---

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms William. My name is Winnie Green if we are going with our birth names. Get settled in and help yourself to the bathroom, but-" he stopped himself from the words 'its just a curtain really' as he lulled his head over to the 'bathroom' in question. It wasn't that he did have company, more that the company he did keep also followed his bohemian lifestyle. Guessing that Ms William's would not appreciate such a thing, he clicked his fingers (or something resembling it given his lack of bones) and voila! A perfectly private modern bathroom.

The road trip, for the arcane absurdity of Wizard, was... mundane. In truth, it was a regular road trip with a skeleton driver. Wizard occupied the time with stories of 'back in the day' while the VW trundled along the road. He would also encourage Heidi to tell some of her own stories, but didn't pry. Whether or not she wished to share was her choice and hers alone. It might have caught her impatiently as the trip was about 2 hours in total. However, when they arrived, it seemed as though they were just behind Caine? Caine would not have taken 2 hours to fly there.

Bonehead picked up Wizard as if he were a towel and threw it over himself. At this, the old hero reconstituted to his regular form with a full-body jiggle resembling jelly. "Well, Ms Williams, I believe this is our stop. I wish to see you live up to your hero name today. To shock is not always a bad thing."

Heidi was not going to complain about the curtain. Sure, it wasn't ideal, but she'd made do with worse before. So the sudden appearance of a complete en suite bathroom was a shocking surprise. She couldn't keep the smile off her face when she looked back at the Wizard and gave him an appreciative nod of thanks. While changing, Winnie was conversing with her through the door, telling her many interesting and zany stories. Heidi told some humorous anecdotes of her own. Stories of military downtime and shenanigans she and other soldiers got up to. She did not touch on any combat encounters or serious moments, and it was obvious she was mentioning Awe as little as possible. Not out of any sense of secrecy, but merely to stay in a good mood. Heidi had finished grieving properly but the death of her best friend and longtime work partner still hurt to dwell on.

After twenty minutes, Heidi emerged from the bathroom in full costume, looking like a completely different person. She was masked. Her large coat and baggy jeans were now replaced with a skintight suit that exposed her arms, shoulders, upper back, abdomen, and basically every other area with visible musculature. Her previously messy, limp hair was curled and styled, lipstick was applied and she was wearing a domino mask over her eyes. She was also standing up straighter, with a focused look in her eye and a more confident smile on her face. Before, she was Heidi Williams. Now she was Shock.

She cracked her knuckles and began stretching her legs the moment they stopped. She could see out the van window, the basic situation. The Atrium was indeed crawling with targets, and beset with wild vines and flora. The intel had been good after all. "Oh, I'll live up to my name. The challenging part will be holding back. They've told me to be non-lethal while dealing with a warehouse full of armed guys right next to the sea. That won't be easy."

Aria, Caine, and anybody else who may have arrived the same time as the two of them, would see Shock approach. Though they likely may not have recognised her at the briefing, there was no mistaking now that the woman before them was one of the two blonde masked Heroes who's face was a frequent occurrence on the military recruitment ads that periodically trespassed onto billboards or television commercial breaks. It was slightly jarring in of itself just to see her accompanied by an elderly Wizard instead of a near-identical twin. Shock and Awe were seldom ever discussed or addressed individually.

"What's the situation?" Shock asked with a Spartan efficiency, getting right to business.

@Azure Bubbles @Floofenstein @IAmTheIsland @Silver Carrot @Jumbus

Abandoned Atrium. Ravenbrook, New York.

Cain was deep in thought, considering his plan. Somewhat listening to the others on what they are contributing to the situation. “I wanna make the explosions a top priority. Aria, can you find where they are storing the explosives?” He asked, but if she didn’t know, he was sure he or someone else would find out. Personally, he would do what he always does: storm the place and beat the bad guys to a pulp. But perhaps that wouldn’t be the best option in this situation.

“Wizard, could you use some sort of teleportation spell to sneak me and the others inside?” Caine then turned to Wizard.

“Where’s planning on how to get inside, and to finding Willow before she enacts her plan.” Caine responded to Shock. Turning to her and thinking she could be useful, shocking the goons unconscious.

With her sneak attack, the guard she hit fell to the ground with a hard thud. And luckily for her, no one seemed to notice. The guards were still on patrol, making sure no one got inside. And Sarah could see they were heavily armed. She could assume they stole the weapons, or that someone was supplying them. She knew they were building bombs, so she could make it a top priority. Or she could go after Weeping Willow before she could use the bombs or poison the city’s water.

Well obviously. "The bombs are located. If you need them disposed of, I can return them to HQ." It was easy enough to remember the place she had just teleported from, after all, so she could just send them back, but that might be bad if they were remote detonated or...whatever. "Or wherever else you want them." she added.

Also that one...Voice pattern...ah, that one. Shock. A quick search from her AI turned up a military hero, who...Lost her partner. Killed in action, and Aria briefly worried it'd been her fault. But that'd be ridiculous, she seldom clashed with actual military forces, before taking her freedom.

So she repeated what she'd already relayed: Moving vines, explosives, goons, and such.

...She also kept an offer of teleportation to herself. Moving more than herself was hard and wasn't something she wanted to try with squishy flexible things like people. A person's parts were never quite as attached to eachother as one would like, and she'd only managed to move one other person at a time before, at least while caring about what actually happened to them.

...Did they all just want to stand on the roof with their heads in plain view? Was this not a stealth mission? Did she have to see if the cloaking field was worth it? Urgh.

...was Shock able to actually power systems? That could be useful, hrm.

Julian slipped his phone back into his pocket after one last glance at the screen. “So… good news and bad news.” He motioned toward the atrium. “The good news is the internet was right. The bad news is the internet was right.” He let out a quiet sigh before growing more serious. “Aria and I managed to track purchases from hardware stores and chemical suppliers, and we identified the van they were using. Whoever rented it wasn’t exactly careful.”

His attention shifted toward the moving vines. “And judging from the pictures people posted…” he nodded toward the creeping vegetation, “…those vines weren’t there very long ago.” His brow furrowed. “She works fast!”

Julian looked toward Kaine. “I’m just saying… if we start fighting out here, she’s probably going to know we’re coming.” He glanced back toward the atrium. “I don’t know about yoy, but I’d rather not announce ourselves before we know where she’s keeping the bombs.”

@Azure Bubbles @Floofenstein @IAmTheIsland @Silver Carrot @Jumbus

Abandoned Atrium. Ravenbrook, New York.

The older hero was deep in thought about how to handle the situation. He turned to Aria to speak to her. “She might have them on a remote. And if that is the case, then we need to find her before she pulls the trigger. If anything, I could fly them out of the premises to try and deactivate it.” Caine crouched lower to the ground when it was mentioned that they should be keeping a low profile.

“Is there another entrance we could use to avoid detection?” This question was either directed at Aria or Julian. It was quite hard to tell. Perhaps he was talking to himself, wondering what the right approach would be.

Caine was scanning the area with his eyes. But had the nagging feeling that they would need to act quickly. “I think we should split up, with one group going after the bomb and the other group to find and deactivate the bomb.”

Caine then starts pairing the group with Aria, Spotligh as the group to find the bomb. With himself, Shock, and Wizard to deal with Willow.

Shock took all the pieces of information that she had been given together. The guards. The vines. The bombs. Her brain started running through possibilities and combinations of actions. The absolute priority was separating Willow from the bombs, and from any detonators or killswitches. To do that, they'd need to get close, but security was too dense and too alert to feasably sneak in that close undetected. What they really needed was a distraction that would separate the guards from the warehouse or Willow from the bombs, while also making sure Willow stays off-guard. The kind of distraction where they don't expect to find an actual intruder but would still need to check it out as standard procedure. Something that could easily be an accident.

Caine was right. They didn't have the luxury of a lot of time to think She was already being paired with Cain and Wizard, and they were preparing to move. If she was going to tell them, she'd have to tell them now.

"It might help if we could create a distraction to thin out the guards without necessarily putting everybody on high alert. A stack of barrels collapsing or a docked boat noisily sinking. We need to make sure Willow, the bombs, and the guards, are allas far apart as possible."

---

Wizard joined the group shortly after Shock and held an unimposing peace sign to the group upon arrival. However, unlike his previous antics, he had been quiet and perfectly willing to let the others plan while he idly admired Weeping Willow's building 'renovations'. This would make entry and, more importantly, exit quite difficult indeed. And then he started stroking his beard in that way all wizards and practitioners do when posed with the opportunity to ponder, whether or not a good idea was actually present.

"No can do on the portals, Mr Carnage, for the simple matter that I don't know what it looks like inside. I could teleport us in... whether we land right on top of Willow's planning table is another matter. Plus Saturn is in retrograde, which I can't begin to tell you how troublesome that makes transportation."

Then he clicked his fingers in revelatory genius. "I can turn us into animals however. I doubt it will alert Miss Willow if there a few extra mice running around in her tangle. How about you, Heidi? An electric mouse is like those pompkemons that the kids are raving about."



Once transforming those who wished to do so, Wizard struck a pose and turned into a rabbit.

A path to avoid detection? How to...What? Magic? Turn them into--well, okay. Aria nodded slowly, an idea taking form. "I will refrain from becoming an animal." She announced, looking to the others present. "However I can link with your...phones, or other devices, and use that as targeting for teleportation....As well as communication and coordination" She said, monotone, looking at them and....and the wizard just turned into a rabbit. She blinked and stared for a moment. Yes, she had no desire to see how that would interact with her augmentations. "Otherwise I will go where directed." She added, and went still.

She was not the commanding officer here, and if she was paired with Spotlight...

...Well, she actually trusted him to have his head on straight and be aware of how things went, so she would be happy to follow him, actually. So perhaps her faceless stare at him might be uncomfortable, perhaps not, either way, she stared at him silently and awaited orders, or a plan. That was not her job. Though the AI in her head had several.

Oh, there was a question.

"They seem to have most entries covered, either with people guarding them, or sealed with vines." Less than ideal. But maybe her AI missed something? That thought got a complaint through the link...