THE WHEELS OF STEEL ARE TURNING

[capemods]

WHO: These lucky contestants
WHERE: Various boroughs of the City, and the demon dimension.
WHEN: Tuesday, August 21st, 11:54 am and onward.
WARNINGS: This post may contain graphic depictions of violence, psychological horror, and adult themes; it will definitely contain adult language. Viewer discretion advised.
SUMMARY: Vulcanus tries to blow up a collection of buses around the City in order to incite anti-imPort rioting; Lachesis mixes things up again. see here for details.
FORMAT: Go crazy, kids.

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Each bus will have a labeled thread in the comments. To recap:

Bus W will explode. Lachesis will teleport these ImPorts to a location near the bus just after it explodes. Those who are assigned to this bus, you must be the heroes that the City demands. The damage will carve a hole in the street, and civilians are at risk for debris/fires/etc.

Bus X will yank imPorts inside of it and induce a week-long power switch. From 8/21 at 12 PM to the following Tuesday, 8/28 at 12 PM, characters will have their powers switched with another ImPort passenger. All characters on this bus have their new powers assigned.
Correction: this bus is located in Brooklyn.

Bus Y will yank imPorts inside of it for one minute, and then transport its imPorts to the demon dimension until midnight. Envision Dante's Inferno as the setting, but with the twist that ANYTHING CHARACTERS IMAGINE WILL MANIFEST IN THE WORST WAY POSSIBLE.

Bus Z will yank imPorts inside of it for one minute, and then with a LOUD SCREECHING NOISE, it will infect imPort minds with radio signals, songs, dialogue, AND IMPORTANT PLOT-RELATED INFORMATION THAT VULCANUS DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW for the rest of that day. There is no way to turn this off for the entire day. ImPorts will be returned to their prior locations at the end of one minute. All characters on this bus have their unique mental broadcasts assigned.

Comments

[wild_roar]

Okay, so Yuma must be somebody he knows, Kotetsu realized. "Can you get up?" he wondered, trying to be gentle. "We need to get you off this bus. I don't know what's wrong but better safe than sorry."

He looked around, wondering at the other people who had been brought there. He wasn't in Wild Tiger mode, so he couldn't activate his power - they'd know. They'd see. He would have to operate in civilian mode, but that didn't seem to be a problem. This kid looked lighter than a feather. "If you can't walk, I'll haul you off myself, but at least try. Okay?"

[soulbonder]

More questions. He catches that much. Even if he caught what the questions were, he'd have a hard time answering. No; he can't walk, he can barely sit up. His breaths are loud, rapid, chest-shaking affairs.

It hurts, in his skin and his muscles and his blood and his head and his heart and why do humans have so many different parts if all they're good for is feeling pain?

He must be dying.

"Yuma," he repeats again, using the word as an anchor. "Please, Yuma."

Due to his current predicament, he can't recall the moment, but he has been in a state similar to this one before. When his real form went into a panic, he subconsciously created a barrier around him. He didn't have the labored breathing like now, because he didn't have lungs; instead, his energy levels were far too shallow. During that time, he could barely speak, and only repeated three words over and over.

Kotetsu could try help him breathe normally or find this Yuma person. Astral doesn't look native even as a human and naked people generally aren't allowed to board buses. It should be fairly obvious he's imPort, too. Perhaps the Yuma he's asking for is also an imPort. Isn't it worth a shot, tiger?

[wild_roar]

While he wasn't exactly trained in first aid, Kotetsu did know his way around a rescue and had seen plenty of people in dire straits. First thing first, he had to make sure the kid wasn't about to up and die on him. Taking care to protect his modesty by shifting the coat around, he rolled Astral over enough to be able to feel his pulse, tilt his head back to open his airway, and check to be sure he wasn't injured. While he worked, he thought about it. He keeps repeating the same name over again. Must be important. I'd better try and find this Yuma character. Since everyone on the bus appeared to be an Import, more or less, it was indeed possible the network would have something on a person matching that name.

Keeping one hand on Astral's pulse, touching him only very gently, Kotetsu wrangled his comm out of a pocket and flipped through the listings with his thumb with the skill of someone who owned a touch phone. There! Maybe he could put in a private message to 'Yuma,' and get his attention.