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[b]Location: Haneson Airport, Lost Haven[/b]


The airport, as usual, featured several wall mounted screens displayed various arrival and departure times. And like usual, the check in desk and luggage lines were backed up with dozens of people. However, due to the Hound’s recent satellite attack, many sought to leave Lost Haven, a place that has seen many metahumans, and rumored by many to be the next target. What would have been an as usual crowded and busy airport was multiplied by several hundred more people looking to flee.

David overheard various bits of conversation, just bits and pieces, but all of it consisted of worried remarks and anxious questions. Many had already seen the Hounds personally in action, along with their fights with various ‘superheroes’, and none of them wanted to end up like Paris, Texas or Philadelphia. 

And he sympathized with them, the Hounds seemed to be crawling over Lost Haven, he helped stop the ones he encountered, but he had merely stumbled upon them. David had no way of tracking down the Hounds’ real source of power, and he felt he had failed his only mission. The vision the Earth showed him a year ago, it had to have been talking about the Hound’s satellite, what else could cause such destruction? 

David looked to the faces of those close to him; Cecily met his stare, she was probably filled with the same worry and uncertainty he was, his daughter Maddie was focused on her phone instead, and texting with her friends. Normally he’d say something, he always did feel a little outdated, but he held back this time, and if they really did move away this would be the only way she could talk to them. 

Trying to run away from Lost Haven felt bad enough as is, as if he was betraying something inside himself, and this certainly wasn’t an easy choice from the beginning. In doing this they’ll lose their friends, their jobs, and he had to ask himself if this was really the right choice.

The president was due to make an appearance in a few moments, David turned to face one of the many wall mounted TVs, this was something he couldn’t miss, although it’s not like he had anything planned. The screen switched to President Blake, but just as he opened his mouth the screen changed, showing static instead.

Confusion escaped the lips of nearby people.

“What the hell? No signal.” His daughter had muttered.

“Hey, watch your langu-“David stopped himself midsentence, or rather, what he just saw outside the terminal buildings’ windows. Several vans and a helicopter had just shown up on the tarmac, and David recognized them immediately; how could he not, after having faced Hounds several times in the past couple days. A few people were surprised to see anything other than an airplane on the landing strip, and a few surprised and anxious mutterings started getting passed around.

Following the immediate appearance of the Hounds, the power went out, the static filled TV’s and the lights both went dark, leaving the entire building in darkness. The only lights still on were from phones, or outside sources like street lamps, and even then it wasn’t enough. The sound of glass shattering, followed by the thundering of gunfire pierced the darkness, drawing a panic from everyone.

“David!” Cecily yelled for him, she was already dragging Maddie by the hand, the both of them running away from the gunfire, doing their best to navigate through the darkness, relying on the flashlight function of their phones. The only way they could escape would be to get into the other building, but he knew they’d be there too. He thought about changing into Terra Firma here, to fight the Hounds off, but he hesitated as he thought about the satellite weapon again, his waking nightmare from before put the brakes on his legs.

He was shaken out of his daze by his family, along with several hundred people who had taken to pushing and shoving, desperate to get away. The sounds of gunfire and the screams of the unfortunate echoed throughout the terminal building, it shook something inside him, and it made him restless. At this rate they wouldn’t get away, not before the Hounds mowed them down in the back, and he couldn’t let that happen. Not ever.

Something ignited inside him and he found his spirit restored, determined to put a stop to this. He was already having a hard time keeping close to his family because of their head start, so this was the perfect chance to leave. David let the other civilians blow past him as they rushed forward, he almost fell over a couple times.

“Dad!”

“David, hurry!” 

“Go! I’ll catch up!” David shouted back to them as someone bumped into him, almost knocking him down. With everyone doing their best to escape the Hounds nobody would be looking closely at anyone’s face, and with the lights out they wouldn’t be able to see even if they wanted to. The time was now.

An explosion of light blinded those near him, an unfortunate side effect, good news was that it also blinded some of the Hounds, with many of them desperately attempting to cover their eyes. The welcoming warmth of the Earth’s power, along with the feeling of its raw energy inflating him, gave him a much needed courage boost after watching all those news reports. He really felt like he could do it, and this was the time to show it.

David shot up high into the air, nearly crashing into a ceiling mounted light, bullets followed him soon after. As he moved further away from the crowd David considered his situation. With so many encounters with the Hounds he had some idea on how they operated, how methodical they were, and their apparent obsession with killing metahumans without a shred of regard for innocents. He’d have to rein that in, his family was here, and that meant nothing could happen to them.

[color=ed1c24]“Stay close to the walls, don’t leave the area!”[/color] David shouted, his voice echoed slightly throughout the building, he wanted to keep the other people somewhere nearby where he can guard them, if they left for another section of the airport he wouldn’t be able to do anything for them. The neat patterned flooring of the airport shattered as David summoned thick stone walls that circled around the civilians; they quickly shot up towards the ceiling, marking a firm line in between the civilians and the Hounds. He created several more walls to cover those who weren’t as close as the others.

Of course, some of the Hounds had tried to make a move during this, attempting to sneak in to attack the civilians, but they were all launched backwards as the stone barriers uprooted them, bursting from underneath their toes.

But if the Hounds were to be applauded for anything tonight, it would be for their quick response times; even as he summoned his earthen barriers several Hounds had already begun emptying their clips at him, a barrage of lead that amounted to nothing except for empty shell casings scattering across the floor. With the civilians behind a bulletproof barrier of their own David decided to get into the thick of it, he rushed the Hounds forces head on. They attempted to stop him with explosive rounds and a barrage of grenade launchers, he felt the explosions of the grenades rock his body, but he could keep going, and he did. David plowed right into them, knocking several of them off their feet like bowling pins.

Continuing with his momentum, David grabbed a Hound soldier by the ankles and swung him around in a circle, clobbering his friends, before he finally threw him into more of his allies. Some of them attempted to reach for their guns on the floor. David put a stop to that by flicking his arm towards them, thin streaks of lightning shot off his arms, skewering the guns, leaving red hot holes in the middle of the rifles. The grenade launchers gave him some pause, he didn’t know how far their rules for friendly fire went, he didn’t want any of their blood on his hands so closing in up close might be a bad idea, and a lightning bolt might prematurely set off a round.

So [i]he[/i] wouldn’t touch them at all. Several “hands” burst from the ground, they flew around disrupting the Hounds formation, slapping them, punching them, but they all aimed for weapons, grabbing them and diving straight back into the ground. To wipe up the last of the Hounds, a long line of stone shot up from the ground, and into David’s hands. It “merged” with his arm and he swung it into the Hounds, the stone quickly bent and changed into a thick, slimy, muddy whip that swallowed the Hounds. 

David thrust his construct into a wall, with a loud, wet thud the mud whip slammed into the wall. He jerked his hands around slightly, and the rest of the Hounds fell limply down onto the ground, leaving their rifles stuck in the now rock-hard construct. With this area cleared out David moved out onto the landing strip, it was somewhere that could be seen by everyone in the airport, and that was what he needed if he wanted the rest of the Hounds to stop prowling around and come right for him.

Except it looked like he was going to be busy here too, a large armored Hound had just turned around to face him, along with a couple more squads. David decided it would be best not to let them demonstrate just what made them different. Electricity coiled and snapped around his arms, he flung his arms forward and the lightning shot off his arms, each bolt branched off and struck at a Hound weapon. Their rifles began to glow red, and the Hounds abandoned their weapons, all except one. The air around the weird Hound distorted and the bolt that was supposed to hit him curved around him instead, and crashed into a pile of opened luggage. 

David might have thought that Hound suit gave its use some kind of control over electricity, but with that warping and odd curve, that didn’t seem right. Regardless, Lightning was just one of his favorite powers, he still had another. The ground around the Hound began to rumble, the stone pillars David was going to use to trap the Hound suddenly stopped, and fell back into the ground. It felt as if something had pushed down on it, and whatever it was it was still pushing.

[i]That’s never happened before. [/i]

He went at it again, this time several chunks of cement lifted off around him, and rushed at the powered Hound. The blocks sped away, but they suddenly stopped and came right back at him, David probably could have reversed them too, but he found himself frozen with bewilderment; allowing the cement chunks to crash and shatter against his body, pushing him backwards slightly. With only his fists left David readied himself to jump into a tackle, but after he had taken only a single step the Hound raised his hand at him, and David’s body began to grow heavy and stiff.

David tried to take another step forward, he had to push with all his strength, strength he never knew he had, just to place his foot down, and as soon as he did the ground underneath him cracked and depressed into a crater. Whatever this pressure was it was becoming too much. It felt like a giant stack of bricks was constantly pushing down on his entire body, and to make matters worse there was this odd tingling in the bottom of his stomach. The pressure seemed to increase suddenly and David was forced onto his hands and knees, again that same force multiplied, and he dropped onto his stomach.

[i]Shit…this is bad.[/i]

David grunted as he tried to push off the ground, he also began to try to move the ground again, but any constructs he tried to form were immediately crushed just like before, or where shot into harmless pebbles by Hound reinforcements. The Hounds began bombarding him with everything they had, and he had no choice to but to take it as his body grew heavier by the second. 

Hundreds of bullets crashed into him, while grenade after grenade was launched at his prone body, each of the explosions rocked him to his core. He didn’t know if they could kill him as he had no reference for that, but he was starting to feel weaker, it might be possible if he just kept sitting here, meanwhile that tingling in his stomach had been spreading. Each second he stayed like this that tingling in his gut expanded, covering his whole body, like when your arm or leg fell asleep, except for your whole body.

[i]But, this doesn’t feel that bad, almost like there’s….something else.[/i]

This wasn’t something he did often, searching his ‘insides’ with his ‘feelings’, how would you even describe this to a normal person? It felt almost like sifting through sand, he felt swallowed, and drowned in that feeling. After a few moments the tingling passed away, replace by a feeling of familiarity, like remembering something after having forgotten it for so long. Whatever it was that was making him heavier, he could [i]touch[/i] it, reverse it, and so he did. His body began to return to normal, the overbearing pressure of heaviness left him, leaving only the constant barrage of Hound weaponry. Of which he planned to stop this instant. 

David pushed off the ground, a little harder than he had intended, launching himself high into the air, giving himself a nice view of the landing strip. He swept his arms around in a circle, causing the cement and dirt underneath the Hounds to begin swirling as well, making them lose their grip on their guns, as well as losing their footing. David changed certain parts to mud then back to hardened cement again to trap the Hound soldiers in the ground, keeping them away from their guns, and taking them out of the fight.

Meanwhile, the armored Hound had become beyond confused, he spent those next few moments switching between hands, and adjusting the controls on his gauntlets. The Hound did his best to pin David again, but to no avail, despite all his adjustments nothing was working. However, it still worked on other things, like the luggage carts, and the unused grenades of his unconscious allies.

The suit gave him more than just control over how much gravity one was experiencing, but also its direction and speed, as he demonstrated by sending numerous grenades and the nearby luggage carts at David. The hero swiftly dodged out of the way of the carts, but it seemed hitting him wasn’t the goal, the grenades collided into the carts as they passed behind him, the explosion blew him out of the sky, and back onto the ground.

With most of the other Hounds down and out, and with his own gravity suit slowly loosing effectiveness, the armored Hound was quickly running out of options. He tried to fling more cars, luggage bags, anything, at David but only just managed in slowing him down. As David closed in on him he shouted, a desperate, anguished shout.
“We can’t fail here, and definitely not to some nobody hero!” The Hound shouted from the depths of his gut.

[color=ed1c24]“You must not be a big fan of Odysseus then.”[/color] David quipped as he rushed up to the Hound. Suddenly David spotted something out of the corner of his eye, something large and white was coming at him fast, he quickly jumped backwards. It was a wing, a wing of a nearby landed plane, and he wasn’t stopping there. The landing gears, seats, hull, it all came flying at him. David managed to avoid the bigger things, but flying wasn’t his forte, and so he couldn’t dodge everything.

This was getting out of hand, the armored Hound had surrounded himself in a vortex of metal, constantly swirling around him, striking at David if he was too slow. Aside from personally grabbing everything and stopping them, David couldn’t think of a way to stop him from tossing metal around, but he had to stop him before he started hitting the buildings.

Then he noticed something, the Hound had been making him move this entire fight, but the Hound himself had not actually moved an inch, probably too busy micromanaging all this debris. So David decided to go forward, to force himself through whatever the Hound threw at him, and just get him.

David took a moment to brace, then sprinted forward, and launched into the air with his arms forward. That Hound didn’t look like he was just going to let this happen, the metal swirling around them moved to intercept David, and judging from the sound of metal tearing, the Hound must be taking apart more of the landed planes. Most of it was small enough he could ignore it just by pushing forward, but something bigger hit him, he didn’t see it but it caused him to start spinning. But he didn’t let this stop him, he was determined to stop that man, so he continued flying, he continued spinning, and tore right through another piece of plane, and another, and finally into the Hound.

He considered himself done with the man, the sooner he could yank him out of that armored suit, the sooner this would end. Then they both heard it, a jet coming in closer, it must have been due to land around this time. 
The Hound turned his hand toward it, and David promptly intercepted his arm, but he could still turn his hands, and that was all he needed.  David firmly grabbed the back of the armor, braced his other arm on the front side of the armor, and tore it off. The suit snapped into a mess of loose wires and bent metal, electricity sparked momentarily before it died out. The suit was done for, the Hound was more or less harmless now, but the plane was a different story.

Before he was stopped, the Hound had managed to use his power on the plane, whatever he did caused the plane to suddenly dip, and even that momentary exposure to the Hound’s power must have damaged the wings as the engines had caught fire.

[color=ed1c24]“Dammit”[/color] David muttered, he launched back into the air, flying as fast as he could to the plane. He didn’t get there as fast as he would have liked, he didn’t know if he could even help, David was completely out of his element. But he had to try, so he moved under the nose and started pushing up, doing his best to ‘carry’ the plane on his back.

David gave off a loud strained grunt, to get it as flat up as possible, and hope they could still land it. But it didn’t look as if he had the strength for it, he had never landed a plane before, and he hoped this wouldn’t be his first crash.

“Let us give you a hand!” Another voice shouted. David quickly swiveled his head around to face him. Another hero, he was wearing what David assumed to be his costume, there were several tears all over his body, showing he had been in a tussle with the Hounds as well. A few others followed up behind him, all flying up towards them, many of them wore inversed jackets or scarves around their face, and some of them had managed to slip into their costumes.

They didn’t wait for any response on his end, and moved to take a position around the plane.

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Inside the cockpit of the plane, both pilots were flipping through their flight manuals trying to find something to save them, while simultaneously eyeing their instruments to keep them from breaking any further, the sound of passengers panicking behind them only made them sweat harder. The co-pilot spotted the heroes and tapped the shoulder of the captain to get his attention.

“Those guys are crazy, you think they’re going to be enough?”