ic Family Matters

[Avenger Assembled]

From her vantage point in the ductwork, Kit was clearly able to make out Empath Psion. Her short brown hair, flat brown eyes, and orange and purple jumpsuit should have made her look like an off-brand janitor - but there was something about Juliana Psion that made the air pop around her, a sheer force of personality that made even her proximity hard to handle. No wonder the men down there (formerly the game's announcers) were so compliantly following her orders as they worked to restore power to the cut-off broadcast booth; their nervous looks her way met with a warm, honeyed smile that seemed to make the boys melt in her presence. An outfit that might have been unflattering hugged feminine curves, a vision of what a true grownup woman should look like. 'Trench Coat' was down there as well, having shed her trench coat for silver and purple togs like Juliana's, albeit considerably less flattering. Trenchcoat, sitting intently by herself and concentrating with her hands to her temples, looked up at her cousin approached - she and  Empath seemed to share a silent communion for a moment before the other shook her head and Empath moved on. If the telepaths were talking, they weren't talking out loud. 

[Blue Rose]

Well. There's a good reason why she couldn't find Trench Coat, but with Empath there, it's pointless to talk her out of this...

Pointless. Completely and utterly. So pointless as to even be suspicious.

Time to make an investment.

She drops her veil and pulls another trick. A simple illusion in Trench Coat's head. A projection of herself in her head and hers alone, standing behind her for when she turns around. "You don't have to do this, you know," her voice comes from behind.

She leaves Empath out of this little conference call; she can spoil it soon enough.

"You're just a tool to him; he doesn't care. And he's going to kill those people the second it gives him an advantage. You don't have to be like that."

[Avenger Assembled]

Trenchcoat flinched at Kit's 'words', so hard that Empath actually turned around and looked at her cousin. "Argent? What happened?" 

"I...nothing. I'm going to use the washroom. Aura says the Atoms are almost ready, and they're coming with some ger toshav named Solar Sentinel. I'll be right back." Looking shaken by Kit's words, a sure sign that she knew the truth in the, Argent turned and walked out of Kit's field of view, leaving her with only Empath and the latter's brainwashed 'friends' as her company. With her cousin gone, Empath seemed to let her mask slip a little - the worry that creased that pretty face was heartbreaking to look at, the wrinkle in that pretty forehead like a vandalized da Vinci. "This is it," she murmured to herself in a voice like a whispering angel. "This is the last time." 

 

----

 

"When we put him away this time, he had better stay away, dammit. This is the last time I want my family fighting that psychopath." Despite his anger, Jack Wolf went along with the plan as suggested by Solar Sentinel and amended by the Atom Family. Maximus would shrink down and make his way to where Jump was guarding the Psion kids and provide a 'distraction' that would help he and Kit (if she was still there) get the kids away from their parents and great-grandfather. As for Jack Wolf himself, as well as Solar Sentinel and Victoria, they'd be confronting the Professor (and Ember) directly. "Listen, if there's a fight, don't you kids worry about protecting me," said Wolf seriously. "If this old man has to take a few punches to save those kids, and their parents, from Parker Psion, that's fine. Risk is part of the business."

As Maximus shrunk down and disappeared, Jack pressed a few buttons on his body armor's wrist, and their shuttle's teleporter 'popped' Jack Wolf, Solar Sentinel, and Victoria Atom down below inside the gym. As soon as their feet hit the ground, Ember was on her feet, throwing a ring of fire around the hostages with a sneer on her pretty, flaming face. Behind him, a new face - a young Asian woman in her early twenties recognizable as Aura Psion, pushed the Professor's wheelchair forward. 

"So," said Professor Psion, a sneer on his face to match his granddaughter's. "tell me, Jack, as we face each other once again after so many years...does it ever trouble you, deep in the night, that it is you who are here now, and Andrea and Mentac who are dead?" 

 

"Oh, please," Wolf fired back, eyes burning with an intensity that nearly matched the reddish flames still crackling on the circling Ember Psion. "I'm not a seventeen year old kid you can bait, _Artie_. I'm a grandfather now! And look at you! You're what, ninety? Ninety-five? More? Haven't you got it by now? You're not the future of the master race? You're just a crazy old man who surrounds himself with sad children." 

[Thunder King]

Solar Sentinel did not talk trash. He hated boasting, and honestly wanted this whole thing to be over with. The longer the Psion family were loose, the greater the chance of innocents being harmed. Still, he did not want to be the one to provoke the fight. Jack Wolf was experienced against them. He knew the old man, what he could do, what they could do. So, Henry was a soldier again, in a war that wasn't his own. That was fine. Some fights were worth fighting.

 

So, he hovered in mid air, ready at the first sign of conflict. He kept an eye on Ember, ready to pounce the moment fists started flying. He wanted her down and out as fast as he could. The longer that girl stayed in the battle, the higher the chance something could go very wrong.

 

He didn't make a point of looking at Ember, or anywhere. He just stared dead ahead, mask leaving his face expressionless. He just hoped that Ember couldn't take a hit very well.

[Blue Rose]

Mark's moving. Time to bug out... Hm? She catches Empath's words, but no time to worry about that just yet. If she can be saved, she'll have to be the last.

Once Argent's gaze leaves her illusion, Kit drops it in favor of her veil and backs out of the ducts the way she came, again leaving the grate leaning against her way in for lack of time as she tails the uncertain Psion. Here's hoping she's ready.

She gets behind her and removes her influence from her mind as she takes off her cheap mask, letting her notice the punk kid behind her. "This isn't your fight."

Let that hang in the air for a moment of drama. "But he won't let you go. Especially not as long as he has her; they can take the choice right out of your hands, without giving it a second thought. But I can help! I can get you out. You, the kids, everyone who's not too far gone. I can get you out of the country, and you can disappear."

It's all about sincerity. And while being sincere helps, being able to fake it better than the real thing helps even more. Especially if you're throwing some 'augmented truth' into the mix. Those earnest eyes, those lips poised with equal parts sympathy and determination. She's putting herself on the line here, if this doesn't work. What kind of a power is 'Argent,' anyways? Hopefully it doesn't hurt.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Blue Rose

[Avenger Assembled]

Argent looked doubtful for a moment, then shook her head. "And do what with myself? Go be a prostitute on TV like Aunt Paige? I know how to fight, and I know who I can trust, and I can't do any of that outside the family. As long as I'm with them, I'm a soldier fighting for a better world, even if the flatscans don't know any better. Don't you get tired of them constantly pushing _you_ around? Telling you what's right, even though your powers mean you know better?"

---

As heroes and villains squared off against each other, suddenly Jump vanished with a faint pop - taking with him the toddler and infant Psion that their grandfather had insisted they bring along in the first place. He appeared with them next to Argent, depositing them by his cousin, and gave Kit a long, searching look. "Thank you."

 

And then he vanished again, only to reappear next to Professor Psion, a plea on his face. "Grandfather, please! It doesn't have to be this way!" He knelt at Parker's side and took his frail old hand. "You've cared for us, raised us since the Atoms killed our parents, and I will always love you for what you've taught me...but we don't have to live like this! Remember what Rand said: 'A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others!' Let them squander their gifts!" he said with a wave towards the Atoms. "Fighting bank robbers and hooliganism. Let us build our own lives, and walk our own path!"

 

"Josh, I don't know what the Hell has gotten into you," Ember flared blue, her voice as burning hot with rage as her face, "but this does not amuse! Why don't you-Argh!" Suddenly she was blasted backwards by a bolt of searing green energy from the hand of Victoria Atom, who rose in the air and shimmered with her own searing verdigris energies.

 

"He's finally the hero your family's needed for forty years! Come on, Ember," taunted Victoria, "It's always been us girls in the air. Let's finish this!"

 

"Go to hell, smarty-pants!" yelled Ember, throwing a fireball at Victoria that skittered harmlessly against her shield. Cursing, she flew in close and a wild melee began in the air over the gym!

 

Meanwhile, Aura reached down and grabbed the handles of the Professor's wheelchair - the two of them seeming to shimmer as they disappeared from Henry's view. Across the way, Maximus appeared from the small bundle of squirming infant energy that was Juliana's baby, popping up to human-size in the corridor with Kit and Argent. He looked warily at his old enemy, then at Kit, obviously trusting the heroine on the scene to know how to treat the Psion scion.

[Blue Rose]

At that, Sam holds her hand out, redirecting her powers into a wisp of ethereal blue flames floating in her hand.

"Do you know what this is?" she asks rhetorically. "It's my fox fire. The technical term is anathema. Hellfire. It is the opposite of all that is, and can unmake anything." In quantities far beyond what she can actually summon. "If used on a human, it will start by scorching their very soul. It hurts like Hell. Literally.

"Y'know what they're telling me is right? They're telling me there are good guys, and there are bad guys. And if I listened to them, I would be up there right now hurling this stuff at your family right now." She closes her hand, and the flame vanishes. "But I'm not. I'm not, because I know who I am, and I know why I'm fighting.

"I know what I'm asking. I've been there; I was the heir to the Phantom Fox, greatest thief in the world. Then, she started getting reckless. Then, she killed people. A lot of people. I knew I was better than that. We were better than that. So I left, then things sucked, then they got better."

She takes a step forward, arm outstretched, prime for the biting. "You can do it, too. Take my hand. We can get out of here. To some place he can't push you around. Can't push them around." She nods towards the children. One of the classic low blows.

[Avenger Assembled]

As Ember and Victoria began flying around the gymnasium, blasting each other with bursts of flame and gamma rays that cast an eerie, alien reddish-green light over the assembled hostages, Jack Wolf seemed to spring into action. With Ember in combat, the fiery barrier she'd put up around the hostages faded. No fools, they ran for the exits - nearly bowling Wolf over as he pushed his way through the crowd, hand on his blaster. "You can't run this time, Psion!" he called, hand falling to the blaster he wore at his hip. "The party's over!" He pushed his way through the crowd towards where the Professor, Aura, and Jump had disappeared and seemed to reach for thin air. 

And suddenly he was grabbing onto the chair where the Professor still sat, shoving a startled Aura aside. The Professor gripped Jump's hand in a palsied grasp, his liver-spotted hand shaking, as Wolf drew his pistol with trembling hands. Trembling hands or not, though, there was nothing but fanatical determination on Wolf's face as he yelled, "THREE GENERATIONS OF IMBECILES IS ENOUGH!" And then he grabbed Psion by the collar, put his pistol to the old man's temple, and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of light that erupted from the gun and out the other side of Psion's skull - and suddenly Aura was screaming, covered in blood and gore, and Psion's body slumped lifelessly to the floor, the cratered wounds from the blaster round showing where the energy bolt had killed him as neatly as braining a steer.  

--

 

Across the way, Argent was reaching tentatively for Kit's hand when suddenly she was screaming too, hands clutched to her temples. "I felt it! Oh my god I felt it on my face!" She clutched her temples and staggered back, staring at something invisible. "He killed him! He killed him!" Maximus interposed himself between Argent and the kids, protecting the most vulnerable people there from the potential consequences of their aunt's grief and rage. 

 

--

 

"MURDERING BASTARD!" came a voice like an angry god from above, and the face of Empath Psion flashed on the few remaining screens - the fury in her voice knocking Jack Wolf to his knees as the old mercenary threw away his sidearm, his eyes wide and face blank with shock and terror. Besides him, Jump had collapsed too, blood on his handsome features, face pale like he'd seen and felt death - as they all had. "Forget the flatscans!" she yelled in a voice that seemed to reach all the Psions in the building. "KILL JACK WOLF!" 

[Thunder King]

The entire situation just went completely to hell. He did not expect Jack Wolf to just run up and shoot the old man point blank. The psychic impact was obvious, and now Jack Wolf was consumed with terror, and the Psions had gone berserk. Solar Sentinel was not happy with anything.

 

"Alright!" He roared. "If this ain't your fight, get the hell out of here!" That was a signal to Kit, the Psions who wanted to leave, everyone who might not want to be involved in what was about to go down. He had a bad feeling that the old man might not be the only fatality before things were done.

 

He spotted Ember Psion. Psychotic, impatient, fickle, and very angry. Everyone else was likely to target the Atoms and Jack Wolf. Ember might drop a ball of flame on a bunch of innocents. That made her his target.

 

The azure flame erupted from within him, straining the upper limits of his power. He felt something, a surge of power. It vanished as soon as it started, and he ignored it. More important things to worry about.

 

He fired a blast of energy at Ember, a phantom flame of brilliant blue that slammed into her, but she rolled with the blast and barely felt it.

 

"Atoms, something is wrong with Jack Wolf. Something I can't put my finger on." He said, hoping someone heard him.

[Avenger Assembled]

Looking stunned, Jump sat up, wiping the spattered blood off his face - after a moment, he seemed to collect himself and rolled away from the carnage that was his grandfather's corpse - and then vanished. He reappeared a moment later behind Aura, who he grabbed by the arms and vanished with as well, taking the obviously terrified telepath away from the scene of carnage. Psion's corpse seemed absurdly fragile and alone as it lay fallen on the floor at Wolf's feet, a man's life become the remains of a child's toy cast away amid gore. 

 

In the air, Tesla Atom seemed to make a snap decision. "Jack, no!" She landed and threw herself at him, but spread her glowing arms wide to grab her stepfather around the midsection! And then they were rocketing upwards at fantastic speed, a glowing green streak that zipped upwards right through the hole that Ember had made on her way in. Screaming with rage, Ember Psion completely ignored Solar Sentinel's attack and rocketed upwards after them, the phoenix-like aura of painfully bright blue flame around her simply melting the glass and steel of the overhead window. Solar Sentinel couldn't see exactly what was happening up there, but there was an exchange of blows, and a yell of pain!

 

Over by Kit and Argent, Maximus suddenly grabbed the baby and vanished right through the floor, man and child both seeming to disappear beneath the concrete as the Atom used his atomic powers to change his mass and slip between the cracks of the universe. "What did you do!?" Argent was shouting at Kit, and at the world, "What did you do?!"

[Blue Rose]

The sudden scream throws Sam back a step. And then, things get worse.

"Kill... no, no, capes don't kill, that's not supposed to happen!" she shouts to the ether, not that Argent seems to notice or care.

Then, things get worse again, as Maximus phases through the floor with the baby. "Stop, you idiot!" But it's too late. He's gone.

Sam drops her dollar store mask and clutches her fists. These berks are turning a negotiation into a battleground. But this ain't about to stop her. Get the mark and get out; that's the job of a thief.

No point saying another word to Argent until she has the baby. So instead, she backs into the shadows, and fades down a step, to confront the kidnapper.

"What in the nine do you think you're doing?!" A diplomatic approach to a hostage situation within a hostage situation if ever she did see one, as she stomps towards the Atom with all the fury her five-foot-squat, hundred-pounds-soaking-wet self can muster.

A thief must always keep her cool.

[Avenger Assembled]

Suddenly, Henry felt a black, invisible wave crash over him, one that seemed to pull his very soul down into darkness. The civilians had fled the battlefield at his call, and with the escape of the others into the air he was briefly alone at ground level - alone just as he would be for the rest of his long, long life now that everyone he had ever known was dead and gone. Even the children's children would be grey-haired senior citizens now, and he himself was nothing but an old, faded relic of a long-forgotten war so far away that half the aliens on Earth had never even heard of it. Had never heard of him, all the sacrifices he'd made in long years of combat nothing but a pointless waste. So the civilians escaped, so what? This was just another battle in an endless war of blood and gore, an eternal purgatory of slaughter into which he'd been damned for his sins a century before the children around here had even been born. What was the point of it? What was the point of any of it? 

 

-

 

Maximus stared at Kit as if she was the one who'd gone crazy. "I am trying to rescue this innocent baby from the lethal super-battle going on over our heads," he said, hastily removing his jumpsuit top and wrap the baby in it. "I thought you were supposed to be getting the little boy down here too. I don't know what the hell is going on up there," he admitted, "but I'm not gonna let these innocent kids be in the crossfire of those psychopaths, not until we know what the hell they just did to my Uncle Jack!" 

[Thunder King]

Henry felt the surge of raw despair hit him. It tore through his mind and pulled him into a pit of self doubt. It made him think the kind of thoughts that forever tried to intrude on his waking mind. It sometimes left him awake all night, unable to cast off the toil of his years.

 

But this was not his home. This was not his bed. This was not the time for nihilistic despair. This was real, this was now. These people needed him. They needed the old soldier, the old hero. The years would take their toll as they always had, but this was not the time to linger on those thoughts. He wasn't a soldier, he was a hero. There was a day to save, people to save. All lives mattered.

 

He shook his head. The feelings lingered, but he brought his head back into the here and now. Right now, the matter was Ember Psion. The wild card and the person who could turn the battlefield into a abattoir.

 

He took off into the air after them, intent on staying within a range he knew he could fight in. He felt the power surge within him again. What was going on with the energy within his body? He raised his hand. He'd have to be reckless. She looked like she could dodge well.

 

The blast of energy surged from his hand. Azure, spectral flames slammed into Ember. This time, it hurt.

[Avenger Assembled]

As Ember fell from the sky, her flaming aura snuffed out by Solar Sentinel's blast, Henry felt something cold and hot at the same time pushing at the edges of his brain as if trying to worm its way into his already-battered consciousness. His putative ally, Tesla Atom, took this opportunity to make her escape. "We'll get you help, Uncle Jack!" she called, zipping away at high speeds, leaving a green trail in the air behind her. "Take it from here, Solar Sentinel!" she called, her voice then lost in the wind as she made it at least a mile away before Henry could blink. 

 

Down below, still holding the baby, the now-shirtless Maximus went to pass Kit. "We need to get Julie's son too; there's no way any of them will abandon a child like this. You seemed to strike it up with Argent, maybe you can help her see reason. We can't let those people escape with these kids!" 

[Blue Rose]

"I did help her see reason," Sam points out, her eye starting to twitch at the presumption. "Then your Uncle Jack killed a man." She makes some guesses based on what she's heard, but it seems a sensible enough assumption.

"Now, I don't know you, I don't know this family feud of yours, I'm just trying to get this sorted with as few folks as I can manage getting hurt. And from where I sit, I talk to two of 'em and get through. You guys show up for five minutes, and you're the side with a body count. Put yourself in my shoes; I have no reason to trust you.

"Give me the baby. None of them are leaving, and none of them are giving up if their kids are with you. You saw; I can get through to them, I can get some of them to give up the ghost before you all kill each other. But not if you won't let me."

I shouldn't have to work against my so-called allies to solve this mess.

[Avenger Assembled]

Maximus gave Kit a searching look for a moment, but then handed her the baby, shirt and all. "All right, we'll keep the kid where they can see it. Too cold down here for a baby anyway, poor little girl." They headed upstairs only to walk into the end of a scene of violence as Argent was blasting a hole in the concrete wall, shouting "No!" The toddler who'd been with her, the brown-eyed boy of maybe two or three, was gone. Wide-eyed, hands still glowing with telekinetic power, she exclaimed, "Jump took Alef! He just popped in and took him! Why would he...why is everyone trying to take the babies?!" she demanded, advancing on Maximus and Kit. 

 

"Hold on, hold on, did he say anything?" Maximus demanded. "Anything at all? He's on our side." 

 

"Yeah, he said I should fly up and meet him on the roof; that it was time for us to go!" She blinked, and added, "I can carry both of you there! Come on, let's go." 

 

Up in the sky overhead, another punch knocked Ember unconscious entirely - the pyrokinetic's flames snuffing themselves as she fell from the sky, right into Solar Sentinel's arms. Up close, with the flames out, she was a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with deeply tanned skin, her orange hair closer to brown with the flames out. Flying down, Solar Sentinel could see a large group forming on the roof - he could easily pick out Jump and Aura, as well as the woman who had to be Empath, clutching a squirming toddler in her arms. 

[Thunder King]

Henry kept Ember close before laying her down on the roof. He was grateful she was taken down without risking any fatalities. She could have done some serious damage and turned the whole thing into a bloodbath. He stood, making sure his stance wasn't aggressive. He wanted them to see him for what he was,  a bystander pulled into a fight that wasn't his.

 

He didn't say anything, just observed. He was still tense, hoping that nobody would start swinging again, but ready in case they did. He knew that the situation was far from over. Things were delicate and anything could spark another fight.

[Blue Rose]

Sam takes the child and cradles her in her arms, then goes to Argent without reservation.

With all the crazy going on, somebody has to be the bastion of calm...ish.

"I don't know what's going on up there, but we need to end this before anyone else gets hurt. Just... be careful on the way up." She looks down at the baby meaningfully.

In truth, she'd rather get up there on her own power, but Argent will probably be most stable if she can keep an eye on her and the girl. Plus, even some adults get the creeps being pulled through the shadows; who knows how much it would freak a baby out? Well, she will, probably, and soon. But that'll be the Psions' problem.

[Avenger Assembled]

Up on the roof, heroes and villains were reunited as Solar Sentinel's descent met Argent Psion's ascent, the former coming from the sky while the latter smoothly ascended through the rooftop hole that Ember had burned on the way down. Argent's telekinetic carry really had been smooth and easy; the Psion obviously well-experienced at being her group's backup mass transit system. Jump, Empath, and Aura were standing in a triangle formation with the women at two ends in the back and Jump immediately facing the group, Alef Psion having transferred to his mother Empath upon Jump's return. At the sight of Ember in Solar Sentinel's arms, Jump pointed and yelled, "Drop her, you alien bastard! Haven't you people done enough damage today?" 

 

At her cousin's words, Argent tensed. "Josh, wait, they're on our side! You know you can't talk Frankie down when she's-"

 

"They murdered him, Argent!" yelled Jump, his youthful face twisted with a sneering contempt as he glared at the heroes, reserving special venom for Maximus Atom. "They murdered an old man under a flag of truce, for nothing! They nearly killed all those hostages for some foolish grudge between old men! I see now I was wrong about them, and wrong about everything else! You think you've won something today?" he demanded of Maximus Atom, who was smart enough not to answer the question. "All you've done is show the world what murdering scum the Atom Family are, and how right Parker Psion was! The human herd needs shepherds, and that's exactly what we have to be now! Come on, Argent, we're leaving before they can hurt any more innocent people!" 

 

"I..." Argent looked torn, looking from the heroes to her family, and especially at her identical twin; the white-faced, still nearly-silent Aura distinguished from her cousin now by the spatter of blood and gore across her uniform and her face. "No, wait, this doesn't make any sense. These people aren't with the Atoms, and they-" 

 

Empath shot a frowning look at her male cousin, and tried to take over. "Then come home with us so everything can make sense, Argent," she said in a voice that nearly made Henry and Kit step forward themselves, "You know who you can trust. You know whose side you're on." 

 

Argent nearly stepped forward, then clutched the baby to her chest. "Look, you can have Gimel, but I'm staying here. We can't just run away, we have to figure out what happened! None of this makes any sense, it-" 

 

At that point, a variety of things happened - there was a flash of green light in the sky, the returning Tesla Atom, and Jump's watch alarm, an odd moment of mundanity, went off. "There's no time! We'll come back for you!" Jump promised, his eyes taking in Gimel, Argent, and the still-unconscious Ember, "All of you! You have my word as a Psion!" And with that, he grabbed the hands of the other two and they all vanished over Empath's startled exclamation - and they were gone. 

[Blue Rose]

As Jump and Empath go off, Sam gets more and more fired up to start yelling at people, but then... they're gone.

And she couldn't even get a word in edgewise!

But there was something wrong, there... Jump was the one who asked her for help in the first place. Curious. But things are sticky enough right now; best to take what win she can.

Instead, she turns to Argent, offering her hand. "I can still get you out of here."

[Thunder King]

Henry just stood there, arms crossed. The tension was still high, and he was disappointed in how things went down. He wasn't sure if he should intervene and prevent Kit from leaving with Argent. So instead he shook his head.

 

"I think, folks, that some understanding needs to be had here. Things could have gone very badly. I feel bad for your loss." He said, honestly. He wasn't sad for the old man, but the family that depended on him. "People nearly died. Hundreds of people almost got killed because of a rivalry. Do you even wanna fight this anymore? Do you want to pass this war down to generations that don't even really get why they're doing it? Take it from a man who's a lot older than he looks. If you lose sight of why you're fighting, you risk losing yourself."

Edited February 4, 2014 by Thunder King

[Electra]

Down in the parking lot where most of the spectators had been gathered, there was a brief disturbance as the crowd was parted by something moving too quickly to see. The blurred disturbance halted at the hastily-erected police cordon, stilling to reveal two people holding hands. Fast-Forward and Hologram were superheroes, but today Richard and Paige Cline weren't dressed in heroic costume. Both of them wore blue coveralls with the Supercrime! logo on breast and back, both wore the subtle makeup that reads to television cameras as natural skin. Paige wore what looked like rappelling gear, while Richard was equipped with a mobile camera harness from which the camera had been removed and the boom arm snapped clean off. They spoke briefly to the police officers, then sped inside, yellow crime scene tape flapping behind them. 

 

Paige let go of Richard's hand as they entered the gymnasium at ground level, stumbling for a few steps as she left his speed bubble. She stared at the quietly gruesome scene laid out in front of her, one hand going up to cover her mouth. She'd known on some level, even out in California, even as she'd released herself from the rigging and fallen onto the emergency air cushion while calling Richard's name. She'd known from the instant the pain had ripped through her mind, a second's agony and then the severing of a mental connection she'd almost forgotten she still had. How could she not know what it meant, when she'd felt it three times before? Richard hadn't asked questions, bless him, when she'd told him they had to get to Freedom City right away, he'd pulled off his equipment and they'd gone. 

 

Knowing, though, was a very different thing from seeing the body on the polished wooden floor, the wheelchair covered in blood and worse things, the puddle on the floor with footprints through it that said the battle had gone on even after this, that it had gone elsewhere. Right now Paige found she couldn't care much about the fight. She walked to the body of her father, the heels of her boots loud and echoing in the empty arena. On the edge of her mind, she felt Holly, inquisitive and nervous, wondering what was happening. Paige gently shut her out, cut off Richard and Will as well, instinctively protecting them from the strange upwelling of grief inside her. He'd never been much of a father, and she'd been afraid of him as long as she could remember, but here in death he seemed so old, so frail, so alone. Kneeling down next to the body, she shut her eyes to the gore and took his hand. "Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil," she murmured. "Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad."

[Avenger Assembled]

With a zip and a sound like the patter of impossibly fast feet, suddenly the blueclad Richard Cline appeared on the roof alongside the heroes and Psions. Argent startled at the sight of him, then frowned, standing protectively between the baby Kit was carrying and the new arrival. "Richard?" she demanded. "What are you doing here? Where's Aunt Paige?" 

 

"...I just ran the continental United States in four minutes," said the speedster, clearly out-of-breath. "That's what I'm doing here. We came running as soon as we heard your grandfather die. She's downstairs, and somebody better go down and explain to her what happened." Deep down in his core, Richard Cline was glad his wife's evil, murderous father (who had tried to kill them both at least once) was dead, emotions he was doing his best to repress before she opened the psychic link up between them again. "Jesus Christ," he demanded as he caught his breath, "what the hell happened here?"

 

Contemptously ignoring Tesla Atom, who had landed at Maximus' side a few moments earlier, Argent said, "We came to lay a trap for the Atoms. To show them how wrong they were to live the way they did, to abandon their genetic destiny as the superior race." She looked down at the baby Kit held, and reached to take it. "And for that, Jack Wolf murdered my grandfather," she went on with a sharp glare at Tesla. "Where is he, anyway? Testing his aim?"

 

"He's sedated," said Tesla, her voice tight and clipped. "He was obviously being mind-controlled, my uncle would never kill anyone: even a murderous zealot like Parker Psion." She looked at Maximus and went on, "Chase and Victoria will be here within ten minutes. You better take her to the Freedom League, or call in the meta-cops," she added to Solar Sentinel. "When she wakes up, she won't be happy." 

[Thunder King]

Henry nodded. "I don't want to see what she'd do after waking up, that's for sure." He said. "Could someone call someone to help with her? I don't have a phone on me." He'd left his phone in his clothes, and wanted to avoid drawing attention to them. He glanced around, watching the circumstances. He also didn't want to leave with Ember, worrying that another fight might break out.

 

He looked over at Fast-Forward, a man he had never met nor heard of before, despite him being on television. He did, however, seem more reasonable than the Psions, and picked up that he was an in-law.

 

"The Psions interrupted the Harlem Globetrotters game, held the audience hostage, and demanded the Atoms show up to fight. I managed to get out and up to the roof, and we went in to take care of the situation. Then Jack Wolf ran over and shot him, and everything turned to chaos. I think Jack Wolf was under someone's control or something, because he seemed really off to me. Anyways, thanks to the efforts of the girl over there, things didn't get as bad as they might have." he sighed.

 

"I'm just one of the folks who saw what happened and tried to help." He said. "I don't know where you folks want to go from here, that's none of my business. I haven't headed off because I want to make I'm here in case anybody needs help."

 

He left out 'in case someone decides to start another fight' but the implication was probably understood. Not that he could stop a full on super powered battle, but he had no intention of letting their blood feud endanger lives.

[Blue Rose]

Sam hands over the baby, but it seems Argent's inner bitch is starting to show.

"From where I'm standing, this mere mortal was the only one trying to fix anything instead of trying to turn a basket ball game into a war zone. Doesn't really strike me as all that superior. So can we just drop these delusions of grandeur and make peace already, 'cuz I've seen where that flavor of crazy goes, and it ain't pretty."

Makes it easy to fleece their stuff, though.

She's still offering her hand, still giving her a chance to leave and start fresh.

Rather than trying to fight a roof full of white hats while holding a baby she presumably doesn't want dead. And before she wears Sam's patience out. "Of course, you could still get out."