[b][u]3:01 A.M.
Aquarius Apartments, Bazar Quarter, Poseidonis[/u][/b]

Karen wasn’t too surprised when the lights went out; it made sense to disable the power before they went in. She had already stashed the pill back into her purse, along with the scanner. The evidence was secure, and it was now dark—she would be able to sneak away from Ophelia and that girl to do her thing.

[color=orchid]”You two stay here, alright? Don’t leave the bathroom, no matter what you hear!”[/color]

Feeling her way to the bathroom door, Karen slipped out into the hallway. She could hear the confused and frustrated murmurs of the various partygoers. There were a lot of innocent people here, but she knew Mal wouldn’t let them get hurt, just as she wouldn’t.

Drawing a breath, she prepared to light up the room for one brief moment. [color=orchid]”SHA—Huuhh?”[/color]

Her voice had...caught in her throat. That was weird. Oh well.

[color=orchid]”SHAAA-HURNGH!!”[/color] Karen grunted, to the point where she started sputtering. What the hell was going on here? It was like something was keeping her from speaking the Word, like it was literally trying to force it back down her throat.

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath. [color=orchid]”SHAAAAZZZRUUUUM! SHAAAZZZEEEEEEM! SHAAAAA—CHEW!”[/color]

[color=orchid]”Ugh,”[/color] said Karen, wiping her nose. What the fuck? Why the hell couldn’t she say it? Had somebody here cast some kind of weird spell on her? But no, who would’ve known to do that?

Placing her finger to her ear again, she whispered. [color=orchid]”Hey Pink-Eye, I’ve got a [i]small[/i] problem...I can’t transform. Or at least, I can’t say the [i]word[/i] to transform. It’s...not coming out. And no, I have no fucking clue why.”[/color]

That… gave Mal a bit of pause. Even as he was standing over the unconscious frame of a particularly well-dressed, particularly [i]well-armed[/i] guard who’d had the misfortune of having his back turned to the balcony.

[color=orangered]”Wait, [i]what?”[/i][/color] Mal harshly whispered over the comms, eyes peeling away from the rather, [i]peculiar[/i] arcdriver pistol he’d lifted off the very bald and very out cold guy at his feet [color=orangered]”You’re kidding, right?”[/color]
Stowing this particular bit of magitech on his belt and getting to his feet, that supercomputer of a brain in Mal’s noggin was already doing the math on what to do with this particular setback… preferably [i]without[/i] his favourite k-pop enthusiast coming into harm’s way.  

Grinding his teeth, he finally spoke again as he dropped another guard via a hand over his mouth and a tazer in his neck.

[color=orangered]”Alright, calm down. We can still work with this- transforming ain’t exactly the only trick you have up your sleeve.”[/color] The boy growled into his headset, [i]trying[/i] at least to sound not at all disturbed with this new bit of information floating around his brain. [color=orangered]”You gonna be fine until I get there?”[/color]

Karen swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, but nodded. [color=orchid]”Alright. You’re right...I’ll manage something. The important thing is that we take these guys down without anyone getting hurt.”[/color]

And she had a good idea on how to do that. She might not be super strong, tough, or fast, but she still had a few spells that would work well in this situation. Namely…

[color=orchid]”Ypnos,”[/color] she said calmly, extending her hand towards one of the nearby Spaniards, who were now brandishing flashlights. Wavering slightly on his feet for a brief moment, Alejandro fell onto his back with an audible thud that startled the other two.

Her sleeping spell was simple, basic magic, but it was surprisingly useful against those who lacked a strong enough will to resist it. 

[color=orangered]”’Atta girl… just be careful.”[/color]

Orin was moving the second the lights went out, pushing through the crowds and feeling confident that he would still be unseen in the darkness. It was simple enough to spot the guards, they were already moving into positions. Stepping up to the closest pair, Orin reached out and grabbed at each of their lower jaws, his gloves expelling an inky gas which would send them to sleep until they could be dealt with. Shoving them to the side with a satisfying thud, Orin turned on the rest of the room. He was vaguely aware of the conversation in his earpiece and was pleased to hear that Mal was talking Karen through her current problem. They’d have to look into that when this was over.

Pushing his way through the loud crowds, Orin inked several more guards before an indicator light began flashing on his wrist. The synthesizer tank was out. They’d have to work on that capacity. Orin shrugged and pulled at the small tubes on his wrists, freeing the water from its course and using his magic to begin shaping it. Soon enough he was holding a pair of water-based blades, ready to advance on the next group.

Static, still underground, had been thrown away from the explosion of the generator. It wasn’t enough to cause any really damage to him or the sewer system, but it did take the young man a moment to rise. In that time, his eyes went wide at the voice of this other agent. 

It couldn’t be.

It was Mal’s sister Karen, the voice couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else. Hearing her speak back to the armed Argonaut, as the angry one called themselves, Virgil noticed that his voice dropped and calmed a little from the fiery intensity that he used with Static himself. He couldn’t bring this up, not now. Maybe mal didn’t even know. 

In any case, he could faintly hear the commotion going on up above. He shot up into the air and pushed the manhole cover aside once more. To anyone escaping the building, Static directed them safely away before throwing himself into danger. He couldn’t let the Argonauts take all the fun. 

Though he could take the vertical route outside the building, Static decided to take the front door, throwing purple bolts of lightning this way and that at those who tried attacking him. It was still a small space and innocent people were still all around. He needed to be careful while he regrouped with the others. [color=8882be]”Taking care of the front door. How’s everything else looking?”[/color]

It took some careful work to be able to sling sparks with one hand and keep his other hand on comms without frying it, but Static managed. He just hoped that Karen wasn’t going to notice his voice like he did hers.

[color=orangered]”You [i][b]son of a bitch.”[/b][/i][/color] Mal snarled over the comm. As the lightshow began, somewhat subverting this whole ‘covert’ thing they’d been up to and instantly turning the confused, but otherwise docile crowd of partygoers into a panicked, frenzied mob. With the added bonus of his now Non-Wizardy sister caught in the middle. [color=orangered]”What fucking part of [i]quietly[/i] did you not understand?”[/color]

Finishing the next guard on his hit-list a bit more harshly than necessary, by driving the side of his head into the edge of a doorframe while he was busy fumbling with the weapon in his shoulder holster and freaking out about how the front door had suddenly become a damned [i]Tesla Coil[/i], Mal continued.

[color=orangered]”Fuckin’... Cuttlefish, we’re[i]going loud.”[/i][/color]  

[color=8882be]”Don’t go loud.”[/color] Static was quick to interject. [color=8882be]”If eyes are on me, they won’t be on you. Keep it together.”[/color]

[color=orangered][b]”My sister is in that panicked mob you just created you [i]unbelievable asshole!”[/i][/b][/color]

[color=8882be]”And that panicked mob is going to panic the fuck out of here!”[/color]

[color=orangered]”Trampling over anything in the goddamn way, because some guy’s at the only normal entrance [i]firing lightning bolts everywhere!”[/i][/color]

[color=8882be]”And where does that leave our druggies? In the back where you guys are.”[/color]

[color=orangered][b]”Fuck you, Virgil.”[/b][/color]

A door opened and a blond haired teenager wandered into the once-dark, but now sense-attackingly bright room. His eyes went wide as he noticed the masked men working their way through.

[color=gray]”Uh… hej,”[/color] he said meekly, offering a weak wave. [color=gray]”I don’t know what’s going on here, but uh… I think I should do something other than watch maybe.”[/color]

He slowly shifted into a fighting posture with a worried frown on his face.

Karen had managed to successfully put several of the surfacers who had been handing out drugs earlier to sleep without drawing anyone’s notice, thanks in part to the cover of darkness. While initially apprehensive about doing this without her powers, she was slowly starting to feel more confident in her natural magic.

Raising her hand to target yet another of the drug pushers, it was in that moment that the room erupted in what can only be described as an electrical light show. What was once darkness became a nauseating strobe that had everyone—civilian and guard alike—frantically looking around them.

Her spell had been successful nonetheless, and the surfacer began to fall...but this time Karen had not gone unseen. In their frantic searching for the source of the painful flashing, one of the other guards had caught sight of her in the act.

Though she turned immediately to try and place him under the same spell, he was upon her far too quickly. Violently striking her hand down with such a force that it must have at least have sprained her wrist, he tackled her into the nearby wall. The resulting impact caused several pictures to fall to the ground as Karen felt something go [i]pop[/i] that definitely shouldn’t have.

Raising her uninjure hand to once again try to cast the spell, she was instead reward with a hard punch across her face that split her lip and sent droplets of blood to the floor. It was in this moment that she realized just how hopelessly unsuited her human body was for combat against an opponent who truly wanted to kill you.

Another blow to her abdomen illustrated this perfectly.

It was in that moment, after all the myriad twists and turns his day had taken, all the stress, all the frustration, all the [i]people trying their damndest to [b]piss him off...[/b][/i] that Mal registered that his Kare-Bear was on the ground. When he visibly registered the loud popping of her back through his vision. When he saw her bloodied and beaten and gasping for air…

...That something in Mal’s head finally [i]snapped.[/i]

The timer on his reactive armour wound down and he seemingly just [i]appeared[/i] in the middle of the fray, shoulders slack, hands open and eyes locked in the direction of his quarry, burning bright enough to be seen even through the smokey visor of his helmet.

[color=orangered]”One one thousand… two one thousand…”[/color]

Suddenly he was moving forward, his gait steady yet unnatural, like some machine in the guise of a man. It didn’t take for a guard to take notice the sudden appearance of the armoured figure in the midst of all this chaos, and come rushing at him from the left, some form of arcane stun-baton in hand.

Without even looking at the man, the Argonaut grabbed his wrist and elbow as it came, twisting and snapping the former with all the effort it took most to [i]breathe[/i] and pulling on the latter to help guide the weapon straight down the man’s throat as his armoured boot abruptly shot out at the side of the man’s knee and all but destroyed it with a sickening ‘CRUNCH!’.

[color=orangered]”Five one thousand… six one thousand…”[/color]

The next one got off lucky, comparatively, as he hadn’t even gotten to raise his arcdriver before Mal had a hold of his arm, too. Firing the weapon into the man’s own thighs before taking it from his grasp and whipping him across the face with it with enough force to send a shower of blood and teeth flying into the panicked crowd before tossing the arcane murder implement aside like old garbage.

[color=orangered]”Nine one thousand… ten one thousand…”[/color]

And finally, Mal was on his target, wasting no time in putting his boot into the back of the busy man’s knee, slamming it into the floor as his fists rose up under his arms as he fell. Separating the joints of both his shoulders with surgical precision that left any veins or arteries untouched as he ripped them out again, grabbed the now [i]shrieking[/i] man by his face, lifted his chin and quickly moved his clawed fist to his throat to finish the job.  

[color=orangered]”Thirteen one thousand… fourteen one thousand…”[/color] 

It had taken Karen several moments to regain her senses after the pummeling she had received, but as her vision gradually cleared and she stared up at the carnage taking place right in front of her, she could only gasp in horror.

Scrambling to her knees as best she could with her injuries, she reached out for Mal with her good hand, shouting at the top of her lungs so that he would hear her over the surrounding chaos and whatever blinding rage had consumed his mind. [color=orchid]”MAL! STOP! YOU’RE GOING TO KILL HIM!”[/color]

At her touch, Mal’s head instantly snapped up towards Karen… and not in a friendly way.

Almost like a war machine from some sci-fi horror story identifying it’s next target, in fact.

But stop he did, staring at his pseudo-sister in dead silence for a few seconds before the twin orange orbs glowing behind his visor faded away and his body relaxed some, the claws in his gauntlets sheathing away.

...Well, not before he rose his retreating fist and brought it back down on the side of the man’s skull, mind you. But progress was being made.

[color=orangered]”...Right.”[/color] Mal stated, standing upright as that cold professionalism snaked it’s way back into his voice, almost not even acknowledging what he’d been about to do as he offered out his hand. [color=orangered]”Let’s get you out of here.”[/color]