Participants:
| Scene Title | Further Instructions |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Team Bravo finally is able to meet the MLF's leader, and there's more than one revelation in store for them. |
| Date | December 5, 2009 |
Mandritsara, MLF Bunker
It's been a strange two days, nothing has exploded, no one has been shot, and nothing is on fire. Food, too, has beena luxury of this arrival, even if canned beans and dehydrated meals aren't the finest things to be consumed, they're infinitely better than the MREs that were sent with the team on their approach to the island.
The Madagascar Liberation Front is, in some ways, familiar to some members of Team Bravo. They behave and operate in much a similar way that the Ferrymen back in New York do. They are small organized cells without a central leadership offering safehavens for those seeking escape from a perverted government. While many see Dajan as the de-facto leader of all the cells, and he may well be able to profess some measure of control over the others as well, he is only one among many leaders in the truest of senses.
Absent as this leader is, the people of this base speak highly of him. A motivated and strong man gifted with a powerful ability to meld and shape the very earth and soil, a man as much a part of this island as the trees and rocks are. In those two days that Team Bravo has spent here, they have become accustomed to some of the more eccentric of this group's membership.
Tau, as he has only ever addressed himself as, is a strongly religious man with a seemingly unwavering faith in God. In a way, the notion of a faithful healer seems almost familiar to those who knew Abigail Beauchamp when she was Evolved. But that is, at its core, where their similarities end. Most of Bravo has been in Tau's care at some point, either for a reinforcing of their immune-system or for more long-term care such as in the case of the permanently crippled Candace Allard.
Even with Tau's assistance, the damage done to Candy's shoulder by the .556 round fired from the SAW was irreparable by Tau's gift. Natural healing alone simply cannot replace the missing bone and socket damage done, and that — at its heart — is all Tau's ability truly is, an acceleration of natural healing.
With her arm in a sling and asprin offered for her constant discomfort and mild pain, Candace is one among team Bravo who may not return from Madagascar without scars that tell the story of this war-torn country. Of the others, only dreams of malaria will haunt them, but at least for now the malaria's symptoms are subsiding some. With the aid of prophylactic medicines the symptoms are being treated, and while sweats, shakes and aches are still present, the oppressive nausea has finally subsided and the headaches faded.
It's on the late afternoon of their second day recovering at the base, that Team Bravo is gathered up from their spots across the bunker, from the galley and the bunks, from the chapel and clinic. The commotion stirring through the bunker seems to indicate that the noise heard earlier wasn't just the arrival of a scouting party having returned, but that Dajan has made contact and his team is on its way back to the base.
Tau has been the one to gather the team up, bringing them to the conference room to await his arrival. And it's here, amidst softly flickering, yellowed lights, a ping-pong table strewn with maps of the country, and old damaged radios and a patched up leather sofa that Team Bravo awaits what has been a long time coming:
Further Instructions.
Candy is no longer strong out on morphine or in so much pain that she is incapicated. Which is a definite improvement for one Candace Allard. Having taken the time to manage to clean up, and take care of herself again, she almost looks human again. A baggy shirt that she borrowed from someone is worn, as her arm rests in the sling that she made from her shirt. Her eyes looking around while she finds the place that they have been laid to.
"Why do I feel like we're being led around by the ear," Candace murmers to no particular person, just expressing her own misgivings, and the fact that nothing has gone right for the Team ever since they hit ground. Her left arm going behind her back, before it quickly moves away. She sighs softly, unsure of what to do with the hand that has suddenly become her primary hand with the injury of her right shoulder.
Apparently, Usutu's found his batteries somewhere.
Giving no obvious notice to the fact that there's a meeting occuring, he's settled cross-legged before one wall, his back to the table and the room itself, and he's cradling an old-style walkman tape player in one hand as he pops batteries into the back with a click-clack of copper connections and the rasp of a half-peeled Energizer label. His stick's leaned up against the wall, and a few bottles of something sit beside him.
It feels like it's time to go home already. And really, this is only the beginning. Better rested, less sickly, Gabriel feels a little more like himself once he enters the room and finds his own space to stand in, back straight and clad in borrowed clothing that may never wind up returned - a camouflage jacket sits over black cotton, pants that matching muddle of green and sandy tones with the hems tucked into military boots more robust than anything he's ever worn on his feet.
He's staring at Usutu, currently. For the prophet, Gabriel has been a skulking presence, darting curious looks, and occasionally, a thick shadow that's swept the same room as him before departing without a word. Now, in the flesh, Gabriel doesn't approach him. Not when a meeting is about to start. Instead, the serial killer stands with his arms folded, and drrrags his gaze away from the seated man to skim the maps spread out on the table.
Since arriving at the bunker, it's been…. well…. kind of dull and Claire has noticed. Unable to get drunk like the girls… or able to sleep the day away, she's been fidgeting. But she does have to admit, she actually feeling somewhat human again. The regenerator is dressed in her last pair of intact camo pants and a white tee. Her blonde hair has been pulled back behind her head in a loose pony tail, leaving strands of it to frame her face.
Perched on an arm of the couch, her back leaning on the wall, she watches Usutu curiously as she fiddles with the batteries. Why watching it is entertainment, who knows.. though in the back of her mind she can't help but think there is a blonde joke in there somewhere.
For the last day and a half, Huruma's mood has gotten increasingly less toxic and overall less unfriendly as the hours go on; now, her aura has settled into something resembling calmness. She is strewn upon one end of the tattered sofa, arms lain up on the arm and back, knees crossed in front of her. If she seems to be tired, it is a deceiving look; her eyes may be half closed and her position relazed, but there is a tightness in her core that gives away the tension having been coiling up inside. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Candy is right- it feels like they are tethered by an earlobe, being yanked here and there.
Everyone seems to be watching Usutu playing with his walkman, and Huruma is no different. Her examinations of him, however, go past the physical and trudge into the emotional- while she did not expect his state to be anything startling, the empath remains observing the little variances in Usutu's moods while he simply sits there with his own business.
Silent and unobtrusive, Eileen's presence in the room could easily go overlooked; her dark clothing allows her to blend in chameleonic with her drab surroundings, giving her shape the impression of a washed out charcoal sketch rather than a human being with her back to the far wall, one arm folded across her midsection, the other curling fingers at her side and toying idly with the long silver chain attached to her dog tags.
She doesn't look at Gabriel when he enters the room, but she isn't looking at Usutu either. Instead, her attention is on the maps spread across the table, and even though she can only make out vague outlines and shapes from where she's standing, her brows are knit into an expression of intense scrutiny. Wherever her mind is, it isn't here.
Commotion down the hall draws the attention of the stoic mountain that makes up Tau. Where he stands beside the map table the sharply contrasting light from the lamps overhead makes seeing him where he stands out of its focused glow more difficult. Shifting his weight, he turns and looks around the edge of the doorway, arms still crossed, trying to see if this is the arrival he's been waiting for. Much to Tau's appreciation, it is.
Several stomping bootfalls and the sound of voices draws closer and closer, echoing off of the damp concrete walls. The sounds of many men arriving into the bunker comes with the addition of a more familiar presence arriving ahead of them into the room. Bosede has been something of a non-presence these last two days, recovering from his injuries sustained out on the road. When he arrives, there is a tall and stoic man at his side, dark aviator sunglasses reflecting dully the light of the map room. Aviators looks around at those gathered, then down to Usutu as if he were some sort of curiosity, before finally moving up to stand at the side of the table with his arms folded. "Dajan's returned!" Bosede exclaims to Tau, "He an' Kwasi's team a'back," the MLF operative turns, regarding Huruma on the sofa, then up and around to the others, "I have tol' him you a'all here, and he is eager t'speak w'you all." Jerking his head around, Bosede smiles out the doorway to an approaching figure, then moves to step out of the way, bumping awkwardly into Tau before apologetically backpedaling and getting out of his way too.
The first man who enters is an unfamiliar one, dressed in a camouflage uniform with a medium suit of body armor on. Tall, dark-skinned and possessed of shortly cropped black hair. He carries himself with pride and also with a sense of arrogance at the look of scrutiny he affords the strangers in the meeting room.
"Dey're already gathered, sir." He calls back to the hall, shouldering his M16 before moving around the table to offer a side-long glance to Aviators. Towards the door next, two more armed men come but don't step inside, instead taking positions on either side of the entrance to watch the door. The man that follows after them, however, is remarkably different than what most people may have suspected.
Dajan Dunsinni is an African native, to be certain, but he bears what must be scars of either this war, or some other horrible confrontation. With only a black tanktop to hide his torso, the hideous scars that snake up and down his body are visible. Nearly one entire side of his dark skin looks more like a topographical map of the grand canyon, with furrows and ridges, all composed of thick scar tissue. One side of the nearly six and a half foot tall man's face is warped and twisted by these same scars, and his eye on that side a milky white color — dead.
He says nothing, just surveys the room with a silent stare as his focus moves from one member of Tram Bravo to the next, then finally to Tau as a scarred hand comes up and rests on the taller man's shoulders. "I hope they were well taken care of…" Dajan does not speak with a strong African accent, if anything his words sound more influenced by Queen's English than anything native. Tau's response is naught but a silent nod, and Dajan looks back to the others, with one noticably missing participant.
"Which one of you is Lieutenant Sanderson?" At the question, Dajan settles his focus on Eileen uncertainly, then shakes his head and looks to Huruma, then Claire and Candy, then finally Gabriel. Apparently he doesn't even know if Sanderson is a woman or not.
"Lieutenant Sand'son is resting in the informary. She 'as an infected wound, an' is suff'rin from severe malaria." Tau's response elicits a look from Dajan, and the scarred man nods his head slowly and folds his arms. "She appointed 'dis one," a hand is waved towards Gabriel, "as their leader in 'er stead until she is betta'." Dajan may be listening to what Tau's saying, he may even be partly aware of what else is going on in the room. But now, specifically, he has double-taked back to focusing on Huruma and looking at her as though she had six heads.
He's completely lost on her, lost on the look in those half-lidded eyes, and the expression on his face is a haunted one.
Candy sighs and just lets her free arm hang down as she looks at the newcomer. She winces lightly at the scars, and the blindness in his eye. She doesn't envy whatever happened to him at all. Her eyes going around as she stands there. The asian is quiet, and contemplative for now. Most likely a welcome respite for the rest of them. Though, as she looks around, she spots Eileen and the young woman can't help bit give her a wink.
"You cannot kill the past," Usutu comments seemingly absently as he snaps the battery cover back on the walkman, never once glancing back into the suddenly awkward moment occuring behind him, "Sooner or later, you must face it, for it was part of you once, and always shall be. Hello, Dajan. It is always good to see you."
Then he looks back at last, a smile curving to his lips and crinkling deep, dark lines about his eyes, before he turns back to whatever he was doing. A wooden palette's lifted up, set upon his knee as he plucks a jar up in long fingers, the lid twisted off and a dollop of dark pigment dropped upon its face.
Gabriel steps forward when he's gestured to, as if to physically assume the role given to him by the delirious Sanderson. A hawkishly black gaze sweeps over the disfigured man with rude appraisal - the scars are a surprise and so summarily stared at for as long as it takes the serial killer to grow accustomed to them. When his gaze travels back up to the man face, he ignores the fact that both milky eye, one working eye are not turned to him as he introduces himself—
"You can call me Sylar."
Now, he looks between Usutu, back to Dajan, before following that stare over towards where Huruma is within the room. One eyebrow raises up and, as much as he factors in cryptic words, he asks, "Is there something wrong?"
Eyes pull away form Usutu at the sound of commotion out of the door and Claire watches curiously to see who comes in. Though when Dajan enters the room, it takes everything in her not to stare at the scars. Her eyes drop when he looks her way and then over to Gabriel as he calls himself Sylar. Brows dip down and she glances back to Dajan, only to find him stare at something near her, so Claire turns her head to look at Huruma as well, curious.
Claire has partially disconnected.
+po
ORDER: Huruma Eileen Sanderson Candy Doyle Gabriel Claire
It sounds as if the world has flooded, and as if someone has stuck a hot, burning rod of iron into Huruma's stomach. All she hears after the men come into the conference room is a steady- ka-whump, ka-whump, ka-whump- fluttering thumps of her own heartbeat in her head, ears, and throat, that sensation of burning reaching up and twisting a violent knot out of her lungs. The nails on long fingers dig deep into where her palms lie on cushion, the faint pop-pop of threads under force audible to the ears closeby.
Huruma's moon-colored eyes are even more like their hue after just a few moments of contact, eyelids clicking sharp like shutters before pulling back and revealing- quite out of character- the whole portions of the dark woman's eyes. Tendons tighten down the lengths of her arms, the thin muscles in her neck straining together when she lowers her legs, claws now deep in the bulges of sofa at either side.
The stillness on her breaks only slightly when Usutu's voice reaches them, pupils contracting in an almost paranormal flinch at the words. The room, though filled to the brim with bystanders, will feel a tightening shudder of both raw anger- and fear- darting through the backs of their minds at knotting at the base of the spine- a convulsion, involuntary- as Huruma somehow manages to impress her own emotions suddenly on anyone within her vision. Including the tall, grotesquely scarred man standing there, staring back at her, virtually eye to eye.
The first sound to come from Huruma is a choked hiss of air exhaling through her mouth and nose at the same time; the second is the inhale, catching at her nose and forming the first tremors of a snarl. Her lips pull back over her teeth, flashing white in the otherwise golden glow permeating the room.
The tension is evident in the room, evident in the way two dogs about to rip each other limb from limb may happen to give off a certain hackle-raising growl before they commit to the deed. But here, in the face of this Dajan Dunsinni seems to practically fall apart. He is silent, he is abject in his horror on seeing the woman seated before him. Tau is quick to notice the reaction from the generally good-natured man, and moves to stand at his side, reciprocating the hand on shoulder gesture afforded earlier to him by Dajan.
"She is Huruma…" The giant man's voice is like a peal of thunder amid the silence, "she is with 'dem." A nod goes to Sylar, but dark eyes never leave Dajan's. Amidst the tension, the man in uniform who had come in with Dajan affords the room a confused look, and then with a contemptable scowl he rolls one of his shoulders and clicks his tongue.
"A'we goin' t'stand aroun' all day an' play starin' games, or a'we goin' t'discuss what we need th' American's t'do for us?" This man must be Kwasi. Word of him rumbled around the base over the two days, a pragmatic strategist and former member of the Madagascar armed forces. He is a taciturn and cold man, but one Dajan trust with his life. "We do'no 'ave time f'this, no'now, no'eva'."
Dajan looks over and across the table at Kwasi as if the man had just slapped him across the cheek. The expression that rises on Dajan's face might be a snarl, or a grimace, but the way one side of his mouth seems to split open a little more, the way his mouth peels back away from his teeth reveals that perpetual grimace on one side of his face from missing a portion of skin to his scarring and injury. It's a harrowing smile he offers the older man.
The silence perpetuates itself after that, all the way until Dajan settles his eyes back on Huruma again. For all he wants to lash out at Usutu — of all people — about this, Dajan only remains quiet a moment longer. "Speak your peace now, mother…" Dajan offers to Huruma, "…or hold it until we're done." It almost sounds like a threat, more so than an offer of conversation.
A few more blobs of pigment are poured upon the pallet, and Usutu reaches for the walkman— pausing, then and only then, as that emotional wave ripples outwards to spread tension through the room. He's still for a long moment, before bringing the filmsy headphones up and over his head, sliding them over his ears and patting them gently in place before the main walkman's body itself is lifted up, and he depresses play with a soft click.
The shimmer of false anger and fear, so intrinsic that Gabriel and the rest of the could well mistake it as their own, as him lifting his head a little higher as if detecting blood on the wind. The tension chording through his body is nothing so obvious or taut as the African woman's, but it's there, beneath scratchy military fabric. As if on a string, one hand of Gabriel's rises up, though nothing happens - it's the same kind of gesture a soldier might make, to place his hand on his sidearm.
He's focused on Huruma, more than the men around them and the newest arrival. The named leader doesn't push conversation along, only waits for the time being. Sometimes, people need to get the fight outta them, or set it aside. He's ran with Vanguard for long enough to adopt such a philosophy.
"Mother?" Claire murmurs, before she can stop herself, out of sheer surprise at this little twist. Blonde brows lifting high on her head as it moves back and forth, looking between the two. The soft click in Usutu's direction, gives her an excuse to look away from the awkward moment.
The snarl building in Huruma's chest whirls around for what should be considered a timed record; her lips pull flatly over her teeth, nostrils flaring mutely, the rest of her body visibly quivering with a mixture of things that can only be described as an emotional maelstrom. Flickers of that seep out to the others at intervals before dissipating- seemingly random emotions. If Huruma wishes to speak, she does not- even when faced with her own son daring her to do so. The lack of answer gives Dajan his- the latter qualifies, as Huruma is now holding it back like a dog pulling at a chain with barely one link rooting him down.
Huruma's eyes narrow on her face, lowering slightly; the expression traces shadows across her cheeks, making the bones at the top appear sharp enough to cut straight through glass. She has decided to hold it all back- and literally, at that. A rim of red bubbles at the line between full lips, blood in a place that can only see it if there should be some trauma now going on inside of her clenched mouth.
Eileen's eyes move from Dajan to Huruma, to Gabriel's hand poised above his sidearm. The chain that had been dangling from between her fingers is now wound around her wrist, dog tags trapped in a clenched fist. The empath's influence tickles at her peripheral as shimmers of pleasure and pain, joy, elation interpersed between sharp twinges of emotional agony deep in the pit of her gut but pass before they have the opportunity to hook their claws in. Still, it's enough to make her own hackles rise, mouth pursed around the urge to curl her lip and snarl.
Stop that.
Dajan's remark of mother seems to still Kwasi's tongue for a moment, long enough for him to dart a look back and forth between the two suspiciously. Tau, however, speaks up before Kwasi gets a chance to exacerbate the situation. "There is a time f'all things…" His words are quiet, laid only to Dajan as he gives one more squeeze to his shoulder and takes a step back. "'Dese people a'here for your guidance, an' our fight. Common goals unite all men, in the end." Dajan's look back to Tau at those words is pained, anger of a more natural variety building in him, anger and confusion, emotions that he has to keep firmly under lock and key before he finally exhales a breath he's been holding all that time.
"Mister Sylar, then…" The name seems wholly unfamiliar to Dajan, no bitterness or suspicion behind it. Kwasi does not seem surprised, but his look to Gabriel is a distrustful one. Tau, for whatever goes on inside his head, only offers the man a smile. "I am sorry that— " he catches Huruma's stare for a moment, hitch in his words and stride before he tries to gracefully recover and make his way to the table. "I am sorry that I was not here when you and your team first arrived."
Moving to the table, Dajan raises a hand to beckon everyone to move closer. There's no fancy projectors or plasma televisions here, just old paper maps. All Dajan can do at the moment is offer a nod to Kwasi, as if giving him permission to carry on ahead. Dajan folds his arms, takes a step back, and watches Huruma from across the table with an intent stare. Kwasi seems nonplussed about this change, rolling his tongue over his inside of his cheek before exhaling an exasperated sigh.
"Right, then…" Looking at the map, his focus drifts up to Aviators for a moment, then across to Sylar. "Now that you're all here, we should get on the same page. Your ally who arrived ahead of you— " a nod is given in Aviators' direction, " — should have briefed you on our general situation and about how things turned out as poorly as they did here." Sighihg softly, Kwasi points down to a place far south on the map. "This is the city of Antananarivo, capital of this nation. The country's dictator General Edmond Rasoul has turned this place into a fortress. A portion of the city has been walled off with twenty foot high concrete barricades, checkpoints at every entrance are patrolled by members of his personal army, and none have been allowed inside since the uprising. Those outside the walled off portions of the city live in squalor and fear, Edmond has done nothing for them, nothing but kill and burn and wait inside what was once a museum, now his palace."
Kwasi shifts his shoulders slightly. "Until a month ago we had an informant inside Rasoul's base, feeding us intelligence. He went silent twenty-eight days ago, and we presume Rasoul discovered and killed him. Since then, we have been attempting to transplant members of our group into the conscripted militia to regain a source of intelligence inside his compound…"
Pointing to two other locations east and west of the capital, Kwasi looks up to Sylar intently. "Your government gave us explicit orders to prepare for your arrival, unfortunately we were unable to accomplish either before you arrived. This location here is the General's weapons development facility, where he produces an aerosol neuro-toxin capable of negating abilities of people with powers…" Kwasi's eyes drift to Dajan, who is still focused on Huruma, then looks back to the map. "It is also where the majority of the military's heavy weapons are fabricated. We had planned a raid on the facility to claim it for ourselves, but Rasoul's men were expecting the attack, and we were routed…" Tapping a finger on the other side of the map, Kwasi points out a circled location.
"This location here is six kilometers outside of Antananarivo, it is a fortified military base that was once a part of the national military infrastructure, since the uprising it has become the source of Rasoul's military might. This is also the largest military airport in the country, where the majority of the nations fighter jets are." Tilting his head to the side, Kwasi looks up to Gabriel. "Your government's plan is three-fold…"
Pointing to the weapons facility, Kwasi begins outlining it. "Destroy the weapons facility and cut off armament deliveries to Rasoul's forces in the capital." Then to the eastern circle, "strike at the airport and disable or destroy the 15 MiG 21 fighter jets stationed there and disable the air defense grid at the central command. Lastly, after disabling the national defenses, infiltrate the capital and recover whatever intelligence it is youw ere sent here for while we attempt to assassinate Rasoul and restore order to this nation. During the infiltration, the American government has arranged for an air-strike of the city from a carrier en-route. You will use the conflict as a cover to mask your arrival, retrieve what you need, and then withdraw to the airport for exraction."
"This, of course, is no small task, and the preparation for the attack on both locations is going to take us several days. Not to mention, we are largely short-handed, leaving the lot of you are our primary offensive force, give or take some of our more talented operatives." Staring at Sylar, Kwasi raises one brow slowly. "Now that you have been caught up, what is your assessment of the situation?"
Those very close to the prophet seated by the wall may hear, distantly, the familiar strains of Bobby McFerrin from his headphones as he brings up a horsehair brush and begins to paint quietly on the wall, first spreading long strokes of black for a background. Usutu doesn't seem to be in any hurry, either, taking his time with whatever it is he's painting.
Hard to say if Virginia Gray would have been proud of him for this in particular scenario, of all things, but it all certainly seems important. Gabriel comes to stand at the able, look at what he's told to look at, and otherwise listen with his head at a tilt. As the explanation winds down, he can't help but look around the room at a slow crawl of gaze, from Huruma to Eileen, Claire and Candy, before returning his gaze to Kwasi when he brings it to a close, opens the floor.
"Desperate," he states, curtly, hands curling at his sides. "We've slaughtered our way through the opposition we've come across, but do you know if Rasoul is going to see us coming? Or does he think you're doing this on your own?"
He glances towards the weapons facility, where Kwasi outlined it, brows knit together in thought. If he has objections for the plan set out for them by their superiors, he isn't voicing it.
When beckoned, Claire slides off the arm of the couch and silently approaches. Eyes skim across the map silently. Her blue eyes lift to the man talking, listening intently to what he has to say, glancing down occasionally as he points something out. When Sylar is addressed, Claire glances at him and nods a bit at his assessment. A lot is riding on them it seems.. so desperate is the word of the day for sure.
Sighing softly, Claire glanced down at the maps again thoughtful, the weapons facility marked there gets a worried look.
Though she remains nearly at the back of things, Huruma's presence is a still and cold one as she skulks towards the table. Such close quarters makes being near her unbearable, whereas Dajan's immediate area seems to be more energetic- more warm, in a sense. She stares in return, the two sets of eyes unwavering, but in the due course of leaders and commanders, their ears are open and absorbing the explanations- and plans- that the strategist is outlining.
Huruma's attention appears to be glued to her son- the one, who until recently- she had full faith in being dead and buried. Very obviously, he is not dead, nor technically buried. While the look is reciprocated, Dajan will no doubt be able to pick out features of his own on his mother's face and frame, as well as the features carried by a fraternal sister that is presumably still somewhere safe, far away from here. A sister that he took care of for most of his childhood, despite the physical damage done to her brain making it arduous and difficult. There is no doubt that physically- he is his mother's son; these details won't be lost on anyone else that cares to examine them.
When Huruma's voice echoes hauntingly in the room, it is at a clipped place right behind Gabriel's words.
"Desperate-" There is something immaterial lumping in her throat, despite her usual coolness of speech. "-and weak. If not men, you need weapons. Weapons tha'we risk losing-" Her teeth meet with a dull sound of bone on bone. "-if th'enemy retains th'capability t'de-power us." In less, more succint words- they cannot leave the bombs to continue being manufactured.
"If your operatives don't have the weapons facility and airport under surveillance, I can contribute there." This from Eileen who, though soft-spoken, is using a tone that's very cut and precise. She leaves time in between her words as if reassessing them as she speaks, though she has undoubtedly chosen them with the due amount of care. "The Vanguard's chain of command broke down in the last few weeks Kazimir was still in power," she continues. "With Madagascar as isolated as it is, there's a chance that Rasoul doesn't know the full extent of what happened in New York City. I have a few ideas about how we might be able to infiltrate the capital before the carrier arrives, but that hinges on whether or not we succeed in destroying the weapons facility and disabling the airport.
"I'm not sure that we will." Her eyes flick to Huruma's back in implicit agreement with the other woman's statement. "There are only five of us, not counting Danko and Sanderson, and we all rely on our abilities to function in any sort of real offensive capacity."
"He knows we're coming alright…" Avaitors answers the question rather flatly, even if he seemed to pale a bit when Danko was mentioned, a look offered to Eileen's presentation of the soldier's name the same way someone might react to an unexpected dinner guest. "After… After that ambush on us at the Analalava airport, there's no way he won't be prepared for a second arrival, if the men who shot down your plane didn't already tell him. The SAM sites he put in at the airport aren't manned by the militia, that's full military, and those boys do not fuck about." Looking over to Kwasi, Aviators just shakes his head and then stares down at the map. "It is desperate though. This whole situation is…"
"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Kwasi states, looking to Hurumma with a furrowed brow. "Of course we're going to destroy those things, the biological weapons are essential to Rasoul's ability to control the country. Destroying their production is a part of disabling and capturing the weapons facility, and also securing more conventional weapons for ourselves. Just destroying the facility will not destroy the chemical agents that he still has in store, so it will still pose a threat all the way through to the capital…"
"More importantly…" Dajan finally speaks up, "we need to know if you have any suggestions on how to handle and prepare for the coming attacks. I have already consulted with Usutu on the matter, and taken his…" there's a furrow of Dajan's brows, "his advice to heart. But we are not all soldiers here, and we could use your advice. I trust Kwasi's plans, I just…" There's a look over to Usutu, then back to Gabriel, "I want to see what you have to say."
"I'm no tactician…" Aviators notes with a roll of one shoulder, "I'm just here to secure the intel we need and get the fuck out of this country." He tilts his head down, peering over the frames of his glasses to Dajan. "No offense to, you know…" He nods around the place. Tactful, he is.
"We have no active surveilance of either of those facilities." Kwasi notes in a distracted tone of voice, looking to Aviators with a side-long stare before focusing on Eileen again. "You… think you might have a plan to infiltrate before the air-strike? I'd like to hear it now, before we commit to the— "
"One thing at a time." Dajan states flatly, glancing to his mother briefly before looking back to Eileen. "If you can help us survey those sites before we strike, all the better. We're hoping to make a move on both facilities simultaneously, so they won't have a chance to react to the other's situation. They're far enough apart in the country though that the same team doing both structures won't work, so we're going to need to divide up into two separate strike forces for this specific goal." Dajan reaches up to run one hand over his shaved head, "Everyone here, including myself, is available for the task. I've put a call in to our other cells to send whoever they can spare."
Frowning, however, Dajan then adds, "If you were expecting more assistance of people with superhuman abilities, though, you will be disappointed. Of those we can call on, only myself and Tau are — as you Americans say — Evolved. Tau, as I figure you've discovered is a healer. I manipulate the earth…" Dajan's focus turns back to Gabriel. "So we're going to need your strength for this, all of you. As far as the Vanguard goes, I don't personally know much of them. Our former leader did, but he has since passed on. Kwasi was his second in command, however, and can brief you on anything you may need to know about them…"
Candy has been silent and just listening for most of the time as the briefing continued on. Even now that silence remains, the hydrokinetic feeling like a fish out of water while she listens to the plans that are being bandied about. At the mention of the powers that are available, Candy decides to speak up from where she is sitting, the Asian's voice soft as she says, "You have no… augmenters, in your other cells?"
Candy's eyes look up at Dajan as she asks the question, her good arm crossed beneath her bad arm while she asks. Something of a plan forming in her own head, if she can manage to gather the resources that may or may not be needed.
"Your country seems to understand guns and tanks better than they do abilities," Gabriel says, in something that's almost a sneer. "Trust me, in that regard, we're all the firepower you need." His mouth says we're. His demeanor suggests something slightly more arrogant. He leans his hands against the table, before he lifts his chin towards the facility. "If it wasn't for the neurotoxins, I'd say we should just grab our intel and go. As you can see, our resources have been cut down to size. We don't have time to save your country, but I guess we'll inevitably wind up paving the way, won't we?"
The table creaks and shudders a little as he takes his weight off it, arms coming to fold. "I don't think we should split. Bravo should target the weapons facility while you and yours target the airport. After that, Eileen can maybe share with the rest of the class about how we infiltrate."
ORDER: Claire has skipped their turn.
For perhaps the first real time on this trip, Huruma's gaze travels over to Gabriel with a definite and clear expression of ire. Perhaps as his newfound pride is clashing with some things of hers. Her gaze will now only meet Dajan's for no more than the span of a second, and so the distraction to glower over at Gabriel for a moment is rather welcome. "It does not matter.
"It does not matter who goes where- as long as it gets done. But if teams prove t'be hard t'form …and keep- someone will'ave t'decide which skills will empower each other." She's not doing it, in any case- at this point, nattering over which team goes where is the least important matter at hand. That much Gabriel might glean just by listening past her words, if he deigns to have an everyday sort of telepathy.
In sharp contrast to the look Huruma is giving Gabriel, Eileen's has gentled some. Perhaps she wasn't expecting him to acknowledge her suggestion — more likely, his overall demeanor is having a tangential affect on hers. Even though Sanderson placed him in charge when they first arrived at the base, this is the first opportunity she's had to see him assert his authority, and while Huruma might not like it, it's clear that she has no such compunctions about the decisions that he's making. She angles a glance over at Aviators, attempting to discern his reaction to the call as best she can from the other side of his polarized lenses, watchful of his brows, the creases between them and the shape his mouth takes when everything that's been said has had the chance to settle.
A confused look is passed between Dajan and Kwasi, and they both shake their heads a bit confusedly. "I'm not sure I know what an augmentor even is…" Dajan admits with a rueful expression. "Perhaps Sylar is right, our country may not understand all those with abilities as well as the people in America do. We have not had time to, in a way, too much time spent fighting, running…" Dajan's eyes drift to Huruma once more, then find their way to Aviators when he speaks up.
"S'fine by me, the less time I have to spend here the better. We," it seems he's balling himself up with Bravo team, "take the weapon facility and the rest tangle with the airport. Pretty cut and dry if you ask me." Shrugging his shoulders, Aviators looks over to Kwasi, who seems to think a little less cleanly on the matter.
"Th' assault on the airport is vital for your extraction. W'out the air defense system down, your US planes will no'be able to either bomb the capital, or bring in rescue for you. Unless you would like t'prolong your stay here." There's a prideful narrowing of his eyes when Gabriel suggests how the teams should be divided. "Fine, if that is how you want it. You can trust on us to handle the national defenses at the airport, and the rest of you can deal with what he has done at the weapons facility."
"Dajan…" Tau offers a pleading look to the group's leader, then a raise of both brows, as if insisting on some unspoken point. Seeing the look, Dajan is shaken, somehwat, from his torpor and stare at Huruma. Nodding his head once, reluctantly, he seems to have something to add.
"There is… one other matter." The scarred man seems hesitant to bring it up. "I know it is not any of our business to ask favors of you all, we know you have business here, information you seek…" Dajan's cut side of his mouth opens up like a grimace, "Rasoul operates slave camps inside the capitol. He captures people like us, forces them to fight for his amusement in what was once a sports stadium. Others he puts to work in the city, and the rest are hunted as sport by one of his lieutenants. We fear that during the attack on the city, the prisoners at the slave camps may be executed."
Tau nods his head, speaking up in the remainder for Dajan. "We woul' appreciate any help y'can give us, in freein' 'dese slaves, 'dey are out people, an' they'no deserve th' fates tha' Rasoul 'as given t'them. I woul'ask for your help in liberatin' these people as quickly as possible once we move on th' Capital…"
Candy shakes her head a little and replies, "An augmentor is someone who makes others abilities stronger, so that they can do more." She shrugs her shoulders, figuring that they probably won't have one anyway. At the mention of prisoners, she looks around at who is with her, trying to judge their attitudes. Candy keeps her own views to herself for now while she stands there. she doesn't see a reason to go out of their way and risk their lives to do a secondary objective that has little to no importance when it comes to their main goal. To get the hell off this godforsaken island and to make sure that he cannot make anymore of that gas, and to make sure Danko doesn't get a hold of how to make that gas.
Paler strokes have taken place over the black now, beneath Usutu's horsehair brush; short, impressionistic strokes forming a humanoid figure, slender although that could just be viewpoint, and then beginning to paint a larger figure across, as if carried, though there's no real detail as of yet. His movements are quick, almost frantic, with no pausing to consider or re-think his work.
Don't mind him, he's just doing art while everyone else discusses business.
"That it gets done rests entirely on how it gets done," Gabriel slices back to Huruma, with a flare up of irritation, and an undercurrent of mysterious anxiety — not exactly nervousness, but something. As much as she doesn't care, he apparently trusts the team around him as opposed to diluting it. A brimming tension, like the vibrations up and down a guitar string without a hand to still them. Hard to tell on the outside, however, and he turns his gaze back to Dajan as he squares away this particular suggestion. Gabriel barely gives him a nod.
And now, at this particular factor, he swings a look to Aviators perhaps in the assumption that the man would soundly object to this. Gabriel, however, doesn't make any kind of instant call. Then; "Our mission as Team Bravo is pretty cut and dry. If anyone wants to participate in extracurricular activities, that's their choice."
Claire is really of two minds on them hitting the plant. For one.. all it would take is them getting hit by the gas to make the mission fail… but on the other hand not letting the regular people get the stuff is pretty important. She chews lightly at the corner of a lip, but doesn't say anything, eyes lifting only to glance for a moment at people as they talk. The mention of fights, slave and freeing them, Claire turns thoughtful… well all of it really… She can't help but wonder… What would her dad do?
The only tension breathing off of Huruma is not so much tension from the mission at hand; even without exactly trying to see it, that tension is obviously stemming from the man at the head of the table. Everytime their eyes meet, the wire strung betwixt them grows tighter and tighter, threatening to snap in half at what feels like anytime. The tall woman even has to squeeze her eyes closed at one point- and when they open again her gaze is unfocused, flickering over surroundings and somehow heavy; Huruma's presence is soon one of high-strung anxiety, complete with the simmering anger that she has had for a while yet.
If she forms an opinion about freeing the military slaves, Huruma does not voice it. It is likely that she will later agree that they need freed- however, right now- her priority is waning speedily away from the reason she is in Madagascar- to who she has encountered there.
With the exception of those few who turned on him, Kazimir chose his followers well; there is still some cognitive dissonance that exists within Eileen that flares hot in her belly and turns her skin to ice when Dajan paints for Team Bravo a picture as vivid as the one Usutu is labouring over using only his words. It's difficult for her to reconcile with the fact that she once held even a sliver of affection for the man responsible for such atrocities, and more difficult still to accept that she had a hand, however indirect, in what's happening in Antananarivo— what already happened here in Mandritsara.
Gabriel's indifference, Candy's outright rejection and Claire's indecision are each met with stony silence in turn. The former Vanguard operative is in no position to neither lambaste nor criticize, and when Huruma has said nothing for as long as she can possibly stand to contain what's bubbling frothily inside of her, she lifts her eyes to Dajan and inclines her chin in the subtlest of affirmative gestures. She'll help.
There's a smirk from Aviators at that pragmatism, "Atta' boy." He notes in a quiet tone of voice, then shrugs to Dajan and Tau. "Sorry, but we're not here to help with your civil uprising or your personal problems. We get in, we get out, and we get the hell outta' dodge. That's all this amounts to, really. Nothing personal."
Dajan offers a narrow-eyed stare to Aviators and echoes, "Yes… nothing personal." Tau too looks displeased at the lack of agreement from the team's leader and from Aviators, even though Kwasi doesn't seem all that invested in the argument at all, watching dispassionately from one side of the table, arms folded and head cocked to the side.
Eileen's unvoiced offer of support however, earned a surprised look from Tau and a thankfuk nod of his head. "Y'selfless offer will no'go unrepaid…" The giant of a man states in that rumbling voice, "we will talk more'a this after th' meetin." To that notion, Aviators seems to pass a wary stare to Eileen, one brow raised in quiet uncertainty before it dips back down again.
"It's going to take a few days for the forces we've called on to arrive here and be able to mobilize on the two locations, so there's still time left to formulate actual plans of attack. If Bravo is going to be handling the munitions factory by themselves, then I will be sure that Kwasi gives you all the intelligence on it that we can spare, and you can devise a plan you feel comfortable with." Dajan does his damndest not to meet Huruma's stare this whole while. "The reinforcements are going to arrive here on Wednesday, which means you all still have some time to spare… and hopefully your real leader will recover from her injuries by then." There's a subtle tone of distaste for Gabriel offered in that from Dajan.
"I would also make one recommendation to all of you…" A look is afforded to where Usutu sits and paints. "In the time you have, you should each see Usutu on your own. He is an extremely talented man, gifted with the ability to not only see the future, but impart oracles on others. His insights…" There's a slow shake of Dajan's head, "whatever they may be… might be of help to you."
A disbelieving snort from Kwasi comes next, followed by a slow shake of his head. "You don't have to listen to him, Dajan's soft on oracles. I wouldn't put much stock in anything the mad prophet says." Dajan cuts Kwasi a stern look, brows furrowed in disapproval, but it goes unvoiced.
Candy shrugs her shoulders a little, before she finally speaks up once more, her eyes looking towards Tau and Dajan. After a moment of contemplation she replies, "If we can rescue them without going out of our way, I will help." The sociopath seems to be the first one to talk of helping them. Her eyes go over to Usuntu at the talk of having one-on-one time with him. A roll of her good shoulder occurs next, perhaps she'll go and talk to him later. Maybe she won't. Oracles tend to make her feel all itchy and not in control.
A sweep of brown pigment's down from one figure's head, a stirring of dirty fingers in black paint to suggest wings that aren't quite there—water stirred about his fingers before the brush is taken up once more, red splashed in messy lines that are let drip in slender trails down the picture. Usutu's head bobs faintly as he works, no doubt in time with the music.
Gabriel tilts a bird-quick glance to Usutu, bridling reluctance in his stance, before he shrugs his shoulder. "I'm my own prophet. I draw prettier too," is spoken with a sneer enough to show teeth right back at Dajan, open resentment in response to that minor jab at his apparent leadership. If not an outright no. He glances to Candy, but it was as he said - those who want to help, can. If he's made a personal decision in that regard, he hasn't voiced it, nor intends to.
Turning her attention to Usutu, Claire smiles a bit. "Trust me when I say.. prophets are not always mad." Her voice soft, yet matter of fact, her eyes shift over to Sylar. "I've had my life predicted fairly accurately before… Her tone bland, he was in those comics too. Her eyes drop to the table and the map, only to lift and look at Kwasi again. "So I take great stock in the what prophets say.. mostly, because a little guidance and a little forewarning can mean everything… or nothing." Her head turns some as she looks over at Usutu again. "Tends to be what my life is about a lot of the time.. the words of prophets." It's partially how she ended up here.
Whatever they may be… Dajan's soft on oracles…
Huruma's brain, in the swimmingness that surrounds it very quickly in the congestion of the room- makes associations whether or not they actually exist. It is becoming increasingly clear that Usutu had to have known- and said nothing- she could put blame on the shaman, but the train of thought connects quickly to the fact that Dajan is close to him- too close to have not known something was going to happen here, with Team Bravo's presence. In that, it is as much his fault for not dying as it is that the two are now virtually nose to nose. Huruma's intentions more than two decades ago were pure enough- to keep her children from living in a world just like this one with her at its helm. Compound that her means of trying to protect her children failed onto the entire past weeks-
-that somehow the conclusion that reaches her first is one where she feels the need to remove the problem, as she so often does- it is no wonder that something twangs sharply in her brain, the screechy bounce of wire snapping around in her skull, ends fraying every which direction. If the problem goes away then it doesn't exist. You've got to commend Huruma for keeping grounded this long. Because, well, the next thing to happen after Claire finishes speaking is not quite promising.
One moment, Huruma is hovering in the spot between other bodies, eyes downcast to the topography of Madagascar; in the next, she is suddenly heaving herself onto and over the table, vaulting up and across with teeth bared, eyes wild, and arms outstretched, hands like claws reaching out of the golden shade she had been standing in.
Selfless. Eileen can almost taste the scornful laughter in her mouth, though none of this derisiveness is directed at Tau or anyone except herself. She turns it inward, her face a carefully neutral mask that does not change even when she feels Aviators' eyes on her. What makes it crack is that surge of movement across the table when Huruma throws herself over it with the force of ocean wave crashing against rocks in a storm, spitting and bubbling with violent energy.
This is usually the part where someone screams at her to stop, but shouting in this situation is probably as effective as using the same tactic discourage a lioness from breaking off her charge after she's exploded from the sawgrass. Eileen is not, so to speak, going to continue sitting in the back of their Jeep with her hands cupped around her mouth, praying that the gazelle springs out of the way in time.
She lunges forward, hooks one arm around the other woman's neck, digs her knee into the small of her back and uses her uninjured hand to attempt to brace herself against the edge of the table so Huruma doesn't end up dragging her with. Or at least that's her intent. "Bennet!"
No one truly expected that, neither Huruma's pounce across the table nor Eileen's matchstick thin frame moving to try and stop her. Kwasi leaps back from the table and reaches for his sidearm, leveling the handgun up immediately and without so much as a single shred of hesitation for pointing it at his allies. In that same instant that a gunshot rings out, there is the sound of a ricochet off of stone, and a piece of shattered concrete hangs in the air on unseen tethers. The hole in thef loor where it was is directly below one of Dajan's outstretched hands. A bullet has flattened against the piece of concrete, followed by Dajan's roar of "No!" To his second.
It isn't her son, but rather Tau that finds himself at the fore with Huruma, the seven foot tall man heedlessly imterposing himself between the teeth and claws of the enraged woman. He reaches up, taking one of her wrists in his hand even as Eileen attempts to wrestle Huruma like a monkey on a panther's back, pulling at its whiskers. He reaches out, fingers grasping to take her by the front of the shirt and bodily move her, even as Huruma's nails dig into the flesh of his chest to try and claw her way over him like some sort've flesh mountain.
"Stop!" Tau bellows with a thunder-roar voice, blood trickling down his arm from her nails. His fingers wind in the front of her shirt, trying to hold her still, but—
In the midst of sudden chaos, Usutu lifts a more slender brush, adding quick, short strokes as he begins to detail the painting, his head drifting absently side to side. He may not even be aware of what's going on, or in any case certainly doesn't seem to be.
— but everything abruptly stops, in that those involved will find themselves stopping. Huruma's powerful legs suddenly seize up even tenser than they were, and lever her back in the same way Candy had been propelled away from Danko some days ago. Bodily, she is forced to fling herself back, landing atop the table which creaks and shudders in protest, back flat against it, her arms splayed as if her elbows were pinned there, and as much as her back might arch in resistance, her limbs, her joints, refuse to obey her.
She is not the only one. Kwasi's gun immediately clatters to the floor, and Tau goes stumbling back into Dajan, the two men briefly gripped in the binding control of puppet strings before set loose again, unlike Huruma. The sound of maps sliding down in whispers against the floor fills the room.
Gabriel never touched his gun. Both hands are raised, fingers hooked as if puppet strings truly did hang from them, expression set. "Bad kitty," is directed towards Huruma, gravel and velvet as much as it's a rough kind of purr.
There is barely anytime to react to the sudden explosion of Huruma going after her son. The moment of shock doesn't last long, even as her name is yelled, the ex- cheerleader is moving. Of course, she practically runs into Tau as he steps in where she was going too. Instead, Claire moves to pry Huruma's fingers out of the man's flesh and pushes her back from these others. "Huruma… this is stupid.. stop… it" The words are growled out, and strained as she works. Then.. everything stops… and Claire is left staring at Huruma laying on the table. Claire's hands drops to her sides, but she doesn't move away.. ready to step in Huruma's path should she go for it again.
She won't admit it out loud, but Claire in that moment is thankful Gabriel and his swiss army knife of abilities was there.
In getting into Huruma's way, Tau is treated as blindly as Huruma might treat a bush overgrown on a forest path; the initial attack is superficial, and Eileen's climbing over her back feels exactly like an oxpecker somehow trying to tweak a rhino into turning right or left.
When Huruma seems to register that it is Tau blocking the way, her eyes meet his with a flicker of light deep inside- the glint precedes a mind-blowing avalanche of fear being driven into his brain. She spares zero expense on this first assault to Tau's emotional and mental senses. As it turns out, Huruma only has those few milliseconds to do it; she decides that moment to open her mouth and try to latch onto Tau's forearm with her teeth- but at the same time everything seizes up and stops.
The hollow boom as Huruma hits the table echoes loudly, thrumming in her ears; the puppetry is not unfamiliar, and as a result the jolts of fear biting fiercely into Tau divert in a natural reaction towards Gabriel. Whether she intends to send it all his way is unlikely.
The sounds that she makes are akin to those in the most violent of horror movie exorcisms- which is exactly what this looks like. Huruma's body covers the table, muscles and limbs straining wildly against the ability attempting to hold her still; her mouth opens wide in an angry howl, usually collected features now screwed up into madness. The howl breeds with angry screaming, and for that loudest second the room is filled with something that sounds neither human nor animal, more than feral and less than controlled; to put it simply, the noise is demonic- a hellscream, ear-shattering and nerve-shaking.
At some point during the scuffle, however brief, Eileen must have lost her grip on Huruma because she's neither on the table nor at eye level. The top of her dark-haired head it below it, her body situated on the floor near Kwasi's gun with one leg folded under her body, the other bent at the knee and angled outward. She's unhurt; aggravation rather than pain is the expression pulling her mouth taut and her brows down, nose twitching with visible irritation as she runs her tongue over her teeth behind her lip to make sure they're all still there.
Cradling her wrist against her middle, she reaches up with her hand, closes fingers around the edge of the table again, though this time it isn't to brace herself against it. Instead, Team Bravo's field medic uses it as an assist as she pulls herself to her feet and goes fumbling in the pockets of her cargo pants for the syringe of morphine she carries on her in case of emergencies, works the cap of with her thumb and holds the plastic between her teeth as she grabs hold of Huruma's nearest leg, feeling the musculature of her thigh through the material of her clothes. A moment later, she's plunging the needle into her femoral artery and depressing the plunger between her fingers.
Recoiling away from Huruma, Tau clutches his head and lets out a sound similar to a choked gurgle, the kind someone makes when all of their breath is forcibly exhaled from their lungs. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated to pinpoints, and before he can breathe in his next breath, that gigantic healer folds like a bag of paper down to his knees with a colossal thud, followed by the bulk of his weight shifting to one side and landing on the floor, having fainted from the emotional overload blown thorugh from Huruma's uncontrolled fury.
The guards outside may have been delayed in their approach, but it only takes this extra moment for them to come rushing in with guns drawn. Seeing them coming in, Dajan holds out a hand towards them and barks out an order. "No! Stop!" There's a look of confusion on their faces, right up until Huruma is jabbed with the needle in her leg. Kwasi looks outraged and confused at his gun on the floor, and something is hissed out under his breath in Malagasy that seems unkindly lobbed towards Gabriel.
Staggering to the side, he flexes one hand open and closed, but can't quite seem to make the other one do anything but stay limply open thanks to Gabriel's ability. "Everyone calm down!" Dajan bellows, somehow a model of control despite what is obviously coursing through his blood. When he sees the needle stuck into Huruma's neck, his eyes go wide and an accusing look is flashed towards Eileen. "What was that? What did you do!?"
Somehow, Candy canlt help but sidestep behind Gabriel as all this is going on. The last place she wants to be, especially with a broken shoulder, is between Huruma and anything right about now. A smirk creeps up on her lips, one finger curling a lock of hair around it as she watches from behind her forcibly volunteered bodyguard.
And thorugh all of this, Usutu continues painting. By now the picture is starting to be clearer, a frail looking woman with gossamer wings outspread behind her back, hard to see against the dark background of the painting, faint suggestions of wings. In her arms, someone is being painted, and there is so much blood in the painting, but the victim is not quite clear yet.
Serves Gabriel right, maybe, facetious snideness slicing thin from his teeth, smirk vanishing when that invisible attack off-handedly tries to lay him to waste. The strings remain taut, but Gabriel reels back and almost into Candy when he does so, who's forced to skitter back or risk being bowled over. He's felt this before — brings to mind the steely clasp of a metal man's hands around his throat, lifting him high enough to have the serial killer's feet dangle over slick concrete. Other old men in grey, Arthur Petrelli hanging him to turn the world upside down while cutting a track in his skull. Hurtling so many feet per second down to Madagascar's very hard surface.
Fear isn't new, and it passes soon, perhaps sometime after Eileen plunges that need into the woman's straining thigh. He keeps her there as much as he isn't able to do much else, the voice and breath knocked from him and face pale.
Somewhere between attacking Gabriel with the recoil and the needlepoint plunging into her leg, Huruma has managed to both bite open that former wound on the inside of her mouth and snarl and flail so much as to create an unsettling film of foamy spittle that crawls sluggishly down the sides of her face and onto the table with drops of red.
A guttural noise crops up out of the woman when Eileen takes action via sedation; Huruma seems only aware that someone has stabbed her in the leg, and it is only when her eyes begin to roll hazily backwards that she realizes what it probably was. Somewhere in there, Huruma breathes a mental sigh- thankful for Eileen knowing what she was doing. Perhaps later she will say something to the girl, perhaps not. Mad seizure closing its hold on her mind, Huruma's heaving and writhing settles down, down, down- the dose leaves her disoriented eventually, but just that one dose may not last as long as it may for most of them due to adrenaline and Huruma's physical build.
"Morphine." Eileen's answer to Dajan's question is terse, clipped out. She exhausted most of her breath in the fight to rein Huruma in, and her hands are shaking with excess excitement when she removes them from her leg and places the cap back on the syringe. It's not that she intends on using the needle again, but she'd like to avoid any future accidents. They only just averted this one — if you can even call what happened here an accident.
She thinks that they can as long as they're looking at the situation from everyone else's point of view and not Huruma's. "I don't know how long it's going to last," she says. "For someone of her size, maybe an hour. Two. She'll be a little groggy when she wakes up, but otherwise— she's fine."
Strangely it is a sigh of relief that Dajan offers, looking at Huruma with the same eyes someone might view a rabid dog — piteous, that it had to come to this. "Thank you…" He offers, bending a knee to take a spot at Tau's side, one hand brushing over the giant's forehead, then up to the guards and over to Kwasi. "Get some of the men from the clinic, we won't be able to move him, but we should move m— " he hesitates, "Huruma there."
"Move 'er? A'you insane?" Kwasi waves a hand towards the sedate woman. "She tried t'kill you, this is no'what y'do w'a rabid dog! You pu'it down!" Dajan's eyes narrow at that, furiously and he comes to stand up from Tau's side. Kwasi sees the look, needn't really hear the words that come next to know how incensed Dajan is.
It is with a scowl and a turn of his head to the side that Kwasi accepts the order and lets out a derisive snort with a sharp, "Yes, sir." His boots clomp across the concrete floor, waving at the two guards, "Get back t'your posts!" The men jump at the crack of Kwasi's whip-like hand motion, and the three are hasty to exit the meeting room, leaving a tired looking Dajan holding ihs head in one hand.
"I apologize for her actions…" He is apologizing for her? "I should have expected it may go that way. I was worried that there was a reason for all this…" There's noc larification to those words. "Thank you for… handling that delicately." Dajan breathes out a heavy sigh, rubbing one hand over his face. "Perhaps we should break this meeting for a bit and… continue later."
Even as Dajan speaks, Usutu is finishing his painting, the last touches of white around the edges of a coppery colored circle. He blinks his eyes, the milky-white coloration turning back to dark brown, headphones still on as he regards an image of somewhat inverted likelihood.
A rail thin woman with dark hair and wings kneeling on the ground, holding the bloodied body of a broad-shouldered man with thick, dark brows to her chest. Blood runs from him to pool on the ground in the form of an inverted howling wolf's head. Above the pair, Usutu has painted a moon colored a deep and dark coppery-red with a white ring around it.
An eclipse.
Gabriel's knees don't go sissily weak when he lets go of his puppetry from Huruma's now limp frame, but he does seem to cut some kind of physical tension. His hands brace against his knees, peripherally aware of what's being said in the room and clinging to concepts like breaking the meeting and continuing later. Inevitably, because that is just the way things go, he tracks his gaze towards the marks on the wall, and it won't be the first time, nor the last, that the visage is familiar. The sight does nothing for the blanch of ghost-pale in his face, made stark against stubble and the dark marks of his eyebrows and widow's peak.
His curved back goes upright again, hand up to his throat, rubbing the side of it as he darts wary looks around the room, starting from Claire and ending with Eileen. He even has an excuse lined up, that he needs to go over what's been said with Sanderson—
Instead, he moves for out without fanfare, back turned to the image and the man who painted it as he goes.
With things relaxing, Claire moves out of the way. She backs up some intent on sitting on the couch again, when she catches movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning to look in Usutu's direction, the ex-cheerleader takes a moment to take in the image on the wall. It takes a moment for the colors brushed on the wall to really speak to her.
Brows arch high on her forehead and Claire glances at Sylar to gage his reaction. Of course, she only gets a glimpse of his back as he leaves, so instead she turns her gaze to Eileen, "There was a time.. I might have been glad to see something like that…" Her words trailing off to a whisper, her eyes drifting over the image, before dropping to the messenger. "Considering our situation… it actually scares me."
Claire, shaking her head slowly, moves for the door as well, needing time to herself. She kneww their chances of getting out are slim, but the image on the wall, makes it feel more real for some reason.
"Sylar—" Eileen's voice is hard and aimed at Gabriel's retreating back, but he's left the room by the time it reaches his ears. It's then that she shifts focus and redirects her eyes toward the painting, perhaps to see what has him so spooked. Her palm goes to her mouth without thinking, fingers pressed against her lips with enough force to whiten them. Utterly still apart from nervous shake in her hands, she can hear Claire talking to her, but she's only picking out choice words, and even then — strung haphazardly together by an addled brain — they make no sense.
When she lets out the breath she'd been holding, it's through her nose in the form of a thin, reedy hiss that competes with her hands for what's trembling the most. Her shoulders, at least, are rigid and squared, body anchored firmly in place like a buoy to the ocean floor being tugged at by the tide.
Gabriel's gone. Claire is gone. By rights, she should be taking her leave of the room too.
Dajan is left standing over the motionless form of his mother, only the faintest of twitches in her face or movement of eyes behind her eyelids stir her from her drug induced slumber. All this time, Aviators has been absolutely silent in the corner of the room, but when Gabriel turns to leave and he sees Eileen there watching his back, the CIA operative is quick to move out of this ridiculous family drama and somewhere else — also likely underground — to cool his heels for the time being.
Dajan watches Aviators go, listens to the sounds of men being called from down the hall and Kwasi's frustrated tone as he addresses them. Then, in the way one might soothe a wounded animal, Dajan lays a large hand down on his mother's forehead, brushing a thumb across her dark cheek. The looks in his eyes is unexpressive, but for all her sedated state, she can still feel the emotions radiating out from him as much as she can taste the blood in her mouth.
A son's love.