Atlas City

A voice was talking to her as she came to rest, her form exploding into a roiling swirl of ink before settling. She took her ‘Jemma’ shape, nearly forgetting clothes, (“Again, Jemma?!”) before they took shape on her body.
As it was, they were just a fur-trimmed jacket and a pair of shorts that only really went down enough to cover the tops of her thighs. Made from spider-silk, or flexible chitin, it wouldn’t be possible to know until one touched them.

Clothing… made no sense, to J-3, even when she still ‘lived’ with the researchers, she- they at the time- didn’t have anything to cover up. Nor did she really see any point to being ‘shameful’ about it. But oh well. Humans were odd enough. She could be as ‘shameful’ as a Barbie or Ken doll, and just as blank, but nooooo they still threw a fit— Oops. She needed to reply.

She recognized the speaker as Henry, the Giant from the beach. He looked… contemplative, and worried. But friendly! “Oh! Hello. Not long, I think? I’ve been flying by myself for a few hours now… figured I should wake everyone up for the breakfast parade. You are up early!”
Her voice was a bit off at first, sounding much like a tiger trying to bark through human vocal cords, but quickly settled into ‘proper-ness’ as she spoke.
She was still upbeat, hyper even, from her flying about, and smiled at Henry as she spoke to him.

“Sorry for the uh, screamin. I was having fun!”

"Haha nah, you're good. It's just...you never know who might wake up cranky, y'know?" Henry thought nice a moment. Thinking about it, the three days they all had been there, there wasn't too much getting to know each other aside from.minor formalities and small talk. More of a timeshare than a temporary team base, it seemed. Today might be a good chance to learn more about everybody. "How's your shapeshifting work anyway? Can you turn into anything you've ever seen? Or think of? Something like that? "

Akiko was exhausted.

Sleep never came easy and when it did, you could certainly bet ghost hijinks would ensue. Well, hijinks in that they would terrorize her in nightmares and keep her from getting those recommended eight hours of sleep. Or perhaps them hijacking her body or just making her feel pain so intense that it would leave her sobbing in her bed. Hijinks, indeed.

It was why Akiko had locked herself away for the past couple of days, in the farthest room possible from most of the group. A new spirit meant a new cleansing to tackle and those were always grueling. The ritual didn't take more than a few hours but she had been so exhausted she slept through most of the first day. Every few hours she would wake up to tend to Spookmeister who tried to comfort her by laying on top, purring loudly, louder than she had ever heard him. Akiko gave a half-hearted laugh. He must have sensed how much her body was hurting and was trying to heal her.

But it was the pain that let her know her spirits were still inside. They had quieted down with all the heroes around but that had also agitated a few of them. The Witchfinder was especially active as some of the heroes Akiko was with were the same ones who had decimated him before. He was the one who made her skin feel like it was being branded and who tried to take advantage of Akiko's weakened state to take form again.

That was why, on the second day, Akiko went through a ritual.

It was mainly meditation as Akiko had none of her equipment or even the sound proof room. She wrestled with the demons inside, literally, until they were quieted down enough that she could act normal. After all, the ritual she had performed was merely a placeholder until she could get a few things. By the end, Akiko was still exhausted and drenched in sweat. Spookmeister was fed and his area cleaned before Akiko showered and faded off into sleep.

The sound of Jemma's screaming pierced through her half awake state followed by Spookmeister finding all her soft spots as he ran off of her and into the bathroom. Akiko groaned and rolled on over, another joyous scream emitting from outside.

Akiko opened her glowing eyes and fell through the bed, falling until she hit the ground floor of the resort. She landed with a small thud and still dressed in an oversized pink t-shirt and small, rainbow colored shorts, she marched on over to the outside. Outside where she saw what had been referred to as 'Jemma' and Henry in the middle of conversation.

"Hey!" Akiko shouted loudly as she continued to march over to them. However, as they looked over to her and Akiko could feel the bare ground against her feet and the wind blowing on her exposed legs, she suddenly started slowing down. Her face got red and she approached them more timidly, almost tip-toeing towards them.

"H-hey, you uh, you guys sh-shouldn't be so loud in the morning," she said rather quietly after having just shouted at the top of her lungs.

"I wasn't..." Henry began, but he immediately sighed in defeat. "Good morning, Akiko," he sighed. "Actually glad you're here. Wanted to ask you something too."

"Good morning, Henry!" Akiko greeted back happily, her voice rising in volume just a bit. "Is it about breakfast? Do you know where it is?"

"The same place...it was the past three days we've been here..." Henry noted, reminding Akiko of their current situation. "But hey, I need your help after you eat. Detective help." Henry turned to look at Jemma once more. "Yours too maybe, which was why I asked it about your powers."

Jemma jumped ever so slightly when the detective made her appearance, turning to face the woman with a broad grin that showed off a seemingly dagger-filled maw. The smile was wide enough to reach Jemma's eyes, causing her to squint them shut.
She reopened them with a chuckle, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she thought of Henry's question, and relatively ignored Akiko's mentions of 'Not being so loud in the morning.'
Jemma returned her attention to Henry as he and the detective spoke for a while. It was... Complicated, and difficult, to give an answer to his earlier question. The detective might pick up on something, and Jemma wasn't exactly the BEST liar. Though she could lie... Or she could have fun! In this instance!

"Oh I can change and 'rewrite' evolution for myself! And eat an' make metal! Simple as that! Granted I still have to abide by some laws of physics, I can basically make any shape I want. Oh! And I can also steal other powers, permanently even! But how I do that is a secret." She cackled out, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she spoke.
She wanted to go back to flying, and to screaming and enjoying the world! Or... Enjoying the sky above this place.
But she also wanted to do... Something constructive with her time! So here she was, opening her mouth to speak again.
"So whatcha wanting help with? I didn't break anythin' this time I promise."

"Hey, if you need my help, breakfast can wait! Detective Akiko is on call and on the case!" Akiko yelled as she struck a dramatic pose flawlessly. She had clearly been practicing.

She turned to the other participant in their conversation, raising an eyebrow at her explanation of her powers. Akiko came a bit closer, hand on her chin, squinting her eyes as she stared at the woman before her. The ghost girl looked serious for once, examining her with a scrutiny truly befitting the title of a detective. This lasted for a few tense seconds. But as quickly as it had appeared, the look on her face was gone, replaced by a big, non suspicious grin.

"I take powers too. Power stealers unite!" Akiko announced loudly, hand outstretched for a high five towards Jemma.

Alex has been up since the crack of dawn. Workout cloths one, hair tied back, and Sabaton blasting in his ears through a good pair of headphones. Keeping some semblance of his usual schedule was helping to keep himself grounded in all this mess. Morning stretches then light jogging leading up to a fast paced run. Granted he had still minded not to go whatever his top speed might be. If how it had felt back at Atlas City was any indicator, he was fast but also very loud.

He hadn’t been able to completely shut out the conversation back in the plane. George’s words occasionally echoing around in his head. An alien threat waiting to strike from a different dimension of all thing? Oddly enough, that was easier to believe then half of what the supers today were capable of. As if the world couldn’t get any stranger.

Alex took a sharp left past a rather large tree, kicking up leaves and sod in the sudden change of direction. The inn was in sight once again. He had been keeping his distance from the place on the off chance he was being too loud and woke any of his other “co-workers”. Oh yeah, there was that too. George wanted to turn all the supers present into the world greatest superhero’s to help protect earth from the coming extra-dimensional threat. Alex grit his teeth and let out a long hard breath. Yeah, no pressure.

He began to gradually slow down the closer he got to the inn. Reflecting on how he had been doing things up until this point. Why had he decided to be a vigilante in the first place? Some form of obligation given what he was capable of. It wasn’t easy to sit on the sidelines when you were a decent human being and arguably being one of the best defensively geared supers out there. His mother had taught him to be a good person in spite of how the world might look at him. The thought of his mother made him miss a step and stumble for just a moment. Yeah no . . . If Alex didn’t try and do good with his gifts his mother, bless her soul, would never let him hear the end of it when he finally passed on. So was the situation now any different? Not really. He couldn’t just walk away from this knowing he could make a difference. Even so, there was a part of him that wanted some sort of “normalcy” to his life. Full time hero work sounded like a one way trip to one hell of a crash and burn.

Alex had his answer for George.

Finally just outside the inns outer grounds, Alex noticed a few people were already outside. His jog died into more of a brisk walk. Looked like Jemma was making friends. If he remembered correctly the other two were Henry and Akiko. They seemed to all be in friendly conversation, though Akiko seemed to be in her PJ’s so maybe the other two had woken her up on accident. Alex was mildly aware that he was a bit covered in sweat when stopping at least 5 feet from the trio. ” Morning everybody. How’s it going?” he flashed a grin and shoved his hands in his shorts pockets.

Loud shrieking outside woke Devon from his slumber while he could have spent another hour or two sleeping being awake woke up another part of him, a craving for some good coffee. Pushing himself out of the cocoon of comfort and warmth that was the bed he got himself upright and got himself dressed for the day making sure to grab his trenchcoat on the way out of his room.

The buffet was still quite silent there were a few workers milling around refilling parts of the breakfast menu, but beyond that he was the only one of the 'guests' in the room. It was a strange feeling being the only guest in such a large buffet hall, it almost made you feel like you weren't supposed to be there and the glances of the staff exactly didn't help either. Devon didn't quite know what George had told the management about them, but they certainly knew something was up with the group of oddities that had the whole place to themselves and they probably had an inkling that at least some of them were supers, as some of their group didn't exactly have the easiest time blending in in human society or just didn't bother to do so.

As he walked to the pot of freshly brewn coffee on the buffet table the melody of footsteps in the hall were complemented by whispering and murmurs of the staff, whether it was work related, general gossip or it was related to any of the guests he couldn't make out nor did he really care to, after all he was just here to grab a coffee and... Hmmm, those croissants look and smell quite good, I think I'll also grab one of those. With his cup of steamingly hot fragrant joe in one hand and the other filled with a beautifully fluffy crescent shaped pastry he left the murmuring workers behind him and went outside to look for any traces of the sound that had so rudely awoken him.

After a bit of walking around he noticed Henry, Akiko and Jemma talking together, with Alex seeming to have just joined them. Seeing that Akiko was still in her PJ's and Jemma being the one who had the most trouble putting up a veil of normalcy among the group, it was rather easy to put two and two together. It would seem like Jemma was the most probable source of that sound this morning... Well that's one mystery solved. Shoving the last bit of the croissant into his mouth he walked over to the group.

Georges words that day were still milling inside his mind, and while there had been ample opportunity to think things over for himself there he hadn't really gotten a chance to get the others opinions, and 'the spectre's from the other side' had been rather silent after their appearance on that day... Not that he didn't have an educated guess about how they felt about the situation, they would likely have jumped on the chance. At any rate either this conversation would end up distracting his mind from the subject or he would have a moment to talk things through with the others, so that was going to be a win-win situation at the very least. "Morning, I guess I have you to thank for that wake up call. Personally I would have preferred it a bit earlier, but you probably would have gotten a lot of complaints from others if you did that." He said showing a gentle smile only to then bury it behind the cup for another dose of hot black ambrosia.

"You can re-write what?" Henry asked Jemma in surprise. "...That's pretty o.d," he stated, borrowing a phrase from one of his cousins up in New York. "Then again...I guess we all are."

And speaking of the others, it seemed the three were soon joined by two more members of their recently established group, as it were. "Alex, Devon, what's up? So, I don't know if everybody will be up to it yet since the Memorial's today and all. But after, I pay my respects, I think I'm gonna check back up on the Beach. Conduct a little follow up investigation."

Sairyn flinched awake at the sound of Jemma's morning call, looking quite rumpled. He'd fallen asleep in a chair in the corner of the banquet hall he'd taken over across from where they set up the buffet for breakfast. Couldn't have been out more than two hours. Over the past three days he'd transformed the space into a makeshift lab and filled just about every corner of the room with work tables and machines of every size. The centerpiece was a large cylindrical chamber that had been surrounded by thick curtains. Next to it stood a mannequin wearing parts of Silver Fang's armored suit, alongside a table where the rest of it had been summarily dismantled.

Thick cables sprawled haphazardly across the floor, converging in a corner where a suitcase Arc Reactor hummed ominously, illuminating the corner with a harsh blue glow. Sairyn smoothed out his hair with a bit of a grunt and took a few minutes to collect himself. He was in the kitchen moments later, shooing staff out of his way and preparing coffee and breakfast... though he had to cook his own plate twice since the mystery wormhole connection swallowed his first one: a hindrance that was becoming annoyingly frequent. Thankfully he hadn't lost anything real important yet, though whomever was on the other end was certainly amassing quite a collection of his pens.

He had just enough time to hurriedly eat his eggs benedict, side of hash, and two strips of perfectly cooked bacon before an old fashioned kitchen egg timer dinged somewhere in the lab. A slate materialized in front of him, which he tapped out a few commands on whilst sipping his coffee blearily. The tank in the center of the room clicked and thrummed loudly, sloshing like an oversized dishwasher for a long minute. The smooth schwiff of the tank's doors opening drew his emerald gaze.

"Shower..." Yue croaked from the other side of the curtain amidst the sound of heavy dripping. Sairyn crinkled his nose at the moist smell of the bone growth stimulant solution.

"Breakfast-"

"SHOWER!!" She cut him off with uncharacteristic aggression. To be fair, she'd been stewing in the bone growth stimulator with nothing to pass the time except a slate in a Ziplock bag for the past three days. The good news was that, according to his telemetry, Yue's bone density had increased by a full 2% over the course of the healing process. It seemed she experienced an incremental increase in durability and muscle density whenever her body was seriously taxed: a revelation that had eluded both her and Titan during her original training. He huffed patiently as he reviewed the readings from the tank.

"Food first, or you'll get sick when the meds wear off," he explained calmly as he scrolled through the data. Yue's slime-slicked arm slithered through the curtains with zombie-like vigor, groping clumsily about the table for her plate. She dragged it in with the quickness of a viper snatching its prey. Sairyn sipped his coffee evenly to the noise of her ravenously wolfing down the plate of food

"Hngh," she grunted with satisfaction, exhaling like she hadn't taken a breath the entire time she was eating. "Shoooowwweeeeeeer," she droned. The corner of Sairyn's mouth twisted upwards for a moment, as he flicked a handful of opaque room dividers up across the lab from his grimiore.

"Corner opposite the generator," he instructed, and got to his feet. "Your change of uniform is on the table there too. I'll give you the lab for a bit, I have to accept a delivery in a little while anyway," he said, moving out of the room and closing the doors for her. Sairyn moved out into the courtyard with his coffee where some of the others had gathered. He regarded them over the rim of his coffee cup for a moment before his gaze settled on the shape-shifter.

"Jemma, I'll require your 'talents' in order to 'clean' something here this afternoon," he said, which was code for him wanting to feed the shape shifter something, usually accompanied by observation and note-taking. Though the tone with which he made this request was less academic... Whatever was eating at him was beyond his normal level of sourness, though he didn't express what.

"Aegis... You wanna hit something?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "Silver Fang is restless. She'll be out behind the resort in the next half hour looking for a workout."

---

Wherever Vicki was, her morning was punctuated by the sudden arrival of a plate of freshly prepared restaurant quality food. Eggs over thin, deli-sliced ham on top of a lightly toasted and buttered english muffin. Delicately sprinkled with salt, and a pinch of pepper and lightly drizzled hollandaise sauce. A side of perfectly cooked hash browns and two perfectly crisp slices of bacon, all neatly arranged and presented materalized gingerly with that signature hiss of displaced air and gentle flash of green light. Several moments later a set of hotel silverware bundled with a napkin clattered aggressively against the plate, followed by a yellow juicebox haphazardly thrown in her general direction with "ENJOY" scrawled angrily across it in sharpie.

Alex gave Devon a nod when he arrived and turned his attention to Henry. ”Feels appropriate time to pay respects. As far as investigating though I don’t think you will be needing me for that, not really my forte.” Alex absently began cracking each digit in his fingers. Wonder if there is even anything left on or around the bear house to investigate. Guess with supers involved you can never be sure what you would find.

He was just starting on his other hand when Sairyn strolled on up. The white haired man seemed a tad sour but requested Jemma for some help “cleaning” before addressing Alex about Silver Fang being restless and needing a workout. Not sure how he felt about Sairyn still calling him by his hero name out of costume, felt a bit weird but the man seemed too up tight and professional so it was probably best to roll with it for now. Alex thought about maybe sparing and working out with an actual hero for a moment before shrugging. ”Sure, I could use more of a workout besides an hour and a half of running,” He looked to the rest of the group and gave a small wave and a wink towards Jemma. ” You all know where to find me if you need me.” With that, he turned and took off in a jog.

It only took him a few minutes to make it to be back of the resort to wait for Silver fang to show up. He opted to stretch and warm up rather then stand around. He could shower afterwards and then get something to eat, wasn’t starving just yet and sparing with a full stomach would be asking for trouble.

Oh boy. Sairyn! What an interesting individual. Jemma found herself vastly interested in his shenanigans, and in his seeming disaffected apathy towards those who talked to him. It was a stark difference from Alex, who tended to- on occasion- over-emote and express himself towards Jemma. Where Alex attempted to make Jemma feel like a person, Sairyn seemed infinitely more interested in simply using those around him like a tool!
That is what it seemed like to Jemma, at least. In reality, she knew next to nothing about the man, and never once felt like asking him what his deal was. Oh well!

"Yeah sure! Why not?" She replied first to Akiko, giving the woman a high-five before turning and repeating the short sentence to Sairyn. She flashed a smile at the group before turning her focus to Devon, shrugging without comment to his gentle statement. She was having fun! What was she supposed to do? It wasn't her fault that she liked the rush of nearly splattering against the ground at terminal velocity.


"Oh! Henry, to answer your request, sure! I'll talk with Aegis about it before I leave with you though, don't wanna worry him too much, you know?" Her tone was sweet as she spoke, though her expression implied that she might go without saying anything, just to bother Alex. She then continued to talk, perking up and moving past the group and making her way back inside. "Now if I can be excuse reaaal quick, I'm hungry!"
A brief cackle leapt from her at her own damn joke, before she continued.

"When aren't I... But anyhow, I'll be right back! I'm gonna fucking demolish the breakfast buffet! Or at least part of it... Hey do we know if George has some scrap metal he's not doing anything with? ... Eh. Doesn't matter, don't mind me!"
She finally took her leave then, for a moment surrounded by the air of someone ignoring a three day manic breakdown of their usual behaviors.

Akiko had waved in greeting to the Alex, Devon, and Sairyn as each one had entered the conversation. She had been elated when Jemma had hi-fived her back. Then Alex and Jemma had left and Akiko had waved them goodbye, unsure if they had seen her. It didn't bother her however as Henry, Sairyn, and Devon were still present.

Devon she had already met but she had barely seen Sairyn around. Heard his name but Akiko had shut herself off in the room for the last two days, needing to gather herself back together. It had been grueling but had allowed her to put her pieces together just enough to be present today. An image of the dead on the beach flashed across her mind and Akiko fidgeted a little. The dead deserved their due respect after all.

"Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one who hasn't ate yet," Akiko said as she tried to strike up a conversation away from the beach. She was kind of hesitant to give Henry an answer yet. The spirits were surely gone but Akiko didn't want to push herself yet.

"Have you two had breakfast as well?" she asked Sairyn and Devon, squinting at their cups of coffee. "Don't want upset stomachs at the funeral later, well, if ya'll go. I'm sure the souls won't mind either way."

"So...why are you here again?" Henry inquired to Sairyn, waving Alex and Jemma goodbye as they went on to breakfast. "From what George told us, NAHLA is in some kinda partnership with whatever this group is, right? Can't help but think these pet projects are more of a personal thing." he questioned, still somewhat weary of the NAHLA's higher-up's involvement.

"Alrightttt!" A voice interjected. Henry, Sairyn, Akiko and Devon turned to see Pendleton Dullard approaching with his hands raised as if he was trying to calm a wild animal. He was in a pristine white bathrobe, worn as properly as if it were the suits he adorned daily. "Agent Pendrake... I uh, woke up to pager alerts... something about shower steam coming from your room...? Invasive juice-boxes...? No sign of Silver Fang since arrival?" Dullard gave a nervous smile to the heroes as he tried to salvage the situation. "I know it's been a while since you've received sensitivity training but we must have a light touch here, Agent Pendrake. Let's not... over irritate the talent."

Sairyn felt like he maybe should have warned Alex that temporary heightened aggression was a minor side-effect of the bone growth stimulation chamber, but when he turned to do so Alex was already on his way. He clucked his tongue once.

It'll be fine.

"Yes, I ate already. We're the first ones up so there should still be plenty but... if you can't find anything after Jemma has her way with the buffet I can prepare something for you," he said offhandedly, glancing down at his phone. "Be careful if you intend to go to the beach: I didn't catch sight of SINS in the area on my last Drone flyby but that doesn't mean they're not observing the area, and they know all our faces," he said, draining the last quarter of his cup in a single draft. The grip on his coffee cup tightened noticeably on Pendleton's arrival, and he regarded the lawyer through a narrowed expression like he might will the man out of existence right there.

"D-... Don't you have something better to do??" he asked, in an icy tone. "Anyway," he muttered, turning back to the others. "Be cautious on your trip," he said in a very deliberate tone that suggested what he meant was "Don't give SINS the opportunity to test the red tape protecting them" and "We're not talking about my involvement with the lawyer about."

Sairyn's phone buzzed, drawing his attention. He quickly tapped out a reply and a few moments later the air was sundered by tendrils of shimmering pearlescent energy, revealing a rift leading back to NAHLA's evidence locker. A pale skinned woman with purple locks and glowing pink eyes ushered a dolly laden with several sealed medical totes through and carefully lowered them next to him. She wiped her hands on the front of her white NAHLA duster afterwards, looking nearly as frumpy as Sairyn. Clearly neither of them had gotten very much rest recently.

"Sai, I..."

"It's fine, I know you can't stay long," he cut her off, his face twisting into a scowl at the sight of the totes.

"It was already over when I got there," she said softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"I know: it was over in under a minute. The only way you could have gotten there faster was if the fucking moron been using the drone I built for him instead of that useless mask camera. Could have given you coordinates," he said, though his voice lacked the usual bite. "I'll forward you the results once my analysis is complete."

"I can delegate this to someone..." she offered, letting the rift close behind her. Color flushed back into her skin, and the glow faded from her mismatched eyes.

"No," he said firmly, taking the dolly and starting back towards the lobby with it. "It has to be me. Nobody fucks with my family," he replied icily. Eva blew an exhausted sigh as he left.

"Good morning Pendleton... Hello," she smiled at the others. "I hope he hasn't been too prickly..."

"Uh, who are you lady?" Henry asked. Though from the gist and how she greeted Pendleton, he could gather she was a part of NAHLA.

***
"Money, first," the ebon machine spoke through his built in communicator. Sent on untraceable 8G wavelengths stretching the span of North Carolina's eastern coast, on a secure channel. He sat in a dark room, the dim red light of his optics lighting the room. "Direct deposit to the account I sent you the previous day. I know it's unbecoming to request a bonus upfront, but this is not an easy job. This has been my third venture into Atlas City this month. You understand more than I, the hazards in my line of work one would face in terms of maintaining subterfuge."

"Of course. Money is no issue, but I trust you'll understand if the bonus is eschewed should any part of your assignment is botched. You'll still be payed handsomely, of course you will. You're the one risking your life, after all."

"..." Silentium pondered for a moment. "Acceptable. Business is business after all."

"Ah, thank you, my friend! always a pleasure to work with the Guild!"

Click.

"A death at a funeral. A bit trite," He sat up, walking over to the armory lined along the ships walls. There would be...a fair bit of opposition at the Atlas City Memorial. Heroes aplenty. The grieving the angry...."But the challenge...My God," Silentium would smile, had he any mouth to do so. If he'd hair, they would prickle upward. Feel a tingle in his spine. Cyclotrons wring rounded in his brain, simulating thrill. Exhileration. Memories of the dead, given life once more. A 21st Century, Frankenstein's Monster, cursed with the fire of Prometheus.

He mechanical digits touched the gun, his cyclotronic brain making the rounds again, artificially simulated neurons firing in his head, simulating the could touch of colder metal. A weapon of death. It felt good. Almost like it once was. But just almost.

"Still not good enough..." Silentium noted tapping on the metallic hull of the stealth fighter, it's hangar opening up, and the robot standing within, activating his invisibility field to match the imperceptible vessel he was standing in. "Commencing operation."

His gun locked and loaded, Silentium leapt from the ship, landing on the roof below without so much as a thud.

Devon listened to the proposal to head for the beach and do a little investigation from Henry. It had been three days and as far as he knew the beach hadn't been closed off for more than a day, whatever evidence he was going to be looking for if it was anything physical it would have been long gone. He took a long sip of his coffee as Sairyn interjected with some offers towards Alex and Jemma, followed up with a warning for potential SINS agents floating around the scene. "What kind of evidence are you even hoping to find, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have reopened the beach if there was even a trace left of what had happened. So I'd prefer to know what kind of evidence you expect to find there before risking a run in with some SINS agents trying to make a mistake."

Downing the last bit of his coffee down his gullet he watched as the miss appeared from a rift, honestly if he hadn't been in the super world for as long as he had been it probably would have been surprised by that, it was truly astounding how utterly desensitized one could get to this mind and physics breaking nonsense supers pulled off like it was just something normal. He uttered an almost disinterested "morning " to the miss before turning himself to the Silver cactus in their midst "I might join in on your little training session, I'm kind of feeling a bit rusty with only clay pigeons as a target, they are too predictable."

"Lets just say...I'm looking for a more unconventional kinda evidence," Henry stated, nodding at Akiko for a moment. "That's where she'll come in handy."

Akiko's eyes widened as she realized what Henry was asking of her. She could still see the beach, the spirits floating everywhere, the cries they had given out before she had shut her power off to them so she could focus.

"You want me to speak to them?" Akiko asked in a tone that wasn't really asking but making more of a statement. "See if they know anything? I mean, I don't know what the victims could hold but.. but I suppose it's worth a shot. I can't guarantee they'll be very cooperative though, if they are still there. And I don't even know if they'll remember much or have any useful info, just so you know."

Akiko paused, fidgeting with her hands as she cast a nervous glance at Devon before turning back to Henry, She noticed the new woman also staring and sighed. This was also likely the most serious Henry had seen her look so far.

"Just, uh, just let me know when we're heading out."

There was a thick fog over the rolling green hills surrounding the Omni Grove Inn- a sickly bloated castle, too large and too fat to justify how few people currently occupied it. Cannonade folded their arms. Their hair was wet and combed back, and they stood in slippers and a complimentary Omni Grove Inn bathrobe, waiting at the gates- for a mythical pizza. They brought a pipe up to their mouth and took a sharp inhale. Lavender, catnip, and green crack- a Cannonade speciality blend.

Headlights shot through the mist like the reflective eyes of a predator in a jungle. Of course, Cannonade was the only big cat around here. They let the smoke slip out the side of their mouth as the car pulled up. A large pizza was under the deliveryman's arm as he emerged.

Finally.

Some real fucking food.

***

Cannonade walked back into the dining room where the other jackasses were cranking it, eating up the private food George had readied for them. They gave a long sigh before throwing the pizza on a table and taking a seat. They pulled out a slice of the margarita pie and bit in.

Sheri's hair lay over her like a curtain as she lay face down in the center of her hotel room, the floor and walls dancing in slow circles around her. She flicked her tongue at the coppery liquid beading on her cracked, dry lip, her consciousness feeling like a halo spinning around the outside of her skull.

The room was completely empty aside from Sheri's prone form. The door was locked from the inside, and so were the windows. Sheri hadn't left the small corner suite assigned as her temporary quarters since they had arrived. She had isolated herself, refusing any attempt at room service from the staff, and spent the entire time exercising or… well her gun had been confiscated following the fiasco at the reactor, otherwise she'd have spent the rest of her time running through gun maintenance on loop. Instead she'd taken to staring at a wall, or out the window.

Or lying face down on the floor in her underwear, dying.

"Hey, roll over. I wanna see your abs."

Sheri grunted softly and refused to move.

"Come on, I bet you look real cut right now. On account of the aggressive dehydration and starvation. Good enough for Hollywood, even."

"Dead people don't talk," Sheri mumbled into the shag carpet, her voice weak and hoarse.

"You're managing just fine," Jack teased. Sheri rolled her head toward the sound of her sister's voice, taking in the sight of slender brown legs covered in short black fuzz. Jack plopped down next to her, legs crossing in front of the same underwear Sheri was wearing.

Sheri buried her nose back into the carpet. "Go away," she murmured into the floor. "I'm not in the mood to be haunted."

"Haunted!" Jack gasped, theatrically scandalized. "You would take me for a common specter, dear lady? Why, I never!" Sheri replied with something unintelligible. Why, that's exactly right!" Jack continued, pretending Sheri was comprehensible. "I am no simple spirit, but rather the malignant hallucination of your fading mind as it circles ever onward around the drain of oblivion! Shock! Dismay!"

"Shbabena?"

"I'm thrilled you grasp the severity of the situation."

"Kuvoo."

Jack chuckled softly, leaning back on her hands. "I honestly don't know why this is the part you're stress testing," she commented, poking at Sheri's ribs with her foot. "Kinda feels like putting the cart before the horse, y'know? I mean you'd think testing the body swap thing would come first, right? Make sure dying isn't actually a prerequisite? What was even your fallback if starving to death doesn't trigger it? Or-" Jack cast her gaze around the empty hotel room. "Do you got a clone sitting on ice in the bath, or did you not consider that either?"

"Do you think I could eat my hand?"

Jack blinked several times, processing. The sound of some screaming creature shrieked past the window outside. She looked down at Sheri for a moment, then sighed and stood back up. "Oooooookay. Come on dummy. Time to get up."

Sheri felt a hand grab the band of her bra from behind and haul her upwards, and the next thing she knew she was standing upright, her fist still clenched wear it had gripped her underwear. She slowly uncurled her fingers, staring blankly at her palm as she realized she wasn't hungry or thirsty anymore. She scratched at her head, turning in place to take in the empty room as her newly cleared mind tried to recall what the hell had just happened.

".....I should go eat something," she remarked to no one in particular, and then set about getting dressed.

Sai pushed up a little cart to Sheri's room like he had every morning for the past three days, sliding the previous morning's cart out of the way. He'd instructed the hotel staff and other NAHLA personal not to disturb her, and had shooed Pendleton away several times... the pest. He meant well... but he sure was annoying about it. They should have sent someone he could depend on... like Archer. Wasn't he going to school for... something useful? The delivery had been tucked away in Sairyn's lab for the time being and he still needed to oversee Silver Fang's sparring match to make sure the aggressive side effects of the bone grown solution didn't drive her to destroy the place...

"Inconvenient," he muttered when he checked the previous cart: the meal he'd cooked hadn't been touched. He sighed sharply through his nose, feeling his left eye twitch. There just wasn't enough time in the day to deal with all this bullshit. He scrawled a note hastily on a scrap of paper with a pen he'd come to keeping in his pocket, lest it be whisked off through time and space to... someplace, and slid it under the door with the others he'd left.



He didn't know what she liked, but he guessed she was Russian or Belarusian based on how she spoke on the plane. It was a simple spread: a scrambled egg, a couple Draniki, a small serving of Kasha and a butterbrot with a slice of ham alongside a pot of hot water and a few different choices of tea. Sairyn left the cart in front of the door so she couldn't exit the room without tripping over it and began rolling the old one back towards the kitchen with a sour expression on his face.

---

Outside, Henry's question caught Eva's attention, causing a sultry smile to twist the corners of her ruby lips.

"I'm Evangeline, the NAHLA section chief for Atlas City... and you are under arrest," she replied in a serious tone, sidling up to him. "For being criminally cute!" She finished, with a smirk.

"You know, the creature is suspected to be a dimensional being according to my brief... so if you're looking for 'unconventional' evidence you might try looking for dimensional resonance as well. Things that slip through dimensions leave a... 'residue' that can be traced. Might shed some light on where it came from, though by now any ambient signature will have faded. You'll have to find something to analyze... dense organic matter like bone holds onto it the longest," she explained.