Ember came to laying on her side, Nova draped haphazardly across her stomach. His arm was pinned under her torso, in a way that he never would have dared if they hadn't collapsed together. Her eyes drifted around the hallway. They were exposed and even though Red had told her that the virus appeared to have disappeared as fast as it had begun, she wasn't willing to test the theory by being caught unawares.

"Nova!" She pulled him up and shook him slightly, his purple curls shaking slightly askew over his shaven head, his brown eyes fluttered open resting on her. She was glad they had no mirror. Nova was incredibly vain about his appearance. 

"Are we out?" He came too suddenly recognizing his own position. "Oh shit." Jerking away from her, he yanked his arm out from under her and moved back, settling against the blood-spattered wall. His eyes were hollow, for once he had no witty come back to say. He simply appeared exhausted. 

"We're out," she confirmed. She wasn't sure what they'd just witnessed inside her mindscape but it felt like something that had been hiding in her head for so long was released, gone, and in its place; freedom she hadn't felt in a long time.

She pushed herself to her feet deliberately. The hallway was empty save the blood-splattered that dotted the walls and floor. She swallowed. The casualties were going to be high before this was all over. 

"The hole your brothers dug? Eh?" Nova's voice brought her around before she could go too far in her musings. 

"I don't know, Nova, I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be, on second thought, if I hear you say I'm sorry again, I'll puke on you." He swayed on his feet grabbing her shoulder for balance. "On second thought I may just do it anyway because I feel like it."

She stood taking note of the fact that she felt fine, better than fine actually. She was completely online and relieved to find that less time had passed than she realized. That was one of the dangerous things about the cyber realm. Time passed differently there, depending on one's perception of it. You could be in and out in minutes or accidentally spend days in there. People died in a false world, eating and drinking, while their bodies slowly emaciated away in a harness. What had felt like half a day, she noted had lasted maybe thirty minutes.  

She turned to Nova, holding out a hand to him. He took it gratefully, hauling himself to his feet, without his usual bravado. He removed a small device from his forehead as he did so.

"What's that?"

He slipped it into his pocket, his dark eyes sparkled. "A little invention of my own, a doorway if you will, into cyberspace."

"Portable?" Ember was impressed. "Those are not everywhere?"

"Of course not, I'm not ready to give out trade secrets yet."

"But that would make you rich."

Nova snorted. "Look, Angel, I think you are just a bit naive on how this works. It would make someone rich, but not me. Some Neo-Tokyan overlord would just claim the design." He stopped under her glare. "We can discuss economics later, let's find Amy..." He stopped looking away from her, clearly pained.

Ember couldn't help but feel for him. Whatever had happened between those two, she hoped they worked it out. But the fact that he couldn't even be close to her without having a seizure was the worst. The relationship was literally killing him, but still, he persisted. It wasn't his fault, he'd gotten caught up in an augur link-up that wasn't completed. There was too much there and he couldn't offload it without losing his memories, something he outright refused to do. 

"We should probably move," he said weakly, his face paler than he should have been able to look with his tanned skin. "We don't want Captain-I-got-a-death-wish to find out we sent him on a scavenger hunt for no reason."

"We had reasons," Ember went to take his arm, as he shakily zipped up his vintage leather jacket. 

"I'm not standing between him and Red," Nova finally answered, accepting her help. "Red will cream him and look damn good doing it. He will look almost as hot as he did in that video of y--"

"Nova!" Ember almost stumbled, her face heating up, she was about to let Nova know exactly what she'd do to him when something caught her attention. Five blips on her radar, heat signatures that were coming in fast, much faster than people recovering from a virus. Ember recognized a tactical unit when she saw one. She stiffened in place, all embarrassment over the video Nova had found in the security feeds forgotten. 

"We've got company."

Nova reacted instinctively, putting himself in front of Ember placing a hand out in front of her just to sweep her behind him. If the situation had warranted it, she would have laughed. Nova was still suffering badly from his connection with Amy. He needed surgery and he needed it now. This incursion into New Elysium by assailants unknown preventing his upgrades was killing him slowly. He was in no shape to protect anyone right now. She didn't move at all but turned to look at him incredulously.

"Habit," he said sheepishly moving his arm back. "On a good day, I'm a decent shot."

Ember shoved herself in front of him just as the group came around the bend. They wore black clothes but were missing the double bent blue bars on the shoulders that Ember boasted on her clothes. Definitely not from New Elysium even if the uniforms were similar enough to fool anyone not looking closely. 

She scanned them, they were not augments, but they carried heavy artillery. And if they were attacking a place that was a safe haven for augments, they were probably trained to fight them.

Atlas, it had to be. She spotted the stars on some of the shoulders. The group was an offshoot of Orion's Reach, or it's successor. She was never too sure of the details. They both hated augments and pushed for a future for a pure humanity, whatever that looked like. 

It didn't matter where they were from. They were all slower than her. 

"She's not down," the leader spoke, his hand going up to earpiece as he listened. "She's up, they were supposed to down, orders?"

Ember didn't give him the chance to listen to orders, she wanted answers, and she wanted them now. Summoning her reserves, feeling the shift in her body as receptors in her hands opened up. She charged forward, using speed to her advantage, a blur, their mistake they should have fired upon her first and asked questions later.

Everything happened in slow motion. The EMP Jacks rose slowly in her direction. A shot rang out from behind her and the man on the right went down, as Nova joined in the fray in the only way he could at the moment. 

Four Left. She closed the five yards between herself and the leader, putting her hand on the bigger man's arms. Her palm made contact, electricity flowed outward traveling up his arm, flesh sizzled as his body began to shake. His eyes bulged and she cut the power dropping him in place, secure in the knowledge that he would not get up again. In less than a second, she was in the midst of them.

Three left. Red could do this seamlessly, his mind mapping out a fight path in nanoseconds, changing it as new information came in. She wasn't built that way. But her crippled body was reinforced with titanium and steel, so even though her stature was a little over 5'1" she was still a weapon just waiting to be wielded. 

She smiled. These men were abominably slow for the job they were sent to do. The first made an attempt to grab her, his other hand holding his EMP Jack ready, the heavy weapon throwing him off balance. The fact that they were carrying them meant they wanted her alive. It was the only way short of killing her to bring her back. 

She let him grab her wrist and then a feral grin crossed her features as she jerked his arm towards her so that it was fully extended.  She didn't bother shocking him as she simultaneously dropped to the floor, her other hand shoving his arm up and through, fracturing it at the tendons, as it hyperextended past the breaking point. There was an audible snap and shriek of agony as the man's arms flopped uselessly. She shoved him away and he tumbled behind her flopping his now useless arm, his EMP Jack all but forgotten, all manner of curses erupted in his native tongue. She turned away from him. 

Two left. She lunged to the right, intending to end the next one quickly but his arm came up deflecting the blow even though it didn't stop her charge completely. She crashed into him, her momentum sending them both into the wall. Ears ringing she rolled away from him, barely dodging a kick from the last man behind her. 

The first man vaulted back in her direction, his face red with rage, as she dodged away nimbly putting space between herself and the last two Atlas operatives. Both were now in front of her, warily avoiding her hands, but making sure to keep her between themselves and Nova, their discarded heavy EMP Jacks on the floor.

The one on the left stumbled, and Ember seized the moment to lunge forward as he fell, grasping his outstretched hand. Her fingers slid around his wrist as she bent low, the energy flowed and it was over in less than a second.

One left. No sooner had the thought left her mind when pain exploded at the back of her head. 

"You bitch!" She went down for a moment fully conscious, as her augments went into overdrive, pushing back the blackness that tore at her vision. She rolled away from a foot, somewhere in the background Nova was screaming her name. "I hope you are worth the price they are willing to pay," the man ground out, as he drove his foot down hard onto her stomach. She felt something give and wondered if she'd cough up blood again as she'd done on Helion 7 after Red managed to save her. "But first," the man said somewhere above her. "No witnesses." He raised another gun this time aimed at Nova. It wasn't an EMP Jack, designed to kill not capture.

Ember sat up, her senses clearing immediately. Part of her pitied him from the back of her mind, but that wasn't the part that was in control. He still believed she was down and a normal person would have been. Her hand lashed out, but instead of ending it quickly, she rolled into a leg sweep, her smaller legs kicking in the back of his knees causing him to stumble back the shot going wide. 

He fell on his back, his mouth an "O" of surprise as he turned his shock filled gaze her way. Pushing herself up on her hands, she rocked to her feet, flipping nimbly into a standing position, and then executed a roundhouse kick that snapped the operative's neck. 

He was dead before he hit the ground, even as she danced around him, part of her caught up in the fight, part of her wanting him to move. Because damn, she wanted to hurt him some more. 

"Ember," Nova's voice broke her out of the berzerker rage she was feeling. He was standing, eyeing her, clear-eyed, and not shaking. "Something is wrong."

Of course, something is wrong, she wanted to scream. In the corner, the man with the broken arm cradled it to his chest even as he stared with horror. She'd let her brother deal with him. New Elysium was his place after all. She turned around to tell Nova exactly what she thought when she got a good look at him.

He was fine. No sign of the pain, his connection with Amy caused, the interrupted Augur link severed between them somehow. This registered, but that meant Amy wasn't on New Elysium. They couldn't just turn off the connection, Nova needed the parts first.

Ember stared, trying to figure out what it meant. She opened the channel to Red. Red, who should have been heading their way to meet up with them. Red who may not have gotten up as fast as she and Nova had, Red and Amy. Their names blurred together in her mind.

"I wasn't the only target," she whispered, fear lacing her words with grim certainty. Nova had already reached the conclusion. "How long have you been ok?" Translation: How long have they been gone?

"Ten minutes," he whispered. She'd never seen Nova look so dejected. 

"Minutes?" She turned to the last man on the floor just as Jack and a handful of guards came barreling around the corner.

Her brother enveloped her in his arms before she could respond. He stepped back to look at her before turning to see the carnage surrounding them. He looked at the guard and nodded to his men. "Kill him."

"Wait, no!" Ember started but the shot rang out faster than she could move. "He may have had answers," she started but stopped just as suddenly. Jack, her older brother, her protector, leader of New Elysium, a haven for augmented humans and their families stared at the floor and couldn't meet her gaze. He didn't respond right away. But when he did, he only confirmed the growing horror in her mind.

"It was the only way," he whispered. "They weren't supposed to take you. You were supposed to be safe. I told them you weren't for sale."

"Take them, where?" She demanded. "Jack, where are Red and Amy?!" She moved towards her brother, and the guns rose up. Real guns, not guns to subdue but to destroy. Her father had always been cold, aloof, caring about family honor more than his children. But this betrayal from her brother, who'd saved her from a life as a blind cripple, doomed to a wheelchair, was more than she could bear.  "Jack," she snatched him closer to her, bending him down to her eye level. "What did you do to Red?"