Burning Black

Paul Alban Dibran sighed as he began his walk back home from the factory he worked at.  Paul wasn't sure if his working there was actually legal on the factory's part, but he desperately needed the wages, and he couldn't get them anywhere else, so he didn't care. Considering he was a metahuman, he was pretty sure most others didn't care either. Still, it was damn hard work. The young meta could feel he was tired... he certainly wasn't exhausted, and he couldn't feel the fatigue in his bones, but he knew he was tired. Not like he wasn't used to it, though. Indeed, fatigued had become the default state for Paul after he'd moved. His days were pretty much work, eat, sleep, over and over again... it was the rhythm his family had established generation after generation. His father had worked, ate, then slept, as had his father, his father, and his father before him. It was this, the amounting to nothing, that Paul was tired of, far more than just the physical labor at the manafacturing plant.

Gilette, Wyoming. It was a boom town, had been for decades. The coal mining operations in Powder Basin had made the city a shining star of energy production, and because of it, it had jobs. Oh, did it ever have jobs. It was one of the reasons Paul lived there-- a labor job had been very easy to find, and had practically not even been a transition. Yet, he'd come for something more. Paul had come to be one of those superheroes, but he just hadn't had the chance. ...but here he was whining to himself on his entire trip home again. He reflected that he really should stop doing that as he opened the door, and leaned on the counter to take a breather. He either needed to just focus on his job, or take initiative. He'd prefer the latter, but if he was going to do something, he needed to figure out what. He wasn't quite sure what the hell he was supposed to do, since he couldn't really properly function without a decent amount of sleep, when he happened to look out the window.

Smoke, thick, black plumes of it, rose over the horizon. The mine, he realized, the mine! It had to be burning! Only a small thread of his previous thoughts remained in his head and nearly none of his fatigue in his body as he sprinted for the room he kept his armor in. Bolting it on, Paul quickly donned his outfit: thick brown pants and shirt, with ceramic plate along the entirety of the garments except for the inside of his joints. The only concession to secret identity was a mask made of ceramic obscuring most of his face-- the exception being his mouth, the nostrils, and his eyes, which were both revealed in a wide strip of face. He continued to spring, out the door, onto the road, and flagged down the first vehicle he could, the cabbie looking suspiciously at him as he deposited him about a mile away from the burning mine. Paul --no, Argil now--, kept running. He had to, if he was going to make it in time, if he was going to manage to save the poor miners.

As he ran, Argil saw the mine... it was an open surface-pit mine. Though it was burning, its being a surface mine meant that the burning was less intense and it was actually rather easy to escape. That wasn't where Argil's focus was, right now. No, the fire was truly raging out of control in the silos and processing area, where a blazing inferno wracked the facility. Argil knew where he had to go. Argil sped up.

"You... you aren't going to take my soul?" Was all he could ask as he turned his head, his friend still laying motionless on the ground. The man's back was still turned to him but he could hear the sigh. "Nah kid. You already lost your powers. You paid your price." The man said, his accent rolling off as he returned to his average walk off before disappearing as a black smoke into the midnight air. Silus was left to deal with somehow transporting his tanned and unconscious friend around. But when Silus picked Yancey up a little, slinging his arm over he noticed Yancey turning to dust and whisping away. Silus began to scrounge hastily for the ashes, as if it were somehow going to bring the pieces back together, but nothing did. No matter what he did, no matter how much he wanted to he couldn't scream as the ground underneath him opened up and he was swallowed into flames. He shot up and the second he did he saw Yancey jerk back on the bed as he lay there, Silus still on the couch from where he collapsed.

"Woah, whazzwrong!?" Yancey shot up. Silus shook his head, a little smile forming on his face as he heard the old Texan accent Yancey had. "Well if it were nothing could you spazz out over it a little slower ?" He chuckled a little as Silus glared at him and shook his head. He threw his little legs over and stretched out as he rubbed the rather bountiful mop of hair on his head, pulling the hotel drape aside as he peeked out into the city. "So not that I'm not like...glad to be back with ya but... where is back?" Yancey asked Silus, whom just continued to blink out the window for a moment as he noticed something in the background, strange colors from nowhere. If his mind and perceptive nature weren't as developed as it were he wouldn't have seen it. "Gillette, Wyoming." Silus finally said as he contemplated what he just seen moments prior. Yancey's eyebrows arched and he smiled at Sius as if he didn't believe him. "Shaving capitol of the world?" He jested, but Silus rolled his eyes and wandered over to the bathroom, to brush his teeth.

"Nope. Energy capitol. 30 sar-ring resent ofvar coal carms rahm rere!" Silus said, the tooth brush slurring his words and forcing him to use unneeded and unwanted r's and inhibiting tongue movement for proper speech. Yancey still caught the meaning though as he stood up from the bed and put his shirt on as he looked for his jacket as the shower turned on and the door closed. His search proved useless as he growled a little, realizing that his jacket must not have followed him through the portal. It wasn't long before Silus reappeared in the same clothing but drying off his hair and grabbing his "security" hoodie-jacket and zipping it up. Apparently they weren't going to stay long, something about needing a plane ticket home. They took off and about before they knew it they were en-route to the airport in a nice yellow cab. It was a quiet ride, it was strange to think that even a month away from each other the were still acting like they'd never been separated. Silus was about to say something, though he found himself cut off by a concerned look. Silus looked out the window and his heart stopped as about a mile and a half off there was a TON of smoke. The cab puled up as far as it would take them, still a mile to close in, but they could run it from there. Yancey took off, looking back only to Silus as if looking for permission. Yancey was much faster, so he'd often do this to make sure the kid would be okay. Silus put his thumb up and let Yancey run at full speed ahead. He'd reach the mine in a little over a minute or so. Silus on the other hand would take about five minutes. Yancey's wondered what was wrong with Silus, seeing as he had been fine before. Yancey was forced to ignore this thought however as he made his way to the source of the black smoke, the mines.

Argil noted another costumed person nearby with some relief... it'd be far easier if he did not, in fact, have to deal with this entire fire on his own.  "Fire's worst in the processing area, mines themselves aren't that bad! Could use some help over here, this is not going to be easy to deal with!" Argil shouted near at the top of his lungs before having an armor plate on his wrist detach, flatten, harden, and sharpen, giving him a little disc-blade. He proceeded to use said disc-blade to cut into the area between the heavy metal doors and the wall of the processing area, using it to cut into and around the doors. Hinges were sliced clean through, and eventually Argil managed to cleanly sever the doors from the walls. The doors fell down with a pair of heavy thuds, and the sight, sounds, and even the heat didn't tell a good tale.

When the doors fell, there was an outpouring of heat, hot enough to make Argil worry severely about the lives of the men inside, combined with shouts, crashes, and chaos. The entrance room itself was burning particularly badly. Argil himself could take the heat, but... well, there was no use in standing there. If the entrance room had looked bad outside, it looked awful in here. Argil could definitely tell that there was structural damage to the area, and he would have to help hold it together. Still... it wasn't all bad. It looke dlike the entrance room had just been hit particularly badly, and there was a much clearer, much less fiery area immediately beyond that first room, and up the stairs.

A burst of flame erupts from the collapsed entrance.  Rainbow revolves her arms, cobbling together a whirlwind and blowing out the flames immediately in front of her.  With that managed, she races inside.  "Okay.  Stop the fire or...no.  Get everyone out first.  Then worry about the fire," she says to herself.  With that decided, she phases and rushes through the facility at speeds unimaginable, rounding up civilians where she can find them and setting them down in a safe place outside.  She comes to one chamber where, over the roar of the flames, she makes out the distinct sound of a man crying for help.  "Where are you?!" she shouts in return.

"Under here!" the man cries.

There, pinned beneath a collapsed mining apparatus, is a man in a hard hat.  Suddenly comes the sound of a thunderous explosion.  The world seems to slow around the young samaritan as she races over to the man and dives for him, grabbing hold of his hand.  Then, in a flash, the worst of it is over.  The blast subsides and the equipment lies, collapsed and buckled, on the ground.  Through it emerges Rainbow, holding the man's hand.  The both of them passing through solid matter like a ghost.  "Easy, mister.  We're okay.  C'mon."

"Thank you, dear girl.  Thank you."

"Y-yeah," Rainbow says, carrying the man off and outside.

Rainbow sets the man down and turns back to the mine.  "Where're you going?"

"Back inside.  There are probably more people in there.  And someone's gotta put out this fire.  I saw another guy...'like me,' earlier.  Dunno what he's up to but looked like he was helping out, just the same."

Yancey got there just in time to see people discussing about "another person being back there" or something like that. He didn't really have much time to wait. With a couple pants he looked about to the mine and started towards the entrance. Yancey's mind was reeling at the moment, which tactic does he go with? Generally in something like this he was content with his typical photokinetic abilities. But if people were seriously hurt then he'd need to take a moment to gather his bearings. This wasn't going to be a walk in the park, regardless of how nice that sounded right now. Yancey hurried in and glanced about, beginning to cough a little and clear his throat. Well this didn't exactly smell welcoming. Despite his better judgment he'd progress towards where the fire was greatest that he could tell.

  Silus was beginning to get close too, close enough to see that this was in fact a surface mine. He began to worry about everything once he saw the Silos and he didn't see Yancey around. Paramedics and other rescue officials began to come around with wailing sirens and Silus was left to look out at the fire, wondering where exactly his little "dog" had gotten lost at.

   "Hello!?" Yancey called out, looking around for people, but there was no one in the immediate area. Turning around he noticed someone with odd circular CD-like weapons, ones that Yancey took quite an interest in. Rushing up Yancey could immediately feel the heat pouring out at them, making him pant, old habits dying hard. Putting up a hand he placed a small shield of light, creating a form of "tunnel" that would block out the fire  and provide a...more than likely safe passage to one of the less heated areas. With a smile he took off through the less than heated area, leaving his tunnel of light up for anyone else to follow through. "Anybody here!?" He asked as he began to look around for any sign of life, looking to the strange man and coughing a little as he looked around.

Argil clenched his teeth together, plates of clay flowing off of his armor, up into the air, and onto the ceiling, where they joined together in a single ceramic plane. The ceiling (which had begun to rather ominously sag) found itself forced back into upright position, though the sparks and sound made betrayed the fact that this was not good for the ceiling in the long run. Argil made an uncomfortable sound: not only was it hot and smoky, but holding up as much weight as he was with his powers was going to take a lot of energy, energy Argil was not high on in the first place.

Thankfully Argil was not in fact alone: another person, and by the looks a hero, was in the burning silo with him. Argil turned, and his voice strained, he called out towards this other, light-using man. "Go up and get them, please! People might be trapped up there, and I can keep this ceiling from caving in, ngh, but I can't do it forever!" The clayclad man's voice was actually surprisingly young sounding, fraught with tension as it was, and opened up the distinct possibility that the man with the clay was not a full-grown man at all... Just a teenager!

Argil shifted his weight with a groan. But he was happily surprised to see a miner get out before Yancey even had to move: A miner, clearly having barely escaped burning, ran down through the tunnel of light, shouting "It's safe! It's safe! If's safe!" as he ran... And then, also, "Someone's up there, I think, not one of you! Watch out, I think he caused it! GUYS! COME DOWN, IT'S SAFE!" With that, the miner ran straight out of the silo.

Rainbow spins her arms rapidly and a multicolor whirlwind blows fires out wherever she points them. Trailing behind her are a few evacuees. As Rainbow knocks down a door just ahead of her, the civilians flood through in a panic. A beam falls from the ceiling and Rainbow darts forward, grabbing hold of two people. The two runners just ahead of them witness as the iron pole falls on top of them, gasping in terror. Seconds later, Rainbow and the two miners emerge from the debris, unscathed and surging with a multicolor aura. She turns them loose and points toward the door. "Move!"

The miners make it to the chamber where the two abnormals search for survivors. Rainbow follows them out to assure nothing else goes wrong from the back of the group. When they're all through, a violent boom ripples through the bowels of the mine. "That doesn't sound good." Rainbow turns around. An explosion of fire races up the tunnel. With no door to block it, Rainbow takes point and begins spinning her arms, kicking up a whirlwind to blow the flames back down into the depths of the mine. She stops when it seems the explosion has given way and breathes heavily. "Well...that was exciting."

He was asked to help someone but apparently they had it on their own without him having to do anything. At this point he was beginning to feel virtually useless here. It's things like this that made him want to stick with simply keeping Silus out of trouble. These two heroes seemed to have their own hand on things, a Duo or something like that. He then took notice of the fact that the man who instructed him was covered in a strange substance, one Yancey himself wasn't overly familiar with. It was obvious that this was apparently rather strenuous on him, and it caused Yancey to wonder how he should react, though as he thought about that something new grabbed his attention.

Yancey was on high alert once he heard the words about there being another person like them in there. Especially after they added the part about them thinking this person might be responsible for everything. Yancey's eyes fixated on the man in the strange armor. Or what he assumed was a man, if might have been a woman but Yancey didn't really have time to be worrying about that. He restructured his energy into holding the roof above the armored man, allowing him a chance to move from beneath it. Yancey's eyes were a piercing glowing blue as he looked around at the other two heroes. "There a more permanent fix to this roof thing?" Yancey asked aloud as there was a sudden vortex of colors and a counter-measure to an explosion from deeper beyond, one that caught Yancey's attention, but his focus remaining on maintaining his holding up the roof to try and assist the man who was doing it prior. "Colors and light?" Yancey asked the girl before a rather happy and joyous smile appeared on his face. "Awesome. Well this just got better." He said to himself as he looked in the direction where the man came, warning them of someone like them. He looked to Argil, silently questioning if that was where they were needed.