Most of the time, when Eyeball shot someone, it was an easy, precise thing. He aimed. His vision would tell him exactly where to shoot; if he shot here? Miss. Here? Hit. There? Hit, but in the shoulder. He could use his precognition as a guideline and just move the gun-barrel until it showed him the best possible result.

Here, though? It was a bit complicated. He had two slugs; one with a 20-kilogram mass, one with a 55-kilo mass; both sitting next to his rifle, which itself was mounted on a bipod at the hilltop... The rifle could fire either of them. That wasn't a question. The 20 would go much faster; not three times as fast, but maybe twice as fast. Neither of them was showing him any good penetration at this range... he'd need to wait to get closer. He had... maybe five or six minutes for the perfect shot. And when it came, he'd only have a window of a few seconds.

A straight-on shot probably wouldn't connect; this thing was pushing hot air out in every direction. There were already tornadoes and all sorts of wind issues in the ashen ruins it had passed over. Oddly enough, the best sniper in the world couldn't make this shot, even if he could see the target; probably himself and Apollo would be the only ones that could, short of being close enough to touch the guy.

And, of course, he could only see a few seconds out. If it weren't a kill-shot, if he just stunned the man, the orb would still vanish, and he might recover and take out the whole planet. Eyeball glanced around at the people surrounding him. Alright. He needed a backup. Someone to be close-in and finish the man off if he survived the kill-shot.

Valkyrie could stand in the center... but the wind could make the guy land anywhere. It might take her a few seconds to find and kill him. The next two most heat-resistant would be Spike... and then Emerald was extremely fire-resistant as well; her own firey breath was lethal to others, but if she used it on herself, she'd be left perfectly intact, clean, and, well. Naked unless she was wearing fireproof clothing.

He shook his head for a moment, clearing out that mental image. Not the time or the place. "Emerald!" The others looked at the dragon-girl for a moment as she approached the hilltop.

She flapped her wings for a moment, giving a brief surge of speed, and settled down beside where he was laying on the hilltop. "If you want me to back off a bit, I'd understand. This is a ridiculously dangerous spot."

Eyeball chuckled. "I'm gonna be taking my shot in a few minutes... and this kid is a Titan. There's a chance he might survive the first shot, and, well. You're extremely heat-resistant, and faster than anybody else here other than that teleporter. I've got a whole random assortment of guns and tools in the crate one of Nicky's boys packed up for me with the gun. I think I saw a crossbow in there."

"Well, yeah. I suppose I could use a crossbow. But why not a gun?"

"The kind of heat you can survive and make it out fine? Would make all the ammo in a magazine cook off. All the wind coming off of that thing, I bet you can get to a nice comfortable hovering distance that would kill all the rest of us... and the moment that orb vanishes, dive in and put a bolt in his head. And if he moves even a little after, keep diving and cut it off, or just crush it, just to be sure."

She laughed. "Nice! I might get to be the Titanslayer this time."

He nodded. "Sure, sure. Mr. and Mrs. Titanslayer, the most dangerous couple on earth."

She tilted her head for a moment and stopped in mid-step. "Wait, what was that?"

"..Nothing. Well, not nothing. Something we can talk about later. On a beach, on a nice private island."

She grinned in a very unprofessional way as stepped off to the crate, sorting through...a classic antique revolver. Knives. A machete; a big one, for Butcher, definitely not supposed to be here. A loose pile of bullets. Screwdrivers, wrenches, wire cutters, a soldering iron, loose lithium batteries in various sizes.. her elation at Eyeball's unintentional revelation was rapidly replaced by irritation. Someone seemed to have just grabbed an entire shelf-full of random stuff, stuffed it all into a mass of foam, and shipped it off.

"Who the hell packed all this... Ah, here we go." She pulled a crossbow out of the box; a fairly nice, carbon-fiber model. She... generally used guns, knives, or her claws, but a crossbow would do in a pinch. It even had a quiver attached to one of the arms, with six bolts in it. She glanced over. "So why do you have a crossbow, anyway?"

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"Honestly, I thought it looked cool. In my head I was justifying it as maybe making a grenade launcher that didn't have any metal components in it to slip through security, using it as a baseline... but really I just thought it was cool."

She laughed... and carefully loaded the bolt onto the crossbow. Hell, she had six bolts. She tossed one of the lithium batteries out of the box, a simple, flat rectangle, and tossed it away onto the hill; and made a test shot.

The battery exploded with a loud pop and a bright flash of light when the bolt hit it, startling her. Not a large explosion; it was a fairly small battery. "Why the..."

"If you overcharge one of those enough, it explodes when you hit it."

"...Okay. Well. Crossbow works. I'll go keep an eye out. Ready to kill a Titan?"

"Hell yes." He glanced over at Spike and the others. "...I'd been thinking maybe two, but maybe not. If the government holds up their end, it might be a good time to retire. Now stay alive, and shoot that fucker."

She nodded, stretched out for a moment... tossing the armored vest to the ground. It would only weigh her down, and help not at all in this case. Hell, it might even end up leaving her with molten metal dripping down her skin. A deep breath...

She flapped her wings, a few powerful beats, surging up into the air. As soon as she was more than a few feet off the ground, the constant pressure of hot air started to push her away; and it barely took any effort to dive, staying fairly level, getting closer to the giant white-hot orb of death as the heat helped keep her aloft.

***

Tai was, surprisingly enough, starting to get a bit bored. For the first several hours, all he could really focus on was the sea of emotions, of rage, at what was going on with his sister, with the party, with the machines. His powers didn't really require effort to use; they'd warned him many times that he should never stress that 'muscle' as far as he could, or he might well wipe out all life on earth.

He'd been moving along, only seeing the blazing white of his own aura, only hearing the sizzle of whatever he was burning beneath him; he could drop the heat a bit to check, but it didn't sound like water, so he wasn't back at the ocean yet... and if he did, someone from either side might take a shot at him.

He'd rarely been called on to actually fight; but from the few fights he'd been in, he could easily remember the lesson; unless he saw white in every direction, some kinds of projectiles could actually hit him before they flash-vaporized... and he was at risk. Blue was mostly safe, but risky. White was safe.

Or, at least, it should be.

One moment, he was floating through the air, surrounded by his own bubble of energy; so intense that it compared to some sorts of stars. The next... a sharp pain. He looked down at his chest, his own blood spraying out of a hole right through his heart, blood itself boiling as it came into contact with the air... and fell from the sky.

He let out a groan; trying to focus. The wind was flying by... through him. Everything hurt so much. Nothing worked. His arms and legs were like noodles. The ground was coming up so fast. There was a flash of green... and everything went black.

***

Valkyrie and Spike started walking forward, as Emerald glided off to the side; even with him dead, the area around him was so hot that her scales seemed to be on fire; and might remain that way for a while.

Spike's footsteps sank deeper with each step; his body instinctively increasing its density to protect himself from the rising heat; as the two reached the body. Spike's clothes had steam rising from them, clearly starting to cook; while Valkyrie's own leathers appeared able to take the heat. He glanced at her. "...Who the hell made your jacket?"

Valkyrie glanced down at herself. "Ahh, I make the thread myself. Its essentially diamond thread, not real leather like my boys have. Don't get me wrong, not embarassed about my body, but I also don't want to go out naked every time I walk through a fire."

When they arrived at the body, the death was obvious. A bullet wound directly through the heart; big enough that it actually destroyed the heart completely, and from the ragged appearance of the hole, and being so much larger on his back than his chest, the projectile was liquid when it hit him.

And, of course, a crossbow bolt through the side of his head, penetrating the brain. Two kill-shots; or, really, one kill-shot, and one 'make sure he didn't do something dangerous with his last gasp' shot. He wasn't sure just how to flag the paperwork on this one, but...

He glanced at the rifle Eyeball was breaking down on the hilltop. The gun that was made to be used on him, not Tai. He cracked his knuckles, watching the man work; calm, cool, professional, stacking ruptured capacitors up as he took the weapon apart. He... should probably destroy that gun, just to be safe.

He started to walk up the hill, only to feel a hand on his shoulder; a sudden, intense, crushing pressure. "You know, Kennedy made me a promise. Once all this was dealt with, the machines were over, any of my people who helped out would get a pardon. Clean slate, unless they started fucking around again. Eyeball there is one of my people. I consider him a friend of the family. And if your president breaks his word, then suddenly I won't feel bad about breaking mine."

Spike frowned, turning to Valkyrie. He'd been turning up his density without even meaning to, in response to the pressure. He forced himself to stop; he'd started sinking into the ground. "...this wouldn't be the President. It'd be me. Me and him have something personal between us."

Valkyrie shrugged. "Well. You quit your day job, stop working for the government, and I'll consider that something other than a pile of bullshit. But if you, as a representative of the stupid piece of shit government that's been running my country into the ground for the better part of a century now, break the rules? Well."

"You, personally, won't live to see it, but I promise it won't be pretty."