Daycycle 124 [January 29 - February 4]

[computerized]

daycycle 124

[Jan 29 - Feb 4]

[OOC Plotting for this Dacycle can be found here.]

Early Morning [0800 - 0900] — All Troubleshooters Report for Duty

No Specials will be selected for a mission today.

---

Morning & Afternoon [0900 - 1600] — Service Firm Positions
All Troubleshooters not assigned a mission should report to their Service Firm for their daily duties.

At 0900, Allison Argent will be reassigned to Armed Forces' Very Special Forces firm under Steve Rogers.

At 1300, VIOLET judge Bethany Abbott will be discovered dead in her chambers. Her death will ultimately be ruled murder by poisonous gas. Mind Control will immediately begin running coverage on her accomplishments, including the controversial decision less than a week ago to drop the treason charges against Oliver Queen and Parker and return them to Alpha. Once again, the letters "MOD" will be found at the crime scene. This time carved across Abbott's desk underneath her slumped body.

Gracie Cannell will be pulled from her blog to cover the breaking news due to her Special status.
News of the murder will spread like wildfire across Alpha, inciting fear in higher clearance citizens because VIOLET citizens were believed to be untouchable. In lower clearance citizens, the event will be enough to get ASS vocal again. Within hours there will be anti-special messages spray painted across Alpha.

---

Evening [1600 - 2200] — Citizen Improvement
All Alpha citizens are encouraged to better themselves through Alpha’s wide variety of educational, entertainment and cultural opportunities offered each evening. Attending these sanctioned events are not mandatory, but is highly encouraged by The Computer. Citizens choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities, have a growing number of other options available to them in how to spend their hard earned credits and free time.

Tonight’s event will be at 1800 in the Wagon Wheel, floor 25, Room H and will be held by the Extreme Ironing Club. This group is for those Alpha citizens who can't get their uniforms wrinkle-free enough. (Though anyone who may attend this incredibly boring sounding meeting, will actually find an established Free Enterprise dice game in progress instead.)

During the dinner rush, at 1900 a group of twenty ASS members in masks and armed with steel bars will form a brief demonstration in the Commissary in which they chant "Down with Specials." If there happens to be any Specials present in the Commissary at that time, they will attack them with malice.

---

Alpha Curfew Restrictions
All Alpha citizens should be in their quarters within the Wagon Wheel by 2200, unless they’ve been given permission from a GREEN or higher clearance level citizen. Sleeping Aid gas is dispelled each night in the Wagon Wheel at 2200 to assist citizens in getting a productive sleeping period.

Confession Booths
There are hundreds of confession booths available around Alpha Complex if a citizen would like to communicate directly with the computer. Please use these confession booths to report mission statuses, report treason or terrorist acts, unregistered mutants, confess your trespasses against Alpha Complex, request propaganda or speak with Your Friend, The Computer, at any time.

Comments

Lydia Martin | Open, throughout the day

[sanguinescry]

morning

On the one hand, it's nice to wake up in the morning wrapped in the warmth and safety of Matt's embrace again for the first time in what feels like forever, even if it's only been a couple of days. On the other, it means waking up and instantly being reminded how awful she is.

She can't shake the memories, but at least there's nothing new to add to the pile. Matt had stayed with her in her room the night prior and the conversation wherein he'd tried to pick her brain to find out what was wrong hadn't gone terribly well. Matt took it well, but Lydia had been vague and dismissive of her issues. She's hiding something and she's sure that he knows it, but at least he'd been willing to concede when she'd given a little and promised to explain in more depth once she could wrap her head around everything.

Lydia makes her way to the Commissary for the morning meeting a little later than she usually does, meaning that after the briefing, she'll have to grab breakfast on the way to True Alpha rather than eating before the briefing starts. Which, she supposes, is fine. Once the beginning of the troubleshooting shifts begin, her traffic is pretty slow and she usually doesn't get interrupted by a customer until a little later in the day. The mornings are usually for her and Matt; she helps him with his dictations when he needs her to, between stray customers, and she checks in on the progress Tony and Cisco are making in the back. This morning, when she checks in with Cisco, she's treated to the finally completed Cold Gun she'd commissioned from him. Well. She commissioned a weapon, but this one, admittedly, is pretty awesome.

She'll be in and out of the front of the store earlier in the morning and will be settled there until she takes her late lunch around 14:00.

afternoon

After lunch, Lydia makes her way back to True Alpha, and she checks her PDC. ...the news is bleak and unsettling. If the one person who had mercy on some of the detained Specials has been murdered, that sends a pretty goddamn clear message to the rest of the Alphas about just how they should feel about the Specials. There's no room for them to make their own decisions, even on a case by case basis. Matt, a Special, had argued well enough in court to get the judge to allow Oliver and Parker, two Specials, to be released back into the Complex. Now, she's dead.

If there's one good thing about her new memories, it's that she remembers all of the private sessions with Deputy Parrish learning how to fight and, while she hasn't actually put any of it into action yet, she somehow just...knows that she can do it. She remembers. Between that and the cold gun, even in the face of such a clear and hateful demonstration, Lydia feels a little bit safer.

She'll spend the remainder of the work day and a couple of extra hours in True Alpha, back and forth between the store front and the chemistry lab in the back room where she's been testing new products with the hopes of finding a solution that actually works for frizz without making things even worse. She's getting there.

evening; closed to Adam and Ronan

While she's doing some of her daily bookkeeping at the end of the day, just before she's ready to head out of the store a bit later than she typically does, a commotion outside her store in the Commissary catches her attention. It takes her a few minutes to realize what they're saying, but the chant is loud and clear once her brain catches up with her ears and her stomach turns.

Patting at her pocket to make sure she has both her standard issue laser gun (with its illegal and decidedly not standard ULTRAVIOLET barrel) and the cold gun, Lydia looks out the store front and inches toward the door. They're not right outside her door — which is actually kind of surprising, considering it's common knowledge that True Alpha is a store owned and operated by Specials — but they might as well be; they're close enough.

[fictor]

Ronan and Adam aren't too far from the True Alpha store. They were sitting by themselves choking down dinner when the A.S.S arrive. Immediately, Ronan abandons his food and moves in front of Adam. He's immediately looking for a way out. He's got no damn desire to save anyone except Adam. He won't abandon anyone that happens to be in the way, but if they're not willing to come along with him and Adam, he's not going to risk Adam's skin to save anyone else.

Noon

[fateless]

Keeping an eye out for Lydia is something that Allison has always taken very seriously both back home and here as well. Every morning, even if it's from a distance, she tries to make sure her best friend is okay, and that's especially the case lately. Between the attacks, the way their memories got scrambled, and just that daze that she had found herself in not that long ago, Allison has been finding herself in high alert. It also doesn't help that she went back enough on the network to see the attack that Lydia had suffered here, and it's taking all she has to not go into complete overprotective mode.

Although, it could be argued that she's already in that mode considering the request to transfer positions. Keeping Lydia safe is just one of her goals as a new member of VSF, and she firmly believes that at least now she has the tools and capability to do so. Before she was trapped in her position whenever something happened, and sure it had been relatively safe, but Allison doesn't really care about safe. She cares about her friends, plain and simple.

That's why, when Lydia arrives late for the morning briefing, Allison's inner alarms go off. She tries to keep an eye on her, and she's even tempted to hang back so that she could talk to her, but considering this is her first day in her new assignment, that's probably not the best idea. Thankfully the morning zooms by in between all the training drills that Steve has her do and, once it's time for lunch, Allison cleans herself up before going to the Commissary.

Except, she's not really interested in eating. She's already planning on just grabbing something to munch on on her way back - for now, she just makes a beeline for True Alpha, so she can visit her best friend.

Gracie | OTA

[dorkify]

M O R N I N G

Gracie's morning is normal (surprisingly, considering what the rest of the day is going to bring). She gets coffee in the commissary first thing then heads to her work station. She does her morning broadcast then starts working on putting other shows together, shows in which she's behind the camera instead. Everything seems normal and for a moment, Gracie starts to think that maybe it'll be a good day, or as good as days get in this place.

A F T E R N O O N

The afternoon starts out normal. She forces down some lunch, has more coffee then heads back to Mind Control. She's not there long before she gets pulled off her regular position and thrown right into the middle of things with the discovery of Judge Bethany Abbot's body. She starts a live broadcast, filling a lot of it with chatter and talk, asking anyone that knows anything to talk to Steve or if they don't feel comfortable talking to him, to talk to her. She reminds them that any information is important to share, no matter how small. She'll remind everyone to be safe, to make sure that they stick together. When she gets new information, she will interrupt her chatter to share it.

E V E N I N G

By the time evening rolls around and dinner is served in the commissary, Gracie is exhausted. She's been on camera nearly constantly since she was pulled off regular duty and it almost feels weird not to have a camera in her face, but it's also a relief. She's tired of talking, tired of thinking and the only processing she's really been able to do had been through the camera. Fortunately, her vlog at home is how she does a lot of processing, but unlike there, she'd had to be careful what she'd said here. She'd tried to be mindful and not incite anything more. She's picking at her dinner, trying to go over the afternoon and remember if she'd said anything she'll have to answer for later when she notices the commotion. At first, she doesn't do anything. She's frozen and that's when she remembers the cold gun that's tied to her thigh. Of course, that's not easy to get to and she should have thought of that before now. As sneakily as possible, hoping that no one notices when her elbows go to the table and she sort of hunches over, hoping people will see it as her just making herself as small as possible. She unzips the jumpsuit with one hand, slides her hand inside and very awkwardly fishes around in her jumpsuit (actually grateful for it's bagginess right now) then slips the cold gun out and zips the jumpsuit back up, straightening up as she does. She presses her right hand with the cold gun in it to her leg and edges toward a group of people. She's going to flip on the video feed of her PDC to do some more live coverage and warn people away from the commissary. When the attacks start, she goes into action. As Cisco had advised, she tries to shoot the floor in front of the attackers, sending them sliding all over the place. She'll grab any Special she can and try to escape from the Commissary. Her first thought is to make her way to True Alpha to the back room. Tony is there, Cisco is there and there are more weapons, at least as far as she knows.

Once the attack is over, Gracie isn't going to be interested in doing anything. She's going to go down to HQ and chill out there. She needs some down time in the worst way right now.

evening

[duelo]

To say that all of the terrorism in this place is getting old would be a gross understatement. Derek might not have his wolf, but he has his rage. He may not have the werewolf strength, but he's still a strong guy, and a big one at that. Not as big as Alcide, but big enough. So when the demonstration against Specials starts, Derek doesn't flee. He stands his ground. Derek has just as much a right to be in this Complex, in this Commissary as anyone else does. He didn't choose to be here or to be a Special; that was chosen for him and he's not going to sit idly by or run away because someone else says he should. Fuck. that.

It's Lydia's scream — he'd know it anywhere, even without his werewolf hearing; it's hard to forget the scream that (correctly) predicted your death — that sets Derek into action. He's never gotten along with her and he probably never will, but her warning prepared him for evolution rather than death and he owes her at least trying to keep her safe.

Except, Derek doesn't get there because his path is cut off by charging Alphas, chanting and swinging pipes. Derek grabs the nearest metal chair and closes it, swinging it with a force that actually almost feels like his normal strength — that's got to be in his head — and delighting not-so-secretly in the satisfying way the chair connects with the face of a charging A.S.S. member, not only knocking her off her feet but taking down two others beside her like dominoes. No, he isn't sorry that he's hit a girl. Derek is an equal opportunity destroyer: you come after him and his and he will take you down. He hasn't cared; doesn't care what gender you are and he never will.

The problem is that it's so loud in the Commissary right now and there's so many scents and smells that Derek can't hear someone coming up on his left when he's focusing on swinging the chair again at someone on his right. The impact of steel against his side surprises a roar out of him, one he hadn't realized he could bellow out. He can't see himself, but his eyes have gone an icy, glowing blue, and his fangs have descended. It's the second pipe that cracks him on the side of the head that sends him to the ground and the worst part is that he can't catch himself when he tries, because the floor is covered in...ice? What the—

For a second, he feels a surge of strength and he roars again, face shifting into something more grotesque as he swings clawed hands on either side of himself, trying to catch the legs of the people passing by; slow them down. He's stronger like he should be, at least for right now, but that doesn't change how much pain he's in or the fact that his body won't cooperate when he tries to get back to his feet.

Derek can feel his face shift back to normal and the claws slipping away. Like a teaser that his wolf is still within, but unable to do any real damage. GET UP, he tells himself vehemently and even though it feels like he's been hit by a bus and he's bleeding, he can feel it hot and sticky on the side of his face and his ear feels so hot that it somehow also feels freezing cold.

When he sees the blonde girl, he recognizes her from the news on the PDC and he knows her a little. He's met her on the network, but never in person. His eyes settle on the gun in her hand and he realizes she's the one putting the ice on the floor. "Shoot them!" he barks. "Shoot them!" What good is shooting the goddamn floor?

Derek finally pushes himself to his feet. He's never had a problem letting a woman protect him; in his experience, women are much better at it. There's never been any love lost between himself and the Argent family, but he's at least willing to concede that Allison went down swinging and protecting the people she loved, including Derek's beta. Gracie is small and she's shooting the floor instead of the protesters, which tells Derek she's either never used a gun or she's afraid of actually making an impact with it, but all the same, she does have a weapon and Derek needs a better one than the chair he's lost in the shuffle. If she can cover him to get out of here until he can find something better before joining the fray again, he's not going to begrudge the fact that she's a girl, that's for sure.

"Can you cover me? Can you cover me to get out of here so I can go to my room and get my laser gun?" he pants as he tries to catch his breath, hovering beside her and standing defensively because, well, technically, he's defenseless. She is his defense right now.

alcide herveaux || ota

[rouxgaroux]

evening;

After a full day of work, Alcide is in the gym area of his work when Gracie's coverage of what's happening in Commissary starts to air. He sets the barbell back in the rack and sits up, watching for a moment to learn what's going on and where. Then he's off, running through the hallways toward the Commissary to see what he can do about figuring out who the hell these people are and trying to shake some sense into them. They shouldn't be battling one another. The enemy is the Computer, he wants to tell them.

He wishes so badly that he could shift so that he would have that added edge. But you only have to look at Alcide to know that he's a force to be reckoned with in human form as well, taller and wider than most, built like a brick wall. The top half of his jumpsuit is still hanging down from the waist from his workout moments ago when he barrels into the Commissary.

It's chaos. Alcide grabs the first masked person he sees and throws them against a far wall and continues on, growling out of a wolf-like instinct and doing some serious damage while he goes. As he goes, he's pulling masks off so that he can see their faces and memorize them, and then grinding words out through his teeth. "We are not your enemy. You know who the fuckin' enemy is. It's the Computer." He doesn't give a crap who hears him say it either.

At some point, he feels the slam of a steel bar at the back of his head and Alcide goes down. He's good, but he's not invincible. He'll be momentarily dazed as masked people with metal bars go at him and could probably use some help. Once he shakes it off (mostly), he's up and back in it, going after every masked person he sees to try to either talk some sense into them or disarm and incapacitate them. Truthfully, there's more of the latter than the former.

[namegenerator]

After seeing the news, Cisco's decided that maybe it's not the worst thing in the world to tote the new and not quite complete heat gun with him in addition to the standard issue laser gun that Cisco absolutely plans to tweak into something less useless and way more cool once he finishes the commissioned weapons. The Citizen Improvement activity for the night sounds like a holy crap bore, so after an early dinner, Cisco heads back to his room to take a nap. Then, he's headed back to the Commissary and to True Alpha, where he plans to stay up until curfew working out the last minute kinks on the heat gun. At the moment, he can't really control it all that well. Sometimes it shoots out like a firehose only, you know, with fire and other times, it'll fire quick little bursts of flames. Before he can call the project complete, he needs to iron that out so that those are individual settings rather than spontaneous responses to the trigger being squeezed.

Once in the Commissary, he has to weave his way through the crowds to get to True Alpha and he doesn't register right away what's going on. There's always commotion in the Commissary; that comes with the territory of being a large room wherein everyone congregates for lack of better options to pass their time. It's when he finally realizes that there's chanting — like a protest or something — and what that chanting is that it dawns on him that this is decidedly not good. Never one to jump at being the hero without backup, Cisco turns on his heel to leave again only to find the exit congested with people thinking, probably, the exact same thing.

The whoosh of air beside his head is ultimately what gets his attention, less than the words slandering the Computer off to his left. When he feels that, with a quick ducking movement, he turns to see what the source is, just in time to watch a friend of Gracie's getting whacked in the back of the head with a — seriously?! — steel pipe. "Oh, hell nah," he mutters, frowning for a moment before anger gets the best of him. "Hey!" he shouts, pulling the heat gun out of one of the deep pockets of his jumpsuit and holding it up to face the sky. "Say hello to my little friend!" he shouts in a mediocre impression of Al Pacino's Scarface. Cisco squeezes the trigger and the heat gun gurgles out a few quick puffs of fire before shooting out a long burst looking like a torch.

He lets go of the trigger only for a second before pointing it at the dude with the pipe. "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to bring a pipe to a gun fight?"

[preemptiveforgiveness]

That blip of blessed heightened senses has come and gone for Matt. He's left fighting blind (literally), but he's got no intention of sitting this one out. He's far too angry for that. He happens to be close by when Alcide is slammed in the back of the head. His hearing is still better than most people's and he'd heard him say something to one of the masked attackers about not being their enemy. That's what has him working his way toward Alcide in the first place. When he hears the pipe hit someone's head, he steps in, throwing a Jack Murdock worthy jab to hit the attacker in the cheekbone (he'd been going for the chin). In any case, it's hard enough to make the man stumble back and give Alcide (and Matt) a little space.

"Hey, you okay?" he says to Alcide, offering his hand to help him up if necessary.

Tony Stark ; Evening, Closed to Steve

[im_ironman]

Generally Tony isn't the type to go to the Commissary for dinner. Not only because the food is awful, or because he's able to just coast without eating until the next morning, but mainly it's because he keeps himself busy enough that he hardly notices he missed a meal until it's too late. Which, really, isn't that big of a deal to him. For as long as he can remember, he has always let his work consume him more to the point that he lets his body forget about the fact that it needs nourishment, and apparently being in this place hasn't changed that at all.

Except, tonight is different. After spending his whole day basically working nonstop, first in True Alpha and then in the lab in HQ, by dinner time he actually needs something considering he has hardly eaten. If he were home this wouldn't be a problem, because he would just reach into one of his desk drawers for some of the snacks that he has hidden throughout his lab, but here... Well. It's bad enough he hardly had anything to eat at breakfast, after not bothering with dinner last night. Now his PDC is telling him that it's dinner time, and holy shit, where did the day go?

The moment he steps into the Commissary, though, his thoughts derail from food pretty damn fast. There aren't a lot of people in their demonstration, but their chants are loud enough to make him pay attention. His eyes scan the room - not for an exit, but trying to see who's here. Who he needs to push out the door before things go to hell, because he's paranoid enough to believe that they would go to shit, and--

Sure enough, he's right. It happens almost too suddenly; a fight breaks out, and Tony is quick to move towards it as he tells everyone he passes by to get the hell out of there. Maybe he should be following them out of the Commissary, because he's obviously one of the people the masked group is here to rally against, but Tony doesn't care. He may not have his suit here, but when has that ever stopped him? People need to get to safety, and he'd be damned if he were to ever run and hide somewhere. He belongs here, in the thick of it. Suit or not, no matter how stupid it is.

Especially because he doesn't even have the prototype gun he has been working on. Both his prototype and the one he's building for Lydia are charging in his lab, and he knows he'll have to make due with whatever he can find. Which, right now, it's a discarded tray that he picks up as he walks.

He doesn't get a chance to break the fight, because suddenly something hits him along his back with enough force to make him feel as if the wind gets knocked out of him for a moment. He still doesn't run, though; if anything, he's quick to turn around, trying to disarm his attacker. The tray comes in handy as he uses it as a shield, and when he manages to knock the pipe out of the other man's hand, Tony swings a punch. He was never trained by SHIELD, or a soldier, but Tony has gotten into enough brawls throughout his life (along with Happy's training) to be able to know how to handle a fistfight just fine. He takes some punches right back, but that's okay. He doesn't even mind it because, if anything, getting to punch his attacker is apparently more cathartic than he could have expected. It's wrong, probably, to feel relief at the fact that he's able to punch the shit out of someone - and even getting punched right back - but it feels good to get some frustration out even if his anger is towards the Computer.

Well, and maybe some of his anger is towards these people, too. Because why the hell do they keep targeting them? They haven't done a damn thing.

Just as he thinks he has gained the upper hand, someone is suddenly behind him, pressing the pipe against his neck in an attempt to choke him. Tony tries to fight against it, tries to wiggle his way out as best as he can, but they only pull tighter still as little dots of light begin to cloud his vision.

why pull ups are important

[a_man_out_of_time]

Seeing Gracie’s broadcast is what propels Steve towards the Commissary that night. He isn’t anywhere near the Commissary, so he misses a lot — including who dealt the first blow. But given what he’d seen on video, Steve doesn’t suspect that it was a Special.

When he gets to the Wagon Wheel, the elevators are slowed to a crawl as Alpha citizens are desperately trying to leave the 15th floor. Stairs. But there’s plenty of people in the stairwells too, all filing down and Steve can barely make any headway pushing against the human tide. At one point, he gives up taking the actual stairs and launches himself into the empty space between the railings and looks up. The crowd is thinner at the top. There’s a moment where he considers the consequences of what he’s about to do, but at the same time, Steve knows that showing this kind of physical capability could be chalked up to discipline and training — and not that he has his strength back.

Alright. With one more glance upwards, Steve positions his feet in sturdy nooks before he swings his arms back for momentum and jumps up to the next floor, hands gripping the metal bars tight as he pulls himself upward. One down, fourteen more floors to go. Around when he gets to floor eight however, he doesn’t have to jump anymore. Most of the Alphas are on the lower floors and whoever is still coming down from the Commissary doesn’t block his way up the stairs.

It’s when he finally pushes open the door to Floor 15 however, that Steve really takes in the chaos that’s erupted here. There are more Specials than he’d hoped, but each one is fighting his or her own battle — and winning, more often than not, against the masked A.S.S. members with pipes in their hands. Immediately, he begins to escort what remaining civilians are still around off the floor, protecting who he can in the process.

Only half a minute goes by before he spots Tony in the distance, suit-less, looking like he just landed a punch on someone and has taken a few of his own. It’s not that Steve expects Tony to have re-built one of his suits here — he knows that’s not possible in the short term — but seeing Tony fight without one worries him in a way that Steve couldn’t have predicted. Maybe it’s because of what’s going on between them now, but his heart suddenly feels so-

He doesn’t have time to figure the rest of it out. Whoever Tony just punched has a pipe around his neck and is using it to choke him.

When Steve survey’s his surroundings, it’s done quickly and with tactical precision. He sees a glass bottle one table down from him just as he sees an incoming plastic try aimed straight for his head. So Steve ducks, jumps and tumbles, all in one continuous motion to avoid the pipe, to grab the bottle, and to roll himself back up into standing position on top of the table so he can get a clearer shot.

The force at which he throws the bottle — straight for the head of Tony’s captor — is controlled, but just barely. In the end, despite how much he wants to hurt someone for hurting Tony, Steve is still only willing to injure, not kill.

Evening, for Morgana, Katniss, or whoever wants in (maybe Jack after?)

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint's late for dinner that night because he'd spent about an hour after service firm moving his boxes of weapons parts down to the Specials Headquarters and putting some of it back together into functional death machines. He tries to do that on an irregular schedule so no one can guess what's going on; while the Computer itself is too bonkers to notice a pattern of absences from a Special, other residents of Alpha definitely could. Keeping people off guard and unsuspecting makes half the job of working under their nose possible, and he's relying on the skills he's gained over his life to implement his plans. (It also gives him a chance to ponder over some of the fuzzy memories he can't quite remember but knows they're in his brain - somewhere - without looking insane.)

While the food's better in the small kitchen on the ORANGE level, it sometimes feels too isolated, and at least half the people Clint knows are still stuck on RED level clearance. All good reasons to take just over half his meals in the commissary. He's there when the ASS members troop in and start yelling, but he only rolls his eyes and keeps eating. People yell crap all the time, after all, and if you try to stop them, you just get rebellion behind closed doors rather than in the open, which is more likely to burn out quickly. Look at the Specials themselves, after all, all the plans they have going to reclaim themselves and their lives.

But it doesn't take long for them to realize there are Specials present, and Clint's been in more than enough danger that he can feel it coming. There's a tightening in the air that turns into a shiver along his skin, a tension rising like a plucked string, vibrating more and more quickly until it snaps - the lead protester is rushing forward, bar raised to attack, his fellows quickly at his side and yelling loudly as they focus on the faces that are more familiar than many people's in Alpha thanks to various media coverage. Without hesitation Clint shoves his chair back and kicks the table he'd been eating at the charging group, sending Soylent and trays and cups flying, rolling out of his chair as it crashes to the ground and reaching for his boot. The telescoping baton he keeps there is out in a flash and he slashes it open to full length in a second, surging to his feet and into the fray with no hesitation. This is his life, this is what he's trained for, and as many of them as there are, most of them don't seem to be weapons experts. If there's going to be problems, it'll be because of numbers, and even as Clint ducks under one bar and kicks his attacker solidly in the kneecap he's scanning the commissary and noting the number of Specials around ready to defend themselves. They won't be easily taken down, and he hangs part of his attention out looking for anyone who can't fight and needs help. Those that can need to protect those that can't, after all.

Still, if only he'd had time to stretch.

[stillplaying]

She should know better. That's the first thing that crosses her mind. She should know better. It might be illegal for her to carry around that bow and quiver but it's become more of a safety blanket than anything else. It's a reminder of who she had been in Panem. Sure, that girl had been a girl she had despised but at least that girl never doubted her identity. Never had to deal with the memories and nightmares of a stranger being tossed about in her head. That bow is only ever used at the range Clint had shown her shortly after arrival and yet she carries it around most times regardless.

It shouldn't be so surprising that right now, the one time she thinks it's actually safe to leave her bow and quiver at the table with her sister, it turns out to be just the opposite. Maybe if she had her bow, she wouldn't freeze when the men come rushing in with their pipes. They scream but what they say isn't so important. It's the pipes and the violence Katniss notices more than anything else. And the fact that Prim isn't by her side. They're separated again and with the sudden chaos in the room, Katniss has no way to get to her.

That's when she sees it. She's below ground again, but now in District 13 instead of Alpha Complex. The bombs are exploding above them and it's only a matter of minutes before the blast doors are to be shut. But Prim isn't there. Katniss doesn't know where her sister is and she and Gale are racing up the stairs to find her. Then Prim's there and Katniss is yelling at her but somehow they make it all safely into the shelter.

Then she's above ground again, drowning in a different memory. Seeing Prim's shirt tail flap in the wind like the tail of a duck as she hurries over to an injured child. The silver parachutes remain littered on the ground of Snow's mansion and Katniss is still stuck in the crowd of refugees. She's trying to push through, trying to make her way to the sister and the child. Is that what she's doing right now? Because she sees Prim moving through the commissary crowd right now, heading directly towards an injured person. The jumpsuit doesn't have a tail to flap behind it and Prim doesn't carry any kind of medical kit. That doesn't matter.

Because she's certain everything's been lit on fire. That's what happened last time. Her sister went to the child and then the parachutes went off again. Katniss had been close to Prim but not close enough to save her. Or close enough to die with her. (And she should've. She so should've died with her.) She's a fire mutt and mutt's aren't good for anything but death and destruction and even then, Katniss can't move. She's trapped in the memories, drowning, and completely unaware of one of the armed men running towards her.

"Down with the Specials!" he shouts, raising his pipe to strike at her. It's the flames from the parachute explosion. Maybe this time, the universe will get things right. She should die. That might mean her sister will live.

Allison Argent

[fateless]

MORNING/AFTERNOON; OTA

The morning is like any other. She goes for a run before breakfast, and then walks to the morning briefing. Although Allison is good at keeping up a poker face as she goes over to her new job, internally she's actually very excited to be here. While she had liked her previous position, she wants to be able to do more, and she's hoping to do that here. She wants to help people - she wants to protect people - and she firmly believes that in VSF she will get the chance to do so.

That is why, when she's told she needs to work on speed and endurance drills, there's a moment where she almost points out that she could do more than just drills - especially when the news break out about the judge's death - but ultimately she just does it without question. It's technically her first day, and she knows had failed the speed test - as much as she would have loved to jump right into the deep end, it doesn't work that way. She can be logical about it, so she does as she's told as she reminds herself that this is temporary. Just training for what's coming up next.

After she goes to the Commissary to talk to Lydia, she grabs something to eat on her way back to Armed Forces, and then continues the rest of her training. By the end of her shift she can feel how sore her muscles are as she walks to the showers, but overall she doesn't mind it. This is what she wanted, after all.

EVENING; LOCKED TO MATT

Once dinner time rolls around, Allison makes her way to the Commissary as she reads all the anti-special messages that have been spray painted along the way. Her hair is up in a loose ponytail, and to anyone that doesn't know her she looks relatively relaxed after the shower she just took. Her eyes show a completely different story, though, because she's on very high alert right now. There's tension everywhere in the complex right now, and when the masked group makes their presence known, Allison isn't even surprised anymore. If anything, her eyes dart towards True Alpha and, as she sees people go in that direction, she's quick to rush in to try and stop them. Or to at least help Lydia.

A rough shove pushes her against one of the tables, though, and Allison can feel it as it jams against her, but she doesn't stay down. She turns quickly, using her pistol to fight defend herself against the pipe that the man that had shoved her was about to be used to hit her. He's fast, but she manages to stop him, even if he almost manages the knock the pistol off her hands.

She's not fast enough to avoid the way that a heavy backhand sends her to the ground, though, leaving her in a momentary haze. Another woman tries to attack her when she's down, but Allison reacts quickly enough to kick her off balance and sending the pipe rolling away from her.

"Get up, Allison," someone sneers, and Allison almost jumps out of her skin at the sound. "What are you going to do, let them win? You know what to do." She knows that voice. She knows that voice all too well, because it's Kate, loud and clear enough that she actually looks around as if to check if she's actually here, but...she isn't. There's no sign of her, just the chaos of the fights going on around her, and--

The sound of footsteps coming in her direction makes her scramble up quickly, reaching for the pipe the woman had dropped, and she uses it to block hits that come her way. She's trying hard not to hurt someone--

You know what to do

--but ultimately she's just trying to stop the fight before all this can get even more out of control.

Lunch time

[iamalostgirl]

Emma had heard about the Judge's death when she was a work. To say that it put her nerves on edge would be an understatement and putting it mildly. Emma had thought that violet level members were safe, that is at least what she was lead to believe.

The thought that they weren't, sort of frightened her, and made her reevaluate what she had learned. She grabbed her lunch tray noticing the woman in front of her.

"You don't get a break for lunch?"

[whattingawhat]

Buffy had known that Allison would be in the middle of this fray. There's no other place she could be and she hadn't been worried about finding her because she knew that Allison could take care of herself. At some point during the battle, (yes, this has turned into a battle) Buffy finds herself nearly back to back with Allison.

"Hey, Co-worker," she quips as if this is just another day at the office, pausing to dip low and kick someone's feet out from underneath them then using her baton to tap them in the temple hard enough to knock them out. "You holding up okay?"

Dick Grayson | Throughout the day | OTA

[utilitybelted]

It felt like ages since he'd spoken to any of his friends, and he was still reeling from the encounter with Barry, to have someone he'd been so close to completely forget who he was had been disconcerting. It made him wonder. Steve hadn't been by in days, maybe everybody had forgotten about him? He'd spent so long feeling sorry for himself that maybe everyone had moved on and were getting on with their lives without him.

Maybe it was time to stop feeling so sorry for himself. It was difficult to force himself to do, but he had to try. Baby steps, however, so he spent his day splitting his time between the secret HQ and the regular special HQ, hoping a friend would drop by.

[fateless]

By the time Allison makes it down to Specials HQ, it's only thirty minutes until curfew. For a moment she had contemplated going back to her room, but she is still buzzing with adrenaline from the fight in the Commissary, and she really doesn't feel like being confined to her living quarters just yet. Her patrolling has lead her here tonight, and when she walks in at first she doesn't see anyone, so she assumes that HQ is empty tonight.

Pulling at the hair tie that is holding the messy bun on her head together, she lets her hair fall with a sigh. Her face hurts - half of it, to be exact, where a bruise is already starting to grow on the side of her face where she had been backhanded during the fight, but she hardly lets herself think much about it. She's used to being sore after fights, so tonight isn't exactly new at all.

With another glance around, she moves towards the couch and more or less plops down with another sigh. One that shows that she's tired after such a long day, but...she's pretty content with it nonetheless. Her thoughts begin to drift, but the sudden sound of movement makes her sit up at once.

"...hello?"

16:30

[a_man_out_of_time]

Steve isn’t quite sure why he’s decided to come to the Avengers HQ after work today. It almost feels like he’s returning to an old routine, though he doesn’t remember having one. That bothers him, but he can’t explain why he feels this way, and as he makes his way through the winding halls, Steve decides that maybe he’s just stressed from what’s been happening lately.

But it happens again. Another weird feeling as he scans himself in the front door. It’s like he expects to be carrying something, but instead, his arms just feel … empty.

Buffy Summers | OTA

[whattingawhat]

For the most part, Buffy’s day is very normal. She’s getting used to being exhausted all the time because she’s not sleeping more than a few hours at night. She’s spending the rest of her ‘sleep’ time patrolling thanks to her gas mask. She doesn’t trust that others won’t use gas masks to avoid sleeping and commit nefarious deeds, like planting bombs or killing witnesses. She has coffee for breakfast, makes a round of the commissary then heads to the floor below and above the commissary.She repeats the whole process over and over again. Sometimes, she’ll stop to speak to someone or to inspect something on a floor, or she’ll just linger because something ‘feels janky’.

During the lunch rush, she stays in the commissary until it’s cleared out then eats her own lunch relatively quickly before starting the whole circuit again. She makes periodic paths through the True Alpha store as well. Sometime in the afternoon, she’ll take a short break for coffee. Today, it’s a lot more intense in every way once the judge’s body is discovered. It makes her more hyper aware, more nervous and more anxious. The people doing this are definitely trying to get a message across and it’s escalating.

By dinner time, Buffy is technically supposed to be off duty, but she’s still feeling far too wound up to relax. As long as she’s not relaxing, she might as well be carrying her VSF issued baton and patrolling like it’s her job. She knows she could let her partner take over, but she’s used to being in control and doing these things. That means when the crowd starts to circle, she’s actually pretty on top of things. It’s difficult to tell who the leader is, but Buffy crosses over to someone who looks like they have some authority.

“Hey, you’re gonna have to break this up. It’s looking a little violent protest in here.”

In response, the man swings an iron pipe that he definitely shouldn’t have toward Buffy’s head. She blocks it with her perfectly legal baton then slams the butt of it into the guy’s abdomen. In the meantime, hell is breaking loose.

Once the guy is down, Buffy moves into action trying to get between attacks, and stop them where she can. She’s still operating on the idea that she would rather disable than hurt. Broken arms generally disable people really well, so does clonking them on the head with her baton. She’s long learned how hard she can hit with her normal human strength and not cause serious injury so she doesn’t think much of hitting someone strategically in the temple or hard enough along the jaw to pop their head around and trigger that thing (she can never remember that thing) that is responsible for someone going night-night.

She’s definitely not making it through the fight unscathed. She gets a pipe on the shoulder so hard it takes her breath away and her arm goes numb for a minute; she also gets hit hard enough in the mouth that she tastes blood. Despite that, she’s trying to make her way toward the Specials, toward people she knows like Alcide and Lydia, Derek and Zee. She knows Allison is somewhere in this mess, but as a member of the Very Special Forces, she knows Allison can take care of herself. She relatively close to a group of Specials when she catches movement out of the corner of her eye: a man coming toward her with his pipe already in motion. She ducks the swing of that pipe and comes up with a good amount of momentum and a burst of strength that feels so powerful and so incredible and so familiar, but her familiar reaction, to pull a punch so she doesn’t kill a human, isn’t quick enough. She slams the butt of her baton into the man’s temple. Blood so bright red she wonders for a moment if someone has thrown paint arcs through the air, following the downward swing of her baton. Another familiar feeling hits her: that feeling of time going still. She watches the man collapse, blood slowly pooling on the floor. For a moment, no one touches her, no one moves then everything breaks.

There’s a part of her that would like to let the crowd mob her, a part that would like to leave this moment regardless of how she does, even if that means being knocked unconscious, but there’s a bigger part of Buffy that refuses to quit, that can’t lie down. That’s the part that gets up and fights.

nighttime;

[rouxgaroux]

Alcide has used his gas mask tonight. Not because he wants to go exploring, but because he's still too rattled and jacked up from the days events to want to sleep until he's good and ready. He almost shifted. He felt his wolf for the first time in so damn long. He'd felt complete for just a few, wonderful seconds, and then it was gone. He's been thinking about it all day, among other things, of course, but mostly that. Because it's been his soul focus almost since day one. How can he not think about it? Every time he tries to stop or simmer down, he feels that surge of adrenaline all over again.

He's been pacing his and Derek's room, restless, unable to sit still as he tries again and again to search inward for the wolf once again. Each time he's met with that same emptiness he's felt for too long now. It's so damn frustrating he can barely stand it. The only thing to do is keep doing what he and Zee are doing. They'll figure it out eventually.

He's just laid back on his bed, above the sheets, and is staring up at the ceiling when he catches movement at the door. He looks over to see Buffy and immediately sits up to the side of his bed. "Hey. You..." He almost asks if she wants Derek, who's snoozing in the bed across the way. But he figures that's a stupid question. "What's goin' on?"

Matt Murdock | OTA

[preemptiveforgiveness]

Since Matt’s legal office had been destroyed, he’s carved out a little corner of the True Alpha store to work in. He’s still doing the same job: working for the legal defense, but he’s doing it in a different place. He’s got no idea when his office will be rebuilt and he’s not terribly worried about it. He also spends a good deal of time out in the commissary when he’s dictating to his assistant so that he doesn’t disturb Lydia or anyone shopping in the True Alpha store.

When the judge’s body is found, Matt heads up to IntSec to see if he can find anything out. It has absolutely zero success, but does manage to waste the rest of the day dictating notes while up there and harassing people to tell him something. He gets a lot of ‘this isn’t any of your business yet, Mr. Murdock’ to which he responds ‘someone did this, it will be soon enough’. He’s not easily dissuaded or gotten rid of, but IntSec should have figured that out by now.

The day is practically over and it’s almost dinner time when Matt finishes. He stops by both his apartment and Lydia’s to see if she’s shut down for the day. When he doesn’t find her there, he decides to go back down to the commissary. Maybe he can catch her and they can go straight back to his place to make dinner and eat. He could use a little normalcy after this afternoon.

As usual, the complex has other ideas. Matt runs into a wall of protesters and even without sight, it’s not hard to tell that things are turning violent. Rage bubbles up inside of him; he has done nothing but try to help people since he’s been here; everyone he knows have done much the same and yet they’re still being targeted for things that they can’t control nor did they ask for. He doesn’t have weapons, but that doesn’t stop him from pushing through the crowd, fighting through the crowd to try and help people again, but right now the difference is that he doesn’t care what’s happening to the people that are attacking; he only wants to help the victims. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t have weapons.

He doesn’t have sight, but he’s spent a lifetime learning to track an object or person’s location via sound and right now, he’s not afraid to reach out and grab people. At first, he simply punches, trying to avoid getting hit, but not being able to much of the time. He knows how to take a beating and keep moving forward. He knows how to get up when he’s been knocked down and he does get knocked down, but when he gets up, he wrenches a pipe from someone’s hands.

He fares decently once he’s got the pipe (he is still going to be a bloody, pulpy mess that needs medical). By his estimation, he’s nearing the center of the room, heading toward the True Alpha store, when the entire room crashes in on him, or at least that’s how it feels. For a couple of seconds, he’s crushed by the sound of so many heartbeats he can’t separate them, by so many scents that they make his stomach roil. It actually sends him to his knees and the pain is excruciating when the attackers take advantage of his momentary incapacitation to really pound on him with those pipes. Maybe it’s a hit to the head or maybe it’s just his brain remembering that it knows how to cope with this, but everything clicks into place and he can isolate scents and sounds. He can feel the whoosh of air driven by the pipe as it swings before his head and just before it connects, he reaches up, wrenching a pipe from the attacker’s hand and grabbing her wrist to flip her onto her back. He rises up from his knees, taking advantage of whatever it is that’s given him this brief blessing of his heightened senses. He slams his elbow back into someone’s nose, smelling and hearing the gush of blood. He turns to thrust the tips of his fingers into someone else’s throat. The person staggers back, gagging and gasping. He manages to isolate Lydia’s heartbeat and is headed toward her when it all disappears. He’s left feeling like all of his senses have been swaddled in cotton again. He’s lost Lydia’s heartbeat and any advantage he had outside of his refusal to stay down.

That’s okay. It’s probably always been his biggest advantage in a fight anyway.

[satnalahcsauoyekil]

With every stupid day that passes, Zatanna is seeing more and more clearly that in the Alpha Complex, if it's not one thing, it's another. Chaos erupts in the Commissary where Zee has been sitting, having a late dinner and all that she can think is of freaking course.

It isn't until she abandons her food to move closer in her morbid curiosity that she realized what's really going on. This is bad. This is really bad. Because it's not bad enough being hated on principle, she and the other Specials have all been neutered, so some of them can't even protect themselves the way they're used to.

But Zatanna knows something they don't: their abilities aren't actually gone. She's come to the conclusion that what she needs to get her magic back is an urgent reason to use it. She might be wrong, but she doesn't think she is. So Zee doesn't think twice about springing into action. Between the fight training under Black Canary and her potentially unfounded confidence that her magic is still accessible in an emergency, Zee isn't afraid. Ironically, for the first time since her arrival, she actually feels like she's right at home now.

They might have pipes and the numbers on their side, but Zatanna has been trained by the best of the best. She still thinks she has the advantage and, for the most part, she does. Zee doesn't go without several blows and, yes, she falters. At some point, she winds up on the floor with the wind knocked out of her from being on the receiving end of a kick to the stomach, but she's ignoring the split lip and the bruises that feel like they're all over her body. She's ignoring the blood she can feel caking in her hair at the back of her head because a superhero doesn't go down swinging, they only go down when they're too dead to keep fighting.

With a grunt of effort and pain, Zatanna pushes herself to her feet and cries out in pain as the movement of a roundhouse kick to the face of an oncoming attacker tears through her muscles. He goes down, though, and the terrified looking ORANGE Alpha who had innocently and unfortunately gotten between them looks both grateful and relieved before Zatanna snaps at him to run. He does.

Hair swinging behind her in a violent whipping ponytail, Zee whirls around to prepare to take on more, but she sees a guy in sunglasses taking a good shot at a protester before suddenly looking more than a little disoriented. It takes a second for Zatanna to realize it, but he's blind, isn't he? Holy crap, she needs to get him out of here. "Hang on!" she calls out, but doubts her voice carries. There's too much noise. Zee gets about halfway before she's distracted by another woman coming at her, pipe already swinging.

"Not today, sunshine," she growls and ducks the blow by dropping to the ground in an exceptionally painful somersault that ends in a swift kick landed at the other woman's stomach, causing the assailant to stagger back. Zatanna gets to her feet quickly and staggers her step with the renewed waves of pain from injuries she's been fighting through. It's a good thing she gets up when she does; it's just in time to see the attacker who had staggered back from the blind man coming back for round two. Zee has no idea whether the blind man can hear the attacker coming when he's probably drowning in noise just like she is, so she holds her arms out in his direction and snaps out a spell she's used dozens of times to get innocent potential victims out of the line of fire. "Etativel mih!"

The blind man shoots up into the air hanging mostly flat and face down, though maybe a little more sloppily than Zatanna would've liked, but he's out of reach and that's what's important.

Jolting forward, she snatches the pipe from her downed attacker and holds it up like a baseball bat. "Come and get me. I dare you!"

Those who had been in the vicinity when she'd levitated the blind man with her spell were already dispersing before she'd said that. Some of them turn back, feeling challenged. Mistakenly believing that her magic is on her side, she barks or another spell to send all of the remaining protesters to turn themselves in. Nothing happens. ...and they've noticed. "Oh...crap!" she whimpers. "Come on… Nrut rieht sepip otni sekanselttar!"

Nothing. Certainly no pipes turning into angry rattlesnakes. She tries again.

"Etaerc a dleihs dnuora lla Slaiceps!" No shields around Specials. "Why aren't you working?!" she shrieks, but it's obviously rhetorical and Zatanna whirls, swinging her pipe and making contact with a masked man's head with a sickening crack that makes her stomach turn. There's more still coming at her and the impact of the pipe to the side of his head vibrates so painfully down into her hands that she unintentionally drops the pipe. Her eyes move to the blind man still suspended in the air — it feels like it's been an hour since she sent him up there, but in reality, it's probably only been maybe a minute at most — then down to the path between herself and him. It's littered with people both injured and not; getting up off the floor or already on their feet. It takes her maybe a second or two to mentally map her course and then she's off.

Zatanna sprints forward, grabbing her side with one hand when she feels a pull from the kick she'd sustained earlier — thank God for adrenaline rushes distracting from pain — and she runs with every ounce of energy she's got left in her. "Hey buddy, I'm coming up!" she calls to warn him, though again, she has no idea whether he can hear her. Zatanna jumps on an injured protester's back as he's trying to get to his feet and uses her forward momentum in tandem with his back as a springboard to launch herself up toward the blind man. "Alley oop!"

Her arms stretched over her head, she manages to grab him by the jumpsuit and wrap her legs around his waist to keep herself out of reach of the angry mob.

"Well...that could've been worse," she comments wryly as she looks up at him and squints against the sweat and blood dripping from his head. "Zatanna Zatara. Nice to meet you. ...so, I have good news and I have bad news," she says, letting go of him with one hand — her legs squeeze tighter around him to keep from falling — and she slips her hand into her sleeve, pressing the fabric against his bleeding head wound to put pressure on it. "Which do you want first?"

Jack Harkness | Open | All Day

[fixedpointintime]

Morning/Afternoon

Much of Jack's time preparing for his part of Teela's show is actually time spent doing recon. He recently pitched a new segment idea, spotlight on Alpha, where he does a brief one-on-one with a totally average citizen, letting them know that they are important, valued, seen. He incorporates Teela in the endeavour, having her record personalized messages and offer small gifts to the lucky citizens, giving her as much credit as he possibly can without handing it over entirely. She doesn't want to be usurped, and he has no interest in taking her job. Oh no, his aim is much higher. He can't step on necks as he climbs this ladder. He's going to need to be able to count on every rung beneath him for favours.

So he goes on the hunt for the next spotlight citizen, and in doing so, he learns the wheel, he learns the routines and the patterns and the people. He manages to get himself access to places he might not ordinarily be allowed, because what harm could an entertainer possibly do? He just wants to show everyone how hard this particular department works, how vital the work of that group of people is, how clever and funny and smart you all are.

Today is a scouting day, and the coded shorthand notes he makes fill page after page as he explores. If anyone wants to join, offer some insight, show him around, he's thrilled to accept your generous offer!

Dinner

Jack has no weapon, because Jack doesn't know that he can get one, because someone was the most unhelpful tour guide ever. Looking at you, Barry Allen. What he does have is an instinct to protect, and a certainty developed over the years that he's infuriatingly permanent. So when he sees the trouble going down (honestly, when he feels it, because there is a change in the air as it fills with malice) he's up without a second thought. This is fear and anger and pain causing people to join a herd and lash out, but they're people with pipes and murderous intent, and Jack can already see more than one person who won't be able to defend themselves against this, or get to the door in time.

He's one of the most easily recognizable faces in the place, thanks to his part on Teela's show, and he's also very close to the group out for blood. That makes him one of the first targets, which is a good thing, because he wants one of those pipes. Well, all right, he wants the fucking flamethrower that just roared to life at the far side of the room, but he'll settle for a pipe. He pastes on an expression of surprise and fear, and stares at the masked man closest to him. Like a shark to blood, the man charges, and when he's just close enough Jack flings the food from his tray into the man's face, then swings the tray through the air, angled to be aerodynamic, and slams it into the man's neck. He goes down hard, but the pipe also goes flying. Toward someone. Shit. "Heads up!" All right, tray will have to do for the moment.

Wildcard

Write a thing, get a thing. Let's do this!

[[OOC: There is also a plotting comment and a plurk if you want me to set up something else for you. Don't hesitate to ask. I want it all!]]

Dinner

[littleducktails]

Prim's grown used to her routine here in Alpha Complex; she and Katniss have their rituals...even if they're different from the way that the girls did things back at District 12, it's nice to have falling into something familiar. To have that stability again, even if it's boring and normal, is nice. It's similar, though maybe an extreme version, of what District 13 was like. People were what 13 was about...here there's a computer and technology that Prim can't remember seeing anything quite like during her time at 13. Even the medical equipment that they use is slightly different, at least within the hospital. The first aid stations are much more Prim's style, and what she's used to. She hasn't forgotten the 'old' ways that her mother taught her; the things that she watched her mother do that weren't her relying on technology and the medications that are now at Prim's disposal (sort of) at the hospital. She can't help but note the differences, and in some ways be thankful for the advancements because they help people. It's too bad that there aren't any of those advancements available at the first aid stations because Prim knows that some of the people, or rather victims, could use them.

She wasn't prepared for what happened, the people coming in with steel pipes and things that can do massive damage if they're used with enough force and applied to the right areas of the body. The small blonde looks around for her sister, knowing that she was coming right back, but she can't just leave someone in need. Especially not when she hears a blood-curdling scream to her right. It's instinct that has Prim moving, not able to take the moment to let the fear of her death come back to her. It feels similar, but....she can't do nothing.

So, she moves and heads toward the sound, spotting a bleeding woman in red, blood dripping from her head and pooling on the floor beneath her. She doesn't make it to the woman, though, skidding to a halt with a scream as a man with a steel bar plants himself in front of her, a sneer marring his face. And for a moment Prim is sure that it's going to happen again. And this time...it's not going to be a quick death like the explosion. She's not sure what to do, but she holds her hands up. "Please, you don't have to do this, I'm a healer.....I just want to help the woman bleeding over there." Prim shouts desperately, not wanting someone to die if she can potentially help them.

He doesn't respond and instead raises his weapon and screams, drowning out a shouted warning, "Down with Specials!" Prim doesn't scream until the pipe comes flying and clatters on the ground in front of her, which causes the startled scream while she backs away, her self-preservation kicking in, while the man lifting his pipe and letting out a yell to pursue.

Katniss Everdeen | ota

[stillplaying]

Evening; post attack

It's not that she had meant to freeze when the fighting broke out in the commissary. She knows better than that. She knows what freezing gets you. Injury. Death. Something far worse when you find yourself incapable of saving people you love. But she couldn't help it. Prim had been in that room. Worse, Katniss had gotten up to refill her water glass, leaving Prim alone at their table. There was familiarity in that. In danger, in separation, in being incapable of getting to her sister before something horrible happened to her.

So she had froze. And afterwards, after being moved to safety, she hated herself. Her bow and quiver had been left abandoned at the table she had earlier shared with Prim. She had needed Clint to intervene or she would be one of the wounded right now. Worse? Worse than anything else? Someone else had to save Prim. For the second time in her life, Katniss Everdeen had been incapable of saving her precious sister.

She hovers. Although the sight of the blood and wounded make her sick (no amount of time in the Hunger Games or fighting a war would ever fix that), it's where Prim wanted to be. So she anxiously sticks around the edges of the first aid station to keep an eye on her sister. Although her gaze might be fixed on her sister, her mind is everywhere else. There's a part of her still stuck in the past. Still seeing Prim light up like a human torch. She pushes up the sleeves of her jumpsuit and continues to run her hands over the skin of her forearms. There should be scars there. There aren't any scars. But she still remembers the burn of the fire like it happened yesterday.

Katniss couldn't help anyone in there. She couldn't save herself and she couldn't save her sister. Would HappiTime pills have made a difference? Actually paying attention to Dr. Aurelius or seeking out a proper counselor last night rather than just bugging the people she already knew? She can't be certain of that either. The game of what-ifs is not one that Katniss ever played. That hasn't changed now. Instead, she continues to focus on the facts. There had been people in there she liked, maybe some she even cared about. Prim had been there. And Katniss? Katniss was more useless, more in the way than she had ever remembered being in her entire life.

Most days, she still hates herself. Right now, she doubts that she's ever hated herself this much.

late night;

[duelo]

Derek's day has been too long for his taste. He's tired, he's feeling defeated, and there's a surge of extra frustration at the fact that he'd had access to his abilities exactly long enough to remember why he misses them so much and then they'd been gone. The wolf is still within him, somewhere. He could've fought more valiantly. He wouldn't have had to hide behind a scared woman who didn't have it in her to neutralize the opposition without feeling incredibly guilty. Derek used the gas mask to avoid falling asleep on The Computer's terms, but he still went to bed not terribly long after the SleepAid stopped flowing into their room. He'd been exhausted enough, but the fact of the matter is, he wants his life on his terms now more than ever. It isn't that he's not ready to pass out so much as it's his only way of giving a big Fuck You to this place, anymore. Nothing else he does even matters. He's useless.

It probably shouldn't surprise him when Katniss comes in not long after, because she always does. He hadn't been able to find her in the melee even after going back with his own weapon, but he's glad that she made it out okay. Derek would've sent her a message to ask after her if he thought she would've gotten it.

But she looks as beaten down as he feels and Derek doesn't say a word, just lifts the covers to invite her into the bed and looks back at her with a tired empathy that says he feels for her but his own exhaustion has settled so heavily into his bones that there's not a whole lot more he can make his body cooperate to do.

Oliver Queen | Open, Afternoon and Evening

[greenhood]

MORNING

In this place, Oliver had found, something that happened once was suspicious. Something that happened twice? That was conspiracy. Steve being shot at was worrisome. This? From a level that was supposed to be nigh-untouchable? That was definitely a conspiracy. He fielded more than a few calls about whether or not he was immediately going back to jail and made a few himself. If he was about to be arrested, he needed to be aware of the fact ahead of time. Because this time, he either needed a way out or else he needed a place to lay low for a while.

Most of Oliver's days were similar. He went out, watched for things that needed to be taken care of before they became problems he'd have to deal with, and then was off for the day. Today, for once, he spent his day inside the IntSec office. For one, it would probably be the last place anyone would look for him yet he could still claim to be 'on duty'. For another, it allowed him a place to coordinate everything he knew.

Finding the person who had assassinated someone as high-ranking as the judge was sure to be something no one would have a problem with him doing and he needed to know why. Had it been to send him back to jail? The woman who'd been released about the same time he had? Or was there something more sinister in mind?

EVENING

He'd still been in his office when he received a private call about people heading to the commissary in masks. He spread the news in the office and headed down to find out what was going on. It was chaos when he entered the room. Masked people everywhere and scared citizens who'd done nothing to warrant the attacks other than to exist. People didn't see that it wasn't the people who were here that caused the problems; it was the computer.

Still, there were people who needed protecting and this was what Oliver was good at. He didn't have his bow, but he did have a pair of good fists. His focus was on getting people out and taking down the ones that stood in his way. Once the innocents were out, he could focus on taking down the rest of instigators permanently.

Evening-sorry so late

[iamalostgirl]

Emma had gone through her day just like she had all of her other days. She tended to mind her own business when she could. She had learned to anticipate, but what she did not expect was masked men, attacking innocent people for no reason other than they could.

The injustice of this cried out to every Savior bone in her body, and she fought back, protecting those she could without hesitation. Emma, was a smart woman who often found herself in some pretty tight spots and this time was no exception. She kicked the legs out from the one in front of her, not noticing the two behind her.

Izzy Lightwood | Open (more than one welcome)

[withstyle]

EVENING: DINNER

"I think that's mine." Izzy's voice is smooth as she stands a few feet away from a particularly angry woman wielding a metal pipe who almost brained somebody; luckily, the young red level escaped before he got any brain damage. There's not an ounce of fear on the shadowhunter's face, though, despite what she saw. She may not have her trademark whip in this place, but that doesn't make her incapable by any means. Armed with a pipe of her on, the petite woman is confident that not only can she handle her oncoming attacker, but that she can take the other woman's pipe no problem. The look of rage that pulls at her opponent's features only make the corners of Izzy's mouth tug further upward. "And I'll be taking it now...before you hurt somebody else, or maybe yourself!"

The scream that erupts from the ASS member, below the mask, doesn't scary Izzy. In fact, it just tells her that the other woman is about to attack. In a move that she's done a million times, probably, Izzy waits and once she's close enough and she snaps the pipe in her right hand against the arm wielding the weapon that Iz has claimed as her own. It clatters to the ground and the sound is lost in the chaos and the follow up blow is delivered strategically, causing the woman to crumple to the ground--after all, Izzy doesn't want to kill the woman, just incapacitate her...she might not feel great later, but she should live. Obviously not all of the attackers are particularly skilled...just angry. And maybe a few of them are, the others...probably just lucky and opportunistic.

Bending down to pick up the other pipe, Izzy feels much better armed than she did before. This isn't going to help with figuring out the influx of murders, that's for sure, and Izzy's been on that to the best of her ability. However, she's a shadowhunter...and she can't just let this happen. She can't watch as people who don't deserve it are getting hurt. The pipes are heavier than what she's used to training with it, but Izzy moves anyway. She came in late, to begin with, because she's been preoccupied, but the ORANGE made it, anyway....and in the midst of all of this.

Working her way through the crowd, guiding people who are afraid, hurt, or not capable of fighting out of the way of harm Izzy moves gracefully, using both of the pipes to intervene when necessary...and striking when she has to without hesitation, the metallic clangs lost among the chaos in the commissary. She moves just as fluidly as when she danced for the Charity Ball, perhaps even a little more so, considering all of the obstacles in her way (and okay she may have kicked a few chairs, but only when necessary, after all, with the crowd someone could get hurt). Sure, she doesn't avoid every blow and takes a few, but it's worth it in this case: to protect people. She doesn't shy away from any fight, even after the licks she takes, turning her body to divert blows, so that they aren't going to be as bad, and her hair coming undone from it's braid a little more with each fight until it's completely undone. Terrible as this all is, it's the most workout she's gotten since arriving here.

She can't just let innocent people be attacked because things aren't perfect here. Izzy's doing her part. Like she always does.

Once the melee, attack, whatever...is over with Izzy gives up the pipes and does what she can to help with the wounded, not bothering with her own bruises, busted lip, bruising and cut just above and coming down to meet her left eyebrow--all of which are minor in comparison to some of what she saw happen to people this evening. There's dried blood on both her orange jumpsuit and splattered near the rune on her neck, most of it not even her own. Hard not to get that way considering the people who were hurt, and the fact that she fought back. She's in one piece, though, and only a little worse for the wear. All in all, the petite shadowhunter faired about as well as she expected to: she got through safe and protected as many as she could. She can't help but linger, though, looking for familiar faces to check on and to help wherever she can when she can.

This is going to be a long night with everything that's already happened.

[fixedpointintime]

Early on, Jack made a run for Izzy when he saw the first man bearing down on her. Until she dispatched him in about six seconds, took his pipe, and knocked him soundly unconscious. It was very efficient. It was ruthless. It was one of the hottest things he's ever seen her do. His momentary surprise lets someone get a good shot in on his knee, and that's not ideal. While he deals with it, she moves on, but he's no longer worried about her.

They cross paths properly a little while later. Izzy stops someone from attacking Jack from behind, and when he turns to thank her, he throws the pipe in his band back over her shoulder, hitting a man square in the forehead and lunging for it when it arcs back through the air. "You look good out there." Yes, he's flirting a little. He's also being vigilant and scoping out his next move. He can do both.