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From the outside, Site Alpha doesn't look like anything at all interesting. Its just a warehouse in a row of warehouses: the only really odd thing is its got a hole in the side of the building. Billy finds himself standing in an alley across the way, with Noh-Varr. He holds in his hand a strange metal box, "This is one of the devices that has a diamond in the core, and I can't figure out what it does. I thought you could look into it, Noh-Varr. And that's.." He gestures, "And that's where the army was being constructed, along with these boxes, Teddy infiltrated them."
"…Harper?!"
Harper has been a rare sight lately. Side effect of figuring out who and what she was. She's been laying low to say the least. As she's begun to figure out the patterns of her pursuers, though, she's dared to venture out a little more often. She doesn't actually look like herself as she walks along the row of warehouses, wearing an illusion of a middle-aged African American woman in a worn dress, but to someone with Billy's sight, the tell-tale glow of magic would be more than recognizable enough.
"You didn't see it do anything?" Noh-Varr asks, taking the box and looking it over for any markings, connections, whatever. "How many of them do you have? Might need to take one apart. What kind of army was it?" At the exclamation, he looks around but after checking out the woman, goes back to inspecting the box.
"There were at least a hundred, and unlike the last ones, these all looked like different people. Teddy only got the one, and he only saw them being made, not used. They're making a lot of them, each with a diamond inside." Billy waves the disguised Harper forward, "Quick, duck back here, bad guys across the street!" Pause, "Well, there were. They all— I think— left… for now." He lifts a hand towards her, murmuring, "Shield the mind, shield the mind, shieldthemindSHIELDTHEMIND." Pause, "Bad guy can control minds." He shivers.
Quick, duck? Harper quirks a brow in Billy's direction, then promptly disappears from view - at least to those without a magical equivalent. "What are you talking about?" she says in a lower voice as she reaches the pair, the voice coming from one side of Noh-Varr. "And as a side note, skulking is suspicious. For the record. This is kind of…skulky."
"How do you know there's a diamond inside? Does it open?" Noh-Varr hasn't tried yet so as not to break it. "Can't use them as a power source." he muses to himself. "Could use it to refract light. Or intensify it." He glances over again as Harper speaks then blinks a moment. "Very nice. CLoaking field. Do you warp light around you? That's how we do it. You need to walk more lightly though; I could still hear your footsteps." Cocking his head slightly to one side, he adds "And your heartbeat."
"Teddy saw them being made. I don't know anything about it, Noh-Varr. Only that they were making them en-mass and put a diamond in the mechanism. If I knew anything about it I wouldn't have to ask you to look into it." Billy's slightly exasperated with the questioning. He nods to Harper, "Did you hear about the diamond heist at the diamond exchange a couple weeks ago? It was done by this guy with a big green head and his robots. That…" Billy nods across the way, "…was his base. Teddy infiltrated it before getting caught, so we're going to go see if any clues were left behind. This is… not skulking. This is the staging area. And… we're staged. So… I'm going to go check it out." And with that, he makes to cross the street.
"Well, I didn't want to startle anyone," Harper notes to Noh-Varr, listening to Billy at the same time. "And sometimes it's warping, sometimes it's passing through. Costs and benefits to either way, really. Wait, where are you-" There's a bit of a sigh from the young woman, and then the faintest brush of air past Noh-Varr as she moves to follow behind the mage. "I've been a little out of touch lately. Big green head and robots, though? Sounds kind of…science fiction."
"It's not that big." Noh-Varr points out. Billy's never seen Plex after all. "Just a bit elongated. Like one of your pineapples. Though not as pokey. And without leaves." So not much like a pineapple. Following Billy across the street, he asks "Yeddy shapeshift into a robot?"
Billy thumb-points towards Noh-Varr, "Alien from another reality." he notes dryly, "The standards of 'fiction' need to be adjusted lately." He then looks back to Noh-Varr, "No, the robots look like people, so he just shapeshifted into a person and followed what they were doing. Apparently, unlike the robots at the heist, these all looked different." Once they get to the warehouse, the inside is completely cleared out and empty.
Except for a box that could be the twin to the one Noh-Varr holds that sits on top of a larger box.
"Umm…" says Billy.
"Oh, well, that doesn't look dire in the least," Harper quips, the air shimmering around her and then the others as she lets her personal invisibility fall in favor of a larger cloak. Behind the cloak of invisibility, she hasn't bothered with an additional layer of disguise. "Or like a trap."
"Here, hold this." Noh-Varr gives the box back to Billy then walks toward the ones left behind. "You should probably stay back in case it explodes." Which is possibly why once he gets about six feet away from the boxes, he starts circling them instead to get a good look. "If I was a genius, and I am, I'd also leave behind cameras and listening devices so I could see who came exploring. And then gloat as they get blown up or incinerated or something."
Billy takes the box, and hangs back. "Yeah, that's sorta what I was thinking—" he agrees with Harper.
There's a click, and a tiny hole opens up in each side of the small box. A beam of pure white light shoots out from the sides, and for two seconds nothing seems to happen but that the beams touch the ceiling and each of the walls. Then a high pitched screeching sound happens.
Billy acts on pure instinct, reaching out with his telekinesis to snag Harper and flag them both out the door: fortunately they kept back, because a moment later there's a pulse that surges up the beams of light… and the ceiling and every wall is incinerated.
Which leaves two stories of building above that suddenly give in to gravity.
Harper has no protection against entire ceilings, so it's a good thing for her that Billy is acting quickly. She's trained enough in teamwork to go with it, crossing her arms around herself to go into a roll once she's flung out of the door and tucking her head down to keep from cracking it on the ground. She recovers quickly, looking back to the building to call back out. "Billy?!"
See? Not just a genius but a prophetic one at that. Fortunately, Noh-Varr is fast. Not speedster fast but his reflexes are not just superhuman but superkree and as the beams shoot out, he's turned and runs out of the building before the upper floors come crashing down. Watching the dust settle, he comments "It would have been more lethal had they been aimed outward."
Billy settles next to Harper, looking alarmed and a little frightened, "You okay, Harper?" He's panting a little bit, before he looks over to Noh-Varr, "It was aimed outward and up, it took out all side walls too. Dropping two thirds of a building on our heads coulda been rather fatal… though I think it was so obviously a trap that, well, it was as much a message as an attempt." He runs a hand through his hair, "I'm officially annoyed, though."
"Yeah, sure." Harper pushes a hand through her hair, giving herself a look over to make sure she means it. "Thanks for the assist." Scrubbing a hand over her face, she twists to give each of the men a long look. "I've literally spent the last several months being hunted by angels and that's still the fastest I've seen something go south. What in the hell did you get into here?"
"Outward at us." Noh-Varr amends. "It wasn't meant to kill anyone though that would have been a bonus for him." He doesn't sound particularly put out about it. "Probably thinks if someone had died, they weren't worth his time anyway." So as Billy says, a message. "I think I was right about refracting light though. So is there a power source in there as well or do they need a second box which holds one?"
"… hunted by angels?" Billy turns a sort baffled look at Harper; Angels Are Real? is what is writ plain upon his face. "I don't know, I was scrying… and found some trouble. Big Green Head knows who my family are and has threatened them, which…" He shivers. "…is why I don't leave the house without a mindward until this is all settled." He looks to Noh-Varr and shrugs; he has no idea. "Imagine if they put one of those in the bottom floor of say, the empire state building."
"Mmm. The answer to 'what the hell am I' is apparently nephilim," Harper grimaces, pushing herself up off the ground and brushing off. "Angels aren't fans, by and large. Refracting light, you say?" she looks to Noh-Varr. "So if, say, someone where to keep the light from getting out of those boxes, or else bend it in such a way that it wasn't able to activate properly, they might be able to prevent the detonation?"
"I'd disintegrate all but one wall. That way it topples to the side and does a lot more damage than if it collapses straight downward." Noh-Varr's comment is made idly as he studies the now collapsed building. "Yes, that seems likely." he agrees, nodding to Harper. "That's if those beams were light which is just a guess on my part at this point. But it would explain why there's a diamond in it: to split a single beam into multiple ones. It wouldn't work anywhere near as well for other forms of energy."
Billy blinks at Harper again, "Wait angels are _real_?" He shivers, "I've read the Torah. You do not want to have an angel notice you. Angel noticing you is bad." He shakes his head, then looks between them, "Well, we have a box. We can take it out somewhere safe, and test it, see if you have an effect on it, Harper? Just be careful where the sides are pointed." He looks to Noh-Varr, "That's assuming amount of damage is the goal… This thing seems… surgical. To collapse a building straight down is actually desirable in some circumstances."
"Yeah, no shit," Harper snorts to Billy. "Thus the several months of hiding and running and trying not to get fried." She's back on the topic of the boxes then, nodding once. "Sure, it's ideal for demolition. Targeted destruction. Limits the collateral damage. And yeah, I'd like to see what I can get from it. If it's light, I should be able to sense it. And if it's light activated, then I should be able to shut it down."
"There had to be a reason there were two boxes. This one might be the lens, the other the power source. Or else each is self contained but one doesn't have enough power by itself to take out an entire building. We'll know better once we take it apart. The question is, how is it activated?" Noh-Varr gives a little shrug at that since he can't answer it any more than they can.
Billy had just gotten used to the idea that his dad worked for a triplet set of gods, now angels? Does that mean Yahweh is real too? Billy's head spins about for awhile, but he nods to Harper, "Yeah, you should — hey, are you interested in having some backup, Harper? I mean in general, against angels, but also in this situation. See, I've got a team…" He looks to Noh-Varr, "I imagine we'll figure that out when we take it apart, too."
"I…" Harper lets out a long breath, glancing up toward the sky. "Yeah," she finally admits. "Yeah, I could use some back up. Or friends. Or anyone other than the vaguely immortal beings at the bar to spend any time with at all. Turns out a few months of being chased by angels can put the whole government conspiracy thing in perspective, you know?"
Well, if they're going to keep bringing it up… "Angels?" Noh-Varr asks. Theology was not anywhere near the top of his list of things to study while on Earth. "If they're naive to this planet, they're most likely not true immortals though."
"Angels, emissaries of God. Mostly to do things like turn people into a pillar of salt for being bad. Occassionally raining fire and brimstone down on cities. They don't really do that much anymore, but apparently will come out of retirement for a Nephilim." Pause, "The child of an angel and a human, supposedly once common, then God was all, newp, bad. No more of that. Big flood happened. Noah gathered a genetically insufficient amount of all the animals on the world and put 'em on a big boat. Color me skeptical on this part." He looks back to Harper, "You have a place to crash or are you crashing on the run?"
"I'm coming to realize that 'immortal' is a relative term," Harper agrees ruefully with Noh-Var. "I've got…a few places," she nods to Billy. "Burned through a lot of my safe spots before I figured some things out, but I keep a roof over my head. If you've got some place you're pretty sure you can keep safe, though, I'd be interested. If you're not sure, probably better not to risk it. I don't want anyone else getting burned because of me."
"He can make you a wardrobe." Noh-Varr tells Harper. "He's very good at that. You just need a door." That makes perfect sense, right? "But we shouldn't play with the box anywhere that can break if it explodes so we should go somewhere other than the warehouse."
Billy bites his lower lip, thoughtful, considering, "Yeah, see, we have a secret base. Narnia. I can get you a door— or two— that if you open it a special way, will take you to it. Its heavily warded against magic. The base wasn't meant for _living_ in but does have a kitchen and a bathroom, I can put up some walls for a private space. You just can't ever go in or out by the normal doors, always the spelled ones." He glances at Noh, nods, and suddenly all three of them are rising into the air then zooming, "Not my apartment and not Narnia. We can hide it outside of the city, test it out there too."
Harper looks like she's trying to piece together Noh-Varr's meaning when Billy adds the extra bit of explanation, nodding along. "Sounds…secure," she says after a moment, less perturbed by flying through the air than perhaps she should be. Still, out of reflex she throws up a cloak around them. It's just such a noticeable thing, people flying through the air.