[u]Enemy Yacht[/u]
[i]Coastal Waters, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Morning[/color][/i]
[@Shu]

After a final sweep of the cargo hold, the clean-up crew located their target. When they began securing the cargo, however, they caught a snag.

"Sir, I think you need to see this." said one of the officers. He was toeing the small crate warily with his rifle as if it were a hornet's nest.

The commander turned. "What is it, officer?"

"Sir, I think..." he gingerly exposed the back of the crate, revealing a mass of wires, white paste, and a timer, "We got a problem."

The commander cursed, pulling on his walkie. "I need the bomb specialist down in the hold. Now."

Tension-raised seconds ticked by while the crew's bomb man sat in front of the crate, teasing apart wires.

"We're gonna run behind schedule at this rate, EOD," the commander said, "Can you get a handle on it?"

Just as the specialist was about to respond, a loud crash reverberated near the back of the hold. The commander immediately raised his hand, signaling, and the team split up to sweep the hold. The commander heard bullets peel off to his right. On the floor, blood pooling out of fresh bullet wounds lay a man with a white mask, dressed in a suit and tie.

The commander's eyes landed on the officer who took the shot. "What the hell is this, officer?"

"I don't know, sir. We did the sweep, every inch was accounted for. He just appeared out of thin air."

"Well, whoever this guy was, he wasn't planning on sticking around," the commander mused. "The crate was clean when it entered the hold. He must have placed the bomb, and tried to make it out without being caught."

The commander sighed. "Sweep the entire yacht again, just to be safe. Once we disarm the bomb, we're out of here. And for the love of God, be quick. The Titan is falling behind schedule."

A chorus of voices. "Yes sir!"

[hr]

[u]Valkyrie HQ[/u]
[i]Unknown, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Morning[/color][/i]

The frantic ruffling of files, and over the thrumming of her heart, the Valkyries' cleaning girl failed to hear the door open to Lady Hel's office. She was in a place strictly off-limits, but with a broom shoved in the crook of her arm, she was sure she could convince anyone she was simply doing her job.

"You really think you're slick, hm?" said a dark, cool voice.

The girl stiffened, slamming the cabinet shut and whirling around. "I-I'm just"--Her heart dropped, recognizing the voice--"...cleaning, ma'am."

Lady Hel strode across her office, regal and immaculate. She sat against the edge of her mahogany desk, eyes intent on her intruder. A single porcelain hand reached up, grazing the girl's cheek before tearing off her hat, revealing long, jet-black hair tumbling down past her elbows. 

The wet, tearing sound of red eyes blinking open in every shadow of Lady Hel's room drew a heavy, oppressive weight, choking the very air. Lady Hel watched the girl freeze up, savoring the fears rolling around in her, before giving the command.

"Reveal yourself, Corva."

The red eyes drew teeth, diving like crows on prey, pulling apart the mental illusion, shedding the skin of a small Valkyrie cleaner, and revealing the tall shadow of the former Queen.

She shook off the rest of the eyes with a withering psionic aura, dusting off her shoulders. Her hand rested on her hip. "How did you know?"

"Your fear. It didn't fit a cleaning girl who never lived through the Dark Nights." Lady Hel said simply, slipping behind her desk, one leg folded over the other in her leather swivel chair.

"Now, my [i]dear[/i], give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you this very second," she paused, "and tell me what you're doing in my office."

Corva stared plainly, watching the thoughts flicker around in Lady Hel's mind. "I see time hasn't changed you. Those girls you lost... they still haunt you, don't they?"

Lady Hel's eyes narrowed. "Corva, I know more about you where it counts, and I swear I'll push you over the edge of insanity this time. Don't push me."

"You may know my fears, but I know your every thought. Talking with the lost Alpha, I see?"

Lady Hel's hand cracked the wooden desk as she lunged across the desk, the other hand balling the hem of Corva's cloak in a fist, pulling her into a vampirish glare.

Her words were a slow, dangerous whisper. "Get. Out of my head. And [i]talk[/i]."

Corva watched her for a moment before her eyes closed, raising her hands in compliance as she pulled a file out of her cloak, tossing it onto the table. 'Top Secret: Operation Phantasm' was written across the top.

Corva's voice was soft, barely hiding the anger lacing her tone. "You call me a monster, but I've never manufactured an heir by killing her own family, [i]Hel[/i]."

Lady Hel's eyes softened, guilt flashing across her face as she read the file's title. Numbly, she let go of Corva's cloak, stepping back.

"This is bigger than her. Then me, or you." Lady Hel said, eyes snapping from the file back up to Corva. "This is about metas not waking up to their homes being broken into, not fearing the streets in the daylight. For that future, I'd sacrifice anything, including an heir that will carry my vision."

"Did you ever consider that [i]you[/i] were part of the problem? Why metas have such a bad rep, hm?" Corva said, hand gesturing to the file.

"Better than stealing children from their beds and destroying them for a little 'pickled power', innit?" Lady Hel said bitterly.

Corva scowled. "It's necessary."

Lady Hel stared, then laughed, a harsh, staccato sound. "How is it any different from what I've done? I've sacrificed to save our way of life here, to save the people, [i]my[/i] people, that you've taken."

"It's. Necessary." Corva made her words firm.

Lady Hel gestured to the room. "How?"

"By doing something you never could do, were never brave enough to do," said Corva. "We will save everyone now, today, on the front lines."

"I may have ruined one girl's life, but you... you've really eaten the bloody cake on this." Lady Hel paused, eyes leering. "How many metas, Corva?"

Corva's eyes widened. "..."

"Hm? Can't remember how many you've subject to a fate worse than death?" she said, "All due to your vision, no, your lust for ultimate power."

Lady Hel placed her hands on the desk, leaning toward Corva, watching the fear build up in her. "You're not doing this for some noble cause, little Queen."

Lady Hell shook her head. "You're doing this because you're scared. Weak. You forget everyone else; It's you who needs ultimate power to sleep at night. Innit?"

Corva started. "That's not--"

"And when the world burns while someone hands you a bloody crown, then maybe, you'll finally find the 'peace' you seek. But at what cost? A world where metas have been so tortured that they can't even bring themselves to live in the perfect world you've brought on by the hands of their fallen brethren?"

Corva stepped back, hands balling into fists. "Shut up!"

"You know I'm right."

[i][b]"I said shut up."[/b][/i] Corva's words echoed with power, telekinetic power seeping from her body.

The room began to shake, walls and floor peeling up from the unbearable weight of telekinetic power. The same power that caused the numerous hospitalizations during the Dark Nights. Lady Hel watched carefully, holding her ground as shadows swayed in her aura, ready to puncture Corva's fears.

Lady Hel's voice was soft. "I'm right, and you know it. I can see your fears, Corva, shifting pitifully between fear of weakness and a fear of doing the right thing."

Corva snapped, and with a scream, she lunged at Lady Hel. But the moment her fist reached the Valkyrie, Lady Hel burst into a murder of crows, disappearing into the office's shadows.

Corva glowered, shaking her head. "Why... why are you holding back?"

Silence.

Corva's voice hitched. "Why not just end me now, and finish the Knight's Queen once and for all...?"

Standing in the darkness, Corva trembled, clenched fist raising to smash the desk before she de-materialized, disappearing from the room.

[hr]

[u]ACE Chemicals, Shadow Knights HQ[/u]
[i]The Loop, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Morning[/color][/i]

A hand flicked the switch in the Knight's observation tower.

The lights flickered on.

Corva, who was bent over the desk, whipped around. Astra, standing casually at the door, had black smoke seeping off him in an attempt to barricade the telekinetic hold crushing his lungs.

"Corva," he said softly, seeing the tears streaking on her face. "You can let go of me."

Corva blanched, hastily wiping her face, and turned away. Astra sighed as the telekineses faded, and he stepped into the room, eyes staring curiously over Corva's form.

"I haven't seen you like this for a long time, my black rose," he gave her a keen sideways look, "I take it Operation Phantasm was a drop?"

Corva sniffled, eyes him accusingly. "How did you-- wait, no, you knew it the moment I left the building."

Astra gave her a look. "It's literally my job to know everything going on in this HQ, Corva. Come on."

Corva stood up a little straighter. "I did what I had to. You can punish me as you see fit."

"No..." Astra said thoughtfully, gloved hand tapping his chin in amusement. "No, I think the personal torment I'm seeing is enough." he shrugged. "Your side-step of my authority is forgiven."

His eyes gazed at the screen, feeds of data pooling down in sheets. GPS signals followed by long, encoded strings of data pulsed on a map.

"We have metas to contain and Phase II to start. I expect all the black boxes to be fully online and operational by the end of the day, Corva."

Corva's eyes hardened. "You mean..."

Astra nodded tragically. "Yes, the heart is unusable. Whatever Code Solaris did, it completely wiped out the capacitors in the heart's neural centers. We will have to do this a little more traditionally now."

"And you're okay with it?"

Astra stopped, turning to face her, eyes an intense, heart-crushing stare. "Are you questioning mine [i]and[/i] Eos' authority, Corva?"

Corva looked away. "No... no, my king."

"Good." He said, nodding.

Staring at Corva out of the corner of his eye, Astra smiled, "Don't cry, my black rose. You will lead us into a bright tomorrow, where all our sacrifices will see fruition and peace. You'll see."

Corva refused to meet his eyes. "...Of course."

Satisfied, Astra nodded. "Good. I expect a report by the end of the day."

As Astra exited the tower, the door shutting behind him, Corva stood in the silence, hands wringing her cloak.

[hr]

[u]Valkyrie HQ[/u]
[i]Unknown, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Morning[/color][/i]

Keys jingled in a lock as a large wooden door swung open, revealing the place Phantasm stayed during her 'grounding'. A traditional bedroom, large, with plush velvet carpets and a curtained bed. Phantasm stood at the window, turning to stare sideways as Lady Hel entered her prison.

Yes, a prison it was, for as innocent as it looked, it was completely inescapable. The bars across the windows were electrified, and a thin metal sheet was sandwiched within the walls, ceiling, and floor, charged with enough voltage that she had successfully burnt her hand more than once.

Phantasm pursed her lips, resolutely turning back toward the window. "Have you come for more answers? I told you everything."

"No, Phantasm. I need you."

Phantasm turned, eyebrow raised. "Ma'am?"

"Circumstances have changed, necessitating my ace. Follow me, I'll brief you on the way."

Phantasm blinked in surprise, carefully hiding her relief behind a mask of indifference as she stepped forward. "Tell me everything."

[hr]

[u][url=https://goo.gl/maps/Jq9n2Ky2SquMw6tx5]MCC, Tenebrae[/url][/u]
[i]Heart of The Loop, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Afternoon[/color][/i]
[@Blizz]

Deep within the spiraling corridors of Tenebrae's high-security prison, hidden away in the 'Classified Zone' sat a man who was forgotten to the world. His cell was a feat of technological advancement with three layers of heat-proof glass and heat-resistant steel with a casing of water-coolant in the walls. It had the ability to plummet the room into sub-freezing temperatures in the case of an emergency: the dreaded code purple. 

Of course, to Carver's personal guard unit, the last code purple was 19 years ago, when Carver went all out in an unexplained rage.

The footfalls of a guard change sounded in the hall, but today, there was no guard approaching outside Carver's glass viewing port. Instead, curiously, there was a woman in a tattered cloak, skull mask clipped to the side of her head as she spat out a breathing device, catching her breath as she leaned an arm against the viewing port. Her eyes sized up Carver, and she picked her next words carefully, as Lady Hel instructed.

"How long you wanna stay in there, taking the fragile peace Rhea enjoys for granted?"

She pulled a phone out of her pocket, tossing it so it quantumly slipped through the wall and into Carver's hand. "Check the video on that thing. See what your friends have been up to after all this time."

A fuzzy video was playing from the vent with a bird's eye view on Rainsinger and Sunny in a platform shaft with more enemies than friends, a glowing device in Ellie's hands, and a lot of guns.

"That device she grabbed is just one of the pieces that will mark the end of Tenebrae as we know it. Sure, she destroyed it. But these guys have a backup plan. Our spy network picked up on black boxes around the city set to go off as soon as tomorrow, turning the entire city into a heart generator, siphoning bioenergy to power their doomsday device. Normal humans will last a few days at most, metas, maybe a few weeks."

"Your family is up there, blissfully unaware," Phantasm said, pulling away from the window. "But you're not going to let them get hurt. And we know how to help you."

"We need to get into their facility. You're the only one who can break-in, and if you're successful, we'll give you the means to keep your family safe."

[hr]

[u]Boardroom 21, Titan Division[/u]
[i]Below City Hall, The Loop, Tenebrae
[color=lightgray]Time: Afternoon[/color][/i]
[@Shu]

"Another successful mission, Titan. I'm impressed." the Director said, tucking a strand of purple hair behind her ear as she studied the cargo's schematics on the holographic table.

"This opens up so many questions, like how this intruder materialized on the ship, and why they put an easily diffusable bomb on the prototype." She said, hand running across her chin in thought.

Her hand raised in a positive gesture. "We've been able to narrow their organization. These masks belong to the Shadow Knight's goons." she sighed, "Which is disturbing, given the political developments--"

A call buzzed from the Director's pocket, which she picked up and put on speaker, "Yes?"

[code]"Director, we have a situation."[/code]

"I'm listening."

[code]"Well, uh, we have an intruder."[/code]

"This is the highest security government facility in all of Tenebrae, [i]how[/i] did someone get in?"

[code]"We uh, we just figured out the bomb... wasn't a bomb after all. It was a GPS signal."[/code]

The Director paused, her voice dropping to a dangerous tone. "Explain yourself."

[code]"W-well ma'am, the signal just spiked, and then, uh, this woman just appeared in our forensics room. We've identified her as the Shadow Knight's former Queen. B-but we have her barricaded in, she can't leave, there's a whole squad of security with their guns on the door."[/code]

Her hand pressed her temple. "You idiot, she doesn't want to get out, she wants the device."

A frantic shuffle on the other side of the line. [code]"We can storm the room, ma'am."[/code]

"No," she said, eying Artemisia. "There's only one person in this whole division I trust with the former Queen handling a highly classified item. Stand by for the Titan."

[code]"Yes, ma'am."[/code]

The phone snapped shut, and the Director clicked her heels, hands clasped behind her back.

"Well, that answers that. Titan, I'm sending you to the lower level forensics room 19B. Secure the prototype and apprehend the intruder for questioning. Do whatever you need to contain the situation efficiently. And make sure, whatever happens, the prototype is not used."

The forensics room 19B was closed off to the outside facility for good reason, as it had safety measures in place for handling dangerous items. There was only one point of entrance, the high-security clearance door. The inside of the room was spacious, filled with smaller rooms that were used as storage rooms, blast-proof in case an item was, for whatever reason, explosive. The hallway with branching storage rooms led to a larger room filled with an empty floor and movable tables, examination equipment, and tubes of power sources from floor to ceiling in case something like a heart needed to be siphoned off.

At the back of the room, behind the lines of tables and power tubes, Corva crouched stealthily, prototype in her hand and telekinetic power suffusing the room, creating weight in the air.