Plowshares Into Swords [IC]

[Aoiroo]

"If pull some weird stunt and drop me I'm gonna haunt your hide until Nick Cimitiere comes around and I convince him to give you a good smack against the head."

Regardless of the quip, she had no qualms getting on the back of the flying bike. She did have some questions as to why someone capable of independent flight owned a flying bike, but it wasn't something she really needed to look into at the moment. Maybe it was simply because she was fully aware that it was freaking cool.

[trollthumper]

"All right, then," Cannonade said. "Let's go jump into the fire." He took to the roofs in a flash, leaping across the city. Fires lit the streets below, casting light on every riot, great and small. It seemed that everyone with a cause was backing it up with violence, no matter how trivial; he had to stop to keep three Comets fans from going to town on a guy wearing a Yankees hat.

How the hell is he doing this? he thought to himself. Or she, or it, or whoever the hell's screwing with our heads. It's like they turned the whole mob mentality thing up to a hundred. God, I can't wait to put this guy down. Hell, maybe I outta throw him off the top of that big building and --

He stopped the minute the thought crossed his mind. Goddamnit, I hate mind control. Sometimes you can't even tell what's yours and what's theirs. He was close enough to the target that he could gaze down from the rooftops to the heart of City Center. Rage was the order of the day; cars had stopped, and a few were flipped on to one another to form impromptu barricades. Citizens attacked one another, no distinctions for race, sex, creed, or anything of the sort. Whatever reasons they had to fight, they were their own.

Warlock better get here soon. Don't know what I'll do if that signal breaches out to here...

[Lone Star]

Warlock watched the others move out, and he was quickly following, briefly appearing at intervals behind Cannonade. His heart beat steadily as he took steps, his shoes making him appear a few yards ahead. Within a brief time, he caught up with Cannonade, and they were moving at the same pace. He looked over at the muscular hero, seeing his face set with anger. Warlock did understand why being mind-controlled put the rest of his friends on edge, but it was no new experience for him. He was looking forward to taking whatever this thing was down.

"Cannonade, do we have a strategy?" he said, taking a brief moment to catch his breath. A sudden gust of wind made his long robes flow about, and he clutched them close to him.

[Quinn]

Push pulled the bike up to a landing on the rooftop by Warlock, leaning on the handlebars and breathing heavily. Most of the pain had gone, but he still felt like several dozen miles of very bad road.

"Going in blasts flying and introducing the eldrich scum doing this to whole new worlds of pain is generally my plan. Most of the times it works, but I'm not averse to a strategy if you've got one going."

[Aoiroo]

"Same here, though it included the foot note not to get to far away from Warlock and his mind shielding helmet thingy. Unless you think there usually some sort of complicated plan that can't be solved by punching the right person in the face."

Thinking about it, violence seemed to be the answer to a lot of things, or at least the things she'd been directly involved in. She probably imagined that more complex problems were scooped up by the more scientifically inclined heroes, or maybe the Freedom League since they have an entire records vault of such things she was sure.

"Anyway, if the enemy has some sort of mind trap, we could all just approach from different directions or go in at different times, not like such things are easy reset, or at least I'm guessing they aren't."

[trollthumper]

"Hmm," Cannonade said. "While I'm a fan of dividing and conquering, it's kinda the last thing I'd want to do around here. You heard Warlock; the Helm's got a range of about fifty feet. We split off too far, we could risk going crazy again." He looked down to the rampaging crowd. "We've got two options. Option One -- we find some way to get up to the roof of that building with our powers, find whatever the hell's doing this, and punch it out before it does more harm. Option Two... well, look down. Those guys are tearing themselves apart. We get down, take down the crowd before someone gets killed, and then get to the roof." He looked grim. "What do you guys think? I know which way I'm leaning..."

[Quinn]

Push nodded, revving the engine of the bike. He didn't need to look behind him to see Silhouette's reaction, and he motioned to the crowd. While he kept a somewhat poker fac plastered on his features, inwardly, he was absolutely furious. He hated, absolutely hated scumbags who dug into people's heads like that.

"Don't think I can pull off that mass paralyze trick again for a while, not without seriously messing up my internals, but I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. Clear the crowd, then go pay the sonofabitch up there a visit."

[Lone Star]

Push nodded, revving the engine of the bike. He didn't need to look behind him to see Silhouette's reaction, and he motioned to the crowd. While he kept a somewhat poker fac plastered on his features, inwardly, he was absolutely furious. He hated, absolutely hated scumbags who dug into people's heads like that.

"Don't think I can pull off that mass paralyze trick again for a while, not without seriously messing up my internals, but I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. Clear the crowd, then go pay the sonofabitch up there a visit."

Warlock nodded at the two of them. "I agree with you two. Even if we do go up there, in the time that it'll take to get whatever psychic horror is causing this, it'll already be too late for the people down there. I can clear crowds, though, or at least calm them down." He held his bag of sleeping powder at his side. "I'm hoping we all have some sort of way to take them down without, you know...hurting people. Cannonade, you can pull punches, right?"

He was confident that the four of them would be able to take whatever sort of creature was occupying the minds of the people down below, but he hoped another riot didn't start by the time they took down this one. "And if we do run into more crowds, one of us can at least scout up there and see what we're dealing with. I'm good with dealing with psychic influence, so I'll just give the Helm to one of you three if it needs to come to that."

[Aoiroo]

"Well, if there's anyone who can do scouting, it'll be me, because honestly the rest of you lot are about as suble as a sack of hammers, especially you."

She poked Push in the back,

"Anyway, I should be able to get a knock out in without seriously hurting anyone, I'm not that strong, if I was than the Crusaders would of had more to worry about than especially deep paper cuts."

Which might of been more fatal she admitted if she had any idea where any vital veins with the exception of the jugular,

"So, anybody got a radio handy, if not, a trace, probably a small one, I can't really take anything with me thicker than two millimeters."

[trollthumper]

"I'm hoping we all have some sort of way to take them down without, you know...hurting people. Cannonade, you can pull punches, right?"

"Yeah," Cannonade said. "I've gotten a bit better than crowd control. I know a whole lotta ways to take down a whole lotta people without hurting 'em too badly. The shockwave's a good way to put 'em down and keep 'em down; I can pull the punch there and make sure the damage isn't too bad. Or I could try and blow 'em over; we'd probably need to make sure they stay down, but less risk of collateral damage."

He walked to the ledge of the building. "All right. I think we can take out the crowd fast. If we need to split up, Sil's in charge of the recon. Push, I think you've got a radio; she can take that. Warlock, you use some more of that sleeping powder." He adjusted his helmet. "Let's take care of this before someone down there does something they regret."

He leapt down to the street below, landing right before the rioting mob. He drew in a large breath, then exhaled with the force of a hurricane. The gust caught several rioters off guard, knocking them to the ground. A few remained on their feet, however, and turned to stare at Cannonade.

"Yeah, that's it," he said. "You wanna hit me."

[Aoiroo]

How many people got to Cannonade was hard to say, but after the first sweep, Silhouette touched down pretty much unseen and ran through the crowd giving quick short blows to every opposing person she met before there was a strew of unconcious bodies in line with her path of movement. This gave some hint to the people around that she was in fact there, but civilians could hardly compete with someone who did this as often as herself. She only stopped for a second when one of them happened to pull a gun but she disarmed them quickly before giving him a quick pistol whip and pulling out the bullets,

"Be should more careful with this thing, you might of hurt someone."

[Lone Star]

Warlock leapt from the building, blinking out mid-jump, and landed safely on the ground. "Time for a little nap, O crazy ones!" He drew back his robes and pulled out his pouch of sleeping powder. "Sleep! I bring the gift of sleep to everyone!" he said, laughing as he spread the magic sleeping dust.

He ran through the crowd, throwing his sleep dust in their faces. People immediately fell to the ground around him, their expressions of anger quickly changing to drowsy as they fell fast asleep.

[Quinn]

Push's method of calming the crowd down was, unfortunately, a lot less subtle. Given that he'd learned his trade on the streets of Gear City, and the bulk of crowd control that needed to be done there tended to be angry gangs slash mobs in Industrial, his tactics in those situations tended to result in a display of overwhelming force that he wouldn't actually use on the crowd. Especially if you used a Big Scary Voice when you did so.

In this case, the aforementioned "show of overwhelming force" was an orb of kinetic energy that was about the size of a house. Really, it was all smoke and mirrors, but manipulate enough energy to cause a minor windstorm, throw in some static crackles from movement friction, and a little bit of juice to give it shape, and you had yourself one quite lovely Big Ball O' Energy to hold over people's heads. Wouldn't do squat if you threw it, probably even break apart in mid-toss, but it did what it was supposed to. Usually. He hoped.

"Oi! Assorted rioters!"

He waited a moment until he was sure he had their attention, then he pointed upwards at the giant ball of energy floating above his head and mimed a throwing motion.

"Two words. AMSCRAY!"

[trollthumper]

The barrage from Cannonade, Silhouette and Warlock brought most of the crowd to the ground. The few that were left standing bore down on them, ready to strike -- but then they caught sight of the huge ball of force being held aloft by Push. Something more primal cut through the fog of rage -- fear. The remainders of the rioting mob quickly turned tail and ran, clearing out from the street.

"I'd rather they'd stayed down," Cannonade said, "but getting 'em out of here might give 'em a chance to come to. Now, let's go have a nice, long talk with whoever thought this'd be a good idea. Stick close; last thing we want is getting out of range of the helmet at this point."

The power was still on in the building, which made taking the elevator to the top floor an easy matter. Finding the service door took slightly longer, but soon, they were on the roof. The second they were on the roof, they heard the voice, echoing through the night.

"Twist. Release. There. So easy. Such tension... must simply be released. It is necessary... or else what would they do?"

A man stood at the edge of the roof. He was clad in combat boots, black BDU pants, and an SAS-style sweater in a matching color. In the faint light, his head seemed to glow slightly.

"Hey!"

The man's head turned back. He was carrying a Thompson gun in his hands, and Cannonade saw now his head wasn't just glowing. It was translucent, like looking through petroleum jelly. What he could make out looked like a stereotypical hard man, with Nordic features and a strange expression of rapture.

"I'm gonna give you five seconds to set everything right. If it ain't, I'm gonna pound your head in 'til I can see all the way through."

The man with the clear head studied him. "I know you," he said. "I... was with you earlier. I'm not the one you hate..."

Cannonade just glared at him. "You really wanna bet on that?"

[Quinn]

Push generally liked to think of himself as a fairly cheerful individual in all situations. Have a smart remark for all bad guys, wit for any evil plans, that kind of thing. Subtle humor, and all that.

This time, subtle could go hang.

The others had gone up the stairs, he'd taken the more direct route. And with each second he blazed up the side of the building, kinetic jets at full bore, his anger grew. Pure fury, akin to when he'd first started on the search for Scratch. Cold, focused, directed at one foe. This guy was manipulating the whole city. Riots. People dying. Destruction. He was messing with people's minds. And come hell or high water, it stopped here.

The second Push went over the lip of the building, it was as if the heroes opposite the ethereal villain were staring into the sun. An aura of kinetic energy warped and boiled around the mutant, the hammer in his hand shining like a beacon from the amount of force coursing through it. Air conditioners and antennas bent backwards and shook under the storm. But what was scary was Push's demeanor. He had no jokes, no smart remarks, he was completely mute. Eyes cold and focused. An almost entirely different person as he turned his feet down and blazed towards the villain at breakneck speed. And the second the manipulator turned around...

WHAM.

[trollthumper]

The blow caught the man right upside his head, causing it to quiver and shake like jelly. The rest of his body went flying back, stumbling backwards towards the middle of the roof. He regained his footing somewhere around the center, turning to face the others. "I should have seen," said the man, hand to his spectral head. "But why? There is so much anger bottled up inside you. You stew in it, let it boil over to something dreadful. It must be released. The great turmoil must quiet eventually."

Cannonade pointed a finger over to the city -- fires burned in the streets below, and the sounds of rioting could still be heard. "This look like quiet to you, creep?"

"A mere consequence. A brief cataclysm is better than a cycle of endless attrition." He looked down at his gun. "I remember... before. We... I... fought for hire, but not without principle. The war was chewing onward, and my... ally... turned on me for reward. This is what happens when there is no victor. Let your city decide tonight."

[Quinn]

"No."

A rush of energy engulfed the spirit of conflict, squeezing it and lifting it, struggling, into the air. The hammer sat on Push's shoulder as he stood below, holding up a hand and looking up at their opponent with eyes fairly transformed into sparks of pure kinetic charge.

"My anger is sharpened. My fury is focused. You manipulate this city, you place your tendrils into innocent people's heads, like so many other amateurish sorcerers I've fought time and time again. The city won't decide tonight, because you do not let them decide, you give them no choice but to fight. There was peace before you came, and there will be peace again, once we kick your ass up between your ears."

He snarled and clenched his hand, and the energy squeezed the spirit.

"Let. Those. People. Go."

[Aoiroo]

Sil kept pace as much as she could, but none of them couldn't of gotten there as fast as push did, and he had pretty much done the job for them. Still, she looked over at him,

"Pfft, you took all the good lines."

She glared down the spirit as she moved around,

"Pathetic little thing ain't he, but I guess he got what he want. He wanted a bunch of angry folk, and he definitely got them."

She ran forward and at the last second turned into a full spin kick landing the edge of her flattened foot into the side of his head. She felt the impact in her first, was certain the agressor felt it as well, but she also heard it, and it made a very satsifying crunch.

[trollthumper]

The man shook, his form shuddering under the impact. The flesh felt cold, like a corpse, but the muscles surged under the impact, grasping desperately at his Thompson gun. "Be angry with me, then," he said. "Exercise that ire. But what then? You'll still have your tensions, your conflicts. I can still sense it. You will loathe, you will hate, you will burn. Eventually, you will break, but until then --"

"Until when?" said Cannonade. He delivered a punch right to the soldier's gut, folding him up like a table. "Sometimes there's a breaking point, yeah, but you think every goddamn grudge is gonna result in a killing spree? We ain't psychos here! You think you're helping people? You're just giving 'em something they'll never be able to live with!"

Cannonade was suddenly aware of a length of steel at his midsection. He looked down, and saw that while the mysterious man had been restrained by Push's grip, he had managed to swing the Thompson gun in his direction.

"What I'm giving them is freedom from their burdens. Freedom from their rage. They will have their victory."

The Thompson gun fired, sending flaming bolts into Cannonade's stomach. He stumbled back under the concentrated volley as his shirt caught fire.

[Lone Star]

As the others were fighting, Warlock was making his way up the building, blinking in and out. He appeared for fractions of a second, and leaping up to teleport again. He reached the top story within a minute, and saw the others were already in combat.

He ran towards his spectral opponent, and tossed a handful of his sleeping powder at his face. "Get out of my friend's heads, you monster. And take a little nap. Cannonade, you okay?"

[Quinn]

As the sleeping powder flew up the villain's nose, Push clenched his hand, and sweat beaded his forehead. Maintaining a steady kinetic lock on someone wasn't as easy as it looked, particularly holding an individual with that kind of power. He closed his eyes, clenching his free hand into a fist as energy coalesced around it.

"Hey, ugly. Catch."

His eyes flashed open, the irises sparking, and he let rip with a powerful kinetic bolt right to the spirit of conflict's face, the bolt exploding with energy on impact. Push blinked, nonplussed for a few seconds. He hadn't been expecting the explosion.

[Aoiroo]

Sil just sort of let the others take turns beating the living tar out of this guy before she walked over and looked him in the eye,

"You know what I hate about villians, and don't try to deny it, that's exactly what you are. You always think that no matter what, that you're so justified, that you know better than everyone else and that gives you the right to choose for everyone else based on what you know, and what you've seen."

She grabbed his chin and looked him in the eye, though all he saw was the solid blackness of the mask,

"That's what you're thinking, that you forcing your way will make everything better? For who exactly? What does taking away people's self restraint, their choice do but force them into decisions they wouldn't normally make at all? What about the people who are directly affected by these decision, you should know right, people are hurt, heck I wouldn't be surprised if people are dead or dying because of what you have done, what does that say for their tomorrow? And if you say something stupid like nessicary sacrifices, no sacrifices are nessicary, because a sacrifice is a choice, a willing decision and it should not be made by anybody other than those who sacrifice. Now please tell me, do you still think you're justified, do you still think getting several hundred people killed both physically and mentally, because since this is a society of decent well meaning people, those who have killed will be scarred by it permenantly. But yes, getting off the point, with all this in perspective, do you really believe that what you're doing is in fact the right thing. Because I cannot myself, because murder and riots seems a little much for stress relief, that's what video games are for."

[trollthumper]

The man lowered his Thompson gun for one second, looking to Silhouette. "It may be unpleasant," he said, "but it is necessary. Otherwise the wound will fester, and --"

"Don't you get it?" Cannonade said. "These people -- the people down there -- they aren't like you. You're a soldier, okay? You're used to this." He gestured to the city below. "They aren't. They're gonna wake up tomorrow, with blood on their hands, and there's not gonna be any relief. Just pain, and worry, and wondering what the hell they did last night. And most of those concerns down there, the ones that would've festered, like you said? You're making them erupt. You're not giving them any other option."

"But I must let this come. It is what I am. It is why I was reborn. It is a part of the cycle."

[Lone Star]

Warlock's eyes narrowed with rage, and his eyes flickered. A green glow started at his arm, and set his robes on fire with an otherworldly green flame. He quickly brushed them off, hoping no one else would notice. He drew his lightning wand, and pointed it at the phantom. "I'm going to send you back to hell, you demon monster! You have no right to violate the minds of others! You have no authority to say what people can and cannot do! Now stand still so I can get a clear shot." He slung the eldritch lightning at his foe, hoping to take Roland down.

[Quinn]

Push watched the blows, holding his hand and feeling the spirit struggle against it's bonds. This guy just wouldn't quit. He wouldn't change his lights, conflict was meat and drink to him, and he'd drive the...

Meat and drink to him...

The kineticist pulled the figure towards him, deliberately walking up and looking him in the eye. Blatantly exposed to an attack.

"You're...enjoying this, aren't you. This is conflict. What we're doing to you. We're beating on you, but...that's just what you want."

Push's eyes narrowed, and he clenched his fist. Then he started talking slowly, deliberately.

"Man, I wish I could show you what's in my memory. You say I got rage in here, yeah, I do. Because of one guy who messed with people's heads, but didn't stop. Who sent me on a two-year road trip from hell. You think this kind of conflict, this kind of fighting'll cleanse the soul? I say it's brought nothing but misery!"

He brought up the unenergized fist, making ready to punch Roland right in the nose. Then Push shook his head, unclenching both his fists. Roland dropped to the ground with a thud, and Push stuck his hands in his pockets, looking down at the Spirit.

"I'm gonna ask you straight. You're driving this conflict. And you've had your own. Tell the truth, when you found the guys who betrayed you...what'd you do?"