Firestorm

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Freedom Hall, City Center Freedom City, New Jersey

Wednesday August 6, 2014; 5: 35 PM

 

The late afternoon was a rather typical weekday in Freedom City, although the rush hour traffic was a touch lighter than normal, as vacations had helped cut back on the numbers of office workers starting their way home after a long day.  The heat of the day was passed, but the air was still heavy with the humidity so common at this time of the summer. 

 

In the heart of the City Center, just a few blocks west of Centennial Circle, traffic made its way slowly past the slightly pyramid shaped form of Freedom Hall.  Set off from the sidewalk and behind a seven foot walls, the headquarters of the Freedom League was a familiar sight to those that lived and worked in this part of the city, to the point that most hardly noted it as they made their way past.

 

Today found the interior of Freedom Hall more deserted than typical.  Of course, "Cynthia," the League's robotic receptionist, was present in the lobby, as was always the case.  The only other two occupants were in very different parts of the building.  Comrade Frost was up on the rooftop landing pad of the building, lying back in a deck chair with a sun tanning reflector, enjoying the last bit of sunshine before the sun passed too far to the west. 

 

Gabriel was in the Hall's monitor room, keeping an eye on the mostly quiet communications while he worked on the lesson plan for the class he would be teaching in the fall.  However, his concentration was interrupted as a voice came over the AEGIS/US Government frequency.

 

"This is Major Ellis, United States Army, with a priority alert.  We are in need of the League's assistance, please respond."

 

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel had honestly been a bit bored, as he'd mostly finished his lesson plans. At this point he was just working up a few possible extra credit and remedial assignments.

 

As soon as the call came in and he saw the frequency, his face got deadly serious. He pressed the button to receive the call and listened for several moments. When the initial call had completed, he responded.

 

"Major Ellis this is Gabriel of the Freedom League. I confirm receipt of your transmission. What's the situation? I may need to call in a few more League members to assist depending on the nature of the emergency."

 

A priority alert from the Army was likely not a kitten stuck in a tree, after all.

[Thevshi]

GM

With Gabriel's acknowledgement, the major wasted no time in detailing the situation. "Just under ten minutes ago, a convoy of four Humvees carrying sixteen armed soldiers was transporting two items from a testing lab in Pittsburgh back to a storage facility on Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County Virginia. They have made the run a number of times in the past, usually only takes about three and a half hours, but this time they ran into a problem."

"The convoy was traveling along Interstate 70, just past the intersection with Highway 220, when it came under attack from about half a dozen super-beings. We received a distress call, but since then there has been no contact. Based on GPS tracking, we know three of the Humvees are still at the ambush site, but we cannot determine any other information at this time. The fourth Humvee has left the Interstate, and moved into the nearby town of Fairview, which is about seventeen miles north of the Interstate. For the moment it is stationary."

"Not long after that Humvee entered Fairview, a massive storm cloud formed over the town out of nowhere, blocking any satellite imagery. The two has a small sheriff’s department, a sheriff and four deputies. Three minutes ago, there was a report from the sheriff that the town was being hit by lightning bolts from the storm cloud, then all cellular and telephone communications went dead."

"We have a helicopter response team inbound, but they are still ten or more minutes away, and are unlikely to be able to approach Fairview with that storm cloud overhead. An AEGIS team is on the way from Pittsburgh, but they are still a good thirty to forty minutes away from the ambush site."

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel was rapidly typing notes and pulling up maps on secondary monitors as the Major talked. His mood was not improving with the news.

 

"Acknowledged, Major. I'm going to rally what League and Auxiliary members can be summoned in the next couple of minutes and get us moving ASAP. We will contact you back with a full roster of our first-response team before we move out. We'll keep those people safe, and keep whatever it was in the convoy out of unsavory hands. Hang on a moment please."

 

With that the call was placed on a short hold. Gabriel pressed a couple of buttons, opening links to several Freedom League Auxiliary members who were listed as "on-call" for the day. One of them was the vampire sunning himself on the rooftop. All would receive simultaneous calls and text messages, with the former going straight to a pre-recorded voice message.

 

"This is Gabriel. We have a high-priority situation, with a town held hostage, sensitive scientific materials missing, and at least one weather controller among at least a half-dozen super-powered individuals. Please rendezvous at the Hall ASAP, and respond immediately if you are unable to make it. We are leaving in less than ten minutes to address the situation."

 

Considering the individuals in question, "addressing" the situation was unlikely to be a small affair. 

Edited August 12, 2014 by KnightDisciple

[Thevshi]

Derbyshire, England

 

Megan Howell leaned up against her fiance, Robert Harrow, as they finally began a movie in the media room of Robert's family home in the English countryside.  The couple were currently spending a little over a month back in England with their six year old son, Lawrence, a chance for Lawrence to connect some with his father's family and for Robert to more directly address some family business. 

 

Lawrence had gotten to bed a couple hours ago, but they had been delayed in starting the movie as Robert had needed to finish up a scientific paper he was submitting.  But now that was done, and it was just the two of them....

 

And then Megan's Freedom League communicator began beeping.

 

"Darn it."  Megan muttered, as she sat up and leaned over to pick up the communicator, replaying the message Gabriel had just sent out.  The young woman looked over apologetically to Robert.  "It looks like we are going to have to wait till tomorrow night to watch this.  I have to go."  She gave him a quick kiss, and then was gone in a blur of movement.

 

Barely a second later, Megan was back beside the sofa, now dressed in her costume as Velocity.  "Gabriel, this is Velocity, I am on the way.  Should only take me about thirty seconds to get back across the Atlantic."  The speedster replied into her communicator, the message relayed up to the Lighthouse and back down to Freedom Hall.  She gave Robert a small smile.  "Hopefully whatever this is, it won't take too long.  But your choice if you want to wait up."

 

She gave Robert another quick kiss, and was then gone in a blur of yellow.

[Avenger Assembled]

Like a teenager at the beach with a transistor radio, Comrade Frost held his bulky handset against his ear as he listened to Gabriel talk. He waited for the other shoe to drop for several seconds before he realized the sonic paladin had hung up. Hah-hah, he thought to himself as he stood up, how the times have changed! There was a time, not so long ago by his own recollection, when it would have been super-agents of the Soviet Union attacking the convoy of American soldiers to steal the military secrets they were so jealously guarding. As far as he knew, there were no such agitations planned against the United States in the near future - the hierarchy spoke to him rarely about such things, and surely they would not expose him to arrest...unless once again ties are being cut. That thought, unpleasant though it was, stayed with him as he drifted through the stairways of Freedom Hall until he arrived at Gabriel's side, now out of his Hawaiian-style trunks and in his costume. 

 

"Convoy of brave patriots attacked by sinister forces, eh? Come, let us show them price of trampling on the grapes of American wrath!" He drove one fist into another for emphasis. 

[Fox]

"Understood, Gabriel," came a reply. "This is Gaian Knight and Tiamat - we're just finishing up something here, back in a minute tops."

The dozen or so rough-looking punks bound up in earthen cuffs didn't seem to have any major objections to being left alone. Any hopes of escape died in their eyes when Tiamat loomed over them, though, one glaring red eye staring them down while a couple of boxes still burned as testament to her wrath. "You lot are lucky," she insisted, rather pointedly prodding one of them in the chest with her mace. "If we catch you pushing Zoom again, there isn't gonna be enough of you left to cuff."

"C'mon, Tiamat." At the wave of a glove-clad hand, a set of rocks pulled themselves together into an archway, the empty space inside filling with soft golden light. Across the city, just outside Freedom Hall, an oddly-marked rock pulled itself up off the ground to form the keystone of a perfectly matching portal. "It sounds urgent; we should get a move on. Leave these guys for the police."

[Electra]

"And what's your favorite color? Purple? I think we can do that..." Stesha grinned and tossed a handful of seeds to the ground, where they immediately sprouted up into deep purple pansies, much to the delight of the small crowd of kids surrounding her. She hadn't had time to do much park beautification in Freedom City lately, what with Sanctuary taking up so much of her time, but since she was on call and on Prime for the day anyway, it was nice to get back to her roots. So to speak. Her distinctive hair and the rapid plant growth had drawn some attention as she made her way through Freedom Park, mostly children and parents enjoying a few last summer afternoons before school started again. 

 

She mixed marigolds in with the pansies, and was about to lay down some geraniums when her phone went off, notifying her of the current crisis. "Sorry, guys," she said with a regretful smile, "I've gotta go help some people now. Have fun in the park!" With that, she stepped into the trunk of the nearest tree and vanished, popping out moments later in the lobby of Freedom Hall. "Fleur here," she reported in as she headed for the stairs, "I'm ready to go." 

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel is all-business as the others filter into the room within just a couple minutes of his notification. Everyone gets a quick nod and greeting until they are all assembled. Once they are, he types a few commands and calls up an area map on the screen. As he speaks, various points on the map are highlighted.

 

"Here's where the attack happened. We don't have much detail on what hit them yet. We do know that 3 of the 4 Humvees are still at the intersection. The 4th vehicle is inside this town. Fairview's small; barely over 800 people, maybe 150 buildings. Most of them houses. Whoever's doing this has at least a measure of weather control, because that's not a natural storm, and it isn't moving. It's blocking satellites, and something else is blocking any other communication. 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, we are the full measure of the available force from the League. The Captain and the Lady are not available, the other active team is in the field and not able to withdraw, and Daedalus is, likely for the best, keeping some reserve up at the Lighthouse. He is tracking the situation, and worst-case can deploy backup.

 

I don't believe we will need it, though."

 

He smiles at everyone there before looking at the map again.

 

"Fleur, do you think you could get us to that intersection? If not we can probably use the teleport system, but your methods should be less detectable.

If we can get there, we can check the status of the soldiers from the convoy and get more information on what hit them. Velocity might be able to scout the town for us, and then we can roll in there in force. I don't know about the rest of you, but trying to go in piecemeal doesn't sound appealing. As far as I'm concerned, we should treat this as if a force on par with the Crime League is in play. Best case we can talk them down. Worst case, we make them stand down."

[Thevshi]

Velocity had arrived in just about the amount of time she had said it would take her to get back to Freedom City.  Thankfully she did not have to wait too long before the rest of the team that would be responding to the call had gathered and Gabriel began going over what they currently knew about the situation.

 

The speedster glanced at the maps of the area and the town as Gabriel suggested an initial plan of action.  "Yeah, that town is pretty small, unless I come across someone in immediate danger, I can be there and cover it in time to meet the rest of you at the ambush site as you start to work there."  She stated.

[Avenger Assembled]

"We have power, should put it to good use. Go in strong and with great force, make clear to foes that we are mighty host - if such is not needed, then we are powerful rescue party to save brave American soldiers, no?" Normally Frost was loathe to make many tactical suggestions around the Leaguers - his time with them was coming to an end with Russia's political priorities shifting in new and frankly unpleasant directions, and he didn't want them to resent him more than they already did. "I hope it is not giant cow friend, eh?" he asked the others with a wink. Come to think of it, maybe he wasn't that concerned if they disliked him so long as they got the mission accomplished. "What a cheesy situation would that be!" 

[Fox]

"We're not as big on large shows of power--"

A pointed snort from his companion forced Gaian Knight to correct himself. "...I'm not as big on large shows of power, then. But it's an option. My problem with going in with the classic American pride and thunder is that it forces things to escalate, and they're already...well. Things already seem kind of escalated. I say we keep the 'mighty host' bit under control until we need it: at the very least it'll make for an intimidating surprise once we know what we're dealing with. Agreed on going in together, though," he added, nodding at Gabriel. "Other than necessary scouting, no sense in splitting up until we know what we're dealing with."

Tiamat sighed wistfully, though she was clearly paying attention to the map, trying to figure out how she's fortify such a place if she'd taken it over. "I wish it was a giant cow. The cheese thing was gross, but I ate for days...."

[Electra]

Fleur chuckled a little bit at the reminder of the giant cow, but quickly sobered. "I agree, let's not start showing off unless we have to. We don't want to make big changes in the landscape of this place without a really good reason. First we find out what's going on, then we can make a plan to stop it. Everybody ready? Hold hands." She tossed a seed onto the ground, which immediately sprouted despite being on a concrete floor, then showed similar disregard for gravity as it climbed and twisted its way up and then down into a door-shaped archway. Taking hands with Gaian Knight and Velocity, she led the way through the leafy door, and immediately out the trunk of an oak tree, many miles away. 

[KnightDisciple]

"I would certainly like to avoid an actual fight, but these people have taken an entire town of innocents hostage. There is only so much grace to be extended in the way of negotiations here, in my mind. Still, we need more information."

 

He stood and locked hands with Velocity, offering his other hand to Comrade Frost, while presumably Tiamat took Gaian Knight's hand. He stepped in time with the others through the door, blinking a bit as they emerged in the sun. He release the hands of his compatriots, shaking his head a bit. 

 

"I suddenly crave mango. Anyways, let's see, we should be close to the convoy..."

 

He cast his gaze around the area about them, trying to spot the likely-wrecked trio of Humvees that should be nearby. 

[Thevshi]

GM

The Freedom League members emerged from old oak tree to find themselves on a grassy hill. The sky was darker than it should be, the edges of the dark clouds sitting miles off to the north helping block out the sun.

Down below them sat a rural stretch of interstate, right at the intersection with a local highway. Three Humvees were spread out across the eastbound lanes of the highway, all three appearing to have suffered various damage. One had apparently smashed into a civilian truck, both now off the highway and into the greenspace dividing the east and west bound sides of the interstate. Another was in the middle of the two eastbound lanes and still smoking slightly, sections of the vehicle black from fire that had apparently only been recently extinguished, the back tires all but melted away. The last was halfway onto the right shoulder of the eastbound lanes, the crew compartment ripped open and all four tires missing.

Behind the smoldering Humvee was a jackknifed semi, a pair of civilian cars having crashed into the trailer after it jackknifed. About a dozen other civilian cars were stopped along the shoulders on both sides of the interstate, and the drivers and passengers of those cars appeared to be doing what they could to assist the semi driver, passengers of the other crashed civilian cars and the soldiers from the three wrecked Humvees.

Two sheriff's vehicles were now present, one having taken up position behind the jackknifed semi, the deputy out of the vehicle and stopping all eastbound traffic for the moment. The other was over near the wrecked Humvees, the deputy out and trying to help treat the injured soldiers.

Traffic in the west bound lanes was moving, with the slowdown that one would expect where drivers were passing a large accident scene such as this.

[Thevshi]

Velocity looked down on the scene below for a brief moment before glancing over to the others.  "Looks like you all have enough to focus on while I go scout out the town.  Should only be a few moments anyway."  And with that, the yellow clad speedster was gone in a blur of motion.

 

The others were likely just registering she was gone when she was several miles up the road towards Fairview, and hit the rain that was coming from the dark clouds in the air.  As she went, Velocity was already carefully searching the area around the highway, after, all, it would hardly take her much time.

 

A few milliseconds later and she was several more miles down the highway, and had come across skid marks in the road and broken glass, causing her to slow slightly as she turned off the road and began searching the area around it.  It barely took any time at all for her to find a ben and torn door to a Humvee in some tall grass of a ditch about fifteen feet off the road, and next to the door an injured and bleeding soldier. 

 

The speedster came to a halt by the injured solider, quickly looking him over and noting several deep lacerations and what appeared to be a broken arm.  He was unconscious and looked in bad shape, and the possibility of more serious broken bones made her hesitant to move him.  So Velocity took the medical kit that was attached to his tactical vest and did what she could to cover some of the lacerations, hoping to at least slow the bleeding some before she went back to get Fleur to heal him.

[KnightDisciple]

"Stay safe."

 

It was an automatic comment from Gabriel as Velocity departed; he seemed to figure she was more than capable of doing so, but felt compelled to offer the sentiment anyways. His gaze was on the chaos below, his mouth pressed in a thin line, his eyes narrowed slightly.

 

"I'm going to go see if there's anything I can do to help."

 

Considering the situation, there would probably be enough work to go around for everyone. With that, Gabriel zipped down at high speed, stopping next to the deputy trying to treat the injured soldiers, his feet hovering a few inches above the grass. Just his presence seemed to radiate confidence and calm.

 

"Good afternoon officer. I hope you don't mind us showing up. What can we do to help?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Trusting that the healers could tend to the wounded, Frost strolled up to the smashed Humvees and began examining them closely, studying the heat patterns left behind by the recent fire. Ah, of course it must be out by the time I arrive! Such is fate. Hmming, he peered in the windows and at the damage to the vehicles themselves, looking for familiar patterns. "Have seen lightning-struck vehicles before, and clouds used against them as well." That made him peer up at the sky again, shooting a suspicious look indeed at those clouds. "Say fellows!" he called to the soldiers near the damaged jeeps (which, if he was honest, was what he still called US Army vehicle in the privacy of his own mind), "Did you see any angry Germanic gods come out of sky with murder in mind?"

[Electra]

Fleur shivered a moment at the darkness of the sky, her green hair losing a shade or two of color in the unnatural dimness. "Something's really not right," she murmured, then shook it off. There was work to be done! Hastening down the hill after Gabriel and Frost, she took in the situation with a professional eye, then knelt beside the most obviously injured victim. "It's all right," she murmured, reaching into one of her pouches. "My name is Fleur de Joie, I'm here to help. You'll feel better very soon." She began treating the wounded as quickly as she could, a poultice here, a gummy ball of medicinal herbs there. All the while, she kept an eye on the sky and its ominous clouds. 

[Thevshi]

GM

 

Gabriel

 

The sheriff's deputy glanced up at Gabriel at the sound of the hero's voice, initially appearing a bit surprised and in awe of speaking with a member of the Freedom League.  But the man quickly seemed to overcome the initial reaction, focusing on Gabriel's question and the situation at hand.

 

"Mind?  Not at all, we could use any help we can get right now."  The officer began.  "As for what you can help with....a good start would be if you all have any way to help move some of these vehicles off the freeway to help clear things up more.  Also, a lot of these soldiers are in pretty serious shape, so anything that could help get them to better medical care quickly could certainly help."

 

Fleur de Joie

 

The green haired heroine moved over to one of the more apparently injured soldiers, who had blood soaked bandages on his torso.   The man was barely conscious, so she was uncertain whether he even heard her soothing words. 

 

Carefully moving the bandages aside, she saw there were several long, deep lacerations beneath that appeared to have been caused by claws.  Applying her healing herbs on the wounds, she was quickly rewarded with the flow of blood from the injuries halting, then the tissue rapidly reforming as the wounds closed.  The man's breathing stabilized, although he remained unconscious for the moment.

She then moved on to the next injured soldier, who turned out to have an arrow wound....

 

Comrade Frost

 

As the Russian vampire moved down to the scene below, his keen eyes took in the scene around him, immediately noticing a number of details about the attack on the convoy.

 

First to fall under his scrutiny was the Humvee halfway onto the outside shoulder of the eastbound lanes, the one missing all four wheels and with the crew compartment torn open.  Frost noted that the compartment had not been opened with any sort of even cuts, instead the metal and plastic of the vehicle was uneven as it came apart at different points based on some external force.  He also noted that he could see no evidence of where someone might have gripped the top of the vehicle in order to pull it apart as it was.  As for the removal of the vehicles wheels, he notes it was not just the wheels that were missing, but parts of the axels along with them.

 

Examining the now smoldering Humvee that appeared to have been at the rear of the convoy, Frost noted a small hole burned in the rear armor of the vehicle, which had served to ignite parts of the vehicle within, which is what had then caused most of the fire damage before it was extinguished.  The vampire noted two spent fire extinguishers on the ground near the vehicle, apparently used by civilians that had stopped after the initial attack and subsequent accidents to help.

 

The last Humvee, the one that was in the greenspace dividing the two sides of the interstate along with a civilian truck had a massive rend along the right side of the vehicle, appearing to have been sideswiped by something, the force of which had smashed it into the civilian truck and carried both vehicles off the interstate. 

 

Frost also noted the variety of injuries the soldiers had suffered.  There were arrow wounds, multiple lacerations that could have been caused by some sort of claws, sever blunt trauma, burns from the vehicle fire, and at least one that appeared to have electrical burns. 

 

His initial examination completed, Frost addressed one of the few conscious soldiers, one leaning up against the Humvee that was in the middle divider, an arrow in his right shoulder.  The young man glanced up, appearing to be somewhat confused by what Frost had asked for a moment.  "Germanic gods?  No, nothing like that...at least I don't think so."  He replied weakly.  "It all happened so fast.  There was some guy that was moving like a blur, who slammed into our vehicle," he nodded at the Humvee he was leaning up against, "then there was something that looked like a tiger leaping about, and someone shooting arrows, never saw where they came from.  And lightning bolts coming down, and the lead Humvee just seemed to get peeled part."

[Fox]

Gaian Knight cracked his knuckles, turning his attention to the cars along the road now that the wounded were being attended to. "Cars it is. Can I get a hand with the semi, Tiamat? I'm not sure I can get it off the road on my own - not in one piece, anyway."

From all along the freeway, loose rocks and dirt flowed together to form a giant pair of earthen hands - like Virginia itself had rolled up its sleeves to pitch in and pick up the litter. At Gaian Knight's careful gestures, they set about gently gripping vehicles and shifting them off to the side of the road. They'd probably need a new paint job, but...well. Most of them had already seen worse than that.

Tiamat stretched languidly as fire rolled outward around her, leaving a proper, full-sized dragon in its wake; hardly subtle, but she gave it relatively little fanfare, instead strolling over toward the jack-knifed semi...before pausing. She sniffed the air, searching. "Hmmmm," she eloquently rumbled, head swinging over on its long neck toward the fried Humvee. "Magic," she warned, turning a slitted, crimson back toward the other as she none-too-gently wrapped forelimbs around the semi-truck and dragged it off-road with strength even a creature her size probably shouldn't have. "Don't have much on what went down here, and there's not a lot of it left, but I'm betting the storm's magic over science."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hmm. Clumsily done, but done well all the same." Frost took out an old-fashioned magnifying glass and held it up to the damaged wheels of the first Humvee, commenting into his Freedom League commlink as he went. "No fingermarks in the metal, so no powerhouse at work here. Looks more as if the winds themselves did it, or perhaps great claws..."

 

He moved along, examining the burnt-out Humvee and taking the opportunity to warm his cold fingers on the heated metal. "This was not the same man," he judged. "The fire is too neatly applied, and the damage inside is too precise. One who has the power to rip apart an armored vehicle like this, he does not just start small fires. This should be smashed, or torn apart, as was the other." 

 

"Do not worry, my brave fellows," he said to the injured soldiers, and for once that cool sarcasm of his was frozen and dead. "We will catch these villains and give them what they deserve. You have done your duty, and done it well, against mighty threats." Doctor that he was, he occupied himself with patching up wounds and giving first aid until Fleur arrived to heal these particular troops as well. 

 

Over the commlink, he said out loud, to Fleur and the others. "Multiple attackers, multiple powers. I see signs of speed, advanced weaponry, some sort of lycanthropy, and I believe weather control among the attackers. Your thoughts?" he inquired of the others. 

[Thevshi]

Gaian Knight and Tiamat were all but done clearing the vehicles involved in the accident fully off the highway lanes by the time Comrade Frost provided his observations of the ambush and the attackers.  Fleur was moving to the next group of soldiers, when Velocity came speed up to a halt near the group, the long brown haired ponytail of the wig she wore in costume matted down with rain.

 

"I did not make it to Fairview yet."  She quickly began to explain.  "I got about ten miles along the way before I found another soldier with the door of a Humvee.  Looks like he was pulled out with the door somehow, had a lot of deep cuts and at least a broken arm.  Seemed in pretty bad shape, possibly shock.  Given the possibility of more serious broken bones, I was concerned about moving him.  I tried to do what I could for the bleeding, but he is in need of some urgent medical attention."

[KnightDisciple]

Gabriel's frown deepened as information came forth from Tiamat and Comrade Frost. Magic? Multiple powered individuals? This wasn't good.

 

"It sounds like a group setting themselves up as the next Crime League, or one of the other such groups floating around. But the question is, why here?"

 

Gabriel was going to go ask one of the soldiers, when Velocity ran up and told them about the injured soldier. The sound controller turned toward Fleur.

 

"Fleur, you should probably go with her and get him stabilized, then get him back here. After that, Velocity should probably try to keep scouting. In the meantime, I'm going to try and get a better picture of things."

 

With that, Gabriel turned and looked for the highest-ranked member of the group of soldiers who was conscious and not in terrible pain. He would walk over to them and crouch down next to them, a warm smile on his face.

 

"Glad you're doing okay, sir. I hate to bother you, but we're looking at a big pile of unknowns. There are two things it would help us to know. First, just what was your convoy carrying that someone would go after so violently? And second, what can you tell me about the makeup of the group that assaulted all of you?"

 

They had gotten some bits and bobs of information, but perhaps asking again would jog some memories. If nothing else, Gabriel was the sort of calm presence one would feel okay discussing such matters with.

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The soldier that Gabriel moved over to was one of the first ones Fleur had healed, and was far more coherent now than he had been a few moments earlier.  Based on his name tag and the two silver bars on his collars, the white clad hero identified the man as Captain Strauss. 

 

Focusing on Gabriel, the captain gave a small nod as he began to answer.  "We were transporting two prototypes, X312, a miniature battery and energy projector and X269, a serum that appears to provide test subjects with temporary superhuman abilities.  Each was in a separate briefcase, in which there was also an encrypted flash drive that contained all the test data on each prototype." 

 

"The briefcase with X269 was in that Humvee."  He stated, indicating the one that had had its roof ripped open.  "I suspect it is gone now.  The one with X312 was in the Humvee that managed to get off the highway and clear of the ambush.  Or at least I think it was able to get clear."

 

"As for what happened, I am afraid I cannot give you much of anything, as I was knocked out right after my Humvee was hit in the side by...someone, and knocked into a civilian truck in the next lane."