"Sitrep." Bloodshot locked the chamber of his pistol open as he spoke, then slipped a round into the chamber before releasing the slide and inserting the magazine. 12+1 rubber stun bullets. What a frakkin' waste of gunpowder. If he had things his way, they'd be depleted uranium armor piercing rounds, none of this half-measure 'take them alive' crap. But a job was a job and orders were orders, and as long as he was getting paid he'd abide by them. The man he'd been speaking to was Lieutenant Wallace, of the P.B.L.E. A government task force put together in order to hunt down all these dangerous new people with super-powers. Or work with them if they agreed to take a government check. Hypocrites all-around. They just didn't like it when other people had more power than them. But the checks were six figures and didn't bounce, so he could put up with their hypocrisy for a while longer.<br/><br/>Lieutenant Wallace straightened from the screen he'd been staring at and turned to face Bloodshot. The guy was a bonafide computer geek and probably wouldn't last five minutes in field work, but he could conjure up intel like a necromancer summons the dead. "The situation has changed a bit since the operation got the green-light."<br/><br/>"Define 'a bit.'" Bloodshot holstered the first pistol and picked a second up off the bench in front of him, repeating the loading process as the Lieutenant replied.<br/><br/>"There are four new targets, though one fled the scene after exchanging blows with the primary target. Two of the remaining targets appear to be engaged with the primary, while a third is simply watching from the roof of the bank. New designations are... Objective Alpha, objective Beta, objective Gamma, and objective Delta. If these readings are right, we've encountered Beta before. Codename Titanium. Has control over anything with roughly fifty percent or more metal content."<br/><br/>"Frak." Bloodshot holstered the second pistol then ran a quick mental check of his equipment, and while none of his armor plating, pistols, or grenades fit that bill, his staff, sword, and gauntlet blades were pretty darn close to fifty percent titanium. Somewhere in the neighborhood of forty two, if memory served. Here's hoping its not enough. "And the others?"<br/><br/>"Unknowns. Gamma seems to have the ability to become visually invisible, though thermal scans are still picking her up, as well as flight. That's all we can come up with on her at the moment. Delta is still a complete unknown, as he hasn't engaged any of the others yet."<br/><br/>"Right. wouldn't want everything to be too easy, now would we?" With that, Bloodshot stepped to the back of the aerial transport (think pelican from Halo) and opened the egress hatch. The wind howled through the cabin as he stepped to the edge and looked down at the city below. His keen eyes quickly located the bank almost directly below, and he turned to snap a half-assed salute to the lieutenant before jumping out of the transport.<br/><br/><br/>---------------<br/><br/><br/>As much fun as this had been at first, Artemis was growing bored of the constant back and forth. All this 'I throw a thing at you, you deflect or dodge, you throw a thing at me, I deflect or dodge' stuff was getting really repetitive, and repetition was not what he'd signed up for. Not that he'd actually signed up for anything, mind you, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind when he'd been wishing for excitement.<br/><br/>With the metalmaid pre-occupied by her struggle with equilibrium, Artemis took the time to send out another psionic pulse, quickly locating the invisible bird-lady and wrapping her in a four-meter wide psionic bubble, of sorts. She wouldn't be getting out of it this time. A gleeful, evil smile spread across his lips as he began to constrict the bubble, aiming to simply crush her inside it.<br/><br/>That was when he finally saw the light.<br/><br/>Or rather, the device that would create the light. A small cylindrical object dropped into his field of view from somewhere above and he decided he could spare a moment to see what it actually was. To his enhanced mind, the object appeared to be falling in slow motion as he studied it, though in actuality its speed exceeded terminal velocity, and he quickly surmised that it was some sort of grenade. Alright, that's easy enough to counter. He simply created another psionic barrier between himself and the grenade, then waited for it to explode harmlessly against it.<br/><br/>Except it didn't explode. Not in the conventional sense. Instead of a mass of fire and death, the grenade detonated and radiated light and sound so blinding and deafening that it was all Artemis could do to simply stay afloat, releasing his hold on both of the forcefields he'd been maintaining, due simply to the overwhelming shock to his nervous system.<br/><br/>Blinded, deafened, and struggling to recover, Artemis had no brainpower to spare for wondering where the grenade could have come from, but fortunately the answer to that question found him instead, in the form of a 260 pound man in freefall, wearing full body armor. Artemis felt something crack in his shoulder as the man slammed into him, and try as he might, he could no longer keep himself in the air with the added weight and both men plummeted to the street below. As they hit, the remainder of Artemis' psionic field was the only thing that kept him from being killed then and there, but that was the last of the damage it could take and as it collapsed he felt a small prick at the base of his neck. Funny the things you notice when you're blind, deaf, and in agonizing pain. Then instead of sheer white, the world went black as he lost consciousness.<br/><br/><br/>---------------<br/><br/><br/>Bloodshot stood as the sedative took effect and objective Alpha was relegated to the realm of the unconscious, then activated his helmet's encrypted comm. "Alpha neutralized. Engaging Beta and Gamma." No one outside the helmet would be able to hear the words, and as he spoke he scanned the area until he located both Titanium, objective Beta, and the one with the invisibility power, objective Gamma. Objective Delta was still on the roof of the bank, seemingly content to remain an observer for the time being. Well, first things first I guess. Cranking up the external volume for his mask's speakers, he'd used up whatever surprise he had after all, Bloodshot addressed the 'group'.<br/><br/>"This goes one of three ways. You surrender yourselves to my custody and I will not harm you, you turn and run as fast as you can and try to hide then I find you, or you try and fight and I beat you down. Hard. Your choice. You have five seconds."