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A jolt and one set of drawers tipped through where a wall once was and dropped a good twenty feet. But in better news, one of the more tightly secured drawers that remained powered down, their runic protection dying, then gone.

If Lucky were to open the drawer, he'd find a massive tome in a sealed clear box that was labeled:

Hurricane

Squeezing his hand, the clone steadied her breath to try and match his. This was the right decision, everything about the man next to her gave way to the truth of it. They picked their way through with a careful quickness, the danger of their surrounding not allowing her to dwell on things, not allowing her to think about everything she would lose. There was simply the best way between point A and point B and once they reached it...

America was gaunt and small within the wreckage, curling into the figure of the one who had doubtless rescued her for whatever reasons lay beyond the love he'd discarded. The girl looked both very old and very young in that she was helpless.

The pull strengthened tenfold. Caly held on to something that didn't, in the end belong to her. The burden of it was too much to continue fighting for, not in the face of every other question and doubt of this existence. She'd tried, but if this was a good place, it was not her place and never would be.

Turning to Dawson she beamed, proudly. "See? She's here. She'll be...she'll be fine," the clone reassured him and then leaned in, briefly, to kiss the one person who'd tried to give her, of all things, a soul.

She hoped it had worked. She hoped he was right and there was a heaven, even for things like her.

Caly bent down to brush America's hair off her forehead, and the touch was enough. The color began to drain from the clone and the features that were unique to America, scares and smiles and the curve of her nose, they all began to smooth into something more generic. The clone lost color and shape swiftly, gradually revealing a figure made of crystal, blue and black.

It moved its head to offer Dawson one last smile, but the two powers could not so fully coexist. Her face cracked first, and then her chest. Between one breath and the next, Caly shattered.

America woke up.

Somewhere between the training grounds and the lighthouse

Stuff was happening with clones, there was still chaos in the remains of the life labs, there was a fight on the training grounds. Milo wasn't aware of anything going on, like usual. Here he was sitting on some girl hoping she wasn't going to attack him or try to run again. He probably should do something with her even if he was waiting for a response from Noemi.

Restraining her was the problem though and at first he thought about using his scarf but realized the fabric might not have been too reliable, until he remembered he had a belt on. He pulled her arms behind her back and made use of the belt, tightened it around her wrists and looped it around a few times. "Sorry wahine, don' wanna take chances, ya know?" She seemed to still be sobbing and muttering, hopefully a good sign?

Milo hefted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and began walking back.

H's Prayer Circle

Rep nodded to H, for him direction was something that put him at ease, before there had been nothing but a vague and nebulous desire to help, but now he knew what to do and in what direction he had to incline his aid to be useful. Anyone who tried to disrupt whatever was going on in here were the people he had to attack, it was rendered simple once again, there was no grey area.

He held the weapon a little more firmly in more of a battle stance and blocked the door, even as he took up his position giving the other man an uncertain and concerned look. He found himself anxiously concerned that whatever H was doing was taking its toll on Harrison, but at the same time it could have been anything, he had a ******** crown made of crystals on his head.

As far as the room collapsing, Rep wasn't a structural engineer, if the roof came in, all he could do was try and hold it up, and even as a hunter, he knew that was one surefire way to end up dead. He stuck to what he knew and tried to pretend he wasn't completely ******** shitting a brick over all of this.

Lucky did manage to pry the drawer open after a couple of scuffles with the dying runic power still holding it shut. When it popped open, book and box inside, he was actually thrown aside for a moment and scrabbled to keep his futile hold on the furniture. As if it was really grounded at all, given the nearest cabinet already went sailing into the abyss.

He wasted precious seconds reading the label before scooping up the entire ensemble, pressing it to his chest with one arm. It was heavy. His heart was practically in his throat at this point. Steal first, ask questions later.

He turned in place, taking a few hesitant steps back toward the door he'd come from, weighted down considerably more than when he'd entered. Song's sawblade was held in front of him like a balance, or maybe a shield - an instinct that took hold before any conscious thought.

Not that it would protect him if the floor gave out. He couldn't exactly fight gravity.

hurricane

He should have been exhausted keeping up, but a sense of purpose and hope was never to be underestimated. It should have made him falter and hitch his breath seeing America look so frail and lifeless in the arms of someone he didn't comprehend, but Caly's hand was warm in his, and he squeezed it instead. Where nerves would have fired and chafed and caused his anxious heart to pound, a strange serenity existed instead. Maybe he did know, but simply chose not to acknowledge it. Maybe he had reached his high point of stress for the day and ascended to a plane of zen just beyond it, distant to the concerns that would eat him alive once this was over.

It shook ominously when Caly kissed him, though, because he knew what goodbye tasted like.

He didn't know when the tears started to fall. Maybe when he tried to return her bright smile, or just before his hand twitched in a vague thought to touch her one more time in reassurance, or as he tried to tell himself it's okay it's okay it's okay as he had told her only minutes before. Crying seemed so at odds with his calm mood that Dawson didn't know what to do except watch as Caly returned what had been stolen piece by piece, reverent and blinking through his blurring vision as she lost everything but her name.

It when he made out the blue in his watery gaze that his trembling lips parted enough to breathe a small, "Oh." She turned to smile at him one last time, but he didn't have the power to speak, much less stop his mouth from quivering more and more as the tears continued to spill, or reach out and try to take that smooth hand one more time, to beg and plead, you don't have to do this either, you don't have to leave, no-one's making you, you can fight this too, Caly-girl, fight for me, please--

The first sob left him when she shattered. More soon came after, his bulk shuddering with each breath and soft cry as he gathered America into his arms (careful, careful, in case she too was just glass wrapped with the right colors) and buried his face into her hair and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed with joy and grief.

[Minipets Lab]


Oliver closed his eyes just for a second, just one moment to rest, but it must have been longer than that. He wasn't even aware of the footsteps and the shuffling by the doorway, or even the man's voice, not until he suddenly found himself hoisted up into the hunter's arms. The kid stirred, wincing in pain, and when he glanced up to see Dakota as his rescuer his face was pale, scratched and dusty.

"Y-yes I..." The young man paused, and then he turned his head back towards the cages. "Please, I have to... The pets over there, I need to get the rest." Oliver didn't look like he was in any shape to be getting anything, his clothes were now slick with blood, and even being held up by someone else was dizzying.

He frowned. It wasn't the minipets still in their cages that caught his attention. The box, the plain cardboard box that had contained the collars was lit up once more with a quest marker somehow only the kid could see. Why now?

"The box...!" He blurted weakly, gesturing once in that general direction before passing out in the other hunter's arms.

Inside, the unfamiliar prototype device still sat untouched, but as Oliver hastily collared pets earlier a note had slipped out from where it had gotten stuck. It was quick and casual instructions from one R&D developer to another about how to set up the portable FEAR shield and recreate a minipet-safe area in remote locations.

The ground began to give beneath his feet, threatening to take the both of them down with the rest of the damaged area. As he tried to make it past the fact that it was too little too late was undeniable, the ground disappearing abruptly, giving him no purchase for one last jump and yet...

and yet...

Kyle would see a burst of light and motion and then, suddenly, his feet were touching the ground, twenty feet from where hope should have been lost. Later, a hunter who'd witnessed it would describe, with a laughing sort of confusion, that it had looked like he had been flying. Like he had wings.