[CENTER][Img]https://i.imgur.com/8BJy5WD.png[/img]
[b][code]Grand Ridge - Conference Room[/code][/b]
[sub][@Surtr Inc][@Atrophy][/sub][/center][hr]

Nate struggled to follow the multitude of conversations going on in this room, though he was able to pick up a few names here and there. Much of it looked to have descended into a dick-measuring content when in came the presence of a real, live fucking bat in the room - flying straight out of the ass of some blue haired guy who, who in turn couldn't necessarily be pinned down as a guy [i]or[/i] a girl. As far as Nate was concerned, they were androgynous

In fact, judging by the silence on his part, he'd taken this better than the others had - and who could blame them? None of this shit was normal in any sense, even-

"Quiet!" All light in the room disappeared. Not faded, not seeped out - disappeared, as though it was never there or as though they were covered in a shroud of dark. It was an almost terrifying experience and would've been even moreso for Nate had he not already been through his own self-discovery of powers and the wonderful things to be done with them. Not helping to tarnish the intimidating visage once the lights were back on was the owner of that voice that had told them all to shut the fuck up, a shorter, skinny guy - one whom Nate had already pushed aside in his mind as yet another face in their crowded group.

More bickering followed. Billy, the guy who'd been the earlier bat's original target slunk back into his chair whilst Penny, who he did know (if only by their earlier acquaintance and her 'bumblebutt' monicker) laid into another girl, Claire for laying into him. Yeah, this was a clusterfuck - and for a change he didn't stick his hand into the grinder. Not least because he too was pondering on the implications of it all - [i]thank you for raising that, Penny[/i] - then the other girl, Britney, started giving her own explanations for it all.

At least [i]she[/i] had a rough idea of what it was they dealing with. Perhaps too much, though he'd never quite put two-and-two together in this instance... at least until she presented to the collective group this diary of hers which at one point had been signed and scrawled by a John Reid. The same John Reid who rang absolutely no bells with him but, as Britney would explain, was the kid they'd seen under attack in their dreams. Now he was [i]dead[/i] dead, for-real dead.

And worse yet, all the shit he'd seen and consumed in years' worth of video games and other media... this whole thing was a clusterfuck to take in. He was an 'awakened'? Something like that usually came out of a game, like a character class in one of those crazy JRPGs or a monicker given to the protagonist by some oracle types. Hell, there was even a fucking word for his phasing-through-shit power, it was an 'abstraction' - with all the burdens and responsibilities that entailed. So he'd be expected by this dead guy to be a 'Guardian' for this town? The same town in which he'd spent a tiny fraction of his life in contrast to Bellevue, where he was [i]still[/i] the loner, the lost new face. 

Claire raised that point before considered doing so, [i]thankfully[/i] at first, though he felt a quick pang of shame when Penny laid straight back into her for her 'cowardice', pointing out that Scott Reese (who, yes, also had an 'abstraction' - one that turned him into Bruce Banner's backwoods cousin) was still out there and ready to do more harm to them. Or, for that matter, to other people - what about his Uncle Quent - would he be able to handle that if he ran into him on the job? Especially without even knowing what he was getting into?

Even then, what could Nate do? Penny's argument was poisoned with her last comment - the one about Claire's friend in the coma. [i]That[/i], of all things, managed to strike a personal chord with him and for that, he had to get some kind of retort out, even if it was a poorly humoured one that went back to their earlier conversation, "Hey, you should probably put those used tampons away before they start flying around the room again and hit someone in the face like the bat hit your uh - friend, there." He was, referring to Billy sat next to her. They looked familiar, maybe they were actually... [i]whatever.[/i]

Either way, it was a [i]bitch[/i] move, even if she was right about the rest of it all.

Investigation into a murder [i]was[/i] another matter, though... one he'd still have sooner left to the likes of his Uncle Quent - the man [i]was[/i] a veteran cop of the West Coast's biggest city, after all. For emphasis, Britney decided to drop another bombshell on them. [i]Great.[/i]

"Threats?" Nate finally threw his arms up, "You mean like that cannibal-monster thing that tried to make your not-dead friend dead before he could go on to die just now?" It was a legitimate question - the idea of a thing like that coming after him freaked him out. Even if he could just let it pass [i]through[/i] him, just having something like that... no. "Would guns even work on them?" [i]Shit.[/i] That was a thought he'd spoken aloud, though now he'd said it - he meant it. This was Montana, right? And people like Quent had all kinds of stuff on hand for shooting - probably even some of these guys, too.