The Great Tobuscus is Here!

Suzie entered the dark building, feet echoing off the marble floors. It was fairly intact building and didn't look like it would fall anytime soon. Its nondescript appears made it almost perfect for a temporary hideout. All rebellious organizations needed a hideout. This was what they had. She beamed with pride, grinning and all that junk. Yeah, she was happy, and why? 'Cause she got a kid! Yeah, she did! She was recruiting like a superstar! What were the others doing? Who knew? But it didn't rival this supertastic accomplishment. Suzie was riding on air and she looked pretty darn sweet doing it. No one could rain on this parade. Clouds haven't been forecast for the next month!

"So this is it, Todd!" Suzie told him, hoping the place looked more impressive than it actually was. She personally thought it was depressing, but... He was a boy, right? Maybe he'd think it was better than she did. To her, it looked terrible! Maybe it would look like some sort of... Space exploration tank to him. Whatever boys thought about. "I think they're all here somewhere," she mused.

OOC: Failpost is fail.

Todd's eyes went wide, and he stared around with awe. He even darted off, unsupervised, to poke at something if it seemed cool. After getting burnt and/or stabbed by something, he stayed a little closer to his guide. Suze... Was her name. Right? He thought it was. "Mm? Oh! This is cool." he said absently, smiling.

((Fail))

Carter was sitting knelt down next to a window, absorbed in his work. It was amazing. Just minutes ago, a brown, shriveled alien thing had been plastered against the windowsill. Now it was a perfectly green plant, not wilting in the slightest bit. He could like...heal things! This was the awesomest thing that had ever happened in his whole life, since all microwaves could do was kill. And heat food.

He felt so amazing. No one was as cool as him anymore. Now, if he and the others found someone wounded from the Evoknights, he could just heal them, and voilà! Everything would be happy ever after.

Carter jumped when he heard the sound of shoes scurrying all over the place. He turned to see Suzie and some new guy. He grinned at both of them. "Welcome back," He murmured. "Who's that guy?"

Ian rolled out from behind a wooden crate. His hair was sticking up on one side and his eyes were bleary. He'd slept just about all day, finally having given up on staying awake forever. He didn't feel all that rested though, dreaming about fighting Evoknights was almost as exhausting as actually doing it. Besides not feeling rested, he was hungry too. Rubbing one of his eyes with the back of his hand, he observed that Suzie was back from whatever she'd been doing, and she had a friend, or even a new recruit. Cool. Maybe she was more into this than he thought. He hoped so. With a flip to his feet, he moved to greet Todd. His legs felt springy now, not like they were made of lead. Everything felt lighter, especially his mood.

"Hey, I'm I-" His words were stolen as a firestorm descended upon them. The roar of the explosion was deafening, and the crash afterward even more so. The beautiful day was replaced with something straight from Sodom and Gomorrah as a building toppled over in a hail of fire. Somehow they all hadn't been burned alive in the explosion, but only just. "What the hell?" Ian murmured as dust from the collapsed behemoth filled the air. "SUZIE!? CARTER!?" He yelled through the gathering dark.

Ooc: mega DEEEEEEEEEEEERP

Todd saw all the other people and grinned. Well, there were only two but it was better than none. Plus they all lived like Star Wars people in an awesome bunker. Sci-fy. This would be a great place to shoot a movie if all the producers weren't fifty years dead... To both Carter and Ian's question, he started to respond, "My name's Todd-" But some huge thing crashed into the ceiling. It was all fiery and crap, too. He instantly hunkered down, a layer of light blue energy covering him from head-to-toe. "Suzie?" he called, since that was the only name he knew.

Things happen so fast that, sometimes, Suzie wished she could stop time to either change the outcome or see how it went. This, of course, was one of those times. Who could expect the building to suddenly fall down? She had her suspicions, because of the current state of things, but never how it turned out in the end. Something, she didn't know what, knocked it down.

Cloaked in darkness, Suzie groaned, head stinking from the impact from an unknown object. What happened? She barely heard anyone calling her. Just.. Muffled noises. "T-Todd?" He was the only person she could think about right now. He'd just came here and now... This! A horrible first impression! She'd done horrible! Ian and Carter woul--.. Ian and Carter!? She became more excited as her senses came to her. Where they okay!? "Carter! Ian!?" They could have got crushed or... Impaled or... Something!

OOC: Fail. u_u

Since his 'Yin' protected him, Todd was uninjured. He heard someone calling his name. Suzie, he knew from the voice. He traversed towards her, stepping over the debris after knocking a huge rock off himself. He looked at her and frowned. "You okay?" he asked, as he pushed at the debris on her.

((More fail. D;))

Carter coughed loudly as dust filled the room. Or what was left of it. He choked blindly and tried to wave the dust cloud away. Something small bonked him on the head from above and made him stumble. What the heck!?

As everything settled, he realized that he had been in a rather safe area of the room. The other parts had pretty much caved in. At least Ian was okay...but where was Suzie? He kept hearing some sort of muffled noise...and the little Todd kid was digging at a pile of rubble...

Suzie was trapped under there!? He breathed out a sort of small gasp, then rushed over to help clear the rubble. Thankfully it was mostly just small pieces and the debris was cleared in no time. He patted her on the back. "Thank God you're alright." He said, smiling at her.

He jumped at the sound of loud engines roaring outside, and looked up just in time to see some jeeps speed past outside. UWUC was here? "Guys...I think the army's fighting back!" Carter cheered as more jeeps past, though they almost certainly wouldn't hear him. A loud whistling cut though the air, just as a building across the street was blown apart, heavily damaging the two buildings beside it. He watched them crumble. God, this whole Evoknight shenanigan was about to be over!

After a couple minutes of silence, save for weapons fire in the distance, he cautiously poked his head outside a hole in Team Awesome's hideout. Nothing was around. He looked the other way...and still nothing. He turned away from the street and back to his friends. "It'll all be over soon..." He couldn't stop smiling. Finally, after living like hunted refugees for what seemed like forever, they could go back to a regular life.

A loud coughing made him whirl around again. His gaze landed on another human boy, limping out of an alleyway. He kept stumbling on debris. Carter instantly recognized him; messy brown hair, the equally brown eyes... "Ronny! You're alive!" He yelled happily. Carter looked at Suzie and the gang one last time. Some longing feeling in him made him mutter "Stay safe," right before leaving. He ran across the street towards the friend he hadn't seen in so long. When he reached Ronny, the boy stumbled once more and fell to one knee. Carter stopped beside him, panting but still smiling. "Ron-"

Ronny looked up at him with a wicked grin on his face. He said something foreign, right before his body started to blur. Wha...? His eyes grew wide with horror as Ronny grew a lot larger...and gold.

It had been an Evoknight, using some sort of blasted trickery. In one smooth motion, the alien quickly drew its behemoth gun and slammed it into Carter's face. He cried out and stumbled backwards, reeling in pain from his shattered nose. He tried to run, but froze up when he saw a shining blade attached to the bottom of the Evoknight's gun raise into the air. He yelled in the terror death, right before the blade slashed through Carter's neck. His scream was abruptly cut short when his windpipe was torn in half.

He flew back, still alive, and crashed onto the pavement below. He couldn't speak. He couldn't move. All he did was stare at the sky, fighting for breath.

Ian was like a bull in a china shop. He crashed around the building, shoving crates out of his way, adding to the bedlam. Then he heard her voice from only a short distance away. "SUZIE!" He cried, leaping towards her. Once she was in reach he wrapped his arms around her and carried her towards the exit. As soon as they were outside he released her, although a little hesitantly. One down. Two more to go. Ian glanced this way and that, his wild black hair flying around in the dust kicked up by the building's impact. He looked like he came straight out of the Lord of the Flies.

Oh God.

There, on the ground a short distance away was Carter. Blood spilling from a gouge in his neck. Ian found himself staring. "Carter..." He murmured, the gravity of what had just happened not registering on his mind. Carter was dead, and the Evoknight who had killed him was still there. A comrade was dead because of this monster. Ian watched out of the corner of his eye as the Evoknight drew its still-bloody gun and pointed it at the side of his head. Just as the Evoknight was about to pull the trigger Ian wrenched the gun to the side. The bullet careened into a wall, then ricocheted into the dirt. Anger wrapped around his being. Carter may not have been much of his friend, but he was a useful ally. Even if he did play with flowers. Eyes glowing like flame, Ian threw his fist square at the Evoknight's barrel chest. As he did so the 'Knight, having re-assumed control of it's weapon once more, thrust the blade on the bottom of the weapon into Ian's hand. The blade tore a hole straight through the boy's clenched fist. His arm failing, Ian roared in rage and used his other arm. This time the Evoknight hadn't even the time to blink as he was torn through.

Ian shook as he yanked his arm from the Evoknight's body. He clutched his hand.

Ooc: Rushed towards the end. XI Like... really rushed.

Suzie coughed, expelling dust from her lungs. "Yes, I'm fine," she answered, another cough going through her. She stayed sitting, shocked and frightened about what just happened. She could feel her heart beating loudly in her ears as if it had run up and hid in her skull. She heard Carter yell something about the UWUC being here and her spirits lifted a little. Would that mean they would get help? As soon as she thought it the sound of an explosion boomed in the background and the images of a small military convoy exploding into billions of pieces flashed in her mind and for a second, another appeared of Carter being ripped to shreds by the vehicles shrapnel or shot to death by weapons set off from the blaze. Suzie tried to push these thoughts away. Why would that happen? She was just being worrisome again. That wouldn't happen at all! Suzie lifted her head up sharply when she heard Ian shout her name. She smiled at Todd for a moment.

"Maybe we should regroup before the others--" Before she could finish her sentence she felt Ian's arms wrap around her and lift her up off her feet. Heh, maybe she should have thought of that a little sooner. Carried out of the broken building, Suzie wished she had been kept in. Before them Carter lay, bleeding from his neck on the ground with an Evoknight standing before him. Let back up on her feet by Ian, she wasn't sure if she could even stay up. How, how could this happen? She wanted to yell to Ian not to run after the Evoknight for fear it might kill him too, but the voice was out of her. Ian made swift work of the Evoknight in his rage and still through it all she couldn't bring herself to move.

When she got herself moving she hardly noticed, her mind focus on the dead, near-dead, whatever that Carter was turning out to be. Skidding to a kneel by his side, Suzie stared down at him worry and horror and a lot of other things mixed in her expression. Carter! Was it... Really how this was going to end? They were The Trio! They were going to make it out of here like all of those underdog groups of history, of books, of video games, of comics! They were going to be the ones who would come out on top at the end of all this! So why was he dying now!? Suzie couldn't bring herself to say anything to him. What could she say? "Oh hey, everything is going to be alright even though you just got stabbed in the neck!" Or some kind of scripture reading on how great Heaven and the other side was? Plead for him not to reach the light when she knows it's too late?

Her body shook as the tears began to stream from her eyes and down her face. How could this have happened? Oh how...

OOC: :I I hate this post.

ooc: Can I just say Carter went ahead and died? e.e

Ian came rushing back to Suzie as soon as the Evoknight was dead, holding onto his injured hand. She was hovering over Carter's rapidly failing body with tears rolling down her cheeks. He'd seen people cry before; at funerals, and when Earth was being invaded, but he hadn't cared. He shouldn't have brought her out here, she would have been safer in the building anyway. A tremor passed through his body. He wouldn't cry, he couldn't. What he needed to do was comfort Suzie, but what could he do? Tell her everything was going to be okay? It obviously wasn't. Tell her he was sorry? Maybe. He stared at her shaking form for another moment. Careful to keep his oozing hand away from her, he knelt down beside her. "Suzie... I..." He had no earthly idea what to say. Would she get mad if he hugged her? Probably.

Ian's voice only took Suzie slightly out of her miniature depression. Suzie I? Suzie I what? Don't know what to say? There was no point in saying anything if you couldn't finish. She had never seen a friend die before. Just a homeless person or that one guy at the bar when she was six. It was devastating the first time. The second time... A little better. The more it happened the more it was just old news. Now, here she was again, looking death in the face, and yet it wasn't that same been-there-done-that feel she had before, now it was genuine sadness, as if she lost a family member. Well, not that bad. If she lost a really good friend. Which Carter was for however long she knew him.

Suzie frowned, this unhappy death making her feel cold. She blamed herself partly for not telling Carter to hold his horses when running outside. She hadn't, of course, and now he was dead.

"Ian..?" She started, not taking her eyes away from Carter. "Where will we... Bury him?" In rubble? That seemed to be all that was around here. They just couldn't leave him laying here. That was horrible! And a little disrespectful at that. They needed somewhere to lay him, but there was no place she could think of.