The New World

[The Corsair]

They walked by ruined building after ruined building. At each, Rosie would shake her head 'no', having heard no thoughts.

It was extremely weird to him that nobody remained. Shouldn't there be survivors who were outside and able to avoid collapsing buildings?

At last, by what looked like a small home, Rosie stopped. She had heard something. What ge couldn't lift up with sheer strength he'd move by shifting air pressure around it. They finally pulled out a man who was clearly on the brink of death and seemingly delirious.
He muttered wheezy things that were mostly unhearable.
"angels... They'll come for... Looters..."
Was all he could make out.

"we should go back to the ships. We may not have found anything useful but this place clearly isn't safe." he said to rosie as he turned to go back.

[thefrozenwulf]

the flattened remains of Seattle reminded Yuri of the ruins of his house. he didn't like to think of that day, as it brought back unsettling memories.

[MWBailey]

Fergus surveyed the scene from the Gondola of the Raptor. "Och Hone, There be nothin' left!"

[lazarusofartemis]

The stumble of the ship landing almost shook Kat of her bed. She sat up with a frustrated groan. She could hear others yelling out and walking outside. I wonder what they're doing outside, she thought.
Kat slipped off her bed.  She stared down at her filthy clothes- an off-white blouse, deep grey skirt and shredded black trousers. Her brown and grey tweed coat lay on her bed. She looked around and found a decent pair of grey trousers and just her luck, a clean white woman's blouse. Both were much too large, but she fixed them. After a little more hunting, she found a pair of leather boots. She pulled on her coat and made her way to the exit.

She gasped at the mess outside. It was catastrophic. Buildings fell after building. It looked like the earthquake from San Francisco. She could spot some of the crew roaming around, searching and possibly for people.
Somehow, the mess seemed to make Kat angry. She feel it boil inside her. Then she spotted some other people hurrying towards The Iron Crow, her ship. She furrowed her brows and squinted. Some of her crew that she didn't remember?
In the people's hands were large sacks. Their clothing was horrible- ripped and falling apart. No- these people weren't part of their crew. They were looters, trying to gain advantage of the mess.
She ran back inside the ship and hid in the shadows, by the entrance. The looters ran inside and started to yell at one another.
"Grab all that seems valuable! Get food!" one man yelled.
Oh no! she thought. They were attacking the ship! She had to defend it. How dare those people tried to gain advantage of such catastrophe?
She stepped out of the shadows and stared at one of the men. As if he heard her thoughts (look over here, you fool) he turned and met her stormy grey eyes. The man suddenly dropped his sack and shrieked in pain, clutching his head. He fell to his knees and continued to shriek.
"No!" he cried. "Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!"
She showed no mercy as she let her anger translate into pain easily. A man called out and she lost her concentration. She saw the people running around, raiding their last bits of food and supplies, even tools.
Another man, very large and tough looking, headed towards her with an angry look on his face. He put down his sack and sprinted towards her.
Kat's reflexes acted immediately. She ducked his swinging fist, then turned and shoved him forward with the heel of his foot. He slipped and fell. She watched him with such intensity and remembered the time her and her brother Dmitri set fire to a building. She had felt the burning satisfaction.
The man suddenly lit up in flames and he screamed whilst rolling all over the floor. Kat grinned.
The others watched her and yelled, "What is wrong with him? Is he mad? What is he doing? What's happening?"
But then Kat felt two arms wrap around her from behind. She screamed, and then a sack came over her head. She yelled out and kicked and scratched at them, but the person was strong. She felt herself being lifted of her feet, then flopped over someone's shoulder. The person began to move.
"No!" she yelled. "Let me go! Let me go!"
Her head began to hurt in huge amounts of intense pain. She shrieked again and suddenly, her mind just turned off and she plunged into darkness.

[The Corsair]

He ran back to see The Iron Crow in the sky flying off. He had seen Reginald go to look for survivors, Kat was the only one who could be on board...

He sprinted to the Falcon and got it straight in the air. He went straight up beside it and leaped aboard.
"land this thing!" he demanded. He didn't want to fight them. If he could help it, he wanted the crow fully intact.
The ship continued flying. He grabbed one man and hurled him over the side.
"stop this ship!" he yelled once more.
The looter piloting was being extremely cocky. He didn't turn to face him as he spoke.
"you can't win. We need her."
"for what?"
"the army won't let us live otherwise."
"the US army?"
He laughed at Falko "not at all! This is a serious army. They're taking this place. We have to please them or leave."
"where are they?!"
"they swept through the city after the fleet knocked out the defences. They'll be heading back to the south. Texas-way. I'm not the bad guy here, I'm trying to survive."
"well you'll damn well survive without my people!"
He stunned him and turned the ship around. Once touched down he yelled to the others "We have to leave! Now!" he dumped the. Body of the looter and ran back to his own ship just as Kat seemed to be coming to.
"Texas! They're headed to Texas!"

[thefrozenwulf]

Yuri shook his head clear of the confusing thoughts that were flashing through his brain. he needed to put the past behind him. a sudden sound shook through the night air. engines.
one of the airships were taking off, and he knew that Kat was the only person on any of them. what was she doing? he had slowly been making his way west through the city, and had to run about half a mile before he got back to the ships. the engines of one of them, the iron crow, were running, but it had not taken off. then, just as suddenly as they had started, the engines cut, and falko ran out, and over to the falcon. Kat came out, dragging a body. it was crisscrossed with arcs of lightning. "kat, what happened to him?"

[YetAnotherMatt]

"They're headed to Texas!". Gebbert sprang up from his seat where he had been working on a device while the others searched, and began preparing the Osprey for departure. The engines started with no trouble, and they could move the moment everyone was aboard. With only a few of the crew left to board. Gebbert dashed over to the Raptor and left the modified cylinder at Luke's control console, with a hastily scribbled note.

Luke,
The receiver cylinder has been changed. I have removed the organic-looking substance, and run the wires it was connected to out the open end.
My idea is that that the aetheric signals of what was around the ship were sent there, so if you connect yourself to it somehow,
you might receive any signals from wherever the Raptor's targeting was getting them from. Whether it works is unknown.
I don't have the aetheric energy to interface with the cylinder, it seems.
Gebbert

This done, he ran back to the Osprey to be ready to leave for Texas.

[lazarusofartemis]

The looter's body wasn't that heavy, but still. Kat was tired. She heaved it right out of the ship.
Yuri came tearing towards her. "Kat, what happened?"
"He wanted us for some reason and kidnapped. To please some kind of Army, but they're heading to Texas now. Somehow, Falko could...shoot lightning out of his fingertips," she replied, scanning the crew.
But the odd Army was not her biggest concern. It was how she seemed to have the ability to cause people pain and make them hallucinate. Falko also seemed to have some sort of power.
She knew there was something odd about these people. And she was right. Now, she just had to find out what was different about everybody else.
Kat ran back to the Iron Crow and hopped on.

[MWBailey]

Fergus heard Falko shouting about Texas; since he hadn't left the Raptor, he started her engines and began a quick prep for takeff, letting Luke and the others get back aboard. He then too the ship up and followed after the others, wondering just exactly what was causing this latest apparent shift in plans.

[The Corsair]

He got in the air and hovered so they could form a small cluster before moving off. Once they had clustered, he spoke to fill them in.

"The looters discovered Kat had some abilities, which I figure are similar to ours. how she got them I have no clue. They needed someone with abilities so as to bargain with some sort of army. This 'army' is supposedly a genuine threat to the USA so I think our enemy has shown its face. He said they were headed 'back' which is apparently in the direction of Texas. If we fly toward Texas, we should get a glimpse of what we're facing. I daresay we won't have the power yet to face them if the fleet we fought in San Francisco is anything to go by.
Ladies and Gentlemen, to the south!"

It wasn't much of a finish but he hoped it would at least instill some sort of courage in them, especially him. He didn't know how long he could stay in this nervous, high-stakes mode.

He set a course for Texas. Houston was as good a destination as any.

[Augustus Longeye]

Julius had wandered the rubble for a while, seeing nothing interesting and finally giving up. He had turned back to the ships just in time to see one taking off. He frowned in confusion, surely they wouldn't' leave him behind, and then saw figures he didn't' recognise on the deck. He realised he needed to get back to his ship as fast as he could, and so drew as much earth as he was comfortable controlling onto his body, and pushed off with his feet. By leaving a small layer of earth behind him, he could 'skate' along the ground at a fair speed.
It took him five minutes to get back to his ship, by which time the others were there already preparing to take off. Crewman Barum, whom Julius was starting to admire, had already prepared the ship and was waiting for him. As soon as he was on board they took off and followed Falko's lead.

---

Julius listened to the plan in silence, he didn't like the sound of this army but if they were after people with abilities that meant there were more like them. He felt he had an obligation to do all he could to help them out. As the fleet wheeled about and turned to the south, he took the wheel from Barum with a nod, and followed them. Barum looked at him strangely, and Julius realised he still had a heavy layer of earth around him. He grinned, and shifted it slightly to look a little more pleasing; simple segmented pieces of armour. Barum gasped in surprise.
"We got this from a strange light that sunk the last ship here. Now these guys are after people like us. Coincidence? I don't think so... We did everything we could to save the people on that ship, yet we failed. Now we're stronger, I don't think we can fail again."
Barum nodded solemnly, understanding their resolution at last.
"Right then, you can clean out the guns! I want them all functioning fully before we run into anyone else!"
"Right away sir!" he said, saluting and jogging off.

[Thebeastyness]

Bloodbath had been awake for a while now. He had heard that they were going to Texas and thought to himself. He still remembered how hard it was to kill the Warlord. It had taken him months but he had never felt so good as when he had finally felt his knife draining the life from the Warlords body. He found comfort in the fact that he was the last thing the Warlord would ever see, that his last thought should be of the mistake he made all those years ago. Almost as if by habit Bloodbath recalled his conversation he had had with the Warlord before he took his life...

"You just killed all my men... Wh-wh-what are you?"
"Oh come now, you remember me don't you? No? Do the names Mary and Jerry ring a bell?"
"No... No way... YOU'RE DEAD!"
"That's what all you guys thought but I've been looking for you... You weren't very easy to find..."
"What do you want? I'll give you anything just let me live!"
"I'm sorry but you signed your death waiver when you made that mistake all those years ago... and by the way Mr. Martin do you really want to know what I want?"
"What!? I'll give you anything!"
"I want my parents back!"
With this he quickly stabbed the Warlord through the heart with his dagger and in an instant it was all over...

So now they were heading for Texas and he would finally come face to face with Mr. Smith the leader of R.C.S. He knew this would be harder than anything he had ever done before and decided he should get a good rest before he would wake up. He slowly went back to bed and lay down looking at the ceiling contemplating what was to come.

[SteamFreak]

Reginald  looks down at the ground as The Iron Crow takes off "Two towns burned to the ground...how odd"

[The Corsair]

As they flew they saw several towns, some close, some in the horizon, all were in flames and ruined. This was a warzone. At no point did he actually see any of the 'army' or the US military reacting.

At one point, the implacable pulled up beside him and hailed him. The captain stood on the deck and called across.
"we got a transmission from the Hammer. She's ready to fly and will RV with us within a day or two."
"how did you receive a transmission?" he asked
"some experimental aetheric device. They installed them on some police ships in New York too. I need to get back to flying."
"very good captain."
I'll have to tell Gebbert about that device... he though as he pulled away from the Implacable

[Man of Steam]

Alex settled back in on the Raptor, and watched as the city faded away in the distance. He hadn't seen anyone, aside from the brief confrontation with the new arrivals. He looked down over the land below, and saw flames and destruction. Whoever had done this, he decided, was obviously well trained, and had immense power.
He walked over to where Fergus was, as something had just occurred to him.
"Fergus, do you think that the people who had caused these attacks were related to the ones who sank the ship?"

[thefrozenwulf]

"lightning? odd. i suppose he isn't the only one..."

[The Corsair]

After several more hours of steady flying he saw something other than smouldering ruins and plains. There were figures. He grabbed the ship's telescope and took a look.
Angels.
Angels like he had seen when he was shot. Angels like the man in Seattle said. Angels.
There were easily thousands of them marching south in a disturbingly straight line. The 2nd Admiral's fleet was still nowhere to be seen. He guessed it mustve been elsewhere destroying some city.
Again he pulled the group into a cluster ships so he could speak.
"That's them... What the hell now?"

[lazarusofartemis]

Angels, Kat thought as they loomed in over some more ruins. How odd.
She had realised that, from Falko, everyone had abilities too. How did she get them? She had never had those powers before. Not since...the earthquake. Could it had something supernatural about it too? She bit her tongue and decided not to say anything until she was certain. She also remembered that Yuri had been in the earthquake. Did he have these 'powers' too?

[YetAnotherMatt]

With the ships in a cluster around the stern of the Implacable the group gathered at the railings, contemplating the enormous host below them

"They don't seem to be reacting to our presence, but surely they have seen us. Without knowing what their capabilities are, a direct assault would be too risky, especially without the Hammer for additional firepower."

"I think Luke should see what these beings look like through the sensors. Then we have about four options.
One: We can either try a limited engagement, either here or further ahead, at a point of our choosing.
Two: We shadow them until we meet up with the Hammer, then reconsider our options.
Three: We run ahead to Texas, and try to organise a defence there. However, we don't even know what their exact destination is.
Four: We scatter, and try to haul together an air armada from privateers and remaining government forces. Then re-intercept this column."

"Unfortunately none of these is very appealing. In the long run, we need info about these forces, especially how they fight. However, we also need to realise that five or six ships cannot win against their armada again, if you can even call San Francisco a win..."

[MWBailey]

Fergis thought for a moment before answering. HE tried to reach out with his senses and feel the fires, residual heat, and that strange, itchy sensation the air left on the skin.

"I can nae be sure, Alex," Fergus said. "It feels sorta familiar, if'n ye ken what I mean, but it be different, some'ow,  Like maybe there's less innocence in the air, or sumpin'
----------------
Fergus saw teh figures only aq few short minute safter falco, and trained teh gondola's huge nautical binoculars on their pedestal mount on tem. "HMPF!" HE grunted. Alex, if'n ye would, come 'ere an' take a look through this fancy Looker, and tell what ye make o' them figures, yonder..."

[The Corsair]

"The skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible..." he half-muttered. It was from The Art of War, a silly book he had decided sounded cool enough to read. he was 15 at the time and anything that said 'war' implied valor and greatness. He was surprised he remembered it...
"Where will defeat be impossible? In a limited engagement. We can win if we pick the battle. Until then, I think we should band together what forces we can. Unless we can find a shortcut that hits them at the heart." He was rambling really...
"Maybe we can go back to new York?" added Rosie. "If these forces are way out west here then maybe we can get out to New York and dig in. The more cities that are standing, the better."
The suggestion of a return to New York hung.

[Augustus Longeye]

"No. They did this. All the destruction we've just flown over was them. They're going to keep going and keep destroying things. The fact of the matter is the longer we leave it, the more people they kill. I'm not saying we rush them now... this place is lost, but the next? And the next? God only knows where they're going."

[The Corsair]

"Look at them though! That's a massive force, and only a fraction of what they must have! We'd-"
fraction
"divide and conquer. We can't destroy them here and now, but we can hurt part of them. One of us could lure away a detachment and we can destroy it! It'll only work a couple of times but it cuts them down somewhat."

[Augustus Longeye]

"That's perfect... if we can draw away, what?" He glanced through his own spyglass and did a rough head count, "a quarter? We could take them down... But that would mean someone act as bait. They're hunting people with powers, so if they see one they'll go after them. Hopefully they won't send an entire army after them, but enough people to overcome them and enough that it'll hurt when they don't come back."

[The Corsair]

"right, but we can't get carried away. Once the first lot go down they'll send more. At that, I say we hightail it to New York so we can gather a parter force. We should also shadow this force until the Hammer arrives.
Agreed?"