Catalysts: IC (Oh the thread is slowly dying...)

Nox sat down in the dim of the house. At least now he was with people. He could trust people. Ragnarok had his guns. That may be a good idea. He crawled over to a far corner and sat there rocking back and forth, holdin onto both of his arms with his arms crossed.

"Hide in the fucking house, make your breath disappear; if they attack, fight with all you've got Nox. Let the women escape, you got me? I'll die defending you kiddos, I'm not happy with my god damn path in life anymore.. I need to do some good for a change."

He smiled at the Medusa girl and hid into the hovel with most of them, preparing himself for the battle that was undoubtedly ahead.

Steph followed them blindly. Her confusion was quickly returning. Huddling in a corner, she tried to hide her face from the others. "What are we gonna do?" She knew quite well it was a pointless question. But there wasn't much else she could say.

"Well I didn't ask to be here either. Out of stupidity or divine idiocy I came here and look, what's happened because of it." In frustrated Aeron expelled several bones into the floor. The bones shattered off to form sharp weapons. "Alright, fuck this shit." Aeron's bones extruded outward from his body less like spikes and more like plated armor. I can draw their fire. I should be more or less okay, no guarantees.

Nox had a crazy idea, going against all senses of sel preservation: he walked out. He ran out of the alleyway and into the ruins. The ruins with eyes. Never mind that. He stood in front of an entrance. He stuck his arms to the side, beckoning all who dared to fight him.

Scrounging through the houses of the abandoned city, Ray was just grabbing everything he could get his hands on really, then tossing it over his shoulder to be swallowed by the strange blur of heat that floated above the floor about ten inches off the ground. It was one of his amazing portals! A hole into somewhere. He could reach in and just pluck what he wanted out. It never even aged most of the time. He soon got most everything of any value out of the house except for the TV, computer, or electronics. But he took all of the power strips and remote controls just to be a douche. I mean it's not like the hole would ever fill up, it was INFINITE, or nearly so, as whenever it had tons of stuff in it, it just falls out half the time.

Well anyways, he headed out of the building and into the street, just wandering around like some bad ass not afraid of the super powered guys also running around somewhere. "Man this was the best score ever, I haven't even seen any body else this entire time. They must all be invisible or something, but damn they make a lot of noise blowing up random buildings and shit." Why don't they just nuke the place? He thought, knowing that if he didn't want to get involved in whatever they were doing he should really stop talking. His leather jacket really helped him with the Persona, he had the whole walk going, his hand above his left shoulder hovering over the katana handle for his umbrella. He didn't need weapons, at least, not visible ones. If someone pulled a gun on him, he could just open a portal in front of him and watch the bullets disappear into nowhere but somewhere.

He was wandering around, trying to find a place to keep warm for the night. Portals into another dimension did nothing for coldness after all. With all those firebombings you'd think it be easy to find warmth, but structurally sound buildings did not seems to be an after effect of a firebomb. Fires, fires everywhere. He didn't really like that, fire. He didn't know why, maybe it was just a fear imbedded in him to foreshadow his future. He shrugged and reached his hand through a wormhole to pick up a twenty that had fallen into the storm drain. "Heh, Random money is random I suppose." He continued walking not paying attention to where he was going, he just kinda blanked out for a space...

"This WOMAN can take care of herself, thank you very much."

Winter sighed. "Look, I think I'm the only one they're really after here. We can assume that they've tracked me from the plaza, and that they don't know about any of you. I can lead them on a chase, divert them from here while you all esc- OH GOD DAMMIT NOX."

Without another word, Winter ran after him.

Ragnarok took a meditative stance preparing to overcharge Aeron and Nox, possibly even Winter to have her bring something to life to fight for them like an automoton. He closed his eyes and thought, emptying his mind of all thoughts aside from the flow of energy about him. He took energy from the plants nearby, breathing out slowly.

"We're all screwed if you guys can't shut up the fuck and listen."*I* Can take a hit. You guys are all flesh, I'm the bone here. I can draw their fire. You guys can do the fighting. Truthfully, I'm the one they'd be more worried about, even if I wasn't actually doing any fighting." Aeron was almost enraged at this point at everyones blind stupidity. He was about ready to just handle this himself.

Winter pulled Nox down behind a dumpster as a burst of gunfire, originating from behind the hoods of three police cars parked in lazy rows, ripped through the air.

"Fucking. Hell. Are you DOING. We're going to die if we can't all regroup..."

A helicopter flew overhead, blasting demands of surrender.

He thought in his mind "release" and began flowing the energy into Aeron, and into Nox so his dillusions stopped. He let Aeron's bones become stronger, the cartilage developing a thicker feel. Nox's mode of rage that accomodated the darkness filled into him, and he even slightly boosted the others. Breathing out he shouting out an order.

"YOU ALL BROUGHT THEIR ATTENTION; GET THE HELICOPTERS FIRST, I'LL GET THE LAND TROOPS. NOX, USE THE NEWCOMER AS A SHIELD, WINTER GET IN HERE AND PROTECT OUR NEW FRIEND, GO GO GO MAGGOTS!"

He hated this act, it made him sound like the idiotic military but damn if it wasn't effective.

Aeron slammed his fists into the ground, bones extruding from almost every pore of his body. he looks like a horrendous mess of boney armor and spikes. THe bones mostly built up towards his upper body, the spikes that is, the bit that was more like armor built up towards the bottom. Throughout this entire transformation there were guttural screams coming from Aeron. This was a lot of bones to be coming from his body at once, the pain was almost overwhelming.

He stood up again a little dizzy and aching all over and ran for the door.
"You coming or not? I'm not tanking if no one is attacking!"

Winter, obliging the order, gave Nox a hearty clap on the back. "Good luck."

She closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate before springing from the cover, across the no-man's land, and back into the alleyway.

Making sure to edge around the massive Aeron, Winter dashed into the hovel. "Steph! You're with me, I'm gonna get you out of here."

Steph sat there, watching the scene unfold. "But..." She reluctantly got to her feet, glancing at Bloom for a moment. "I don't get it, I thought we were going to be safe before they caught up..." Her face was filled with a different kind of confusion, one that came when all else failed...

Nox retreated deeper into the ruined building. Now he could fight at full power. It was dark. No eyes, however. Suddenly, someone fell from a hole in the ceiling. A soldier. Nox grabbed to kunai an. Began slashing and stabbing. The damned idiot would be a Swiss-cheese corpse before Nox was done.

Bloom put a hand on each of Steph's shoulders. "Steph, listen to me. Whatever happens, whatever should have happened, we have GOT to go now. I promise everything will be okay, but we need to get you out of here. Alright?"

"AEEEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOOOON MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHR!" Aeron screamed. He wasn't really sure why. It just felt like the right thing to do right now. Upon stepping outside he was suddenly hit with a wave of bullets. It actually hurt a lot more than he would have thought, but a lot less than you would have expected. It was like having lots and lots of rocks thrown at him. He was being stoned with bullets.

Steph looked down, slipping her feet into her shoes. "What about Ragnarok? He..." She felt her lips begin to tremble. Finally she couldn't take it any longer, hiding her face in Bloom's shoulder.

Ragnarok jumped from the cover and crossed his arms, shooting for the gas tanks of the police cars. He got a lucky shot in, causing it to eventually explode, taking out a bit of their land forces. The helicopters were all pointed on Aeron now; he nodded at Steph and smiled, before shooting up at the helicopters.

"If you can, shoot some bones at the fucking copters to get them to crash! C'mon now, don't have all day before MORE reinforcements come.."

Gunshots, Helicopters, Police Blow horns. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell just happened. His first instinct was to run away, but then... a thought crept into his head. Go. What? WHY THE HELL WOULD HE DO THAT. He did it anyway that idiot. He just did it. Luckily he was behind the police lines. So climbed some debris and stood all bad ass like over the police officers watching the people run around trying to shoot the other guys. "Hunh, this is kinda funny... If only I had some popcorn... Oh wait." He opened a portal and reached his hand in pulling out a handful of popcorn. He stood there munching on popcorn while his overcoat swirled in the breeze of the overhead choppers that had so far failed to see him.

"Sssssh. Ragnarok will be fine. I promise." Winter comforted Steph for a moment longer, glancing over her shoulder. The sounds of gunfire were only increasing in frequency.

"But we have got to move. Okay?"

Steph raised her head back, nodding. "Alright. Just show the way I guess." She peered outside again, horrified at how violent things were becoming. Managing to pull herself away, she returned to following Bloom once more.

"OH! I'm sorry! I'm totally not being SHOT AT RIGHT NOW!" Aeron screamed. "Don't worry though! I'll get around to it eventually!" Aeron's feet crushed the concrete under his excess weight. He ejected a bone out of his right arm and into the ground. He picked it up and threw it like a javelin at the helicopter. It made contact with one of the props but not before Aeron was knocked backwards in a barrage of bullets. He'd failed to keep his center of gravity down.

Winter took Steph's hand and guided her to the end of the alley. "See that building on the other side of the street? On the count of three, I need you to run there. Don't worry, I'll be right in front of you. Do you think you can do that, Steph?"

"OH WELL GEE TOUGHEN UP PUSSY!"

He got up and jumped onto a copcar's hood, shooting at the stupid police within. He emptied his clip on the other police, eventually looking at the cars as he finished the land troops with his kusorigama. He shouted out to aeron as loud as he could.

"EVER TOSS A CAR? NOW MIGHT BE A GOOD TIME TRYING IT ON THOSE HELICOPTERS!"