Participants:
| Scene Title | Snowfall |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A night at a shelter in Chelsea turns deadly. |
| Date | April 5, 2010 |
Washington Irving High School never regained its balance after the terrorist attack in 2008. Although it was closed for 20 months after the bomb exploded in Midtown, the high school managed to survive that catastophe and come out stronger, but the loss of life and the damage done to the school in the 2008 rocket attack simply was too much. The windows of the school are broken, walls graffitied by mischievous teens and the west wing of the school still looks gutted from the rockets that tore thorugh the building. The interior is exposed to the elements, blue tarps covering the ground floor and chain link fence closing off the area from the public. It's one of many scars in New York that haven't ever healed.
Only the Barrows Memorial Gymnasium remains open to the public now, and no longer does it serve its original purpose. The large Gymnasium was constructed only a year before the bomb in and memorialized in the name of a student killed in a traffic accident in Queens. Now this large gymnasium serves as temporary shelter for the destitute, homeless and desperate of the city. Soup kitchen trucks operate out front of the gym, rows and rows of folding cots and portable partition screens create a makeshift and temporary living environment for over three hundred residents seeking to escape the cold.
On any given day, the residency of this shelter can peak around three hundred, though now that the weather has turned for the worst, it can sometimes reach near five hundred desperate souls clinging to warmth and shelter where there is none left to give.
The shelter itself is a crowded and noisy place to be, with steamer tables lined up to serve hot meals during the evening hours and the combined voices of several hundred residents seeking relief from the cold the acoustics of the gymnasium create a cacophony of voices. Lights high above burn bright and hot, powered by the thankfully stable electrical grid in Chelsea; sixteen hours without a blackout in this neighborhood.
The analogue clock on the wall above the rows of doors leading in to the gymnasium reads 8:16pm, by now the volunteers who're planning to head home before curfew are packing up their things and saying their goodbyes, byt the lion's share of volunteers — especially given the lack of public transportation in the city right now — are hunkering down to spend another night here at the shelter. Thankfully everyone has been cooperating over the last few days, freyed nerves and violence has been at a minimum, though the slightest sneeze or cough has been sending ripples of anxiety and fear thorugh the residents.
The virus could be anywhere, and paranoia of non-evolved infection still lingers in the backs of people's minds.
But today, the human condition is the least of the worries in this shelter, and by the end of the night it will be the sake of humanity that winds out over cruelty. Nature has enough of that in store for everyone.
Noriko has become something of a known figure around the circles that have been helping the people of New York during this weather. The hydrokinetic has been out and about most days, trying to help those she can. Perhaps its lingering guilt that is left in her subconcious, or just a new outlook on life. Regardless of the motivation, Noriko Amagi has been volunteering most of her time at homeless shelters, and the strain is a little obvious, from the black circles around her eyes to the frazzled condition of her hair. She keeps a smile on her face, however, as she hands out some more food to the next person in line, nodding her head to those who are leaving and giving their goodbyes, a hand coming up to push black hair from her face. Her eyes looking out over the people, and not for the first time, wishing her power was something that could provide them with the warmth that they desperately seek.
Madeleine Hart glances at the clock as she chitchats with one of the shelter's many "patrons," her ballpoint pen scribbling in her own unique shorthand as she takes notes on his words. It's nights like this that she hates being a reporter — the piece she's working on is hardly hard news and hardly Pulitzer-calibre quality — it's just one of those "slice of life" pieces that will be a sidebar to the weather stories that thankfully she doesn't have to write. Why her? She'd asked the editor, since weather and shelters are not her beat, but the editor murmured something yada yada blah blah about it being connected to Evo-Affairs because it was clearly an atmokinetic who was at fault for the storm.
"Thanks, so much, Mister Jameson," she tells the elderly man. "I hope things look up for you really soon. Try to stay warm," she murmurs. She only needs one or two more quotes, and can call it a night. At least this story isn't for tomorrow's paper. Her warm apartment and bed are calling her name.
The warmth comes from the pressed bodies, get enough of them in one place and it warms up soon enough. But when that's not enough, Michelle's the answer to that issue. She's set out with a purpose for a shelter. She could have remained in the house and kept her and the neighbours warm, everyone fed. The generators can be used for more pressing needs like lights, but the atmokinetic is the one who is keeping the place comfortably warm. Little harder than normal thanks to the oppressing cold that wants to creep in, but she's managing.
Her own physicians bag out and set up shop in a corner for those in need of attention no matter how little, of the medical kind. "Pauvre Angeline." She's tilting a young girls head back, rag to the nose and some fetched cold snow to stop a nosebleed while a harried stressed mother looks on. "I tell you, that I know that Marlena hmmm, she brought some puzzles, you might be able to find a small space to work on it yes?" She pulls the ice away, taking a peek and smile. "There, all done. Once you settle I will try and make it a little more humid where you are. That will help yes?" It will.
After spending a bit of time with the kids, Magnes left early to come help out at the shelter for a few hours, knowing that they're usually in need of people who can cook quickly and not waste supplies. He dips the ladle into a broth of meatballs and tomato sauce, then carefully dumps them into a bowl for Luke. He's just wearing a simple pair of blue jeans today, with his black snow boots, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a white apron. He's stored his coat somewhere safe. "Enjoy."
"Oh.., oh! Are you watching, huh?" Cooper quips happily, surrounded by a group of the children. He volunteered to help out on his days off, since he really had nothing else going on at home. "Ah… Almost done." He flashes a grin at the little kids, his hands working on a colorful creation. "Annnnd…" A wild looking imitation of a top hat is plunked down on a little boys head, who giggles and ducks his head pulling it off.
"Oh, come now. It isn't that bad is it?" Cooper, perched on a chair, wearing an NJPD sweatshirt — which he often gets ribbed for by co-workers — and jeans, he looks at ease as he gives the kid his best over exaggerated hurt look. The boy gets a wink and he looks at one of the little girls. "What about you? Hmm?" He asks pulling out a pale pink balloon. "But just this one more, then I got to get on home."
The detective eyes move to the clock as well, at least if he is caught out after curfew he can talk his way out of trouble with a flash of a badge.
Stepping in line behind Luke towards the steamer tables, a tired old man in clothing not terrible suited for winter weather offers a yellowed smile to Adelaide. "Well, hello there darling…" the bald-headed man states, one hand balancing his tray atop the steamer table, the other keeping his navy blue baseball cap to his chest. He looks weary, like so many of the people do here, face wrinkled and sagging, gray and black stubble at his chin from the lacking clean shave, some of the same salt and pepper color coming to the thin coat of buzzed hair atop his head that's only just starting to fill in, unlike his full eyebrows.
"So, ah…" the old man tilts his chin up, yellow teeth revealed more in his knife-like smile, "Adelaide," his eyes are settled on her name tag, "what's on the menu today for me today, darling?" He nods to the serving tray, even as the old man offers an askance look over to the boy standing next to him in line, one brow lowly raising as wide-eyed surprise dawns on his face.
How long as it been since Samson Gray had seen Luke Campbell?
Too long.
Moving among the crowd, keeping children occupied, Adeliade ventures back to her little nook, and puts something away, after a long moment, Adelaide returns and heads to one of the other soup-stations, nearer to Magnes, she offers a polite wave to Magnes and then proceeds to dole out chicken broth. She glances at the clock as well .A the voice she smiles, thought its a pleasant smile its partially unnerved by the knife like smile."Marina sauce with meatballs and I've got some chicken noodle soup, sir. It's actually still hot." she asks softly. She offers him a bowl of the soup.
Noriko is continuing her serving, before she notices the man before her is one that she has seen else where. "Why hello, Ms. Schnieder, how're the kids doing this evening," Noriko inquires with a smile while she stands there in the line, the woman in front of her in her middle ages and with greying hair.
Ms. Schnieder answers her, "Oh, they're fine. They're with my current boyfriend over there," she waves hand in a general direction and Noriko smiles while she nods before saying,
"Would you like me to get them some food as well, or are they not that hungry?"
The woman just shakes her head and replies, "They're being a little fussy about what they eat. I know it sounds cold-hearted of me, but give them some time and they'll realize that all they have to eat is what you wonderful people are supplying us."
Luke notices the old guy staring at him and looks back with a frown, quickly replaced by an equally obvious expression of surprise. "What are you doing here?" he blurts out, fumbling the bowl Magnes offers him and sidestepping to stay in line, although his attention remains on Samson.
Maddie steps away from the man she was interviewing, turning and glancing around for someone new. You can always tell some people want to be left alone, and it's probably her biggest shortcoming as a journalist that she tries to actually accommodate those. Her eyes fall on the splash of color in the form of balloon animals in Cooper's corner and she heads that way, watching with amusement as he makes "just one more" for his half-pint-sized audience. "I'm surprised you can feel your hands enough to tie knots," she says, her Australian accent an oddity amongst the New Yorkers' nasal twangs in the crowd.
"Ah… It's nothing." Cooper quips glancing up at the voice, before looking back at his audience. Then is dawns on him, he looks back with lifted brows. Hello there. "Ah… I… have been doing things like this for sometime." He comments lightly turning back to the kids, taking a moment to inflate another balloon and tie it off, another following it, before he starts twisting them together.
"Good icebreaker." He glances sideways at her, with a bit of a smirk, pale green eyes squinting at her slightly, studying her, even as his fingers continue to work. "Especially, on cases involving kids, works wonders to get them talking." Is it a dog? Is it a horse? Is it a cat? Who knows but Cooper and the little girl.
"Soup and pasta, I wonder if that's anything like surf and turf." Samson notes with a good-natured and somewhat toothy smile as he motions for the steamer tray of pasta. "We'll go with the pasta and hold on that experimentation for a while." Arching one brow as he watches a styrofoam bowl get filled with the tightly packed noodles, bright red sauce and crumbled pieces of meat, there's a twitch of Samson's right brow before he offers a more askance look down towards Luke.
Pursing his lips, Samson turns and offers a look to Luke, one corner of his mouth wrinkling into a smirk. "Oh me? Hah, well I'm not hunting quail if that's what you're asking. I could ask you the same thing young man, I don't see that mother of yours anywhere around here…" there's something testing in that as Samson shuffles to the side, moving away from Adelaide's serving side once he's handed the bowl of pasta, then offers a look up to Magnes, though when he sees the young man occupied with restocking his part of the soup kitchen line, his attention shifts over to Noriko instead, cutting into her conversation.
"A hot coffee, black," Samson asks of Noriko with as much of an apologetic tone as he can, "if you would please, darling?" There's a lift of his grayed brows and a broad smile to the hydrokinetic, along with a slow look up and down before his stare is shifted back to Luke. "What're you d— "
The lights at the ceiling of the gymnasium flicker for a moment, followed by a noise that is lost beneath the susurrus of conversation from the hundreds of people staying here. Subtle cues of the lights moving in their flicker indicates that the roof was groaning, though the noise is too drowned out by the sounds of people bemoaning the power possibly going out to truly be heard.
When the lights flick back on, Samson's attention is up on the ceiling, not on Luke. "Well that's not very good…" the old man muses with both brows raised, lips parted and eyes wandering from wavering light to wavering light.
Adelaide watches the man move away and for a moment she's a little curious but allows it remain distant. She continues to serve people their choice of food. She raises her head as the roof seems to move and the lights sway. "This isn't good." she mumurs quietly.
Noriko looks over at Samson as he talks, and she nods her ehad a little, "Sure thi-," her own reply is cut off by the sudden power outage, and her eyes look around a little, before they go up as well, wondering just what that was. She frowns, before she looks back down at Samson, "That was a black coffee you said? No sugar or anything else?"
Luke follows Samson's gaze to the roof and frowns. "Hope there's not too much snow on the roof. Hey, what morons built this place, anyway?" now he drops his gaze to the old man, and his lip curls. "She's living it up in a trailer park like the trailer trash she is for all I know…. or care. Dumb bitch, who taught her how to be a parent?" Luke is enraged at the mere thought of his mother.
"Is that a giraffe?" Maddie asks, then tilts her head to the side, nose wrinkling. "Or maybe a kangaroo…" This amuses some of the kids and she smiles brightly as they titter, one of them asking her why she talks so "funny."
"Because where I'm from, all the letters are upside down," she tells the child, then glances up as the lights flicker. Did she hear something? Probably the wind.
"On cases? What do you do? Mind if it's on the record?" She waves her skinny reporter's notepad at him. "I'm from the Times. We're doing a story on the shelters and the volunteers, mister…" she twirls her pen, to indicate he should fill in the blanks.
It's a giraffe! That's what Cooper is making for Dessandra who's taken to keeping her arm in the sling as all young young children do when they find something that gives them attention. She beams a smile and chubby cheeks at Cooper, turning to Maddie and grinning widely with the Giraffe wound around her brown hair.
Michelle watches from afar, a glance up to the roof at the flickering lights before she gestures for the next person to come forward for necessary or unecessary medical attention. First come first serve as they fire off what it is that's bothering them and the frenchwoman breaks out her stethoscope, warming it from friction on her palm and then sliding it against the young man's back with a soft "Deep breath please"
Once the giraffe of questionable origins is crowning the child's head, Cooper gasps at her. "I almost forgot." His hand dips into a pocket and pulls out a sharpie and while it sits on the little girls head, he adds eyes and starts to draw some spots. This is a side that Audrey doesn't get to see. "Cooper." He offers up to the reporter. "Detective Thomas Cooper." He flashes her another toothy grin. Of course then the lights flicker and he glances up, frowning slightly.
"And you are?" He asks, eyes dropping back to Maddie, a brow lifting slightly. Glancing back, at his creation he straightens. "There! Now it looks like a giraffe." A finger touches the little girls nose with the capped pen. "Take good care of it." He remembers when his little girl was that age.
Lifting a trash and placing it into the table, he starts stirring the new orange stew of vegetables, then clanks the table with the ladle a few times. "I know there's probably Vegans here, so I took the liberty of making a Vegan Italian lentil and vegetable stew." he announces for the possible people in the crowd who've been skipping the larger meaty foods.
"And hey!" he calls out to Luke, hearing his swearing. "There are children here, watch your mouth." He clanks the table a few times with the ladle again, as if hammering home the point. Though the flickering lights momentarily grab his attention, and he looks around for someone in charge. "Would it help if the roof were cleared off?"
"Oh, no dear no sugar, I'm sweet enough as it is." Samson offers to Noriko in wheezing laughter, shaking his head from side to side, brows furrowed and stained teeth coloring his smile. While he's busy getting his coffee and grilling Luke about what's going on in the young man's life, Magnes is asking the sensible question of the shelter manager Rich Naylor. Having been busy discussing the shipment of bedding coming tomorrow, Mr.Naylor slants a look over his hsoulder to Magnes, then glances up at the roof.
"Jesus christ I sent Eddie up there earlier, we were supposed to have someone clean it off in a couple of days but that last blizzard we got…" There's a hiss of his breath and a look over to Magnes, fingers drumming on his clipboard. "You know I hadn't even thought about it till you mentioned it. Christ there's probably another good foot or two up there since Saturday when I called for somebody to come out."
Rolling his tongue over the inside of his cheek, Mr.Naylor looks towards the front doors of the shelter as a young couple slip out into the cold, and then back to Magnes. "If you want to— " this time the creak of the roof is an unavoidable sound to hear, a groaning pop, pop, snap of twisting metal and cracking wooden supports. Naylor's eyes shoot up to the ceiling the moment pieces of plaster fall from above and the pennants of basketball victories of Washington Irving begin to sway in the buckling waver of the support struts.
"Oh Jesus Christ," Naylor rasps as the lights go out, plunging the shelter into pitch darkness before flashlights begin to flick on, panicked noises start and the ceiling gives one more monstrous groan. There's no way there's enough time to get people outside, but in the dark and in the panic of that horrible protest of straining metal, screams begin to erupt and people begin rushing towards the street lights shingn dully through the front doors and the exits.
Adelaide pauses at the commontion near her. She can hear the metal stress and strain and for a momenthe young woman exhales. She begisn to approach Naylor and murmurs. "We need to get them out of here, this place isn't safe." She left her station and for a brief glance at the ceiling. She's nearly swept along but manages to work her way to the side. "Come one everyone, orderly fashion." she calls.
Noriko blinks as she hears that sound, and the hydrokinetics eyes imediately go up to the roof once more as she shakes her head a little, not really wanting to believe what she's hearing. Her eyes look towards the exit next, as she tries to make her way there, but she's rather rebuffed by the solid wave of humanity that is in front of her.
"Maddie Hart," the reporter says, reaching into her jeans pockets for a business card and handing it to the man. "Thomas Cooper? No weird spellings on that? Got a card?" she asks, scribbling it out before the lights do their final flicker and thrust them into blackness.
She isn't a disaster reporter, and she can't help but gasp a bit, fumbling for her cell phone in her coat pocket and pulling it out for illumination and more importantly, to call 9-1-1 even as she looks around. "Give me your hand, luv," she tells Dessandra. "Your mum somewhere around?" she asks, as she pushes send on the phone, glancing over at Cooper to see if the other rugrats are taken care of.
Michelle's noticing everything, and as soon as the lights go out, she's grabbing everyone she can and ushering them to the side of the room, away from the roof and towards teh walls "Back towards the walls" She calls out, hoping that Marlena will have her sisters and be taking care of them.
Dessandra isn't with her older sister and she lets out a scream before clining to Maddie's hand and then legs.
"Sure thing, I got a…." Then the world goes dark, the detective looks upward as the noise of the roof gets worse. "Oh… that's not good." He murmurs softly, climbing to his feet. His eyes drop to the handful of kids around him, who are just about nothing but vague forms. He gives a clap of his hands to get them to look at him. "Alright kids. WE need to round up out balloon friends and work towards the side of the room." He holds his hands out. "Keep together, in fact, hold hands. Then we won't loose no one."
With that Cooper starts ushering them as fast as he can, trying not to show his worry even with others screaming. The smallest of them is scooped up by the man, "Come on kids."
The lights go out and doors get crowded before Magnes can even think of making his way to the roof, but he has to do something. He pulls his apron off and rips the straps free, as well as a bit of extra fabric, then stuffs it into his pocket. "If anyone has flashlights, phones, or anything like that, pull them out right now. And I need anyone familiar with this place to try and lead people to emergency exits so people don't get trampled going out of just one. Failing that, just get everyone as far away from the middle of the gym as possible."
He pulls his iPhone out after attempting to instruct his fellow volunteers, then holds the light up to the ceiling as he starts flying towards it. "I'm gonna try and hold this thing as best I can until people are safe." If he can even find the problem area with an iPhone light and feeling out with gravity.
In the time it takes for the collective fear of some five hundred residents to come to a boiling point, the shouts of order and calm are overrun by the shouts of people needing desperately to get away from the creaking groan of a strained ceiling. Buried in the dark, there's a horrified howl of panic from the ground, screams of pain mixed in with noises of panic and fear. Cooper and Maddie feel themselves being pressed against, a sea of people surging past them without, miraculously, managing to be pinned or trampled down by the moving wave of fleeing residents.
Those curtained partitions between beds become tangled shackles for some trying to flee, and the rattling crash of some of the curtain railings coming falling down is only compounded by the panicked cries for help coming frome people who can't be seen in the dark. Flashlights eventually come on, bright and wavering from side to side, creating dramatic plays of towering shadows cast against the gymnasium walls.
The ceiling groans again, and over by the steam tables a wave of people trying to get out of the shelter impact with Adelaide. The young woman feels hands at her shoulder, a knee strikes her at the side form someone trying to force their way past, and soon she's swept up with the crowd, stumbling and staggering, trying desperately to keep her footing in the dark, catching intermittant glimpses of people through the beams of flashlights shining.
Gravity inverts around Magnes, and the young man and his glowing iPhone are airborne. The ceiling of the Barrows Memorial Gymnasium is enormous, segmented pieces of steel and wood and aluminum with glass skylights blocked by the snow. Magnes can hear the groaning as he comes up thorugh the air, and for the barest of moments he can smell smoke— but nothing's burning.
On the ground, Luke can feel a hand grab his shoulder, fingers wind into the fabric of his collar and yank him up off of his feet when the chaos starts. Then, it's like freefalling, his body feels weightless and the acrid smell of smoke fills the air around him. Luke's equilibrium is thrown entirely out of whack in the dark, he's moving but it's clear he's being dragged, he can feel those fingers curling into his collar, but he's drifting weightlessly, floating, swimming in some sort of smoky haze.
When the ceiling finally gives way, it gives way in massive splitting pieces. One sixty foot square piece of ceiling directly above magnes comesa crashing down with raining corrigated metal tiles, broken girders and shattering glass from the flexing and breaking skylights. Pieces of glass hang weightless in the air around him when they fall past, that field of gravity manipulation Kazimir had trained him how to use keeping the falling particulates suspended like his own body.
The actual bulk of the ceiling that falls has to have as much weight to it as that armored tank in Argentina did, he knows he can handle it, he knows he can lift it, but the other collapsing sections of roof are seperate, spread out over too huge a distance and there's just not enough time to think.
With both hands extended above himself, Magnes' palms contact with the collapsing ceiling as it crashes down towards him, flying upwards against its weight and changing the direction of the gravitons in the mass, shifting it upwards away— he can hear people screaming beneath himself, he can feel the impact of another portion of the roof, he has to save as many people as he can.
Directly beneath Magnes, Mister Naylor and Adelaide are spared being crushed by the roof by Varlane's heroism, and the distant glow of his iPhone up near the ceiling is all they can see in the moments before the other portions of the roof come smashing down around him. There is a crash, a tremendous and howling crash that is deafening in its resonant roar. A cloud of dust and debris is kicked up along with a swirling haze of snow and ice from the several feet and hundreds of pounds of snow that comes with the roof. Sub-zero temperatures immediately fill the gymnasium as the ceiling comes down, and the cries of hundreds of people are all but silenced in a single moment.
In the seconds following the impact, there is only muffled crying and distant sounds of screams from those buried and the noises of those spared being crushed by Magnes' heroic act.
Near a huge piece of the fallen ceiling, Luke Campbell finds himself landing on his ass in the snow with a crash, and a swirling cloud of black and gray smoke having belched him out and to safety before slithering into the darkness and intermittant flicker of flashlights again.
Adelaide nods at the request for light.. Her phone in the dark becomes something of a flashlight,but its only the barest of a flickers before she felt the world swim, she couldn't make sense of anything in the darkness. She felt the air leave her lungs and pain well over her. She could hear noise— she could hear the roof give way.. but not the resulting splatter. Eyes hazy for a moment, she struggles to get to her feet, to her knees even—- she wobbles drawing her small form up breathing slowly. "Everyone exits ,now!" she barks though her voice is tiny and is lost amoung the milling of voices.
Luke screams when someone grabs him and hauls him up, and as he's surrounded by smoke he panicks and starts emitting microwaves at a large rate in sheer self defense. As soon as he lands on the ground he scrambles to his feet, whirling around to see where he is. He calms down then somewhat, but is still on a hair trigger. What the hell was that?!
When the dust settles, unfortunately, the balloon-animal corner finds themselves segregated from the center of the gym by some rather large chunks of plaster and metal. The other children fell one way, while Dessendra, Cooper, and Maddie and the other. Maddie lies stunned for some time, having thrown Dessendra beneath her and blocked her with her body to try to protect the tiny girl. Unfortunately, the Aussie got clipped by a bit of debris in the side of the head, and collapsed on top of the child — however Maddie's body is softer than such debris, though Dessendra might find herself a bit bruised.
Maddie blinks, reaching up to touch the back of her head, before raising herself off of her charge. "I'm so sorry, baby," she whispers. "Are you all right?" She blindly gropes around for her phone, to use as light and see what has come of both Dessendra and the balloon man.
Being against a wall doesn't stop Debris from falling and the group that was near Michelle find half of them free and clear, able to follow the wall and start towards people with lights and to the exit. The other half of the people however are caught by this and that. Michelle is one as a piece of the ceiling falls on her and the others present, and in a heartbeat, the room goes from warm to quickly cooling.
Dessandra is under Maddie, crying more out of fear than the bruises that will show up on her body and the child clings to Maddie while calling out for her mother, someone named Gene, Marlena or dad.
A piece of plaster bounces off the detective's head, making his ears ring and his vision redden at the edges, but also makes him brings the little girl in his arms around to the front of him and put a hand on the head to protect it. "Gotta hurry kids… " Then the roof gives way, he gets pelted by falling debris, forcing him to his knees. He curls around the little girl, who screams shrilly. He gets another glancing blow from a chunk, making the detective black out for a moment.
Which is probably a blessing as when he wakes with a groan, there is a searing pain in one leg. Trying to shift it, he can't move it. "Son of a…." The word is ground out between gritted teeth, arms still around the child who trembles in his arm. "You okay?" He murmurs, the head against his chest giving a shake, she's scared. "Right, me too." He sighs, head dropping to the floor.
Clearing his throat of dust, Cooper glancing out into the darkness of their little nook. "Miss Hart? Maddie? You okay?"
That slab may be as heavy as the tank in Argentina, but at least with that he was getting the crap augmented out of him by Gillian. Right now he's struggling to even keep the thing above his head. He has to think fast. He can't throw it up obviously, it could potentially fall back down without time to calculate things. He can't put it down or it'll probably crush people. So… crap. "I have to fly this thing out, damnit."
His nose is starting to bleed, but he flies himself and the slab through the gigantic hole in the roof, then flies out to the front of the building, yelling at people in the street. "Move out of the way!" causing people to scatter before he lowers the piece of roof in the middle of the road, floating away from it. "Damn…" He looks a bit exhausted, and grabs the pole of a street light to keep himself floating where he is. He hit his limit and lost his control of gravity.
Noriko struggles to find somewhere to go in the blackness before the roof caves in and everything suddenly goes much darker as a chunk of roof hits Noriko in the head. The hydrokinetic isn't out for too long, and what brings her to are the sounds of Maddie and Cooper talking, along with the seeping /very cold/ feeling of her legs getting wetter from a busted water pipes as it begins to spray and start to coat the floor. The hydrokinetic groans and rolls over, as the water continues to seep up her body. It still hasn't quite registered into her numb and still dazed mind that being in the water is a bad idea. Though when it does, she lets out a yelp as she starts to crawl away from the spreading pool and towards Cooper and Maggie, using her ability to get herself dry as soon as possible, and to keep the pool from spreading to the children and others who are dry.
While Magnes is working with the roof and pained cries are coming from all across the floor of the shelter, Mister Naylor is scrambling up to his feet and rushing towards the sounds of someone he can hear buried under a portion of the roof. "Someone— someone call 911!" He screams into the open ceiling, staring up in wide-eyed wonder at the portion of the roof Magnes just lifted effortlessly out of the way. As Naylor moves, he fails to notice the cloud of smoke billowing around his ankles as he runs, and comes to crouch down beside a pile of debris, pulling and lifting at a piece of heavy plaster before spotting Luke sitting completely unharmed on a heap of snow nearby
"Help— help me lift this, I think there's people trapped under here!" Blood runs from Naylor's split brow as he calls out for Luke's help, leveraging a piece of the broken piece of plaster up with his shoulder, a corner crumbling and falling back down.
Behind Naylor, slithering between the legs of those who managed to avoid immediate harm and are making their way towards the exits and out onto the street, a cloud of ashen smoke rolls towards the toppled steam tables, soon quickly filtering beneath like a sooty carpet, roiling and churning against the cold wind blowing in through the open ceiling.
As some people whom were spared the impact are trying to pull people from the wreckage and others are leaving, the young student and volunteer who'd found herself on her knees, screaming for others to leave the building sees that smoke coiling in front of her. There's a ripple in its surface, and in an instant Adelaide feels an unseen hand wind around her throat, lift her up off of her feet and send her crashing into one of the walls.
A howling sound builds up inside the smoke, and the founder of Evolved Anonymous sees a humanoid form begin to take shape within that pillar of swirling smoke. "I'm so terribly sorry," a wheezing voice whispers from withint he darkened cloud, "but you… won't feel a thing." Behind his words a growling noise builds, followed by a subtle whistling sound that has Adelaide's eyelids feeling heavy and the sensation of drowsiness sinking in.
Lifting his hand up into the air, the man made of nothing but a swirling column of smoke reveals two fingers from the cloud, and with a sudden piercing whine a line of blood begins to form on Adelaide's forehead as flesh starts to split.
Adelaide watches. Shit.. She manages to hear Magnes voice, but the would-be doctor in her takes over. She bites her lip and gets to her feet. Water pooling around her and nearby helps to break some of the daze. She walks slowly. "We need to get people out of here… someplace, dry.." she mutters her own voice cracking… the hand at her throat.. She bearly swam, dry-wall ,peices of cieling, Adelaide felt the blood dripping from her brow, her vision began to fade. She reached with her hands- an attack on her why? She couldn't really think straight.
Luke is still kinda freaking out over being evacuated via smoke, and stares at Naylor for a minute or two before moving that way. However, he catches sight of Adelaide being lifted by a bunch of smoke. "HEY!" he shouts out, hurrying over there instead. That's the smoke that grabbed him, right? How do you fight against smoke, though? Oh wait, he sees fingers, so he tries zapping them, trying not to hit Adelaide too.
Maddie's fumbling fingers find her phone — their little quartet of two little girls and two adults can't see what's going on beyond the pile of rubble. She holds it to her ear and an emergency operator is frantically asking, "Hello? Is someone there?"
"Yes, I'm at Washington Irving High — at the shelter — the roof collapsed. People are hurt." Maddie's a bit out of breath and perhaps a little hard to understand due to her accent and has to repeat herself; meanwhile, she's looking at Dessie who is bawling and clinging to her but seems to be all right. "Lots of people. Send help quickly." She hangs up, because she needs both hands. She crawls, wincing on bruised knees as she makes her way to Cooper. She slips the phone in her pocket and tries to move what's pinning him, but to no avail. "We'll get you help. We're okay — you're the only one who's shit out of luck." Her aqua eyes find Dessie and the other girl. "Don't repeat that…" She glances at the blockage, takes a deep breath, and begins to yell. "Heyyy! We're trapped! Help!"
Bad words do not get said in the Brennan household and the utterance of a swear word has the effect of somewhat silencing the dark haired three year old that's clinging close as can be to Maddie and cooper. The giraffe sadly, has become a casualty of war in this setting and it's orange rubber hangs around the girls brow like… a dead balloon animal. Away under another pile with others, managed to be saved most parts by the 'triangle of life' much lauded in the emergency community, Michelle is still out cold, blood trickling down her face and others crawl around in their pocket, trying to find a safe way out and yell for help or they too are unconscious. The cold no longer pushed back by the atmokinetic settles into the outside temperature pretty quickly.
Arms loosen from the little girl in his arms, though she still clings to him, Cooper angles himself up on an elbow, fingers of his other hand crawling down his legs till it feels whatever is pinning the one. There is a small sarcastic laughs. "Yeah… I kinda figured that out. I'm a big boy though." See, brave face for little girls, though he would rather curl on his side and whimper. But that wouldn't look good in front of Maddie either.
Cooper glances at the other girl with them and gives her a crooked smile. "Your such a brave little girl, when we get out of here I'll make sure you get another giraffe." He reaches over to pull the one off her head gently.
Magnes pushes himself up from the pole, trying to keep a grasp of the side of the building so he doesn't go floating away into the atmosphere. When he makes it on to the roof, he very carefully crawls across the roof's snow, then calls down from the opening. "Everyone watch where you're stepping! If you see someone, try to dig for their head before pulling them out so you don't risk further injury!"
After his announcement, he pushes himself down into the hole, slowly descending but more or less a sitting duck in the air while he ways for the incredibly slow fall to end. That's when he notices Samson, Adelaide, and Luke's altercation. Smoke guy, fingers, cutting a forehead open… "Gabriel! Leave her alone!" he yells as his words echo through the gym. So he is alive. "Right now, or I'm coming down there!" Eventually.
Noriko looks over at the rubble that is blocking Maddie, Cooper, her and the children from the outside world, and she groans as she says to those near her. "Stay back from the rubble, gonna try and push it," she says to the assorted folks as the water that she was keeping back is pushed forward towards the rubble, and the hydrokinetic tries to lever it to get it up and away. If that doesn't work, she'll settle for washing the smaller chunks away to move the bugger pieces.
Microwave radiation is a painful thing to be exposed to, and even the barest tips of fingers in that swirling cloud of smoke immediately begin to redden and blister from the exposure, but what's more readily obvious is that the smoke is just a smokescreen at the moment, and when struck by the crackling blue-purple waves of energy radiating outward from Luke Campbell's hand, Samson Gray's howling, rattling hiss comes almost animalistic as he stumbles out from the smoke, skin reddened and blistering across his face, yellow teeth gnashing at the air.
Adelaide is immediately dropped from the telekinetic chokehold, crashing to the floor and landing on her knees, blood dripping from her forehead but her skull — and more importantly her brain — intact, even if she's blacked out the moment her head strikes the ground firmly. Samson's retreat comes as a look of fury and betrayal crosses his face and with a wave of his hand he launches Luke off of his feet, sending him careening thorugh the air to smash into the steam tables, denting the aluminum side and bouncing head over heels into the snow that had fallen in from the roof.
Lifting a hand to his blistered scalp, Samson breathes out a hissed breath and furrows his brows, looking around at the horrified expressions of two people that were working on trying to dig out the buried before he began his attack. The bald headed man looks up towards the voice that called out the name Gabriel of all things, and it's clear when he makes eye contact with Magnes that this isn't Gabriel Gray at all.
Too many eyes on him, and Samson is left with little recourse, Samson once again explodes into a living cloud of smoke, slithering backwards in tendrils of ashen gray soot into the rubble pile and out of sight, just as another portion of the rubble some ten feet away breaks apart from a flow of water erupting from its side. Sprays of white water shoot forth and slick icily on the wood floor of the gymnasium as Noriko's hydrokinetics push and opening in the unstable plaster and metal; freedom.
Luke goes flying through the air, a look of shocked surprise on his face as he sees who it is he just zapped. He has an expression of betrayal too, considering that the guy who was so nice to him growing up is going around murdering people, and just slammed him into a table. Ouch. He lands with a heavy thump, breath knocked out of him. It's a minute or two before he can push himself to a seated position, gingerly feeling the ribs he hit the table with. None of them seem broken.
The water seeping in breaks enough of a crack in the rubble that Maddie can see out, but unfortunately Cooper is still pinned. She stands from where she kneels, teeth chattering as the water soaks through her jeans, knowing that Cooper is likewise cold and freezing with the dropping temperatures. "Come on," Maddie says to the two little girls. "Over here, where it's dry," she says, lifting one and then the other onto an upright table.
Next, she moves to the rubble and pushes it a bit more to widen the opening. "Someone! This man is still trapped… I can't move it myself!" she calls, looking for someone who weighs more than 100 pounds to possibly lend a hand. She herself has blood trickling down from her temple, but she pays it no mind.
It's true, Cooper is feeling rather chilly, he fights not to chatter his teeth, though his body trembles with it. The little girl in his care is relinquished as he watches the water make its way though, totally fascinated. Not much for him to say or do, except remind Maddie as she pushes at the opening created by Noriko, "Be careful.. dunno what of that is load bearing." If only he wasn't stuck under this damn wreakage and could SEE the old man on the otherside, but this is Cooper's luck. If Audrey finds out tho, chances are he'll get another Daisy visit or a horse head in his bed.
"No one go after him!" Magnes calls out, eyes wide when he finally lands on the ground. A guy with abilities similar to Gabriel's… maybe Gabriel's gotten age manipulation, or some sort of mimicry ability? He'll have to think about it later, right now he needs to dig. He goes for the first hand he sees, starting to brush snow away and pull them out as best he can manage. Things are a bit off when you're weightless, but he still has muscles and leverage. "Someone go help the girl, everyone else, start digging people out… carefully! Someone's likely already called 911, don't tie up the lines, just focus on rescuing!"
Noriko continues pumping water until that hole is clear enough and looks strong enough to make sure that everyone can get out. Her attention then turns to Cooper as she begins to try and use her ability to get some leverage so that she can get him unpinned.
"Oh god, Amagi you're alright!" Mister Naylor calls out, blood trickling from a split on his head, not having seen the chaos on the other side of the gymnasium through his frantic efforts to pull up the debris. Rising up to his feet and moving over to the hole she's made in the collapsed portion of the ceiling, Naylor offers a trembling hand out to help Cooper and the others emerge as water pools around his feet from the flooding pipes Noriko has manipulated to pressure an exit.
The smoke that savaged Adelaide doesn't return, and perhaps thankfully for Magnes' barked orders, there's no signs of anyone trying to make a path to where it slithered away. There's just two very horrified witnesses to Adelaide's attack, and the young student herself face down on the ground bleeding from a head wound.
One of the men who saw the attack gets up, moving to try and check on Adelaide, while another just stays still in shock, one hand pressing to his cheek as he stares up at the open ceiling.
"Varlane!" Mister Naylor calls out across the building, "Varlane, can you do that floating trick again? We— we have to get all these people out." The weather's going to keep rescue a ways off, but somewhere down the street, the distant cry of a siren is approaching the area, hopefully paramedics, hopefully police.
Luke hears police sirens, and starts stumbling for the exit. He's not staying to help people, he's not staying to try and restore order, he's just splitting before the cops get here. What a nice guy, huh? At least he paused to glance at Adelaide to make sure someone's tending to her. Damnit, now he feels all responsible for her since he saved her life and all that.
Maddie bends, to offer her small form to lean on to get Cooper up and out of their corner, murmuring an out-of-breath thank you to Naylor as he helps first the little girls and then the two adults out. She isn't sure who the hydrokinetic is, or she would thank her too. "Keep close to me until we find your mums or dads or whoever you got, okay?" She's too aware that these children may not have parents with them, in this sort of shelter.
Pale eyes glance up at Cooper through dark lashes as she surveys his face, looking for any signs of shock. "Let's get to where it's safe and clear and then the paramedics can take your heavy arse off my hands, all right, Cooper the Cop?" she says playfully, then winces, glancing at the two tiny girls who cling to her legs. "You didn't hear that one from me either, all right?" she whispers.
The heralding of Michelle's murky rise to consciousness is the warmth that rolls outward from her prone body beneath the rubble in response to the cold that she finds her body in. Across the room it goes, banishing the cold to upwards, towards the roof and ending just a little below it as she settles into the previous parameter's that had been set before. One less worry that the people there have to worry about though the effort to do it now that there's open sky above means that the physician is doing just that and not yet able to go looking for her children.
There is a hiss of pain as Cooper is worked out from under the wreckage, the leg of his jeans darker where he was pinned. It takes some effort and several hands to get him to his feet. His arm drapes across Maddie's shoulders, but mostly so she can help his broke ass out of the hole they are in, limping painfully. Even so he can't help but chuckle at the Cooper the Cop. "Yeah." He glances at her with a crooked smile, "I should probably lay off the donuts." He comments blandly, as his grimaces his way along.
"Thanks for the help, for a reporter, I guess your alright." He tries to quip lightly, but he doesn't get his hurt leg off the ground enough and accidentally kicks a chunk of roof, which has him swearing to hell and back, putting the Auzzie to shame, clutching to the smaller woman.
His eyes drop to the little girls. "Ah… disregard all that." His voice pained. "When your older, you'll hear all that and know what it means. For now… just think happy thoughts, and butterflies… unicorns or whatever, eh?"
"I can't, I'm sorry. I used everything I had carrying that piece of ceiling out of here. That was one of the heaviest things I've ever moved. I'm having trouble keeping myself on the ground right now." Magnes sympathetically explains, pulling an unconscious man from the snow and checking the pulse of his neck. "I'll have to dig like everyone else. But no large digging tools, alright? When that building collapsed, they told untrained volunteers not to use shovels because we might accidentally hurt trapped people. I used to be a cop, I'll do everything I can to help."
He looks over at the blocked entrance, then up at the large hole in the ceiling. "Wait a minute! I have an idea. I can still get in and out of here. Maybe I can coordinate the people we have in here, with the people we have outside, and we can get the entrance clear faster so the rescue workers can get in!"
Noriko smiles faintly as everyone gets out that she can see, making sure of it before the hydrokinetic manages to crawl out behind them. Her eyes go to Naylor for a couple of moments, before she nods her head and says, "Yeah, about as alright as I can be, I guess." She looks around, and blinks a couple of times, before her eyes go to the pile she just left, and she makes sure that the water won't be leaving it for now, or getting in people's way. "Try and get everyone out of here as fast as possible, there are some broken water mains, and I'm keeping everyone from getting soaked, but… not entirely sure how long I'll be able to keep it up," she hasn't ever really hid that she is evolved, but, it still might come as a surprise to some.
While Noriko and Naylor help those trapped climb out from the pile of debris, others who were spared thanks to Magnes' heroic efforts are struggling to pull pieces of the roof wreckage away, while battered, broken and terrified people are hauled up from within. The sirens draw closer, and through the frosted windows of the gymnasium doors the red and blue flashing lights of police cruisers and emergency response have already begun to arrive. While Magnes considers skyward coordination, the emergency response teams that were in the vicinity are making their way in, and the distant blaring trumpet sound of a fire engine's horn signals that more are on the way.
Wetly coughing, Noriko feels a weakness in her knees and a pounding behind her eyes that is just getting worse over time. When she pulls her hand away from her mouth this time, there's blood on her lips and fingertips, that cough is getting worse. "Amagi, you alright?" Naylor asks with a quirk of one brow, looking Noriko up and down before he turns towards the flashing lights.
Rats often know the best ways out of a sinking ship, and Luke Campbell is ever the rat. Where he'd found exit from the gymnasium in side doors not blocked by the debris, rescue workers now fine a single, small entrance into the gymnasium from outside. The first pair through are unfamiliar faces in EMT jackets, badges shining as they come in with flashlights, looking up and around at the disaster.
Behind them, another pair of EMT partners emerge into the gymnasium with police assistance, though Magnes Varlane finds no unfamiliarity in the faces of Peter Petrelli and Abigail Beauchamp. "Magnes!" Peter shouts out on seeing the gravitokinetic amidst the snow, rubble and bodies. There's a tap of his hand on Abby's shoulder as Peter turns towards the blonde. "See what you can do, I'm going to borrow something from Magnes, that kid's charmed, I swear." There's a crooked smile from Peter as he dashes past a rubble pile towards Magnes, flashlight wavering back and forth.
"Magnes," Peter calls out, hustling up to the younger man, offering out a gloved hand. "Were you here when the roof came down?" The gesture may be as friendly as a handshake, but there's more than just a greeting at stake here as Peter scans the rubble, spotting Noriko and quirking a brow, trying to discern other familiar faces and areas that most need assistance while the police and EMT fan out into the collapse.
Noriko wipes at her lips quickly while she takes deep breaths back into her body and she smiles while looking over at Naylor and saying, "I'm fine, just a passing cold, and I already got innoculated against the evo-flu." Sure, she lies through her teeth at that, but right now from what she is hearing on the news and every where else, its just that much easier to say it then potentially risk the government getting involved. She has at least relearned not to trust her government. Her eyes looking over towards the EMTs that arrive.
Maddie arches a brow. "Gee, thanks for the glowing commendation. Can I use you for a reference?" she asks Cooper and then reaches with one hand to cover one of Dessy's ears. She can't do much to hinder the other child's hearing.
"All right, I'm going to go back and help, Cooper. You take it easy, all right?" she says, then leaves the two girls with him. "Listen, you two stay with him — he's a policeman, all right? Until you see someone in charge of you. Or until another police man or fireman helps you. Or policewoman or firewoman," she instructs, hugging each tyke in turn. She stands and glances at Cooper again and shoots a dimpled smile before heading back to begin helping the rescue effort.
"He's more than charmed Petrelli" How confidant people will be with peter and Abby both sporting injuries though minor, from their previous days escapades - Yes, Peter did drive here - Abby breaks away from him and starts in, blue bag over shoulder with everything that she could possibly need, Peter with something identical. There's a glance towards magnes and a shake of her head before towards Maddie and Cooper she starts for, the other two preceeding them are already getting others. "Hey you three" Sweet southern accent falling into place and a familiar face to Cooper from the few times she's come around the precinct. There's a warm smile for the two kids as Maddie makes her departure to help start lifting rubble. 'What's wrong with the policeman huh? Think you can tell me?" Not that Cooper couldn't tell her himself and there's a wink for him.
Michelle and others start calling out for help from their corner, some calling out for their kids as the atmokinetic works to keep the warmth flowing and look at the few who are there with her. Just cuts, maybe a broken limb or two but nothing deadly.
"Anytime." Cooper says brightly with a toothy grin to Maddie watching her leave, balancing on one foot, a thoughtful look, before Abby shows up. Then the detective turns his attention on her, he has to shift a bit to keep his balance, knowing his luck it's a broken leg, as if moving in this god forsaken city wasn't bad enough, lets add a cast and crutches. That easily spells disaster.
The little girl he had been protecting, clings to his good leg as Abby talks to Dessy, her tiny face pressing into his leg, looking at the paramedic with one eye. Shy one this one.
"Abby, Peter!" Magnes calls out, taking Peter's hand when he walks up, nodding. "Yeah, I strained the crap out of my ability catching that big slab of roof that's sitting out in the middle of the street. I've got nothing holding me down, so I can't do much but try not to get bumped into and go floating away."
After their shake, he points over in the direction of the buried food tables. "Make sure the workers know that the hot food tables are buried over there, so they'll be careful. And um, I think I know who did this. Can I crash at your place and tell you about it after this? I need to wait for my ability to, uh, fix itself, and I'd rather hide out while I wait."
He glances over at Abby, momentarily processing that she works with Peter, but it's not the time to ask about it.
In that handshake, Peter's hand and wrist glow a soft white coloration as an exchange of light swtches between his palm and Magnes'. "Who did this?" Peter asks with a quirk of one brow, lifting his hand up from the handshake to rest his palm on Magnes' shoulder and restabilize his gravity, defining down for him again. With a tilt of his head towards the rubble pile, Peter furrows his brows and breathes in through his nose deeply. "If you know someone was involved, I'd recommend taking it to the cops, flag down one of the officers and give a statement, they'll probably ask you to wait around a bit though. Oh and— don't go too far? I dunno how far away I can keep you tethered to the ground!"
Backpedaling, Peter offers Magnes a crooked smile, then just moon-bounces up into the air, gliding on low gravity before landing on the other sie of the gymnasium where a crowd of people are trying to lift some of the broken pieces of the rubble up. Peter crouches down, settling both of his palms on part of the ceiling and then lifts his hands up, levitating the debris upwards very slowly, mindful to watch and see if anyone beneath is tangled up in the mess. Heavy snow slides off both sides and down to the floor of the gym, and while he's got the ceiling portion up in the air, the people that were digging are now trying to pull a young man and his mother out from the wreckage.
Noriko wipes at her mouth a little more as another coughing fit threatens to overwhelm her. Managing to keep herself upright and most of the coughing suppressed. She nods to Maggie and Cooper as she begins to climb through rubble and make her exit before too many more questions are asked.
The notepad in her pocket, Maddie for once doesn't worry about capturing the news, but helping those in need. It actually feels good. When Peter raises the debris, she helps those beneath out, offering her hands to the trapped to grasp, offering shoulders to lean on as she helps escort them out of harm's way. When she hears some of the injured crying for their children, she heads over. "There are some children we have outside, waiting with police. They'll be okay. Let's just get you out of here," she murmurs, reaching to help someone to their feet.
The kid isn't old enough to really relay what's wrong with Cooper, just point to his leg, even as Abigail hefts the child up and away from Coopers good leg to one hip and looks over the detectives leg. "Nice to see you Detective cooper, How about, you lean on me and we'll get you out of here, and this girl to the outside where you both can be looked at. Can you put any weight on your foot?" Abigail glances around, more paramedics coming in. Triage happening all around as the the ones who can be moved are being escorted out.
"Not easily." He half hops along, a hand on the paramedic's shoulder. "Good to see you as well Abby. The guys have been complaining about missing the goodies you bring." Keeping the conversation light as, he half hops and half limps along, his leg kinda cold, meaning there is probably some bleeding there. "Glad you all got here so quickly."
He glances over his shoulder to the rescue effort, a worried look crossing his face. "There were like four other kids with me in there." Cooper glances at Abby again, "Hope they find them soon enough, they have to be scared out of their minds."
"I really have to teach you about using my ability." Magnes decides, but now's not the time for that, and he just decides to stay close to Peter and help him rescue people, continuing to speak as they do so. "I think it's Gabriel." he says while carefully helping injured up and out of the debris and snow. "I smelled smoke when I went up there to hold the ceiling, but nothing was burning. Then there was this mass of smoke and fingers cutting a girl's head open, and there was this whistling noise. It has to be him. One weird thing though…"
He checks a person's pulse, then moves on to helping the next out. "When this kid, um, did something to him, he turned into a person again. He was an old man. I think Gabriel might have some sort of aging ability, or identity mimicry. I couldn't stop him 'cause I'd already used up my ability."
"Little busy these days. Tell you what, when I get an actual day off, i'll make something and drop it by for you Detective" Abby's status as EMT means that getting people out is her job, who need a little bit of help. Peter, when he's not being super gravito-man, gets the job of taking care of anyone who's unable to move. Ahh the joys of better degree's. "We'll find the kids Detective Cooper, annnnd we'll find your momma too" Abby coo's to the young girl, letting cooper use her as a crutch.
Elsewhere, Michelle and others are being unearthed little by little. and the atmokinetic doctor is grabbing gauze to slap around her head and starting in on helping people, the assurance that she's a doctor and the one keeping the area warm good enough to get her side by side with a paramedic and helping with someone who's not so lucky and well off.
Shooting Magnes a sharp look, Peter's brows furrow and brown eyes go wide. Lips parted, the paramedic almost loses total control over the piece of debris he was holding, causing the people currently ducked under it to help get survivors out to crouch down and breath out a gasp of fright, but when the roof section fails to fall down entirely, they scramble with the injured out of the area. "Magnes, that's— not Gabriel. I can tell you that right now… it's— I don't know who he is. He's a serial killer, steals abilities." Sounds like… Gabriel.
"He attacked me at my house, nearly killed me, tried to take a friend of mine's ability. He's dangerous, but he's not Gabriel, he's someone else. The old man you saw, that's the same person I saw. He— came down the chimney into my mother's house as a cloud of smoke. If— " Peter glances around, then looks back to Magnes. "He killed Wendy Hunter. He can sense other Evolved, knows what they can do." Floating that debris to the side and settling it down, Peter shakes his head and looks back to Magnes. "Magnes, you need to go to the police, there's a federal agent named Audrey Hanson who's investigating it, she works with Felix. They've got it handled, this— isn't something for us to worry about. But if you have something that might help them stop him, Christ, tell someone."
Noriko's eyes continues to look around while she stands there at the age of the building, shivering and watching the recovery effort for a couple of moments before she bends over at the rest and begins to cuoch heavily, bright red painting the snow in front of her that she kicks at with her boot. She doesn't want to think about the implications for now, she'd just rather crawl back to her blanket nest in her apartment… maybe have some clam chowder.
As Maddie helps to evacuate, she keeps a reporter's ear open, listening to Magnes chatter at the paramedic. She clearly missed something while back behind the rubble with Cooper and the kids, damn it. She's still rather unclear about what happened, and it's going to take some work to piece it together — unfortunately she's a victim and participant in this disaster, and those worse off than her need her help more than they need her pen on her notepad. The name Gabriel is murmured on her lips as a way to remember it, since it'd look a bit weird to stop helping the man — Mr. Jameson! — up from where he'd fallen to write down the name. But then Peter's saying it's not Gabriel and mentions Audrey Hanson and Felix — Felix Ivanov? Could the world be that small? She moves a little closer to the two men, once Mr. Jameson is on his feet.
Finally finding a spot to sit, the detective does so with a groan, leg held out before him the best he can, he angles a look at Abby, and smiles a bit. "Thanks. I'll hold you to that." He winces as he shifts his weight, glancing down to his leg finally. "Though for now, something to take the edge off would be nice." He looks lightly amused as he says that, before his pale green eyes shift back to watch the rescue effort, unable to help this time around.
"Alright, that solves the Melissa head injury puzzle." Magnes idly says to himself, though makes no effort to hide his comment from Peter. He helps injured people away from the slab, then walks back over to Peter's area. "You have no idea how awkward it is for me to talk to cops these days, they all universally hate me, but alright, I'll go to this Audrey Hanson person."
He didn't know Wendy Hunter, but he certainly remembers her being kidnapped. "She's dead? And this Gabriel copycat did it? I could have put him down if my ability wasn't completely spent…" He sighs, going back to digging. Dig dig dig. His fingers are starting to hurt. "I think I have a theory for why he did this whole roof crashing thing. And um, speaking of crashing, you never gave me the yay or nay on staying at your place tonight. If any assassins or something come after me, or the ninjas from Japan I keep expecting, I'd rather be somewhere I'm not a sitting duck."
"Sorry Detective, Peter's the one that dishes out the medi-" She cuts off as someone who's even more perky than Abigail strides forward. The vegan. "This guy, he'll take care of you, he's got the proper license" Dessandra and her sling are dropped off beside Cooper. "You stick beside him okay? You go where he goes. you're his buddy and he can't do anything without his buddy okay?"And like that, Abigail off, wading back into the building to start helping ferry more people out.
Peter opens his mouth, about to say something, then closes it very quickly, reaches inside of his jacket and takes out a jingling key ring, tossing the keys to Magnes. "Apartment 1407 Madison Towers, 148 Madison Street," Peter notes with a nod of his head to Magnes. "I'm not staying there right now, but you're more than welcome to it if you don't want to go home. I can't just invite you over my mother's place, the security's been pretty tight there since the attack."
Crouching down and looking under the pile of rubble, there's a sigh there, a worried and heavy one. "Man, alright. How long until you stop being a baloon?" Peter asks over his shoulder to Magnes, "I could really use your help in getting these people out from under here…"
While all this is happening, as the injured are being pulled out of the rubble, as more emergency rescue teams are arriving on the site of the collapse, Detective Thomas Cooper spots something that one of the paramedics are handling. A young woman, unconscious and being hauled away on a stretcher with a bloody line cut across her forehead, skin split and a familiar dappling of ash across her cheeks and neck.
As the paramedics haul her past, there's a chill that sinks down Cooper's spine, and in the strobing light of the police and rescue vehicles, he watches Adelaide be taken away by the paramedics, but he's seen that cut before and she doesn't have a single other injury on her. Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's falling debris. But the ash…
…maybe it's coincidence enough.