The War on Peace [Open Event]

[Aleph]

| α |
| INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT |

MAVU, during its prime as a borderline monopoly, had established a cohesive network of access tunnels throughout the entire expanse of the city. Subterranean, accessed through facial recognition software, and wide enough to accomodate a vehicle in some instances, the intent of creating the underground system was to streamline the efficiency of workers by allowing them to travel free of traffic obstructions and, as a result, report to worksites faster.

That was a lie. The tunnels were constructed for the movement of extremely sensitive company projects and information, preventing any criminals from attacking convoys during transport and creating an additional layer of security. Once MAVU began to expand its research sites across the country and, eventually, the world, the system began to slowly decrease in its use; maintenance was slowly withdrawn, and the "burrows", as high-level research staff commonly called them, began to grow old and dilapidated with neglect.

This had all happened years ago, before Meier's or any other Praeceps member's time in MAVU; she'd been clued into their existence, however, by Veigneur, who had in turn been told by Vanderhaal. Fitting that she was using information Gamma gave her to save his life.

The walk from Opulence to the Industrial District was not overtly long, given that the two sectors were nearly adjacent to one another; the tunnel system had truly shown its age as Shira walked through the abandoned complex, various rusted pieces of equipment and machinery littering the walls as small pieces of refuse lay stuck to the ground in pools of stagnant, browned water. The occasional drip, drip sounded in the far distance, though she never truly saw the droplets of water that fell from the ceiling to make such a noise. Every so often, the lights above her would flicker, and Meier would constantly have to re-activate the lighting of each new sector she entered, seeing as the place hadn't been used in months, if not years.

The quiet run gave her time to mull over the news feeds, her anger strengthening with each new headline that appeared on the edges of her IRIS-capable ballistic goggles. Detroit subject to unprecedented terrorist attack. Hundreds dead, if not thousands. A small, nearly inaudible notification tone. Government officials and citizens evacuated as supercity transforms into war-zone. Opulence helicopter burns up in flames, appearance by Alpha in broadcast suggests Pack's involvement in terrorist plot.

One particular article, however, made her want to punch a hole in the concrete wall beside her. Shira spared herself the pain, however, and barely resisted the urge to lash out, noting how much her aggression had truly heightened. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully examined the photograph included in the piece, noting the face's familiarity.

Mayor and other officials dead in City Hall as terrorist kills, beheads— Pack claims responsibility.

Accessing the communications system within her lenses, Aleph sent out a message to Hudson— wherever he was— with the image of Zithuele attached. A message would arrive a second later, dictated by Shira herself.

"Delta's engaged with the Alpha. I'm on my way to the water treatment plant. They have Gamma. Go after the one in City Hall. Stay safe. We're putting these assholes down."

The tracker upon her phone was getting close, now; she suspected that she was close to the treatment plant, now, if not directly next to it. The soft beeping of the device grew more and more rapid with each step; realizing that this was the final calm before the storm, the operative patched into comms with Delta, hearing the the grainy sounds of gunshots and melee fighting.

"Status?"

"Working on it."

She deactivated the line. All she needed to hear was his voice to know that he was still alive.

Eventually, Aleph came upon a barred entrance marked with the generic, brass title of DETROIT WATER TREATMENT FACILITY— LOWER LEVEL. A simple push upward and pull outward was able to grant access to the handle, with Meier having to shoulder the entryway open from the amount of deterioration upon the hinges and frame. The metal door scraped upon the concrete ground, revealing a small hallway with yet another entrance at the end of it— though the material was wood instead of reinforced steel. Meier activated the infrared-hybrid overlay upon her IRIS lenses as she approached, viewing to signatures on the other side of the doorway. One which appeared to be in the corner, and one which was sitting.

Shira moved into a sprint and slammed her boot into the space below the door's handle, smashing its bolt off of the body and swinging it open. The breach was accompanied by Aleph's own movement into the basement, a series of incandescent bar lights illuminating a grimy, squalor-laden room. An unidentified civilian sat cowering in the corner, and in the center of the room was him— Jean Gravesend. She'd barely had any contact with him outside of a conversation with Veigneur about how much of a pervert he was.

As much as she would have loved to put a crater in his chest with the shotgun she was aiming at him, the doctor knew where Henri was. Had done things to him, things Shira did not want to think about. The operative made a note to make his death painful when this was all over.

"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM. MAKE A MOVE AND I SHOOT." Aleph spat, giving a glance to the hostage in the corner of the room. It wasn't Veigneur, so that begged the question of where he truly was.

"WHERE IS BISSET?"

[Reyn]

A woman entered the room, knocking down the door with enough sudden force to make the doctor flinch in his place. Nevertheless, he regarded his new visitor with a placid smile, crossing his legs over each other and leaning back in the chair so heavily that it nearly collapsed. To him, she wasn't remotely familiar, but he had been told to expect things like this. 'You're Doctor Jean Gravesend.', he was told. 'There will be people trying to kill you, and they have damn good reason for it.'. He was well-adjusted to people making attempts on his life so, when she brought the gun to his head, he seemed rather nonplussed.

Slowly, he brought his hands up, though it was clearly not a move of surrender. The man had lost any fear of death he once had, that much was clear, and the unfaltering smile on his face would be a sight so sickeningly familiar to anyone who had experienced the pleasure of interacting with Jean before. He glanced over to the hostage who, for a moment, seemed to be smiling a little herself at the idea that someone had come to help her... but, as soon as the doctor's eyes met hers, that smile began to falter.

"Oh, you might not want to do that, miss..." He smirked, making a small gesture to the girl cowering in the corner of the room, "Our dear friend over there is rather... suggestible when it comes to my command. All I have to do is say the word, and she'll drive that knife so far into her throat that it'll come out the other side."

Just one look at the girl would be enough to show that he wasn't lying. She had already cut into her skin, slashing her chest, legs, and exposing the raw flesh underneath. To say that it looked painful was an understatement, and the shivering, glassy-eyed expression on her face could only confirm that. She shook her head weakly, trying to signal to the visitor not to kill the madman on the chair, but her pleading was cut short by that very same man.

"Bisset~?" He laughed, "Bisset's dead."

[Delta]

'Opulence' Region of Detroit, Michigan.
This is the end.
Operative(s) Engaged: Quentin Richmond [CALLSIGN: DELTA].
Good luck, Shira.

δ

"This is almost boring, Delta."

Bitch.

The Alpha advanced, near-silent footfalls picked up by Richmond's enhanced auditory capabilities as the Praeceps operator holstered the pistol upon his hip. Another side-effect of the affliction, he'd surmised. The first time he realized he had enhanced hearing was on his way to the Venice airport, when a car horn nearly made him deaf in one ear after he'd cut somebody off in traffic. Admittedly, it wasn't his fault that Italians didn't know how to fuckin' drive.

"Because I know how this fight ends. Not in your death, no. But in a few moments, I'm going to shove this sword through your chest and kick you off the side of this building."

Delta raised his hands in anticipation of an attack. His focus was broken, however, with the onset of a dull pain in his chest that turned sharp, his sternum cracking back into place and healing. FUCK. Even his ability to suppress pain couldn't contain the fire that raged in his torso and radiated outwards, threatening to steal the breath from his lungs as twisting, crimson vines began to crack out from the rooftop and bind into one another.

It's almost time, time for the inevitable to begin, the operative thought to himself as he stilled his breath and pondered the words Lucia had said to him. There would not be death, there would be change— and that particular thought brought a semblance of comfort to him. After all his years training, after so much of his life spent letting go of his mortality, death still scared him. He could never get over that. Not without an assurance of rebirth.

And he would be reborn, wouldn't he? Into something that was beyond human.

Perfection.

Richmond's body released its tension. The Alpha went for his neck and he moved toward the blade, letting its edge strike deep into his neck as he moved to grip her arm and arrest its movement, stopping the sword from completely decapitating. Crimson ran down his throat as the edge cut through his jugular, a bloodied smile creeping across Delta's face as he let out a choked, blood-gurgling chuckle. With his free hand, Quentin moved to pull Lucia closer as his mouth opened.

In an animalistic display, Richmond moved to dig his sharpened, blackened fangs into the Alpha's shoulder and tear out a chunk of flesh, bringing a knee to her in the gut in the process before shoving her away, hoping to cause even more pain with the sensation of teeth as sharp as knives being dragged over her collarbone. The unorthodox move was a final bit of a fuck you before the inevitable occurred.

"Do it, then, you bitch. There's always a chance, isn't there, Lucia? That's what I operate on. The thin margin."

[Panacea]

Π

Do not call me 'petite fille'.

The Panacea let out another chuckle, corrosive tar dripping from its teeth and splattering through burnt holes onto the bare concrete. The cackling persisted until it faded into a dull, momentary silence, the unblinking orange ember trained upon the girl's vibrant eyes as if he were set into a trance.

"There are quite a lot more names I can call you by, fragile oiseau. We will be here for hours if we were to go through all of them." The creature growled, another low-pitched chuckle escaping through the tarnished hood. Initially, the remainder of the commands were issed without comment; he knew quite well that there was no escape— at least, not yet. So it sat there, a smile wrought upon it twisted visage, the words entering and settling within its mind. Inescapable. It would kill whatever leader it was commanded to. It would not move. Sadly, it was unable to bring harm to this stupid, insufferable child whose only advantage was a genetically acquired trait—

Satisfy that bloodlust of yours.

It let out a snarl at this command. A haze began to settle over its mind, blocking out other stimuli as it quite literally saw red. Vision began to move out of the spectrum of visual light and more towards infrared, the girl turning into a mottled, dehumanized mass of crimson and yellow. Much better suited to hunting. A whine settled over its ears as hearing increased in acuity, the rest of the commands received, internalized, but not acknowledged.

Satiate. Kill. Consume. Like an animal kept in a trap, the Panacea writhed, its skin vibrating like a disturbed fluid as it tried to dispel and reform its mass— but it could not even do that, due to a command issued by the girl not a day earlier, which only served to increase its anger and bloodlust.

Do you understand?

The creature let out a low growl in response, its gaze fixed upon the slab of meat that had spoken words to it. No killing this one. Not yet. Listen to it. It did not like having to restrain itself, but it was physically unable to harm this prey, so it would wait. Wait. It would wait for the time to strike, once its inhibitions had been scattered. Once the lock had been released open its mind.

Lead the way.

The Panacea stood up quickly, an animalistic huff escaping its mouth as it looked around, settling its gaze upon the girl. Whatever humanity that remained in its orange eyes had disappeared, replaced with the look of something inhuman.

"Feel... lucky... you are... in control, small thing." It growled out, darting to the doorway and smashing out into the main portion of the shop they were kept within. People were already lobbying, rallying outside the storefront, but the Panacea only viewed food, a means to an end to satiate its hunger. A force that could never be fully contained.

And that was the girl's mistake in her command. The bloodlust that the beast possessed was incapable of satisfaction, and it would kill until there was nothing left to consume. Within a second, the creature became a blur, shattering through glass panes and pouncing two civilians that were close to the entryway of the shop; with an ear-splitting roar, it tore into one's face and ripped the head clean from its shoulders, two tendrils shooting from its back and pinning the other victim in place while the Panacea fed. Blood, viscera flew into the air as panicked onlookers screamed at the sight of the thing, fleeing in all directions to escape the rabid animal that had appeared.

[Meshindi]

| β |
| DETROIT | COMMERCE DISTRICT |

Darkness gave way to light, the clouded sun that shone over a frozen detroit begnning to expand from a singularity within the center of his vision. All Meshindi could bear to think about was the woman, trapped underneath the water as her hair danced in the current under the crepuscular light. The bubbles that slowly ran from her mouth until the breath stilled, nonexistent, the life having drained from her body. Her child, too, wrapped under the tide of the river without a chance.

Slowly, feeling returned to his body. There was the vague sensation of being pulled, cold water rushing over his face and chest as he was dragged towards shore. His eyes closed, a shiver coursing through Meshindi as he felt his back and shoulders scrape upon rocks. A shock followed— the pain it brought was enough to open the operative's eyes with a snap, a brutal cough escaping his lips as water was forcefully expelled from his throat and lungs. A hand shot to his chest. Slowly, his gaze drifted to the voice that had just spoken to him. A familiar visage, metal, obscured, met his line of sight. The same person who'd been atop Site Washington. Of course, she might not have known him, but the thought of having his identity compromised was non-existent. Bigger fish to fry, and whoever this unknown person was, they'd just saved his life.

A feminine voice provided details about each Pack member's location, where applicable. The stream of data through Hudson's internal communicator was enough to corroborate the woman's claims, resulting in a simple nod from the operative. A message streamed in not a moment later— Shira. Voice message. He let it play in his head, listening to both parties as he moved to get up the bank and towards the street a ways up the hill. They were on the Detroit side, thankfully, which meant he could get right to work on whatever the hell was happening to this city.

"I've got one person working on the Alpha herself right now, and I've got another en-route to the treatment plant. According to news reports, there's a terrorist holed up in City Hall, which is..."

They were on Ambassador Bridge, which meant—

"A ways over there. Very close. We could head him off before he leaves." Beta said, pointing to the right over the crest. He looked back to the unnamed hero before moving up the rest of the bank, the cold biting at his uncovered metal plating.

"You're welcome to join me. That's who I'm going for."

He had a score to settle, after all.

"You got a name, and anything that can get us there faster?"

[Aleph]

| α |
| INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT |

Bisset?

A pause. A laugh. These monsters found comedy, some sick pleasure in doing this, in driving others insane. She wouldn't let them have the satisfaction. She would not be broken. Meier had gone through hell and back just to kill the sadistic bitch at the head of this attack, and she would not be returning empty-handed.

Bisset's dead.

Aleph's finger pressed upon the slim curve of the trigger, her gaze hardening. No. The gun did not fire. Not yet. A simple twitch would suffice, but she would not grant death to Gravesend.

"How fast do you think you'll be in getting the command out before I blow your head off?" Shira asked, her grip tightening upon the foregrip and handle of the M1014. Her gaze turned into an unblinking stare, a look of malice creeping over her face.

"The answer is 'not fast enough'. Stand up. Slowly. You say a word, I kill you. You try any sudden movements, I kill you."

Aleph took a step forward, looking to the woman in the corner of the room. Her gaze softened momentarily.

"Everything will be alright. I promise. Try to resist."

If you can. The operative's gaze snapped back to Jean, her eyes burning bright with malice.

"I won't ask again. WHERE IS HE?"

[illirica]

Field

Detroit, Michigan. Event Clock 00:15

There was some sort of buddy channel. Keith was running confirmations, accessing information from somewhere. Truthfully, Teja had expected him to have some sort of external communications device for that, but she supposed if the man had metal plating throughout his body, it would follow that he had some sort of built-in communicator as well. Teja didn't know how she felt about that - she preferred to keep body modification to an absolute minimum.

Of course, it could be stated that her entire ability was 'body modification,' in a sense, but it wasn't the sense of sticking wires into herself. Some lines, she just didn't want to cross. To each his own, though, and she supposed if Keith was getting information from somewhere, it was better than not having information at all.

It occurred to her that she could probably locate the device, and possibly even figure out the frequency it was using, but that also seemed like a line she didn't want to cross. Keith was an ally, and she'd rather keep it that way. Him, and the rest of his... unit. Whoever they were. Levy, she suspected, but he'd mentioned a third individual. She pulled a street map of City Hall at his recommendation. Not too far away, probably the closest place to their location. The river... she didn't think she could do anything else about the river, not at this point. Between the explosions and the water and the freezing temperatures, this situation had moved from saving people to retrieving bodies - and the latter wasn't something that she was directly needed for, nor was it time critical.

"City Hall works. There isn't much more I can do here." The statement was true, but she still regretted it. Professionals - paramedics and the like - would be arriving on scene shortly, and they could take over with what needed to be done here. Provided they weren't all under the influence of Alpha's concoction already... That was a sobering thought. This place could just as easily turn into a battlefield.

Even if it did, she couldn't really stop that unless she started killing people indiscriminately, which wasn't exactly the tactic she wanted to be using either. The best thing to do right now was to stop Alpha and her Pack, and then sort out the messy business with the citizens of Detroit. "I'm operating under 'Recurrent.' It works. Now and then." Whether he'd know her actual name based on that information or not wasn't something that mattered, particularly. Not right now, anyway. They were hardly about to sit down and discuss familiar faces.

Another time, perhaps. Teja stared at the man in front of her for a moment, analyzing. "I could run a current through the metal in your system and adapt a series of magnetic field effects to propel you," she stated, which was what she'd done to get him out of the water in the first place - though if she were going to do it again, she felt like she ought to ask permission. "I don't know how comfortable that would be or how much acceleration your system can take. Do you have inertial compensation built in there somewhere?" Theoretically, she could accelerate him easily past the speed of sound, it was just a simple engineering problem of creating a large-scale coil-gun and using a person as the projectile. It was the same way she propelled herself, it was just that she did have inertial compensators, and even she wasn't willing to go quite that fast unless it was a straight shot and she was really committed.

And these days, Pendragon's little slip portals made that more or less unnecessary. Another feat of engineering rendered unnecessary by new inventions. A bit of a shame, really, in some ways - but on the other hand, if not for that, she wouldn't have been able to be on scene here as quickly as she had, and more people would probably be dead. Including David Keith - who, it seemed, was not precisely what she had thought he was. "And is there something you and your team prefer to be addressed by? I get the feeling this is beyond the scope of your general office job."

That, or MAVU's offices were a lot more interesting than most of them were.

[Reyn]

The doctor shook his head calmly, though the twitch at the trigger made him flinch ever so slightly. He smiled again, letting out another low chuckle, before leaning forwards in the chair and staring directly at the visitor.

"Ah, if I'm not allowed to speak, then how will I be able to answer your questions?" He asked, "As horrible as it must be to hear my voice, I'm sure you'll find me a lot more useful if I'm permitted to talk..."

Still, he obliged. Slowly, and with as much strain as one would expect from a man as sickly as Jean, he stood up from the chair and, with a sharp push of his ankle, kicked it to the back of the room, the creak of the rusty wheels screaming like the damned as it echoed throughout the room. His posture was relaxed as if by habit; so smug, as he always was, in a way that most found utterly infuriating. Jean didn't care if he was shot. Either way, he was certain he had won.

"As for Bisset's location..." He continued, "I'm afraid I simply can't tell. I don't know where the bastard died, in all honesty. Why don't you go on a little treasure hunt, hm? Scout around the city for a bit, trying to avoid the carnage as you look for him... doesn't that sound like fun?"

The girl grimaced at the suggestion, turning her attention to the woman with a gun.

"Please..." She whispered, "Please hurt him..."

[Meshindi]

| β |
| DETROIT | COMMERCE DISTRICT |

There isn't much more I could do here.

Meshindi pushed the guilt down into the recesses of his mind. There wasn't time for remorse.

"You did what you could. So did I."

People die, he felt like saying, but it was impossible for him to shove aside empathy at the moment. Whether he liked it or not, he was shaken up from the bridge, and he didn't know how long it would take to recover from the events that had just transpired. All he knew is that the people responsible were still at large— namely, Zithuele. Which meant that there was an outlet to direct his anger and determination towards. The longer he spent focusing on retribution, the longer psychological issues would take to surface, which meant that they would fade away into the subconscious. They always did. It was easier than dealing with emotion outright.

The name Recurrent earned a chuckle from Keith. He'd heard the name once before, mentioned by Levy after the events of the Life Expo had concluded in Solar City. The operative looked back, a small smirk on his face before glancing skyward. The dots began to connect.

"So, you're the one that Chaya told me about. Good to work with you, Recurrent." Hudson stated, letting a small exhale out before turning his attention back to the woman beside him.

"I have hydraulic braces that'll protect the important parts. Just toss me through the roof. Better element of surprise that way, and... well, MAVU can pay for the damages."

Jonathan neglected to mention that his skin might be torn off depending on the speed he was propelled at, but that wasn't important in the moment. He looked skyward again, then back to Recurrent for a moment before resuming his glance towards the air.

"You can call us MAVU, because that's what we are. Nothing else to know about."

Last thing he needed was the name Praeceps ending up on a database somewhere. Absolutely not.

"You can call me Meshindi, though."

[illirica]

Induction

"Meshindi." She gave him a nod, of acceptance or introduction. She didn't for a minute believe that nothing else to know about, but she let it slide. As she'd noted, it really wasn't the time for that. Apparently this Meshindi thought he could handle both high velocity motion and being dropped through City Hall's roof.

Definitely not just an office type. She gave him a little nod of acknowledgement, pulling trajectory maps into her HUD and running a few quick equations. The easiest way, if he was capable of handling it, would be just to take him in tandem and use the same field generation for both of them. She'd have to make sure they didn't crash into each other, which made the math a little more challenging.

"I'll blow the roof out before I drop you through it. Should be able to get the timing and spare you a little trouble." As long as MAVU was already planning to cover damages and Meshindi was already planning to destroy the roof anyway... Teja had always tried to keep destruction levels to a minimum - it had been a requirement. She was not going to admit that she was rather amused at the idea of blowing a hole in something. It was the engineer in her, she knew. The same engineer that was currently running calculations.

It's doable. Physics was easy, relatively speaking. It was all just calculations - finding the right value to satisfy the right conditions. It was much easier than events like this, where she had to think about what Alpha might be up to, and what her next move was going to be, and what her subordinates were capable of. None of that fit neatly into equations.

Some of it fit pretty well into the idea of blowing a hole in something, though. "All right. We're going. Last chance to back out." He didn't, though, so she hit him with an electric charge, pushing it into the metal plating and twisting it into a circuit, forming a magnet that she could grab onto, and doing the same with her Valence Shell, with a slightly different amount of charge and frequency to account for differences in mass and intended velocity and inertia and this being, possibly, one of those engineering problems that was better off done in a textbook and not in Detroit.

A bit late for that last one. Teja pulled her neutral-oriented field back in, and then recreated it at a distance, instantly feeling it pull her towards it. The field should affect Meshindi the same way, so she focused on awareness and letting her drones filter positioning information towards her, in case she needed to correct her calculations. The first field dropped, with a slight lurch, as she tossed out a second one to pull them closer to the right position - one after another, until she was above city hall and shifted the charge in her power suit to hold, then charged the conversion cannon in the suit's palm to launch a blast of pure kinetic energy into the roof of the building, dropping the field that was pulling Meshindi into position and letting gravity take over and do the rest.

She gave it a count of three, then dropped herself down as well, altering her trajectory just slightly so she'd land near him, but hopefully not on top of him. Her scans lit up the area, feeding in information as she tried to sort out what the next objective was.