[h2]Alessa Heather: Trainyard --> PRT HQ[/h2]
The drive back passed in a bit of a blur for Alessa. Her leg was treated by medical staff in the van, though she insisted that Lillian, Overlook, and Private Skeetz receive treatment first until the medic realised she was sitting in a slowly-growing puddle of blood. She felt that didn’t matter so much. Everyone else’s injuries were worse. Alessa was just tired.

By the time they’d gotten back, she was bandaged up and able to walk about as well as she could hope. Lillian insisted on holding her hand throughout the walk through the building, and after she’d given her passcode, Alessa was asked ‘The fire leaves me heart’, to which she responded ‘Yet I shall never leave your side.’ Her voice shook slightly as she said it, but it remained steady enough to allow her access alongside Lily nonetheless.

Then came Director Kens’ rant. He’d never unleash his fury directly upon them, she knew. He wasn’t that sort of person. It was clear how upset the whole situation was making him, though... and of course he had every right to be upset. They’d failed. She had failed. It wasn’t an acceptable standard to hold herself to.

Before she could say anything, Lillian replied to Kens with an impressive speech. Clearly, something had happened other than Dean’s appearance to greatly upset her, and Alessa wasn’t sure if she could help the poor girl get over it.

Dean was dead. Him and hundreds of his fake yet far-too-real clones.

She had to stop herself gagging at the thought. Jesus Christ, so much blood.

Had Ira said something under her breath? She’d stopped paying attention briefly. Unacceptable.

By contrast, she heard every word of Elliot’s input, and that was the first thing said in the meeting that actually got her significantly more upset than before. Was that how casually he’d dismiss a former teammate? Because if it was, then he really did deserve the surname “Prat”- no, no, that wasn’t fair to him, he might not... he might not even...

‘Oh my God, you don’t know who it was,’ she concluded out loud, her voice and her look in his direction, all directions, a mixture of distress and, for the first time that day, intense anger. ‘That “freakazoid” was Dean, Elliot. Troll’s “lackey” was [i]Dean,[/i] Overrun was [b]Dean.[/b] Do you remember Dean, folks? Not Lillian, she had no reason to recognise him, but anyone else? Because I sure do, all three hundred and sixty-odd days of his friendship before he vanished. He died, by the way. He died [i]right in front of me.[/i] He-’

A second of hyperventilation was strangled before she continued more somberly.

‘He was shot. I think he was, anyway, because whatever killed him sounded like a cannon. He turned to paste and gore right in front of me. It was... there... all the... and the rest...’

Inhale, slowly. Exhale, slowly. Breath, Alessa.

Oh, she was covered in blood. That was new.

Some of it was probably the real Dean’s, come to think of it.

‘I set the warehouse on fire,’ she admitted as calmly as she could, staring into the distance as she spoke, just to move on from the topic of nonononono keep talking keep talking. ‘Something smashed into Lillian. I vaporised it, and then I hit half the building with a beam of fire to save Tulpa from being beaten to death. I didn’t think, I was caught up in... with my...’

Breath. Keep talking. It’s fine.

‘...and that’s why it’s no longer standing. That’s why the evidence is gone, Director Kens.’ Now she faced him directly, her resolve set. She was the leader here. She had to take responsibility for what happened. ‘Everyone else is relatively blameless. I’m the one the rest of the team ought to be taking examples from, and yet how can they when I do stupid things like that?

‘So, please, sir,’ she begged him, ‘if you intend to punish anyone... just punish me. Give me everyone’s punishments combined if you must, just don’t blame them when I’m the one who ruined the operation in the end.’ And she had, hadn’t she? All else excluded, the warehouse would still be standing and the evidence undamaged if she hadn’t freaked out. She deserved to be punished for her misdeed. It was only just.

[hr]

[h2]Raymond Haywood: Trainyard[/h2]
Raymond nodded politely as Chatterbox instructed him on what to do to identify the real Chatterbox, considering that it’d be a good plan to know what the power's effects felt like, yet painfully aware that if the primary Chatterbox and his clone shared similar memories, then chances were the clone would also know of Raymond’s false name, since he’d given it before anything else. In which case, he needed to give out a new name, completely new...

‘It was actually Devin Crash,’ he muttered to Chatterbox, any mouth movements hidden by his mask. ‘And I might take a separate van to everyone else, if you don’t mind.’ Hopefully, the man would be savvy enough to recognise what he was doing and why; otherwise, he couldn’t help him. That said, now was probably a good time to do as he asked and stop the clone from continuing to chatter at the last two of the Jacks.

Yet chatter he did, and as Headhunter, Chatterbox and Whimsy approached the two real and two fake Jacks, the clone Chatterbox explained how he and his partner were linked, and then explained that supposedly, he was more than willing to team up with the rest of the Jacks in pursuit of even greater fame and fortune than before. Raymond considered the thought, and decided that it was perfectly reasonable to consider.

Which was a problem, because he suspected that if that Chatterbox were using his power on him, a lot of things would sound perfectly reasonable, especially if they were small suggestions like that. In other words, he had to be utterly vigilant. He’d personally witnessed the real Chatterbox turn the fool Gamble into his pliant minion in less than an hour; if he didn’t stop him talking now, he and the others might wind up the blabbermouth’s thrall before the day was out- ah, Blabbermouth. A good alternate reference for the clone, perhaps accompanying a synonym for Whimsy… he’d do some research in that regard, he supposed.

Yet it seemed his spell was already quite ingrained into both Heartless and Thunderbolt. Heartless threatened him, but didn’t so much as grapple him, and Thunderbolt didn’t even dare to touch him. That wasn’t acceptable; he had to act as soon as possible, or they’d all be lost, and he already had an idea of how to do it. The order of instructions would be important, too... yes, that should work.

As he moved toward the would-be escape van, Headhunter had no choice but to pass Blabbermouth and his smug face, gesturing as he was. He did not get into the van immediately, but instead walked slowly enough to stall until he heard the second van's near approach. It was then that he acted; quite abruptly, he booted the clone Sofia in the chest and stomach, knocking her into the van and ideally winding her. The real Sofia would suffer that indignity as well, but no matter. He supposed he'd make up for it later on, somehow.

Immediately after his boot had connected, Headhunter wrapped an arm round Blabbermouth’s chest and upper arms, yanked him away from his cloned partner, and called out ‘Heartless, Thunderbolt, help me gag him; Sofia, when you recover, stop your clone,’ at the same time ripping the glove off of the hand holding Blabbermouth in place and attempting to force it into the boy’s mouth. Admittedly, this was helped by Thunderbolt finally being useful and throwing a fist into the side of Blabbermouth's head, dazing him and his alternate self at once, but not knocking them out cold. A fantasy of many detractors of "James", he was sure - punching two of him at once.

In combination with something to stop him spitting it out, worst case scenario the still-army-gloved and thus biteproof hand presently over Blabbermouth's jaw, the clone of Chatterbox would now be depowered enough that Raymond and co. could haul him with minimal resistance to whichever other van the real Chatterbox had called forth and have them drive back to the location separately; Raymond’s own body armour ought to stop Blabbermouth from trying anything funny with any amount of success, and if he was lucky, Sofia would be able to stop herself from saving her ally from what amounted to being kidnapped.