Oh No, Oslo! [Open]

[Ray Terrill]

Coming in hot. Ray always worried about the landing. Though month of practice had made him an ace when it came to pick-ups, it was the drops off that were tricky. He always seem to overshoot it and his neck usually paid for it in the morning. There were probably a pack of ice back home with his name on it. He shifted out of the spectrum and into the world of flesh and bone. The speed he picked up as light was theoretically infinite, though he always seemed to slow down just a bit when transforming from energy to matter. Ray didn't try to explain it. He always believed that thinking about it would simply make it harder to not die. And Ray didn't want to die. He enjoy the prospect of not dying a lot. It was something he hoped to make a life out of (Not dying that is). He stumbled when he hit the black top, catching himself a few feet from the cusp. He dusted himself and shrugged his bag into place at this hip. He looked around, checked the soles of his boots to make sure they hadn't melted off and went to the door.

It was the buzz of the alarm that made pull his hand away. The rooftop came alive with lights and machines. Mechanical arms spread up and out like spider's leg. One pointed the barrel of a long tube directly at him and a voice that seemed to come from everywhere piqued. " Identify yourself " it said, sounding like metal wasps.

" Er..."

"Incorrect. Prepare to be apprehended. "

The barrel made a whining noise and grew hot. Ray knew the sound of annihilation from anywhere.

" Crap. " He said as the cannon fired.

[Violet Schultz]

"Automated defenses, stand down," came a feminine voice.

"Voice identification accepted," the machine intoned. With a whirring buzz, the order was executed and the weapons disappeared into the roof again.

"If you're trying to infiltrate, I think the door is a bit of an obvious breach point, don't you?" Violet asked. "If you're not, would you care to tell me what you are doing here?"

She stepped out of the shadows beside the door, her head tilted just slightly to the right. There was nothing threatening about her stance, which seemed somewhat odd, considering that there was an intruder on the roof of her home. In reality, her lack of concern for her safety stemmed from the confidence that she could deal with any threat that she encountered. Battle didn't worry her. It was the mess in between them that made her nervous. She looked the man up and down, appraising him with a single sweeping glance.

He was dressed like a costumed hero, or villain perhaps, and he was about her height. Her sixth sense was baffled by him. He seemed to have a great amount of energy within him, though she couldn't really tell what exactly it was. She could only sense light, heat, and electrical energy, but this felt like none of those in particular.

[Ray Terrill]

The cannons made a mechanical hiss as they disengaged. Ray kept his hands up, not allowing himself to grow comfortable. He realized what kind of job this would be as he looked into the iron maul of the tower's defense system. He decided to remain cautious from now on. The young woman's voice was pleasent but stern. She was ghostly pale, her skin chalky like a actress in a silent movie. Her eyes were opalescent and strange.

" Er...'kay. " He said. His hands fell limply to his size and he smiled weakly. " Look, I'm just making my rounds. Sorry if I...tripped something. I couldn't find the front door so I thought I'd try the roof. " He waved his hands. " Big mistake. Anyway, my name is Ray and I have a delivery for one..."

He paused and he bit his lip. He reached into his bag and pulled out a electronic reader and began to thumb it. He scrolled down, found the name and with a black e-pen he marked it. "...Beast Boy? "

[Violet Schultz]

"Beast Boy is indisposed at the moment," she said. "However, I am curious why a courier was used rather than the normal postal service."

Though she spoke with the fluidity of any native European, and therefore with the slightly accelerated speed of words, she chose what she said very carefully. She wouldn't tell a complete stranger that Beast Boy wasn't at the Tower. If they meant him ill, revealing anything regarding his location would be a very bad idea. However, she still managed to communicate that he would be unable to accept the package on his own, thus the yellow courier-man would know his situation.

Nothing about this guy seemed threatening, and in fact he seemed pleasant enough, but she didn't know enough about the guy to make that sort of assumption. For all she knew, he could be here to infiltrate the Tower's defenses. Fortunately, Robin had programmed the Tower with a panic word, which all of the Titans knew. The defenses could be called back at any second if she judged that he was a threat.

[Ray Terrill]

He raised a brow, rubbing the back of his hand with his head. " Uh, yeah. I don't ask. I just deliver the packages. " He shrugged. " Anyway, I can't leave until I get him this so...any idea when he'd be back?" Ray said. He felt uncomfortable around her. Her piercing glare and her accented voice made him feel as if he was in the receiving end of lecture. He flashed back to his salad days, schooled under the watchful guys of Sister Mary and Sister Agatha of Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering. He remembered the flash of rulers in the slits of allowed artificial light. He remembered the stink on his knuckles from where the rulers bit. He felt the shame even now and his lips twisted in a humorless smirk. This day couldn't end fast enough.

[Violet Schultz]

"I have no idea," Violet replied. "Does it have to go to him directly, or can someone else who lives at his place of residence sign for it?"

He seemed uncomfortable, which was reasonable because of the reception he'd gotten when trying to do nothing more than make a delivery, apparently. She didn't quite trust him, but she couldn't find anything out of place about his tone or his body languge. There was just the fact that he had mysterious powers and that he was trying to make a delivery through the roof entrance rather than the front door. Odd, sure, but not threatening. Aside from the situation, he seemed like any other perplexed messenger.

She couldn't really do a lot to make him less nervous. She was aware that her manner could seem strange, and faintly intimidating, but a lot of that was due to unconcious factors, like the way she spoke and the way she held herself. She wasn't trying to make anyone upset.

[Ray Terrill]

He shook his head. " No can do. It's against company regs and if anything happens to the package, I'm libel. " He slipped his hands into his pocket, cradling the packages under his arm. The waves lapped at the rocks stories below. He heard the sea spray splash from this height. The sun had turned the sky into a black canvas with a splash of orange-reds and violets. The air grew colder with the coming of night. Ray didn't want to be here when the sun went down. " Look, do you have any idea when he might be back?"

[Violet Schultz]

"I guess you'll have to come back some other time, unfortunately," she replied. "As I've said, I have no idea when he'll be available."

She kept her unwavering eyes on his face, but she observed him with her peripheral vision as well, noticing as much as she could about this guy, merely out of habit and caution. Knowledge was something that could save lives, her own in particular. If things unexpectedly went south, whatever she observed could give her an edge. For example, the fact that he was eying the sky as if he didn't like the fading light might come in handy, especially when his powers were still indeterminate. Unlike many pyrokinetics, her powers were boosted by the moon. She was more powerful at night, if only fractionally during nights like this, when the moon was on the wane.

"I'm sorry that you have wasted your time," she said, her tone even.

It was really impossible to tell whether or not she meant that, or if she was simply trying to get this stranger off of the Titan rooftop. It was really a combination of both, but her face was incredibly difficult to read, especially when the sky was darkening.

[Ray Terrill]

He sighed. Being paid by quota wasn't easy. He'd still get the standard rate of pay, but with the bonus he'd get by fullfilling all his daily deliveries, he could use it to buy some cool stuff. There was a new processor he wanted to get his hands on for a while now. Just under six hundred dollars and reportedly capable of boosting proformance by twenty-five percenty. He had an old motherboard from a 2000 that would work perfectly with it.

Ray chewed his lips pensively before shrugging his shoulders. " I'll guess I could come bac--" The sun went down like a fading mirage. The ghost of light dissipaited and the stars began to twinkle like opening eyes. The wind blew cold along the sea. " Did you hear that? Sounded like..." He looked out into the city in time to sea it. A mass of shape funneled up and out from the heart of the buildings and took to the air. They swirled up in a whirl of leather. He could hear it over the splash of the wave.

The alarm exploded into life. A muffled choir of buzzing insects inside the sound system, alerting the tower to danger.

[Violet Schultz]

Violet turned her head as she heard the strange sound, almost like the whooshing of air that she heard during those rare occasions that she flew. Her sharp eyes watched the obscure shape moving through and above the buildings, trying to understand. The sudden blare of the alarm wasn't surprising, but she didn't really know what was going on over there. All she knew was that the Titans needed to get over there, and she couldn't leave the Tower alone when there was a mysterious delivery man on the roof.

"I have to go," Violet said quickly, her accent more pronounced in her haste. "I trust you can find your way off the roof without me. A word of warning, I'm reactivating the defenses now, so you may want to hurry."

Without another word, she rushed to the stairs that led down to the interior of the Tower, closing and locking the door behind her. With a few keystrokes on the pad on the wall, she kept her promise and reactivated the Tower defenses. It might've been rude, but it was necessary and there was no time to be lost. She hurried down the stairs the quickest means possible, meaning that she slipped down through the small gap in between flights of stairs rather than climbing down. Coming to the floor with her room, she changed into her uniform within half of a minute before rejoining the rest of the Titans in the garage level.

She slipped onto her sleek and sporty black motorcycle, its lavender accents and simplicity making it seem perfect for her tastes. Considering that she had worked on the design with Robin, it was fitting. It growled to life as her slim hands gripped it. She'd never gotten a driver's license, nor tried to learn to drive a car, but motorcycles were slightly more common where she came from because of how easy they were to steal. Cars were large and conspicuous, but motorcycles were very easy to hide, once the security devices were deactivated. Thus, she was far more proficient with them than she was with other vehicles.

[Ray Terrill]

They were weighty and heavy. Black-brown like burnt clay. Their wings were like webs of skin stretched taunt across skinny bones. They look like kites with heads. They attacked and attacked and attacked. They saw nothing but conquest. They saw no one but victims. Slaves to be snatched away. People ran in all directions. Those that didn't sink under the earth when the earth under Main Street collapse soon found themselves being plucked from the streets, up, up, up only to be released into the mouth of the pit. Their screams echoed after them.

As she spoke, Ray already felt himself slipping into the waves. His back to her, she couldn't see the light emitted from behind his eyes and his face fill with the colors of dawn. With the Tower armed, he departed, bouncing from the reflective surface of the sea and up into heart of the City. He moved amongst the buildings as a human light beam, a spotlight bouncing and refracting over, under, thorough, between whole buildings and peoples into the center heart of the city. He came in hot, exploding out from the rooftops and skittering to the breach. Still above, the winged beast circled. He turned his eyes towards them, marveling at their presence.

" What the hell...?"

His open mouth gawking seemed to stir them. One, perched atop the roof of a hatchback, turned it's head and bared it's fangs. It let out a low screech, alerting others. All at once they rose into the air, a phalanx of black stretched across the night sky, and descended.

" Crap. "

[Violet Schultz]

Violet was distressed and mildly irritated to find out that she was the only one available to answer the alert, as apparently Robin was away for the day doing some investigative work and she was only vaguely aware of where Will was because of the link and because she could feel his location with her sixth sense. If she needed back-up, she would call him. As it was, she sped down the collapsible bridge, her black hair streaming behind her. Her bike's sensors were telling her the source of the breach, and she wove through the hoardes of screaming civilians to reach it, only to find that the courier man was already down there, about to be divebombed by the hundreds of bat-like creatures swarming over his head.

"Duck!" she called out as she raised the visor of her helmet, her hand raising to send a stream of lavender flames above his head, lighting up several of the creatures before the rest swerved to avoid the rising stream of fire. The flaming creatures shrieked a horrible high-pitched squeal before they retreated out of sight. Violet could feel their flight path, as her flames were still wreathing their bodies, but unfortunately, they didn't head home as would've been convenient, albeit unlikely.

Her motorcycle came to a stop and she got off before touching a single button, which locked it down entirely, requiring a Titan ID to unlock. It would be annoying if their vehicles got stolen every time they had to leave them somewhere for the sake of a battle. Sure, all of them had unremovable tracking devices implanted into their cores, but hunting them down would be a waste of time that no one wanted to bother with. Besides, it would've been mildly embarrassing. She removed the helmet, placing it inside the special compartment. These bikes were all designed specially by Robin, who had good deal of expertise that had been picked up from Cyborg over the years. Robin knew what was needed of these bikes, and he had worked it out well.

"Do you know anything about this?" she asked Ray, coming up to stand beside him. She shot down any of the bat creatures that came too close, though she knew that a more permanent solution would be needed soon. There was no way that she could take all of these things down by herself. There were just too many of them.

[Ray Terrill]

The word " duck " was the on-switched. He went down with his full weight on his right side. His hand up to keep his face from meeting asphalt. He raised his head up for a moment enough feel the heat cross his face. He turned his face away from the velvet flames as it exploded in the air above him. The sound of the creature's painful screeching reverberated on the glass exterior of the building behind him. The smell of it's wings aflame was like burning leather. The putridity remained long after it had fled.

He had not pushed himself off the ground when she came. His eyes narrowed at the implication of the question. His reply was edged in return. " Yeah, totally. I just unleashed my giant bat army on the surface and I'm having trouble reigning them in, could you help?". The words seem to leap out of his mouth before he could get control of them. He felt bad for a instant and then pulled himself up to his feet. " Sorry. Nearly getting toasted like a hot pocket makes me edgy. " He looked at her for a moment. She seemed so normal. " Alright, they seem to be amazing near the sinkhole. I got a good view of it up top. We should probably head over there, try to figure out what's what. "

He crossed the street, skirting around rubble and overturned cars. He paused and turned, looking at her. " You coming? "

[Violet Schultz]

"There's no need to get testy," she said calmly, her eyes going to the sinkhole. "It's standard procedure to ask."

She couldn't be upset that he was annoyed, since she knew that getting nearly burned was a little unsettling. Or so she heard, anyway. She wasn't able to get burned, so she only knew in theory. She looked back up to the swarm, debating whether to stay and wait for back-up or go to cut off the source of the growing numbers of bats. She would have to trust that the others would take care of the ones on the surface for now. She nodded to him and took off toward the pit at a run, her flames playing interference whenever she saw a bat going for one of the fleeing civilians. The disgusting burnt smell filled the air as dozens of the creatures smoked from encounters.

They reached the edge of the pit quickly, and she looked down to see if anything was visible. Unfortunately, it was awfully dark in the pit. She wreathed the periphery with lavender flames, illuminating the darkness with their gentle glow. There were people in the bottom, many injured from the fall, others looking up as they finally could see a little. They seemed to be in some sort of cave, and trails of fire investigated to find that there were tunnels down there, leading away from the surface. What on earth...?

Will, I really need your help here, she said through the link. There seems to be some sort of giant bat invasion going on here, and their kidnapping civilians. I need you on the surface to protect them while I go down below.

[/i]

She didn't have time to argue the point, so she lit a fire near the edge of the pit and flickered down, holding a lavender tongue of flame in her hand as a makeshift torch. The glow of her eyes further lit the pitch-black room, and she turned to the civilians.

"Try not to panic," she said, her words echoing from the interesting acoustics of the cave. "We'll get you out of here as soon as we can. For now, this might be the safest place for you."[/blockquote]

[Ray Terrill]

Scene of anarchy were not unfamiliar. He's seen the rubble and desolation of war zones before. Where he'd travel, the places he'd been to, both real and surreal, always seemed to have the monopoly of carnage. Still, the value of chaos is in it's experience, the turning of the mundane into the amazing and the up-turning of the status quo and for Ray, the status quo was three thirty this afternoon, walking thorough this very plaza looking for bargain shoes. The contrast between what was not a few hours ago and what he stared made his stomach turn. He saw a cracked yellow beetle overturned, thrown thorough the front window of a department store, the twisted limbs of mannequins a grim tableau of the madness he was now witness. He tabled the insanity in his mind and soldiered on.

The hole was not far away, wide but not deep. The bodies that fell in on first push still laid among the rubble, some buried pretty beneath huge segments of concrete but otherwise all seemed alright. His companion issued a calm and collected response, cautioning the people while asserting their desire to aid. It would take work, but he imagined them rescuing these people before tackling the threat to this city. He paused, realizing that he had not heard the sound of beating wings for some time now. That they had been allowed to wander the rubble unharmed while others were being plucked from the ground and dropped into this gaping maw against their will. Here, he realized.

" Oh crap. "

They were waiting, gathering in great numbers, biding their time for a chance to strike. A great swarming cloud of blood red kites surging toward them. They came on like a river busting forth from a breached dam, an unstoppable flow of teeth and claws and fur and wing. They came on and Ray was lost in a world of black. He felt something claw at his hand. Something else took his shoulder and dragged him forward, he managed to pull away. He set himself to fly but was disoriented, he reel back, hearing the shrilled scream from all around blend with his own melodiously. He was knocked back by a hard blow to the sternum and when he fell he met now ground. He saw the world from his back as he went down into the sink hole, saw the black wings punctuate the sky like brushstrokes on a canvas.