Academy of Heroes 2

[Boomerang]

As the Chinook came to a stop, Sidnee's calming view of the sky above turned into a roaring crowd of thousands upon thousands of soldiers. She quickly fished around in her pockets and pulled out a contact container. Just before the doors to the Chinook opened, Sidnee quickly put the contacts in her eyes with trembling hands. She looked down, blinked a few times, then looked at her reflection in one of the windows. Her pitch black eyes had become a chocolate brown. Perfect.

By the time Sidnee had adjusted herself, she was one of the last people out the door. As she stepped off, she glanced at the group of people in front of her, and once again became painfully aware of how small and frail she was compared to the rest of her comrades. As she became engrossed in this thought, she tripped a bit stepping from the Chinook to the ground, but managed to balance herself just in time. Although none of the soldiers around them seemed to notice her minor mistake, Sidnee kept her head down for the rest of the walk. She assumed they had all seen it and were pointing at her, which was exactly what she had tried to avoid by placing her contacts in.

Sidnee took off the contacts and placed them back in the container as soon as they were inside. She assumed that everyone in here already knew who she was, while many of the soldiers outside most likely did not. She listened to the general and became lost in thought in regards to the pros and cons of both options, to the point that she hardly notice Kalte's impulsive actions that drew a death glare from Naomi. Upon listening to Anna's comment, however, she shook her head.

"Th...These creatures are killing people," She said softly, "And whatever's coming out of that tumor is killing hundreds more." That was all she could muster in response to Anna, afraid of getting on the girl's bad side by disagreeing.

Suddenly clasping her hands behind her back, Sidnee kept her head up and attempted to sound as formal as possible. "That being said, I think the guerrilla route is the better way...We should get to know the enemy in...in smaller samples before we try to fight through their front lines..." She bit her lower lip and concluded that she sounded much too arrogant. "But, I-I could be wrong! I want to know what everyone else thinks, too!"

[MrSkully]

As they left the helicopter, and walked down the 'Red Carpet' in between the cheering crowd, Angel was smiling with her hands in pockets. However, it wasn't a smile of pure amusement. It was more derisive than anything else, although still hidden under good amount of politeness. For her, there must've been something laughable in all this. Still, she realized what Naomi tried to achieve and thus tried to present herself as best as possible...but still with hands in her pockets.

Watching the scene play out between Naomi and Kalte, Angel let out a quiet, prolonged whistle. "Looks like your fire just got extinguished, cool guy." Her voice lowered, as she leaned to him with a grin. Then Anna spoke up, and Sidnee too thrown in her penny. "Nah." Angel straightened back up, and put her hands behind her head. "Naomi was already here, apparently provokin them with nothin but her presence... I trust her and Shy Girl's judgment that destroyin planet's population ain't the best way to get along with your new pals...Trust me, I tried." The girl held her open palms in a 'calming' gesture, doing a single small 'push' with them, and grinned even wider at her silly joke. Despite the situation, she still seemed to be messing around no less than before.

"Anyway... Im fine with either option, I could lead ya guys from above perhaps, look for the safest route." Angel straightened her arm to point at the ceiling, grabbing onto her elbow behind her head with her other hand and using that position to stretch a little. "Ahh...But ya both did bring up a good point. Before we decide Tag or Hide n Seek, it'd sure be nice to know who we playing with." The girl having finished her stretch, brought her both arms down, placing the right one on her hip, her cheerful gaze jumping from face to face.

[Arch-Angel]

"Perhaps it's just an effect of throwing stones in a glass house. I would be very much interested in communicating with these things to find out what they want! After all, if you know your enemy as much as you know yourself, you mustn't fear the result of a hundred battles." Anna winked at the general with a sincere smile. "Flying is fun and all, Angel, and I bet you're good at it with your fancy metallic wings and all, but flying around in the sky would sort of forfeit the element of surprise that we would be trying to maintain, wouldn't it?" The small woman took another sip from her water bottle before adding, "I still believe that regardless of which method of infiltration we decide, we must know more about them. Does anyone know any good jokes? There's nothing like laughter to bring people together!"

[MrSkully]

"Fun fact..." Angel snapped her fingers, finger-gunning at Anna. "Did ya know that majority of people tend to not look up even in an emergency situation, while some animals can't even look up at the sky?" She put her arm down. "Despite, I didn't mean flyin above ya guys like a vulture, cawin the direction... We're in an urban area, what are the roofs for?" She smiled mischievously and shrugged.

[Camila]

Remained silent the entire meeting at the academy, while they were flying and also whike they walked through the crowd of people. And all of a sudden this guy points at her thinking she has any idea of what to do.

As soon as Ina heard her name her eyes widened and she got slightly startled. "That I have some better ice what-...Right... I'm supossed to be some symbol of peace of some sort for these people". She looked at the pictures in the table and then to the people around her waiting for her to speak. "Well I-" she immediately changed to a more serious tone "By my experience and judgement I believe we should be able to sneak in. That way we won't put your men in an unnecessary danger and we'll keep casualties to a minimum. We should be capable to defend ourselves in dangerous situations, we're heroes after all aren't we?"

She looked at everyone else with a confident smile waiting for a sort of aproval... looking at Kalte she realized something and thought to herself "wait was that a pun?..."

[Aquila]

The long case was hefted over his shoulder and resting on his back as Isaiah walked through the crowds. He couldn't help but admire the weaponry around him, most of them he was familiar with at a basic level of use and maintenance. And despite the gun's more superior range, functionality, and power, he still preferred his customized crossbow when it came down to it. As the boy listened to the debriefing he wondered which would be better, he was more for the covert ops himself, but their team wasn't exactly the most inconspicuous team with Angel with her silver wings and Kalte in his knight's armor. The man's ability to freeze things came as a pleasant surprise, it was a useful power to have on your side. The issue with the flashier entrance of course was amount of casualties that would come with it. The group seemed to be in the consensus of sneaking in so he chimed in. "Less boots on the ground make less noise anyways, there's also no reason for your men to waste your ammunition just for a light show." Isaiah didn't know what Annabeth was talking about and wondered what she thought she could accomplish with such a hare-brained idea. "I'm sure if the enemy was interested in talking, they would have done that first." He didn't plan on talking to any of them, a bolt to the head would be the only transaction he would make.

[Arch-Angel]

In response to Angel's finger gun, Anna threw up one of her own, but kept her thumb bent rather than rigid to indicate that the safety was on. Anna gave the once absentee woman a smile and nod in approval before responding to Angel, "well roofs usually keep out the elements, like rain and snow and birds and such. I would never tell you what to do or to not do, though! Watching you fly up and over the buildings would be much fun for me!"

The purple haired lad didn't seem like he wanted to entertain Anna's idea, which was such a shame. "Well if they are truly intelligent, then certainly there is much to learn from them if we are able to communicate. I understand that sometimes things just wish to destroy, which is alright. I'm sure they want to consume and take over as much as we don't want them too, the only difference being that we wish to protect ourselves and to not be consumed." Which is exactly why Anna would leave the fighting to her team. The thing she was truly most interested in was writing a good story to tell her other friends, old and new. Anna's finger gun was still pointed at Angel, with the safety on of course.

[MrSkully]

"Sure we are!" Angel grinned to the red-head girl and gave her a thumbs up. "And if anyone has any doubts, we'll show em soon."

That was an expected answer from Anna. "Bah. True, but these are the boring parts." Angel waved her hand. "Fun part is that ya can jump from one to the other and hide on em. Its like a highway, or a metro...But for winged people and there's no traffic...what are ya doing?" Angel asked amused and after a moment she herself copied the gesture, pointing back at Anna, both girls now having a finger-gun standoff...with safety on.

[ErrorBlender]

Francene kept silent during the debate as she listened in on what they should do. The technopath tried to speak at times but decided, or rather, her shyness decided not to. She wanted to take the more safer guerilla path as she felt it would be better not to be seen by the enemy but she instead stayed at the back. Instinctively, she looked around for any technology she could converse with and found some consoles on a desk near the General. Looking to the rest, they all seemed to busy to be bothered so she connected to the consoles.

Hi there! She started. I hope you're not too busy but I'd like to know the layout of the city. Please and thank you!

[Devour]

Standing in the center of it all, between Kalte's unwavering grin and the strange joking standoff between Anna and Angel, Naomi stood prim and proper, struggling to hold her composure as she represented humanity's last hope.Being a perfectionist to a fault, she felt like the way that these students weren't acting serious in these circumstances might drive her insane.

At least Anna had asked a good question...

"Our enemy is some sort of race of artificially-constructed monsters." The General said, explaining to Anna and Irene. "They've got some basic technology, but their forces are comprised mostly of extremely hostile creatures designed to come up close and tear your face off. It's like someone is designing them, almost, with beasts that can bounce bullets off of their armored chests. We've seen black wolves who hide in the ruins and strike in ambushes, and many humanoid things with armor and weapons that fight in disciplined ranks. They come in so many shapes and sizes that we can't give 'em a real name. Some troops have taken to calling them the Black Tide. Black like the tumor they came from, in numbers that never seem to end. Giving you descriptions of their forces is next to useless, because it's likely they'll have some other sort of hellspawned beast we've never seen before the next time they come crawling back out from that city."

At the second part of Anna's question, the man raised a disdainful eyebrow. "Miss.. trying to make peace with these monsters would be a mistake." He said. "This black tide isn't the only threat. Behind them, that tumor is spitting some sort of curse into the air that blacks out the sky and brainwashes everything beneath it into fighting against us. It's spreading, slow as hell, but it'll reach us one day. And when it does... we'll be forced to draw back our defensive perimeter or else we'll be brainwashed just like the rest of them." He turned to Naomi with an eyebrow raised. "I think I remember telling you about this. You've told your team what they're up against, haven't you?"

"I have." The girl replied, sheepish. She brushed a strand of black hair out of her eyes. "Perhaps they just wanted to hear it from you."

Grunting, the General seemed to accept her answer. "And what of your plans?" He asked. "So you want to go the quiet path. What does your team want from us, then?"

"That's a good question..." Naomi pursed her lips, thinking. "We can't ask for too much without simply drawing attention and accomplishing the opposite of what we want. In fact... excuse me for a second." With a flick of her wrist, the girl scooped up the folder the General had slid over the table. "If we're deciding on a guerrilla approach to entering enemy territory, I realize that it would be wrong for me to speak for everyone here. I'm going to show this to the team and hear what they think."

In her future sight, Naomi saw the office printer spring to life and print out a second copy of the city's layout. It was probably unnecessary, but she quickly reached out and pressed the Cancel button on the machine, stopping it before it could start, saving them a brief moment of bewildered confusion from the soldiers around them. She imagined the command must have come from Francene, and she smiled.

She would make sure the girl was included when she asked everyone for their thoughts.

_________________________

Naomi had gathered the team of students around her in a close circle. In her hand she held a picture of the layout of the city, taken from satellite imagery in impressive detail. "From what I understand... I have been given permission to ask for any resources we could possibly need. We can mobilize soldiers, ask for weapons, call for air strikes, and..." Naomi pursed her lips. "I think they would risk launching missiles for us, but we would need a pretty good reason for that... Anyways!" She coughed. "All of this is only to help us get into the city, because the army can't go too deep without risking getting taken over by the tumor's Curse. We must use this only to help establish a base somewhere behind the Black Tide's main force, which is spread out in a perimeter around the outskirts of the city."

One thing that she hadn't forgotten was just how massive this city was. Even now it was mind-boggling, and the prospect of travelling to its center on foor was intimidating to her. Even if they were completely unhindered by enemy forces, it would take them weeks to walk to the Tumor normally. She didn't want to think about how long it would take if they were in constant danger, every step of the way.

She sighed, brushing those thoughts aside for now. It would be better focus on one problem at a time, and right now that problem was simply breaking through the first couple miles where the enemy forces would be the most thick, even as spread out as they were.

"We could always simply start walking into the city and hope for the best." Naomi began. "We could scout for enemy soldiers as we go and do the best to avoid them... vehicles would be an option as well, but those are loud and could easily draw attention." She wanted to keep on talking, but this was something incredibly important. This time, she wanted to let the heroes around her discuss the tactics that they saw fit to use.

They had the entire military at their disposal. The only limitation was the attention that it would bring to use it, and the fact that soldiers would be unable to follow them beyond the city's outer limits. The rest, she supposed, was up to them.