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[sub][color=c3bbc9]Interacting: Starbright! [@Jumbus][/color][/sub][/center]
Eliza gawped at him, and how casually he mentioned announcing the album on her stream. Didn’t – didn’t he have PR people, and stuff, handling his image? Wouldn’t he have to – have to ask them, or something? 

The color drained from her face, already fair complexion nearly matching the sheets of music strewn around. He really - he thought it would be this easy, to get her ready to be on stage? [i]Really?[/i] Three years of therapy and a variety of techniques hadn’t been successful…but the promise of stardom was supposed to be. Right….

As he turned around to face her again, she stared at him blankly. [color=c3bbc9]“You want – me to announce the album. Your album. On my stream. I have – I m-m-mean I’d – I’d love to, but – but – I only – I only have two thousand, t-t-two thousand followers!”[/color] She could barely get the words out, she was so terrified (and some part of her, deep down, excited). [color=c3bbc9]“Won’t your, your – your PR people, won’t they b-be – don’t you have to announce it y-y-yourself?”[/color]
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[sub][color=9ed7db]Interacting:[@canaryrose] [@Hitman] [@KaijuBaragon] [/color][/sub][/center]
In the moment when Tommy’s gaze met hers, his face morphed into some incomprehensible anger, Angie felt all hope leave her body, all of her usual rationality and pragmatics replaced by pure panic. Her arms and legs felt they’d turned to slush, and afforded little resistance to Tommy as he wrenched her arms behind her back, goons falling into line around them.

[i]A liability.[/i] The word flitted around in Angie’s memory, lurking somewhere behind her apparently heartbroken stare. She’d done it, again. 

Again.

Another fucked-up mission. The [i]only[/i] kind of mission where she was any good in the field, and she’d fucked it up. Again.

This time, Powers probably wasn’t going to try to get her out. She remembered vividly how angry he’d been, the last time she’d messed up. [i]That[/i] rescue had required Division X, and had generally been more of a headache than anyone had been ready for. At least this didn’t seem it would be that bad…hopefully. 

Still. She’d thought she was getting better at her job since then… but apparently, not. Thoughts of Blake flitted in front of her mind’s eye – when they’d both been teens, he’d made fun of her for getting caught, and needing rescued. On her first mission, at that. Guilt overwhelmed her, and she glared over her shoulder at Tommy, furious at herself for even thinking to have used seduction for this part of the mission. How [i]dare[/i] she betray Blake like that.

So lost in her thoughts was she that she was taken completely off-guard by the nauseating feeling of sharply losing her sense of “down”. As she drifted into a somersault from the force of Tommy’s push, unable to stop herself, she got a very good glimpse of Hero’s own Tom and Tommy struggling, hearing the crunch of Tom’s face behind Tommy’s knuckles. She winced, and then gasped out in pain herself as Tom turned the gravity back on, dropping both of them back to the floor. At least she didn’t fall nearly as hard as Tommy did, she noted, cringing at the cracking sound that came from his impact. 

As she struggled to her feet, trying to force air back into her lungs, she glanced to Patricia, her gaze softening as she took in how worried the young teen was; poor thing seemed terrified and overwhelmed. It was her first undercover operation, and all, Angie knew, and she extended a hand and a soft smile in the moment, trying to offer some advice to help the younger girl keep a level head.

All of her reassurances died on her lips, however, as Vinnie Gugliano himself stepped into the corridor, a gun in his hand. Grace hit the floor pretty quickly, she saw, and Patricia soon followed, though the younger girl looked both terrified and furious… That wasn’t good.

She glanced to Tom, then back to Vinnie, weighing her options. [i]Have to buy some time. I have to buy some time. If they separate us we’re [/i]done.[i] I – what – what can I do?[/i] After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a second, a thought wormed its way into her mind.

She’d go quietly, alright. Though it was absolutely too late to go un-caught, she put her powers on fully, focused on Vinnie and Tommy alone, as well as any goons who might be about to enter the area. Her hands away from her sides as nonthreateningly as she could, she placed herself between the trio of other heroes and Vinnie, moving towards him slowly, trying not to flinch away from the gun. Her fear and anger and guilt and frustration at herself all bubbled up in the form of tears, spilling over her lower lashes and beginning to drag her mascara and eyeliner down her cheeks. [color=9ed7db]“Please, you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to- you d-don’t have to be this violent.”[/color] Her voice shook heavily, the tears and emotion lacing her tone entirely authentic for once. [color=9ed7db]“Please, you don’t have to take the rest of them. It’s my fault we’re even here. Let them go, just take – just take me, and let them go, and we won’t bring – they won’t bring ICOSA down on your head.”[/color] She did not really believe a word she said, and it was apparent in her tone that she had no real hope of rescue, but she had to get him talking and his men to not drag her friends away to such horrors as torture and certain death…