Heroes: The Road of Good Intentions

[B4UTRUST]

Above...

The flames lapped at the last remnants of the quickly evaporating liquid, turning it to a hiss of steam. The elemental stepped forth from its prison of cold and gazed about. It knew where its prey had headed. It followed.

It shot down the elevator and exploded through the hallways, igniting anything flamable in its passing. It could hear voices up ahead, they were near. The flames grew hotter and brighter as fury fueled the fire. The rocks around it began to melt from the heat.

It would be there in a matter of seconds...


-----------
Below... close, but so far away...

The entity appeared in a flash of smoke and sulfur, falling to its knees, its body heaving in what could only be percieved as pain.
"And you have the gaul to return so soon. Did you think I would overlook this failure? I have suffered your ineptitude for far too long, hoping that assigning you to such a meaningless position would spare me from your further disgraces.

"But no more. Beleth, you may have this useless wretch..."

The entity looked up, bearing a striking resemblence to a demon middle-manager that was so recently disposed of. Its eyes went wide in what could only be perceieved as fear. It knew all too well the fate that was in store for it. It would be added to the legions of Beleth. It opened its mouth to scream. The blackness enfolded it, filled it, consumed it. When the darkness passed there was nothing left.

[frigidmagi]

Blast leapt between the group and the fire thing. Between his shield and immunity to energy as a whole it shouldn't be able to hurt him. Could he hurt it though? Good question.

He pointed his hand at it and opened fire. Energy streamed forth to slam into the thing.

[General Havoc]

"Argent," said Hydro, rolling the word like an ocean breaker, and turning its tendril towards each of the other metahumans in turn as it recited their names. "Tachyon, Blackheart, Gravitas..." It still seemed to stare a bit suspiciously at Hotfoot, but perhaps that was their imagination. It was hard to tell what an animated puddle was thinking.

"Havoc?" it asked, sounding rather puzzled. "The pyronics showed no evidence that I was to be released for any purpose at all. What... is this place for? Are the pyronics attempting something specific. I could not determine what the point of their-"

The elevator door exploded before Hydro's sentence was finished, and a raging, roaring, living flame emerged. It crackled, snarled, and whirled like a bonfire, attracting every eye.

And some without.

Hydro took one 'look' at the ravening flame, and let loose a low, gutteral sound like a looming tidal wave. Darkening once more like the sea in a storm, Hydro loomed up, expanding in size even as chunks of ice formed within him. It was not possible to be certain of course, given Hydro, but it definitely sounded like Hydro recognized this animated fire.

And it didn't sound like a pleasant reunion.

And then without further ado, Hydro transformed himself into a geyser pointed sideways, and lunged at the fire beast like a pressure hose, paying no mind whatsoever to the streams of energy being let loose by one of the flesh-beasts, streams which passed right through him without so much as diverting his attention. And then with a hellacious sizzling hiss, Hydro collided with the fire beast head on, emitting a sound like a raging flash flood an instant before steam envelopped everything.

[SirNitram]

"You know... There was a time in my life, that might have surprised me." Gravitas admitted, watching living flame and water rush at each other. "..And I was pretty damn sure I'd killed that thing."

[LadyTevar]

Argent absently wondered if Blackheart would yell at Gravitas for not making sure of the kill like he had yelled at her. Steam was rising rapidly, but she couldn't tell which one was winning as the steam seemed to almost immediately suck itself back into 'Hydro'.

"If anyone has any doubts about Hydro, I can assure you he wants that Elemental dead," she informed the team. "So anyone has ideas how to help him?"

[Cynical Cat]

"Don't look at me," said Blackheart. "I know jack about elementals and shoot heat rays out of my eyes. Anyone remember seeing any fire extinguishers?"

[SirNitram]

"I'm not sure an extinguisher would work. When you encase something in ice, there's no fuel. Smothering it with carbon dioxide may not work much better." Gravitas frowned, trying to think. "I miss when things were simple.. And when there was time for strategy."

[Charon]

Legacies turned, tendrils leaping out and grabbing the only two remaining fire extinguishers and swinging them at where the fire elemental had been. As they got nearby, Legacies stopped the extinguishers in the air and pressed down on the nozzles, emitting the carbon dioxide.

"It's worth a shot." Was all the silver being said.

[B4UTRUST]

The flame elemental was doused by the watery form of Hydro. The flames flickered and shrunk before rallying and igniting again. Hydro began to boil from contact with the living fire, steam rising up from the conflict.

The two polar opposites seemed to merge together and dance around each other. The tide of battle shifted with every movement as each sought to overcome the other. Flames boiled the water to steam only to be extinguished a second later. After a moment it was obvious that both combatants would soon exhaust their reserves and quite possibly both suffer deadly damage as a result. Hydro grew smaller as more and more water was evaporated from the water entity. Steam was converted back into it's mass, but not quick enough to totally replenish its body. The fire elemental's flames grew weaker as more and more liquid death was enveloping it. Every breath of oxygen allowed a momentary burst of strength to it, sending its flames shooting higher before they fell victim to the water.

The beams of energy did little to harm either of the combatants, passing through Hydro and seemingly only annoying the creature of flame as it barely paused in acknowledgement.

However, the clean agent fire extinguisher did manage to subtly shift the outcome. The carbon dioxide began to reduce the amount of free oxygen in the surrounding area of the flame elemental. While it didn't effect the water elemental or seem to cause serious harm to the fire, it showed an accelerated decrease in flame regrowth. The end result was to deprive the elemental of much needed oxygen, allowing Hydro to gain a decisive upper hand in the conflict.

A minute or so later, all that was left were a lot of small fires burning on the bulletin boards and in offices, and a bit of ash beneath the very hot water elemental.

[LadyTevar]

"Everyone undamaged?" Argent asked, looking around at the team, then to the bubble of water. "Hydro?"

[Charon]

Legacies dropped the empty canisters once the fight was over. "We'll be honest. We can't believe that worked..."

Legacies looked over to the others. "We are fine, though we may want to do something to make certain that fire elemental stays down this time."

[LadyTevar]

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"

[frigidmagi]

"Sounds good to me. I'm still not believing that ice doesn't kill fire. That is damn freaky." Blast said.

[LadyTevar]

"Fire needs air to breathe. Legacies' little trick must have taken that away."

[B4UTRUST]

Kyosuke walked back into the control room to find Saibot. There were things to discuss.
"Saibot, before we go wild with recruitment and planning, we need a method of financing this operation. We need a functional clandestine chem lab and the personel to run it. And a method of manufacturing batches of chemicals. And we'll need them soon. I'll need to return to Japan to get some things. If my plan works, we'll be generating enough profits within two months to broker our objectives successfully. Unless you have enough cash laying around to finance this little operation."

------------

I wake up like I do every day. As I start trying to remember the events of the night before, I realize I can't. A few more minutes of stressful, anxious thinking reveals nothing. Zilch. I can't remember a thing about last night, or the night before that, or anything else it seems. I'm not even sure who I am right now. I start rifling through anything I can find, trying to find an answer.. A dozen different names and photos are in various drawers in the apartment I'm in. ID's to people that I'm not and aren't sure I could have ever been. I look at each in turn, comparing it to the face in the mirror. None of them are me, none are even close. It's frightening. I'm sure I'm suppose to call someone if this sort of thing happens, but I don't know anyone to call.

I drop back onto the bed. It's a ratty thing, horribly abused and stained with torn linens. I don't even want to contemplate what I've been sleeping in. But I continue to stare anyway. I notice the strands of long hair littering the pillow. It's blonde and straight. I pick up a single hair and hold it up to the light, looking at it like it will unlock the secrets of my universe. Someone was in this disgusting pigstye of a bed with me, I think. Because my hair is short and dark, not long and blonde. As I gaze at the mystery strand it changes. It begins to curl at the bottom, turning darker. The hair curls around itself like it's burning, which I suppose is an apt enough description when it falls apart into nothingness still clutched between my fingertips. A glance at the pillow reveals much the same thing. The sheets are noticibly cleaner too.

I put my head in my hands and close my eyes, trying to think, trying to remember, trying to answer that all important question. As I sit there I gaze back in my mind over the IDs that I had found. There was a blonde in one of them. A petite female, kind of mousey features, fairly plain. I pick up the pile of cards where I had left them and flip through them till I find the one. Renee Chamlee. I read the stats on the ID over and over again. I wonder why she was here, and why I have her ID. Or any of these peoples' IDs for that matter.

After searching through the rest of the apartment I find bills and mail for a dozen different names, all listed as the occupant of this address. I flip through it, looking for anything that helps make sense of this. Nothing does, nothing will it seems. I'm a blank at the moment, a nobody. A very scary thought. Why did I wake up in a house full of IDs and mail for people who aren't here and that I don't know? It's all confusing as hell. And it still doesn't help answer that one all important question of the moment: Who am I?

[SirNitram]

"Hydro. If you can, we must begin moving. We are located, and they will bring overwhelming force to bear." Gravitas said after a moment. He started to move down the hall. He was a shadow of his former self, but someone must keep the pace going.

[General Havoc]

As the fires died down around the swirling clouds of steam as the remains of the extinguished fire elemental landed on the floor amidst a pool of water that was bubbling and hissing like a frying piece of bacon. Slowly, very slowly, the puddle pulled itself together and reconstituted itself into its normal shape, a mound of water with a large tendril extending from the top. Something was different now however. Even as the condensed water droplets ran off the ceiling and walls and back towards the mound in the center, Hydro gave some gurgling sounds, extending his tendril slowly, but it was apparent something was wrong. Water dripped from the tendril, splattering over the floor before being re-assimilated into the main mass. The tendril slowly moved one way, then another, before suddenly it destabilized all at once and splashed down to the floor, the main mass bubbling, agitating, and then slowly sinking down until it was barely a foot or two off the ground.

The puddle was now re-established, but Hydro's attempts to constitute himself into his normal form again seemed to be rather ineffectual. Slowly he managed to reform a three foot mound, still leaking water left and right, before quivering a barely-comprehensible voice out of his body.

"That may.... be difficult..."

[Dark Silver]

Kyosuke walked back into the control room to find Saibot. There were things to discuss.
"Saibot, before we go wild with recruitment and planning, we need a method of financing this operation. We need a functional clandestine chem lab and the personel to run it. And a method of manufacturing batches of chemicals. And we'll need them soon. I'll need to return to Japan to get some things. If my plan works, we'll be generating enough profits within two months to broker our objectives successfully. Unless you have enough cash laying around to finance this little operation."

Saibot was looking down at one of the new computer displays which he had been able to get installed. It took most of the remainder of his mostly ill begotten fortune, but he managed to update the vital computer systems in the base. The Command Center still wasn't up to it's glory days, but it was getting there. There was a series of deliveries he'd have to acquire that evening and the next few days, before he could be safe in the computer system's reliability.

He never raised his head, he tapped a few buttons on the keyboard and replied, "Even with the....requisitioning I've done, most of my unfrozen accounts and assets are damn near done in while I've been restoring the base. We're still not at full operating capacity on the computer systems..and if someone like Gravitas or Mobius tried to teleport in this place...I'm not sure how long the teleportation scramblers would hold out." Finishing with his brief stint of programming - he never knew how he was able to work the code, he never bothered learning it - he turned to face his Japanese counterpart.

"Whatever you got in mind....if it can get us up and running that much quicker....I want to hear what you got..."

Garth waited a few moments, before continuing, "oh...and Kyosuke, I have someone I want to bring in with us..."

[B4UTRUST]

Kyosuke paused for a moment.
"Alright, since you'll figure it out anyway. I plan for us to manufacture designer narcotics for street use and government distribution. I plan to invoke demon magic to create the basis for what we need, then use the lab to sythnetically reproduce the elixers I bring them. It will give us something that nobody else has on the market. With what I plan to produce, we'll have them lined up after the first taste to buy more.

"So who do you want to bring in?"

[Dark Silver]

The thought of producing and selling drugs didn't settle well with Garth....but Kyosuke was right. With the money designer drugs could rake in, they'd not only be able to fund the operations, but he could replinish his accounts.

"Fine...As for who I want to bring in..it's someone you know well."

Garth hadn't shaved in days, yet the beard gave him a aged look, but the age seemed to lift as he said it.

"I want to bring in Ghost."

[LadyTevar]

The puddle was now re-established, but Hydro's attempts to constitute himself into his normal form again seemed to be rather ineffectual. Slowly he managed to reform a three foot mound, still leaking water left and right, before quivering a barely-comprehensible voice out of his body.

"That may.... be difficult..."

Argent frowned, then looked around the battle-ravaged office. Now... most offices have one... where would it be, and would it be in one piece? She faded into the shadows and hurried off.

It didn't take long to find what she was looking for, and lucky lucky, the spare bottles for the water cooler were nearby. Taking a chance, she wrapped her draconic body around the full containers and transported them back to the group.

As she reappeared with 4 jugs of bottled water and the water cooler itself, she explained her idea tersely. "He's lost water, so we replace it." As she spoke, shadow tendrils laid the waterjugs down near Hydro before punching in the tops to let the water out. The jug on the cooler was yanked up, spilling the remainder of its water out as well.

[B4UTRUST]

"You disapprove of the idea of drugs? Why? As for Ghost... I find the idea of a metahuman in an anti-meta group amusing. If he'll play ball, his abilities and contacts will prove useful."

[Bloody Good]

Hector was a little relieved that Argent had found some water. He really didn't want to feed his water to anyone if he didn't have to, and the group seemed to resent having a man of the faith along without a mobile mass of holy water to boot. "Well, if it doesn't like the demons either, then we might add it to our merry band of assault specialists."

[Agent Fisher]

** Like the Garth/Kyosuke, this takes places a few days after RCE.**

Ghost sat at his table, a cup of coffee in his hands. Last night had been rough. First, Ultima showed up, telling him his wife was dead. The only thing that had kept him from blowing his own brains out had been Argent. She had taken his gun and helped him through his grief and anger at himself. Now though, his anger was at Ultima.

Ghost picked up his phone, dialing Ultima. "Hey, Bowman, this is Ryan. Yeah, I'm not going to be in for a few days, I'm sure you know that...Yeah, I'll be fine." He said, and then hung up his phone. Ghost looked at the picture that Argent had left on his table, it was his wedding photo. He sighed and dialed a different number.

"Grey, this is Ghost, I need information on an Ultima Meta. Name Gazer."

[Dark Silver]

"Normally, I'd tell you fuck no, but we need the money. I'm on my last legs cash wise, and to do what we want.....we'll need a massive influx of new liquid assets...."

Garth crossed his arms over his chest, watching the Japanese man, "Your right. It'll bring in alot of money, get started, I'll try to get the lab set up for your return. And I'll take care of Ghost."