Aberrant: 200X - One Minute Closer To Midnight

[Bombshell]

Friday, 13 August 2010

"Aaaaand... Cut! That's a wrap people. Amazing job, J-Babe, as always. Almost too hot for N!BO, just the way we like it." The wiry, bespectacled man in the director's chair jumped to his feet and began pacing vigorously, working out the effects from watching that scene, his smile wide. "Einherjar, aah, the blond god to Jason's blond goddess. All of us here on Valkyrie thank-you for your participation these last few episodes. Hope we can get you again next season. You two have stunning chemistry."

Jason broke the kiss with her co-star and took a step away as Jill, one of the production assistants came up with a robe to cover her nakedness, somehow emphasized by the artful splashes of fake blood - coloured corn syrup. It had taken her a while to get used to appearing naked in front of a group of people, even ones who were less than strangers, some she even called friend. She smiled wryly, the Playboy photoshoot had helped. It had taken the production crew longer to stay professional when she was nude in front of them. Someone who looked like her couldn't help but have an effect on anyone who laid eyes on her. Jason sighed as she heard the heavy breathing resume, the groans and pants, as several people rushed to the bathrooms to check the damage caused from viewing the final scene.

Jason handed Jill the heavy sword in her hand with a thankful smile, which the smaller woman handled with both hands, then arched a brow at Einherjar next to her as she surveyed the set. It looked like a longhouse, rustic and primitive, some of the set pieces on fire, which were being put out. The dirt floor was strewn with the 'bodies' of Trollkin warriors, who were beginning to get up, trading words with the Novas who had 'slain' them, and grateful to get to make-up to get the costumes off.

"Careful with your sword there, eh? And I don't mean the one in your hand, Ein," Jason said softly, somewhere between amused and annoyed. Her velvety soprano was sweeter and smoother than honey, faintly accented, and every bit as devastating as her ineffable physical beauty.

"Sorry Jason, but it's an autonomic response to a woman as attractive as yourself. It's beyond my control." The tall, powerful man's smile was wry. "No hard feelings... um, as it were. Do want to go for dinner again, tonight?"

"No worries, I know what it's like." Jason gave a small, silvery chuckle - not a giggle - and inhaled, causing the robe to gape wide. There were more groans and a couple of curses from the production crew, though they faded in the face of Jason's smile. "Can't today, Ein. I'm meeting some other friends, then heading back to Calgary to spend some time with Danielle. Raincheck?"

"Sure, sure, Jason. I greatly enjoyed my stint on Valkyrie. Until next time. " He took her hand and kissed her knuckles, though he knew it annoyed her, than gave her a firm handshake. Despite how much he would have enjoyed something more between them, he was a professional, and knew Jason was a firm lesbian, besides being quite attached to the similar looking woman called Knockout.

Jason wiped the scowl from her face with a small grin and gave Ein a nod, flicking her silver mane of hair over a shoulder and turning to everyone else. "Later guys, see you in two weeks." The heavy breasted, amazonian goddess glided through the set towards her dressing room, trading words and farewells with the rest of the crew and cast.

In her dressing room, the soft robe fell from her shoulders as she eyed herself in the mirror dominating one wall, cupping her impressive endowments in her hands. After a year and a half, the woman in the mirror was fully familiar, her body and appearance completely natural to her. It was even embraced - she loved her tits, her legs, and everything between. It didn't stop her from growing aroused at the sight. She could count the number of women in the world who could compete with her attractiveness on one hand, and her beauty affected her as well, if not to the degree as everyone else. She struck several more poses, then snorted.

She took a quick shower, washing off the tinted corn syrup then got dressed. Her underwear may have been a bit racy, but she could admit she liked seeing herself in it and Dani certainly didn't mind. Over that, she pulled on a pair of snug, stone-washed jeans and a tight, blue shirt that revealed a band on trim, tiny waist. The writing on the shirt, distorted by spectacular curvature, said, 'Certified Whack-Off Material'. Self-deprecating and/or egotistical and/or crass slogans on plain shirts had sort of become a trademark of hers. Much to the dismay of some fashionistas. She pulled her waist-length silver hair - that shimmered beyond anything in a hair-care commercial - into a high ponytail, secured it with her eufiber, which currently was formed as a glossy, obsidian band, grabbed her Ray-bans and purs- handbag, then headed out of the extensive production lot.

She got in her Dodge Ram HC and drove up to Whistler - she had bought one of the luxury penthouses that had been converted from the Olympic Village, since most of her movies and TV shows were produced in BC or on the West Coast. Plus, it was closer to Calgary and Danielle, than her house in Ottawa. Instead of heading straight home though, Jason stopped at The Keg, steakhouse, where she was to met up with Kat and Ryu. She was a regular, as well as a nova, a well known one, and beyond attractive - the manager himself came out and led her to her usual table on the upper deck patio.

Jason signed a few photographs before asking for a bit of privacy. She sat down, crossing her legs with an unconscious sensuality, then turned to the attentive waitress, ordering a milkshake. While waiting for her friends to show up, she watched the World Cup displayed on the UHD-TVs and glanced at the news on her N!Dition Blackberry.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

Ryusei smiled as he waited for Katya to finish getting ready. She'd gotten spoiled to his instant transportation powers. "Honestly, even with my powers, we still almost run late now."

He sighed. It had been like this, but he didn't mind. He had Katya after all and that was really what was important to him.

They were going to visit Jason today, Ryusei couldn't help but blush abit thinking about last time, Right after Katya'd presented him with an autographed copy of Jason's Playboy spread.

She loved to tease him horribly, and he was sure most of the incidents between him and Jason had been masterminded by her. He'd gotten better, mostly through constant exposure, and wasn't beyond turning the tables on Katya when he could.

"Come on, we're gonna be late."

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

Ryusei heard Katya's teasing laughter drifting from her bedroon, down the hall of her new condo in Toronto. Her and her mother, Anya, had moved to Toronto for the greater possibilities it granted to their new accounting firm, and had bought condo across the hall from each other. Their lives had changed greatly, but they were still very close.

Katya strode into the main room, silvery-grey eyes sparkling, her heels barely making a sound on the hardwood due to her graceful stride. She was dressed business casual chic - eufiber forming a close-fitting, knee-length, sleeveless dress of silvery-grey silk, set off with a vivid blue sash.

Reaching her boyfriend, she tilted her head up slightly and gave Ryusei a deep kiss, and he could feel the amusement in the curve of her lips. "Relax, Ryu, we have plenty of time, despite you distracting me."

A teasing dimple appeared, threatening another round of 'distractions'. "I can't imagine why you're so anxious to see Jason again. I bet you just want her to demonstrate page thirty-two, don't you? The Catholic School Girl outfit is a timeless classic - even more impressive that for two months, she really was a Catholic School Girl."

Before he could protest - or admit it - she twined her fingers with his and gestured vaguely in the air with the other. "Come on, do your thing. If you're good, maybe I'll ask her if you can go watch the filming of the next episode of Valkyrie. God knows, ever since that episode five weeks back with the Rhinemaidens, they've been looking for any excuse to show her naked. She said she was going to be at The Keg, do you remem-"

Before Katya could finish, she felt the familiar feeling of slight compression that heralded Ryusei's teleportation ability and instantly, they were elsewhere. There were standing on a upper level patio, the mountain air of Whistler cooler than downtown Toronto, but very pleasant.

There arrival caused an excited murmur to rise, and startled one poor waitress into almost dropping her tray of drinks, but the sound wasn't as drastic as some of their other sudden appearances. There for that was quite obvious.

The majority of the attention was directed at the woman sitting at the table in front of Ryusei and Katya. A woman who, in the last year, had taken Hollywood (actually, more often, Vancouver) by storm.

Bombshell. Once upon a time, her boyfriend.

She grinned wryly at him - she should never have had gotten him one of those joke t-shirts, she had only meant to tease him. Now, Jason wore them all the time, just to spite her, she was sure, though somehow, the extravagantly curved woman managed to make even the most casual clothes seem like high fashion. To her mild annoyance, Kat found herself wondering if she should change, but shrugged that thought off. It was bad enough that Jason's 'style' was beginning to spread.

"Jason, how was the set today?"

[Bombshell]

"Kat!" With sensual, impossible grace, Jason flowed to her feet and around the table. Despite themselves, Ryusei and Katya's eyes widened. Even though they met regularly, Jason's incredible beauty, the fantastically long legs, the spectacular bust, every feature beyond perfection, was overwhelming and breathtaking. She gave Kat a big hug, kissing her on either cheek. "Great to see you again."

Ryusei had to settle for a firm, carefully controlled handshake. Despite her sleek, athletically toned limbs, Ryusei had seen her tear an armored car to pieces with her bare hands. He may have only gotten a handshake, but her gorgeous smile was friendly, and by someone who didn't know her, could easily have been taken out of context as promising much more.

"Ryu, you too." An odd edge tinted her smile, and though she was too charming to blush, Ryusei still got the sense that she was. "Hope you liked the mag. After getting over the initial shyness, it was actually pretty fun, I started making a game of it by..." This time, she did blush, as she trailed off without divulging any details, though her sultry, sensual soprano enticed anyone hearing it to imagine those details.

"Anyway, please, sit down." Jason returned to her seat and finished her milked shake, other patrons leaning forward to watch the completely mundane, yet still captivating, action. "Yeah, Valkyrie is going well, two more episodes until the season finale."

She gave Katya an amused glance, her teasing smile almost the exact same as the one Ryusei saw on Kat's face all the time, dimple and all. She looked down and buffed her perfectly manicured nails, which their pale opalescent flawlessness didn't need, then looked at Kat again, her luminous twilight eyes catching Ryusei too. "I totally made out with Einherjar. He was playing Reginleif's lover. We ended up being interrupted in bed by a horde of Trollkin sent by Loki."

Only someone with Nova-class awareness could have noticed the effort it took Jason to say that with such casual nonchalance.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

"Yes, it was greatly appreciated." He was trying not to blush thinking about it, and how for a time Katya'd deliberately waited for him in several of the poses, just to tease him. Any other girl would have probably been mad, but Katya smiled. She'd gone out with Jason beforehand after all.

Besides, Ryusei had gotten better about it...

He chuckled. "I'm glad things are going so well for you." He looks to Katya. "We haven't missed much that you've done, and It's all very impressive."

He smiled. "Katya and Anya are enjoying their new home, and If you haven't made it to Morrocco, you should go. We had the best time there."

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

Katya chuckled, her foot sliding up Ryusei's leg beneath the table. "Ryusei is definitely right, Jase. Modeling and acting suit you very well. If I didn't know better, I'd say you wanted this, boobs and all." She arched a sable brow, er dimpled grin growing wicked, teasing both Ryusei and Jason, then she sighed. "And Einherjar... I can't tell you how many nights I went to bed, dreaming about that gorgeous piece of man meat. And you got you hands on him first, you lucky bitch! You knew he was my freebie."

Katya laughed out loud, reaching across the table to give Jason's hand a squeeze, as she nettle her literal former boyfriend. "Getting curious our we? You'll have to give me all the details over some girltalk latter, Jase. I can just imagine his big, strong hands caressing me..." Unbidden, Jason could suddenly feel a pair of hands, strong and sure, reach around her back and up her front, fondling her breasts.

"Stop it!" Jason growled in irritated, yet sensual, tones, her face bright red, her luscious lips twitching in both annoyance and amusement. The feelings of hands vanished. "God, Kat! You can be such a bitch!"

[Bombshell]

Minion sat huddled in his workshop, surrounded by a hexagonal lattice of steel worktables, the surfaces covering in mechanical and electrical components so cutting edge as to be arcane. The figures long, spidery fingers where a blur as the manipulated and assembled various devices, the silence broken by the hum of incandescent lighting and the lap of waves against the walls. And Minion's mutterings.

"Connect the symphonic resonator to the neutrino fluctuator or the graviton emitter. The symphonic resonator connected to the neutrino fluctuator will cause a premature implosion - maybe an explosion - so... No, no! Not that! Why is the left hand not listening. Do as the right is doing. Yes! This will be done - it was promised - or Minion was promised - unclear. There were promises, they will be kept. Need more hyper-energized plutonium..."

The mutterings continued incessantly, as technological something began to take shape, surrounding the slight figure, colourless hair hanging in lank strands, his movements, both fluid and jerky, almost to quick to see.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

To Jason's eternal gratitude, they navigated away from conversation about her co-star, how little they both were wearing, and who had the most difficulty dealing with seeing the other naked. Talk to turned to what they were up recently, places they've been, asking after family and friends, which for Jason, mostly consisted of Danielle. There were many people who called themselves her friend, but Jason only considered a very few as such.

As Jason began to dig into her dinner, a pair of eighteen ounce steaks her slender waist had no business being able to contain, the talk to turned to business. Katya was her agent after all. She glossed over several photoshoots - swimwear and lingerie, of course, Jason thought, rolling her eyes - then mentioned a part in a live-action version of an anime series, Tenjho Tenge. The part was for a (very) busty, silver-haired woman, a martial arts master in a school of fighters.

Hmmm... maybe. Valkyrie is almost done for the season, and Soul Calibur was fun, even if the critics thought it sucked. First Ivy Valentine, now...what was it? Maya Natsume.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Minion spun in a frenetic circle in the middle of his hexagonal workbench. Six pylons, arched and angular, were spaced equidistantly around him. Between their glowing, red tip, spinning with stately grace, was an icosahedron fashioned of vivid, violet light. Despite the intensity of the light casting a stark shadow across the ground, Minion gave the luminous Platonic Solid no heed.

Instead, Minion was focused on a raised, red circle on the floor, twenty-two and five-eighths inches across. Stenciled across the over-sized button in white was, 'Do Not Push'. Trailing from the button, were six, thick, coiled cables connected to the pylons. Minion skittered around the button, head tilted to nearly ninety degrees, hands pulling at lank hair. Over bright eyes of a too blue blue, the irises thin slivers from massively swollen pupils, stared, fixated upon the button.

"There is a button - it must be pushed. Minion does not want to push it, but it must be pushed - it was promised." The figure's tendons stood out rigidly with the effort of resistance, but inexorably, a spine bent, hands growing closer and closer to the button, head shaking with both denial and affirmation. "It must be done, but it will be the last thing done. Don't want that. Many things left to make and break and make again. Another can do it. Another can do it? No? Yes! No. Yes! No! Boats and rubber duckies!"

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

The three of them finished dinner, the dishes being cleared away and dessert ordered as drinks were refilled. Katya, who knew Jason well, even if she now was the physical embodiment of prurient fantasy, noticed the a seriousness and hesitancy in the set of her shoulders, the way she chewed on a lip before taking a sip of her mocha. Katya eased on the teasing banter, giving Jason the time she needed to say what she wanted to say.

"There's something I wanted to tell you guys," Jason began after taking a deep breath that taxed the limits of her shirt. A hand reached down to her side, holding onto something in her handbag. "I... I think I going to ask-"

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

A revelation went unsaid and a button was pushed.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

With the keenest senses in Whistler, Katya felt a prickle run up her spine and turned around. Her hand began to shake in underneath Ryusei's.

Almost two-hundred kilometers away, devastation not seen since Sao Paolo seven years ago was about to take place. In an instant, the incandescent icosahedron, swelled from two feet across to a translucent d20, more than colossal, kilometers across, encompassing an immense swath of Victoria, BC and an equal amount of harbour and ocean.

For an eternal moment, there was utter stillness, one that no metropolitan environment ever witness, people staring in wonder and fear at the glowing light. Then everything changed.

The glowing twenty-side polyhedron of Jovian proportions collapsed to a pin-prick... and took gravity with, condensing it to a single point in space, a point located in a damp sub-basement, by the harbor. Victoria was hit by the fist of an angry god, one made by man's will and man's science, the city imploding under a force it had always known, but that now played be different rules, and it cared not for what had always been.

Almost two-hundred kilometers away, those standing on the upper patio of The Keg Steakhouse stared at where the upper portion of an angular sphere made of glowing light had once been, been for one long moment before collapsing upon itself. The three Novas didn't know what happened, couldn't know, but knew it portended something momentous, something that had never been seen before, and hopefully never again.

"What.. what was that?" Jason whispered in muted shock, all the charm and grace she had forged with quantum and experience in front of a camera deserting her.

"It's going to be bad. Worst than anyone has ever seen..." Katya whispered just as quietly. Hands that could crumple steel grasped on her former and current boyfriends, seeking a comfort she knew wouldn't come. "If I had to guess, that was the southern portion of Vancouver Island."

Unconsciously, her feet rose from the ground. "Ryusei... open a gate, we're here, we have to do what we can." It wasn't a demand, there was too much pleading it, but it still couldn't be denied. "It won't be enough, not nearly enough."

A circular hole in space tore open, the other side hidden by the dust of a broken city that came wafting through. Three Novas stepped through the portal, into a scene of destruction that dwarfed all the power they could have mustered.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

Ryusei was astonished at the destruction. "We've got to help." He pulled out a phone and was unsuprised to not get any service. "Damn, All the towers are gone."

He surveyed the damage and could smell burning flesh, and the dust was thick in the air. "We need to start searching." Not even caring about the expensive clothing he wore, he dug his hands into a large chunk of concrete, as he heard someone moaning beneath.

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

Katya looked upon the scene of devastation, her face smooth, silvery eyes compassionate, knowing this may well have been a death knell of a city with a metropolitan population of over three-hundred thousand. The three of them stood where the destruction began and looking towards the harbour, Katya could see the broken city rising into a mountain of compacted debris, crushed buildings - crushed bodies - hundreds of meters high. Her sharp senses could feel the despair and pain rising into the air. Start small, there is little we can do for those at the epicenter.

"You and Jason start getting people free and... leave those obvious dead for now. It's the living that need us. I'm going to start clearing an area for triage, the clear the roads as I can so the first responders can get access." Katya turned towards her former boyfriend, the compassion in her eyes deepening as she saw the paleness and vulnerability on the face of the too beautiful woman.

She knew what Jason was seeing. Several years ago, Jason had lost her brother and nearly her mobility and her own life in a car accident, and ever since, the sight of crushed and shattered cars filled her with dread. Despite having been transformed into a woman when she erupted, her incredible physical attributes had prevented Jason from ever feeling helpless or weak. But it wasn't helping her now - the only time Katya had ever seen such an expression of feminine vulnerability on Jason's face, she had just realized she was never going to have a dick again.

Katya glided to the silver-haired amazon's side, her feet drifting just the cracked and creased asphalt. She reached up and placed a consoling hand on the much taller woman's shoulder, exerting her power, easing her distress and fueling her innate stubbornness. "I know how hard this is for you, Jase, I know. Something like this can't even hurt you now, but you can do so much for these people, they need your help, simply seeing you will inspire them."

The exquisite beauty of Jason's face hardened with resolve, indigo eyes flaring incandescently as she nodded. "Thanks, Kat, I needed that." Katya concealed a blush, hearing Jason's excruciatingly lovely voice - as silvery and sultry as she was gorgeous - full of a terrible sadness and steely determination. Jason patted the hand on her shoulder then spun and glided towards the worst of the piled cars to help, a study in effortless, entrancing grace and strength.

Katya watched her go, then turned to her own efforts, sharpened senses leading her towards those she could help as she began clearing space for emergency vehicles and to set up triage. Using her wiles and charm - and a touch of quantum-assisted emotional enhancement - she encouraged those still able to help those who weren't, even if all they could offer was a comforting hand.

There was going to be little enough comfort, for everyone, in the days ahead.

[Bombshell]

The mangled cars looked like they had been dropped from several meters up and more, though gravity had yanked them south instead of down. A painful anxiety radiated from between her breasts, biting harder and harder with each step she took, but Jason was a consummate actress - surprising many, including herself. She wrapped confidence and poise and sympathy around her like a cloak, concealing her distress behind a flawless grace and beauty, both enticing and fierce.

Slender fingers with perfect nails, oval and feminine, plunged through steel and fiberglass like Play-doh, ripping open vehicular tombs with more precision, strength, and ease than any set of Jaws-of-Life. To many she broke free of the wreckage, she appeared to them as a veritable goddess - too powerful, too beautiful to be anything even close to human. More than one man and teenager considered their pain and loss a fair trade for seeing those glorious eyes and smile focused on them, finding themselves in her impossibly strong yet gentle arms, for however brief a time.

Jason was deeply disturbed by one particular incident. She found a boy - a teenager about the age she'd been when she had her accident - in the backseat of a buick, trying to hold his guts in as he bleed excessively from a laceration across his abdomen. His face was deathly pale, eyes too bright, and Jason knew there was nothing she could do for him, other than hold his hand. What frightened her was the look in his eyes, the pain receding from them under a tide of love and lust as he focused on this fantasy of a woman holding his hand in his last moments. Jason had been a boy much like this one once, she knew that look in his eyes, and felt ill that his last thoughts were prurient ones instead of his family, or himself, or how unfair life was.

Jason carried the teen to the area Katya had cleared, and set him gently down, her Eufiber scrunchy slithering around her figure as she ripped off her shit to cover his face. She couldn't bear to see the expression frozen in his eyes and the enraptured smile on his face any longer. Then she went back, breaking more people free. And despite what her former girlfriend had insisted on, she removed the still-living and the dead from the crumbled heaps of cars and trucks and buses - she couldn't leave them there.

Jason, Katya, and Ryusei weren't the only ones doing what they could to help. The sight of the three young, beautiful Novas getting down and dirty, as well as Katya's charming insistence and Jason's mellifluous encouragement, inspired those they rescued and those still capable - and those not so capable - to do their part. An off-duty EMT, one ear hanging from a strip off-flesh, deputized himself some helpers in taking care of the wounded, at least in establishing triage priorities. Others acted as eyes and ears for the Novas, pointing out those buried in rubble.

Bud Holly - never Buddy - was a construction foreman, used to directing large numbers of people around places that usually looked like disaster zones, at least initially. He also couldn't believe Jason 'Bombshell' Bellefleur was right here. He had all her posters and calenders, every magazine she had graced the cover of - especially Playboy - and seen her every Movie and TV appearance. He couldn't think of any woman who was sexier and more gorgeous than her, and that she used to be a man somehow made her even more erotic. He thought he could be of some use in directing their efforts, but he barely built up the nerve to approach the woman of his wildest fantasies.

To Bud's shocked amazement, the incredible Nova woman wasn't in the least arrogant or standoffish, in fact, if anything, her heartrending smile looked grateful to hear his offer. It was a painful effort to remain standing straight when Bombshell raised her silky, melodious soprano to call her friends and the others helping to listen to what he had to say. But under Jason's and the other Novas steady regard, Bud found himself rising to the occasion, sure and confident as he began organizing them into a cohesive whole, working as a team, as well as identifying the most dangerous of the surrounding buildings.

Working together under a solidified direction, their progress increased markedly. Even though both Ryusei and Katya were incredibly strong, they couldn't help but stare at Jason in awe. The dust and blood that stained their clothes didn't seem to dare to dim the Bombshell's shimmering argent mane or mar the luster of her almost luminous skin, and the strength she demonstrated dwarfed theirs, more than twice theirs put together. But even the obvious progress they made appeared infinitesimal when compared to the state of the rest of the city.

The trio of Novas and the citizens had been working for just over ten minutes before news-copters - always the first on the scene somehow - and aircraft from nearby Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt were seen flying overhead. It was over half an hour before emergency vehicles and personnel began arriving.

At about the same time, a shimmering curtain of multi-coloured light appeared, the members of Canada's National Nova Team - Northern Shield (or more derisively, Harper's Heroes) - stepping through. Borealis, the square-jawed, captain of the team was in the lead, of course, followed by Celestar, Justiciar, Alert, Peacekeeper, and Landsdown. Borealis lips quirked in a cocky grin as he saw Jason there, her eufiber outfit straining against her stunning, voluptuous contours.

Jason lips thinned, hiding a frown, as she watched Borealis swagger towards her, his smug smile blatantly directed at her tits. It was slightly uncomfortable - Borealis was a well respected hero and captain of Northern Shield, but he had taken her refusal to join the Team as a personal affront, and her refusal of a more intimate encounter even more so. Take your look, every guy and nearly every girl does, but fuck, be professional about this, please, Jason prayed, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

As if waiting for Northern Shield's arrival, a large window in space opened in mid-air. revealing a very attractive latin woman, her arms outstretched. Stepping ahead of her came two large men - the masked, Mexican strong-man and captain of Team Tomorrow-Americas, Ricardo Montoya-Bernal and the powerfully built gravokinetic Griffin Armstrong, a Canadian that had passed up Northern Shield to join the nascent Team Tomorrow. His dark eyes were sorrowful as he surveyed the damage, the rest of Team Tomorrow filing in behind him and Montoya-Bernal.

Reluctantly, Borealis pulled his luminous gaze from Bombshell's abundant charms and turned towards his counterparts in the global organization. Despite the low-key animosity between the two sanctioned teams, Borealis was a professional, it served everyone and the city of Victoria best if they could work together. Jason's deep sigh of relief nearly yanked his eyes back though, and not only his eyes.

The two team captains exchanged thanks and condolences, then Montoya-Bernal gracefully inclined his head, bowing his head to Borealis' leadership in this circumstance on native soil. Swift and decisive, they made their plans, sending some to investigate the new mountain and epicenter of the destruction - though Jason didn't see how that mattered at the moment - sending most of the others to clear areas for the ever increasing numbers of military and emergency personnel arriving, and the rest remaining here, to expand on the beach-head into the devastation that Ryusei, Katya, and Jason had started.

The three of them were thanked and congratulated for their quick actions to aid the city and citizens, especially Jason, Katya and Ryusei couldn't fail to see. Jason shrugged, smoothly replying that the citizens themselves deserved the credit, for stepping up even when injured and losing so much. The citizens themselves didn't cheer when hearing that - not quite - but shoulders straightened and eyes brightened from the honest compliment.

"Let's get back to work, eh?" Jason asked with an arched brow.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Even as the first scenes of the destroyed city were being filmed, initial television broadcasts and OpNet sites around the world were being interrupted with news reports of the event. Nearly eight-hundred kilometers away, a golden-haired woman, a near twin of the silver-tressed one already standing amidst the remnants of Victoria, was taking a break, trying to call her girlfriend. She quirked an eyebrow after hearing that 'the person you are trying to contact is not available at this time. Please hang up and try your call again,' for the fifth time in a row.

Suddenly, an icon flashed on her OpPhone, indicating one of the sites she subscribed to was broadcasting an emergency message. She tapped the touch-screen, which instantly changed to a shot only seen in movies before, a city destroyed, as if by a colossal giant had scooped the city in its hands and compacted it into a rumpled mountain of destruction.

The panicked voice-over shakily claimed this was a real-time view of Victoria, BC, stating emphatically that this was not done by a nuclear attack, though otherwise, the method used was unknown at this time. As the unseen woman began conjecturing on the numbers of dead and who might have been responsible, Danielle tuned her out, breath catching in her throat.

The scene - shot from a helicopter - was panning over a section of the city were people were beginning to dig themselves out of the debris. The Novas among them were obvious - the two black-haired ones were flying, supporting the upper corners of a listing apartment building. But it was the silver-haired one supporting at the base of the four-story structure, supporting the brunt of the weight who drew her eyes.

Jason's stunning face and figure - a near copy of her own - was unmistakable, even on the small screen of her OpPhone. Danielle could see the anxiety Jason was trying hide in her glowing, indigo eyes, surrounded by destruction and broken cars. The woman known to the world as Knockout barely spared the time to call Conrad, telling him where she was going before she was up in the air and flying towards the Rocky Mountains, straining to go faster than she had ever gone before.

She was a municipal defender, and though Victoria wasn't her city, she couldn't think of one that needed one more than it at the moment. And her girlfriend was there, surrounded by sights that still gave filled her with remembered pain and dread.

The air screamed around her shapely form as she pressed for more speed.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

Ryusei watched the real socialites have their moment for a minute, before returning to his task, moving at speeds few could match. He wasn't as strong or tough, but his speed was far beyond the others. He was an achingly beautiful blur as he brought survivor after survivor to the EMT's.

He didn't bother with the dead, they didn't need him anymore. He brought a young woman and her daughter to the EMT's, and the little girl reached out to grab him, and he stopped, seeming to be there in multiple, but Still Achingly handsome. "Thank you."

He nodded. "You're welcome."

He returned to his tasks, digging deep into his reserves, and stopping only a moment to talk to Katya. "What I'd give to have a battery for quantum of some sort."

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

Katya gave Ryusei an emotionally exhausted smile as she tilted her head up to give her boyfriend a deep kiss. The teasing fingers she ran down his chest nearly made him loose his balance with sensual delight they elicited. It the midst of the loss and pain she couldn't help but see on every face, Katya had no intention of neglecting her own life-affirming desires. She was alive, her boyfriend was alive, and so was her best friend (and former boyfriend), and she refused to feel guilty for that.

"No worries, hon, we'll recharge our batteries later, I promise," Katya purred. "But for now, don't push yourself Ryu. This won't won't be resolved anytime soon." She glanced at the other Novas she could still see, a brow arched condescendingly. "Most of the others seem to expending too much juice to keep up with Montoya-Bernal and Jason, who aren't using anything more than the strength of their arms. Save it, Ryu, we're going to be here all night, at least."

Getting back to work, Katya's eyes lingered on Jason's tall, ravishing figure with concern. She was working by herself as she dug deeper into the rising debris of a broken city, tearing people - alive and not - free from the crushed remains of vehicles, moving with an unflagging strength. Despite the devastation surrounding them, still some of the male members of Northern Shield and Team Tomorrow couldn't stop themselves from approaching the impossibly woman.

Though the argent-maned amazon was as enticingly graceful as ever, Kat still noticed the tenseness in her back. Jason had always bottled things inside and the mass of shattered conveyances must've been taking a toll on her. Katya wanted to help her, but knew she wouldn't want the sympathy - Jason still had some male pride.

With a sigh, Katya went back to digging people free alongside Ryusei, her mouth tight. She might not have been as strong and resilient as Jason, for example, but the cataclysm in Victoria still conveyed the vast difference between her and the fragility of the baselines. Her melancholy deepened.

[Bombshell]

Amidst the cars she tore apart and crumbled brick and concrete, the faces began to blur under her glowing twilight eyes, Jason's vision flashing back seven years to an accident, minor compared to the destruction of a city, but life-changing to her. Each visage slack with death was her brother's face and each face writhing in pain was her face, her old face.

Despite exerting herself for hours, she still felt as rested as when they had started. But there was a tightness spreading beneath her breasts. She wanted to stop, but didn't want to be a pussy, and she'd be damned if she was going to cry - all appearances to the contrary, she still had a sliver of male pride.

It didn't salve her male pride any that even in the face of utter devastation, some of the Nova men couldn't stop themselves from hitting on her under the guise of helping her. She accepted that she was a woman and being as attractive as she was - nearly matchless in fact - men, and not a few women, would lust for her. She just wished she could turn it off sometimes, like Dani could.

Even her brusque, if polite, refusals, delivered in her innately sensual, mellifluous soprano left the men turning away with stiff-legged gaits. Bending over at the waist, Jason could feel the ever insistent Borealis' eyes locked onto her ass. The leader of Northern Shield almost found himself buried under the twenty tons of rubble she was shifting. It was maddening that even looking pissed, with blazing eyes and an almost divine presence, she might have been incredibly intimidating, yet she still turned the men on even more.

It took Danielle over two hours to fly from Calgary to Victoria, and the sight she saw from the sky took her breath away, though she only breathed from habit rather than need. From high up, it looked a mound of chunky gravel. She flew lower and almost wished she hadn't as details resolved into focus. Gravel turning into the remains of buildings and vehicles, the occasional limb breaching the surface. The greatest signs of animation were the blue-white sparks from torn electrical lines.

Twenty minutes later, and three scenes of emergency activity, which looked despairingly limited against the vastness of the devastation, Danielle finally noticed a familiar mane of pure silver hair. She landed behind her girlfriend, balancing on the corpse of a shopping mall. Jason whirled around at the sound, standing tall, rigid, and dazed, the bent steel framework of a skylight dropping from her hands.

Danielle sucked in a shaky breath. When of the things she was taught as a municipal defender was that she wouldn't be able to stop every bad thing. That even during a disaster, you had to stop feeling guilty for something you had no way of preventing, then continue doing what you could during the crisis. Admittedly, the disasters they mentioned had never been this... complete, but it was still training she had that Jason had never received. Even during an XWF match, a death was incredibly rare and the amount of quantum-powered healing they had on hand made injuries temporary at worst.

Jason stood there, staring down at her shorter twin and girlfriend, prominent chest rising and falling with her ragged breaths, body tense with the effort of not breaking down. Normally, she was the one who was far more demonstrative, especially in public, but after a quick look around to make sure there wasn't too many people staring - there were always some - Danielle stepped close and put her arms around Jason in a tight, comforting hug.

Jason almost collapsed against her, body going slack as she squeezed Danielle back, burying her face in the crook between her shoulder and neck, a long-fingered hand running through her golden hair. The couple, voted the most attractive gay couple by Q magazine, embraced in consoling silence for several minutes, until Jason murmured a muffled, "Thank-you."

No more needed to be said as Bombshell and Knockout, bolstered by each others presence turned back to their impossible task with a renewed fervor. With Danielle's X-ray vision, Jason's superhuman coordination, and both their incredible strength, the over-endowed duo made remarkable progress.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Nova and baseline worked throughout the night, Borealis lighing the darkened sky with his namesake power. They were joined by ever increasing numbers of EMT and military personnel, private citizens and other world-wide organizations. Yet despite the growing numbers and sheer power they possessed as individuals and a group, far more dead than living were being found among the ruins of Victoria. Their progress seemed pathetic, almost laughable.

News reports were comparing it to the Sao Paolo event, though unsaid was a even greater shock that something like this could happen in a first world nation, let alone some place as internationally respected as Canada. The latest undoubtedly man-made disaster was being referred to as the Victoria Crush.

The latest setback for the rescuers occurred as the skies lightened with false dawn. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, people instinctively looking toward the new mountain rising over the former harbour. Landsdown and one member of Team Tomorrow had been tasked with burrowing into the mountain, the epicenter of whatever had crushed Victoria, to see if there were any clues to the cause.

People stared in horror as the mountain of compacted rubble... shrugged, uncountable tons of debris shifting, causing plume of dust and wreckage to shoot hundreds of feet into the air from the shaft Landsdown had burrowed through the top.

The death of the city of Victoria, British Columbia appeared to be a prolonged one, its writhing agony unending.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

Ryusei held Katya and kissed her, not caring who looked. Amidst the rubble, both of them needed reaffirmation that they were still there, and welcome in each other's arms.

Ryusei had to slow down and pace himself, but as he worked alongside Katya, he began to sing softly in Japanese, his voice calming and soothing. You didn't need to know the words to feel the music, and those nearby felt the anguish in their hearts lessen slightly, and He did all he could help the baselines still trapped.

As day became night, and beyond, The greatest test of his resolve proved to be a young girl, who even with all the power he and the others possessed couldn't be saved. As she lay there dying she asked him what the song he sang was. He smiled. "It is called "Do You Remember?""

"It's very pretty." Her eyes closed, and they would not open again. This brought the young Japanese nova to a standstill, as he fought to maintain his composure. He'd seen death today, horrible and grisly, but this was the first time he'd had to watch someone die, and inwardly, a part of himself seemed to break.

[Eingar]

At the field hospital that had been set up EMT looked up and nudged his partner as a grim, grey figure emerged from the mixture of dust and mist that had settled over the disaster area, diffusing what light there was (thanks to Borealis) and giving the night an eerie, nightmarish quality.

"He's back with more." the EMT muttered. The other sighed and nodded as the grey figure resolved into the form of Einherjar, grey dust and grime coating the arctic warfare-patterned Eufiber, his blonde hair and tanned face so that the only colour about him was the unwavering shimmering ice-chip blue of his eyes... and the red stains of blood from the wounded and dead. He strode towards the EMTs bearing over his head a huge makeshift stretcher, forged from a sheet of metal and pummeled into a shape capable of carrying many dead and wounded at once. He stopped by the aid station, setting the stretcher down.

"Three." he stated matter-of-factly, pointing out the living on his grisly burden. "The boy has chest injuries, heartbeat still strong but one lung is punctured, probably by a rib. The woman's heartbeat is faltering. She's lost a lot of blood, and seems to have multiple fractures of the hips and left leg." The EMT's nearby scrambled to recover the indicated people as Einherjar pointed to the last. "This man has skull injuries, probable fracture of the vertebrae, and shattered collarbone." The cold gaze swept over the other bodies lying on his portable bier, then at the EMTs. "There would have been four, but one died en route despite attempts at resuscitation."

"Thanks. We've got them off now." said the first EMT as the others finished lifting the man with skull injuries from the bier to their own stretcher. "You need some, uh, water or anything?" The grim figure that towered over him shook it's head.

"Get me a fresh kit ready." He said tersely, handing the dust-stained EMT bag dangling from one shoulder over. "I'll be going back out after I drop off the others." With that, the Elite turned, picked up the container that now only held the dead, and carried it off into the haze.

Einherjar wasn't weary in the slightest as he set the carrier down over by the coroners, letting the staff there offload the bodies so that he could use it again. He had been on-site since shortly after the disaster, using his nova-senses to locate the living and dead alike, then ferrying them either to assistance or their final rest. He was mildly perturbed that the death and destruction didn't bother him as it would have years ago. The fact that non-combatants had been slaughtered was anathema to his code, and that had provoked outrage deep within the Elite's soul. But there was no grief, and he wondered why for a while until it hit him: why grieve for the dead? They didn't care. Grief was for the living, a way for them to expel the pain of loss. What he did here now, he was doing for the living: for himself, as his honor wouldn't let him stand back while the undeserving suffered and others struggled to help them. For the other rescue workers, cops, and firemen, as his assistance would save them time and even their lives. And for the wounded, the dying, who he could find and save. And finally for the living relatives of the dead, who needed the mortal remains of their lost in order to grieve.

Einherjar had done all his grieving ten years and another life ago.

He hoisted the now-empty carrier into the air and returned past the EMT station, nodding the the medic there as he handed the Elite a fresh field pack.

"I'll be back soon." Einherjar promised, then was gone into the dust and mist. The EMT watched him go for a moment, then turned to help the living.

[Jael Carver]

The dust-borne eternal night of Vancouver was not filled with just rescuers. Less benevolent creatures hunted this artificial darkness, operating in small packs. Some looted and stole. Some hunted and killed. Some searched.

There were investigators, sanctioned men and women who could prove they were supposed to be there. Then there were other investigators, ones without shiny badges or jurisdiction, ones who came for reasons other than justice. Some of those sought to know what had caused his kind of devastation, so that they could harness it for their own ends. Others knew that the first sort would show up, and they came to stop them from using such a power.

This group came for another reason altogether. Curiosity drove them – curiosity and the unparalleled chance to administer a valuable hands-on lesson. They were dressed in identical bodysuits – a mottled black and gray that blended into the hellish haze that coated everything.

They moved with easy grace, ghosting through the gloom like wraiths. The two more experienced ones kept their student in the middle, keeping an eye on her as well as on their path. She’d been instructed to get to the epicenter without being seen and she was trying. Any mistakes were spotted by her sharp-eyed mentor, who corrected her with a sharp hand gesture each time.

Most of the aid workers never saw them. Even other novas would have found it hard to see them, between the dingy atmosphere and their skills. They saw the others though, pausing to watch them walk by; when Einherjar passed them, the student’s eyes lingered on him for a moment longer before returning to the impassive, disciplined state she’d been in a moment ago.

When he passed, they continued as before, moving in nova-silence, hunting their goal. One of them was clearly guiding their steps, pausing to make minute changes to their course. Their goal was the epicenter of the destruction; the point where a thriving urban area had been turned into rubble. Finally, the man leading them stopped and gestured down. The other man looked to the student, who stepped forward and flexed her hands. Long silver claws materialized on the tips of her fingers. Crouching, she started to cut into the compressed materials at the bottom of the pit. They had to hurry before someone else used their own esper to locate this spot.

This sucks, Jael sighed to herself as she cut and scooped out rubble. She wasn’t even sure what they were looking for, but Reynold wanted to look, so they looked. The pretty nova really wished she hadn’t answered her phone now…

Yesterday… sometime after 2:00 p.m.

Jael moaned as her phone screamed at her. She must have turned the damned thing all the way up because it was unbearably loud. The sophomore tried to burrow under the covers, but even the heavy comforter couldn’t block out the sound. “Fuck!” she hissed, lifting her head only to find the room swirling around her. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck,” she groaned and fumbled for the hateful, hateful device shrilling in her ear.

She found it was actually on the floor under her skirt from last night. Wondering if she’d been carrying it between her thighs for some reason or if she just dropped it on the floor instead of putting it on the desk, she answered. “What?”

“Be ready in an hour.” Reynold’s voice brooked no argument. Her mentor could sound as grim as Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts’ visits; today he sounded even more severe. “We have a mission and I’ll be by to pick you up in front of your dorm.”

“Ugh, sure,” Jael muttered and hung up. A mission on the one day of the week she didn’t have classes. Yippie! She flopped back onto the bed with a heavy sigh, her phone slipping from her fingers and thumping to the floor. As she lay there considering getting up, she heard a snore.

Thanks to Stanford’s desire to keep her on the student body, she had a rather large dorm suite – large enough for a queen bed in her bedroom instead of a twin. Normally these suites housed four students, but she and Shelly had one to themselves. Most of the time it was sweet; today, it meant that Jael woke up next to a guy she didn’t remember going to bed with last night because she had a big enough bed for hijinks.

She was also naked.

This wasn’t that unusual for her. Jael was in no way chaste. She’d made N!’s list of Nova Chicks Least Likely to Say No, even if she was only in spot ninety-eight of a hundred. Blinking, she struggled to remember who she’d fucked last night as she turned over to see. Her eyes widened at the identity of her partner, shock filling her face. What made this morn- afternoon so scandalous was partially the simple fact that she usually remembered taking them to bed and what they did in bed. The fact that it was Paul made it weird.

“Oh… awkward,” she muttered as she slid sideways out of bed. Paul was her friend, one of the few men she knew that had that title applied without a wink-wink-nudge-nudge caption following. The awkward part was that he was sweet on her and had been since they met. This didn’t normally bother her, but he was one of her few actual friends. Paul was an old-fashioned guy and wanted a real relationship with her, not a one-night stand. She didn’t want to really hurt him, but she wasn't the kind of girl who wanted to settle down. So one of two things must have happened: either Paul had had a moment of ‘fuck it’ in a drunken haze, or Jael made a promise she had no intention of keeping in a drunken haze. Either way: awkward.

The tall blond grabbed a handful of clothing and yanked them on before exiting her bedroom as quietly as possible. Shelly glanced up at her and beamed with the annoying smile of the person who didn’t have a handover and had been up accomplishing things all day as she chirped, “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Mrhnth,” Jael grumbled as she headed for the fridge. Pulling out a pizza, she inspected it for mold before popping a slice into her mouth.

“I was wondering if you’d get up ever,” Shelly teased. “So… how was the party after I left?”

“Hmm,” Jael said, leaning against the counter and quirking a pale eyebrow skyward, “well, I don’t remember you leaving.”

“Oh, sounds like you got too deep into the Ampedwells,” Shelly grinned.

“I wasn’t alone,” Jael murmured softly.

“Ooooh!” Shelly squeaked. “Who’s in your room?” She looked excited: Jael’s casual liaisons with various nova men meant Shelly had gotten more post-colitis nova-eye-candy than most girls.

“Go and see, just don’t wake him up,” Jael offered.

Shelly bounded across the room, only to stop in front of the door and open it with extreme care. When she saw who was slumped across the bed, her jaw dropped. Quietly, she shut the door and said, “Oh, Jay-jay… how awkward.”

“I know. And I can’t even stick around to deal with it,” Jael sighed as she inspected another piece of the suspect pizza. “Reynold called me into work.”

“Really?” Shelly muttered. She knew who Reynold was and what getting 'called into work' by him meant. “That sucks.”

“Tell me about it. I wanted to get started on my semester project for Crim 201,” Jael grumbled.

Shelly looked worried, wrinkling her cute nose. “Be careful, hon, ok?”

“Always,” Jael said, giving her a confident smile. “Can you… talk to Paul when he gets up?”

“Talk about… what exactly?” Shelly asked, her eyebrows rising. “I think that reminding him you’re a giant nova-ho is your business, not mi-” Shelly was cut short as Jael threw the piece of pizza at her; the nova wasn’t mad but the mock indignation was fun. “Ewww!” Shelly shrieked, rubbing at her t-shirt. “Bitch!”

“Yep,” Jael said, laughing. A moment later she was ducking the piece as Shelly heaved it back at her. “Look, Shell… can you please make sure he’s not going to do anything crazy like buy a ring or anything? I’ll talk to him when I get back, I just don’t want him getting all worked up while I’m gone.”

“I would suggest that the ‘working up’ portion of this debacle already happened,” Shelly remarked with a smirk, ducking behind the couch when another piece of pizza narrowly missed her.

“No shit,” Jael sighed. “I just hope the sex was worth it. Hell, I wish I could remember it. Damn it, I need to get ready.”

Now

Klaus was a German national and a gifted post-cognitive; this was all Jael knew about him. She suspected that he was neither German nor named Klaus; she assumed that everyone gave her a false name when she met someone Reynold knew.

They’d been at it for hours. They’d almost had T2M set down on top of them and take away their progress, but Landsdown had picked another spot and so the small three-man team continued to plug away. Jael cut and pushed the rubble back; Reynold and Klaus carried it out, alternating between them. Jael worked without respite; she wasn’t tired yet. The ability to work like a machine combined with the amazing cutting power of her claws made her the perfect nova to burrow in like this.

Sudden their mountain of debris shifted. Jael screamed as rock began to close in around her, crushing her. For one terrifying second, she knew she was about to be buried alive. A hand closed around her ankle and with a pop of displacing air, she was outside in the cool night air.

Reynold released her leg. “I have to go back for Klaus,” he said, his rough voice now rougher from the hours inhaling dust and debris. “Keep your tracker on you – I’ll find you.” Then he was gone again.

Shaking, Jael pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs. She’d almost died. She’d felt the rocks crushing her. Her ribs burned; it took her a moment to realize she could heal the damage. Shivering, she waited for Reynold, knowing he might be awhile.

[Evo]

Then

Donald was the designated driver, as the somewhat noisy chatter of his companions attested. Derrick and Robert traded stories about the women they'd managed to get quickies with in private sections of the house where the party was, which Donald doubted was true. Their luck with girls was abysmal, and drunkenness only made things worse.

Marie was sitting in the front passenger's seat, more sedately, a pretty brunette who happened to have an interesting fondness for Gothic Lolita. At least she had some greater restraint than the two college boys behind her. Donald had only pulled up to a red light when Marie gasped in shock.

Donald's eyes turned to notice the shape of light shining above the city, and a headache spontaneously erupted. He'd only reached a hand to his head when the light disappeared. In moments, too fast for everyone to consciously realize or react, the force of gravity struck outward in a wave, and like in a movie, everything faded to black.

Now

Donald glanced down the street, certain that in the distance was an aid tent, there had to be, with all those electrical signatures that somehow corresponded to life. When he had awoken, without realizing it, he had cut his way out the metal and rubble after a some effort. It was only as he looked around to understand what the fuck happened when he noticed the hyper-tough claws of keratin that had replaced his fingernails.

In a moment of shock, they retracted, demonstrating clearly that he had erupted, and survived. Unfortunately, when he saw Robert and Derrick's bodies, he couldn't say the same. He had noticed an electrical charge- though how that was, he couldn't say- muted but generating from Marie's body. There was no such similarity for the guys, which Donald thought he understood more once he checked their pulses.

It was a terrible moment of crisis, but Donald just been able to keep his head on straight, and lift Marie's body, battered and torn clothing, but still alive.

And for the past little bit, he'd been following the faint electrical signatures, hoping for EMTs. Then more signatures spurted up close behind him, and he turned, beaten and disheveled, to see a pair coming up.

The two medics didn't say anything, understanding well. They insisted on his getting a checkup, which Donald finally consented once he realized that strangely, he too and received severe-looking injuries. He hadn't noticed because he hadn't felt impaired or in pain, though that relative level of damage on a baseline or some novas would have been crippling.

But away the group went, Donald reflecting on the mixed feelings of having survived and possibly saved Marie, and the strange anger that the cosmic lottery that chosen to not extend its goodwill to his friends.

[Jael Carver]

One week later

Stanford wasn’t sure how she’d gotten to the scene so fast, but when Jael called her advisor and said she was volunteering in Victoria and needed to drop her classes, they were fine with it if she agreed to give an interview for the school newspaper. The interview and resulting photo op would no doubt generate good press for the school, as did anything involving their two nova students. Even Jael’s party-girl image was embraced by the school because it was a nova party-girl. Jael had lost count of the number of parties she’d been unofficially asked to attend by Stanford. So they’d been cool with her dropping her class and giving her time to Victoria.

Sadly, they also sent Paul.

It made a lot of sense. As an environmental engineering student with skin that couldn’t be pierced by anything short of quantum powers, he was the perfect search and rescue candidate. Jael had avoided him simply by being too busy with her own hunt to talk to him. But she’d have to talk to him sooner or later about that night. Shelly had talked to him, and had told Jael that he was confused. Then she’d pointed out that Jael needed to talk to him, not get second-hand information from Shelly. Jael had promised she’d talk to him and Shelly had pointed out it should probably be sooner rather than later.

At the moment, Victoria was a great excuse for not having to talk to Paul about anything; neither of them had time to deal with anything other than pulling hurt and dead people out of the rubble. Or so she told him. She was still using Klaus’ and Reynold’s directions to dig deep into the epicenter. Reynold always went with her in case something shifted in the rubble and she became trapped. “What are we looking for?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Evidence,” came the dry response from her mentor. “I’ve told you that.”

“Great, so what if I cut through the evidence?” Jael asked. This wasn’t the first time they’d had his conversation. She was incredibly bored though and annoying Reynold was something fun to do.

“Don’t,” he said, which was exactly the same answer he’d given before.

“‘Don’t,’ he says,” Jael mumbled, knowing that Reynold could hear her. “‘Cut with your claws but don’t cut the evidence,’ he says.” She scowled into her next cut, slicing the materials with her claws before sliding it under her body for Reynold to pass back for Klaus to remove. She was sick and tired of tunnels, especially tunnels that she had to carve out herself. She was sure she’d carved tons of miles at this point. “You know,” Jael said suddenly, “we probably should have just started from the top. It would have been faster.”

“No, it’s not,” Reynold said. “Why are you stopping?”

“Because the wall in front of me is glowing,” Jael said. “In fact, it’s fucking up my nightvision.” She shut off the machinery and peered at the rubble. A soft glow was dribbling through the cracks in front of her, just enough to see her hands.

Reynold wiggled forward to join her. Though they were jammed incredibly close, Jael didn’t have a single sexual thought about her mentor. He was old, like forty or something. And the only time she’d tried to come onto him to get him in the sack, he’d turned her down cold and hard and in such a way that made her never want to try again. She’d been sore for a week.

Reynold examined the area closely before slithering back. “What should I do?” Jael asked.

“What do you think you should do?” Reynold replied.

“Keep going,” Jael grinned. “I wanna know what it is.”

“What do you smell?”

Jael sighed to herself. She was a little excited, and that meant she didn’t always remember her training. She peeled off the gasmask that filtered out the worst of the smells down here. Immediately, they assaulted her: chemicals and the stink of the human body decaying. She ignored all of that to shuffle closer to the glow. It was a little warmer here, she noted as she inhaled deeply. “Whoa! I smell a guy.”

“Then I suggest you are very careful as you cut,” Reynold said. He seemed nonplused, which Jael knew was probably true. He’d often stated that anything was possible in a world with novas.

“Right,” Jael said and started to cut much more carefully. Before long, she was staring at a curved human back. “I think we have someone in a fetal position here,” she reported. Thirty minutes later, they had enough space to tug the naked, glowing man into their tunnel. He’d been cocooned in a small nest in the rubble, probably one he’d made to survive.

“He’s alive, but nonresponsive,” Reynold said. “I’m going to get him out of here. You first.”

“Me first?” Jael asked, surprised.

“I’m not leaving you down here for one moment,” Reynold said, his gravelly voice firm. “You’re my student; he’s no one.” He didn’t argue with her anymore. Instead he touched her leg and they were laying outside on what was left of a 7-11. Reynold disappeared again, only to appear a moment later with the boy in his arms. “Take him to the first aid station,” he ordered.

Jael was the only one of the three the authorities knew was there, so she did all the interacting with them. Nodding, she knelt and scooped the boy up, holding him under his back and knees. He was warm to the touch – delightfully so – and not at all hard to look at. Sun-kissed was the only word for his appearance: his hair was a glorious blond and his skin covered in a golden tan. He was also surprisingly clean for what he’d just gone through. “Wonder how long he’s been there,” she said softly.

“Too long,” Reynold said, his voice filled with a rare gentleness. “Go take him. Come right back.”

Jael lifted into the air, the stranger curled in her strong arms. It was only a short flight to the station, which was lit up like a sun. “Found a stray,” she announced as she walked in. “This one’s gonna need a change of clothing though.”

The medics took him from her but didn’t let her leave immediately. The questions about where and how started coming at her rapidly. “Look, I need to get back out there,” she said quickly.

“We need some information about him to treat him,” the medic said firmly. “Novas can cause some difficulties in treatment and we need details. So lay ‘em on me.”

With a sigh, Jael started to tell them where she’d found him.

[GDP_ST]

In the beginning, there was darkness. Void. Nothingness. There was nothing to him. There was no Him to BE him...

Then came voices.

Voices of people. Voices of machines. Voices of pain. Voices of urgency. Voices of alarm. Voices of resignation. These were the sounds around him as his body started to awaken. Even though the brain was not yet conscious, it was receiving and storing away these sounds without meaning or context.

"...so you found him like that?" A male voice, hoarse with weariness and coffee. The words entered the ears of the sleeper and disappeared into the vacuum there.

"Yes." A female voice, impatient and with an edge of annoyance. "He was curled up in a bubble of rock and- Look, I already told the damn medics all this-"

"I know, Miss Carver. But I really need to do this. His vitals are incredibly weak, virtually non-existent. He's not responding to any stimuli and they can't tell me when a paraphysician will be here." The male voice sounded wearier still. "He doesn't have any injuries that I can see. My best guess is that it's some form of post-Eruptive coma."

"Shame. He's a cute kid. Okay. I dug him out of the bubble and brought him here. End of story. He glows, is warm to the touch, and didn't give me his number. I've got to get back out there, Doctor. There might be others that-" There was a pause. "Doctor, do you see that?"

"What?"

"He's brighter." The female voice came closer. The male voice followed.

"Are you sure?"

"Nova senses, Doctor. I'm sure. Look at his skin. It's like mica sparkling under the surface. That's new."

"He's still not breathing."

"So he doesn't need to. Not so strange for novas" The female sounded intrigued.

Before Jael's eyes the young man laid out on the stretcher with sensors attached to his golden-bronze body suddenly stirred, shifting slightly where he lay. She frowned, looking up at the bright lights set up all around the area, then grinned suddenly and reached down to flip back the blanket covering her find so that he was exposed fully. The doctor looked as though he was about to protest, but a sharp look and a raised hand quieted him. They both watched.

Two minutes passed, every few seconds bringing about more subdermal fluorescence and a perceptible increase in the glow. Jael looked at the doctor triumphantly, glad that she'd figured it out.

The young man stirred again and opened eyes the clear, glorious blue of a summer sky that had never known a cloud. Motes of golden light dancing in their depths like fireflies, he blinked and his gaze flicked left, then right. Then he turned his head slightly and looked up at the two people standing beside him, looking from Jael to the doctor then back at Jael again. The youthful, handsome features were in repose: almost devoid of expression but for the profound curiosity centered around the sapphire eyes. It was the focused, level gaze of a newborn babe wondering at what it beholds.

[Jael Carver]

Reynold was going to kill her. Of course, if she took too long, he could come find her. Jael wouldn’t be surprised to find that he was here now, lurking out of sight and waiting for her. He was probably watching right now. She’d have to tease him about being a peeping nova. Even if that wasn’t true, it’d be amusing to harass him about it.

The drama of the awakening sunbeam was distracting, though, and Jael forgot about going to find her mentor. The nova she’d found was incredibly interesting to her, mostly because he was so very, very hot. She wanted to hit that like a train. She should stick around long enough to get his number – she should check up on him later to make sure he was alright, right?

“Well, hello there, Sunshine,” Jael said, bemused. Aww, no morning wood? Everything else about him is so perky, you’d think that’d sit right up… “How do ya feel?”

[Evo]

Lansdowne Treatment Centre

Donald sat in the waiting room, and not doing much else. He didn't need to do anything. The sensations as he focused and tested the basic strength of his nova-class senses were quite strong, more than enough to make studying them an engaging activity. His skin could feel the minor openings and closings of the door as blasts of hot air, and the fainter currents were well-on noticeable.

Right now, he could smell the sweat on everyone, a pungent odor of fear. Every time the doors opened to beyond, he could get hints of blood and worse trailing out. This hospital had been in the northeast of Victoria and hence had escaped the mysterious force explosion. But like the other few that survived, Landsdowne was crammed with people, even with the trickle of evacuated people once they were stable. But there were many ore coming in, and much of the unfortunates were not stable at all, after one week.

Like Marie.

His female friend's condition had been dogging his mind ever since that day one week ago. He'd been polite and cooperative to the Utopians at the Rashoud clinic, but the whole event was focusing him elsewhere, in his tiny patch of the universe. They'd ran the checkups, been amazed as his body's resilience and tolerance for injury, but he hadn't gone further than get a room to stay in.

The rest of his time had been spent stopping in at rescue efforts and tearing into the rubble with his digging claws like a man desperate to find treasure below, and well capable of maintaining this effort for many hours at a time.

People were thankful for his help, but concerned at the attitude he took toward the digging. He heard the whispers and mutterings as loud as words. He didn't care.

Finally, he heard the grinding of shoes on the floor and a clear wave of air from the door. He heard the doctor call his name and went to follow him...

Twenty minutes later

Donald raced down the street, not knowing where he was going, the tears streaming down his face and he could taste the salt level in them- dammit!

Marie was dead. He'd been gifted with a cosmic joke. On any other day, he would have been overjoyed to be a nova. But in the wake of the Victoria Crush, he was more upset than ever. He couldn't have saved Robert and Derrick, yet dead they were and he lived. Marie had been that one bit of hope in the current situation, she could have lived, but that bit of light was snuffed out.

Coincidentally, there was steadily and vividly increasing light from the aid station nearby, but it was random direction more than that that brought Donald staggering nearby.

Head down, completely unfocused, he was welling in the depths of despair.

[GDP_ST]

“Well, hello there, Sunshine, how do ya feel?”

The youth's brow furrowed a little as Jael spoke, his eyes following the motions of her lips and the expression on her face before returning to her eyes. Other than that there was no reaction. Jael sighed quietly. Figures. I find a hot guy that sparkles and he's a deaf-mute. Ah, well, it's not his conversation I'm interested in. She smiled at him, but was mildly piqued at the complete lack of answering smile. He just stared at her expression as though trying to figure it out. Okay, a beautiful deaf-mute retard. I can work with that... probably. Assuming he's potty-trained.

"Can you hear me, sir?" The doctor said, and those blue eyes flickered over to his face alertly. The doctor amended his question. "Can you understand me, sir? Comprenez vous? Tu comprende?" The doctor's limited French and Spanish didn't seem to be any more comprehensible than English to the nova. His expression of focused perplexity didn't change.

A beautiful deaf-mute retard from another planet! Jael thought to herself a trifle snarkily. Well, probably not deaf. The doctor sighed and shook his head, then beckoned one of the nearby orderlies over.

"Spread the word through the novas who're helping out. If any of them is a telepath we have a patient here who doesn't seem to respond at all to speech. Tell the Rashoud Facility folks too." The orderly nodded and headed away to pass the news, and the doctor turned back, pulling out a stethoscope and kneeling beside the reclining patient, whose curious eyes alternated between following him and looking at Jael. The doc listened to the youth's chest, then shrugged and straightened up, smiling ruefully at the blonde beside him. "Incredible. He's gone from virtually no heartbeat to a regular, strong pulse."

"It was the light." Jael replied, noting how those blue eyes followed from the doctor to her, watching them speak with no understanding but intent concentration, as though trying to decipher the sounds being made. She studied him in turn, marking the well-formed muscles and symmetry common to novakind. He was built like a swimmer or dancer rather than a bodybuilder, his form strong and tapering. And warm and glowing. Jael remarked inwardly, trying not to grin. "He's giving off warmth." she said instead, moving her hand closer then further away from the reclining nova. It was as though weak golden afternoon sunlight was swirling in the air close to his body, battling the chill of the evening. She recalled that he'd been warm to the touch before, as though just out of bed rather than encased in cold stone: now that warmth was extending past his skin. She trailed her fingertips through the aura curiously, the doctor doing likewise. The patient just watched them quietly, uncomprehending as always.

"Well, he's getting better." The doctor said, pulling his hand back and stepping away. "Damned if I know what it means, though. I hope we have a telepath here soon who can tell me what the hell's going on, but he's not dying. Thank you for the help, Miss Carver. I'll have an orderly keep an eye on him until the Project arrives."

Somewhat reluctantly, but mindful that Reynold was probably already going to be a pain in her ass, Jael likewise stepped away with the doctor. "No problem." she said, mentally sighing at the end to her diversion, casting a glance back at the young man on the stretcher. His gaze was still following her, but as she and the doctor headed away, the clear blue eyes widened in realisation and alarm. He got up.

It was odd to watch. The glowing nova tried to follow, but without any seeming recognition of the steps required for basic motor control. The result was a stumbling fall out of the makeshift bed which should have left the nova on the floor, but even as he started to fall, lightning-fast autonomic responses and learning patterns kicked into gear. The headlong fall was checked by a planted foot, and the half-crouching nova wobbled for a second as more than human reflexes adjusted and adapted to standing for the first time, his hands out for balance and wavering in the air. Eyes still wide, but apparently satisfied that he wouldn't fall the glowing boy brought his other foot forward and straightened up, caution and wonder evident in his expression. He lowered his hands slightly and looked at Jael, then took his first step.

The step was a similar mixture of first-time clumsiness and nova-swift adjustment. The youth wavered mid-step so slightly that only Jael could spot it, but adapted quickly and finished the step before taking another, more confident one, his eyes moving between his feet and the girl in front of him with an obvious intent focus in his eyes. I am Here. I need to move my feet so I am There his expression seemed to say. For those watching it was almost exactly like watching a child's first steps, only no human child learned this fast or easily. By step five he was already using the counterbalancing swing of his arms in tandem with his legs and was looking ahead of him more than at the floor. Five more steps, and he was standing a couple of paces from Jael, balancing easily with his arms hanging loosely by his sides, eyes silently questioning her.

"Sir, I need you to stay there." The doctor motioned to get the nova's attention and pointed at the bed. "There. Understand." he said by way of emphasis. The silent youth looked at the pointing hand for a moment, then turned, his feet shuffling a little as he turned his whole body to see where the doctor was pointing. Then he turned back towards them with the same shuffle and looked at Jael with mute curiosity. The doctor sighed and wiped his face with one hand in a tired gesture. "Great. He doesn't understand. Of course not."

[Jael Carver]

“Alright,” Jael said, raising an eyebrow. Those blue eyes were making her giddy; it was attention from a male though she had to admit she preferred her attention to be a little more lustful. Still she was sure she could work with innocence, if she had to do it. “So… he gets following people.”

“Can we teach him to stay?” the doctor asked, sounding tired.

“Let’s try something,” Jael said. “I’m gonna walk over here, and you stay there.” She pointed at the spot where the doctor was standing, watching with amusement as the boy’s head swiveled to look where she was pointing. Oh, this could be fun, she thought, grinning. Turning, she walked away from him, only to have the doctor say, “And there he goes.”

“Ok,” Jael said, turning and putting her hands up in the universal signal of ‘stop’. The boy mimicked her, but it did get him to stop. “Hmm, I’m gonna hold and you walk away.”

“Not necessary,” the doctor sighed, smirking. “I’d follow the pretty nova girl around, too.”

“Then I’ll hang here until you get back with a telepath,” Jael said, walking back to the boy. “So Sunshine, you want me to hang around? You don’t understand the first thing I’m saying, do you?” She put her fists on her hips and tilted her head to the side, studying him. “First things first, you’re red-hot, perhaps in all meanings of the word. Second, you need some clothing before you cause an international incident.”

Jael walked to a cabinet, her golden puppy close on her heels. She opened it brusquely and located an extra sheet. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “Covers more than a gown, even.” He took it from her awkwardly and looked at it for a long moment before glancing at her with a puzzled expression. “Awesome. I haven’t dressed someone… well, other than myself, ever, I think. Usually, I undress ‘em.” She took the sheet back and shook it out. Folding it, she paused to add, “I have dressed some wounds before, but that isn’t the same.”

Stepping toe-to-toe with him, she wrapped the sheet around his waist and tucked it into itself to keep it up. The beautiful face looked surprised and delighted, those glowing hands reaching down to touch the fabric reverently. “No worries, Sunshine. Ain’t no big deal,” Jail laughed. She unzipped her suit and flashed her sports bra and a generous portion of skin. “See, I just have fancier fibers.”

[Bombshell]

One day turned into two, turned into three, and too soon, a week passed by. More aid arrived everyday, the international efforts reluctantly accepted by a quietly, proud Canada. They were always willing to help, but Canada had never needed such help themselves. It was a blow to the spirit of a nation.

What was left unsaid was that every nation and organization sending manpower and resources to the Victoria Crush Relief Effort knew there had been virtually no way to predict the event. And no way to know if the event would be repeated elsewhere.

Jason and Danielle worked tirelessly, superhuman strength easily tearing through tonnes of concrete and steel and brick, Knockout's x-ray vision pointing out possible survivors. But it wasn't enough. Neither of them had anything than basic first aid training. They could splint bones and usually mitigate the bleeding, but the stunning couple still lost people bringing them back to the field hospitals in the broken school bus they used for the purpose.

Jason and Danielle crossed paths with Einherjar on the third day, much to their relief. His implacable, resolute mien steadied their resolve and even better, he had paramedic-level medical training. They began losing fewer people on route to the field hospitals due to injuries, even as fewer people were being recovered alive.

The more than attractive trio of blonds formed a group that worked ceaselessly, day and night, stopping only to consume the calories their overcharged metabolisms required (well, that Jason and Ein required). Even better, as far as Jason was concerned, since joining up with her girlfriend, and even more, the big elite, she had fewer men trying to hit on her. Even Borealis kept his distance.

They became a common site, the three of them, the media hanging around the field tents coming to attention every time they drew near - they made awesome copy after all. The tragic figure of Einherjar who made the women swoon in the pages of Playgirl. And the impossibly gorgeous, Canadian transsexual couple, Knockout, with her fiery debut that still fueled many a man's fantasies and a Municipal Defender, and Bombshell, her silver-haired, somehow even sexier, doppelganger, model, actress, and XWF star, who even in the dust thrown up by the intermittent aftershocks, was still pristine and radiant. Yeah, the media wasn't going to miss this.

Though everyone who saw her claimed she was an inspiration during this terrible event, Jason simply felt like a mockery, her immaculate, exaggerated hotness an insult to the pain and suffering and tragedy permeating the Victoria Crush. But no one wanted see that or hear about it, so she smiled and satisfied the reporters with a few words using her sultry, mellifluous soprano and an inhuman charm developed from standing in front of cameras and dealing with people who wanted nothing more than to see her naked or sleep with her.

There was one media event that didn't annoy Jason behind her enthralling facade. Katya, who, using her financial acumen, was spending more time now organizing donations and relief funding, and was Jason's agent as well, arranged a photo-op with the nova delegation from Stanford. Despite, or because of, the destruction around them, Jason was pleased to see another familiar face.

Jael was one of the first novas she had met after she erupted, meeting her in Havana during her debut with the XWF. They had chatted several times after that, a lunch here or there when Jael was accompanying Matthew 'Crimson Light' Simpson to XWF events, but she hadn't seen her in a couple of months. Jason had gotten the feeling Carver had been more interested in her than her date, which seemed to irritate and arouse Crimson, which might have been Jael's intent. Jason would have certainly been interested if she hadn't been in the blooming of a relationship with Danielle at the time.

Paul, the other Nova from Stanford, stared, slightly bug-eyed, his engaging demeanor staggering in the face of this woman. Sure he was a Nova, he knew other Novas, but this Nova was also a genuine supermodel, actress, and XWF star, in addition to being more effective than Viagra. Telling himself the voluptuous Valkyrie used to be a dude didn't help in the least. And Jael was chatting away with her as if they were friends. He barely had the wherewithal to stick out his hand when Jason stuck hers out for a shake, though after that, Paul was able to talk coherently, even with a measure of his own affable charm.

Which almost deserted him again when Jason offered Jael and Paul a place to stay at her Penthouse in Whistler. She apologized that it wasn't closer - it was over two hundred klicks away, but Paul enthusiastically agreed. Even if he didn't have a chance with her, still, this was Jason 'Bombshell' Bellefleur, and it didn't hurt any that she was charming and friendly instead of a stuck-up bitch.

"Wow," he whispered, giving a shiver as he watched Jason walk away with fluid, sensual grace, then glanced at Jael, wondering... "So, you know Bombshell?"

Over the week, two other situations affected Jason deeply. One which disturbed her to find out what resided within herself and the other which helped her realize that digging through a broken city, and the emotional and spiritual toll it took, was worth the effort.

Jason, Danielle, and Einherjar had moved deeper, pass the frontline of what had been reclaimed, when they came across their first looters. There were six of them, slipping in and out of the broken shell of a bank vault. They looked up, eyes wide as they fell on the three novas, especially the grim countenance of the Nordic Elite, stuffed duffel bags hanging from their shoulders. They scattered, but it was less than futile.

The Emergencies Act had been enacted, and though it wasn't as harsh as true Martial Law and killing looters on sight wasn't an option, they knew they had little chance of leniency. Einherjar reached down and with a flick of his wrists, threw two chunks of baseball-sized debris, break a leg on each of them. Danielle glared, her bright blue eyes flaring white, and two more fell unconscious.

Each day, growing ever more tense with the stress of what she saw and witnessed, Jason felt a cold, deadly rage burning through her. She'd been mad before, furious to the point of breaking things, but never like this. She flowed over the broken ground as gracefully as if dancing on a ballroom floor, grasping one of the looters by the back of the neck with slender, feminine fingers capable of ripping through the wall of the bank vault they had been pillaging.

The last looter almost made it out of sight when Jason spoke, her sensuous tones so cold, so personal, so irresistible, it over-rode his fight-or-flight reflex. "Come. Here." And he did, turning about face and staggering to a stop in front of the silver-tressed amazon. She picked him up by the neck too, held both of her captives aloft, her twilight eyes glowing with fury and the promise of death.

And she wanted to do it, too. These parasites, picking over the corpse of a dying city. It would be simple, taking no more effort than breathing, she'd close her hands, their necks would be smooshed to goo and their heads would come off. Her captives struggled, terrified yet reflexively aroused, as they saw the thought in her lambent, indigo gaze.

Einherjar stood silent. Taking a life was a decision a man - or woman - had to make forhimself, when the opportunity and the desire was presented to him. Danielle took a step forward, a hand reaching out for her girlfriend, afraid of what she would do. Though she didn't much enjoy watching Jason fighting in the XWF, at least that was a - mostly - controlled environment. This was something else.

The delicate nostrils of her perfect nose flared as Jason took a deep breath and held it, quivering as she stood on the precipice, fingers tightening slowly. The looters slumped in her unbreakable grasp, resigned to their fate, one with urine running down his leg. Finally, she set them down on their feet. They barely had a chance to look up when Jason flicked each of them with a finger, knocking them unconscious and leaving a livid mark on their foreheads.

The trio brought the looters back on their ad-hoc corpse-bed. After that, if the looters hadn't stopped, they at least were far more circumspect.

The second event happened a week after the Victoria Crush, when they managed to dig into the buried and collapsed remains of a parking garage and found forty-seven survivors, twenty-one of whom were children. They were starving, dehydrated, but alive. They had banded together, strangers forever bound together by their ordeal. It was the largest concentration of survivors found in one place to date, this deep into the rubble of Victoria.

While Danielle flew back to get more help and food and water for the survivors, Jason and Einherjar helped dig them free, though Jason's breathing came ragged at the sight of the crushed cars. Each man, woman, and child flinched, a hand covering their eyes at the sun, searing to them despite the ever present dust hanging in the air. Still, their lips curved into pure smiles as they shuddered in relief.

Sitting on top of the broken heap of the survivors' cairn, Jason held a pair of orphaned six-year old twins, nestling against her bosom as they waited for Danielle to return with more help. She shivered with stress, joy, heartache, and no way to express it as they built up inside her. She had been on site of the Victoria Crush for a full week straight, not resting when Einherjar and Danielle had to stop for a few hours to recover, and even her phenomenal fortitude was taxed to the limit, her thoughts coming sluggishly.

She opened her mouth... and began to sing, instinctively finding a way to expel the pent up emotions inside without needing to smash something. Enough had been broken already, homes, a city, lives. Only Danielle and Katya (and Conrad) had heard her sing before, due to Guitar Hero and Rockband. She had kept it a private thing, but this time, she shared it, in her need to ease the constriction around her heart.

Her mellifluous, silvery soprano rose in a wordless paean of grief and release and heartache and determination and the will to carry on in the face of endless tragedy. Her voice floated over the ruins of Victoria, divine and majestic, further than humanly possible, yet heard clearly and intimately as if Jason sang it for their ear alone. Each person paused as the pure tones reached them, touching them, easing the tragedy a bit as someone gave voice to what was residing within their breast.

As Jason fell silent, purged, Victoria seemed to fall silent with her and finally, she gave an easy smile, her head nodding forward, face shaded by her argent mane, and fell asleep.

Click to reveal..

Singing her heart out.

Using Awe-Inspiring and Blind Bewitchment [+5 Auto-successes to persuade or inspire people], The Voice [+5 Dice for Singing], Enchanting Voice Merit [+2 Dice using her voice], and Clarion [voice heard perfectly well up to 3 kilometers away despite obstructions and interference].

Performance Prodigy Roll (First 3 dice Mega): 8d10.hits(7) = 6 successes

Grants 6 extra Dice.

Singing Roll = Cha + M-Cha + The Voice + Enchanting Voice + Performance Prodigy + Perform

Singing Roll = 5 + 3 + 5 + 2 + 5 + 6 = 26 Dice!

Singing Roll (First 3 dice Mega): 26d10.hits(7) = 11 Successes (16 if you count the inspiring effects of Awe-Inspiring), heard up to 3 kilometers away.

[GDP_ST]

Quote:

“No worries, Sunshine. Ain’t no big deal,” Jael laughed. She unzipped her suit and flashed her sports bra and a generous portion of skin. “See, I just have fancier fibers.”

Sunshine's reaction was comical. He looked at Jael's bra-enclosed flesh, then down at his own chest, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. Brilliant blue eyes flicked back to Jael, confusion clear in their gold-flecked depths, and she tried to restrain the urge to laugh.

"Yeah." she said with a sigh, looping her arm around one of his as she zipped back up. "You're certainly from another planet. No guy born on Earth would be confused by these. C'mon." She led her charge over back over to the stretcher-bed and gently pushed him down to sit. She could say this for the kid: he was agreeable. But even though he was following Jael around, he was taking in everything around him, glancing at the EMT's and doctors, the other patients and people milling around before returning his gaze to her. The initial blank stare was fading visibly, some ferocious intelligence behind those eyes operating to assimilate what his senses were taking in.

[Ghostwriter]

Regan 'Ghostwriter' McLachlan wasn't quite sure what she was doing in the shattered remnants of Victoria; she arrived far too late to do anything but watch as people worked to save the living and find the dead. If Bombshell and Knockout were goddesses and Einherjar a punisher, then she was the ghost who observed the living - untouchable, unreachable.

In the end, she wandered to the centre of the medical efforts, walking through people and objects without concern for privacy or personal space. She approached a blonde girl and a glowing young man, recognising them to be novas like herself; perhaps they'd have a clue on how she could help.

Slightly filmy in appearance due to her obvious state of intangibility, Ghostwriter was attractive in an ageless way, her skin pale against her short, straight, dark brown hair and tired navy-blue eyes despite the tinted glasses she wore. "Anything I can do?" she asked them. "...I arrived too late to help. Cost me everything I owned to get here."

[Jael Carver]

Jael was contemplating her next move with her puppy when another nova arrived in the medic tent. "Howdy," Jael said to the newcomer. Maybe puppy would imprint on her and Jael could get out of here. "I'm not a doctor, I'm just babysitting Sunshine here. No one can talk to him, or at least, not that he responds and he follows me around. So I'm making sure he stays for now."

She tilted her head, studying the other woman for a moment. "Intangibility? Neato." Jael hesitated before asking, "Also, why'd it cost you everything you owned to get here? The Red Cross would have shipped you for free, if they thought you could reasonably help with the rescue work. Hell, I've been here for... fuck if I can remember, days, certainly, and I haven't paid a dime for food, lodging or any o' it. So why'd you go out of pocket, especially if your pocket is so small? Which is another question, but I'll wait."

[Ghostwriter]

"I'm autistic, refused job offers so I could finish uni, and lost my disability pension because I can walk through walls and go without breathing," Regan replied dryly. "I didn't think to ask the Red Cross because I don't watch much television and only heard about this yesterday. I figured I should be here, so I sold everything for a plane ticket and figured the rest would sort itself out. I'm Ghostwriter, by the way: crappy name, I know, but I have a major in Writing and well, I'm more-or-less intangible now."

She looked at Sunshine. "Gee, I'm half-tempted to call him Apollo or Baldur."

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

It hadn't taken Katya long to move out of the disaster zone and relocate to Vancouver. She wanted to help, but the pain and suffering in the air was affecting her deeply, reminding her too much of the vulnerability she once shared. She wasn't the same as they were now, and that wasn't conceit, just a fact. Her concerns couldn't help but differ.

But she was able to help in other ways. It was a massive undertaking, trying to reclaim a city from such an unmitigated disaster, taking tremendous amounts of logistics and resources. Donations had to be sent where they would do the most good, financing arranged. This, she could do, and did, using her wiles and guile, and some economic wizardry.

Ryusei stayed on site, but they had a deep connection and could speak to each other anywhere and he was never more than a flex of a quantum muscle away.

The elegant and impish Russian-Canadian was tapped into a variety of organizations and federal departments, to better send resources where they were needed, so she heard when the call went out for a Telepath to check on a new nova. The Rashoud Clinic was stretched very thin, obviously but they can a suitable resident doctor on hand, Jia Randalls, who they could send. She wasn't a Healer, rather a Telepath with minor telekinetic ability, so wasn't being strained to the limits of her capabilities. At least, not yet. Unfortunately, they had to Flyer or Warper on hand to transport her, so it was either the ferry, or wait. She smirked to herself, she was learning more than a few of her boyfriend's tricks.

Katya debated about whether she wanted to go back to the desolation of Victoria or not, but closing her eyes and seeing the broken people again, then considering what damage a Nova new to his powers could cause, she agreed to provide transport.

Switching off her headset, Katya left her purloined office and flew directly to the Rashoud Clinic to pick up her passenger. Dr. Jia Randalls proved to be a a roundish woman of Chinese-Canadian, with pale skin, a cherubic, ageless face framed by straight, short-cut hair of glistening black, and calm, blue eyes. She gave her transport a deep nod of gratitude. She was tired, anyone with any degree of medical training was these days, but understood very clearly what potential danger a new Nova could pose.

"I am ready to depart, Ms. Skovskaya," she said with a lilting accent, as she patted her medical bag. She studied the young, impressive woman, with a practiced eye, who proclaimed her Novahood in her every graceful movement, the cutting symmetry of her flawless features, and the fierce intelligence and wit burning in her emerald eyes. She handed her a printout of a map detailing the location of the field hospital where the male patient had been taken too. "Here is where he is being cared for. Will you be able to find this from the sky readily enough?"

Katya glanced over it quickly, calculating the distance and location from the legend and maps she had looked over during the last week, then gave Dr. Jia Randalls a confidence grin, a dimple flashing. "I can do you one better." She waved her fingers and a hole in space irised open, its rim a coruscating collage of emerald and onyx. The peaked tent of the field hospital, a flag bearing a cross fluttering from a spar, framed in the portal. "There you go, with none of the fess of being carried of a stretch of the Pacific."

Dr. Jia gave her another deep nod, thanking her for her efforts, then strode through, a professional set to her round shoulders, though her slight smile was still serene. Katya watched the doctor leave - she was about the most... normal Nova she had ever personally met - the cocked her head, considering. She was only a few steps away and she was curious to see the Nova born during a quantum holocaust. She stepped her portal, which spun shut behind her, then followed after the doctor.

[GDP_ST]

Sunshine examined Ghostwriter as she introduced herself, then his clear gaze went from her, to Jael, and back again, following the conversation intently. It was clear enough he had determined that there was meaning in the sounds being made by people around him, but the key to comprehension was still beyond his grasp. It certainly wasn't for want of trying, though, and the flawless brow never unfurrowed as he tried to follow what was going on.

"Gee, I'm half-tempted to call him Apollo or Baldur."

The woman with the tired eyes and the strange coverings over her eyes looked at him and spoke. The softly glowing young man gazed back at her with the bluest pair of eyes Regan had ever seen, then looked at Jael.

"Gee." It took both women a second to realise that the sun-kissed subject of conversation had spoken. Jael blinked... And a woman wearing a white doctors coat over a smart pullover and slacks combination arrived, trailed by a nova-level ravishing brunette with green eyes and a curious expression. The woman in the white coat had a laminated badge pinned to her lapel proclaiming her a member of Project Utopia, under whose logo was her name.

"Hello. I'm Dr Jia Randalls." she said, holding out a hand for Jael to shake before looking at Regan and nodding. Even tired, the doctor wasn't going to offer her hand to someone clearly intangible. She did offer the hand to the unofficially dubbed Sunshine, though the skilled telepath had already made mental contact on her way across the crowded field hospital and knew what the reaction would be: curiousity and confusion. Dr Randall sighed and squatted down so that she was eye level with him which, she privately admitted, was no hardship. One glance into the mind behind those sparkling eyes was all she needed.

"The boy's mind is empty." she said to Jael as Katya came closer, both them and Regan clearly able to hear her words. "Blank. He doesn't have a language. He doesn't have a past. The sum total of his experience started when he woke up and saw you, Miss Carver. Who he has imprinted on, by the way." This was said with a slight grin. "Touching his mind is almost exactly like reading the mind of a newborn, with one important difference." She looked at the golden youth, who was looking at Jael, then Katya, then Regan, then Dr Randall with a faint air of bewilderment.

"His brain is fully developed to nova levels of processing power and speed. Very fast, though not as fast as some I've touched. With a baby, instinct is faster and more powerful than thought." She smiled at Sunshine, noting his mental reactions. "Not so with him. Instinct and thought are developing side by side, building off each other. He's assimilating the input and comparing the patterns fast, but he's still lacking context for most of what he's experiencing." The subject of conversation didn't seem ruffled or unnerved by being stared at. He simply returned the scrutiny with a frank, curious gaze of his own.

"Right." Dr Randalls sat down on the other side of Sunshine from Jael. "I'm going to try and talk to him. Words are no good, but we can 'speak' in pictures and impressions." The petite woman gave the others a tired smile. "It's better than nothing."

Her eyes unfocused a little as she looked at the boy. He suddenly stiffened and looked around himself, clearly spooked as he grabbed for Jael's arm with what would have been bruising force for a baseline. What a fun way to discover he's not super-strong! Jael thought wryly. Thanks, doc! Dr Randalls lifted a hand in a calming motion, her eyes still on the boy, who relaxed somewhat and looked back at her curiously. There was obviously some communication taking place there, but right now there was nothing for it but to wait and see what fruit it bore.

[Jael Carver]

“His name is Sunshine,” Jael muttered as newcomers arrived. She realized she was feeling oddly proprietary of him; she had found him and he was following her. She kinda liked the idea that he’d gotten stuck on her. It was cute, like having a puppy.

But the telepath’s words changed all of that. “Wait,” she said quickly. “Imprinted… like those bad werewolf novels that baseline wrote? The Sunset trilogy or whatever? Does he think I belong to him or something?”

“Quite the opposite,” the telepath assured her in a distracted mumble. “It’s more like ducks anyway; he’s fixing on you because you’re the first nova he saw, I suspect. He’s drawn to try to emulate people like himself. Not only are you a nova, but you’re similar in coloring. It’s not as… hmm, sexual as the books you mentioned; more like his mind is seeking a role model.”

“Wow, kid, you know how to pick ‘em,” Jael said to Sunshine. She patted him on the shoulder, which made him look at the shoulder in confusion of course. “You really could make a game of this… anyway, I need to get back out there,” she added, looking at the gathered people. “Is someone willing to take him for a while? I’ll come back and check on him, but… I can’t take a nova baby out there on the rescue with me.” She looked at the newcomer, a foxy raven-haired nova and then at Ghostwriter. “Either of you interested?”

[Ghostwriter]

"I've got nothing better to do, I've got a postgrad degree, and I can't be touched," Ghostwriter said with a shrug. "If he learns as quick as you say, I think we could have him hauling stuff off people in no time."

[Jael Carver]

"Yeah, right, no," Jael said to the intangible woman even as the therapist opened her mouth. "He's a blank brain and exposing him to the stuff here will scar him. I don't want his first day he remembers to be all this blood and death." Belatedly, she realized she was talking as if she had any right to dictate what happened to him.

"It really wouldn't be good for him," the therapist agreed. A moment later Jael felt a presence in her mind. *Thank you for that.*

“Don’t.” The single word almost ignited the air as it came out of Jael’s mouth, fueled with fury. Her hands clenched into fists and she was aware her lips were pulled back from her teeth. As her cheeks flushed with anger, she added, “Don’t do that under any circumstances.”

Sunshine’s hand tightened on her arm. Jael turned to see worry in his eyes; his expression clearly said, What the hell is wrong?

“It’s alright,” Jael said softly, giving him a sad smile. She reached up and smoothed hair off his forehead, tucking it back into his golden mane. “I just have a bad reaction to telepaths. Nothing’s really wrong, I swear.”

“I’m sorry,” the therapist said, swallowing. “That was rude of me without asking.”

Suddenly, they all heard a song ringing out over the scene. For several moments, they were all silent as the sound washed over them. Then it was gone, and Jael shook her head, as if clearing her head. She didn’t remark on the song; in this fucked-up world, a pretty song in the middle of the night was nothing.

“Ok, so I have to get back, if you can watch him, Ghostwriter. Just don’t take him out there, ok?” Jael gave him a little smile. “He doesn’t need that.” Without waiting for a reply, she untangled her arm from his grip and stood, and so did he. “I’m just gonna fly away and you guys can talk him down, alright?”

“I don’t think-” the telepath started but Jael was already off the ground and heading for the door. Sunshine’s eyes widened in alarm and then he was following her, too. But instead of being on foot, he was flying right behind her – his golden glow becoming a brazen halo of light. Jael glanced back at the door to see this and immediately set down. “Well, shit. That won’t work.”

Sunshine dropped next to her, his intense gaze on her. “We need you to help us settle him. Especially since we don’t know what he’s capable of, yet,” the therapist said. “He needs you.”

“You poor bastard,” Jael told Sunshine with genuine sympathy. “Alright, fine. I have a suggestion,” Jael quickly added. “I have been offered a place to crash by a friend, but it’s in someplace called Whistler. I haven’t used it yet, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you crashed there. Doctor, can your ride get us all out there? That is, if you don’t mind camping out in a penthouse, Ghostwriter.”

“I don't know,” the therapist said, turning to look at the silent stranger. “Can you get us out there?”

[Firanis 'Fi' Flux]

Katya's eyes ran over Sunshine appreciatively - he wasn't as gorgeous as her boyfriend, but his burnished good looks were a sharp contrast to Ryusei raven hair and paler skin. And though they both had blue eyes, Ryusei's rarely held that innocent wonder. Like the Sun and the Moon. I've always preferred the nightlife, but I don't mind fun in the sun, either. She was quite devoted to Ryusei, but she was still new to being a Nova and there was nothing wrong about fantasizing a little. And if he was willing to make the fantasies real...

Her acute senses could perceive the warmth radiating off of him, and an urge to touch him was building, hypersensitive fingers wanting to feel his smooth skin, to reach deeper and feel the emotions of a newborn man, but her musings interrupted by a glorious, silvery voice. Katya's lips bent in a mysterious smile as she recognized the voice, though she had hardly expected to her in such a fashion.

Katya's curiosity took in the bespectacled Ghostwriter too, though she found her insubstantiality somewhat... disturbing. She herself was a very tactile creature, to be... separated in such a way... She suppressed a shiver behind a puckish politeness.

She watched in amusement as Sunshine made his intent clear. When Dr. Jia Randalls turned to her to make her inquiry, Katya arched a sable brow at Jael, flashing an impish dimple. "Your friend, would she happen to be so tall?" She raised a hand more than half a foot higher than her head, then cupped her hands in front of her chest, the readjusted them, holding them out further. "And built out to here?"

Jael smirked. "You know Jason too?"

"You could say that," Katya said, her grin deepening. "I can get us to her place in Whistler without a problem, I know it well." Her emerald eyes sparkled with a coy confidence. "Know her well too, she won't mind a few more visitors, and I'll talk her around if she does."

She gestured at a clear area of wall and her viridian and obsidian portal swirled open once more. It opened onto the encircling balcony of a luxurious, penthouse condominium. Snow-capped, blue-grey mountains coiled picturesquely around them, though the ground of the mountain, resort town around them was clear, the light breeze blowing a bit cool and refreshing.

"You're one step away from Casa de Bombshell," Katya proclaimed with a flourish. "Welcome."

Katya's eyes fell on Jael once more. Her grin was amused, but Jael caught a challenging edge to it. "You don't recognize me, do you, Jael? We met in Havana, when I was... less. Jason's friend and Ryusei's companion. Katya."

She reached along the ever present bond in her mind, new, yet so familiar, her thoughts teasing those of her of boyfriend's. His thoughts hung heavy and dark - and how could they not, with what he was surrounded by? - but she did what she could, keeping his nights occupied with much more pleasant pursuits.

*Ryusei, seems like there is almost a veritable party going on here at Jason's Penthouse - don't tell her if you see her. Jael is here, along with a Utopian doctor/therapist, and a handsome, new Nova who has as much life experience as a newborn. What fun. There is also another Nova here too, a... ghost, Ghostwriter. I think we're going to have to be friendly if all of us decide to spend the night. Oh, by the way, if you see the other Nova from Stanford, Paul Chen, can you give him a lift? If Jason offered Jael a place to stay during the photo-op, she'd have offered it to Paul too. See you soon.* The phantom fingers running down his body made him respond instantly, which was somewhat awkward with the man in his arms he was carrying to the EMTs. But he didn't mind, smiling as he felt, more than heard, Katya's husky chuckle.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

Ryusei smiled. "I'll see you in abit. We can always open our room to others if the need arises." He brought the man he'd been carrying to the Triage center and began searching out the nova that Katya had indicated. He knew most of the other novas, by name and reputation mostly.

He smiled, and prodded her gently for more information on Paul, so he knew what he was looking for. Before he found him, he found and marked two more sites of bodies, his mood darkening despite the promise of soon being around Katya again.

Finally he found Paul, and nodded. "I was sent to find you, Paul, my name's Ryusei. I'm a friend of Jason's."

[Jael Carver]

The dirty, tired-looking Asian who looked up at him didn't look like a nova. He looked like a guy who'd been working too long in a dusty, nasty environment. Only the tell-tale shine of eufiber clothing told that he was anything other than another baseline volunteer.

"Jas... oh, right, Bombshell," Paul said, rising from his crouch. "It's nice to meet you, Ryusei. He offered Ryusei his hand, giving him a good, strong shake. "You taking me to Jason's penthouse?"

"Yeah," Ryusei said, "unless you don't want to go."

Paul looked down at the rubble he'd been clearing. He wasn't physically tired but he was worn down. He'd been at this for days with only a couple of breaks. Part of him demanded that he keep pushing on, but he also knew that if he utterly burned himself out, he'd be useless. "Yeah, I'm ready to go," he said, nodding. "Let me go tell my team lead that I'll be gone for a few hours."

Ryusei followed him to a tall black man who accepted Paul's announcement with a nod. "Go on," he said in a deep, gruff voice. "Get some rest."

Paul thanked him and turned back to Ryusei. "Are you going to have to carry me? Or is this trip not going to be embarrassing?" He grinned tiredly at his own bad joke.

[Ryusei Hideyoshi]

"It will be the very short kind." He smiled and for an instant he felt Ryusei's aura envelop him, before Ryusei teleported to the penthouse. They arrived in the main foyer and Ryusei smiled.

"Welcome to the penthouse. make yourself at home, and be sure to thank Jason next time you see her."

He noted several of the others present, feeling their presence from there.

He called out for the benefit of others, knowing Katya already knew. "Katya, we're here." He led the way to Everyone was gathered. "I found another nova in need of a little break from the site."

He offered a weak smile. "Nice to see you again Jael, though I wish it were under much better circumstances."

[Ghostwriter]

"Given that my last accommodation was an old house shared with three other students who freaked the hell out when I went ghost, I'm not bitching," Ghostwriter responded wryly, trying and failing to summon a smile that wasn't a cynical half-quirk of her thin lips. On closer inspection, she wore a pair of denim jeans and a black t-shirt which said, 'I had a nightmare I was a brunette.'

Which, given she was brunette with dark blonde roots where the dye was growing out, was obviously meant to be ironic.

When she arrived at 'Jason's' penthouse, watching Sunshine closely, she looked at the Utopian telepath. "Don't. Even. Think. About. Touching. My. Thoughts. I'm autistic and value my personal space."

The woman looked offended and began to protest she wouldn't, but Ghostwriter just snorted cynically and began to stare at Sunshine in a non-socially approved way. That was when she wasn't ogling the fancy electronics.

[Jael Carver]

"Alright then," Jael said with a smile she clearly didn't feel, "let's get the hard part done first." She held out her hand for Sunshine, who stared at it. “I cannot wait to get you trained in the basics.”

“Taught, not trained,” the therapist said, pursing her lips a little.

“Semantics,” Jael smirked. “Teaching is a type of training. We just don’t like to think that we train kids.” She took his hand and gave him a smile. “I know you don’t have the first clue what I’m saying,” she told him, her eyes full of warmth and as much reassurance as she could express. “But this is ok, I promise.”

He met her eyes until she finished speaking; then he looked down at their joined hands. Understanding filled his eyes and he bent down to take her other hand. “Okay,” Jael said, her eyebrows rising. “I can work like this, too.” She started to walk backwards, leaning him toward the rip in reality. He balked a little as her back drew near the hole so Jael let go of one hand to put her hand on his cheek. “Trust me, Sunshine.”

That brow furrowed with more concern as Jael inched back a bit more, but he didn’t pull away from her. She took his hand again and continued to pull him over, trying not to think about what destructive burning powers he could unleash if he got upset. “Good,” she urged, as she felt the first tingle of crossing the threshold upon her back. “That’s right, Sunshine. Just a bit further.”

He startled as his skin first touched the horizon of the wormhole but he still followed her. Jael suddenly realized the huge amount of trust he had in her. She’d told him to trust her, but she’d said that to get people to trust her, not because they should. He did and he did so completely.

It was the most thrilling and frightening thing she’d ever experienced.

Once he was through, she pulled him out of the way and said, “There, safe and sound.” She tilted her head at him and muttered, “I wonder if this is what having a child is like…”

[GDP_ST]

Sunshine's head tilted in deliberate mimicry of her as he returned the scrutiny, eyes intent as they gently scoured her posture and expression for any meaning, then straightened as he looked at the view from the balcony of the luxuriously appointed penthouse, then took in the other novas coming through the warp. He noted Ghostwriter was staring at him and, undiscomfited, stared back curiously at the partially see-through woman, fascinated by the way she seemed to be there, yet not be there. Or at least, that's what it looked like to the others.

The langourously swirling light of his aura was stronger now, the heat he was giving off similar to a warm April afternoon. Jael looked at the Utopian doctor, feeling the warmth on her hands and face as it stole the slight chill from the breeze up here.

"He needs light." she told the woman, who was making a few notes in a small book as she studied Sunshine. "It's what woke him up, and this glow of his is getting stronger the more light he gets." Dr Randalls nodded, her professional demeanour only partially covering the interest in her dark eyes.

"I've been examining his quantum aura closely." she commented. "His body is a seething mass of nuclear and electromagnetic forces. If I had to guess, his cells seem to be taking in ambient light and transforming it into fuel for their essential processes the way others use food. This..." she waved a hand through the glow. "This is leakage, I think."

"Great choice of words." Jael said, wrinkling her nose. Sunshine studied the expression, then wrinkled his own nose experimentally. Jael smiled at him despite herself, then looked at the doctor in alarm as a thought occurred to her. "Speaking of which, is he gonna need to, y'know, go?"

"I'm not sure." Randalls replied calmly. "But I do need to get him to the Rashoud Clinic for a more thorough scan and tests."

"When I'm done with my shift." Jael said firmly, some protective instinct dictating her words. "I'll bring him in then."

"He could be dangerous without knowing it." Jia Randalls protested. "The Clinic is the best place for-"

"I'll bring him in after my shift." Jael repeated, a definite edge to her words. "You'll want me there anyway, unless you're planning to Mox the hell outta him then shoot him full of elephant tranquiliser. And sister, if you do that he's not the nova you're going to need to worry about." She took a firmer grip on Sunshine's hands. The doctor paused, then shrugged and nodded.

"Okay. But with your permission, Katya..." she turned to the beautiful raven-haired woman. "I'd like to stay here until Miss Carver can accompany both me and, uh, Sunshine to the Clinic."

Jael turned back to her glowing ward as Katya nodded and murmured assent in that distinctive, husky accent of hers. Jael looked into Sunshine's eyes, noting the strange way that light seemed to refract and sparkle golden in their depths. "Okay, now for the easy part, hopefully." she muttered. "C'mere, Katya. Meet Sunshine. Sunshine, Katya." She took Katya's slender, pale hand and, with a strange pang of reluctance she filed away to worry over later, placed Sunshine's golden-bronze hand in it. He looked at her, blue eyes widening. Yeah, he's quick on the uptake. She kept her own hand on his and Katya's, trying to be as reassuring as possible.

"I have to go." she pointed at herself, then the warp portal, going back and forth a couple of times to reinforce the message. "You stay here with Katya." Again, the pantomime of pointing, this time from Sunshine to the brunette. Katya smiled gently at the tall youth and squeezed his hand, resisting the urge to quell the stirring alarm and fear she felt in him with her own abilities.

"I'll come back." Jael said, knowing he wouldn't understand but saying it anyway as she slowly removed her hand from his. Big blue eyes regarded her with a mix of puzzlement and worry. She put a hand to his cheek again. "It's alright." she said gently, then stepped back slowly. She pointed to herself, then let her hand rest on his chest. "I'll come back." she said again as she stepped back once more, breaking contact. Damn, leaving guys behind isn't supposed to be this hard. Almost on cue, she saw Paul and Ryusei pop into being inside the apartment through the balcony windows. Ugh, that I don't need right now. Time to go.

"Look after him." she not-quite-ordered Katya, stepping steadily back towards the warp. Sunshine watched her go, his demeanour a little calmer but still puzzled, his eyes mutely asking her why.