[h2]Alessa Heather: Charity Fundraiser[/h2]
Damn. Damn, damn, [i]damn.[/i] It seemed like everything had been going well. Certainly, some were injured, Overlook most notably, but that was rarely not the case when it came to somebody as dangerous as Shatterpoint, and given how exceptionally well Hermes’ plan had turned out, it seemed like Ceramix had wound up being the sole remaining threat.

Which was the problem, now. He was still a threat, and having excised himself of the majority of his golem suit, he now had hostages in hand - literally, in the oversized stone hands still attached to him. If they didn’t free Shatterpoint, people were going to die, and even as Ceramix made his threats, Alessa could not come up with a way for her power to assist there. If she superheated the stone arms to melting point, they’d fall and crush the hostages; burn off Ceramix’s real arms, or just simply burn a hole in his head, same problem; melt the hands, yeah, very funny. Shit, shit, not again, not again, why did she make promises she couldn’t keep-?!

A loud crack of some bone or another brought her back to her senses. No, this wasn’t going to be like the warehouse again. No blood, no gore, no... focus focus focus! She couldn’t help directly; so, she would help the only way she could in this case: buying the others time.

‘I’m going to draw his attention,’ she murmured into her communicator, thanking the stars that she was still hidden behind a barrier of shrapnel. Quiet enough that Ceramix ought not to notice, more than loud enough to hear when projected directly into one’s ear canal by a communication’s device. ‘I’m trusting you guys to come up with something to stop him.’

[color=burlywood]‘I ain’t playin’, fools!’[/color] They were out of time to react; drawing herself upright, Alessa stepped out from behind cover, calling ‘Wait, wait! We’ll do it, we give up!’, putting as much of her own fear into her voice as she could. She did, after all, really want to make sure the hostages survived, even if they were villains in their own right.

‘We can get him out of the foam, Ceramix,’ she began to explain, subtly moving around him in a way that drew his attention off of the bulk of the other heroes - or that was the thought process, at least. ‘There’s solvent outside the building, and that’ll dissolve what’s got Shatterpoint surrounded. Just please let the hostages live if we go get it, okay? It’ll literally take maybe half a minute. Nobody... nobody has to die,’ she concluded, a bit of sadness in her tone. If her face were visible, she’d be making puppy-dog eyes at Ceramix right now; as it was, she’d just have to hope her voice conveyed her begging sufficiently. Maybe it’d even throw him off his game enough that he’d let them go of his own accord. Either way, she hoped it’d draw his attention long enough to give others a chance to undo his threat.