Advent City

"Blatant disregard for human and non-human life, destruction of private and public property, assault on the ambassador of the USA's head of security. My gods, Owen, is there anything that you didn't do?" The sergent of the Metro Police glared at him from across the table. The sergent, called Stars because of his eyes, was a lean build, light brown hair, and had a long mustache he frequently twirls with a finger. Everyone said that he had come from Texas, and everyone would agree. Because, the way he is dressed, just screams Texan.

Owen smirked as the charges were read off, knowing that he wouldn't be placed in jail for all the, what he would call, minor charges. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and began to breathe in the deadly fumes of the smoke. His smirk turned into a grin when Stars's glare became filled with more anger, and placed his hand on the pummel of his sword. Stars paled when he did this, and began to shuffle his papers nervously, not wanting to start a fight with a berserker.

Sighing heavily, and pouting slightly from Stars's nervousness, Owen went back to sucking on the deadly fumes of his cigarette. "I wish you would stop smoking, Owen," Stars muttered, "They'll kill you in the end." He glared at the sergent, making him flinch visibly. "Stars, you know how I need something to keep me calm. This is it, even if it will lead me to a pair of iron lungs." They shared a small laugh, already knowing that the sergent has a pair of mechanical lungs from 20 years of smoking.

Stars cleared his voice suddenly, bringing out a manilla envelope with a large red 'CLASSEFIED' stamp on the front, and passed it to Owen. "Whats this," he asked, looking at his sergent and the envelope. He tore into it and grimaced at the papers. The image of a girl glared up at him, making him smirk. He raised an eyebrow, "Win-Tech?" The sergent merely nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. "And what is my assignment this time?"

"Protection detail. Her address and school is in the file. We have already contacted the school, and they've agreed to allow you, and your sword, entrance to their grounds. However," he raised a finger, "you must keep the sword in its sheath, unless you, or your charge, are mortally threatened, understand?"

Owen glared and grunted his affirmation, and waved his hand at Stars. "Aye," was all he said, as he took up his sword, the papers, and left the building. Once outside, he grimaced, openly disgusted as he stared down at the papers. "Great," he grumbled, "Babysitting."

Alexander rose with the sunrise, stretching out on his bed and soaking up as much of the comfortable warmth as he could before throwing off the sheets and getting ready for his day. Rifling through his suits, Alexander picket his favorite, most comfortable suit and set it down on his bed before walking over to his window and watching the sunrise while sipping on a small glass of brandy. After finishing his morning ruitine, Alexander stood in front of his mirror and adjusted his appearance, changing the color scheme of his suit and changing his eye color and hair color to match it, even adjusting his exact skin tone to go well with the suit, slightly adjusting his facial features as well. On his way out the door, Alexander picked up his briefcase and checked his cache of materials. Several stacks of one-dollar bills that would provide the tactile back for his illusions, a meddley of other bits and baubles to provide some backing for his visual tricks, and tucked in one corner slightly crumpled were his business papers. Gathering his briefcase, his cane which today he decided would look oaken with gold bands, and his handgun tucked into an inner pocket.

Walking relaxedly down the street towards the office building in which he worked, Alexander idly sent a few illusions flittering down across the street, simple butterflies and a cougar rushing down the street. With a nod towards the man who had challenged him to a combat yesterday, Alexander brought four copies of himself around him, each making slightly different motions at different times, providing slight confusion as to which was the real physical Alexander.

*Should be another boring day, perhaps I should fight somebody today, mess around with my rank a bit to see what it's like. I'll flip a coin during lunch.* Alexander reached his building and sighed dejectedly at the boring turn his life had taken.

Altan awoke to find a butterfly perched on his nose. It flapped its delicate pink wings, warming itself in the sunlight filtering through the broken blinds. It looked like it had been sprinkled with glitter, and every time its wings moved some glitter would slide off onto Altan’s face. The red head glared at the butterfly before letting out a long line of foul language. The butterfly darted away at his movement before it started a lazy circuit around his room. After a moment the boy sat up and said a few more choice words at the sheer amount of butterflies around his room – what limb was he missing this time?

He shoved his bed sheets to the side and swung his legs over the edge of his mattress. His left leg made him groan. The skin was gone from his ankle up to his mid-thigh, and the muscle around his knee was wasn’t there, revealing the bone of his patella and where the thigh and calf bones connected behind it. He stood up gingerly and his leg seemed able to handle his weight just fine, and then made his way to the window to open it. Some of the butterflies fluttered out, though most stayed within his room.

It didn’t take him long to shower, brush his teeth, get dressed, and cook himself breakfast. The lunch he made last night went into his side bag with a few notebooks and a text book. Altan hooked the bag over his shoulder, shoveled his eggs, hash browns, and toast onto a paper plate, and headed out the door.

The residents of the dorm were used to seeing Altan walk and eat. He rarely woke up early enough to eat at home. He nodded at the few people he saw; this dorm held students of roughly the same rank, so no one of better rank would bully those of lesser rank. That didn’t mean there weren’t fights: the students knew that everyone around them was close to their skill level and ranks were changing all the time. Altan himself didn’t seek to improve his rank – he found that while it fluctuated he generally stayed in the same area. His sponsor didn’t care about where he was in the hierarchy, and he found that a lot more fights were picked with him if he improved his rank.

As the last bite of eggs went into his mouth he folded up the paper plate and dumped it into one of the trashcans in front of the school. He had gotten there earlier than normal – the school bell hadn’t rung yet. Kids – mostly younger than him – were rushing through the hallways to their classes, scared of the punishment if they were late.

Altan sat down at his desk just as the bell rang, pleased that he had made it on time. A gold butterfly landed on the desk of the girl next to him. She glanced at it, then shooed it away gently. After he watched the insect for a moment he reached into his bag to pull out a notebook and a pen, prepared to write notes.

Alexander sat at his desk completely bored. Filing paperwork and sending memos dragged at his mind and made him feel numb, normal, and Alex hated that feeling. To spice things up he changed the wall color in his office a few times and set illusions of dancing bears moving around his office. After about two hours of working Alexander gave up pretending to file the same piece of paper over and over again and decided to go out for a quick lunch. Ducking under his table for a second, Alexander threw an illusion over his desk that showed him sitting at his desk with a look of extreme concentration and working dilligently on paperwork with a big sign in front of him that said 'Busy, do not disturb unless it is a life or death issue' and then set up his stereo with a sound-track of papers shuffling and things being moved around, it wouldn't fool anybody who stayed in his office for longer than it took to read the sign but he figured he could squeeze out a good hour of relaxation before somebody caught on.

Making himself invisible, Alexander quietly crept out of his office and slid down the hallway, tucking himself against the wall whenever another person walked by. Alexander had a moment of panic when he got to the elevator and realized that it would look rather odd if the elevator opened by itself so he had to wait for another person to go down. When the elevator doors opened and a secretary from the floor above walked out Alexander breathed a silent thanks to whatever being was currently watching over him. The ride down the elevator was uneventful and as Alex stepped out of his office he smiled and dropped his invisibility, changing the look of his face and clothing to a random office drone as he walked down the street whistling and smiling. Halfway down the block towards his favorite sandwich shop, they accepted cash from him, Alexander felt a headache form. Frowning he shook his head slightly and kept walking, three steps later Alexander was floored by a more intense pain than any he had ever felt. Shrieking incoherently Alexander fell to the floor writing in pain, he completely lost control of his powers and random spots of light flashed around him, just before he blacked out Alexander felt his illusions drop completely revealing his drab grey suit, discolored hair, and the scar that ran across his mouth from cheek to cheek.

Alexander came to and looked about with bleary eyes, wondering what had happened. The last thing he remembered was pain and now he was in a room with a white ceiling dressed in a hospital gown. Reaching up to touch his head, Alexander felt linen cloth wrapped around his head and moving felt incredibly painful. Gritting his teeth, Alexander slowly sat up and looked at the other in the room, all of them in similar condition and dresses the same way.
*oh, this sucks..* Alexander thought to himself, hoping he hadn't pissed somebody off.

It didn’t take long for Altan’s mind to wander away from his note taking – in fact, the teacher hadn’t even started lecture yet. Instead, he played with the idea of ditching his last class. The instructors were frustrated with him to no end, thinking that the lack of control over his power was simply him being lazy. He personally thought that they were full of themselves and hubris would be their downfall, thinking they could fix or control everything. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl beside him put her fingers to her temples, as if to stave off a headache. If he remembered correctly, she was an empath and sometimes being around people got to be too much for her. He scribbled a note and passed it to her just as she let out a whimper: Leave if you need to. Who cares about cell walls anyways?

A bright light exploded behind his eyes and he gasped, grabbing at his face and forehead as the pain intensified. It felt like a knife was slowly being driven into the side of his head – a migraine but a million times worse. The girl beside him was writhing but making no sound. Screaming started around him, and it wasn’t until his throat was raw that he realized he was one of the voices. His butterflies danced along the ceiling, more agitated than he had ever seen them. One exploded in a flash of brilliant light, leaving those who witnessed it blind as if they had been staring at the sun. Acid blood splattered on the students unfortunately placed under the butterfly, and then it was just a cacophony of screams, shouts, chairs being pushed back and toppled over, explosions, odd ‘whooshing’ sounds that Altan couldn’t place. The teacher was shouting for order and trying to herd the students outside. In the doorway he paused to look back at Altan and the other three students on the floor, still screaming and crying, then stepped out and closed the door gently behind him.

Altan awoke with a throbbing inside his head, like a night after drinking too much. He rolled over and reached up to pull his pillow over his face only to find that there was no pillow. He slit one eye open and his heart skipped a beat, much like it does when you miss a step on the stairs. Painfully he opened both eyes, seeing only white walls and ceilings. A girl he didn’t know was lying across from him on a type of gurney, wearing a hospital dress with bandages around her head. They were stained red, but it didn’t look like it was still bleeding. He assumed he was in a similar condition and after a moment of focusing he realized that he was, in fact, wearing a dress.

Marie frowned as she scanned the security cameras across Campus., multiple scenes playing out at once, it was the usual. The cacophony of noises which could usually be experienced first hand when one was in the halls was replaced with a grey monotone silence of movement. It wasn't like she couldn't hear it if she wanted to, for Mary it was a personal choice.

Bored by the main areas of campus she started looking around the more deserted areas. Blinking she raised an eyebrow as she noticed two girls. A before class fight? It wasn't as if it was uncommon but it still wasn't the usual. Intrigued she minimized to just the one view of it. She vaguely recognized one of the girls as a high ranking one but the other one she didn't.

Watching as the confrontation continued Marie watched with a passive interest, the school didn't encourage fighting but it wasn't like she was about to leap to her feet telling one of the faculty about it. Unless they wanted to start paying her to do that. Like that was ever going to happen.

Snapping out of thought as a strange thing happened on the screen, the girls were collapsing. What was going on? A blast of pain struck through Marie's skull straight into the bone as she closed her eyes clutching her head. 'Just like the other girls,' was her last thought as hit the classroom floor.

'Where am I?' Marie could feel machines buzzing around her, wherever she was there was a lot of machines, it almost felt like there was a cot around her. Slowly opening her eyes the room was blurred with bright lights and incoherent images. the outline looked somewhat like a hospital. Feeling around on her face she noticed her glasses weren't on. She also felt bandages around her head. Looking at a bedside table she placed her glasses back on her face and noticed she was in a hospital gown. What had happened? And who were the people in the beds next to her?

Owen glared down the street, and decided to climb the walls to get to the school faster. He slung his sword across his back and rubbed his hands together. Staring up at the wall, he grinned at the thought of Stars jumping up and down, angry at the holes he had made. Grinning, his hands hooked like talons, he felt them begin to shift into eagle talons. Once done, he slammed his taloned hands into the wall, and slowly pulled himself to the roof. "Fresh air," he whispered, taking a deep breath, "Now then, which way to the school?" Reaching into the small pouch at his side, he pulled out a small computer chip. Placing chip on his tongue, he swallowed it, and saw the map of the metropolis unfold before his eyes.

"Computer," a blip was heard in response to his call, "Directions to Sector Five High School. In search of Marie Bremen" Another blip was heard, and his eyes were given several possible routes. Unfortunately, they were all ground and air levels. Clutching the bridge of his nose, Owen sighed and stated, "By roof top, Computer." He heard what sounded like an appologetic blip in response, and saw another path open up for him to follow. Thanking the computer, and committing the path to memory, he squatted down to the ground, and felt his energy sky rocket.

Something was wrong, but Owen didn't seem to register it before it was too late. Plain blossomed through out his skull, making him fall onto his back. He screamed a beastial scream, and clutched his skull. He felt his entire body writhe, contorting into different shapes, and his eyes glazed red. His fists pound into the roof, crumbling it into dust. He knew something was not right when he failed to fall with the building. Closing his eyes, his hands gripped metal bars, and felt them bend under his touch.

'Metal bars?' His eyes popped open, and instantly regreted it. White light greeted him, blasting his eyes with it's brilliance. He hissed silently, smashing his eyes shut, and turned into his pillow. 'Pillow?' His right eye squinted open, and he saw a white pillow, along with warped metal bars along the side of his-bed? Slowly, steadily, he pushed himself up and stared about the white room, squinting slightly. 'Hatred,' he thought to himself, as he could barely see anything more than a few feet in front of him, as the rest of the-room?- was enveloped in a white haze. "Hello?" He called out in a hoarse whisper, "Is anyone there?"

Alexander sat in his bed and watched as a young girl with a tail *Huh, interesting* was beaten down by a cloaked figure. When the figure started acting tougher and yelling at the group, which included Alexander, he got a trifle irritated *If that little file has information about us it should tell you that I respond poorly to braggarts* and slowly inched himself out of bed and slowly shuffled over to the door. Every step he took was accompanied by a pained grimace and a slight whimper of discomfort. Slowly, achingly, Alexander shuffled his way over to the doorway and cleared his throat, "Ahem, pardon me but I believe that technically speaking I would like to try something, I would like to try putting on some pants, these arseless hospital gowns are quite gauche and the bandaged head look went out of style years ago. If you could pop over to the corner store and pick me up a-" Alexander cut off talking as the door guard cracked him in the jaw with the butt of his pistol, throwing him to the ground. Alexander felt his head swim from the blow but he also felt a great deal of exhiliration. The guard had struck him in the jaw yes, but he had struck a full inch lower than would have been most effective but would have been dead on for the image of himself Alexander had been projecting. He knew that whoever had taken him here would probably know what he was capable of so he hadn't tried for an elaborate illusion but he had to test to see if the guard could see in the non-visible spectrum of light or not. Judging by his slightly off target assault, Alexander figured he had a better than zero chance of taking this guy out *I really hate being told where to go, I am NOT going to let someone else dictate my life.*. Alexander quietly mumbled 'nothing ventured nothing gained' before forming a ball of darkness around the guard and making himself invisible while he rolled away from where he had been sitting. *This is great! Plan works perfectly!* Alex thought to himself before the rolling on the floor caught up to him and his head felt like it was free-falling through space. Grunting and holding back his vomit, Alexander stood up slowly, as quietly as he could manage, the grimaces of pain and whimpers of suffering were completely gone and Alexander walked forward confidently. Looking at his work and judging approximately where the guard would be in the miniature globe of darkness stuck to him. Aiming carefully, Alexander lashed his right foot out and shot it strait forward, ball of his foot leading the charge, streaking to where the guards waist would be. Contact with flesh and a sound of pain that almost made Alex wince in sympathy let him know he had hit his mark. Dropping his globe of darkness revealed the guard curled into a ball and breathing heavily. "Sorry about that sir but you were rude to me and I really wanted to get some pants, what was that? Oh you feel sorry and want me to take your gun? Oh how sweet of you." Alexander reached down and grabbed the gun, quickly taking a few steps away after doing so and checking the clip. "One bullet missing, I guess for the dead kid on the floor. Still better than nothing, now to find a way to deal with this farking headache. Oh yeah, hey um... little girl! where you at?" Alexander leaned himself against a wall and listened to the room around him while he tried to deal with his headache.
*Well... This certainly sucks. I wonder what they meant by quarantine, and how many more people will be guarding this place? I'm pretty sure at least somebody will be able to see through my illusions, it would be incredibly silly of them to expect me to stay in one place against my will so they definitely have somebody to keep me inside, maybe one of my new room-mates can help.

Altan sat up and put his hand on his head. The bandages on his head were still soft and supple, without the stiff dried blood the others seemed to be sporting. In fact, he seemed to have all of his body parts and skin. No butterflies were fluttering around the room. Voices brought him back to the present, though inside he still marveled that he was currently whole.

"--sorry and want me to take your gun? Oh how sweet of you" A man bent down over the body of another. Altan guessed the man on the floor wasn't a patient, considering he wasn't wearing a dress. The man went on "One bullet missing, I guess for the dead kid on the floor. Still better than nothing, now to find a way to deal with this farking headache. Oh yeah, hey um... little girl! where you at?"

Altan looked around and didn't see anyone respond, though others lay on the tables around them. Maybe the man was crazy? He stood up gingerly,wiggling his toes and fingers. "Whats going on?"

Alexander rested with his eyes closed while he thought, after a brief period of time he heard a young male voice asking him what was going on. Alexander opened his eyes and looked at the boy, "I don't know but I don't like it, I was considering the best way to break out of here and I have come to the conclusion that I, and by that I mean WE, should wake up everybody in this room and work together to escape from this place. Whoever put us here apparently didn't want us escaping badly enough to put an armed guard at the door. There was a young girl with a lizards tail here earlier, she disappeared which leads me to believe she has some power of invisibility, we should find her, ask her for help, and then go about waking up the rest of the people in this room, perhaps with more people thinking we can devise a way to escape, assuming escape is what the rest of them want to do. My name is Alexander by the way, would you care to help me? Oh and before I forget." Alexander crouched over the door guard and used his gun to bludgeon the man to death, "No sense leaving someone behind who doesn't like me, or wasting such valuable clothing." Alexander quickly Stripped off the guards cloak and settled it across himself, weaving an illusion over it of a prismatic three-piece suit. Turning back to the boy he had been talking to, Alexander calmly spoke, "Oh by the way my power is manipulation of matter, in case you hadn't noticed." Alexander gestured at his illusion, "I also have a few others, what's your power? We can talk while we work." Alexander walked over to the nearest occupied cot and began gently shaking the occupant of it, easing the person out of unconsciousness.

"...I'm not little." The lizard girl muttered as she got to her feet and dusted herself off. She hurt all over again, and she didn't like it. She wouldn't be able to show herself yet. Fuuka was still startled by all that had been happening, and she wasn't sure if she could trust the people that had woken up thus far. "How can you speak so casually? We're clearly being held hostage or something, and someone was just killed. This isn't an appropriate place for having fun." She spoke with reason, with rationale. This was also the reason she couldn't bring herself to trust this man just yet, so she kept changing her location in the room to make it difficult to pinpoint where she was exactly. "If you intend on making a lot of noise, I'd also not recommend it. The police sound like they're outside, so in the case they catch you doing anything... unnecessary, you might get in trouble." It was feint, but her voice had a rather shaky quality to it brought on by the pain and the shock of watching someone die.

"If we're going to go out there, we at least need a plan. Any bright ideas, wise guy?"

Altan stayed where he was, listening to the conversation. He didn’t particularly care for another man with a gun walking in and deciding he was dangerous. He rather agreed with the invisible girl. The man – Alexander – talked to much for Atan’s taste, but he thought it better not to upset anyone. “My names Alt, and I’m rank 300, so that should give you an idea of my power.” He said dryly. “As for escaping, I’m not sure that’s a bright idea. We’re in here for a reason. Maybe for protection – maybe we’re sick.”

He tried to think back to what had happened before he had woken up here. He had been flirting with the girl next to him in class, and then… nothing.

Alexander listened to the voices of his two companions distractedly, giving up on trying to wake the unconscious person. Turning to his visible room-mate, Alexander tried to maintain a calm voice, projecting an illusion of hiself standing calmly with a serene smile on his face, "I can understand the possibility that we may be carrying a disease of some sort or that we require protection, but being that the guard at the door killed one boy and beat down the girl that disappeared without providing any sort of explanation and then attempted to do the same to me, also without explanation, I am led to believe that perhaps whomever put us here did not in fact have our best interests at heart. If we had been infected with some disease would it not be best for the door guard to explain as such to us considering we all have powers and would object to being held against our will? The most logical conclusion considering the events I have witnessed since I awoke is that we have been taken for some malicious reason and that it would be in our best interests to either escape or find someone who can provide an explanation for our situation. I would much rather be in a group than alone but I am prepared to escape on my own, I have a strong dislike for people who use their power to force their will on others. Now, would you rather leave your fate to the ones that killed a young man because you assume the best of them or would you rather find out for yourself and be in control of what happens to you? If it turns out we have some sort of disease I will gladly return to this room until a cure is administered but I doubt anything of the sort is what's going on here." Alexander walked over to the door and looked around outside it, judging which direction would be best while he waited for the young boy or young girl to either accept or reject his proposal.

Alexander sighed at the lack of response and left the room, searching for a way out