Sleight of Hand, Glens Falls, NY

[Raiden]

Raiden was still blinking away the spots that had invaded his vision when Selene rushed to his side, and at first didn't seem to recognize her voice as she spoke. His dark violet eyes stared up at her for a moment, blank and uncomprehending, until he blinked, and it seemed his mind finally started processing the information his senses were sending to it. Fearing that he'd taken a real blow to the head, it took him another few seconds to believe it; Selene was supposed to be safely behind cover right now, not right there beside him. Everything she said - which was just now catching up with him - was the usual Selene Brodrick level of brilliance, though, so he quickly dismissed the thought that he might be hallucinating.

Converting kinetic energy...? he echoed the explanation in his mind. Physics wasn't his strong suit, despite his mechanical talents and the minor fact that he defied the laws of nature on a daily basis, but he could easily grasp junior high school stuff like this. Newton-sama, have you finally caught up with me? In spite of the sharp pain lancing from his ribs to the back of his skull, Kuro quickly found the energy to climb back up to his feet. He'd figured he would be down for much longer than that, and had no idea where this new reserve had come from, but the idea that Selene's hand on his shoulder might have something to do with it never crossed his mind. With one hand propped against the nearby wall for balance, he craned his neck to toss a glance back over his shoulder to the major's daughter. "So what do we do now?"

[Shiv]

"The hell?" Brute muttered to himself as Liquid Snake over there just shrugged off being shot by him. He was pretty sure he'd hit the guy, at least. Seemed like he'd been aiming at him. Of course, his attention was sort of divided at the time, and he had been leaping through the air, so there was a slim chance that he'd missed. Of course, the fact that Raiden had gotten the drop on the guy... literally... and only succeeded in hurting himself in the process informed Brute that something was definitely up. He risked another glance out as he saw the gunmen that had had them surrounded moments before beating a hasty retreat, more to figure out where exactly they were going than anything else. "Looks like all the punch 'n' pie's somewhere else, eh?" he observed over his radio. Checking his guns to make sure he still had plenty of ammunition left, he leaned around the courner once more to start shooting at the guy again, when Selene started yelling at them to stop.

"Christ, what now?" he muttered to himself, dropping back behind the crate. Since it seemed they were in no real danger of having to shoot the go for at lest a couple of seconds, he reached into one of his pockets, pulling out a cigarette and his lighter. After all, it was never really a bad time for a smoke break. He listened fairly intently to what Selene was saying, looking around once again to make sure everything was pretty much the way it was supposed to be. Then, when Raiden asked what they do now, he took a moment to ponder that, then a crooked grin split his features. "We keep shooting him," he began. "And stay out of his way, of course. He's not just redirecting kinetic energy, otherwise Ninja Boy woulda been tossed a lot sooner and a lot harder. He has to store it up, which means converting it to potential energy within his body, then converting it back to kinetic energy in order to do things. So, if we keep shooting at him and don't give him any targets, then it'll be like shutting off all the valves on a water main; all that energy's gotta go somewhere, and eventually it ends up goin' wherever the hell it wants to. It's a little Saturday morning cartoon-y, but then again... so is physics."

[Blitzkrieg]

The rogue ascendant's loud, roaring laughter filled the spacious warehouse-like structure, reverberating from the cold concrete walls so that the obnoxious noise sounded like it was coming from every direction. "Not bad, sweetheart," he addressed Selene with a sardonic grin. "I wondered how long it was gonna take one of you people to figure it out. Looks like you're the winner today!" Sliding out of his combative stance and into a rather inappropriately casual one, he brushed Brute's bullets off of his long coat, letting them fall to the floor below with the soft jingle of metal striking concrete. Though the rounds had managed to penetrate the fabric of his clothing, the flesh and bone beneath were completely unharmed. The bullet heads weren't even flattened, as if having been stopped by a solid surface, as one might expect - but rather retained their shape like they had quite simply... stopped.

"You kids know why they call me 'Martyr'?" he asked while he picked one last solid cone of iron out of his jacket and flicked it away. The bullet zipped across the room, then ricocheted off the wall, then the ceiling, then several more surfaces until it finally lost momentum. Given the random direction he flung the bullet in, it was obviously meant to be an intimidating display more than an attack. It was also obvious that if it had just happened to accidentally hit one of the other people in the room, he wouldn't shed a tear. "I've been 'killed' more times than I can count, for more causes than I can count. The joke is that it's ironic!"

Chuckling at his own joke, 'Martyr' eased back into a combative stance. "Well kids, now that story time is over... let's get serious!" The rogue ascendant shouted his last at the same time as he flung his fist at the floor with all his might. Solid concrete shattered under his knuckles, and deep cracks spread out in several directions, most headed toward the crates where the bulk of Gamma Strike was holed up. Like time bombs primed to blow, all of the wooden crates and metal cases that happened to be in the path of the cracks exploded, spraying dust and debris everywhere.

[Selene]

For a moment after Brute's reply, Selene was completely stunned. It wasn't that he had managed to somewhat contradict her statement on the matter, or event hat he seemed hell bent on shooting someone who they really shouldn't be shooting at. It was just that she had never considered Brute to be that much of a science type. After so much time hanging around her father and his 'old war buddies' she supposed she was becoming too accustomed to their shoot everything that moves philosophy when it came to these sorts of situations; or at least it seemed to her that was how they dealt with just about everything. She blinked and it took her a moment to come back to the battle and the heated debate at hand. Of course it helped alleviate her shock that, in a round about way, his solution was still to shoot the crap out of the guy, even if he had some form of scientific logic to back it up.

But his logic was flawed, in her opinion, and she was quick to point that out, though the irony about the fact that this was neither the time nor place for detailed scientific debate didn't escape her. As usual when it came to scientific situations, she seized up the data at hand in a matter of moments and put forth her theory on why they really shouldn't let loose a rain of gunfire on their opponent and in true Selene Brodrick form, it sounded like discussion better meant for a scientific lab than a battlefield.

"That's an assumption based on a completely unfounded opinion rather than scientific observation or fact. Just about every documented energy based ascendancy has some form of fail safe built into it for just the kind of situations you're talking about. Oversoul, for the most famous and well documented example! He can siphon energy off into air when he's absorbed too much, and when he's finished with it he just releases it. Even if he needed a medium into which to release whatever energy he was holding, his feet are always on the ground! Who's to say he can't just direct the energy down and out as a form of grounding-"

She probably would have gone on like that for quite some time if her father's voice hadn't suddenly blasted in her ears so loudly that it just about knocked her off of her feet. The look on her face in the aftermath of his rage was nothing short of mortified. Not only were her ears still ringing, but what he'd said seemed to be echoing over and over in the space between her ears. She was quick to prove that her mortification had nothing to do with the fact that her father had finally caught on to the fact that she had sneaked out from under his nose to join GammaStrike on a very dangerous mission, and everything to do with what he had just said. "He so did not just middle name me in the middle of a mission... thing..." She muttered. "That was totally uncalled for!"

She was expecting further tirade from her father to come clattering over there radio, but instead Martyr himself was quick to take up the sudden lapse in conversation to introduce himself and demonstrate that, not only did he crack himself up, but he was a force to be reckoned with. While it may not have bothered the others, who had far more confidence, courage and experience with this sort of thing than she did, the sight of a bullet being casually flung in any old direction and ricocheting several times before it came to rest was enough to frighten the likes of Selene Brodrick. As he was advancing, she was already trying to find a better place to hide. Unfortunately, at the moment, that meant behind Kuro. She felt far too exposed standing beside him. All kinds of excuses flashed through her mind as she put the silver haired youth between herself and the danger; she was just getting out of his way... Maestro had told her to stay behind someone, to keep safe and out of the way... But they were just excuses, and she had to accept that. It was just another reminder that she didn't really belong here, that she never should have come all the way out here in the first place.

But she didn't run away. She wouldn't run away. She kept her hand firmly on Kuro's shoulder. She didn't know what, exactly, she was capable of, but she remembered the car chase against Arson and the fact that Oversoul's bullets had been far more explosive than he had planned while she had been holding on to him. If contact with her could give Kuro the ability to do something better, faster, stronger than he usually did, then she wasn't going to rob him of it. She only hoped she could be of some kind of use.

That new found confidence only extended so far, however, and as the crates exploded into debris she found herself cringing behind Kuro. She really didn't want to end up like those men they had passed outside. "I guess whatever we're going to do, we better come up with it fast!" She murmured into the radio, her tone much more subdued than it had been before.

[Maestro]

Maestro was not exactly a whiz when it came to science, sure he understood what he'd studied of it well enough but he didn't focus much of his time on it and so let Selene speak her ideas on their opponent. They were lucky enough that the rest of their assailants had begun their retreat, leaving them some small window, but bulk of their own team was based in physical combat, which would make things hard for them if it could all be tossed right back with more force.
 
His own running thoughts were cut sharply when the Major's voice boomed into their ears over the radio, wincing slightly. He already knew he was going to be in some serious trouble for letting Selene slip past him on the way here, but as much as he might have been tempted to worry, right now they had far more important things to think about if they wanted to make it back home at all.
 
He backed away with the others when the crates shattered, near Kuro and Selene now. He was looking at Selene though, through the connection they all shared he could almost feel her thought process, though he could not see exactly what was going through her mind as his teacher would have been able to. But he knew things too, he'd been one of the first Selene had unknowingly helped. "Raiden do you think you can still move quickly enough to evade him?" He wasn't sure the extent of the injuries he'd taken and wasn't sure what would happen if he stepped away from Selene.
 
"We need to break, to keep from presenting a single target. You and Brute are the fastest and Seraph can take the air." He needed them to keep moving and unfortunately Selene wouldn't be able to run after them. Besides, he needed her for something else. Close enough now he reached out and gently laid his hand upon her wrist, over top of where it rested against Raiden's shoulder. "Overload him. Even if he does have some way to release the energy I think I can distract him enough that he won't be able to use it." He fixed Selene with a look. "If you help me, that is."
 
"Now, you heard the man, let's get serious."