[color=skyblue][center][h2][i][b]James Speight[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color]

Sitting up at the desk, the alert came through as James sat up, seeing the message flare in his screen.

And his jaw dropped as he saw the trackers move in a way he hadn't ever seen before.

Wait. 

What the hell?

[hr]

[color=orange][center][h1][i][b]
Thursday
13:55
Gaggles Carnival
[/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color]

[color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Altitude Adjustment[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color]

[color=yellow][center][h2][i][b]Lightning Girl[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color]

"What the hell!" Lightning Girl yelled, dropping to the floor from floating up, watching as the balloons caught and suddenly, they were sent soaring, at a rate of knots. 

"Okay, what the fuck, how are they doing that!?" That wasn't very heroine of her to call out into comms and almost to herself, more than anything. But she had no words, she would normally be at least a more straight, PG version, yet here, there was nothing. Blackstar was on the way over to replace them at the Ferris Wheel, but since the balloons were up, the clowns had emerged ready to club anyone here to bits.

And in that chaos, Lightning Girl had lost her fellow heroine, running around herself trying to shepherd civilians, who looked terrified. She had to be confident. She had to be a beacon. The light. Order in chaos. No matter what was going on in her ear....

"Team, give a sit rep!" James's voice would be yelled into everyone's ears, as the light-grey suited heroine looked to the various bundles of helium balloons that seemed to have peeled up the earth, pavement, and rides around and below, yoinking a slice of California into the sky. And higher, and higher, second by second. The voice of Giggles came into sound, as Lightning Girl just stared, watching as horizon became bluer, and bluer.

"Entire carnival is being carried up by balloons! Shit, main clown just made a tannoy..." Lightning Girl called, James interrupting his sister, having heard it on the open system of LG's earpiece.

"Yeah, I heard, all of you.....find him and get it back down, and protect civies at all costs! Work something out, we'll try and get some resources to you!" James yelled into comms, the dispatcher trying to hide his own disbelief. Trying to at least steer the team, at least point them vaguely to something. He had zero idea of how insane this was. He could guess, from the first report he got, so all he had to do was run on the pure adrenaline in him, and just bark. React. Do something. But what the fuck was there to do? He wasn't trained for this. Nobody was. This was serious.

[b]Soundtrack: [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD4XGcil-qg]Wolf Alice - Fluffy[/url]
[/b]

The carnival music faded, as did any other noise, and static. Only one focus threw out into her mind. No more posturing or posing for photos. Not even survival. Just making sure she was there to put any bastard down that even tried anything, first.

Fostering children and parents away, LG could feel the ice begin to build in her hair from the cold of altitude, as she realised she had at least the ability to run where others couldn't. She could see Eclipse getting massed. And could do nothing because on the other side, there were kids and parents.

She could just send a few bolts the way of the clowns going after Eclipse, which would give him a bit of respite to push back, run or make a decision not to get his face kicked in, but it did mean Lightning Girl was making herself literally the lit up beacon that all the clowns would mass on.

Eclipse might now have a moment as she nodded to him, power fizzling around in her hands, thinking about it all, having to run before she could shout anything to him. Working together was one thing, but Eclipse wasn't catching too many hands, but the clowns were clearly coming for her.

The thought disgusted her of what they were doing.

Children. Hurting fucking children. That was beyond evil. That was a kind of cartoonishly fucked up, sinister level of shit that almost built her up, and as a bunch of clowns came towards her, she was no longer for show. Turning a glowing shade of white, the electricity danced through her veins, and now, she had every reason to go all in. She wasn't here for being pretty. She had to fight to save them. Any semblence of a plan was off table. She wasn't thinking logically, Sophie was just going to hurt anyone who she came across with a weapon in their hands that was coming after anyone innocent.

And the clowns that had cornered the group of teenagers earlier, were first.

She was throwing bolts at them, not set to stun anymore, but set to basically burn through. She glowed white, as another clown dived onto her, as she rolled holding them close before shoving them towards her legs, before kicking hard with both and bolting them into void at the edge of the carnival where a gap existed between ground with a massive burn opening up between their shoulder and body, watching as they screamed into the abyss. It burned hard inside her, as she sat back up, clambering, feeling her power run unbridled. A group of children and their parents watched on, as LG got back up and stood between them and another group of clowns. She wiped her sweat from her mouth, no longer here for show.

"Get to safety! Go, now!" She screamed, her lungs feeling the cold catch, but her power pulsing, screaming, racing past. More clowns were coming over. They'd seen her and immediately decided they'd cut her off if she was going to get in their way. 

And she was in their way.

She protected the cluster of three families like a mother bear would her children, standing as tall, vivid as she could, putting two fingers to eyes and out to the clowns that had now started to gather at the sight of their friend being sent into the abyss, as if to make a message. Run. 

They did not. They were bursting into run against her with hammers and knives in hand as she threw bolts, charging forwards herself.

LG hadn't exactly been subtle, perhaps a more intelligent move would be to back away. But it gave a distraction as behind her, the families and their kids had ran away, at least, towards somewhere else where they wouldn't be hunted, and Lightning Girl could go through two of the clowns with a punch and a shove, catching sight of another gaggle of them, running forwards, realising they were honing in on her. Maybe she could trap them! That would be a good idea. Find somewhere, a room, something to lock them into, or at least, collar them away.

"Team, I'm pulling a lot of clowns on me! Find Giggles, or Gaggles, whatever his name is, I'll sort these smiley twats out!" She ran, not wasting power on flight, not that it would help, nor would it. Gaggles hadn't gotten her name right, so in her panic, she wasn't remembering either She had thought about going for balloons herself, but didn't know if it would affect the bit of land picked up. What would be worse than simply dropping the entire thing like an anvil with a carnival attached to it, would be the fact the team, and civies would fall with it. Then it was roulette.

So instead, her choice was if she was saving civies, she was going to take as many of them down with her as she could. She was going to draw them to her, and so far, that plan was working, running around a set of stalls, a bunch of clowns in pursuit. She kept up the pace, footsteps growing in number behind her.

Perhaps it was the way she came across sounded like she was ready for this. Sophie hadn't woken up thinking to herself this was it. This was the end. But being a heroine meant knowing that every day could be her last. Danger, risk, putting herself on the line. And in that moment, she had to grit her teeth. Better her than innocent people.

But all of it came to mind. All the unsaid things. All the things she wished she'd told Blackstar. Who she really was. Why she was hyper for a moment then back to earth now.

And a part of her wish she told Eclipse that in that moment yesterday, he made her feel whole.

And that she wished she had seen it all coming. This was too good to be true. Too much. And she had a responsibility to see that. And she'd fucking abandoned any pretence. Was this on her? Surely not? 

Paranoia had to die. There wasn't any time for it.

Because right now, she was ready. Mentally checked into the hotel of hurt. To go to the end, fight whatever it would take, do whatever was required. Rip the bastard's skull off his body, for doing this. Gaggles was going down. But the other clowns would want to kill her first.

In her attempts to corral off clowns to her and escort kids and parents away, she hadn't drawn much power since zapping a bunch of the clowns back. And with the grid disconnected, no power was left in anything else to leech from. Not enough to deal with the crowd of clowns she'd led to herself. She hadn't trapped them. She'd brought them to her, and she was caught in her own trap, none of the stalls or rooms having locks on them. Her attempt to at least pin some of them in had now gone to shit, and movement when this thing was climbing was going to be tricky to manage, especially considering her energy levels.

So, this was it. A last stand. Or at least, it would seem like it.

She was surrounded. Absolutely at stupid odds. She could do this if she could leech power. Maybe run and then come back, and she'd go through them like bowling pins, with enough force to deal with a massed group. 

But she had no choice but to stand and fight given if she didn't, more families and civilians on the other side would be next. The rest of the team would have to deal with this, given they were on the other side of the avenue she was in, flanked by a hot dog stand and a popcorn machine. She had to stand with what she had, and right now, Sophie realised that with the knives, mallets and other circus ware they carried, she was going to maybe die to a bunch of fucking clowns. Not unless she fought like her life depended on it.

It would be easy to be a coward. It would be easy to run. But that wasn't what she was. There was enough pulsating power inside her screaming at her that in spite of everything, this was it.

So she put that in words.

[u][b]"I never liked clowns anyway, so come on then.....joke's on you if you think you're all gonna live!"[/b][/u]

She screamed the one liner, almost a banshee like yell, incinerating one clown who dared step forwards in retort who was howling with laughter thinking she didn't mean it, turning him into ozone, literally where he stood ash falling out. But Sophie was realising that it was like shooting the only round she had in the chamber. 

Joke was on her.

The others charged, and she hit another with a tazer-punch and sent them flying into a stall, but not before she was flanked, and got punched in the face by another clown, getting mobbed as she almost comically sent two flying off her with a shock from her body, getting hit hard again in the face and ribs by another who then smashed a rubber mallet into her head, the blood pouring in her mouth and making her shove, but ultimately, overwhelming her. 

It was never going to work. The odds were poor. And while even without power she would be a good fighter, against multiple assailants, with less and less energy, she was going to get absolutely swarmed.

The other clowns chasing after the rest of the team had left Lightning Girl behind as the blood began to sink, and she could only protect her face, trying to jolt out any power. A knife hit her in the side, and she could feel the blade cut into abdomen, before being pulled out, to push again before she jolted it away with a static shock, and screamed. Feeling blood pour.

This really was it. But she had to find something. Something inside her.

She pushed one clown away, and wrestled another into ground, getting kicked by another onto her back again, the idea of a fight not typical with this little power. It felt like she was down to nothing, at least, she was down to almost her emergency battery internally, the kind that was zapped almost entirely out. 

LG felt like she should have been so much better at this, but she wasn't. She had nothing. Just a bloody obstruction skipped without her power. All the other clowns were hunting the other heroes, skipping the Lightning Girl-sized sleeping policeman, and while she might have drawn them away for a little while, it wasn't anywhere near enough time, nor a proper trap. The civilians might have had more time to hide, but the rest of the A-Team did not.

She was lucky enough the clowns had thought Sophie was good as dead once her head had been hit, and well, if it was someone normal, maybe that would be true, as she zapped one more clown that thought he was coming into finish the job, Sophie crawling and jolting his foot, reverse tackling him and punching him square unconscious when he was in the dust with her. She huffed, exhaling hard, blood pissing hard, as she held one hand against side, another against ground, dragging herself along it.

[hr]

[color=orange][center][h1][i][b]
Thursday
13:59
SDN Claremont
[/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color]

[color=gold][center][h2][i][b]Excrement to Blades[/b][/i][/h2][/center][/color]

James had moved out from his desk, and ran to the window, putting hands against glass, looking high, high into the sky. Nearly at airliner level. Kat ran across, also looking up, sighing, shaking her head, peering. She'd seen all sorts of insane shit, but nothing this brazen. Not on her turf.

"Fucking told Parks, don't let a bunch of clowns run a funfair for free. Your heroes on this?" Kat asked, as James nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat as he kept the headset muted, over his ears, hearing Lightning Girl get hit.

Sophie.

And he had to nod.

"Yeah, they're working on getting it down. Told them to focus on civilians, and to find a way to get it back to earth." James couldn't make words. His mouth went dry, but he had to say something, bark it out, the adrenaline spiking in him. There was a lot of danger, a lot of risk, but hearing her get hurt, hearing them in danger, and seeing a fucking massive lump of earth in the sky, held up by balloons beyond eyesight, a teeny brown and white streak in the blue sky.

Kat nodded, looking out, the buzzing in her pocket making it clear she was not exactly here to talk to James and reassure him. She just wanted answers, because every second counted. They had jobs to do. Kat had to say the obvious, and let James at least know what was going to happen next.

"Good. Jesus Christ. They're not taking hostages, we've got no demands. They're gonna kill 'em, James. Whatever it takes to keep civies safe, you hear....I'll get other branches to get any flying heroes out to pull civies out, but we're not gonna get them there till ten minutes, at least. Hold on, gotta get this call....keep me updated." She moved away from the scene, and already had about five calls going to her, direct.

Kat had realised it soon enough. This would be a mass casualty event. A lot of people were going to die, if the balloons and land continued to climb. Getting civilians safe was the only priority. The team would have to figure out Gaggle, and whatever his suicide pact of a plan was. 

For all the insanity that was up there, down in the office was the trauma of James watching, and sitting on the fact that today, a Thursday of all days, might be the day he wished he hadn't come into work. Or even in this entire thing.

He wasn't the one getting punched in the face today. But part of dispatching was the lack of control. His heroes had to play the call to this, because he had no idea of what to advise. No cameras to patch into. Nothing.

And right now, he had none because he could hear the team get torn up, and he was going to watch. He'd dealt with fatalities at work before. Heroes died. It happened, it was the worst of the worst days, but this, this was something else. He'd had to deal with multiple casualty events, even terrorism, but what always stuck with him was the screaming. It was hearing someone die on the other end of the phone. It was hearing horror.

And even worse, it was hearing it to the only person that in his life, he'd realised had mattered right now. Given him somewhere to stay.

Been the reason he was here. He looked after her. No matter what. He told Dad, he would do that. And her gift and what he'd done would lead to her dying, but right now, he had to at least try and keep a brave face. Shit, she'd taken worse, been shot, taken knives, been pretty badly hurt, but even so, being mobbed was worst case. It was how you killed a hero if you had enough guts.

He was going to hear Sophie bleed over his headset, and he couldn't do shit. He couldn't help. He ran back to his desk, and checked on vitals. Peeling it up. Heart rate was very, very all over the place. He had to key in lots to adjust the map, sighing. Going to private. 

"Lightning Girl, can you hear me?"

Static.

He tried again. Hands turning pink in his fist.

He had heard her hurting. Her comms channel had been left open to him, privately.

"Sophie, your vitals are all over the place, you okay?"

She yelped, exhaling hard, wiping blood from all over her side. Her hair was even covered in dirt and blood, and what was once a white-silver heroine was replaced by grit and horror. A few clowns around her were clambering up, but they were jolting, from who she'd basically given free heart attacks to, the others palpitations, the others realising it wasn't worth fucking with Lightning Girl if she pushed power to them.

"Yeah......I'll be fine. I've been better....fuck." She spluttered, peeling more power, starting to be able to walk a bit better now, hurt, but back into fight. 

British understatement.

[hr]

Her opponents fought dirtier than Sophie did. They had tried going for hands, eyes, anything. She'd blocked, but knives, well, even if she could deflect, it took one lucky hit and that was what they had on her. She had done what she could. But realised it may still not have been anywhere near enough.

Sophie limped upwards, barely sucking power from a nearby ATM, wiping the blood from her face, realising her cowl had a massive crack along the side from where she'd been hit revealing half of her face, her cloak covered in blood from where her side had been stabbed and she'd taken a fairly nasty gash to the side of the head to her cowl strap, the earlier joke about head injuries with Asteroid now coming vivid. 

She was struggling, and while she could operate in high altitude significantly better than some of the team, a hurt Lightning Girl was a wounded lion, and at altitude, not healing as well as normal. She was hazy, coughing out blood and feeling the hurt in her ribs, and her side, pulling her hand away revealing a river of blood. Fuck. 

Lucky it didn't go through any major organs given her metabolism had kept the blade from going in, but that just meant it was more of a slash, lacerating across her hip to her ribs. The knife wound was really stunting her movement, and it made her lean up against a wall, exhaling hard, keeping pressure into it.

She was meant to be a pillar of strength. And right now, she wasn't anything, she was hurting, groaning with pain, the feeling in her shooting second by second, not helped by her body's attempts trying to heal faster. She was fucking stupid, and hurt, realising she could have probably run, or at least, think through what was going on. Take time. Get the fuck out of dodge so you can save more people, Sophie. Not die and let it happen anyway, you fucking idiot. 

[i]Self loathing is not helping, Soph. We need to heal up.[/i]

All she could do to that thought was peel one of her bloody hands into her hip pack, and messily, peel out a bleed kit- one that she had to self administer now, given it had knocked her from the fight. Normally it would be for other victims of injuries, but for her, this was what was gonna stop her from being a bloody mess. Tons and tons of clotting agent, followed up by a packed bandage, that would at least help the haemostatic dressing and clotting material stick. This wasn't her first time being hurt, shot, stabbed. But it was her first time getting absolutely brawled by a group and she was a haze.

She would have normally been able to take them. Or at least, plan. But all manner of shit was wrong when altitude, civies, and mass casualties were on the line. She had to tell the team that....

"Team, there's a whole load of clowns headed towards the....christ, I'm seeing double....." She mumbled, jamming her hand into a broken claw machine, nothing but residuals left from when they had taken on electricity earlier. She drew power, and her vision went very vivid, blurred at edges, but as she stood, feeling her body and metabolism work, she was not herself. The power made her stronger, but the pain still hurt. 

It was like pouring alcohol on an open wound. She screamed, like a cat that had been stepped on, the power helping heal, but not fast enough. Not at altitude. Not when there were that many open wounds. Painkillers wouldn't even do anything, she had to tank this out, and keep going, and later, deal with whatever consequences came. 

This wasn't Lightning Girl that could hurl bolts, take hits, she was down to the equivalent of a phone on its battery saving mode. With a cracked screen. But she had no less left to give, as she tried to find other heroes, knowing Eclipse had gotten out of a fight, Blackstar had tried to catch the lead of Giggles (now revealed to be Gaggle), and the others? Damn, where were they?

If they found her, they wouldn't find the stalwart of the team, but they'd find a hurt, bloodied heroine that while bringing back her power, and now fending off other hurt clowns with a simple taze that knocked them out, knowing that she hadn't bought time for them. How she was still going was hard to say, but as another clown came into view, she let him swing first, catching arm as she coiled around and twisting it and bolting him hard into ground with a long, gruelling taze, before standing, cape a little torn and red. If they didn't, she had clowns to slowly, surely piece through.

[i][Roll- Combat / Int Fail, 5d10, Only 2/5 Success][/i]