Welcome to Gaia! ::

((I have been personally threatened and take that as a challenge))

The fog that had filled the grand room seemed out of place. This doesn't seem like the president's style... He uneasily thought to himself before being startled by the gunshot.

The crowd lurched towards the known exits despite their locked state. This was bad, people were panicking. If they became a frenzied mob fueled by fear there would no longer be any reasoning with them. Lewis' instant response once the people around them began moving was to begin working towards calming them down. He kept his voice calm and clear as he tried to reassure some of the panicked people around him. "It will be ok. There are guards and military personnel everywhere here. It is our highest priority to keep everyone safe. Please calm down and wait for further instructions."

The Generals booming voice and Chase's remark had helped Lewis finally understand the current situation. He had been so quick to focus on the crowd's response to the shot that he had not been trying to keep an eye on stage. "The General?" Thank goodness the General's voice had sounded so strong and steady. That alone led Lewis to feel confident that the General would be able to recover if the attack did not escalate. At least the General's outburst had helped to some degree with stopping the crowd from getting worse.

Chase had Lewis' full attention now as he listened intently to the other cadet. They could not let whoever did this escape in the confusion. Lewis nodded sternly. "Agreed. We also need to help calm people down. If the situation escalates and panics the crowd further some innocent bystanders will be trampled... Perhaps those closer to where the sound originated saw something." Hopefully someone would be able to reveal this criminal before they had the chance to escape!

“Of course Mr. President, and thank you.” Angelina answered promptly. The cadet moved as she was directed standing directly behind the President just before his speech the pair of cadets looked like an extra set of bodyguards for the president. Angelina stood alert and watched carefully the people on the floor as they rushed to the stage. The Republic Anthem had begun to sound cueing the start of the speech.

Strange things started happening... The lights flickered and some sort of black god seeped into the room. And what kind of fog was this anyway? Angelina looked around quickly trying to pick out suspicious movement even though the fog but to no avail. The fog entered quickly and she was almost completely blind... What was going on? And she couldn’t do anything from where she was either! The other military personnel where helping stall the chaos from what she could hear.

The sound of a gunshot hung in the air above all the chaos Angelina’s head snapped up as the fog suddenly started receding as mysteriously as it came. A beam of light shone through the fog a flashlight? At least some one had one. Angelina looked around trying to find the source of the gunshot and the victim her first thought was the president... but covered by all those guards it was going to be hard to even reach him.

“S-Sir?!” came Shora’s voice close to Angelina.

She looked instantly beside her, and blinked in surprise “Sir!” she echoed seeing the General covering his wound. “You need that looked after right away.” Angelina sounded urgent though her voice was lost as the General ordered everything locked down. She had to do something to help; the culprit couldn’t have gotten far… She just had to find him.

Lorna kept her attention on the president as he spoke; suddenly a chill ran down her spine. She glanced around; an eerie black fog was coming in from who knows where or everywhere. Lorna didn’t like it one bit. For some reason it made her feel cold. The lights started to flicker and Lorna couldn’t help but look, what was going on?

The crowd suddenly panicked as a gunshot sounded. Lorna was suddenly shoved “Hey!” she said sharply. She wasn’t usually one to get angry but this was getting ridiculous… it was an absolute panic. Lorna suddenly looked back to the stage as the Generals voice carried over the crowd. The General had been the one shot not the president?! And he was still alright? It looked like he’d been shot near the heart.

The cadet moved toward the exits with a host of other military personnel and started closing the exits and closing the escape path of the assassin.

Nicodemus nearly lept off stage to aid in the investigation when a sudden "aht" from the president halted his actions.
"You get behind that stage and tend to your wound General." He spoke as he himself was lead behind stage. "The gunman is still here, might be scared as heck now, but he is still here."

He looked over to the two cadets, Shora and Angelina. "One of you please help him with that bullet wound."

(( Who stays is up to you guys. It will not affect your mission in any way shape or form. :3 ))

"I'm fine, don't worry...... you both be careful. I doubt the gunman will attack again, there are more people aware, but still be on your guard. " He didn't take his eyes off of the crowd, but he was clearly speaking to the Cadets.

The General would wait to move until everyone has safely left the stage. His expression did not betray weather or not he liked the order from the president. He would rather be down there helping his men, but Coleman was right, he should probably get this frustration taken care of. Scoob had bolted from the stage to retrieve the medial kit from one of the many areas around the room. People seemed to not notice the rather large organoid as it snuck around the room. It was an odd skill the scardey dog had obtained through years of practice.

Kard had been separated -again- from Cross when the commotion happened. He was bumped and shoved across the room in the mass of hysteric people. When the gun shot went off he covered his ears as it sounded like it went off right behind him. He whipped around in time to see the young clean shaven man dissapear into the crowd. It was so fast Kard did not get the colors of his cloths. Blue, red, or was it purple? One of those for sure....
"Cross?! Bud! YOU OKAY!" He tried to call out through the crowd.

Despite his injury, the General somehow kept barking orders and, from what Shora gathered, seemed just about ready to leap into the fray and knock some sense into the people who were still panicking.

Speaking of panicking...

“W-what happened?! That wasn’t what I think it was wasi-?” she too was cut off by the President, and instead opted to blink at him stupidly and use the opportunity to try and put herself back together. She glanced from Colman to Angelina, hoping for some help, but the other cadet appeared to be already occupied, scanning the crowd for the gunman.

“I... Guess that means I will?” despite the fairly direct order, Nicodemus seemed inclined to protest and even turned down any offers. Part of Shora felt relived – she certainly wasn’t a leading authority on first aid – but another part both made her inwardly chuckle at getting to order a superior officer around, but also pissed her off when she realised that wouldn’t make a difference to the fact she had volunteered.

She coughed and straightened up, “Sorry sir, but that there was an order from the very top of the command chain! I’m doing as the Helic Republic’s President told,” odd, the cadet’s training was actually doing something for once.

The president seemed to agree with her the General needed to tend to his wound before Angelina could offer to help Shora spoke “I wouldn’t mind helping the General.” She told Shora “But if you want to help the general I’ll work with the other cadets to investigate and find the shooter among the guests.” That and she could make sure Krad and his brother where alright and unharmed. The fog had receded enough so she could see everyone the criminal most likely assumed he wasn’t going to get caught and so stayed in plain view at the same time he was anonymous. Angelina didn’t like that. Looking back to Shora she waited for her answer.

Lorna stood by the door with the other military personnel stopping the people from exiting, also dealing with a few scared bystanders.

"I see..."

It was a little hard to hear the soldier through the murmurs and with his mumbling, but he was able to get the gist of what was said. So the shooter was somewhere around this area, but there was no telling where the person could be now.

"What does your bro--"

He was about to say more, but a scream from nearby caught his full attention. Quickly looking to the side, he saw an elderly woman gingerly holding a gun in horror as others around her moved away. For a moment he was shocked, but the way she was reacting couldn't have meant she was the attacker. Well, maybe.

Shooting a glance over at the other soldiers nearby, he then made his way over towards the woman.

"Ma'am, please calm down..." he tried to reassure, "... where did you get this gun..?"

Shora left and stood by the officials Angelina gave a polite nod and slipped into the crowd. The blonde sighed. This was going to take forever to question everyone and if you tried to flush him out by getting people to confess... well good luck every one would be pointing every which way. Suppose the first thing was to make sure the Kard and his brother where alright.

Angelina moved through the crowd trying to find Krad. A scream peirced through the crowd and Angelina ran over thinking someone else had gotten hurt. But...

An elderly woman stood in the middle of a circle of frightened people. Though as Angelina pushed through it seemed the woman was more frightened than the people around her. Another cadet seemed to be trying to calm the woman down, Angelina stepped forward to help. "Excuse me Ma'am it would be best if you give the gun to us so we can get it to the Military unit best at analysis. "I'm cadet Angelina Solaris." She said taking a pair of gloves out of her purse she carried. Couldn't hurt to be prepared... this time for sure. She was going to use them if she got cold but this was more important. They weren't latex but they were gloves. Hopefully the criminal wouldn't of had time to clean off his fingerprints.