Adagio, Aria, and Sonata woke up early on the morning of the sixteenth day of the quarantine, earlier than they had done on the previous days since they first woke up after the Blast, and ate another light breakfast with Cole, who didn't seem hungover at all, and Zeke, who definitely had one too many drinks the previous night. The sisters found it odd that Zeke felt that the quarantine was the perfect time to get drunk, especially since the Reapers were still a threat to him and the other citizens, but they weren't about to tell him how to live his life. Cole, on the other hand, only had two beers last night, mostly because he was the only one that could turn on the substations and he needed to have a clear head when Moya informed them where the final one for the Neon District was located. There was also the fact that he, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata had to think about what the strange man had shown them when they were taking out the tar kegs that the Reapers had attached to the water towers.
The fact that the man had, somehow, shown them images of the terrible future that he had created, with humanity being slaughtered and the cities being destroyed, had kept them awake for some time and they had been trying to come to terms with what they had seen... and the only conclusion they could come up with was that the man needed to die before that future came to pass, meaning the Ray Sphere needed to be found before he got his hands on it again.
Once the four of them were done with their morning meal they left Zeke to do whatever he had planned for today and returned to the roof, where Cole, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata went over the various optional objectives that still needed to be taken care of and how they would go about doing so. From what they could tell there were a few more tar kegs that needed to be disengaged from the water towers that they were attached to, which Cole and Sonata could easily do, there were one or two more tar trunks patrolling the streets, several doctors that they could assist, Reapers that needed to be stopped while they were rounding people up, and a number of other objectives. By Adagio's estimate they had liberated a small fraction of the Neon District, maybe twenty percent if they were lucky, which meant that the Reapers believed that they were still in control of this part of the city... something that all four of them agreed on, especially since the people were expecting them to clear out the Reapers and stop their operations.
The moment they came to that decision, and started to divide the number of objectives among them, Cole's phone went off and he discovered that Moya had some information for them, to which they sighed as he accepted the call, as they would have to put their current plans on hold.
"Cole, the location of the final substation in the Neon has been uploaded into your GPS." Moya stated, indicating exactly what was going on at the moment, to which the group got up and approached the side of the building that would allow them to jump on the train when it went by, "Head over there as soon as you can."
"We'll get the substation back online and then help the civilians," Adagio commented, though she was speaking to her sisters and Cole, who agreed with her statement, while at the same time not saying anything to Moya, as her timing with her call indicated that she was still listening to every word they said.
The instant Moya's call was finished the four of them jumped off the roof of Zeke's building and landed on the train as it went by the apartments, to which they simply stood on the front car of the train as they waited for the train to get close to their destination, where they would walk the rest of the way once they reached the edge of the powered area. Along the way Zeke called and said that he was scared of the government getting their hands on the Ray Sphere, especially since he believed that whoever Moya gave it to would use it to empower the military, or at the very least the cops, creating a force that they couldn't defend against. Cole, of course, indicated that he wasn't sure that they needed a defense against such a thing, which only caused Zeke to tell him that he needed to open his eyes and realize that the government was going to do everything in it's power to stay in power. Zeke backed that up by stating that the National Guard and Red Cross hadn't been called in to help them out, like the media was saying, and that they had lied about what happened on the Stampton bridge earlier, but Cole let Zeke talk for a few moments before the call was disconnected.
Adagio, Aria, and Sonata thought that Zeke was trying too hard to convince his friend to believe in his conspiracy theories, as that was what they believed this to be, but they said nothing as they moved through the powered area and eventually reached the area of the Neon District that had no power.
Sure enough they found a few small Reaper groups, more like three groups with three members per group, guarding the area that was around the sewer entrance, though what they discovered was that their enemies didn't have any turrets guarding the entrance... allowing them to take out the Reapers that were guarding the area before they approached the manhole that they needed to enter. Adagio and Aria quickly grabbed the cover and removed it, allowing Cole and Sonata to descend into the sewer, before they replaced the cover and prepared for enemy forces to come and attack them, as they knew that more would be coming their way soon enough. When Cole and Sonata dropped down onto the platform that was below them they immediately stopped for a moment, because if their past experiences told them anything they knew that someone was going to talk with them soon enough... and, as it turned out, Moya was the one to do that this time around, instead of Zeke.
"I've got some information for you." Moya said, to which Cole and Sonata stood on the platform as they heard Adagio and Aria firing at some Reapers in the background, meaning that enemies had come to stop them and they were preventing them from entering the sewers, "The leader of the Reapers is a woman named Sasha. No last name. Until a few months ago, she was a high-ranking member of the First Sons. She spearheaded a lot of their research."
"You think she knows where John is?" Sonata asked, though at the same time she was grateful to have some sort of information on the leader of the Reapers, even though a name did little for them at the moment.
"There's no way of knowing." Moya admitted, indicating that they wouldn't know what Sasha knew unless they found her and captured her, which might be hard if she was guarded by her Reaper army and the fact they had next to no idea where she was hiding, "But even if she doesn't, you have to take her out; it's the only way we'll be able to get a handle on the plague. I'll let you know when I've locked on her location."
The instant Moya was done talking Cole and Sonata jumped over to the pair of pipes that were sticking out of the water and used them to cross over to the larger vertical pipe that they could climb around, before they had to use a series of similar pipes to reach another platform. From there they made their way through the doorway that was in front of them and discovered that the way forward required Cole to power up a terminal, one that would move some sort of device they could climb onto to reach the area the circuit was located in. Cole didn't mind powering the terminal up, as it allowed them to jump onto the moving mechanism and climb onto the top of the outstretched arm, which in turn allowed them to cross over to some pipes that brought them to the circuit that they needed to re-establish. Sonata stood back as Cole grabbed the two sides of the circuit and bridged the gap, allowing the electricity to flow from one side to another, and when he landed he grinned as he thought about the new power that was now coursing through his veins.
"Sonata, you might want to move for a moment," Cole said, staring at the fan that was in the distance behind where his companion happened to be standing, though while it took Sonata a moment to understand what he was talking about she nodded her head and moved out of the way, "Let's see how well this new attack is."
Sonata watched as Cole held up his right hand and seemed to focus his mind, as the fan that he was aiming at was spinning at a speed that made it impossible to normally hit the power terminal on the other side of it, but then Cole released a blast of electricity that raced through the gap and struck his target. Not a few seconds later another device, like the one they used to get to this point, turned on and revealed what the hidden terminal had been connected to, allowing them to move even deeper into this part of the sewer.
"A precision attack." Sonata commented, as she understood what she was seeing, to which Cole nodded his head as he stared at his hands, as this attack would come in handy in the future, before he glanced at the path that was in front of them and she smiled.
The two of them continued to use the pipes that were in front of them to access the moving devices that Cole was powering up along the way, though as they did so Zeke decided to call them again and inform them of something that he had discovered lately. The people were saying that the four of them were big heroes, or something to that extent, and that all of them had this aura of goodness, something that Cole wasn't even focusing on because he was more interested in the change that he saw in Adagio, Aria, and Sonata, but then Zeke decided to ruin the moment by saying that he could use their deeds to his advantage. Despite what Zeke had said, and his honesty in using their deeds to help him out, Cole and Sonata were able to make their way over some of the vertical pipes and onto a walkway that had two suicide Reapers blocking their path. Sonata, upon seeing them, swung her hand and her energy responded, to which the wind whipped around the first suicide Reaper, where she forced him backwards and into the waiting arms of his partner, to which they both exploded and dropped into the water around them.
Cole was surprised that Sonata had acted as quickly as she had, but at the same time he was happy that she had done so, because it allowed them to move further into the part of the sewer that they were in, where they had to stop at a platform with a generator on it. The reason behind them stopping was because there was a turret nearby that a Reaper happened to be using to fire at the area that they were going to pass through, giving Cole another opportunity to use his new precision attack. He focused his mind and aimed at the crack that revealed the Reaper on the other side, where he loosed his blast and it struck the Reaper in the head, knocking his target away from the turret before he hit the ground, allowing the two of them to move forward again. After that foe had been taken out he and Sonata continued along the path that was in front of them and eventually found another group of Reapers that would prove to be the ideal people to practice his new attack on, but this time Sonata joined him in attacking their enemies. Between the two of them they were able to take out the group of Reapers and continued down the path that they had been guarding, until they reached their destination and Cole loosed some blasts that allowed him to power up the substation.
Once that was done, and both Adagio and Aria informed them that the power was back online, Cole and Sonata made their way back through the part of the sewers that they were inside and returned to the platform that the ladder was resting on... where they climbed back up to the surface and found both Adagio and Aria standing guard over the manhole, with several defeated Reapers laying around the immediate area.
"Well, I can see that the two of you have been busy," Cole commented, though this was good news, as it meant that there would be less enemies for them to deal with in this area, especially if the Reapers knew that they were in this neighborhood, "I unlocked a precision attack when I restored the power to this part of the Neon District, so we've got a new skill we can use in our battle against the Reapers."
"That's good to hear, even if we haven't gotten anything new yet," Adagio replied, though while he knew that most people would have been upset over not unlocking new powers like he was, at the rate that he was unlocking them, Cole noticed that she and her sisters were just fine with what they knew at the moment, "though I'm not complaining about our situation... having some sort of power is better than nothing, especially after what happened to us."
Cole opened his mouth, so he could ask what Adagio meant by that, but before he could say anything his phone rang again, to which a smile appeared on his face as he realized that it was Trish that was calling him, because it meant that they might start to fix what had happened between them.
"Cole, you there?" Trish asked, to which Adagio and her sisters remained silent for a moment, as this was a personal call for him to take, something that he was grateful for as they stood near the sewer entrance, as they all knew that they were going to be sent somewhere else in the Neon District.
"Yeah, I'm here." Cole said, though at the same time the sisters looked around the area, as they heard the sound of Reapers in the area, but they remained silent as the duo walked over the phone, knowing that he and Trish needed this to fix their relationship.
"A plane just dropped a crate of medical supplies, and someone needs to protect it from the Reapers." Trish stated, once more revealing that she was choosing the people over her personal relationship with Cole, something that the group knew about without having to be told what was going on, "Since you, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata are the only ones with powers I figured that you'd be willing to help protect them... besides you owe me, all of us, for what you did. I'll be in touch once the crate is safe."
Cole looked at his phone for a moment, as he was starting to get annoyed by the fact that Trish was constantly blaming him for something that wasn't his fault, but then he sighed as he disconnected the call and let his phone go silent as he turned towards the sisters. The good thing about them was that they didn't judge him for the Blast happening, like almost everyone in the city, almost as if they had committed some great sin of their own, but even as that thought crossed his mind he chose to ignore it. Adagio, Aria, and Sonata were heroes in the making, choosing the people over themselves time and time again since they first woke up in Trish's apartment, and he refused to believe that they had been evil at some point in time. He was sure that if they had been evil their auras, when they first started training with him, would have started out red, instead of the clear white aura he and Zeke had seen when the sisters first fired at that dumpster to see if they had gotten anything from the Blast.
The one thing he knew for sure was that it had taken some time for the sisters to agree on becoming the guardians of the people, which they had decided in Memorial Park, and now they radiated an aura that was like his, but he pushed those thoughts to the back of his head as he focused on what Trish wanted.
"It looks like those supplies aren't too far away." Adagio said, though as Cole turned towards her he found that she was staring at her phone, indicating that Moya must have overheard what Trish wanted them to do and had sent them all the same coordinates, "And it looks like we can clear one, maybe two, optional objectives before we find the area that the medical supplies were dropped in."
Cole nodded as the four of them headed down the street that they were on, where not even a minute later they came across a citizen that warned them of some Reapers that were pulling people off the streets, much like the abduction they had stopped earlier after they restored an earlier substation. Fortunately the Reapers in question, with the ten civilians they were attempting to cart off to wherever their base was located, were walking nearby and didn't seem aware of the fact that the four of them were nearby. As such the group attacked the Reapers from behind and surprised them, casing them to stagger as they realized that enemies were behind them and several of them fell before they had a chance to truly defend themselves. Only the two White Reapers were able to survive the initial attack, as they separated from each other and their prisoners, but the group was more than willing to focus on their targets as they made sure that the civilians escaped the area before they got hurt. Once the civilians were out of the area the four of them focused on taking out the remaining enemies, where they blasted the White Reapers until they surrendered, to which Cole restrained them and made sure that they knew that this particular area of the Neon District was now under their control.
From there the group headed further down the street, bypassing the building that Trish's coordinates were on for a few seconds, and approached an EMT that was looking for some assistance, where it turned out that he had set up a clinic on one of the piers and the Reapers had taken it over. Sure enough the pier that the EMT was pointing at had a whole pack of Reapers guarding the place, shooting warning shots at the civilians that dared to get close, but that only prompted the four of them to open fire on the Reapers as they knocked down the pair that was guarding the entrance. What was stupid on the part of the Reapers was that they actually charged out of the area that they controlled and tried to fight on the street, where Cole, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata eagerly took them out before they could harm any of the civilians that were around them. With the four of them working together it didn't take them long to take out the Reapers, allowing the EMT to take control of the pier once more and set up his clinic again, to which the group decided to head over to Trish's objective so they could secure the supplies that had been dropped into the area.
After helping the EMT the group headed towards the building they needed to climb and heard some gunfire, to which they stuck to the streets and headed into the alleyway, where they made their way to what appeared to be a area that could be fortified against an assault... and there happened to be a pair of Reapers that were trying to destroy the supplies by firing at the protective casing that they were inside.
Upon seeing the Reapers attacking the crate of supplies the four of them charged into the area and struck down the targets that were in front of them, though once that happened the group stood around the crate and kept an eye on the area in front of them, along with the areas to their right and left. The first group of foes came from their right, following the path that had been created when all the containers had been placed down before the Blast, to which Sonata and Aria focused on them while Cole and Adagio focused on a secondary group that was coming from the front direction. The Reapers were definitely coming in full force, as they had the normal guys with guns, suicide runners, shield carriers, guys equipped with shotguns, and even a guy that was lugging around a machine gun, who happened to be on a nearby roof and stood out in the open as he opened fire on the crate. Fortunately the Reaper that was wielding the machine gun didn't last too long, as Adagio spotted him the instant he opened fire on the crate and blasted him in his chest, before heading up there and making sure that he couldn't move again, since they didn't need to combat his weapon at the moment... but once she was sure that the Reaper was down for the moment she returned to where Cole and her sisters were, where she fired at the enemies that were coming their way.
As they fought off the Reapers, who were now starting to pour in from all three directions and caused the sisters to focus on one direction with Cole assisting whoever needed assistance, Zeke decided to call and claimed that he had an important idea that he wanted to discuss. As it turned out he knew a few of the moves that Cole had used and wanted him to start naming his attacks, just like they did on his fighting show, because they could then print those names with a picture of Cole performing that attack on some shirts to make some money. Cole told Zeke that this was going to have to wait for another time, since he and the sisters were busy fighting the Reapers, though that only prompted his friend to claim that 'those idiots weren't going anywhere' and he continued to talk about his attempt to make money off of Cole's abilities. Of course since the people seemed to like Adagio, Aria, and Sonata as much as Cole, which was good news for all of them, Zeke insisted that they do the same thing, name their attacks so they could eventually print some shirts with pictures of them, exactly what he had suggested Cole do with his powers.
Eventually the Reapers, growing desperate to defeat them and destroy the medical supplies, started bringing in a few trucks that were equipped with turrets, which Cole and the sisters fired at the moment they saw them, since the turrets were much more dangerous than the actual Reapers that were approaching them. From there it was only a matter of time until they took out the three trucks that had been driven into the area, destroying the turrets in the process, before the Reapers stopped pouring out of wherever they had been hiding and left them alone. The four of them stood there for a moment as Trish, along with one of her friends, came out of the area they had been hiding in and approached the crate, as they were going to haul the medical supplies away and put them to use immediately, which would help save a good number of the civilians that were in the Neon District.
"You guys need any help moving the supplies?" Cole asked, because he was sure that if the Reapers were more than willing to attack the crate, when they thought it was defenseless, they were sure to attack Trish and her friend if the four of them weren't there to assist them.
"We got it." Trish replied, though this time around she was happier than she had been since the Voice of Survival shattered their relationship, before she looked Cole in the eye as he and the sisters stood in front of her, "And guys... thanks for your help."
"Anything for you and the people." Sonata said, knowing that they would do anything to help the people of the Neon District, as that was what they had been doing since they picked their side earlier, and that Cole was hoping that doing so would put him in Trish's good graces again.
"Does this mean we're talking again?" Cole asked, though at the same time he remained where he was standing, as Trish had said they didn't need their help, but he wanted to be available in case she changed her mind as they carted the medical supplies to wherever they were stationed.
"We'll see." Trish said, though even as she turned towards the container of medical supplies she gave Cole another smile, indicating that she was at least willing to think about the situation that they were in, to which Cole nodded his head in understanding as she and her friend worked on the crate.
Since Trish didn't need assistance Cole and the sisters headed back out onto the street and headed down to the clinic they had help set up, though as they walked down the street Cole spotted a downed cop that some of the civilians were gathering around. The four of them approached the cop and discovered that something had killed him, though as they came to that conclusion Cole used his ability to see the echo of who did the deed and discovered a Reaper that was staring down at the dead cop, before kicking him several times before heading away from the cop. Once the echo started moving he followed after it, accompanied by Adagio, Aria, and Sonata following after him, where they followed the echo through some alleys and across a street before they reached the area that the echo was heading towards... an alley where a few Reapers had gathered the rest of the dead cop's unit, preparing to execute them so they could gain total control over this area of the Neon District.
Cole, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata weren't about to have any of that and opened fire on the unsuspecting Reapers, who turned and attacked them the moment they realized that they were under attack, but they were able to take them out within a matter of seconds and released the grateful cops... to which the four of them stood there for a moment as they wondered what to do next.
"I think it's time we take the fight to the Reapers," Adagio said, though at the same time she wove her energy around her for a few seconds and formed several crystals in her hand, ones that she could throw if she needed to do so, "Let's take back the Neon District while we wait for Moya to find out where Sasha is hiding."
Cole nodded his head as they opened their phones and started figuring out who would be taking which of the optional objectives, since they had time to kill before Moya gave them the information that they were waiting for, and they were sure that the people would appreciate them taking the Neon District back from the Reapers and their leader.