Phoenix's Last Flight

It was barely afternoon in Atlanta Georgia. The heat bounced off silver buildings and black asphalt for coax sweat out of ever individual who braved the sun to attend Mr. Quinn's speach. He owned the crowd as usual, and why shouldn't he? He was the exception. He was the politician that believed every word that came out of his mouth. The so called "last honest man of Washington." People hung on his every word. Just by talking, he was making a difference already. He was a good, honest man with a strong moral compass. Unfortunately, someone had given one Ms. Victoria Steyr a large sum of money to put his life to an end.

The employer was anonymous of course, as was Victoria. he/she knew her only as the mercenary Clockwork, and she knew him only as someone who had a problem, and the money to make problems go away. It wasn't the first time Victoria had killed someone. It was a common request. Hell, it's why she was brought into existence. Her hands were always meant to have blood on them. She had been told that it was a dark, evil thing. This killing. This murder. She still couldn't understand though. Sometimes she killed someone, and it was justice. She was a hero. Somtimes she was a murderer, a villain. Some targets were alone and completely vulnerable. Some targets had bodyguards from every angle, protected at all times. Victoria had no idea what made one life more worth protecting than the other, or what made killing some people bad and some people good. More than money, which she had no shortage of by now, she sought this understanding.

The event had security of course, but no bodyguards. A bit of research told Victoria that he never had bodyguards, but he was always protected by force fields of his own design. This was the only wild card. Victoria had no way to get the specs of his shields. Still though, a round designed to to put a hole through a tank has a pretty high probability of working.

On the roof of a building across the street, a dainty looking woman was dressed much too warm for the weather. medium length blonde hair framed her flawless face, and two big blue eyes lit up her pale fair skin. Her skin didn't show up much elsewhere, long boots disappearing into her dress's skirt, and a large white coat covering herself. Dainty gloved hands gripped a huge anti-armor rifle resting on the sill of the roof. With that equipment she could have been much farther away of course, but she prefered to maintain a distance where she didn't have to rely on her equipment. She wasn't here to waste time, Quinn's head quickly found itself between her crosshairs and she pulled the trigger.

Quinn stood tall on the stage, moving his hands excitingly as he spoke. He was an older man, bald, but still in good shape. The speech was nothing but inspirational, until the sound of an exceptionally large gunshot rang throughout the day. In an instant, a bullet hit Quinn's already active shield. It wasn't stopped by it, but it did freeze for an instant. long enough for Phoenix to see it, and try to move. Not long enough to get out of the way though. As he twisted his body the large round went through his shoulder, and came exploding out the other end leaving a gruesome hole. Screams and crying from both children and adults broke out like an unruly chorus from the now panicked crowd.

On a rooftop across the street, Victoria cursed under her breath. Wounding wasn't what she was hired for. She left the rifle on the roof and ran to the side of the building away from the crowd. She jumped off towards the opposite building's wall, then back to the original buildings wall, then back again slowing herself down somewhat. She hit the ground with force, her boots digging into the concrete below. She ran quickly across the street, and for Victoria quickly meant quickly. She disappeared into the chaotic crowd. all she needed was one clear shot to finish it, and for someone who could think and shoot faster than the average person could blink that wouldn't be hard to find.

Damocles watched the man on the stage spout idealistic nonsense for what felt like hours, he had been hired to protect this man, Quinn Phoenix, but he was supposed to do it out of sight. He sneered, the ridiculousness of it was almost comical.

"This is waste of time, if people can't see the sword, how can they know not to attack its wielder?" he thought, expecting a response from Victor... however, none came.
"Did you hear me Victor?"

"hmm? Oh yeah, I heard you."

"Then why didn't you say anything?" Damocles queried.

"Well, unlike SOME people, I'm trying to listen to what our employer's saying"

Damocles chuckled to himself before saying out loud "You would be taken in by this idealistic rubbish, wouldn't you"

Damocles continued to watch the man blather on until an ear piercing sound broke the monotony, a large bullet traveled through the air and struck Phoenix in the shoulder, sending him spiraling onto the stage. Moving quickly Damocles rushed onto the stage and drew his sword. "Get Mr. Phoenix out of here!" he called to one of the security detail present. He would need to cover the man's escape somehow.

"Victor! Suggestions!" he called out in his head

"The shooter's probably still here, you need to make sure they don't have a clear shot!" Victor responded.

Damocles thought for a moment before yelling to the man helping his employer escape "Cover your eyes! this is going to be bright!". As he finished the sentence he emitted a massive 20X20 wall of heat and light about a foot in front of the stage.The heat wasn't particularly powerful but the light was near blinding. He would have to maintain this until they got the man to an ambulance.

Leonardo Cratus, The Perfect Soldier, was laying down on a building look through the cross hairs of his barrett .50 caliber and aiming it at the Phoenix man's head. He had been payed to take out this man and he would gladly do so. This fool was for super humans and actually backed them in his political speeches. There was someone else on this job that much he could tell, but she wouldn't see him for he had his suit switched to invisible. Smirking he watched as she took her shot and everyone in the area went into an uproar, even the security seemed to. They threw up a heat like shield and from that he figured they were super human as well. This day just got better and better it seemed. Lowering his heat vision goggles he looked for the cold spots then noticed the two bodies behind the wall and fired a shot out at Mr. Phoenix's head attempting to end this here and now. After the first shot, the bullet being one of his specially made ones that can damage even super humans, he pulls back the bolt releasing the bullet casing and reloaded the weapon. The second shot he fires out at the superhuman making the fire like wall, this shit aimed center mass. He was payed to take out Phoenix but he would also take out a couple super humans simply because they presented themselves to him. He was not afraid of anything thrown at him but he did know staying in the same spot after firing two shots wasn't the best idea. So grabbing his scar assult rifle he flipped it around to the front and raced off jumping to the next building. Still invisible he aimed the assult rifle down and smirked watching the scene unfold before him.

For a change, Jack Maroon was not speeding around randomly, looking for a piece of whatever action was going on there. No, today he was here to do the biznasty, to get all serious up in this shit. Duty first, right?
Yeah. Jack had travelled to the city of Atlanta, Georgia on request from his employer slash informant Vermillion. Jack didn't mind working for him, as long as it meant that he could get some good action going on. That, and the money to pay his rent and food, so he wouldn't have to resort to nonchalantly robbing grocery stores for his daily sustenance.

This was to be Jack's first job for him; protect this slick Quinn-fellow from harm during his speech. Jack had been standing in the front row of the crowd, listening to the man talk. He was a good speaker; even Jack felt at least a little inspired when hearing his speech. Something about it was just mesmerizing. Like the guy sounded so authentic and trustworthy that Jack just took everything he said at face value without questioning it. Then again, it wasn't that hard to trick Jack. He had never been the smartest cookie in the jar.
In the middle of the speech, hell broke lose. Phoenix Quinn, the man Jack was supposed to guard, was hit by a bullet in the shoulder. Another guy used a shield of heat to protect Phoenix, but immediately after that two shots were fired from a distance. This time however, Jack was alert, and immediately traced the bullets' trajectories to a tall building across the stage.

Whoever fired the shots was going to pay. Big-time. Jack smiled. He was going to enjoy this. This was the action he had been waiting for. Maybe joining this Vermillion dude was a good move after all. Jack pushed the panicked crowd around him aside violently and started a sprint towards the building. When he reached it, he began running up it, making use of the momentum. When he reached the top, he jumped up and looked around, only to immediately spot his target, or at least his weapon. Jack wasted no time for banter. This was to be a clean kill. At least, that's probably how his employer wanted it to be. Jack rushed towards his enemy without hesitation and aimed to cut his head off with a clean slice.



(OOC: Sorry, quality of this post is terrible. My apologies.)

It didn't take long to get a shot. Unfortunately, it also didn't take long for an unknown superhuman to erect a wall of hot light, blinding any onlookers. Victoria's eyes adjusted instantly of course, a cheap trick like that wasn't going to blind her, but she still had no way to see behind the wall which prevented her from having any sort of accuracy. She could fire blindly and rapidly of course, and more likely than not take out her target along with anyone else there. Victoria preferred to abstain from unnecessary killing though, and she had only been hired to take out Quinn.

Victoria ran through the crowd picking up speed and took a long leap through the wall of heat. The heat licked at her exposed face as she made her dramatic entrance on the stage opposite Damocles. The smell of burnt hair and flesh quickly invaded the immediate area. Victoria looked like a marred painting, her hair singed and burns blistering up on her ivory face. If she noticed, she didn't show it though. She simply scanned the scene in less time than it took anyone else to blink. Her target was already gone, though he certainly didn't have time to get far. She easily picked out the one character not wearing a suit or a uniform and assumed he was responsible for her inconvenience. She decided to try the diplomatic route.

Her right arm raised up stiffly, and a two-barreled revolver appeared in her hand. she directed her voice to Damocles, who was the only one present actually capable of slowing her down. "My success rate, as well as my accuracy, is 100%. Turning this into conflict is a waste of time. I will not hesitate to kill you if you decide to become an obstacle. Point me in the direction of Quiinn, and I'll leave you unmolested. Or is there something about this man that makes him worth your life, that is different from any other person?"

Damocles stared at the woman before letting a soft smile cross his face and disappear again "I honestly don't have any reason to protect this man besides him being my employer. So I won't fight you." he said, repressing a chuckle.

"However, Victor is absolutely enthralled by him and is just rearing to go."
He looked at the woman, sure she didn't understand, his body shaking as he relinquished control to Victor.

Victor just stood there for a moment, working the heat up within himself before releasing it. He was well aware of what a gun could do and at that range she was unlikely to miss. Victor was usually the calm one. The reasonable one. The merciful one... but not today.
in his other hand he released the heat he had been gathering in a wide cone of nearly 4000°F straight at the woman, the only clue to its existence the shimmering of the air around it.

"BURN!" he yelled!

((the heat cone is roughly 5x5 in diameter at the widest point))

He didn’t know if the shots hit or not, hell he wasn’t even sure if they made it through the wall of light. But he did know his mission was not yet over as long as the super human’s were standing. Not knowing how many of them there were he stood on the roof with his Scar Assault Rifle, looking down at the light waiting for it to fall down or some other super to present them self. Yet, none did and this intrigued him as he figured there would be much more to protect this man or listen to his speech at least. That was of course until he saw someone jump into the fire and figured she was either one or the original shooter.

That would be the last thing he would see for a while as his head was cut clean off by some sort of bladed weapon. He didn’t even hear the person coming so they were obviously skilled but he wasn’t hearing anything now. When the blade cut through he lost all senses and his body slumped forward as his head fell down a couple inches away. Once again he had ‘died’ and was stuck in the ‘world’ of darkness and nothing for the moment. He didn’t enjoy this ‘world’ as none could really enjoy it but it was the closest thing he ever felt to being dead so he welcomed the feeling and closed his ‘eyes’ while he thought about what to do next. Though in reality as soon as his body hit the ground and his head stopped rolling another slowly started growing in its place the other decaying just as fast.

If one weren’t looking they wouldn’t notice this occurring at all, hell unless you were looking closely it wouldn’t be seen either. But, if you did get a close look you would see the skin and cells reforming starting from the base of the neck and up together to make the shape of the head. The blood had stopped flowing to that spot as his cells took over and regenerated the part of the body they needed to move the ligaments and everything else in Leonardo Cratus’ body. After around five minutes where he didn’t know what happened his eyes re-opened once again and he let out a low and short breath letting his ears do the watching for the moment.

He didn’t know how many people were around him right now or where the guy was but he couldn’t hear anything and that was a good sign. He could still feel his pistols where they should be but the strap for his Scar was missing and that was not something he needed right then. Cursing mentally he stood up and pulled out his two Glock .22 pistols each loaded with a magazine of his ‘special’ bullets and three extra magazines attached to his ‘military uniform’ he looked around for the man who ‘killed’ him. He himself could not seem him now but he would find him. Rushing off as fast as he could he looked for the man who cut his head off, the man who killed him.

(OOC: Ok, so I'm kinda late with this, but still. So Jack stood around for five minutes, paying no attention to the regenerating corpse? Or what?)

The air around Victoria shimmered, and she became aware of herself losing stability. As the wave of heat hit Victoria, the smell of melting flesh quickly filled the air as her skin simply ceased to be skin. She quickly jumped back out of the heat, which was dangerous even to her. Much of the exposed skin on her face had melted off, revealing now red hot metal and gears. She quickly raised her revolver and fired off four shots, two to the chest and two to the head. She wasn't sure who Victor was, or if he inhabited the same body or not. "Then I should be speaking to Victor, and removing you." She said. He probably couldn't hear her due to having too many bullets in him, but Victoria wasn't the type to talk before shooting. She jumped high into the air and flipped, trying to ensure she wasn't an easy target as she made her way past the metahuman trying to bar her way. She landed on the ground on the other side of him, and tried to give chase again to her target who she assumed could have only been taken somewhere behind the stage.