Nuclear Depths (IC)

[olopi]

There was some security here after all. Not that great. Meant they had to be careful. Maybe Cass could get Jenkins to just evacuate the building? Didn’t seem like too bad of a person, he probably was really afraid too. Green had to be here too, no chance he was taking a day off after everything that had happened earlier. The thugs also did what they were being paid for, probably would buy him and Marie a few seconds if absolutely necessary. Good enough, more than he’d originally expected.

 

“Mr. …Jenkins, sir, would it be possible for you to make sure everybody leaves this building safely? No need for anybody to get unnecessarily injured, right? Preferably, without anybody else knowing, of course.”

 

Then the capnokinetic, now fully smokin’ addressed Marie, all in French obviously, while waiting for Jenkins to respond, and do whatever a security guard’s job was.  Security usually had some kind of “evacuate” button in places like these, didn’t they? Preferably, one which did not sound the alarm at the same time.

 

“Same thing as before, I presume? Sounds easy enough, we just have to get up there? Any stairs somewhere? Probably safer than the elevator. Even if it’s quite the distance…”

 

Edited May 4, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Su-su-shure thing, man!" replied Jenkins, clearly relived not to be ash. 

 

"B-b-but there ain't nobody here. Just the chief. He sent everyone else home. Just me on my lonesome" he explained, wringing his hands. 

 

"Although you can bet your pants that I'll be glad to go. Yes sir, no worries there. I quit this job! it sucks! I'm gonna do something less dangerous. Like shark-wrangling or sumthin'" he blabbered, keen to run. 

 

"Let him go...." said Marie, almost cold in her fury, as she called for the elevator. It didn't come. 

 

"Lockdown. Guess its the stairs. Good for cardio..." she said, determined. The stairs were indeed open, both the main ones and the fire escape backup. Five flights of shiny and cold steel and glass. 

[olopi]

“Good luck with your new career! Have fun, it’s what it’s all about!”

 

The smoke formed a little arrow, signalling the guard that yes, he was free to go. For now it was time to move on. Green had planned this. He knew they were coming, no doubt. He knew how they were going to do it. He’d probably be holed up in the reactor room already, waiting, a big, big laser gun pointing at the door. And lots of robots between here and there. This would be quite the trip. Just a flight of stairs, but one which would feature a lot of fighting probably. Unless Green had holed up everything in one place? That would be both pretty smart and incredibly dumb… So it was a possibility, judging by Green’s previous actions. Both pretty smart and incredibly dumb seemed to sum up most of them rather well.

 

“He’s expecting us. We’ll have robots shooting lasers at us any second now. You ready to ascend while fighting? I’ll watch our backs, you just walk up the stairs. I expect them to start right as we set foot. Hopefully there’s not too many robots. Maybe he’s just holed himself up in the room with all of them. In which case getting there won’t be a problem, but actually getting to the reactor? Quite difficult. ”

 

Edited May 4, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

The stairs were empty, cold, and empty. True, the glass sparkled, the steel was shiny, and the plastic steps had a soulless cleanliness to them, but there was no rush of guards. No laser beams. No killer robots. At least for now. Instead, a beat of serenity. 

 

Three floors up, and with Marie just starting to lose her puff, Bonfire heard the echo of footsteps below them. Nothing to see, but just the sound of footsteps. Not hurried, but not slow either. 

 

"Ignore them..." said Marie. "We must press on! The mission!" she glared at Bonfire. 

 

Up ahead, two floors to go, was the Nuetronium reactor. And surely, Green. It would be no surprise to anyone if steel and lasers were up there too. 

[olopi]

“Hey, it’s us. Here we are. Well, I can go on about introducing myself and my friend here, but let’s be honest, there’s no need to. We’ve all met, we’ve all fought before. You just almost killed an innocent bystander and friend. I’m quite p***ed. And I’m feeling rebellious. So, do we want to talk for a while, or get straight down to the action? You’ve planned for this, we both know it. We’re not going to get through this without beating the resolve out of each other. You knew we were coming, you had time to set a trap. But, much like the one you set before, the question is, will it work? What’s it gonna be? A giant robot? Holding somebody hostage? An ice-ray? Finally installed a heatshield on your robots? “

 

And there he was, Security Chief Green. The man who had tried killing all of them earlier on. The man who had probably planned for all of it to happen. He was in on Neutron dumping Nuclear waste, he probably profited from it. And really, it was time to put an end to all of this.  

 

Edited May 4, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

From below:

 

Up the stairs came a thug. A big man - broad and wide. He must have been well over six foot, bare chested, bandana wearing. Tattoos' and scars. He was a massive combination of arms as thick as your head and a fat that was both voluminous but with a certain rigidity to it. 

 

He was carrying a knife. 

 

With a flash, Bonfire recalled him. 

 

The boss of the Cut-throat gang, Cut-throat himself. The man had a reputation as a fierce leader and expert with a knife. 

 

Now it hit him, the thugs that had set fire below. Members of the Cut-throat gang. The very gang he had foiled just before he met Marie. The same tattoos. They carried no guns. But knives, they had. 

 

From above:

 

"I knew you would come, pigs!" shouted Green from the very top floor, five stories above. His voice was unchanged, clear, echoing down the staircase. He was dressed in heavy armour and his gun to his hip. In his hands, a hose - or at least, what looked like a hose if it was built by a team of super-scientists. Flashing with cold blue light, its snake like tubing winding its way to the unseen top floor. 

 

"Bonfire! How this terrorist dragged you into this, I don't know. She is a murdered, a madwoman, a menace! And most importantly, a thief! We don't tolerate thieves at Neutron Industries!" he yelled down at the fiery hero. 

[olopi]

Inside Cass’s head, he just wanted to smack his head onto a desk. Why? How had he not seen this. This wasn’t so hard to notice, was it? He’d fought these people just a few days prior, after all. Maybe it was just the exhaustion of being awake finally getting to him. Maye he hadn’t realized it since he thought they’d be, ya know, in jail. They had to have some really, really good lawyers if they were already doing things again. How Marie had managed to get these guys was another question. Either way, there was no changing the situation now. And cut-throat himself was the least of Cass’s worries.

 

Green definitely had planned for this. Whatever that hose was, Bonfire did probably not want to find out. Ice most likely, judging by the looks. That thing was dangerous. Clearly Green did no longer care about how people would get out of this, not that Cass would blame him for it. Still, he’d come too far to turn tail and run. It was time to try and make the best out of the situation. The cut-throats were in this for the money, weren’t they? Revenge too, probably, but maybe the premise of money could make them put revenge aside for a bit. So it was time to play this out the right way.

 

“Hey, you’re in this for the money, aren’t’ya? Now, I’m not an expert, but some of the stuff the Security Chief up there’s carrying probably fetches a nice price with the right buyers. You can have all of it, I’m not interested in it.”

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Cut-throat paused, pulling out a knife. It was not particularly sharp, but it was sharp enough. It was not particularly glinting, but it was obviously made of steel. In short, it was a knife that screamed out "I don't need to be flashy. I just need to stab people. And I do". 

 

He was not the sharpest knife in the set, was Cut-throat. He was just damn good with them. 

 

"What?" he shouted back, taking another few steps upwards. 

 

"Does it look like we deal in that kind of junk?" he asked. In this regard, it should be noted he did not. It looked like he dealt in chemicals. Particular sorts of chemicals.

 

"Lady H Bomb there"...he pointed at Marie, who had gone white, with his knife. "She hired my gang. Didn't pay me. And you end up arresting half of them. Not to mention three of them have died from nuke-lee-arr-poy-sonn-ing..." he struggled over the words. It was a bit of a mouthful for Cut-throat. 

 

"Now, she gets to know what happens when you stab the Cut-throats in the back...." he said. 

 

He drew a line over his neck with his knife. It was an expert cut. It drew a few drops of blood. Just for the effect. 

 

From above, Green yelled back. "Buddy, you slit her throat, I'll buy you a gold knife studded with a diamond as big as ya' fist". One could hear the smirk on his face. 

 

Cut-throat clenched his empty hand. He had a very big fist indeed. 

[olopi]

Knifes. Like swords, but smaller. Still scary. Not quite as scary, but not something you want to be close to. So Green probably had the gang on his side. Great, even worse odds. At this point it was not only a literal uphill battle, but also one where there was no way out. This was not a nice situation to be in. That knife felt a lot scarier than whatever Green was packing, even if it shouldn’t have. Once things would go down it’d be time to take Mr. Gangleader out ASAP.

 

Wait a second, had he just said that Marie had hired the gang? Before this, even? What did this mean, now? Cass still was suspicious of how Marie had managed to even reach him, but hiring the Cut-Throat Gang to take hostages, in order to even get close to him? Was this all part of her plan? Was this the stab in the back that he’d stayed awake for so long so he could avoid it? Would this become one of those four-way stand-offs?  It was time to ask Marie, maybe Green didn’t understand French, and cut-throat probably wasn’t a French speaker too.

 

“[Wait, you hired them before this? To take a bunch of hostages? Or what for?]”

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Marie was pale, and white. 

 

"[Don't listen to him! He is a thug!]" she said back, hoarse of voice, wide of eye. For all her other talents, Marie was not a natural liar. She had too much rage in her to do so effectively. Denial, she was clearly good at - both towards other people and herself. 

 

And right now, she was lying. 

 

"[He is just a thug with a knife! You can't trust him! You can't trust anybody!" she implored. Even with her goggles on, her eyes seemed to widen so far that they might pop. 

 

"I just might fancy a knife like that" said Cut-throat, a glint his eye. "But, ya' know, I ain't about flashy bling. I ain't about money. The cut-throat gang. We is about respec!" he snarled, turning nasty. 

 

"And we ain't gettin no respec' from you!" he said, now pointing his knife at Green. "So after I gut lil' H-Bomb here, I'll be sticking you too. Then I'll see if you got anything worth takin'...."

 

He turned his eyes and his knife back to Marie. 

 

"Little miss H-bomb, see, I gotta thank her. She taught me that the Cut-throats ain't ever gonna be for sale again. From now on, anything worth havin', we is takin!" he declared, defiantly. 

[olopi]

Well, great. This was becoming a four-way standoff. At this point Bonfire did not know who’s side he was on. Probably still Marie’s? He’d gotten pretty fed up with what she’d been doing, but leaving her here to die wasn’t an option. Then again, anything but helping her would just mean she’d try again, and again. Probably see it as treason and go after Bonfire too. He’d gotten himself into this mess by helping her, he’d have to get out of this mess by helping her. Probably was his best shot still. This was a bad situation, one that could only lead to things going wrong.

 

There had to be something he could do. Something to buy some time and figure out something. Maybe he’d be able to figure something out if he wasn’t being threatened with both some kind of hose and a knife, of all things.

 

“Can we all just all take a moment and figure out what is even going on? There’s too much happening at once. Like, this entire thing is really confusing for everyone involved right now.”

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

"Enough yappin'" said Cut-throat, pulling back his arm. 

 

"Ain't no talkin' gonna bring my friends back to life. Ain't no talkin' gonna get my friends outta the slammer!" he said angrily.

 

With a flick of his arm, with the speed of a snake, he threw the knife. For all its fat and muscle, the throw was blindingly fast, and impressively skilled. The arm and hand moved like a whip, and the knife flew through the air like it was on jets. 

 

Thud

 

With a little tinkle of steel, the knife fell to the floor. A direct hit on Marie, straight where the armour was thickest and hardest. Nary a scratch on her advanced environmental suit. 

 

Marie was white and sweating. Clearly, she was no fan of knives being thrown at her either. Although in fairness, few where. 

 

"Stop him...." she whispered hoarsely at Bonfire. 

 

"Kill her!" shouted Green at Cut-throat, and aimed his hose down the staircase...

[olopi]

Who, knives. Flying knives. Great, so this guy knew how to throw them too. He had a good point though, Marie had been responsible for his friends dying. Ending up in jail was one thing, thy had been doing illegal things, that had to be expected. But ending up six feet under while also getting scammed? Due to somebody’s determination to do the right thing, yes. But, death? He had an argument here, Marie clearly was the villain in his personal case. Then again, he was now trying to kill her, so he wasn’t exactly the good guy either here.

 

Meanwhile, it was pretty clear Green wasn’t doing any good. At least somebody wasn’t good in their own way, from what Cass was aware of. Then again, that was also the person with the high-ground, and the most guns. Maybe it’d be best to leave the two mingle amongst themselves and go after the man probably fine with killing all three of them? Then again, the same also applied to Throat-Cutter, and maybe Marie too.

 

He had to decide quickly. There was no one truly, completely evil in this case. Everybody had an argument to be made. Everyone had some degree of moral high-ground. Maybe it was best to just wait and see? See who had to be dealt with the most directly. Knifes were a problem, especially when throw, but Bonfire had some sympathy for the guy. Marie, well she was quite relentless and her entire plan had just come crashing down. But she was a friend. And Green, well, he was quite dangerous either way.

 

So flesh became smoke, and Bonfire floated to the side, away from the other two and into a position where Green hopefully had no direct line of fire. All three would have to work to hit him if they’d want to.

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Marie took a step back, her eyes seemed to dull with fear, losing their green glow. 

 

"Damn you all!" she said in a low voice, giving Bonfire a look. 

 

"You can't back out now! traitor!" she whispered to him. 

 

Green gave a merry laugh from above. 

 

"Thieves and scum! You can't trust them, can you?" he yelled gleefully, before activating his hose. 

 

"Technology though. Now that, you can trust! You see, our reactors can over heat. They need serious help to keep cool. And, well, it struck me. I could use some help in cooling you off, both of you! hahahaha!" he laughed, before unleashing his hose. 

 

Down, down, down sprayed a fine mist of liquid hydrogen, snap freezing the metal. The cloud of cold was forced down the stairwell by the extreme pressure of his hose. The air crisped, and it hurt to breathe. Marie raised her hands to her face, but whilst her hair stiffened and her tears froze, her suit and radioactive glow kept her warm enough. 

 

Cut Throat was slower. He gasped, and gasping was not good. His bare flesh burnt with the cold and he let out a long scream, the air of his breath freezing in the icy mist. 

[olopi]

So far so good. Marie now liked him even less, but at least she was still somewhat safe. Not too much combat so far, maybe he’d still have time to figure out something. There had to be some way to get through this. Maybe talk to Green, distra-

 

And then it was cold. Really, really cold. Like, colder than Cass had experienced before. And he’d spent a day outside during winter with nothing but a t-shirt once! This was bad. This was really, really bad. Bonfire was notoriously weak to Ice, and obviously he had to have jinxed himself. He had to have mentioned Ice-Guns. It was so clear, this was what he got for being a more or less criminal.

 

Bonfire was unable to move. IT was so cold, he felt like frozen. Could smoke even freeze? Was that even possible? Then, he noticed it. The smoke wasn’t just freezing, it was his flesh too. The mix of gas and cold must’ve done something to him, because he couldn’t hold up the smoke form. He was turning into flesh again. Oh great, not only was he more exposed if that was the case, he’d also be wearing nothing but some underwear. Not even a mask, these people could see his face. Before, this situation had been really bad. Now it was really bad, and embarrassing! Oh, and dangerous of course.

 

Edited May 9, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Marie almost giggled at Bonfire, but it was a somewhat hysterical laughter. Her goggles blazed once again with green light, but for a moment she could not decide upwards or downwards. 

 

Eventually, she focussed the searing green light downwards, splintering glass and melting steel as Cut-throat darted back into cover. The stairs started to creak ominously under the strain of being both super cooled and then melted with furious radiation. 

 

Cut-throat was shocked, but was fearless, throwing another knife at Marie. It hit and shattered glass, sending more tinkling down the stairs to the ground floor. 

 

Green's hose ran dry, spluttering a little more coolant ineffectively. Cursing, he brought out his blaster pistol. 

 

Deprived of coolant, there was a worrisome whine of the reactor on the top floor. 

 

Marie's radiation detector went ping, excitedly. 

[olopi]

So cold. So cold. Being surrounded by snow was nothing compared to this. This was actual cold. And the fact that now Bonfire was standing around in just his underwear didn’t help. It wasn’t exactly warm to begin with either, but usually his body dealt with that. Not so right now. Oh, and Marie had also seen his face. There went two days of excurcating amounts of coffee consumption, all for nothing. Great. The body’s natural heat output was starting to fight against the cold, moving was once again possible, only in small amounts however.. There was something. Bonfire was no longer locked out of doing anything! The cold had certainly left it’s impact, left it’s damage. But he could move again, even if just slowly. And not enough to really accomplish anything, maybe apart from talking.

 

And then the detector went off. Had Green really ….?  Cass continued to be amazed at how this man was able to keep his position. All of this, Neutron certainly didn’t care, did they? This was bad. Another blast of radiation? At some point the sheer amount of radiation would become dangerous, and that point had been a long time ago. If this thing went off everybody in this stairwell would be in danger. So Bonfire, still standing there in just his underwear, still completely human, raised his voice.

 

“Green, you idiot! That hose was still hooked up! The reactor’s gonna blow, everybody get out of here now! We can continue fighting outside if we really have to!”

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

Green looked worried for a moment, fingering his gun and pondering the potential hazard. 

 

But he was a man with a strong default position when dealing with uncertainty. And he defaulted to that position. 

 

Which was shooting. 

 

"Don't you worry about an overheating reactor, kid!" he yelled back. "You just worry about your terrorist ass!"

 

With that, he fired at the stairs, already frozen, already creaking. His gun was powerful, pure force. Steel cracked and in an instant the whole damn stairwell was collapsing. Marie jumped to safety, anxiety lending her wings. 

 

As the stairs collapsed and tumbled down, Cut-throat ducked out of the way of the falling debris. Bonfire, caught in the centre of the collapse, was less fortunate. The fiery hero started to tumble down...

[olopi]

And once again, everything passed really slowly. Nobody listened, everybody continued fighting. And Green raised his gun, firing at the stairs. Okay, they were crumbling, but slowly, surely there’d be enough time to simply dodge to the side. All Cass had to do was get rid of the ice. It couldn’t be that difficult. But struggling didn’t help. The ice continued to be, well, frozen, and kept him frozen in place. Everything was falling, including Cass. He hadn’t fallen in quite a while, usually he flew. Wasn’t that different, the feeling of weighless-ness. But usually he was in smoke form, and able to fly. Which he wasn’t right now, the ice had frozen that too. And this was quite the drop.

 

This kept getting worse and worse. Falling, down a stairwell. He’d been warned about this before. But back then it hardly meant having the stairs crumble underneath you, while a reactor was going off further up. Any everybody was fighting around you.

 

It had to be possible to slip back to smoke, it wasn’t this difficult usually. Actually, this wasn’t the time for smoke. Nobody was listening, so Bonfire had to get flashier. Igniting now was dangerous, it took some time, and Cass wasn’t sure how much time he had until somebody would have to scrape him off the floor.

 

It was a risk, but really, these people. This was the best chance to get through to them, through fire, more fire, and even more fire. Falling, Bonfire tried to ignite. Just a spark. Just a tiny spark and he’d be fine. It took a try or two, but right before he would’ve crashed, his arms finally caught fire. And together with them, the rest of his body, leaving a bit of a burn mark at the walls close to him. He was fine however, fire didn’t care about things like falling damage.  And now it was time to heat up the situation.

 

Edited May 11, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Cut Throat was a large man and exposed. He did not look in a good mood, thanks to being stabbed in the back (metaphorically by Marie, and ironically given his gang) and now dodging falling debris. 

 

Credit to the man though, he did not falter or wobble, despite the horrible disaster that was the theatre around him. 

 

"Damn the lot of you! All in cahoots!" he shouted, and drew back his arm that had acquired another knife in its hand. Now Bonfire was near, he could see that the huge gang leader had a number of scars on his fat muscular body. And hand over a dozen knives at his belt. 

 

At the last moment, Bonfire transmogrified to furious flame. The knife passed harmlessly through him and stuck, juddering, in the ground level door. 

 

[olopi]

Okay, heat ... calibrated. Flames ready and it was time to burn. Thanks to the fall Cass had been removed a fair distance from the action, but with a skill-set like his that wasn’t really a bad thing. He preferred being outside the line of fire, and create his own one instead. But for now ….

 

Everybody was standing apart. Couldn’t hit all of them with the same attack. And just hitting one would mean that somebody else would start fighting him too. Essentially, everybody was fighting everybody, and just attacking one person is a bad thing to do in situations like those. You gotta hit everybody, or nobody. Usually, Cass tried to keep his fireballs fairly controlled. Avoids collateral damage and makes them easier to control. Probably not what was called for in this case.

 

There was one thing… He’d never done it in a combat situation before, and it would lead to quite a lot of destruction around him. Then again, the entire place had just been flooded with collant gas, and multiple people were destroying the area too. No need to hold back in a situation like that. It was sort of like shaping smoke, what he usually did. But with fire. A lot more difficult to control, a lot more explosive. Just create a small bubble, and make it burst. Focus, then let it go. Next to Green, for added effect.

 

And then, kaboom. Fire covering the entire area the others had been fighting around. This was it, this was power. No need to hold back in a place like this, just pure power.

 

Edited May 12, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Fire swirled like a tornado up and down the stairwell, caught in a powerful vortex. Steel melted and bent, and more stairways collapsed until there was barely anything left to walk on. 

 

Marie came tumbling down, her body armour on fire, and slammed to the ground with a whimper. 

 

"Got ya!" yelled Cut-Throat, who was looking red and inflamed but not burnt. His hair singed. 

 

Cut-Throat was big and fat, but still limber enough to jump down to the ground floor without harm, and draw another of his knives. 

 

"This is how I got my name!" he sneered, and with all his power, he slammed the knife into her chest, through her armoured environmental suit. Marie gasped, coughing blood, and passed out from shock. Cut-Throat grinned a grin of victory. 

 

"Stay back, Smokehead!" he warned Bonfire. "This lady has it coming. Nobody gonna miss a terrorist!"

 

Green, largely unharmed by the blast, gave a barely heard chuckle, and ducked through the highest door of the stairway, into the reactor room. 

[olopi]

Oh sh---

 

This hadn’t been the plan at all. No, this was really bad. This was really, really bad. Sure, marie was a terrorist and all that, but still. This wasn’t what Cass had planned for. And obviously Green had to be completely fine too. All of this was just a huge downward spiral, and Cass wasn’t sure through how many low-points he’d smacked through head first at this point.  Cut-Throat was dangerous. Really, really dangerous. And had possibly just killed Marie. And it was Bonfire’s fault in more than just one way.

 

It was a mix of anger, panic and fear that went through Cassidy Bauer’s mind. He was angry, really angry. He’d been before, and this most recent development had only made that worse. But also he was afraid. Of everything. People dying. Cut-Throat and his knives. The reactor. Green. Anything else Green had planned, there had to be more. Just, everything. If there’d ever be a moment to simply turn tail and run, it’d be this one. But that wasn’t who Bonfire was trying to be. No running, not while people were still in trouble. Maybe Marie wasn’t quite dead yet. Sure, they had been fighting , but Bonfire did not want her to die. Cut-Throat, by now that one was a bit foggy. Death, no, but that was about the only thing there. There was no time to hold back. Just time to fire, fire, and burn. The quicker the better. Any more attacks and Marie would be dead for sure. And Green was still planning something. And had a lot of time now, while the fight down here would be happening. 

 

No time to talk. No time for witty comments. No time for moving. Fireballs. The flame that was Bonfire did not move, yet many fireballs shot out from it. Those were needed. And they were not allowed to miss.

 

The first shot did. The second one too. But then Cass finally regained some of his focus, and the other shots didn’t miss. They didn’t miss at all. Straight hits. All of them. Cut-Throat wouldn’t be getting up from this one. Hopefully.

 

Edited May 19, 2016 by olopi

[Supercape]

GM

 

Indeed he would not. 

 

With a splutter of smoke, with a flurry of fire, Cut Throat was thrown back, gasping and in shock. He was clearly, as they said, a tough guy. He even stayed on his feet for a few seconds, before keeling over backwards, out could. 

 

There was a tinkle, as the knife he had held slipped from numb hands to the floor, and came to a juddering halt on the hot floor. 

 

Despite, or perhaps because, of the firestorm Bonfire had unleashed, there was still an unpleasant twang of heat in the air. Something dry, something that prickled. The kind of heat Bonfire was now so aware could come from an overheating reactor. 

 

Something hot, right above him, on the top floor of Neutron Industries...

[olopi]

Immediate problem dealt with. Slightly less immediate problem, even if only ba a few seconds? About to go up. Nuclear blast. Another one. Cass really wished he’d have to money to actually afford hospital treatment right about now.

And then there was the issue of the now 2 people lying here out cold and possibly dying. FireForm meant no interacting with a phone, or anything to notify emergency services, for a few hours. No way of contacting them the traditional way. There was one way however. Simply cause so much destruction somebody seeing I would call. And that was probably the only option left.

But at the same time, Green was left alone to do his thing. And that might even have been the worse option. The reactor was already overloading, but Green probably had some plan to make it worse. And worse probably meant taking down the building, and the surrounding ones too.

But if emergency services would be called now, they would maybe still arrive in time to save somebody. Possibly Bonfire too, he wasn’t really in fighting condition anymore. But that didn’t matter now, there wasn’t really a choice. First action first, cause a big enough explosion on the outside of the building. Loud, bright, and visible. Easy enough, that was what Bonfire was good at. And then, he’d just have to fly up to Green, invisible, with all this heat maybe the IR would have less of an effect. It was worth a shot.

So, Cass quickly focused his thoughts back into doing something practical, and unleashed another blast of fire, this time focusing on making it look spectacular on the outside of the building, and also having a loud noise with it. Maybe somebody would notice it. And then, he rose upwards, revealing himself behind smoke while ascending. It was time to end this.