Sai marched across the dark and gloomy night. There was a patch of forest that managed to become encapsulated within the crimson dome. With a pessimistic certainty, Sai was certain people of Halcyon might have wanted to try their luck with those creatures in the woods. As he found stragglers, Sai had been creating shelters from the trees around them, herding up people and sheltering them in an circular enclosure of living trees. As he traveled inwards back into the city, Sai had left a trail of tree shelters, hoping the people he rescued in those areas would survive.

It wasn't enough for the arbokinetic to fight a couple creatures and venture off deeper into the city. Sai wanted to make sure they were safe. He only hoped he hadn't corralled a free dinner for those infernal creatures.

Using his ability to grow towering trees, seeing the column of a redwood split through the asphalt of the street, Sai was taken aback by the sudden figure across from him. "Sorry if I almost hit ya, it's a bit hard to aim a tree."

billy was thankful after the trailblazer and guidemaster incidents that some of the kickstarters took on additional training. billy was dodging and weaving through the hordes. he used his power when he absolutely needed too, but he was also thinking smarter and not harder. conserving his power, since he failed to do so when all of this first started happening and billy had a rather close call thanks to that.

˙ ˖ ✶ Carlos

"Unless another wave decides to surprise us, then I'm absolutely fucked," Lux scoffed at the thought, but his vision stayed on their surroundings, trying to spot any hovering shadows. Carlos would've had his drone set up a perimeter, but even so, there was a bit of him that remained paranoid due to the uncertainty of it all.

Once he got his wish, he had a smug look on his face as he sat back, proud. "Now I feel like I could do anything, honestly," Sage said in jest as he took all in. How Carlos hadn't taken him out of the system, how he kissed him back, and how he always seemed to show up at the perfect time. "Y'know, I really have got to stop making a habit out of being your personal damsel in distress. Kinda ruins my image,"

Sage's family was lucky enough to be nowhere Halcyon during this, as they had gone off on a family trip for one of the little ones' birthdays at Sage's expense. He'd saved up enough extra money to grant them this. "They're not in the city, they're probably on a ride at Disney or something." Sage laughed, and then immediately winced as pain shot up his body. "Worth a try. Besides, I would've looked pretty cute kissing the glass on your helmet. Very romantic."

carlos rolls his eyes at the other man's words and snorts. "this might sting," he warns as he grabs the needle and thread. knowing that the wound is going to need to be stitched together. "and, mind you, i thought being the damsel is your brand?" he taunted, hoping the annoyance would distract the other as he began to push the needle through the skin carefully as he began to stitch the wound close.

"that's good," angel says, his shoulders noticably relaxing when he hears that sage's family managed to make it out. hearing him speak of kissing the glass had carlos snort. "and then you would have been annoyed when i would have laughed at the sight of your lips smushed against my visor." he taunted playfully with a smirk on his lips, his tongue swiping across his lips as he focused on finishing up the stitches.

Karma glanced over just in time to catch Prism shedding the monster disguise and moving back toward him. The sight pulled a crooked grin onto his face despite the chaos around them. “Oh, a natural, huh?” he shot back, ducking under a swipe before grabbing the creature’s arm and throwing it straight into another one. “Careful. Keep showing off like this and I’m gonna start thinking you actually enjoy saving my ass.” The ground beneath one of the remaining creatures suddenly cracked under its footing, sending it sprawling. Karma tilted his head slightly, amused. “Looks like luck’s not really on their side tonight.”

For a while it was still nothing but noise and snapping teeth. Snarls, impacts, flashes of red energy and warped color tearing through the street but eventually the mass of limbs and heads started to thin. The creatures that had been swarming them moments ago were faltering now, fewer and farther between. Some turned tail entirely, disappearing back into the shadows for easier prey while others collapsed under the weight of accumulated injuries and sheer chaos. Karma exhaled hard through his nose, rolling one sore shoulder as he looked over the aftermath. “Well...” he muttered, giving one last twitching creature a shove with his boot, “Uh, looks like the horde finally got the message.”

the problem with the blasts of color that he uses? it takes an insane amount of energy out of him. but reese was trying his best to push through it with his basic hand-to-hand skills as he allowed himself to recharge. seeing the other man work was interesting. attacks missing him by inches, creatures stumbling over their own feet, he even saw one attack completely miss karma and land on a creature that had a much better chance at actually landing a hit on karma.

and people say luck powers aren't cinamatic.

hearing the other man's words had him snort. "would rather not see the headlines say 'hero dies protecting ex-hero on the streets' by the end of this." his foot comes up and plants itself into the chest of another creature. he watches as it stumbles back and bumps into the fallen one. and this is how it continued for awhile. this horde was determined to turn them into their meal, but slowly and surely they were cutting through it's numbers. he panted softly and chuckled as he heard the other man's words as he doubled over to catch his breath.

dean was more than happy to do something like this. helping making food while everyone pitched in and worked together to get the city back up and running. dean, honestly, spent the last few days completely terrified and not being able to be much help of anything. considering he has now powers or combat skills, he decided that simply staying in a shelter was best until things died down. which, thankfully, it was.

"yeah, pretty much," dean admits with a chuckle and a slight flush to his cheeks. "i like to discuss heroes powers and their strengths and weaknesses. are they a combat hero, a rescue hero, should they divide time between both? and for villains i like to try to keep up with their powers and crime activities." maybe it was unhealthy, but he just thought miracles were cool. regardless of if they were good or evil.

Aether hadn't moved from the concrete. He was staring out at the junk with half-lidded eyes, breathing in the shallow, rattiling in a way of something reminding itself it was supposed to. His fingers had found a crack in the floor and were tracing it absently. When Carlos crouched beside him the tired drifted over slowly. "The wiring." His voice had settled somewhat. Still rough. Still carrying that odd doubled quality, like two sounds occupying the same frequency. His eyes dropped to his own torso almost clinically, the way someone might inspect a machine they were responsible for rather than a body they lived inside. "None of it fixes itself. I need someone who knows what they're looking at." He said it without apology. The flat delivery of someone who had stopped finding the fact humiliating a long time ago.

Fingers left the crack in the floor and pressed carefully against the exposed section along his ribs. The wiring flinched with residual current. He didn't seem bothered as he sat up slowly. "The plating here is cracked. Not broken through but the ribs underneath shifted during the transformation. They won't realign without being physically reset." His hand moved upward to one shoulder, pressing against torn synthetic skin. "This one is surface damage mostly. The tissue underneath is intact. The other one..." His eyes tracked across without him turning his head. "It is not surface damage." Something had punched clean through the joint housing at some point. He demonstrated anyway. Slowly. The arm moved but not cleanly, a faint grinding accompanying the motion that had no business sounding the way it did. He let it drop back against the concrete. "The housing needs to be manually reset." As if in quiet acknowledgment of that, something shifted faintly beneath the torn skin along his ribs. Not healing. Just… holding. Pressure applied from the inside by something that understood urgency without understanding engineering. "The temperature reading is always wrong. CELYN will flag it. Don't let it change what you prioritize."

carlos nodded his head when the other told him not to touch the blood and that it was acidec. "well, i'll definitely like to thank you for telling me of that. celyn, bring me some of the more resistant gloves just in case." he orders a drone and watches as it flies off while he looked at the readout and tried to make sense of it. unfortunately, carlos didn't know much about this. he was an engineer but he didn't specialize in making androids, but he was confident that he would be able to learn on the fly since he does deal with mechanics. but that's the value of having an ai that you built from the ground up. "celyn, cross-reference his body with anything you can find online to try to get a better understanding. we don't want to mess with his wiring and end up doing more damage than good." he ordered.

after getting the gloves, he popped a few knuckles in his hands. and with the information celyn managed to pull up and spread out in holograms in front of the duo, carlos felt a lot more informed about what he was dealing with. "okay... my patchwork might not be perfect, so i'm definitely going to recommend going to whoever you usually go to whenever all this dies down to make sure i don't fuck anything up to much." angel explains before he begins working. he decides to focus on the shoulder that clearly had taken more damage.

For once, Lucien wasn't prepared. He didn't have a big speech or some prepared one-liner to shout. Instead, he went off instinct, stepping closer and invading the other's space. "I don't care what you get out of this, but you better keep everyone here safe."

a slight smirk of his lips though proved that the other was probably being more mocking than anything.

“believe it or not, i don't want to see anyone hurt or dead over this,” clarke says with a shrug of his shoulders. “people get killed and we have less people in the work force, less people to help with repairs of the city, and most people's day to day stuff is more difficult to do now.” clarke says with a shrug of his shoulders. “that being said, i'm just a helpless little civilian," he lied, "so if this place gets attacked? maybe you should keep us safe instead of depending on me to put myself in harms way.” he sassed.

hearing the other man's words, carlos' head moved in a affirmative manner. "celyn, scan warlord for injuries." carlos carefully helped the other man move to one of his areas where he had more medical supplies and was in a less populated area. "well, you came to the right place." with his power, he's been able to build materials that he needs and to go out and scavenge for what he couldn't make. thankfully gauze and similar producers was somethings that was pretty well stocked in this city.

hearing someone like warlord give him a praise like that had carlos' cheeks flushing as he shook his head. "it's only right. the junkyard behind might not be the most pleasent place, but leaves me with plenty of places for civilians to sleep. and the drones are cycling through patrols, defending here, and recharging and reloading their supplies." angel could geek out more, but decided the other probably wouldn't care to much about that. he decided to instead focus on the most obvious concern. the puncture wound on his stomach.

Blood and sweat covered the demigod as he gripped his spear, standing tall amid viscera from slain enemies, resembling a threat rather than a defender. He turned, locking eyes with the dark-haired man who approached purposefully. "You again?" The blonde scoffed, shifting his weapon to rest on his shoulder. "I am not surprised a miracle is not able to handle themselves and is desperate for my assistance."

Prism was exhausted admittedly. He has overused his powers, and he could feel the repercussions of it. He was mostly just looking for some place safe to go and recharge. Because at this point? It's been a few days of non-stop action pretty much with only short breaks here and there. And the vigilante needed a break. He looked up as he heard the other man's voice, and he squinted his eyes as he tried to get a good luck at the other.

Who in the hell is this?

People stumbled backward from the reinforced doors and windows the instant they saw him standing in the yard. Rinu stopped moving. The massive creature stood perfectly still while fear rippled around him like a living thing. His ears twitched once. Then his body convulsed. Not a transformation. A rupture. The sound came first. A nauseating wet tear like flesh being pulled apart by hooks. Rinu split open directly down the middle. Crimson fur peeled away from itself in twitching strips as the enormous inugami’s body collapsed inward violently, ribs separating beneath the hide with audible cracks. Thick black-red fluid burst from the opening in heavy sheets, splattering across concrete and rusted scrap with a hiss. Wherever it landed, the ground immediately began to blacken and bubble as though the blood itself carried acid inside it.

People screamed harder. The beast’s body kept unraveling. Muscle liquefied into viscous ink-dark gore that slithered over itself in obscene waves. Bones surfaced briefly beneath the sludge before dissolving into the mass entirely. The towering shape of the inugami folded grotesquely inward again and again, collapsing like a dying star until there was nothing recognizable left of him. Only blood remained. Living blood. It spread across the junkyard floor in frantic rivers, twitching and reaching into cracks in the concrete before suddenly reversing direction all at once. The sludge surged toward a body lying beneath it. Aether. Or what was left of him.

The fluid forced itself back into every opening in his ruined artificial frame with violent urgency. It poured into exposed seams beneath synthetic skin. Crawled beneath fractured plating. Forced itself through hollow spaces in his torso where machinery and flesh no longer connected properly. His body jerked hard every time another wave disappeared inside him, limbs spasming against the concrete while horrible mechanical grinding noises echoed faintly beneath wet choking sounds. Then lungs existed again. He gagged immediately. Air hit him wrong every single time. One endless dark space traded for another. One cage replacing the next. His vision smeared violently. Sounds came muffled and distant, like hearing the world through deep water. He could feel the cold concrete against his bare skin now. Feel blood clinging to him in sticky trails. Feel exposed synthetic wiring twitch faintly beneath torn flesh along his ribs and shoulders. Aether swallowed hard, throat raw. “…It’s okay…” he managed weakly, voice distorted and unfocused. Nobody calmed down. His eyes drifted half-shut again. “I’m not real.”

Carlos couldn't stop his eyes from rolling briefly before he ordered CELYN to retract the helmet of his suit. And soon enough he was staring at the other with his face visible as he tilted his head and fully got the opportunity to take the other creature's appearance in. “I know you know how to walk. I just wanna-forget it.” Carlos cut himself off mid-rant with an almost exhausted sounding sigh as he shook his head as he looked at the large ass creature. Deciding picking a fight probably wasn't the smartest idea. Not when so many drones needed recharging and were low on ammunition.

He actually made it into the salvage yard a few seconds before the transformation began. He couldn't help but to wince as he saw all of the stuff going on with his own eyes. If someone else had told him a few hours ago, even with Miracles and such? Angel wasn't sure if he would believe them. But after the stuff he's seen now? Carlos was a bit more open to the idea. Carlos walked confidently when it seemed like the transformation was complete, and a form a lot more convient was left behind. “Silence,”  he didn't raise his voice at the nearby people but there was no questioning the authority in it, “or do you want more of those demonic creatures swarming the area?” He offered them a calming smile. “This guy here was out there helping protect people. So if anyone has a problem with him resting and getting treated here? Let me know, and I'll be more than happy to send you on your way.” 

Nova definitely hasn't been outside during all of this time. The villain's opened his whorehouses open to anyone who's in need. Especially those that he'd prefer to stay in the good gracious of. But he's no hero. Not walking outside and saving some randoms. But if people heard that some civilians, and some important ones at that, got killed in one of his safehouses? Clarke knows that he would absolutely never hear the end of it. Which was why he was swiftly making his way attempting to hold back the monsters that were immediate threats to the group.

Telling a hero one of the whorehouses locations was definitely out of the question. So instead, he told him one of the public ones that he knew was set up. "Get to the alley way. On the other side, down the street, there should be a safehouse at the very end." His arms lit up pink as the energy traveled down them and to his hands which he aimed at said alley. The fence in the middle of it gave way to the blast, leaving the escape route unblocked.

When the immediate cluster had been reduced to considerably less of a problem, the inugami circled back toward Angel, slower now, picking his way through the wreckage. There was a gash along his ribs where something had caught him earlier, dark against pale fur, and he moved with the specific careful dignity of a creature that refused to acknowledge it was bothered. He stopped a few feet away and sat. Then looked at Angel with an expression that, on a creature this size, somehow still managed to communicate you have some nerve with remarkable clarity. A grumble. The tail moved. Once. Reluctant. "Fine. But you don't get to call me that again."

Carlos made sure to catalogue the way the other looked at him when he said the word. Well... he supposes if he ever needs to annoy him? Angel found a pretty good thing. But at the sound of the warning? Angel decided that he didn't feel like pushing his luck. Last thing he needed was to have made it this long and get eaten by Clifford. Thankfully, the modern technology didn't seem to hinder the other and vice-versa. Angel kept an eye on the field from above as he began firing round after round from his pistols. Helping thin out the horde.

Hearing the other man's words, Angel thanked that his head was hidden by the visor for the most part. Cause his lips curled up in a grin, and he was tempted to make a Clifford the big red dog joke. But he kept it inside... For now. "I suppose that's a fair trade." He chuckled as he began moving towards the Scraplord. The other seemed to linger behind him. Angel was okay with that, but he wasn't slowing down. He liked his power, but it didn't offer much in terms of raw combat skill. And a good chunk of his drones were already flying back to the Scraplord to begin their reloading measures.

"Go around back," Angel says with a chuckle. "There's a junkyard where people throw away stuff that I use for my inventions." It was the perfect combination for Carlos. A garage for him to fix vehicles and stuff, a place for him to invent gadgets and tools for him, the Greenscreens, or other heroes. And on top of that? He cut down costs by having a junkyard where he could melt things down to their raw material or use the metal and other things that get tossed for inventions. "There might be a few civilians since I opened up my shop for people to use as shelter. Try not to step on them, yes?"

˙ ˖ ✶ Carlos

Hearing him dish out orders to his drones through Celyn brought back a sense of wistful longing. Sage's eyes kept looking for the familiar spots on Carlos' features that had always been his favorite. The way his forehead worried whenever he was in deep thought, his mannerism, the curve of his cupid's bow, and the way his eyes crinkled slightly when he smiled. Sage had tried to build a life around this man, and he wasn't sure if it was the blood loss, or the risk of death, or the hordes of monsters that were pushing all these thoughts to the forefront, but he missed him now more than ever.

Sage tried to scoff, but could only blush at the way Carlos forced him to listen. "Okay," he grumbled, accepting his fate begrudgingly. Wincing at the contact, Sage complied with his ex's request as he applied pressure to his wound and waited to be treated, blushing as he saw the extreme care Carlos went to for him. "Guess not," Sage's eyes kept searching for something in his stare, a sign that maybe this man had been over his antics and wanted nothing to do with him, but there was only one way he could be sure.

"A few minutes give or take," Sage replied. "Celyn, withdraw the helmet for me," he spoke, hoping and praying he still had access to the AI's programming. Once it all retracted, haphazard fingers clutched onto the seams of his armor, swiftly pulling his ex into a longing kiss. "If I don't make it out of this, just know that I've never stopped being in love with you."

Carlos helped his drones take out the last few before they could get to close. Close combat was not exactly Carlos' specialty. He takes a deep breath to calm himself before turning and moving towards Sage. Feeling himself slipping into a familiar mind frame. When he was serving as a Combat Medic in the army, he's had to do things like this pretty common. When the last one in this area fell to the ground, Carlos turned around and got to work.

Carlos' hands were steady but gentle. He knew what he was doing, and knew that he could do this. Even if they weren't in an ideal location. And a moment later? Carlos heard the medical drone hovering nearby. When he answered Carlos' question, Carlos nodded his head. "Good. Then you should be fine." Carlos says. He looks up in surprise as the other orders CELYN to withdraw the helmet, and he finds his helmet being withdrawn as he looks at Sage in surprise.

Apparently he forgot to deprogram Sage's voice out of the AI. A gasp of surprise escaped as lips pressed against his, and he stayed still for a moment. Completely still. But a few seconds later, he began kissing hte other back. "You're making it out of this, idiot. It's just a scratch." It was definitely worse than a scratch, but Carlos wasn't going to let Sage think that. How someone thought influenced their body a lot.