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Nina stared into the palms of her hands, brain blank as the news van she was in trundled along the highway. It was hard getting in contact with this L.A. news team, but the story she had to tell made them more than willing to transport her to their station. She had learned within moments to tune out the chattering questions the crew wouldn't stop asking; answering them now would be pointless. No, they would learn along with everyone else in the country, whether they liked it or not. ''Can I get a change of clothes?'' she asked through the verbal cloud, her voice low and void of any sort of feeling. The fact that she had spoken at all stunned them to silence. ''Uh, yeah...'' a cameraman said, confused, ''We'll call ahead when we get closer, tell hair and makeup to get something together.'' Nina glanced over at him, noticing first his sweaty grip on the camera equipment, then his wrinkled shirt haphazardly tucked into the belt of his khaki shorts. He wasn't a repulsive man by any means, but she still felt compelled to get away. The situation itself, what she had to do, made her want to run away and hide. ''Why?'' he asked. She tugged on the hem of her jean shorts, ''I just think it would be nice to wear something a little more... y'know.'' He nodded, as if the gravity of how she felt had just now hit him. ''Yeah, we can do that.''

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The chair they had her sitting in was plush, but indented from all of the people that had sat in it before her. It looked brand new, with its polished black leather cushions, making her almost impulsively run her fingers over the arm of it as she eased into its deceptively well-worn comfort. A nameless woman brushed some sort of powder onto her face, and another fidgeted with the sleeves of her white button up shirt or the way her gray wool skirt clung to her legs, which were now in black pantyhose. Nina flexed her toes experimentally in the slightly too small black heels, also leather. She wondered if maybe they were the same leather as the chair, but those thoughts were pushed from her mind when the makeup woman began brushing her flat ironed hair into a more pleasing cascade around her face. ''Don't be nervous.'' the woman said with a comforting smile, giving Nina one last squeeze on the arm before she scurried into the depths of the news studio. The outfit woman grasped her hand tightly, ''You're going to be great.'' Nina smiled back as best she could, and that woman, too, disappeared behind the violently bright lights and enormous cameras.

A well-coiffed brunette, probably in her mid thirties, expertly perched herself on the edge of her chair across from the heroine, crossing her legs and leaning slightly forward with a small stack of papers in her hands. Her eyes prodded at Nina, like she would somehow find what she had to say written somewhere on her so she wouldn't have to bother herding an amateur through a national news interview. ''I hear you have quite the thread to spin for us today, uh...'' ''Valkyrie.'' she said sharply, not allowing this anchorwoman time to think of an appropriate way to address her. ''Valkyrie, yes, of course. We have shown footage of you on here before. I'm Gracie Larrity, one of the head anchors here with Channel 3.'' Her elegantly manicured hand reached out to shake, but Nina denied it. Her heart was heavy, and a huge pit had been sitting in her stomach since she left the ruins of New York. Instead, she gave a depressed smile , eking the angle of her chair slightly closer to the variety of cameras pointed at her. Gracie huffed, ''Well, I am going to let you say your bit, whatever that is, then I have some questions for you, and maybe do some follow-up-'' ''Whatever you want.'' she said quietly, cutting her off. A man's voice boomed from somewhere in the darkness beyond the equipment. ''Alright we go live in 5... 4... 3...!''

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''Good evening America, this is Gracie Larrity with Channel 3, reporting live from Los Angeles with vigilante crime fighter Valkyrie. I've been told that tonight we have a very special story, coming directly from the front lines of New York. Valkyrie...?'' The brunette turned to her, her face that mask of subdued interest you always see on people doing interviews for the news. ''Why don't you tell America what has happened?'' Words got caught on the tip of her tongue, and all she could do was revert back to memories of people that had been in this same position before her. ''Thank you, Gracie.'' Nina turned her head into the camera directly across from her. Her heart sped up from the low rhythm it had been to a violent vibration in her chest. Her throat burned as tears threatened to spill from her eyes and ruin the precision eyeliner that had taken three women to apply. All at once, she couldn't hold back the expression that melted through. One of sadness, and pleading to any and all who were watching her. Everything moved slowly, and after what seemed like an eternity of inhaling, she finally blinked back the urge to cry and bluntly spat out what she had to say. ''Pain is missing.''

The already quiet room seemed to grow quieter still as the information washed over everyone. Wide, confused eyes stared back at her, and she imagined a great many more did the same to their television screens. ''No one really knows when he was last seen, it's hard to pin down exactly when he...'' In the back of the studio, inside an office with large windows, a man in a crisp suit let his mug of coffee fall to the floor. ''After what happened, with the whole New York thing... it's been chaos there. Please understand, it is more devastation than you know.'' A woman in Illinois covered her mouth with her hands, themselves uncontrollably trembling. A man in Oregon couldn't hear his smoke alarm as his dinner for one began to smolder on the stove. ''We have... I have been looking for everywhere, and either someone has taken him, or... or maybe he just doesn't want to be found.'' In South Carolina, a young boy began to cry. ''All we know is s'that Pain is... he's gone.'' Gracie Larrity let the papers she was holding slip from her hands and onto the dark, nubby carpet of the small oval stage where they sat. ''Consider G.U.N. disbanded.'' Nina said, now choking on the deep and violent cry that was about to shake her apart. ''Thank you for your time.''

She sat up from her chair abruptly, thrusting it back hard enough to make it careen into the plastic night sky background that encircled the small stage, and it wasn't until she was shoving through cameramen and sound guys that Gracie was able to snap out of her shocked stupor and leaped up after her. ''Wait! Come back, we have some questions for you!'' Nina pressed on, striding quickly to the large metal exit doors. They flew open with ease at her touch, with what cameras that could follow her close on her heels, and the others turned to follow the scrambling Ms. Larrity. ''Valkyrie, stop!'' A snap decision from some of the higher-ups caused the news feed to switch to an anchorman at his desk, stunned by the events that had just unfolded a few feet to his left. ''I'm uh... I'm... Derick Favreau, thanks from all of us here at Channel 3.''

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