Issue 1 Downtime

Somewhere in a dark alley a spot in mid-air began to glow faintly as reality began to twist and turn around it. Loose paper and assorted garbage were flung through the alley as the rip in the space-time continuum widened into a decently sized rip. On it's sides tendrils of distortion were flickering in and out of existance.

And then, without much fanfare, Atropha materialized inside the shifting chaos. Still wearing her self-satisfied smirk she steps out of the portal.

Later...


It was a bit of an effort and a wobbly flight, but eventually Atropha lands next to the portal she emerged from, caryying the still unconscious Nailah.

Standing over Nailah Atropha stares into the portal and whispers.

"This helpless one, asleep
This helpesss one, silent
We alone know how to find you
We alone know how to wake you
At the gates of the mysteries of the shining ones,
The Ways are opened once more, the banks of the rivers are swollen."

Then she lift up Nailah and moves her towards the portal, which grabs a hold of her with some of the strands of twisting reality protruding from it and pulls her into the rift.

Then atropha looks up, turning her head towards the Wembley stadium (or the direction she assumes it to be anyway) and furrows her brow, thinking. After a moment she spreads her wings and takes to the air.

That was likely when Atropha noticed that there were a distressing amount of ravens perched about the various windowsills and fire escapes of the alley.

Shit! How long has she been there? it shoots through her head as she sees the ravens and her take-off turns into a glorified jump. Landing again she actually seems a little clueless as to what to do for a moment.

"That's... a little complicated to explain." she responds, though despite her mental discipline, the events of the day leave an almost glaring connection to the three terrorists at the stadium in her mind.

"Bring her back. Now. I'm not going to lose her."

Perhaps it was the agitated state Samantha was in, but Atropha caught a wisp of a thought on the end of that. It wasn't that Samantha wasn't going to lose Nailah, but that she wasn't going to lose Nailah again.

"I'm afraid that's not quite going to work b--" she starts before Sam cuts her off.

For a moment she looks genuinely scared, though if Sam picks up on the mental effects of it it seems to be about something other than her own life, oddly enough.

"Alright, okay, I'll get her back. I'll... I'll just need some time to prepare."

"I'll wait."

The ravens stayed where they were.

"Because it doesn't work that way! I... need her over there, at least for a while. You have no idea what it's like over there!"

"Yet you think you can trust me if you send me back there."

"You have no idea what a terrible idea that is, Sam..." she says, either ignoring or forgetting Sam's earlier reaction to using her name.

Atropha just shakes her head. "This is going to be such a train-wreck..." she mumbles, turning around towards the portal.

"Then perhaps you should have seen that coming..."

The flock swept down behind her, resolving into Samantha's shape.

"Har-di-fucking-har." she says, stepping on Nailah's staff that's lieing on the ground so it flips up and she can grab it. A button-press later it collapses and Atropha steps, somewhat hesitatingly, into the portal.

"After what you've done, a little black humor from me is the least of your worries," she said before following Atropha through.