AMM: "The Harbinger"

The aircraft soared through the night skies as they grew close to the windy city of Chicago. In the hull of the air carrier were three members of Seraphim, all of them from the L.A office and the international Headquarters of the response group. Of course as they flew overhead they could see the symbol painted onto the top of the roof of their seraphim tower. "A lot nicer than the lighthouse." The Seraph sighed as he heard the roaring of the techno-jet engines began to power down, the large ship touching down on the landing pad. As the noise began to die down, The Seraph stepped out and walked forward, his large dark grey cloak with cold trim hovering just over the ground as his buckled up boots clicked across the pad.

  "Gentlemen, this is Liliel." The Seraph said from behind his masque, pointing to a rather beautiful and charming young woman with long black hair and deep blue eyes. She was dressed in all black and wore a figure eight on her face, holes letting her eyes pierce through, the stereotypical mask of a superhero. "Liliel, this is Sorath. This is Gabriel." The Seraph said, Liliel nodded to Tristan and then to Jordan as she raised her arms, a dome of thinly veiled darkness covering the area like a smoke. The only things visible at this moment in time were Liliel, Seraph and their two companions.

 "Okay. It's safe in here." She said with a sigh before in turn filling the others in on the current situation. "We've already lost two more since you've been en route. The only thing we have on this unidentified killer is longer blonde hair, combat armor. They are targeting metahumans. Seraphim members specifically. As requested we triangulated the last known location to be just three blocks away from Sear's tower. Following the pattern he seems to be taking states that he should be going to the pediatrics hospital. The only member of Seraphim there is Puriel, and he's there watching over his daughter." Liliel said as the smoke seemed to clear out, the world around them revealed again. The Seraph looked back to his associates and glanced.

 "Sorath, I'm releasing all responsibilities to you. You're in charge. Gabriel, Liliel I need the both of you to follow his directives. I'm going to the hospital to stand with Pruiel. We'll have a better chance if there's two of us." The Seraph said, and with that he left Sorath in charge to call the shots over the operations of this mission. The next call of where or what to do was entirely up to him. However Liliel seemed to have something else in mind as she seemed to vanish into the floor, reappearing seconds later with two watch-like devices.

 "Walkie talkie that will span the entire city, rotate the frame and it turns from GPS to energy detection. Rotate the frame again and you get to your note pad." She said before giving a watch to each person and awaiting instructions.

A mission, now that was something to take his mind off of the thing that were beggining to bother him. Honestly, Jordan looked forward to the adventure slightly, or perhaps it was just the idea of getting his mind focused upon something else. Something had been happening with some of the members in Chicago, not to great things from what he could remember. Jordan had been Just from the sound of it, he could tell they needed his healing expertise as well as his overall skills, though that might have been Jordan just trying to feel relavent in some fashion. As far as heroing, he had not made himselftume considering he never found the reason to make one. Heroing had only been something he found himself doing more of recently, going out and about in LA to help people however he could.

They made their way to the site upon an aircraft, hands nervously playing around with the zipper of his warm leather jacket, cloth hood pulled over his head and covering his forehead. One of the others were semi-new as well, and The Seraph had come along for some reason. From what he could gather, this Seraph was pretty high up in the ranks of the group, along with his little brother Silus as well. The latter had helped when it came to getting a membership, enough so that he could even get the name of Gabriel without having to go through the probation period unlike Ryan. Flying overhead, they would know where to land because of a symbol that marked it as the landing point. Honestly, he was slightly nervous about the whole thing and that translated into his body language. Luminous blue eyes were focused upon the floor, while his hands were buried within his pockets deeply, absently playing over his cellphone.

All it took really to obscure his features was a small application of his energy to make his important features hard to see. They would find themselves being introduced to a member that went by the name of Liliel, Jordan offering a small friendly wave in greeting. Aside from that he didn't say anything else, letting Seraph do most of the talking as they seemed more capable at it than he was. A strange mist covered the area, making seeing anything else almost impossible, though Jordan did not quite notice that well enough when his eyes were focused upon the female as they began to talk. Hearing they had lost two made him slightly sick, though not visibly. More people he could have saved were he there, but something told him he could not do anything about them now. His mood, flavored by the others or not became downcast.

For some reason it appeared that their target was going towards a pediatric hospital, making things even worse. They had their own mission, but how that went he would have to think over a little more thorougly once he had some more info on who they were following. The female would hand each of them some manner of device, Jordan taking his own while getting a handle on what he was dealing with by twisting it, checking out each function. ”Thanks.” He said before waiting upon Sorath do give the orders. Granted, if they were stupid orders he would mention that.

The Seraphim jet came to a halt over the tower slowly dropped down, landing gear unfolding and taking the weight of the aircraft as it touched down. Inside Tristan stood with two more Seraphim members, Gabriel and Seraph himself. Having joined so recently Tristan was surprised that he was to be sent on a mission so soon and that one of the higher ranking members of the group was going with them. Seraph mentioned something about this tower being nicer than the Lighthouse, another Seraphim base, when the door at the back of the craft opened and he walked forward. Nodding to himself Tristan followed him out.

Out on the landing pad the wind tore  the three heroes as they stepped toward another figure. A girl, dressed all in black with a figure of eight mask over her face. Seraph introduced her as 'Lilel' and Tristan responded with a nod and a smile. She was very pretty, whoever she was. As soon as she was introduced she raised both her arms into the air, forming a dome of smoke like energy around them. Tristan looked around at the dome for a second, his abilities allowing him to feel the extra energy in the area as he had to consciously stop himself from glowing any brighter than he already was.

Realizing that Lilel was talking Tristan looked back at her. In a few second she reeled off a list of fairly grim facts, including that the killer they had been sent to deal with had already claimed two more lives on the way here. Tristan hadn't realized it was that serious, or that it was just Seraphim members this mystery killer was going after. Still it wasn't the biggest surprise to come as Seraph turned to him and put him in charge. For a second Tristan didn't realize as he was still getting used to being referred to by his angelic name. By Seraph place him in charge and then left, heading to the hospital.

Tristan watched him go for a second, trying to think of something to say. Thing of nothing he turned back to the others just as Lilel reappeared holding two watch like devices. He took his with a thank you and attached it too his wrist. For a second he pretended to examine in as he desperately tried to think of something to say. Come on Tri, he's trusted you to take charge so just say something.

Tristan rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the other two "Ok, so we think we know where this guy is heading but we need to find a way to actually lock onto his location. With just the three of us we can't blindly jump into the city to start looking for him, and I don't want to wait until he attacks again to find out where he is."

Turing to Lilel he asked "Does the Chicago branch have any kind of extended monitoring tech around here, any way to try and get a fix on whoever this is before he strikes again?

"You want to wait? I...suppose we could tap into traffic cams and nearby buildings, but some deep alleyways don't have actual monitoring software. The only thing we have is my shadow sense. Whatever this is seems to be evading that pretty well too." Liliel admitted with a slight disgust in her own failures to properly detect this thing. That was the real reason they were having such problems here. It was almost impossible to detect until it was too late. They were at the mercy of time. Something no one liked. "We could probably set up in the communications center-" Liliel was saying as she turned, withdrawing a clearance card from her costume. She turned and instantly there was an explosion of red as her antire arm seemed to burst open. It was like a pink mist enveloped the area in front of them all. Liliel fell to the ground, entirely limp at the moment as shock took effect and her breathing became shaking and unsteady.

  Well whatever had been attacking Seraphim members apparently found it's way to the groups base. The only question was who or hat were they and WHERE were they?

With Sorath in charge of things, he would let them make all of the decisions and hope they were somewhat competent. Not that he expected them to be incompetent, as that would have been rude and Jordan preferred not to be that. The guy seemed to know what they were asking about when they suggested something and he would have been fine going along with it, well until something happened when the female member removed a small card. Her arm seemed to explode in a small cloud of red, leaving him shocked for only a moment as he registered what had happened and what needed to be done. Someone was attacking them here and unless something was done, Liliel would die. ”Looks like the plans changed.” Jordan muttered as a soft green mist began to pour from his fingertips, floating above the ground as it gathered around the injury in question.

Unless something was there to thwart the healing, it would go along fine and within a minute or two the arm would be as good as new. All in all it was him trying to keep more members from dying, because that would have been lame and against his role as a healer. ”We need to move quickly. They’re somewhere around here, not too far off or they could be really far off. I don’t exactly have any tracking tech or powers on me, so that would be up to you.” Jordan noted looking to Sorath. With that done he would then look to Liliel. ”Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine.” Getting shot tended to bring out terrible things, anxiety and things of that nature, something that ended up affecting him due to the whole empathy thing. His breathing was becoming much like theirs, slightly quicker as if he were panicked.

Something told him it was maybe a sniper of some kind. If that was the case then maybe they would just take another shot.

"Not wait" he replied to Lilel with a smile, trying to put on a facade of knowing what he was doing now these two were looking to him for orders, "I just want to get as many eyes down as possible so we aren't running around the city hoping to pick him up via luck"

Tristan couldn't tell but he felt like there was a bit of disgust from Lilel's last statement, not directed at him but herself. She had been here longer than the rest of them and Tristan just hoped the situation wasn't getting to her to much. As soon as they had a net set up in the area he'd check up on it.

Lilel mentioned a communications room and turned around to open the way. Tristan started to follow her, looking to his left to motion for Gabriel to follow. The other Seraph hadn't said a thing since they had got to Chicago and for now seemed happy to sit back and let Tristan do all the talking. It was a bit unnerving for Tristan and it felt like the other hero was judging him.

Looking back as Lilel pulled out her key card Tristan felt a beat and then her entire arm exploded in a fine red mist. For a few seconds Tristan didn't fully understand what was going on as his brain desperately tried to work out what was going on. Next to him Gabriel begun to move, a green mist flowing from his fingers to wrap around Lilel's shattered arm.

Tristan's brain suddenly slammed back into working mode and he threw both his arms out, projecting a sphere of energy around the three of them, hopefully protecting them from any further harm. Looking around Tristan desperately tried to work out who had attacked them and what they had used. If it was a gun it was silenced and with Gabriel's healing and his shield it was nearly impossible to track the shot. If it was a power then he had no idea how close the person needed to be to use it. All he had to worry about now was keeping the other two safe.

Looking down at Gabriel he said "Get her inside, i'll keep you both safe"

Things had turned south since The Seraph had left to ensure the protection of their member guarding their child. Liliel was weak, were it not for Gabriel's intervention she would surely have died. The unfortunate thing was that this was not an injure that Gabriel could simply heal. This was not Gabriel's fault, nor was it their unseen foe's works. This was a byproduct of Liliel's powers. She was a being of darkness, despite her holy moniker and her kind heart. Her powers sustained her, but healing powers were less effective on her. Gabriel could still save her, but it was not going to be as quick as he would have liked. For now she would remain unresponsive as shock continued to render her mind addled.

 Sorath made a bold command as he apparently began to shield the area, though their enemy didn't seem to fire another shot. Their enemy just seemed to wait in darkness, hidden, toying with them even as it saw how they operated, what they did. Their responses and their composure. Liliel continued to tremor as she looked about, eyes moving rapidly and blood still oozing. It was not a good situation to be in...but thanks to Gabriel this too was only temporary.  They were in the open, vulnerable to whatever had just attacked them, whatever it may be. The battlefield had been set. A healer, a barrier, a downed umbrakinetic and an unknown assailant, hiding in darkness with unknown capabilities. How long had they been there? How much did they hear? The clock was ticking...

As if by some cosmic curse, the healing did not go as fast as he would have liked it to and that made this whole situation even more dangerous than it was before. Jordan muttered a curse under his breath as he poured a little more energy into the healing of the wound, trying his hardest to make sure that she did not bleed out because of his own incompetence Likely it had something to do with the dark powers she had demonstrated only a few moments ago, suggesting they were some manner of demonic powers.  ”Of course this has to happen. Well you’re not dying, so that makes things a little better.” He whispered as the mist would continue to spiral around the wound, trying as best as it could to force a healing within it. If he had the time, it was likely it would not look as if she had even been injured.

Still, something told him he could not simply bring her in while healing her, making this a little more difficult. Something needed to be done about this whole thing, and that made the situation a mess of worry. Still the wound now looked like it could go without healing for a few more minutes, enough time to let him bring her in and out of fight. ”Be careful.” Jordan noted before creating a brilliant construct from pure ethereal in the form of a large arm, wrapping glowing fingers around her as it lifted Leliel into the air and his eyes turned towards the nearest entrance into the building. They were dealing with the threat in question, a dangerous individual that was attacking Seraphim metas for an unknown reason.

Should nothing stop him, well he would find himself out of the open and worrying about Sorath as he would continue the healing.

Tristan was trying to be in two places at once. On the one hand he was trying to keep an eye on Gabriel and Lilel while on the other hand he had to be watching for the attacker in case they returned, with no knowledge of their powers Tristan didn't even know if his shield would have an effect. It was only natural that his first few minutes as a leader would go poorly, with one team mate injured by an unknown enemy.

Risking a look back at his fellow Seraph Tristan noted that Gabriel's healing wasn't having much effect, that was without doubt a bad sign. But might shed some kind of light on the attackers powers. As he ran that through his head Tristan turned back to the world outside, he needed to find the attacker before anything else could happen. The longer then spent chasing their tails was more time that the enemy could be setting up their sights.

Sending a bit more power to his shield Tristan sent a pulse of energy out from his bubble, searching for any unknown energy signatures he could use to identify whomever was out there.

(OOC: Sorry for the lateness of this reply, my computer went bust for a little bit)

The darkness was insatible, and while Sorath's barrier was up the damage had already been done. The bullet wasn't one to simply disappate because of a little energy at any rate. Liliel had falen to shock at this point, remaining silent still as the life of the city round them roared and bustled about in the night. The world kept moving...even as their lives were on the brink of extermination. Was there anybody out there who even cared? Were they going to be able to save people from this threat? Could they even save themselves was a better question to ask. With this moment, everything changed. Something bypassed the barrier. Something they couldn't exactly see, but there was no doubt that something just crashed through the barrier, likely disappating the whole thing, if not then simply utterly bypassing it.

What was going on? Was it another bullet? Whatever it was they weren't safe out here. Not at all. Unfortunately the moment they were to look for Liliel's keycard, they'd notice it was gone. The dynamic changed a bit. Whatever this was it was quite clear that it's like an animal, a rather intelligent one as well. It eliminated their only way of getting into the base. It was isolating them, picking them off and cutting of ftheir escapes. It was preying upon their ideals and moralities. It was a perfect disabler and likely an impressive calculator. It was watching them, identifying weaknesses and cutting of avenues and options that it didn't like them having. It was playing with them, observing and studying them. What for? Now that's the question of the evening. Why would this thing watch and give them the chance to strike back or prepare for it?

(OOC: okay so... I started another job...which kinda had a busy period which made me unable to post to ANYTHING. But I'm back and ready to go. I'm sorry that this had to happen like it did Anyway, onwards!)

At this point Jordan could not tell if the darkness or the bullet was messing with his ability to heal her, though the feeling was annoying nonetheless. A healer that couldn’t heal someone always lead to annoying things really, but he had to make sure she didn’t succumb to shock as people with grievous wounds like these tended to at some point. Still that meant pouring a lot of energy into the healing process which felt like it would only overextend him when he would likely need the energy to fight whoever was doing this.  Hopefully Sorath could handle things however, as they seemed like they were capable and Seraph had chosen them to be the mission leader on this for some reason. It was either because they saw their leadership capabilities or they were just good compared to him. ”Come on, just a little more.” He muttered under his breath as he dug around for the keycard needed to get into the base, which seemed to be missing.

”Dammit, where the hell is it?” He cursed under his breath realizing that perhaps either it had been dropped or taken, though someone getting around the barrier should have shown signs of it breaking. Something was attacking them, intelligently but with what purpose he did not know. Honestly, he did not even know if he could afford to leave Liliel as she was when that injury that refused to heal. Still, likely she would die if he let this person run around anyway trying to pick them off. ”Looks like i’ll need to do something.” When he said that a seafoam green energy would form around his right hand, not like the healing energy but something a little different. It sparked to life much like electricity as he let it form a sort of barrier around him and Liliel, only giving him enough time likely to react should something come at him while he tried to heal her.

It appeared that they were being played with and he did not like that.