A Sinister Search Party (PL 2)

While the Dome is surrounded by miles of slums, some of these slums have transformed over the years into half-decent poorman’s towns. These places have actual buildings made of old concrete and scrap metal and some of the modern amenities, such as electricity and running water. In the residential area, kids of varying degrees of mutation and malformation play in the streets with leather bound soccer balls or playing an engaging round of tag under the afternoon sun. Their parents, meanwhile, either work outside cleaning the yards of dust and weeds or tidy the ramshackle houses and prepare the evening meal. Every preoccupied in their engagements, little notice is taken of the two figures standing down the way.
One wears a straight jacket and has fiery red hair while the other tall one stands with their head down and long black hair shielding their face from sight. The man in the jacket struggles against his bindings, then looks up to the woman who appears to be weeping softly and asks, “So, you sure the little shit is here? Last time we fucked this up, we were pulled through the wringer by our necks. I’m not sure he will accept another failure.”
The woman sniffles and says, “I’m certain. He’s somewhere here, for sure.” In her hand is a small device with a black screen that beeps ever now and then, with a red dot flashing in the center each time the beep goes off. “The question is: which building?”
The man grits his teeth and mutters angrily, “Does it even fucking matter? We’ll draw him out. We know his weakness...” He chuckles and his bloodshot eyes turn over to one of the houses with children loudly playing, “He has a soft spot for the poor.” There’s a shift in the air, and a loud explosion. A nearby house burst in a violent explosion, concrete debris being blown in all directions. The street goes from peaceful to panicked as flames engulf the remains and the citizens run in terror; a man that was tending his yard lies prostrate on the ground, his one of his arms and legs blown clean off.
The man crooks a wicked grin and says, “Let’s see if he’ll come out to play!” The air around him begins to pulsate with explosive energy...

A foreign man in camo is seen racing towards the man with missing limbs. He pulls out a number of medical supplies from his backpack as he kneels besides the man, occasionally muttering soothing words to him. He glances around at the ruined buildings and the fire, surveying the scene for any other injured. He barely regards the two figures, and seems unfazed by the buildings burning around him.

The man in the straight jacket roams his eyes over the carnage. Small bits of debris that float towards him are vapourized in an instant. Seeing the foreigner help the injured man, the pair walk up to him. The fiery man speaks up, "Hey there, friend. We have a question for you. Have you seen a strange kid; 5'9" or so, black hair, robotic limbs, probably with his face covered?" The air around him is hot and stifling.

The foreign man in camo levels a glare at the man in the straight jacket. "He's critically injured. I'll get to you in a second," he says in a thick accent. He turns his attention away from the pair, and continues work on stabilizing the mortally wounded man, doing his best to sew together the holes where his limbs used to be.

The man's fierce eyes flash with confusion as he is blown off. "Fuckin', excuse me? Who the fuck do you think you are? I asked a question you fucking foreign bastard. What, don't know the language well?" he asks condescendingly. "Then let me spell it out for you-" he speaks slowly and punctuates each word- "Have. You. Seen. A. Robo. Face-Covering. Freak?" He learns over the man with intense hatred in his posture.

The foreign man responds, after taking a few moments to find the right words, "Why are you so angry? If your masters have been tugging at your leash too hard, take it out on them." He wrinkles his brow as he looks through his med-kit, continuing the operation. "You hurt this man badly. It is not okay to do this. Do you understand?" he says in a stern voice, almost as if scolding a child.

The man's mouth hangs open, aghast. "Wha... You fuckin'..." His teeth clench and his face turns red as blood fills his blood vessels. The woman beside him puts her hand on his shoulder and says, "Maybe you should calm down, Rage..." Rage presses shut his eyes, as more blood fills his face. "This guy!" He opens his eyes and leans even closer, his right eye is filled with blood due to a burst blood vessel, and he speaks in broken fragments, as his anger is closing off his throat, "Who... are... you?!"

The foreign man takes a few more precious moments to finish sewing the man's gaping wounds shut, before standing up, and facing the pair. "I have different names for different people. You two, and the rest of the victims of your masters child torturing can call me Five," he finally responds. "It may be naive of me, but I'm hoping we can avoid a fight here," he continues as he scans the pair's faces.

Rage lowers his head and begins stamping his foot. It starts off slow, but progressively becomes faster and faster. The woman speaks up, "Oh dear, you've pissed him off, Five, sir. You should have answered our questions..." A thin film of ice forms on the ground in a line away from Rage and she hops onto it, skating away. Rage, meanwhile, begins to violently shake, as the air begins to burn and ashes from the nearby debris float up. "You're fuckin' roadkill now, asshole!" In a mere fraction of a second, Rage lets off an immense explosion, leveling several nearby buildings and incinerating any unlucky people too close and with no way to defend themselves.

As the woman skates away, Five quickly grabs the injured man, and rockets himself out of the blast radius at frightening speeds, a trail of blue fire erupting from the soles of his feet as he does. The edge of the explosion catches his right leg, and the flesh on it melts away, revealing a metal skeleton underneath. He softly tosses the injured man to the ground, and assumes a fighting stance, "I suppose you can hardly be blamed for your condition, but your too unstable. Like your fellow experiment, you lack control. ALPINE is foolish for fielding agents like you," he says.

Rage stares at the man with confusion and surprise. "You... know of ALPINE? And what are you praddling about 'masters'? Why do you know this?" He begins to walk towards the man, his foot steps leaving burning grass in his wake. "Tell me!"

Five focuses his gaze on Rage, watching his movements closely. He then begins to speak in a foreign language out loud, "Dr. William, are you getting visual feed? This is SDAMS-0.7 reporting. Run a scan on the file reports for psychic type variations, with the keywords, 'Fire', and 'Explosion'," he says to what appears to be no-one in particular. He then states slowly in Japanese, "Your 'masters', the power-hungry men who did these horrible things to you and the other mutants," he responds.

"It appears you've bitten off more than you can chew," a spitting sound can be heard from atop one of the few intact rooves, "American scum." a spiteful male Chinese voice echoes. Suddenly a Chinese man in a black business suit and a silver tie drops to the ground from the roof and slowly walks towards the two combatants. "Don't mind me, I'm just here to watch some pathetic U.S. remnant and an ALPINE dog duke it out over the scraps of a broken civilization." he snidely remarks before once more spitting in Grey's direction.

Rage quickens his pace towards the man, "Nothing pisses me off more than people who know too much!" A nearby piece of rebar melts into a puddle of liquid hot metal as he stops about two dozen feet away from the man. In front of the man's eyes, he can see little sparks igniting; a precursor to an explosion about to erupt.

Grey glances between the Chinese man, and Rage quickly, before grabbing the injured civilian from earlier, and rocketing himself towards the Chinese man in an attempt to dodge the explosion. If he arrives safely, he tosses the critically injured civilian at the Chinese man in the suit. He speaks slowly in Chinese, "This is how you help."

Rage's explosion goes off shortly after Grey's dash, missing him by a few feet. He looks over to where Grey ran and sees the Chinese man, "Who's this fucking pissant now? DEPRESSION! I think you're gonna have to join this fight." Depression steps forward from behind a building corner and sighs, wiping her eyes of tears. From a nearby water tank inside a building, water begins creeping out and attempts to grab ahold to Grey's and the Chinese man's legs, and if it does, freezing them in place. Rage, meanwhile, cracks his neck as more sparks begin to crackle between the two men.

From a building down the street, Octopus toddles out of the front door. He's wearing baggy pants, a loose fitting long-sleeved shirt, boots, a white scarf, and his bone mask. His left sleeve flaps in the turbulent, heated winds. He shields his eyes from the ashes and sees Grey and the Chinese man, "Grey? What are you doing here?" He looks over and sees Rage and Depression and freezes, his whole body stiffening.

"Cohesion: Dissolve!" the Chinese man angrily shouts in Spanish. As he does so the water appears to melt and break apart into individual droplets incapable of moving much. "You'll regret crossing me ALPINE worm, there's nothing you can't dish out... that I can't counter!" he shouts. "Oxygen: Fuse!" he shouts once more in Spanish. As the flames rapidly approach the two they suddenly appear to fade away and flicker out into nothing. "Thanks for the carbon, moron." he spits in harsh Chinese. The man's left arm carries a briefcase and upon using his powers sparks of electricity appear to arc out from the case up his arm and into a chip on his forehead.

The flesh on Grey's palms part, and red lasers emit from both of them, melting the ice on his legs as he propels himself away from the impeding attack. A muffled voice emits from an ear-piece on Grey's person, "U.S. Remnants?! Did that piece of scrap metal he lodged in his head make him blind? He's looking at the product of cutting edge research" yells the ear-piece in an an insulted tone. "Doctor..," interjects Grey. "Furthermore," continues the voice, ignoring Grey, "What have these glorified monsters ever accomplished besides being the catalyst of-", "Doctor, focus!" yells Grey, cutting off the ear-piece. "Right, my apologies. It seems like this one's mutation is similar to a number of bio-engineered psychics, short range, and probably a small amount of time the powers can be active. In addition, this one seems even less stable than the specimens Octopus and Moyasu. Keep your distance, and wear them out. If the one controlling the ice is a problem, get in close range to her, so the angry one can't use his powers. And keep an eye on that agent!" Grey nods, and attempts to put some distance between himself and Rage.

Seeing Grey distancing himself, Rage begins running towards him. Behind him, a jet of flames erupts, boosting his running speed to rocketing speeds. Rage tenses his body as he prepares for a full body tackle. Depression begins controlling more water, the water turned into droplets reacclimating to the surging liquid. The water rears and attempts to splash into the Chinese man's briefcase, in an attempt to short circuit whatever electronics are within to cause sparks.

Octopus, seeing the dangers ahead of him, uses Depression's distraction with attacking the Chinese man to launch an ice attack at her, icicles rushing along the ground towards her position.

"You want what's in this briefcase huh? Then eat it up bitch!" he shouts manically in Chinese. He presses his finger to the chip on his left temple and electricity begins to arc from the briefcase to the chip then through his right arm until finally enveloping his entire body. "Electrolysis!" he commands in Spanish. Suddenly bolts of electricity surge out from his body in innumerable bright tendrils. As the energy courses through the surge of water the water molecules begin to break down into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Seeing Rage rocket towards the American he dismissively mutters in Chinese "Fine, go ahead and kill each other you savages.". With immense concentration, he leaps into the air and with but a single word "Flotador!" his feet appear to hit a transparent wall 20 feet above the ground. He starts to run in Depression's direction on this midair bridge of static.

As Rage flies at him, Grey points the jets on his feet at an angle to quickly manuever out of Rage's trajectory. Grey speaks out loud in English, "No good Doctor, I think I can outmaneuver him, but I can't reach those speeds." Grey's eyes flicker to Octopus and the jets of ice, and he grimaces, before returning his attention to Rage.

Rage slams his feet into the dirt, slowing his progression and turning him to face Grey, "Come here, fucker. Take it like a man!" He rockets once more towards Grey, this time sparks begin to flash around him and flames skirt his jacket, as he prepares for an explosive encounter with Grey. Depression looks up to see the Chinese man running towards her in the air. She sinks to her knees and begins crying; as she does, the water in the air crystallizes into sharp icicles that hang suspended in the air, pointing dangerously at the man and changing direction to ensure they are pointing at him. Octopus' icicles, meanwhile, seem to change direction as the man grows closer to Depression and shoot upwards from the ground, aimed directly at the man's briefcase. The icicles split off as they approach, coming at the man from multiple directions.

"Hmmm, a bit more than I thought you could muster. No matter, my calculations predicted a countermeasure in case you were holding back." he smugly gloats in Chinese. The man shouts "CO2: Fracture!" in Spanish and suddenly electricity crackles from the man forming a sphere shaped wireframe of static. Suddenly a black material appears to form to fill up the wireframe and the icicles crash harmlessly into the giant black ball. With a thunderous boom, the sphere dissipates into what appears to be smoke and the Chinese man rushes forth like a shadowy blur. Now within ten or so feet of Depression he clutches his head and screams "Suciedad debajo de mí, derretir!" and slams his foot into the ground. Where his foot stomps down reddish cracks begin to form and slowly spread towards Depression before the Earth explodes forth in a torrent of hot magma.

The jet's on Grey's feet flare up again, bits of flesh around the cylinders melting as they do. He rockets himself into the air, and as he does, he yells down in Japanese, "I'm not the one you should be mad at. Think for a second here! There's another way, you can break your chains, like your friend Octopus did."

Rage raises his eyebrow and looks behind himself, seeing Octopus. He flashes a wicked grin and utters, “There you are.” Octopus hesitates as Rage notices his presence. Rage looks up to Grey, “Did you make friends with this poor excuse for a man? This freak of nature whose very name is a reminder of this fuck’s shit pile of a life? Or should I call you by your ‘proper’ name, In-“ Octopus yells before he finished, his voice trembling, “Shut up, Rage. I’m not like you. Not any more.”
Rage huffs and says, “Whatever. I’ve got another metallic fish to fry.” As he says that, the surrounding air around Grey begins to heat to unbearable levels, as Rage attempts to melt his body. Meanwhile, Depression stumbles back and begins cooling the magma erupting before her, but fear fills her eyes as a large wave of magma prepares to splash her. As its heat begins to lick her clothing, the wave immediately solidified and cools into obsidian. Across the street, Octopus has his right hand extended, icy mist frothing from it, as he sleds towards the mayhem atop a slab of ice, preparing another attack at the Chinese man.