Sleight of Hand, Glens Falls, NY

[Blitzkrieg]

"Hey, did you guys see The Apprentice last night?"

"God damn, that was a twist!"

"I know, right?!" Pte. Eric Shaunasee shook his head in disbelief at the events that unfolded on his TV screen the night before.

He and two other soldiers were crowded into a tiny guard house off to one side of the tall, barbed wire-adorned chain-link gate that barricaded the sole entrance to Glens Falls Army Base, using its sturdy walls and cramped confines to protect them from the bitter chill outside. Most days were spent like this, especially in the winter months. Once every so often, there would be a flurry of activity at the gate as personnel and the highly irregular 'shipments' came and went. There was no question that something was going on in the bunker beneath the base, but they didn't have the security clearance to know what that something was. Their only job was to guard the gate - a job that was, on most days, maddeningly dull, and the three men felt at times that conversations like these were the only reason they were still sane.

The third of the group, a middle-aged corporal who had displayed plenty of devotion to the Army throughout his career, but none of the intelligence needed to advance through the ranks, cleared his throat noisily before finally speaking up. "Y'know, I used to watch that show when Donald Trump was on it, back in high school."

The other two men looked over at the corporal, their expressions puzzled. "Who's Donald Trump, Corporal Matthews?" asked the second private.

The corporal massaged the crook of his shoulder with one hand and sniffed. He was fighting a nasty cold - and losing. "He's like Jon Warden, but with funny hair and about a hundred extra..." Pounds? Condos? Divorces? Whatever Matthews was going to say was cut short when the low rumble of the winter wind outside the guard house was drowned in a wail of squealing rubber. "The hell?"

Pte. Shaunasee grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, then opened the door and stepped outside. He said nothing for a moment as he peered through the dancing snowflakes drifting wildly on the wind, until he was able to make out a boxy silhouette in the grey-white haze, at which point he cursed. "Chrissakes, it's the laundry truck again. What the fuck did he forget this time?"

"He's driving kinda fast, ain't he?" Matthews observed almost casually, arms folded over his chest as his eyebrows slowly climbed his wrinkled forehead.

A silence fell over the gate guards then, lasting only a few seconds as the laundry truck loomed closer and closer. "...is he...? Shit, he's coming straight at us!" Shaunasee shouted, raising his weapon even as the corporal roared the order to open fire. The sharp, rapid crack of automatic weapon fire joined the scream of the truck's spinning tires in a chaotic symphony that rapidly built up to a dramatic crescendo as the vehicle ploughed straight into the guard house, rupturing the barrels full of explosive chemicals stored inside in a tremendous ball of fire. The soldiers would only have an instant to enjoy their final reprieve from winter, before everything at the Glens Falls base gate fell silent.

Continued in Post Two...

[Blitzkrieg]

Only seconds behind the laundry truck turned high-explosive on wheels, a pair of other vehicle came down the road. The rather innocuous-looking red Town Cars pulled up beside the smouldering ruins of the truck that preceded them, and out of the first poured seven men concealed by balaclavas and wielding sub-machine guns, who rapidly took up positions just inside the smashed gate. A second group of men stepped out of the rear vehicle, and most of these similarly dove for cover, but one among them rather casually made his way in the clear open toward the burning wreckage of the improvised bomb. Hands buried in the pockets of his long, black coat, the white-haired man was apparently unconcerned by the deadly hail of bullets that would inevitably be fired his way by the soldiers stationed on the base.

As it turned out, his cavalier attitude was well justified: the thunderous roar of high-powered assault rifle fire from inside the base had the rest of the raiders ducking behind their cover, but the lethal ammunition that rained down on the gate stopped abruptly before it even reached the most brazen and obvious target, as if stopped dead in their flight by an invisible barrier. "You can come out now," Blitzkrieg shouted over the deafening peals of man-made thunder, his words pinched by a faint German accent.

On that cue, a heap of twisted metal inside the wreckage of the laundry truck shifted, rose, then fell aside, and out of the searing flames stepped a dusky-skinned man garbed in similar dress and wearing a grin that split his sharply-angled features from one ear to the other. Though he had been buried in the debris at the epicenter of the explosion that had ripped open the army base's main gate, he was miraculously unharmed - saved for slightly singed eyebrows. "Hmm, that was a good one. It would be a shame to waste it on these mice."

"We will stick with the plan," was all the Scorched Earth lieutenant said, before politely motioning for the other man to precede him. Both turned and moved into the base, through the withering barrage of gunfire unafraid and unharmed. After some thirty paces, the pair suddenly stopped, and the man standing in front of Blitzkrieg drove his hand into the ground as if punching the frozen earth at his feet. In the blink of an eye, all of the kinetic energy his body had absorbed in the explosion, a force that practically made that which vapourised the three gate guards look like a stiff wind by comparison, struck out at the soldiers inside the base simultaneously. The ground exploded beneath their feet like land mines, ripping through flesh and shattering bone as they were flung to the ground. Few of the soldiers were killed, but all were decisively taken out of the fight.

The brunt of the explosive force wasn't directed at the soldiers stationed on the base, however, but at the massive blast doors that guarded the loading entrance to the bunker beneath. If the sheer explosive power that the attacking force had used on the front gate was overkill, it was clear that this was why. The force of the laundry truck bomb hadn't been meant to merely get them into the base - it had been deliberately calculated to take out the first line of defence, and rip the bunker open like a tin can. The massive blast doors, built to withstand a direct hit by anything short of a large air-to-surface missile, buckled under the powerful impact, then wrenched aside. They were not blown off their proverbial hinges fully, but the force had been enough to open a passage inside that could easily fit two men side-by-side.

The gunfire abruptly fallen away, replaced by the agonized groans of the wounded soldiers around them, Blitzkrieg's voice dropped to its normal level. "Excellent work, Martyr," he said, almost pleasantly, before turning back to face the rest of his team and waving them forward. "Let's get to work!"

Continued in Post Three...

[Blitzkrieg]

Icy rivulets of sweat ran down the slope of Colonel Benjamin Wright's brow as he lifted the radio clutched tightly in his trembling, white-knuckle grasp to his mouth. "Sergeant Davis, report! What's going on out there?"

Seconds passed with nothing coming back over the radio but the dull hiss of dead air, and a momentary fear that Davis might not be alive to answer him gripped his heart. Then, the distant sound of gunfire muffled by the bunker's reinforced walls flared to life with chilling clarity over the speaker, soon followed by the sergeant's voice, "They've taken the loading bay, sir! We can't hold them back! They've got ascendants - fucking powerful ones! My men are being cut down!"

An acid curse spilled from the base commander's lips. Ascendants. It didn't take much for him to guess what they were after here. It was much harder to figure out who had the sheer grapefruits to hit an American military facility. Some third-world country was going to be blasted into a parking lot for this, he could be sure of that, but right now, Colonel Wright's primary concern was getting himself and his men out of this alive. "Pull back to the control room, Davis," he ordered into the radio, his voice suddenly calm. He felt somehow detached from the situation, unable to believe that something like this was really happening. "We can't let them take this position, do you understand? We cannot let them take this position!"

"It's too la--!"

The sergeant's voice was drowned out by a final roar of gunfire, so loud that it was distorted almost beyond recognition, then the radio fell silent. "Damn it," Colonel Wright growled, and slammed the radio down on the top of the computer terminal that was supporting his weight. Unwilling to waste even a few precious seconds to compose himself, he looked up to the men in the control room with him and pointed a trembling finger at the door. "Take up positions and dig your heels in. They're coming this way." The soldiers hesitated, staring dumbly at the base commander. They were afraid to face a group of armed men and ascendants who had wiped out the rest of the base's defenders; it was something Wright understood well - he was afraid, too - but not something he could accept. "Damn it, if we let them take this room, the entire eastern seaboard - maybe the entire country - will be in trouble! Move!"

The colonel's words were like a bucket of cold water splashed on the soldiers. They nodded and quickly moved into position, leveling their weapons at the door through which the enemy would come, their hands steadied by resolve. They wouldn't be kept waiting long. Mere minutes after Sergeant Davis' final transmission, a shuddering blast ripped through the control room door, tearing it off its hinges and sending it flying into the room. The twisted metal projectile slammed into one of the soldiers and tossed him back like a rag doll, but his comrades, undaunted, didn't hesitate to squeeze their triggers and unload a barrage of fire into the open doorway. The carbine rounds plunged into the smoke-filled corridor, but they did not strike their targets. Rather, they inexplicably curved around the hazy silhouettes outside, as if their trajectory was bent by some unseen force.

Unfortunately for the control room's defenders, their assailants' weapons were not so useless. A second storm of gunfire thundered across the control room, this time coming from the corridor, and Colonel Wright barely had a moment to blink before the young men around him were cut down with surgical precision. Grey-clad figures stormed into the room, quickly taking up positions along the wall on either side of the door, weapons trained squarely on the base commander. Following on their trail, a white-haired man clad in a long, black coat leisurely strolled into the control room from the smoke-filled corridor. He exchanged a few, hasty words with one of the gunmen in Russian, and in a flash two of the attackers grabbed Wright by the arms, pulling him away from the nearby computer console and forcing him down to his knees, while another went to work on the vacated terminal.

"I've got it," the man at the computer declared, in what might as well have been gibberish as far as Colonel Wright was concerned. "Level 4, Block 11. Locks are disengaging now."

Blitzkrieg cut a glance back over his shoulder at a blond man standing behind him and tilted his head in a slight nod. As the man returned the nod and raced out of sight back down the corridor, the Scorched Earth lieutenant turned his attention back to the control room with a pleasant smile that did nothing to reassure the base commander. "Colonel Benjamin Wright of the United States Army. Or perhaps to be more precise, Colonel Alan Stafford of the United Kingdom's Special Reconnaissance Regiment, yes?"

The colonel swallowed around a lump in his throat. How could he possibly know that?! "Who are you?" he demanded, an edge of false bravado in his tone poorly hiding the fear he felt rising up in the pit of his stomach.

"Businessmen," Blitzkrieg tossed back with a casual roll of his shoulders. "Capitalists, of the most honest sort. Now, I will ask the questions from here on, Colonel. Understand first of all that government secrecy and classification of information is unnecessary here. We know that this is not a US Army bunker, but in fact an international facility administered by the United Nations. We know that you were assigned to protect the 'dangerous materials' locked away in this facility along with teams from Germany, Italy, Australia, Egypt and Indonesia. We know that you had never been to the United States in your life before this assignment. And even if we did not know all of this, we would know that your West Virginian accent is fake." The white-haired man clasped his hands behind his back and appraised the base commander closely with his cold, blue-green stare. "What we want from you is simple, Colonel Stafford: Gamma Strike's EDC."

An icy pang of fear struck Wright's - Stafford's - heart at his captor's pronouncement. The Emergency Deployment Code was a measure of last resort that the nine permanent members of the UN Security Council had worked into its plans back in 2030, when Gamma Strike was first conceived. Normally, deploying Gamma Strike required a majority vote in the Security Council, unanimous consensus among the Big Nine in a closed-door session, or by order of Doctor Thomas Newton. For UN defence and security initiatives that fell under Gamma Strike's unique expertise - such as this facility - the EDC was established to allow the team to deploy to that location without the need to wait for the order to come from somewhere else. But why would these people want Gamma Strike to come here? Whatever the reason was, he knew it couldn't be good. He swallowed again, then slowly shook his head. "That's not going to happen. There's no way in hell I would give it over willingly, and unless I unlock the EDC transmission protocol with a retinal scan, you'll be hours trying to get through the security program."

Blitzkrieg's pleasant smile faded at the officer's stubborn insistence, and he issued a sigh as he turned his back on the man. "I was afraid you might feel that way. Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time. Piotr, in the chest so you don't damage his eyes." A mad cry of fear rose up from Colonel Stafford's throat, only to be cut abruptly short by the ear-splitting report of two gunshots. Blitzkrieg's smile returned, if slightly diminished by regret. "Please transmit the code, Andrej. You will find the good Colonel to be more cooperative now. Martyr, take a few men up to the loading bay and prepare a warm welcome for Gamma Strike. Our informant estimates that they should be here within the hour."

[Maestro]

Gabriel looked down on the world below from a great height. The ability to fly had given the young man a new retreat from the world at large. Though now he could make the excuse that it was also part of his training. Now his arms and legs were wrapped about with heavy weights. He stood on a platform high above the floor of the sublevel training facility; staring down at what waited below. Flying up had been very difficult with the weights, but that was part of the training.

Most of the young mans flying training had been aided by the visiting Sesha when Gabriel desired it, no one else having quite the insight he did when it came to air combat. Today though, it was Oleksander who stood below on the floor, having watched the ascent silently. They often trained together and physically Gabriel was usually more than a match for him but this was more about helping his friend to cope with mental assaults, while he learned to deal with unconventional attacks.

Gabriel tried to distract himself as much as was possible. He had to learn how to split his attention while in combat. There were many times that you couldn't be focused on just one thing. Oleksander helped by assaulting his mind, in a controlled environment, and helped him learn to resist. Now he stepped off and dropped like a stone at first before fighting against the weight.

Oleksander didn't have anywhere to hide himself in this training room so for the moment he kept himself out of easy range of the falling Gabriel, letting him get his bearings first by reading him then when he was sure egging at the edges of his mind to keep him off balance. He kept things easy when they first started out, letting Gabriel get used to it.

Gabriel was particularly susceptible to attacks on the mind. There were times when it was benign like Oleksander's strengthening of his convictions. On the other hand it had led him down to much darker paths. Gabriel shook his head hard and dropped down further as his thoughts grew hazy. He pushed against it and climbed again.

Oleksander carefully monitored Gabriel to make sure he wasn't being too aggressive right off. Last thing he wanted was for his friend to injure himself when there was no good reason for it. He continued the mental pressure steadily, even when a voice came over the intercom. Gamma Strike is to report for immediate deployment. Air transport is waiting. That brought an end to it, his mind letting Gabriel's be for now. "We need to get going."

Gabriel was quite passive on his own; despite his natural strength and his ascendant abilities. He paused in his battle against both weights with Oleksander's words. There were those that called the blonde teenager the other ascendant's hound, because he so easily answered. It was just Gabriel thought it was important to listen to leaders. He fell again, but let the fall continue. He hit the ground with a startling force, but only started to remove the weights. "Of course. I am ready."

Oleksander expected Gabriel to come along on this; though he was almost timid for his size and despite what had happened when he'd been led astray he trusted Gabriel to watch his back and his strength proved very useful in the field. He would have winced at the landing he took but was used to it by now and so only waited long enough for the weights to be removed before taking off to fulfill the summons.

---

Oleksander had wasted to time in getting them to their transport and as they rode up in the elevator to the roof he was already mentally preparing himself for heading out. He was becoming more used to being the one in charge and though he still retreated into that special place he'd constructed for his mind it didn't hold as much importance for him as it had before. It was such an easy transition now, almost like flipping a switch, but he knew very well that it was also a kind of crutch that someday he would have to lay aside.

The brief they were given once the chopper had taken off did little to shed much light on the situation they were heading into. He really would have liked a little more than the knowledge that one of their bases had been attacked, a worrying enough prospect when one thought about it, and the possible loss of what was being 'stored' there. Any group with not just enough firepower, but sheer brazen gall to attack a US military base on its own soil had to be considerable, if not in numbers than in strength and foresight.

The flight to the base would not be a very long one, and after the briefing he used the time left to them to link that familiar mental thread between himself and the others. If he'd learned nothing else from their battle in the Dniester it was that they needed to be as prepared as possible.

[Selene]

What am I doing? It was something she was beginning to wonder more and more as her muscles cramped and protested at the tiny space into which she had been shoved behind crates and boxes of supplies. It had been the only way that they could keep her hidden for the duration of the chopper ride that was carrying Gamma Strike from the Skygate Institute to the military base which was under attack. When her accomplices had first made the suggestion, she had been more than willing - even eager - to shove herself into the tiny space and endure the discomfort. Her initial resolve had been strong. She had been determined to do this.

But the hot fire of that resolve had faded now. The pain of her cramped muscles, and the chance to think about, and fear, what awaited her at their destination had given her cause to regret her hasty decision. But it's too late now. You're in this to the end now, so you better just suck it up and deal with it.

After all, the red hot fire of indignation had been lit beneath her soul, and once ignited, it was almost impossible to put out. The moment she had discovered the small bit of information that had set her off, she had made up her mind. she had marched straight into the middle of her father's conversation and demanded to be allowed to go with them. After all, she had abilities that were useful in these kinds of situations too. She had proved that when she had helped Legion and Oversoul take down Arson. She might not be in full control of her powers yet, but as long as she stayed behind one of the more powerful ascendants and stuck to using her abilities to enhance them, everything should be just fine.

Or at least that's what she had thought while she had been demanding to be allowed to go along. Now she was starting to think about how people tended to start shooting in her direction whenever she got within range and she wondered if that would be a help or a hindrance in this sort of situation. But once again, she was well aware that it was too late to think of that just now. If she hadn't wanted to come on this mission, she should have thought about all the shooting before she got into the chopper. It was too late now, after all, for them to turn around just to take her back home.

Of course, if she had just had the good sense to listen to her father for once, she wouldn't have been in this mess at all. She should have expected his response from the very first. Of course he had said no. In fact he had seemed quite angry at the very idea. At the time she hadn't been able to imagine why... not that she had ever really explained her reasons very well. Those she was keeping firmly to herself. Now she was feeling somewhat enlightened. But what she regretted even more than the situation in which she now found herself, was the heated words she had exchanged with her father over whether or not she should be allowed to go on the mission with the rest of Gamma Strike. She still believed that it was her right to be there, even if she wasn't willing to tell anyone else exactly why.

Maybe there really is something of my father in me after all. Since his angry refusal to even discuss allowing her to join the team for this mission had only made the fire inside her burn hotter and brighter. Luckily for her, there were a few members of Gamma Strike who had understood her feelings and been willing to help her. Nick had understood... or at least she thought he mostly understood, and he'd been able to throw around just enough weight to get her this far. And Kuro too... he hadn't seemed to mind helping to fit her into her hiding place before the rest of the team could show up and tell her father what she had gone and done.

She supposed by the time he found out - oh and he would find out - it would be too late for him to do anything about it. She almost wished she could be there to see the look on his face when he realized she'd done... exactly what he would have done!

Although that did little to reassure her at the moment. And so, when Oleksander began to form his bonds with the other minds in the chopper, he would notice an extra one which he had not expected, familiar and conflicted, though not the mess it might once have been. Selene wasn't used to the idea of trying to hide or conceal her mind, but her emotions were not in so much turmoil that they would have been like the loud siren they had once been. Instead they may have manifested to Oleksander like a muffled mumbling sensation, one that nagged terribly while he was trying to concentrate on other tasks.

[Shiv]

Nick, much like Gabriel and Oleksander, had been training. That was more or less what he did, after all. All the time. It wasn't like he was going to sit in his room playing video games... although he had almost figured out Minesweeper. No, he was usually either training or watching TV, usually war movies and kung-fu. So, at various points on the day during which the call came through, he was either in the firing range or running around the campus. However, some time before they were ordered to move out, he had mysteriously disappeared from his adventures. Where he had gone, no one could really be sure. Well, almost no one. There were a couple of people he had been around, as it were.

So it was that, when the rest of the team arrived (most of the rest of them, at least), he was already sitting in their helicopter, leaning against the supply crates piled up inside. For the first time since their... adventures... on the Dneister, he was in his Gamma Strike combat suit, but with the usual bandana over his head. He already had his machine guns strapped to his back, and he once again had both of his pistols holstered at his ankles. Apparently the one that Gabriel broke unnecessarily had been repaired. When the rest of the team entered the helicopter, he nodded to them each in turn.

Once they took off, Brute reached into the pouch at his belt in what should now be a somewhat familiar gesture to the rest of the team, spreading black powder over his face and neck while listening to the briefing. "Oh!" he said after it was done, apparently recalling some of their previous operations. "People are prob'ly gonna die out there. But they're all bad." That said, he settled back against the crates. When Maestro "linked up" with the team, he would notice that Brute wasn't really his usual self. He seemed to have large amounts of his usual latent agression sapped out of him for some reason, and that was twinged with a great deal of worry. Brute had never been happier in his life to be dealing with an empath, of course; had Maestro been a telepath, he would have been able to pluck the thoughts about Greg finding out Brute had helped smuggle his daughter on this mission right out of his head.

[Raiden]

In contrast to Selene and Brute, when Maestro got to adding Kuro to his empathic network - a strange sensation for the teenager, who hadn't experienced it on the Dneister mission like the others had - Gamma Strike's field leader wouldn't find a trace of regret or trepidation in his mind. Just the opposite: Kuro exhibited a certain sense of anticipation that could be easily mistaken as being directed toward this operation. What he was really looking forward to, though, was the inevitable blowout that was going to happen on their return to the Institute. That he was going to get caught in the crossfire along with Nick when the shooting started didn't seem to bother him overmuch; after all, while disturbing the peace for its own sake might not have been his only reason for helping to smuggle Selene onto the helicopter, it had a lot to do with it.

All thoughts about the storm brewing for them back in Anglia were rudely shoved aside in Raiden's mind when a large, square patch of cleared land dotted with man-made structures came into view through the treetops. Deciding that the Glens Falls army base was the only reasonable thing like it to be found out here - with the possible exception of an armed religious sect's secret compound - the young ascendant raised a pair of binoculars up to his eyes and leaned closer to the window for a better look. Sure enough, it was their destination. There was no mistaking the layout of the property: barbed wire fence, flag pole with the stars and stripes flapping lazily in the chill breeze, barracks, base commander's office, quartermaster depot, canteen. All in all, it looked every bit how one might expect an army base to look... except for the massive, squat, steel and concrete structure that dominated the center of the compound.

Impressed, Raiden issued a low whistle. "No wonder they called us. This definitely isn't just some boot camp that got attacked," he announced to his teammates, and tossed the binoculars to Maestro across the cramped rear passenger compartment. Never one to stay idle for long, he unbuckled the series of belts that strapped him to his seat and stood up, quickly moving to the door before anyone could stop him. With a sharp tug on the handle, the side door rolled open and a powerful gust of air rushed into the aircraft. Raiden tossed a grin back over his shoulder, which quickly disappeared as he pulled his mask up over his nose, and shouted over the howling wind, "I'm going to go ahead and check things out! Meet you on the ground!"

Although he truly respected his team leader, Raiden was still more or less used to operating on his own, and felt he had discretion in matters where his specialty was concerned. So it was that Gamma Strike's self-pronounced infiltration and espionage specialist, once again not waiting for anyone to order him to either move or stay, dove through the open door. The fall from the altitude that the helicopter was flying at would be quite deadly for any normal human, and the silver-haired ascendant dropped like a stone. Despite that, he touched down on the ground just inside the base perimeter with ease, then dashed toward the nearest building for cover.

[Maestro]

It didn't take Maestro very long to set up the mental link between everyone on the team though some of the slight oddities didn't completely escape his notice. The lack of the rampant eagerness was like a light and worry? Since they'd begun working together he'd never felt that coming off the man and since he still very often relied on the obvious amount of experience Brute had over his own that put him off his ease and made him wonder.

Normally he would have let it go and it would have been gone with most everything else when, as he finalized the connection, he felt the nagging of an unknown mind, where there should be nothing of the kind for him to find. It wasn't any of them and wasn't the pilot but the mind would feel a touch to it, just a light one, though that was all it took for him to know who it was. Way to familiar. Maestro unbuckled himself quickly, moving across the space past Brute, in what would have been a mad act had it not been him, able to sense what was there.

One of the top crates that hid the stowaway was pulled back and a shadow fell across her, the astonished face of Maestro looking down at her. No amount of emotional blocks could help him here but a moment later the shock swept away to be replaced by anger. "What in hell are you doing here?" He demanded over the noise of the chopper, almost the same time the door was pulled open and Kuro decided to take off on his own and unable to stop him. One deciding to run off and one that shouldn't even be here at all... the Major was going to kill him! How hadn't he detected her there? Things were already bad and they weren't even on the ground yet.

"One minute to position." The pilots voice cut over the radio and Maestro reached in, grabbing at Selene's arm to try and haul her up none to gently. He didn't know why she was here or how she'd managed it but at the moment he didn't care, there wasn't time for this. "You're going back with the pilot after we're gone, understand?"

[Selene]

Selene glanced up as one of the crates making up her hiding place was roughly pulled away, and shrank away from the look of fierce anger on the face that confronted her. For a moment, Maestro's face so resembled the look she imagined would take up residence on her father's face when he found out what she'd done, that she was sure it really was her father who had found her. But the moment passed quickly, the logical part of her brain reasserted itself, and she recognized Maestro for who he really was. Dispelling the image of her father from her mind, Selene rose up from her hiding place and crossed her arms across her chest, leveling a glare of her own at Maestro that easily matched his anger and determination.

Before she had embarked on the chopper, Selene had filched one of the special combat uniforms that the members of Gamma Strike were supposed to wear, and she looked as though she was ready to go into battle with the rest of them. Frightened though she may have been of what awaited her at their destination, she was not so frightened that she was going to allow herself to be cowed by the likes of Oleksander. Certainly she had not stood up to her father just to be turned back by someone who seemed to think he was a miniature version of her father.

"I most certainly will not do any such thing!" Selene snapped back with equal ferocity. It was going to take more than a single demand to get her to do anything. In fact, if her own father hadn't been able to convince her, Oleksander didn't have much hope. "I'm going with you, and don't you even try to tell me that I can't! I have every right to be here for this mission, and not you nor anyone else has the right to tell me I don't. In fact I have more right to be here than you do!" But before the reasons that had brought her here could tumble free from her lips, Selene recalled her own caution. It was best if she kept certain things to herself, and not for the least because she feared what might happen if she allowed herself to make the slip. There were angers far worse than Oleksander's and her father's, after all, and while she may have had it in her to stand up to both of them, there were certain people she just couldn't yell down. Startled out of her own anger she stumbled to add, "I have my reasons and I'm not going to let you deter me!

"Besides that!" She rushed on, not even giving Oleskander a chance to argue with her until she'd gotten all of her own points in. Somehow rushing forward helped her get the momentum of her anger back. "I have an ability just as useful as yours!" Even if she couldn't quite control it very well yet, that didn't matter. It seemed to be the sort of thing she could use without really understanding it. All she had to do was touch someone, after all, and that wasn't really so hard. She was going to want to stay close to the rest of the team any way. "I helped Oversoul and Legion when they went after Arson, didn't I? And I even helped you before. Don't tell me you forgot that day at the Institute when I held your hand and you could suddenly take the Major to his knees.

"I'm going with you whether you like it or not!" She declared stubbornly. "And if you try to make me 'go back with the pilot' I'll... I'll... jump out of this damn chopper and follow you anyway!"

[Captivelight]

Seraph looked to the others in the chopper, but he had nothing to say to them. It was not because he disliked them or that they had made him angry. He preferred to spend the time before a mission in quiet contemplation and prayer. The touch of Maestro's mind settle over him like an armor. He was always more responsive to such things than most and this in particular gave him great comfort. The large teenager unquestioningly trusted Oleksander with his very life.

So he felt Maestro's displeasure before he knew about or even heard him talk about the stowaway. Gabriel stood up in an aura of silver light and made his way to stand behind Oleksander. He was quite surprise to find his gaze fall on Selene. The young man did not have the skill to hide the expression. Hearing all of the curse words caused him a great deal of discomfort; Gabriel certainly didn't like hearing a lady talk that way.

He was not one to speak unless spoken to, but this situation called for it. The Major would certainly be more than a little upset if Selene got hurt. He had torn though Japan to get her back. If she was seriously injured then he might bring the whole world down around his head.

"Miss Selene. please do not be so upset. Maestro is only has your best interest at heart. We had to rescue you in Japan." Gabriel winced and looked very apologetic about saying these sort of things. He didn't think they were very nice. "More than that you have a strange affect on ascendants. You strengthen Maestro certainly, but with other they act quite....crazy. They would go from perhaps surrendering when sufficiently threatened to being completely unpredictable. It is our hope, well my hope at least, that we keep any injuries to a minimum. I certainly would not want you to get hurt."

[Shiv]

Brute sent a glower in Raiden's direction as he jumped out of the helicopter. He might have been able to drop out relatively unharmed when they went to rescue Rose, but they were quite a bit higher up this time, and he wasn't really all that more resilient than most boring people. Er... "normal" people. And normally, he'd be fine with someone doing something crazy. It probably would have made him feel better, in fact; assure him that not everyone on this team was afflicted with lameness. This time, however, in Brute's mind at least, jumping out of the helicopter early was something akin to leaving a buddy alone in the trenches. Of course, Brute had never been left alone in the trenches, but he could imagine what it was like... especially now. It just wasn't cool. He might have to give the kid a little smack when they got back home.

When Maestro moved over and uncovered Selene, Brute seemed mildly distressed. Then, as they started yelling at each other back and forth, Brute heaved a sigh and lowered his head, passing a hand iover his eyes briefly. "Maestro," he began, looking up. "I know Legion put you in charge of this team, and I respect that, but the girl has a point. Her particular ability does, in fact, help us out a lot, and if she can help you bring a whole group of the enemy to their knees, like she says you did with the Major, or if I can throw a tank at them with her around instead of maybe being able to turn it over, then I'd say the benefits are worth the risks."

It was weird to say all that stuff for him... usually he was as far from being serious as possible, but it seemed like this was a good time to be different. After a brief pause, though, he continued. "Besides. There are only two men that have ever beaten me on the field. You saw what happened to the other one, and I'm not about to let the other one's daughter get all shot up." He was sure that it'd be fine revealing that little piece of information. After all, the rest of them were privy to super-secret information, he was sure, and they knew that he and Greg had a history... and for all they knew, he could have fought Greg within the last five years, anyway.

[Maestro]

Any time Maestro tried to get a word in Selene plowed right over him. He didn't know what in the world had possessed her to steal a uniform, hide out on the chopper and for one single moment think she was qualified to be here, ascendancy or not. He, Seraph, and Raiden were hardly more used to this themselves and now he was expected to watch out for someone who had no training at all? What she was doing wasn't just stupid but unfair. He was about ready to tell her so too when Brute added his two cents in. It was mutiny in so many words! What was the point of him being in charge if only one out of many listened to him?

Thirty seconds. He was professional enough to know that now wasn't the time and so instead of yelling back at Selene like he wanted to he pushed it down and closed the door on it, suppressing the anger and frustration he felt towards her for now. Personal modifications were easy enough now though it was very inconvenient.

If she was serious about jumping out of the chopper, and he had no doubt that she was, her foolishness would be her death. Logically the safest place in that case was with them. His voice, when he next spoke, was just a little to calm to be comfortable and his eyes were cold, but lacking any anger. As mad as he'd been before this was almost worse. "You have no right to be here, but he is right, you are here. Stay behind Brute, his head alone is thick enough to stop most things from hitting you." Perhaps he hadn't put it all away properly...

Selene would feel another touch to her mind now as she was added to the mental web that connected everyone. "Seraph, you're out first, I'll follow. Then you two." His eyes landed on Selene again. "You'd better think up a codename fast, unless you want to be 'Hey You' for the duration." By the time he'd finished talking the chopper was approaching the ground and it was time to go.

[Selene]

It would be clear to Maestro right away that Selene intended to fight him, tooth and nail, for as long as it took until he accepted her into the team for this mission. Gabriel's words only seemed to fuel that feeling more. Selene may have seemed sweet and innocent to everyone so far, but she wasn't without claws. After all, she was Major Gregory Barrow's daughter, and while she may have seemed completely his opposite, there was something of him inside her, if only her fierce temper and her indomitable stubborn streak.

Relief flooded her, however, when Brute stood up for her. He understood. He alone, out of those she had gone to, out of those she had appealed to, seemed to understand her situation. He was an odd ally to have. For a long time, Nick had scared her, but a new found respect for him was growing inside of her. She wondered if this was what it had been like for him when he was younger, trying to prove himself to a group of ascendants already well established in their abilities.

That fire flared anew in her mind at Maestro's words, however, and she didn't care if he felt her emotions in those moments. She hoped he did. She wanted him to. There was an undeniable sense of anger and annoyance at his arrogance, a sense of indignation that she had more right to be there than he did, but whatever made her feel that way, it was going to remain a mystery for now. The words were left unspoken, and the fire cooled quickly if it didn't go out entirely. He had accepted her presence for this mission. What followed was a fierce determination that she would not let him down. That she would not let any of them down.

In an odd sort of way, Maestro's anger had given her a gift. She wasn't afraid any more of what was waiting for her. That fear seemed to have gotten lost in her anger, in her determination, in her indignation. At least as long as the adrenaline was stile pumping through her system, Selene wasn't going to be screaming and running in the opposite direction.

She drew up her shoulders and squared them. She didn't know what Maestro thought she was. Probably he thought she was a scared little girl... in alot of ways she was, but she wasn't going to be. Not any more. "It's no different for me now than it was for you in Japan. Inexperienced and unprepared, and yet you fought for your right to be there. If I have to prove myself to you AND the Major, so be it."

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She honestly wasn't trying to pick a fight with Maestro. She really wasn't. She just didn't want him to dismiss her presence. She could do something to help them. She knew she could. "And I already have a code name." She added in a somewhat more somber tone, finally seeming to release her anger in favour of concentrating on the matter at hand. "Oversoul gave it to me in Japan. It's Aurora." She just hoped she remembered to answer to it quickly. At least 'hey you' would have gotten her attention.

Taking another deep breath, Aurora crawled out from behind the crates where she had made her hiding place and took up her position next to Brute. "I'll follow you as close as I can. I think I have to touch you to enhance you. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do it." After all, they were the experienced ones here, and she wasn't about to be stupid enough to put them in undue danger just because she had insisted on being here.

[Captivelight]

Maestro said she would go along and so that that was all that needed to be said. Seraph accepted all of their leader's words as law. The big teenager found that things were much easier that way. There was too much trouble if he thought and decided on his own.

"Very well."

It was all that Seraph said before turning away from the scene. Everything was settled, he felt the connection in their minds, and so that was all that mattered. He fell from the entrance of the helicopter, but without the dramatic flair of their resident ninja. Seraph form burst forth silvery wings that allowed him to glide down toward the ground. They didn't make him very sneaky, but he still did not know another way to manifest it. The tall teenager landed on the ground; appearing to hold a silvery bow in one hand.

[Shiv]

It had been his experience that most people, upon being called thick-headed by Maestro, would have become upset on some level or another. Brute, however... in case no one had been paying attention... was not most people. So, when the team leader said that about him, he just grinned at the young man, standing as they reached their destination and checking over his equipment. "Seems to me Legion's daughter isn't the only one that he's had an influence on," he said pointedly. That was, after all, something that something that Greg would say. Why Brute had decided to refer to the Major as Legion at this point was anyone's guess. However, it would seem that the reasons for it would remain a mystery. After all, the young man wasn't terribly open about the weird things he said to anyone; he just assumed that either they already knew what he was talking about, or they didn't really need to know.

Satisfied that everything was in order, he moved toward the helicopter's door, but stayed off to the side, so he wouldn't be in Maestro's way when he made his exit. Looking over at Selene as she addressed him again, he nodded slightly. To be fair, it wasn't really the same for him when he'd first joined up with 01. He had been something of a little bastard when he was with them, and the fact that he'd had more combat experience at that age than anyone that was currently in Gamma Strike seemed to help. Of course, the fact that Selene seemed to feel the need to prove herself, whereas Omar the Brute had spent most of his first few days with them swearing, threatening harm, and being knocked unconscious by various members of the team. "Right," he said in response to what she said. "I'll prob'ly say somethin' that'll sound sorta combat speak-y, so if I say something weird that isn't 'get the hell down' or 'shoot at those guys', then it's probably a good guess that I need a hand."

He leaned out slightly after that, watching as Seraph went out and made his landing, letting out a low whistle as he saw what he had in his hand. "Looks like the kid's finally ready to get into the shit," he said, grinning again as he turned away from the door. He nodded again, this time toward Maestro. "Alright, boss. I'm right behind you."