23/05/2047 [hr] As the last of the sun dropped down behind the mountains, and the air slowly began to turn cold - Addison’s results trickled through on a tablet she held in her hand. For the most part, it looked to simply be nature. Just a rock sat on dry and cracked earth, that was until the device picked up a shadow. A shadow that sat beneath the rocks. “Oh you son of a bitch,” she commented - amusement laced her tone and a smirk pulled at her lips. A pang of relief hit her - that it hadn’t been a wasted journey, and there was even excitement. What was the shadow? And how would they get down to reach it… Alex and Shirley arrived a few moments later, the Tower’s heavy footfalls creating small clouds of dust as they approached Addison’s position. The British duo had parked their rental some distance away, allowing for the pair to approach on foot, drawing less attention than driving up in their car. In stark contrast to her brother, Beacon was clad in more form-fitting, casual attire; a pair of hiking boots, cargo pants, a t-shirt underneath a crop-top jacket, fingerless leather gloves, along with a shemagh, baseball cap and her signature aviator shades. Her brother, true to form, still wore his Union Jack t-shirt, but he’d left his thick trench coat in their motel room, with the same gloves, flat cap, domino mask, rugged denim jeans and combat boots. His cybernetics, an older generation model kept up to date with shiny new parts, were visible past his short sleeves in the fading evening light as he knelt down next to Addison, the layer of nanites rippling ever so slightly as they warmed up in preparation for potential use. Shirley, meanwhile, stood nearby, arms crossed while she waited for the other supers to show up, using her command of light to dim their presence somewhat to the outside eye. It would look as if the trio were under a tarp made of shadow that blended in with their surroundings as the sun set, Shirley’s powers pushing out the ambient light in their area. [color=lightblue]”So, what’ve we got?”[/color] -- [color=fdc68a][i]Bullshit you're leaving me behind, boss. I don't care if it's conspicuous! 'fit all goes to shit, you're gonna wish I was there. Besides, we're prepared for just such an occasion. Remember the camo-paint package we popped in last year?[/i][/color] [i]Wish I could say I didn't,[/i] Ed grumbled, but he sighed instead. [i]Yeah, okay. You're right.[/i] He hated when Dave was right. Well, he hated when he was wrong, but when compared to the actual superhumans he was getting wrapped up with, he needed all the help he could get. [i]Alright, stealth maneuvers, or whatever.[/i] [color=fdc68a][i]Right on, boss.[/i][/color] Dave's chassis flickered briefly, then faded to match the surroundings. ET had no idea how it worked, but that didn't matter. Now cloaked, the pulled off the road toward the meeting point. They'd had to drive for days to make it here, but it wasn't like he had anything else to do. "Ready to suit up, Gabbie?" ET asked out loud. Sometimes it was good to hear himself talk. [color=7ea7d8]"For you, handsome, always."[/color]. Her voice was also audible, rather than in his head. Nobody else could hear her, but it did make him feel just a little bit less crazy. "I'm going to ignore that," he said, lifting the suit of armor up and on to his back. It sealed around him as they pulled up to the target, and he hopped out of the car with an audible crunch. "I guess you're going to want to stick close, Dave. Gabbie, cue the camo." Gabbie had been irate that 'she didn't also get the cool camo bullshit, I thought you loved me Edward--' so she'd gotten a similar, if less-effective upgrade. ET couldn't see anything, but he could [i]feel[/i] The Tower's cybernetics not too far away. And, another set. It hadn't noticed his prodding, so he kept it that way. The less digitals that knew about him, the better. He waved in the Tower's general direction. -- He’d forgotten how cold night in the desert was. Not that anyone would notice him underneath the cloak of Sight of Night. The oily slickness of the trinket made him invisible to the eyes of everyone else. The cyberized federale, the Tower along with an unknown woman had arrived on the scene before him. He approached the group, unseen underneath his coat of midnight, before unveiling himself in the middle of the group, tossing off Sight of Night. He gently began to fold the enchanted fabric into his pocket before speaking out towards the group. [color=pink]“Hola, amigos.”[/pink] Lazlo’s words were tinged with the mechanical inhale and exhale of his gas mask. He reminisced in the dry, cold wind that left prickles on his tattooed arms and the way the sand parted underneath his boots, surrendering without yielding underneath his weight. New Mexico reminded him of childhood memories in Tijuana. Yet, it made him uneasy being this close to the border. Hopefully, the federales wouldn’t catch him off guard on this goose-chase that Reynolds had led them on. What would Hex even want in a place like this? The anarchist artist lazed down on an outcrop of sandstone that protruded out from the sands to the right of Reynolds. The former agent looked as if she’d struck gold. She was holding some kind of device and was staring intently at a lonely rock in the distance. Was that what they had come here for? “Judging by your expression, Reynolds…” Lazlo muttered, taking out a notepad and beginning to sketch in it. “ I’m assuming you haven’t led us out in the middle of nowhere for nothing.” --- It was difficult for Maysah to call herself lost as she stared down at the old paper map. She had managed to stay off of the grid on her trek down to New Mexico, burning just one of her dwindling supply of glamour pills to book a room at a rundown motel that still boasted its premium cable channels and by-the-hour room fees. She would’ve preferred nicer commodities, but after literally running the two thousand something miles from a quick resupply back home to Albuquerque, the only thing that mattered to her had been a shower and a bed before she zipped off to wander the desert like a lost prophet. She had managed to pin down the area that Reynolds told them to meet at on the old map, but when that area was “most of the desert” it wasn’t a very impressive feat. Still, Maysah couldn’t call herself lost. In a matter of seconds, she could find her way. She just couldn’t bring herself to look at her phone again. Maysah first saw the message that ET had sweet-talked his phone into sending after the warehouse meeting with Reynolds. She was thankful that none of the others were around, because the mess of emotions that flashed upon her face as she saw a text from her dead husband Henri likely would’ve brought some sly comment. The message said, “You can trust him,” a statement so infuriatingly vague that Maysah was able to avoid confronting her unburied feelings by focusing intently on the mystery of the phrase. It was a mystery compounded even more by the fact that Henri’s number was no longer connected. She had tried calling it. It, much like her husband, was long dead... She managed to narrow where the message came from down to five possibilities. One, Henri somehow managed to contact her from the grave and everything she knew about life and death was wrong. Two, Hex somehow managed to contact her from the grave and was a real asshole, or more likely he had setup a way to message her before he died and was still an asshole. Three, it was a technological glitch. Four, she was going crazy. Five, someone was fucking with her. Whichever it was, Maysah knew one thing: she didn’t want to look at her phone again. She looked up from the paper map. The sun was going down, casting a picturesque orange glow across the rock, sand, and cacti as the evening’s purple began to take its place. Maysah didn’t know what time it was exactly because, again, she was being a luddite and refusing to use her phone, but she knew she was late. She bit her lip. “Damn it,” she said as she plunged her hand into her pocket. --- The group didn’t see some purple streak rocketing towards them with a trail of dust kicking up behind it as Maysah approached. Instead, they’d see a middle-aged woman dressed in a cardigan and mom jeans glaring down at an obsolete smartphone with a somewhat perplexed look on her face as she tried to figure out how to update her own coordinates on the map, most likely muttering to herself. Every once in a while Maysah would glance up with a confused look towards where Shirley’s powers was masking the group, and she let out an audible “oh!” as she stepped past the threshold where their little shadowy hideout became visible. Maysah stuffed the phone in her back pocket, straightened the tiny backpack she was carrying, and slowly made her way over to the others. It was a notably more mild approach than her previous one. “Oh, you look more normal than I thought you would,” said Maysah to Shirley, mistaking her for an out of costume Spellbound. “Glad you ditched the creepy suit.” -- [color=lightgreen]”Thanks. Honestly, the suit was weird. But at least it worked with my robot parts.”[/color] Shirley brushed a lock of hair away from her face as Maysah approached their little hidey hole. She’d been startled by the sudden appearance of Avant Garde within her pocket of shadow, although to be fair, her powers were only the manipulation of light, not a force field. If anything, her brother would’ve responded, although he hadn’t. Which was weird. In fact, Alex had almost ground Avant Garde to a pulp, had his motion sensors not picked up an anomalous reading from the ground as the criminal approached, his footsteps setting off the alarms in the computer in his head. But once the Mexican unveiled himself in the middle of their charade, the alarms ceased. --- The woman in black had walked across the desert. Crossing the sand from Albuquerque one effortless step at a time. Shrouded in her costume Spellbound vanished into the fading day, her pale features hidden beneath the midnight glass of her helmet. The approaching cold did not bother her. It was familiar by now, if not entirely welcome. She had taken a train from Chicago to Albuquerque. It was quieter than paying a spellcaster to teleport her across the continent. She had needed to stop in Chicago. There were enough discreet wizards operating there. She needed supplies. Magic did not heed her call any more, but she recalled enough for rudimentary wards and rituals. She would be prepared. Hex had always dabbled in magic that was far beyond him and whatever it was he had found in New Mexico was liable to be a danger even to the undead. Spellbound did not need magic or technology to find Addison and the other superheroes. She had a map. A map with a large red X on it. She had purchased the map from a thrift store in Albuquerque for the princely sum of $2.50. Magic could be traced. Technology could be intercepted. A map could be burned. A leather messenger bag was slung over her left shoulder and neatly folded inside were her traveling clothes. It had felt strange to leave her crypt without her costume on. It had been a minute since she had worn civilian clothing. It was not awful. No one had recognized her. She was just another pale emo kid heading towards the border. The steel of her 9mm pistol rested reassuringly against the small of her back. It reminded her she was there for a reason. She did not trust Addison or the other superheroes. She did not fear them. After all, they were dying. But she would not give them power over her. A name was power. A face to recall was power. She would not share. Not yet. Not until she was certain. Not until she knew. They were loud. So loud. And she could feel a hint of magic. The Paintbinder, she thought with mild disgust. His magic was offensive. He reminded her of Hex in all the worst ways. Beneath her mask she frowned. She was remembering the habits of the living. Making faces was important. Anger was good. She walked past the others, only stopping some distance ahead of them. She was not interested in their conversations. Not when she could see it. She might have smiled, had she remembered. With a slight turn of her head towards the assembled heroes, Spellbound pointed at the shadow that danced in front of her,“There’s something very odd about that shadow.” The voice that escaped the black mirrored helmet sounded mildly bored, but very much alive. Spellbound had been practicing. She tried to remember what it was like to be twenty and full of life. -- Whatever was going on around her, Addison didn’t really register it. Not even that the Beacon was here, all glowing and beautiful. Not when she was looking on the screen, anyway. At least not until Spellbound came to her side, her voice soft and as ghostly as she looked. Addison drew her gaze from the screen and to her with something of a smirk. “It’s no shadow, look-” she held up the technology for her, and there it was, as clear as day on the tablet as the shape became clearer and clearer. “This is a bunker, a pretty damn big one too… I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we’ve found one of Hex’s secret bases…” she laughed slightly, a shrug of her shoulders followed. “Just one problem, it’s completely encased in the rock. Unless…” Addison drew her gaze to the formation again, and to the eerie echoes of shadow that were upon the screen, swirling over the straight angles of the bunker. “Unless those aren’t rocks at all…” -- A random bunker in the middle of the desert. ET didn’t know exactly what was going through Hex’s head when the guy made this, but you had to respect the man’s need for privacy. There wasn’t any signals or voices coming from the rock-looking case, but they could just be shielded like his suit was. Only one way to go about this. [i]Alright, Dave. Do it to ‘em.[/i]. To the others, he motioned toward his mostly-camouflaged car. “Don’t freak out.” At that moment, a tear-gas grenade launched from the car, arcing over them toward the shadows. It was a dud--turned off so they didn’t waste their stock. Still, using riot tactics on a pile of rocks wasn’t how he’d expected to start contributing to the team. -- A bunker? Lazlo squinted his eyes and began to notice a wispy outline clouded underneath the boiling shadow. Guess magic was still capable of surprising him after all this time. No trinket that he ever made could match the remnants of what Hex had left behind for them. He was an amateur while Hex was a master of his art. His hand wandered over towards a patch of scarred skin on his shoulder. He’d taught him that after all. The familiar sound of a [i]whump[/i] made him raise his guard as a smoke grenade sailed over his head and landed near the vicinity of the bunker with a metallic ding. He’d almost sunk his hand into the paper to pull out a trinket before realising that it was a dud. Behind his expressionless gas mask, Lazlo rolled his eyes in annoyance. Leave it to the federales to shoot first and ask questions later. “We’re not going to learn anything if we stand around here like idiotas.” He kept the notepad inside one of his pockets whilst raising his left arm upwards. “Let’s shed some light on the situation.” His gloved hand reached over towards a tattoo hidden within the crook of his elbow, plunging his finger in, and pulling out a saucer with a partially melted wax candle. Taking out an electric lighter, Lazlo pressed the charred wick of Dying Light against the flame. The trinket grew a soft bell-shaped flame that was light crimson in color. Lazlo raised the saucer upwards and the light loomed upon the shadows, attempting to part it away. Both the grenade and Lazlo’s art had done something. The illusion had cracked, and to Addison, it felt as though it was almost too easily done, and she pondered over the idea that perhaps Hex had planned it that way. Then there was the notion that it could have all been a trap… Nevertheless, she kept her eyes fixed on the scene, Supers at her side. It just evaporated like hot water - the oranges and browns of what had been the rock formation drifted away like steam on a breeze, revealing what appeared to be an open crater in its place - the solid grey roof of a building in the centre. She was able to obtain a better reading, and it showed that there were a series of potential entrances. It made little sense to the Officer to send them all in the same way. “Spellbound, Arbiter - take that east entrance, Avant Garde, Stardust - the roof. Meanwhile,” Addison peeled her eyes from the screen of the tablet, and met the siblings with a half-cocked smile. It was excitement and anxiousness in equal measure. “We’ll take the front door. Sound good? Good.” Addison didn’t wait for her answer, instead making off over the sand. It was time to open the bunker.