fast, but you could call me Celerity."[/color]

Tossing the now empty rifle over his shoulder, he got into the most Hollywood-looking crane stance imaginable, waving a hand towards the group, tauntingly.

[color=forestgreen]"Ten bucks says you won't be able to land a hit on me."[/color]

Once she had a working pattern down, disabling the tanks and other vehicles had proven much simpler. Breaking the main guns and treads for the tanks, and the crews, autocannon and engine for the smaller ones. She'd removed several hundred from action over the course of about five minutes, working her way outwards in a cricle. A large pile of unconscious soldiers was growing at the epicenter, although she had made certain not to stack too many on top of one another. Wouldn't want them to suffocate, after all.

But it wasn't just her, and it wasn't just Emerald Knight and Grim, either. There was someone else taking on the infantry. Somebody [i]really fast[/i], who streaked across the battlefield in a blur. He had disabled many tens of thousands of soldiers in that time, massively demoralizing the army as surely as her and her companions were by taking out their armor. Overall, in just that short span of time the quartet of heroes had thrown the entire force into disarray.

Lady Arcana could tell already that they were losing their will to fight. The confusion, the helplessness in the face of these strange powers...she actually felt kind of bad for them, given that most of them surely didn't even wish to be here in the first place.

She had done her best to incapacitate as many as possible, to save them as well...but the "allied" forces weren't so generous. They had destroyed some of the tanks while she was looking elsewhere. There was nothing much she could do about it...she wasn't about to attack NATO, that would potentially just cause more to be hurt or killed in the long run.

No, the best thing she could do was to end this battle quickly.

While she had been disabling armor primarily, she had noticed that artillery had started trying to shell the city from the back of the advancing force. Some had even taken shots at her, but only managed to killed their own men in the process. They were getting desperate.

Lifting high into the air, she flew towards the rear of the now fractured force. It had lost much of its cohesion, with thousands of troops wandering in confusion and some vehicles even trying to retreat. They just needed one last push, and she had set her eyes upon the source of the artillery strikes with that goal in mind.

Although they did seem to be the armor behind the shelling, they honestly didn't look all that different from the tanks she had been breaking up till this point. Their main guns were a lot bigger, but that was really about it. Still, that did make things quite a bit simpler than she anticipated.

Landing on top of the first one, she quickly seized the base of the main gun and placed her foot on the top portion of the vehicle. Wrenching it free - a piercing screech of metal heralding the action - and tossing it aside, she proceeded on to the next one, opting to simply flip some of them at the base to save time.

Hopefully, taking out their long range support would be the final straw that broke the camel's -

[color=orchid]"Eh...?"[/color]

Lady Arcana's eyes were suddenly drawn to the sky, a sharp whistle catching her ear. By the time she understood what she was hearing, it was too late to try and stop it.

Emerald Knight had been too busy with his large face and flying polygonal shapes to worry about the speeding blur, but that whistle was something that he couldn't avoid hearing. 

He slammed the face down in front of him, using it was a shield to protect himself from whatever was headed their way. 

---

Girard drove along in his truck heading back home from a good several miles outside of the city though he hadn't driven the whole way to the place. In the past couple months he had decided if he was going to use his powers in earnest he might as well try to actually learn his limits, so an old abandoned quarry seemed as good a place as any to practice. Turns out if he let off the reins for a little while he was stronger than he thought originally and he could get obscenely heavy if he allowed it which made him glad he caught himself early on before he really did some damage back home. Honestly it made him more worried than he had ever been because with all this power he had to walk on eggshells or he could do a lot of bad to anyone around him, it was bad enough before when his limit seemed much lower. He did find a use for his strength that solved a major problem he was having in mobility however which was now mitigated by jumping like a damn rocket over long distances saving him a lot on gas.

The big man figured he was going to end up revealing himself eventually so better to be prepared to make himself and his powers presentable for when it did happen. To be fair if Abigail hadn't talked him into it he might've never done it in the first place because of her and his daughters taking serious precedence over his little crimefighting sprees which he occasionally did to keep crime down in Amnesty Bay. She had been a big source of encouragement lately regarding his activities pushing him further so he felt less restricted in going out to do what he thought was right. It left him less time with her at home but it was almost impossible to tell her no so he kept it up with his amazing wife cheering him on. The girls didn't know yet nor did he care to let them in on it yet since they were still little things, no need to have them worrying about anything more than what they should like school or making friends

The big guy was prepared to take a turn sending him back towards the suburbs when his phone started ringing. He pulled over to find the thing and saw it was Abby calling, he figured she was just checking in with him to see where he was.

[color=A9A9A9]"Hi honey. I just hit the intersection-"[/color] He began to explain himself before his wife cut in.

[color=66CDAA]"The Arab Federation just started a war...those poor people over in Republic."[/color] She said sounding rather upset, [color=66CDAA]"Sweetie I know you don't want to show off or get us in trouble but you could save a lot of good people over there on both sides, I mean you could do that jumping to get over there now and everything."[/color]

Girard was silent for a moment considering his options for dealing with this issue. He only really saw two possibilities open, use his powers and try to get himself over to the fighting or just go home to endure a scolding he likely wouldn't forget. Neither was a winning bid though as much as he was worried about showing up in the Middle East his wife was in the right for calling him about it.

[color=A9A9A9]"I...what if I over or under shoot and end up somewhere else completely?"[/color] He asked giving confirmation to her that he was going to do it.

[color=66CDAA]"You can make yourself heavier hun, over shoot and you can use it to help you land close to if not right on them."[/color] She said throwing in her two cents on the problem but seeming a bit happier that he was thinking it through beforehand.

[color=A9A9A9]"Suppose I could call up Gary to pick up the truck near the coast too, should be out and about right now."[/color] He said getting his helmet out from the dufflebag. [color=A9A9A9]"Suppose there isn't much better of a test than trying to jump continents huh?"[/color]

The two of them laughed for a bit over how stupid it all sounded before she made him promise to come back soon or she'd kill him and the Tank was on his way to the coastline of Maine. It took him some time to find a vacant area where he could make the jump from, harder than it first appeared but he managed it. He looked out at the water trying to think how much force he would need to send himself that far and it was a lot by any measure so it was just a crapshoot at best. The big guy stepped himself back a couple hundred feet to get a running start before breaking into a sprint trying to build up as much forward momentum as he could feeling the ground under him getting messed up in the process. Then before he had a chance to take it back he hopped once setting himself up for a much bigger push off as he poured his strength into one massive burst.

It was hard for him to imagine ever being in this position flying through the sky at the speed he was looking down over the water and the land he could see. This was really insane by his standards but here he was rocketing through the sky, higher than he expected initially which was making him really uncomfortable especially over the ocean below. Well that's what he thought before his jacket and pants set on fire as he went and that was just the first to go in an unpleasant line of events ending with his helmet melting onto his head. Had he really thought this through? Apparently not well enough since he hadn't been anticipating this to be such a shitty ride forcing him to pull away some of his headgear from his eyes just to keep track of himself.

Turns out Tank didn't have long to wait afterwards as the dry earth came up to meet him very [i]very[/i] fast. [color=A9A9A9][i]"I never did come up with a landing plan did I? Well shit."[/i][/color][/center]