The Black Out

[Lorne Hazlewood]

Lorne popped up from the other side of a table. "What? I've been here the whole time." He gave a manly grunt before stepping forward.

Soon enough there was a group of a dozen or so kids edging open the front doors to the courtyard. They were all huddled in pretty tight and a few of them were more nervous than others. Lorne racked his brain trying to figure out why this was freaking him out so much. Everyone in the group had fought fire breathing gang bangers, giant robots and vomit spewing zombies before but something about this situation had them all shaking. Maybe it was the unknown, maybe it was that it was so close to Halloween but whatever it was the fear was palpable.

They stalked quietly through the grass. The darkness that spread over the campus felt almost unnatural. All the streetlights were out. None of the windows shone. Only the moon cast any shadows and the shadows it cast seemed to dance at the corner of the eye.

A shadow moved over the group as if something flew over head. Lorne looked up and caught a brief glimpse of something as it flew over the dorms.

"Was that that?" he yelled craning his neck to see.

One of the other students tapped him on the shoulder and pointed off in the distance. At the edge of their vision, a group of... creatures... were running on all fours behind two buildings visible only briefly down an alley way between the two. One of them stopped momentarily and turned towards them. It crept along low to the ground and then raised on its rear legs to sniff at the air. It lowered its head eyeing the students. As suddenly as it had stopped it turned and climbed up the side of the wall and ran sideways back down the alley and disappeared around the corner with the rest of them.

Whatever it was it wasn't what crashed into the window, and there were a lot of them.

[Etienne Mbane]

Etienne saw the creatures duck around the building, and shook his head, clicking his tongue disapprovingly.

"Tk, tk, tk... der be bad juju out tonight. Black Papa Langa come a callin' on us, folk. Did why the Hallowed Eve be for prayin'."

He let out a breath, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Falling to his knees, Etienne started pulsing and spasming in complex rhythms. The air around him chilled as a cold breeze swept down and swirled around him. With a final jerk of his body, his eyes snapped open, completely black and without pupils. His normally thin face had become gaunt and drawn, and the outline of his skull shone in iridescent white. What little light there was seemed to dim around him as he scanned the darkness.

"Better get ready, folk. Dey ain' goin' to let you sit aside jus' 'cause you ain' wanna stand up."

[Seth Molokhya]

"Well, might as well join him," the wind in the air started to swirl around Seth, blowing up a breeze low to the ground.

As the wind swirled tighter around Seth, bits and pieces of the ground starting breaking up into the whirlwind. As they spun, they dissolved into tiny grains of sand until, eventually, Seth wasn't visible. The whirlwind stayed for a few seconds. Finally the air grew as still as it had been before. He had transformed himself into living sand. After he adjusted, he spoke with what seemed like five voices all saying the same thing at once; one including his own,

"Alright, now, who's next to show off? If we keep this up, maybe we won't have to fight," he gave an eerie laugh that periodically broke the laughter into cycles between each voice.

[Arthur Rawlings]

Ar looked at their displays, appreciative of the showmanship, and sighed. Really should have brought his guns.

"You guys keep up the interpretive dancing. I'm gonna get a closer look." With that he shimmered out of focus, like he was wrapped in a thick blanket of heat distortions fresh off the highway. When he was still, he may as well have been part of the background.

With a couple light jumps, he closed most of the distance between where they were and where the last of the animal things had been. From there he crept over the ground, rotating between infrared and nightvision, eyes (and drone) peeled for some sign of what was out there.

[Cadence Calloway]

Cadence shivered, and not from the cold but fear. Something wasn't right about this whole thing. With a sigh, she reminded herself that she had spare uniforms...

"I'll see if I can spot anything from above," she offered quietly, before stepping back from the group a few paces.

Her body ignited in a burst of flame, burning away her nice shiny Westbrook uniform. Thankfully the fire obscured any curious eyes from seeing anything risque...unfortunately she was also painting herself as a mighty big target. For this reason, she did linger long with the group. She soared up into the sky, leaving a heat trail in her wake. Once she gained enough altitude she hovered, and looked about, seeing if she could spot something from above that the others might miss.

[Toshiko Rikuo]

Tosh watched the group head out before moving back up to her room. Once inside she activated all her bots and quickly sent them across campus. Sitting in the middle of her floor, she closed her eyes and reached out to the comm signals.

"Okay guys, the relay seems to be down for the comms, but the comms are still sending signals. Which means I can talk to you and you can talk to me... But you can't talk to each other. I've sent my bots out to scout the campus. As soon as I get a closer look at these things and where they all are, I'll let you know. If you need anything relayed between you, just talk like they can hear you, and I'll send it on."

Tosh remained in the middle of her room with her smallest bot scanning the area around her. She might be the ethnic minority in this bad horror film, but she wasn't stupid enough to leave herself blind to her own surroundings.

[Lorne Hazlewood]

The creature's muscle rippled under its dark fur. It spread its black feathery wings and snorted at the mechanized thing in front of it. Despite it's size it moved fast. Tosh barely got a glimpse of it before its teeth clamped down on the visual circuits of it her robotic sentry. Soon after the robot stopped sending signals all together.

As Cadence peered around the campus from her high vantage point she could see more of the creatures swarming through campus. There must have been dozens of them of various shapes and sizes. They all seemed to be converging on one spot on campus and in the distance she could see red flashes of light. Before she could say anything something slammed in to her from behind and began spiraling with her down towards the group below.

Lorne kept with the main group below. After the other students' display he once again felt disappointed he didn't have showier powers. He thought about doing a flip or something but decided against it. He hung back with the main group as Ar, Cadence and in an odd way Tosh went out to scout up ahead. He tried to stay on the other side of the group from Etienne and Seth. Their powers just freaked him out on some level. Just then he heard a thud from above and saw Cadence locked up with the bat creature from the window plummeting towards them. Lorne managed to point up and yell, "Aaah!" He really hoped some one else reacted better to the situation.

Ar kept low to the ground as he followed the creatures. He could see the creatures continuing to run toward the center of campus. Whatever they were doing they apparently didn't care about the small group of students in the courtyard. He switched from night-vision to infrared and began counting the shapes of color as they poured in from around campus. He got to ten when he heard a thud followed by a yell from up above. He looked up to see a writhing mass of flames and bat wings plummeting toward Lorne, Seth and the others below. At least five other winged creatures showed up on his infrared diving after cadence and the first one and the main group probably didn't have a clue.

[Cadence Calloway]

The breath was knocked right out of her as the bat creature collided with her, and the pair fell into an uncontrolled descent. The scent of singed fur stung at her nostrils, and for a moment she felt herself beginning to panic. She had to do something, before they hit the ground! She groaned and used every ounce of strength she had to turn. The seconds seemed to draw out for an eternity, and the ground loomed below.

Pull up pull up pull up pull up...

Just when it seemed like Cadence and the bat creature were doomed to crash and burn right into the middle of the group of students, she finally managed to veer up. She banked hard right, twisting and presenting the bat as an open target (though that last part definitely wasn't intentional). The flames covering her body flared as she pumped out more heat, hoping to get the creature to let her go. As of yet, she hadn't caught sight of the other five creatures, too preoccupied with well...not nosediving into the concrete and getting the monster off of her to notice them yet.

[Seth Molokhya]

Seth shot out towards Candace and the creature winding and swinging through the air. He flew as fast as was possible, but they were moving around too much, he couldn't predict where they were going. He stopped, hovering in the air. He had to think of something, and fast. Candace was already engulfing both in flames, but the creature didn't seem to want to let go. He thought quickly, and then remembered something from his Chemistry class; sand and fire, they make glass!

Seth shot towards the spiraling mass of Candace, flame, and the creature again, this time attempting to slam into them. Seth just hoped that when he hit them, they would combine into one big ball of glass, giving Seth just enough time to sift through it and cut Candace out as they fell to the ground. His plan was to leave the creature encased in glass so it could not move and that, when it hit the ground, would be sliced to pieces by the breaking glass around it.

As he approached them, he closed his eyes. He hoped he wouldn't just be burned to death. He felt what seemed like a collision, but his pain senses were dulled because of his sand form. The sound around him turned from grunts and screams, to silence. He quickly opened his eyes; science had prevailed! They were now immobilized in an encasement of glass. Seth was lucky he was just sand, allowing him to move through the mass of glass freely. He sifted in between Candace and the beast and pushed. Candace quickly broke off, and Seth was surprised, he wasn't expecting her to split off so easily.

They were now successfully two pieces, one Candace, and one the creature. Seth flew out towards Candace to catch her and slowly bring her to the ground,

"Uh, if--if you can hear me, you might want to start burning again. I--I can see uh--well--a lot... Oh! A--and it will--uh--get you--out of the glass..."

He brought her down behind some bushes near the group of students. He signaled for them to come over so they could watch over her. He wasn't sure if she had heard him so if she hadn't, she'd just be a sitting duck. Suddenly, something came raining down, quickly exploding as it impacted with the ground. It was the, now dead, creature,

"If that wasn't luck, I don't know what is," Seth ran over to examine it, or what was left anyway.

[Arthur Rawlings]

"Tosh! The others have incoming. Five diving fast!" Arthur whispered harshly, rapidly over the defunct comm channel. For the hundredth time that night, he cursed the fact that he didn't have 3G. A little Skype would have gone a long way.

The things on the ground weren't hurting anything yet, and they weren't being to secretive about where they were heading. He would have to catch up to them once his friends weren't dead. He kept the cloaking active, but dropped the prowling act. Running as fast as he was, pistons firing at top speed, the only thing keeping him hidden was the dark. For the thousandth time, he cursed leaving his guns in the room.

The infrared showed him what looked like Cadence, her attacker, and something that was probably Seth exploding, colliding, and generally making a mess in the air. Unfortunately, it seemed to be distracting them from the whole impending doom thing.

"Guys!" he called out, "Head up! Five more!" Maybe he could punch one? At least they'd have a hard time crapping out his circuitry.