Heroes: The Road of Good Intentions

[Marcao]

It felt right to him. All of it. That precious moment descended upon them and he allowed it to take hold. Who knew how many more would they have? The world seemed on the verge of changing and a part of him worried that the change would not be for the better. Still, whatever came he would face it on his feet. Whatever came, she would be there or so he hoped.

She requested something from him, her body drawing back enough that her warmth was instantly missed. He looked down at her, seeking her eyes. "It will be done." He replied softly. It was not as if he did not enjoy holding her and he felt no shame at doing so before the team if it came to that. His right hand moved and brushed against the side of her head before he smiled. "we should go. The others will be waiting."

He watched as Li Na nodded in agreement, her right hand finding his. He wasted little time, his eyes sought the same window that he had used to enter her room and a millisecond later he took them outside to the patio. His head turned for the moment every sense sharpened, Li Na's hand felt smoother than satin against his skin. His eyes found a window and saw past it further into the house itself. A moment later he blinked once more, taking Li Na with him. They arrived near the others, his eyes flickering over the gathered members of Team Mirage that he could see.

"I am ready." He said politely. His hand only releasing Argent's own after having spoken. He would not speak for her, but he was as ready as he would ever be.

[Haizu]

"It is a sound plan and I think it will give us the full advantage of surprise. I was thinking though, what if we made two teams?" Tholos now stood up from the couch he had been sitting on through this whole ordeal and began pacing the room, a look of fierce concentration on his face. "We could send in the main force with you, acting as the frontal assault. With my Word of Change, I could bring in a smaller, secondary force. I guess you could call it a scout team, or reinforcements if you like. While the main group takes on the enemy and works their way down, the secondary could be scouting out the floors below, performing hit and run tactics." Tholos met Gravitas' gaze, a fierce light in his eyes. "This would disorient the enemy and with Li Na's empathic abilities, we can relay whatever information we get until we link up. How does that sound?"

[SirNitram]

"I cannot help but think if we seperate, we are doomed." Gravitas said simply and curtly. Oddly enough, his tone was quite clipped now; he was having to focus on keeping a grip on his mental aberrations. "This is doubly so with you, Blackheart, and Argent." Argent. Not 'Li Na'. Argent was the name she had made for herself, and Gravitas seemed to view things like that. He had never called Blast Tobin, either. "Your exposure to the demonic means that while you are potent weapons against them, you are also uniquely vunerable. I would prefer a unified force, but I am not commanding this mission."

[Cynical Cat]

Blackheart spoke. "I would most definitely prefer a single group, able to direct our full strength against our opponents. With enough flexibility to allow our teleporters and speedster to utilize their abilities to the fullest. Abaddon pushed Legacies and I to the maximum in order to defeat him, and we additional help as well. We don't need to chop ourselves into groups too small to defeat one of their heavy hitters."

[LadyTevar]

"You need to learn not to depend on line-of-sight, Elias..." Argent said softly. "When we get back, remind me to teach you." It was a pleasant thought, that they'd get out safely, and be able to play around with their talents a bit after. She had a couple ideas how to encourage him to learn.

But first, they had to get there and get out. "I agree with Blackheart," she stated, moving forward to rejoin the planning. "Not only because another Abaddon will need all our talents, but because I'm expecting wards and traps to keep the demonics out of certain areas." The look she gave Blackheart was firm. "Your demon may not be prey to those, but Shingure-san showed how easily I can be trapped. I don't like the thought of getting caught in a place the rest of the team can't reach."

Her eyes drifted to Gravitas, feeling his overconfidence, his sudden sense of superiority, and his growing fear of losing control. Catching sight of his eyes, she stiffened, staring at something she'd only seen looking back at her from a mirror. "What did you do to yourself?!"

[SirNitram]

"Released power sealed away, to ensure we can conquer this obstacle." Gravitas' clipped words said simply. "While making sure I didn't release so much as to be obviously a monster."

[LadyTevar]

Argent met Gravitas' eyes squarely, only now starting to see the starlights within them. "... It's a short walk for you right now, isn't it...." she said softly.

She did not wait for an answer, looking to Blackheart, who she also feared might get far too close to the monster on this mission. "I'm ready. If it's like a normal building, I should be able to travel anywhere inside ... but I won't know what's where, or what any room may hold. I won't quite be leaping blind, but I could leap to somewhere we don't want to be."

[Charon]

Legacies remembered the fight with Abaddon. At the time, he had feared the demonic being, and feared more having to fight another like him. Now though, the symbiote thought it knew what to do about such heavy hitters. You hit them harder than they can handle, and keep hitting them while they aren't expecting it. The silver figures eyes glanced over towards Gravitas.

"We appreciate your sacrifice, Gravitas."

[Cynical Cat]

"If everyone is ready, let's teleport and get the show on the road," said Blackheart.

[SirNitram]

Gravitas' mind unfolded across the distance. He perceived the underground chamber he had felt being mostly empty, near the surface. He perceived how it connected to every point, including where he was. With a thought and a rush of quantum energy, the two points suddenly became connected, a wormhole opened between the two.

Wreathed in a starfield as his anima banner flared, Gravitas nodded. "Let us begin."

[Cynical Cat]

Blackheart's eyes glowed with seething power. "Someone has to go first," and stepped through the wormhole.

[Charon]

Legacies grinned some as he followed after Blackheart. "We wish that we had at some time said we would follow you to hell and back. It would make this moment far more amusing..." It wasn't certain who the symbiote was speaking too, likely to the group in general. But without even a break in his step, Legacies was through the wormhole.

[LadyTevar]

Argent elongated into dragonform, slipping away from Tachyon and through the wormhole nearly on Legacies' heels. As she passed through, she'd raised some defenses against static empathic remnants such as what had clung to the walls of the Astronomer's Lair. Abaddon had worked for the Astronomer. That RCE might be tainted the same way was a strong possibility.

But in the room they appear in, she feels nothing untoward.
"It feels better than the Astronomer's Lair, wherever we came out," she informed Blackheart and Legacies as she cleared the portal to make room for the rest. It would take a few moments for her Shadows to feel out the general size and layout of the building.

[Hotfoot]

The time spent getting ready had hardly been wasted by Collin. In addition to cramming down a large amount of food, he had gotten into his costume, taken up Gravitas's offer to review the research, careful not to go so fast as to wreck the computer, and finished stretching. His mindset was grim, this was very serious work he was about to get into, and what little he gathered from Gravitas's computer didn't fill him with confidence. At the very least, he hoped, there would be a way out of this that didn't involve dying.

When the portal was created, he stepped through after the rest, his shield already up, expecting trouble from the word go. He'd hold back only for the first punch this time, once he knew he could hurt them, he knew he had to go all out. He checked the link with Argent, his only method of communication with the rest of the team when he was like this, sending over concern and uncertainty. He wanted to do what needed to be done and then get the hell out.

[Marcao]

Elias watched as Gravitas opened the way. He had to admit that before joining Team Mirage he had certainly felt that his talents were worthy of attention and certainly placed him in the upper echelons of power. Gravitas and Argent had a penchant for making him reconsider those thoughts. Argent slipped away from him and elongated into her dragon form, his eyes watching her for a moment before she disappeared through the portal.

He took a deep breath and held it, letting Hotfoot go through first before he too moved into the unknown. He held his power tightly, his eyes shifting beneath the power as it flooded over him. Twin emeralds seemed to glow with inner light as his eyes slid over their surroundings. Now things got interesting...

[Agent Fisher]

A voice seemed to echo and reverbarate through nothingness. “It is time. My warrior, go and do my will..â€

[B4UTRUST]

The team had teleported into what appeared to be a large entry hall, hewn from the mountain itself. Tall, carved stone pillars stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The floor was of highly polished rock. The walls were ornately decorated in bas-relief, scenes stretching from one end to the other. The scenes themselves were a life-sized mural depicting the war in Heaven. The images were graphic, violent, surreal and at the same time ominously lifelike. At the end of the hall it intersected a second hallway forming a T. At the intersection sat a curved oak desk and chair, both empty. Behind it, larger then life, was something that could only be a depiction of the fall of Lucifer, the angel before the gates of Heaven with his head cast downward.

The near-silent sound of circulating air was the only noise save for their footsteps and breathing. The hallway was empty of any discernable life. The air before the group shimmered as an image coalesced. The image formed into that of a man appeared to be in his late twenties, red-haired and obviously European though he lacked any sort of accent in his speech.

"This is a recorded message. I'm sorry to say, it is my deepest regret to inform you that this facility does not allow outside visitors and does not give a guided tour. If you would please, at this time, exit the facility it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your cooperation."

[Cynical Cat]

"So much for surprise," said Blackheart. He jogged down the hall towards the T intersection.

[SirNitram]

Gravitas practically glided after Blackheart, studying the artwork. "The inhabitant clearly obsesses. I would almost wonder if we're facing the individual depicted; stranger things happened." His mind was studying the layout of mass underground, trying to predict the shape of the facility.

[Cynical Cat]

"Thousands of years have given those names and images power in the minds of humans," said Blackheart. "Establishing psychological dominance over those you deal with before you even meet them can be handy."

[LadyTevar]

Argent couldn't help but admire the surroundings. The artwork and bas-reliefs were well-done and worth quite a bit if you could get them to a dealer. The larger-than-life 'Fall of Lucifer' had the dragon-shaped woman pausing and thinking amusedly about tugging the towel lower. There was just something about the whole panel that attracted her attention.

The 'recorded message' yanked her out of her thoughts. "Probably body-heat activated," she said to the team, before Blackheart and Gravitas started down the hallway.

Argent was still trying to get her bearings in the building. Normally, she could sense other rooms, other hallways in any building she entered. She never questioned how she knew, she somehow knew where a shadowstep would take her ... but not what was there, or who. It was just something her Shadow-gifts did, and it was how she knew how to find vaults and other hidden places.

Right now, the shadows were telling her something was wrong with this room. "Blackheart! Gravitas! That's not the way!" she called out after them. "There's another way out of here...." she added, and her silvery eyes turned back to the large Bas-Relief, of the angel losing his feathery wings.

[Cynical Cat]

Blackheart stopped in mid stride. "Then lead the way," he said.

[SirNitram]

"Interesting..." Gravitas turned, looking to Argent. "Let's see what you have found."

[Agent Fisher]

Michael strode down the halls, clad in simple dark brown pants, a dark brown leather tunic and a pair of boots, wondering where the Mortals where. He passed by a piece of art depicting his 'brother'. He stopped and looked at it sadly, remembering when they had clashed swords. "Why 'brother'?" He asked the painting. He shook his head and continued walking. So far the facility seemed to be dead quiet. But looks can be deceiving, he reminded himself, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

[LadyTevar]

The dragon studied the bas-relief, particularly the "Gates" behind the statue, to the point she even carefully peeked between the legs deplicted below the wrap/towel. All to see how the gates opened, of course.

She pulled back, still studying the panel. "It swings open.. the statue moves out of the way.... but I don't know where the switch..."
She trails off, the draconic head snapping towards the desk. "Could it be that easy?"