2012-09-20 A Savage Game-Pt. 1

The monitor station beeped and Stonewall looked up from his game of Borderlands 2 to eye the screen, the message is simple, there is a serial killer trapped in a building and given the suspected supernatural power of the killer, the authorities on site would like some help handling him. The killer in question is wanted in the cases of over sixty brutal killings from around the globe, all centered in high population and crime areas. Sao Paulo, Rio, Hong Kong, Gotham, Detroit, L.A., Prague, Moscow, the list goes on. Oddly enough, he's been trapped in an old abandoned church?

Stonewall calls Illyana, the only Titan he knows well. "Ummm?" he says eloquently and points to the screen when she arrives in the room. It's his first monitor duty shift... he really wasn't expecting anything big to happen. He reaches out and snatches up his gloves, starting to pull them on, "How do we get to freakin' Detroit?"

Magik walks into the room, as she was elsewhere on the floor and looks at the screen as Stonewall points it out. She steps over to pull up some information about the area and video footage to see where the best place to set down would be. She also keys an alert to all free Titans to come to the monitor room ASAP. The blonde grimaces. "A church. Why does it have to be a church?" She grumbles. Stonewall's question has Magik looking over at him with a smirk. "Well, we could take the jump jets... if we wanted to take forever. But you're obviously forgetting something." She turns towards him and snaps her fingers, a disk of light about 8 feet in diameter opens on the far side of the room on-edge like some kind of Stargate without the ring. "I'm a teleporter."

Mend, in her room, studying. Studying, fortunately, in her costume. All she has to do is pull on her mask and then run down to the monitor womb. Magik didn't specify what the alert *is*, but she's ready for whatever it might be. No matter what dark thoughts she's had lately...and the fact that she wants to corner Nightwing for advice on what to do about a certain vigilante...nothing is interfering with her readiness for duty.

When the alert sounds on his comm, Miguel hurriedly pulls on his costume and drags his mask on over his head as he double times to the monitor room. The mask goes on crooked and he slams into the doorframe as he tries to straighten it. "What? What is it?" he asks, finally getting everything where it should be so he can look over the report. "A church?" he asks, sounding offended. "Why does it have to be a church?"

Stonewall blinks and eyes her with a blank stare for a minute... "No one tells me anything." he grumps as he finishes pulling his gloves all the way up his arms and tosses the wife-beater he was wearing over the monitor chair. No use ruining a perfectly good shirt now is there? Also he makes a mental note to pester Mend about those strechy pants sooner rather then later. The ones they gave him work, but he's uncertain as to how well.

"Authorities in Detroit have a serial killer cornered and they're calling us in." Magik sums up as Bunker and Mend join them, though Bunker gets a sort of dubious look as he manages to run into the doorframe. A slight shake of her head and a muttered 'right' and she gestures for all of them to follow her. "If you haven't flown Magik Express before, remember to keep your hands and feet in the car at all times. Which means follow me and don't wander off." Then she's stepping through the circle of light and into Limbo. It's only a half-dozen steps to the next disk, and so the glimpse of the dimension is short. Blasted landscape, twisted creatures and plants, a sky without sun or stars or moon, just a deep blood-red and the chill touch of Evil that whispers against the skin and down the spine. Magik never blinks, just steps through the second and out near where the police are set up. She looks around to see who might be in charge.

Stonewall follows Illyana through the gate, ducking his head just to make sure he fits... sue him, and keeps on going, looking around to tourist peer, but not stopping his march. Yeah, he'll have some questions about that later. Stepping out the second portal he can feel the brisk wind on his skin, the balmy coolness in the air. It's still warm in Michigan in the days, but as Autumn approaches the evenings are getting chilly. He doesn't notice the temperature however.

If Gotham is a city with a rotting heart sitting in its center, slowly poisoning itself and leaving bits of its populace to fall away forgotten and neglected, Detroit is a picture of what comes next. Once a giant manufacturing base, a bastion of the middle class and hardworking blue collar success in America, now the city, nearly the entire city, is a ghost town. Where millions thrived, now thousands scrape by in desperation.

Entire city blocks lay abandoned, empty, the dark gaping empty holes where once there were windows and life, stare like the empty eye sockets of a skull out at the world. Skeletal remains of buildings, once alive with the hustle and bustle of families and people, now lay open like the clichéd images of a post-apocalyptic town in the midst of a zombie film. Except it's not a town or a building. It's a city block. It's two. It's ten. As far as the eye can see there is no life, warehouses, apartment complexes, churches, all lay forgotten and abandoned. Children's toys and bikes lay rusting and rotting in yards, strewn there as if the occupants did not have the time or wherewithal to snatch them up as they fled their homes in abject terror from some great cataclysm that no one's yet identified.

The church, like many older churches, feels old, looks old, but remains stubbornly solid. Made in the stone and mortar fashion of even older churches in Europe, it would be almost quaint were it not quite so grandiose. Large castle like towers raise up on either side of the door, their stone walls holding high arching windows made to let in the sunlight. They almost block the rest of the building from view, allowing only a small glimpse of the even higher center tower, an octagonal design, rising from the center of the building. In the center, up a short flight of stairs, are a pair of crimson doors, heavy wood planks painted red and bound in iron. It's the sort of building that was built to look impressive, and were it not for the numerous windows, may have withstood a siege from marauding barbarian hordes at one point in time.

Outside of the structure is a veritable army of flashing red and blue lights. Men and women in dark uniforms crouch behind their squad cars, shotguns and assault rifles pointed at the building. This is Detroit after all, pistols are for when you don't have time to get to your trunk. They've had time. Leaving a large open area around the church, the DPD has set up an effective moat of pointed weapons and spot lights. A pair of large black SWAT trucks rest nearby, hard eyed men in black fatigues mill around the back of the trucks, checking weapons and leaning over a table spread with blueprints.

Okay. No wonder Illyana's all gothy, if she has to go through THAT place every time she teleports. Mend shivers, just a little, staying very, very close to the teleporter until they emerge into Detroit. Outside a church. Cops swarming everywhere. "Cavalry's here," she notes, cheerfully, glancing around. Killer's cornered in the building. Presumably he's not just some regular guy, or the cops wouldn't have called them. As long as it's not another soul eating demon, though, Mend is confident. For now.

"Madre de Dios." Bunker says as he steps through the portal and gets his first sight of Limbo. He crosses himself and hurries after Magik and through the second portal. Everyone hears the translation and not the Spanish which could come off as a bit strange. "Madre de Dios." he mutters a second time and crosses himself again as he gets his first sight of Detroit. "It's like the zombie apocalypse."

Magik doesn't look back at the others, not even as she hears Mend's steps quicken and Bunker's mutterings. Not something to get into right now. Seeing the table set up with blueprints, she heads over that way. She has her Titans badge if she really needs it but c'mon. They were expecting a costumed contingent, right? "I'm Magik." She says, introducing herself and nods around to her team. "Mend. Bunker. Stonewall. Give us what you've got."

Stonewall walks through the cops and a sense of unease settles over him. A month ago he was a criminal, and this is... a lot of cops. Seriously armed cops at that. NYPD don't roll like this, at least... not all of them. But he's pretty sure he just walked passed a patrolman with a semi-auto 12 gauge. Man. And he thought the Bronx was bad. He crosses his arms and looms over the SWAT guys, his expression unreadable as he takes up a place behind and to the side of Magik.

One of the men, an older grizzled guy with the sort of heavy shoulders that speak of a life of weight lifting and the slightly doughy center that tells the tale of age softening some of the hard muscle, turns to look at Illyana. He's shorter than her by an inch, giving him a Tolkien Dwarf like build, but his eyes are the hard flint of a veteran and he wears authority like a comfy t-shirt. He looks the heroes up and down, grunts, and then points back at the blueprints, "Numerous entry point possibilities," his voice is low and gravely with the sort of grumble that comes from a 2 pack a day habit and a lifetime battle with whiskey and nightmares, "back doors here and here, side entrance there, and the front. Windows aren't barred, but they're old stained glass, heavy lead veins and they don't open. Doors are all hard plank and wrapped, hell, couple have metal studs in 'em. Place is a fortress. Abandoned for years now, lots of debris in there and last I heard a good portion of it isn't stable. Walls prolly won't come down, but the inner facade of them might. Wouldn't trust any wall not made of stone either. How you wanna play it?" behind him the heavy bolt of a completely illegal military grade sniper rifle slams home, one of his SWAT guys making the point that he's willing to just shoot the entire building full of holes without uttering a single word. Detroit PD doesn't play softball it would seem, like their town, they also lack hope and mercy.

"Obvious question. Is he alone in there?" That really changes the game. If he has a hostage, Mend knows they will have to play it somewhat differently. The fact that it's a church doesn't have any effect on her, but then it occurs to her. Illyana knows demons. Illyana's teleportation dimension looks like hell. Quite possibly Magik's teleportation dimension IS hell. Which means by the logic of occult novels and television shows...she might not be able to teleport into the church. Said logic supported by her grumbling about it *being* a church. ...oops.

"Did you give him the chance to surrender?" Bunker asks, peering down at the blueprints. "Does he have powers? Is that why we're here?" He gives the police enough credit to assume they can handle a normal human on their own even if he is a serial killer. "Has the church given its permission for us to enter? I know it's abandoned but it still holy ground." Or was.

Magik studies the blueprints while her teammates ask questions, listening to the information and nodding here and there. A finger taps against the plans and she looks back over towards the church. "Is there any roof access? Or a broken window so we can get a look inside." She looks over to Bunker, "I need to have a visual of where I'm going. If there's roof access we can get in that way. Otherwise, if I can get some line of sight, I can 'port us in." Sneaking? Probably right out.

The Sargent glances at Mend, "No. Couple of kids, two patrolmen, and a priest are in there with him. The screams stopped," he checks his watch, "eighteen minutes ago." his expression doesn't change to much, but it does a little, "They were a man's screams." he clarifies, in case they thought he was letting kids scream without helping him. They're merciless, but they're not inhuman. "We were going to try to breach, but," he points at the blue print again, "We found this door was wired with anti-personnel mines. Three of them." he assumes the heroes would understand the level of overkill that is. Then the man's attention goes to Bunker, "Yes. He never answered. Unknown, and you're hear cause he's killed his way across seven nations and thirteen cities. Fuck the church, it's a building in my town." he answers each question succinctly, simply, except the last one where there's a touch of venom in his voice. Not a fan of the church it would seem. He nods his head to Illyana, "The center tower's roof is a big octagonal window pane, it doesn't open but it's not stained glass either, about a half inch thick though, and old, so likely plate, will break like giant spikes. We haven’t checked anything else until you people showed up." not after they spotted the mines that is. They're not stupid... they'll let bullet proof people take face fulls of claymore mines.

Mend nods. "Okay...so we have, likely, four hostages. We have to assume he already killed one of them and that he intends to kill all of them. We also have to assume he won't negotiate." Mend lets out a breath, turning to study the building. "I think roof access is better than messing with the mines," she adds. "Does this church..." Back towards the blueprints. "...have a crypt? He might try to hole up down there."

Bunker nods at the answers as he looks at what the cop is pointing out on the blueprints. He does though give him a look at the tone in response to the church but doesn't comment on that. What he does comment on though is "He has a priest?" That obviously makes it all even worse to him. "God will forgive us for committing violence on holy ground in His cause. I hope. If he is truly so evil as to threaten a priest, he might have a hostage by the mines as well so we'd kill him if we set them off. Entering in a way he couldn't plan for seems best."

Magik nods over to Bunker. "And if he's got hostages and has already possibly killed one... We don't have time to waste. Take us up, I'll get us in." She looks to the Sargent, "Can we borrow this? Let's move, Titans."

The Sargent eyes Mend, "It was built in 1911, not 1511." he says flatly. The tone Bunker takes about the priest makes the dwarf like cop sneer, "Yeah, he took a real saint." his words drip acid. "The place is huge on the inside, but there's not a lot of ways in. It's a drop of about fifty feet through open space via the roof." he points out, "Into a room filled with debris." The location is murderously difficult to breech, annoyingly good location for the killer to hole up. "Go nuts." the Sarge eyes his watch, "You have... twenty minutes. After that, We blow the front doors and enter and all bets are off." at least he gave them a warning.

Stonewall watches all of this and then moves to follow Yana, saying nothing. Idly, he wonders if he can take an anti-personnel mine to the chest, less idly he's not all that curious to find out.

"He's right. Let's go." She moves close to Yana, ready for another short trip through that not very pleasant place. About fifty feet...Bunker can do something with his brick disks to get them down, at least. She...has a feeling the skills she's been learning are going to come into play here, wishing she'd had more time to practice them. Not asking about the priest. Not asking what he did. It doesn't matter...they're here to get the hostages out and deal with the killer.

Bunker steps onto the brick platform that's starting to form an inch above the ground. It rapidly gets big enough for four people and sprouts railing as well so those unaccustomed to surfing won't fall off. "We can open a hole in the roof or wall easy enough but it will be noisy." Maybe Magik can magic one or something. Once everyone's on, the platform flies over to the church, rising to go onto the roof.

"I just need to be able to see through the window inside, and then I can get us in." Magik explains as she joins the rest of the group on Bunker's flying brick platform. "Keep an eye out for any other surprises once we're in." When they get to the top though, the window is coated in grime that not even cleaning the outside can clear up. She frowns and looks to the others. "Looks like we're gonna need to make some noise." She looks to Stonewall, "Can you take that drop? Then Bunker can bring the rest of us down after you." And if there's any initial retaliation, Stonewall's likely the best to take it.

Stonewall looks at the glass, makes a face, then at Yana. He smirks, "I jump higher than this." he states flatly, "If I get blown up on my first mission, someone punch Nightwing in the face for me. Just on principle." he states before stepping up to the edge of the domed glass, then with seemingly no effort, hoping up onto its highest point of the dome. His weight is more than enough to cave the entire skylight in, and the large man plummets from sight amid massive shards of razor sharp glass. His impact below can be heard but not really felt, a testament to the sturdiness of the stone building. Light from outside falls down like a spotlight, highlighting Stonewall in the center of it like a spotlight as he stands up and brushes glass from his shoulder, his eyes focusing one direction intently. Apparently he sees something, and he stills.

Mend doesn't call down. She glances at Bunker, then at Illyana. Something's not good down there, but they have to go in...they can't leave Stonwall, no matter how tough he is, both physically and mentally, down there on his own. Let's go, her eyes say. Let's go before the shit hits the fan. Glass, doesn't worry her. A few cuts...nothing to be concerned with. She hopes.

Bunker watches Stonewall fall down to ground level and leans over to peer into the church. The platform reshapes to better fit into the home where the dome once stood, some bricks disappearing, some new ones forming, before it starts levitating downwards. As their heads pass inside, he crosses himself again for good measure. "I do not like this." he whispers, nervously looking around. "This is the work of evil." They should be heroically battling supervillains not starring in the Exorcist Part Six.

The majority of the building it taken up with a massive space made for worship. This was obviously once a church of great means, the pews are set up in concentric arcs bending back towards the doors and radiating like ripples out from a raised dais complete with pulpit. The dais is backed by one of the largest pipe organs in the United States, it's old and stained brass pipes raised like hands of praise to the heavens nearly thirty feet tall. The room is a massive dome, over shadowed by an overhanging balcony above where still more parishioners once must have sat.

Light inside the room is unsettling. The barrage of cop cars and spot lights from outside filter through massive stained glass windows, the contradicting lights and colors messing with the once holy images the windows cast and giving them an almost psychedelic appearance. While it remains a church in image, obvious recent alterations have been made and a sense of unease is impossible to shake.

The pulpit has been kicked over and now lays on the stairs before the dais, and from the thick coppery smell, the black slimy goo coating some of the windows in odd glyphs and symbols only visible from the inside, is blood. Lots of blood. Standing on the dais is a man, blond, maybe six feet tall, lean but not thin build, his eyes staring at the heroes that enter. He wears combat gear, a meshed tactical vest, the sort soldiers prefer, and the pants of many pockets that are standard issue to nearly every military service on the planet. There are no patches or insignia to say where he's from, but he knows what he's doing. He's geared for war, with a SMG on his back, pistol on each hip, spare clips, a couple of grenades, various first aid tools clasped where they are within easy quick reach. His face is smeared with black, but his hair is not, making the shock of blond stand out startlingly. At first it looks like coal or maybe grease paint, but as the lights outside fluctuate the black changes color and shows it to be the same sickly red material that makes up the glyphs painted on the windows. Blood. His face is painted in blood. "You were slower to respond then I suspected." the man says in a soft tone, his voice carries in this room though as it's designed to do from where he stands, "No matter. My name is Simon." he pronounces it Sim On, not Sie Mon, it's the only thing he says that holds a hint of accent, "Welcome to my parlor."

Once the crossed onto church ground, Magik's skin got that burning, itchy sensation that comes from being on holy ground. It doesn't actually hurt her, but it's definitely not comfortable. As Bunker's platform descends, something more is added to that feeling. She turns, catching glimpses of the glyphs that mark the wall. One hand stretches out, and her Soulsword appears in that hand, sheathed in silver fire and armor covers that arm from shoulder to fingertip. "Magic." She tells them softly. "Dark magic." And then all eyes are turned to Simon and when the platform gets to ground-level Magik steps off, facing him. His words set off warning bells in her head. "Thanks. I've seen better." She turns her head slightly to speak softly to Mend. "See if you can find the hostages." Though with that much blood...

Simon smiles charmingly at Magik, his teeth flashing white in the flashing lights of the room, if it wasn't for the blood, the smile would have been soft and gentle and quite fetching. It's not a smile that belongs here in this place. "Oh no no said the little Fly, kind sir that cannot be," Simon says softly as Mend turns to look for hostages, "I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see." It's then that the lights come up, the sort of high powered lights that aren't quickly set up, they take time. The entire room is lit up nearly like day, and there they can see the priest crucified upon the wall over the dark spot where once hung a large wooden cross for decoration, his body nailed to the marks in mockery. The patrolmen are gutted and their odds and ends and bits are laid out in a large circle, in the middle of which all of the Titan's stand, the corpses tossed aside like no longer needed luggage, the bodies bent in unnatural ways not that they are emptied. The children, now plainly seen, are thankfully alive, though terrified, they are gagged and bound to the two crimson front doors by metal shackles drilled into the wood. If the front doors are blown or had been smashed open, they would have been instantly slain.

The light is also blinding, and so it's hard to see the motion that Simon makes with his hand, though the word he speaks out grates on the ears with the wrongness of it, the shear Otherness. And his hand slaps down on the floor. The circle they stand in lights with a green sickly light and there's a soft flash near Illyana. "Oh no, no, said the little Fly, for I've often heard it said They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!" sing songs Simon softly. Stonewall then turns to face Illyana, his teeth peeling back from his lips in a grimace of rage, "You," the giant growls, "all your fault!" spittle hisses through his clenched teeth.

Mend, moving away to start to do that even as the lights come back on. She swallows, taking the barest step towards the door. He killed the adults, but used the children as a shield. Perhaps his last remaining bit of humanity, flowing through whatever has clearly shattered the man's mind. She's fairly sure Illyana can't teleport the kids out while they're secured. And then Stonewall starts to turn on Illyana and Mend knows, in that moment...he's been mindfucked. Something that she has no protection from. Something that she can't fight...and the one thing, at this point, that she fears. She changes course...moving to position herself between her teammates. If Stonewall's going to smash anyone into the ground it's going to be the one who can survive the experience...and she'll apologize to him later, if that's what happens. A madman. Right now, she understands the shadow guy's position. All...too...clearly. Protect Illyana, that's what matters, so she can counter the magic that Mend isn't aware of, not really, but knows is there academically, intellectually.

"You have committed an act of sacrilege." Bunker tells Simon sternly "It's not too late for you to repent and gain His forgiveness." Pause. Oh yeah. "And surrender." Not that he's expecting the latter and a brick wall appears floating between them and Simon. And then the lights come up and he can only look around in horror. Turning back to look at Simon, a girder of bricks flies toward the obviously insane murderer.

One of Magik's arms comes up to try to shield her from the bright lights while trying to keep an eye on Simon. She turns a bit as she glances around, stepping back a few paces to take everything in. With the kids bolted to the doors, she can't just 'port them out. The need to be free-standing. As Simon activates the spell, her sword blazes brighter in response to the flare of magic and then things start to tumble together quickly. Mend puts herself between Illyana and Stonewall and the blonde sorceress rolls to the side. "Mend, watch out! He's Enchanted!" Miguel is focused on Simon so that's one thing down. Blood and other things stain Magik's white cloak, but she never blinks at the carnage, staying focused on the task at hand. Trying to take advantage of Mend interposing herself, Magik stabs at Stonewall with her soulsword.

Simon is, quite frankly, fast. Perhaps the suddenly blinding amount of light in the once dimly lit room helped as well, as the girder passes close enough to Simon's face to ruffle his hair, and clips his shoulder enough to spin him around but not hard enough to incapacitate him. "That my dear Bunker, depends entirely on your religion." As if to add insult to injury, there's a soft plink as Simon's hand snap out and glittering steel flashes through the air. There's the soft squishy sound of flesh being flesh and metal being metal as a pair of wickedly serrated knives hit Mend. They were thrown to incapacitate, to wound, to cause maximum pain and eventually death if untreated. They sink into her low in her gut side by side, below her navel and above her hips.

Stonewall is already growing, rage plainly pasted across his face, irate, unreasoning, "CREEL!!" he bellows with a volume that can be /felt/ as his skin ripples as it starts to turn translucent as he absorbs the nearest thing to him, glass. If he were simply thinking clearly, he'd know better. Then the sword hits his stomach, the big man not even bothering to dodge. What was glass, changes instantly, and his skin blazes to light of it's own. This happens much faster then it did with the glass, almost instantly, and Illyana is no longer holding a sword, her hand is empty. Stonewall blinks once, a fifteen foot tall illuminated giant, "Wha..." he mutters, confusion on his features as he starts to topple forward. It took 4 seconds for everything to go horribly wrong.

She's too worried about protecting Illyana from her own teammate to quite manage to dodge that, the blades hitting home with enough force that the slender heroine goes down almost immediately, the hideously serrated blades protruding from her abdomen. She drops to one knee, hissing in pain. "Take him down, Magik." Grimly. She's TOLD them not to worry about her, but she's not sure they'll listen, and in the amount of pain she's fighting right now, she can barely talk. What she does know...is that she isn't...going to regenerate with those blades inside her. With all that's in her, fighting to keep from screaming as she drops, she does her best to pull them out. Were she a normal person, that would be the stupidest thing imaginable...as it is, a moment after she achieves it, she passes out, lying amongst the debris, mercifully unconscious and likely dying.

"Stonewall!" "Mend!" Dr. Scott! The girder that clips Simon slams into the wall making another hole no one will notice. "Magik!" Bunker calls. As in 'Magik, do something!' He himself is a little busy as the girder comes apart at the seams and each of its component bricks start flying at Simon. You can bet they aren't the soft, fluffy kind.

Magik's hand is suddenly empty. But it's oh-so-much more than that. *She* feels empty. And for a horrible moment, she's left there standing, eyes wide and dumbstruck as one teammate topples over and another lies dying on the floor. She takes a step back. Another. Her hand drops to her side and she trips over Mend, falling to the dirty, bloody ground. Bunker's yell brings her attention around like a slap. She pushes herself back up to her feet, grabbing up a loose pipe and teleports, because she still has that. In a blink, she's on the opposite side of Simon as those bricks and swings the pipe at his head. Between the pair of them, one should hopefully manage to hit him.

Stonewall hits the ground hard enough to shake the floor, his new size adding untold mass to the impact. The blow sends up a cloud of dust and the sound of crushing timber and glass can be heard as he takes out a pair of pews on the way down.

Simon is fast, and obviously he's extremely well trained. The first two bricks sail past without touching him, and the man continues to laugh a merry childlike laugh, "Your robes are green and purple, there's a crest upon your head," the madman chants at Bunker, though his chant is cut short as one brick takes his feet out from under him and another pounds into his stomach hard enough to force the air from his lungs, a dull THOK! sounds as Magik's pipe glances off of his skull. Simon's eyes glaze over and his words slur as he desperately finishes the rhyme, "Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are as dull as lead." that said, his eyelids flutter, one hand reaching for the pin of a grenade on his vest... but falling away as he passes out first, the hand dropping down harmlessly.

Bunker stands there, hands clenched into fists and a swarm of bricks poised to slam down onto Simon repeatedly if he so much as twitches. After a moment, when it becomes obvious he's not going to, Bunker turns and sprints for the front of the building. Several girders fly ahead of him to slam repeatedly into the wall far from the front doors. Once there's a hole, he jumps through but not without a brick wall ahead of him to keep those bullets from itchy trigger fingers from hitting him. "Medic! Bomb guy! Don't hit the doors! Don't hit the doors!"

As Simon goes down, Magik is still looking a bit shell-shocked. She turns as Bunker is already heading out towards the front of the building to walk over towards Mend. Checking on her, Magik finds she's already regenerating and so then she turns over to Stonewall, her white gloves stained red with Mend's blood and touches him lightly. She can feel it. Can't she? There, beyond her grasp. She drops to her knees, feeling like the world is moving in slow motion. "It's gone..."

The cops outside do, in fact, open fire on Miguel, and for a long second bullets slam into the bricks before a "CEASEFIRE!" rises over the commotion and then order once more reasserts itself. Medics, bomb techs, cops, they swarm like ants, all with their particular jobs to do. Inside the room a giant glowing man lays still as death, breathing, eyes open but unseeing, he seems alive but completely unresponsive, the newest Titan apparently stabbed by his own teammate. Simon is pounced upon and cuffed as men strip his many many weapons off, Mend is carted out first as she's the most obviously injured and the only one transportable, while medics surround Stonewall and then pause, uncertain... what the hell do they do with this?? The crowd of medics parts ever so slightly after a couple of minutes and Stonewall's sightless eyes seem to stare at Illyana, looking through her, their inner glow so familiar and yet so very different and a soft lilting voice seems to echo back to her ears from far away,

"Oh no, no," said the little Fly, "for I've often heard it said. They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!"