The woman makes a round in the room, distributing the boxes and then leaving the trolley with them with a smile on her face before departing.
"They're not even showing themself in person." Verde says.
Rafaele opens his box with a click and finds to his bafflement a piece of round platinum pin. It's flat, a bit thick, no larger than his fist, and if not for its valuable material, looks banal. The others are examining their own identical pieces.
"Eh? What's this mean?" The stuntman wonders, looking over Luce's shoulder at the letter.
The mafiosa reads it aloud, "For your badge. Make a crest of your own. You are now the Arcus."
"And then a bunch of numbers." Skull tacks on.
Arcus, Latin for rainbow if he isn't mistaken. And a badge and a crest, this person expects them to be official and some kind of team not so different to a Famiglia.
Rafaele didn't come here with such expectation and if the others reactions are anything to go by, he isn't the only one not so willing to commit to this so easily.
He shuts the box close and sets it down.
"Give it to me." Verde demands and Luce passes the paper over to Viper who hands it to him.
His brows furrowed, "It's longitude and latitude, I think?"
"Another place to go to?" Fon asks.
"Is that person messing with us?" Lal frowns.
Viper intones, voice neither feminine or masculine, "Then again, I suppose coming had been something irrational on our parts in the first place." then in a grumble, adds, "I'm not even getting paid."
That's right. Presumably, since he doesn't know with the others, all they have been told is if they wanted to 'save the universe'. What even that means. There have been no offers and guarantees, only their own whimsy and some dry spell in their career to prompt them to cross oceans to meet.
"No. Wait."
Verde tosses something in the centre of their circle -everyone tensing- and the piece of sleek black thing just about the size of a single chocolate block, lights up green and then an image materializes above it.
First the planet earth, stars and the never-ending space in the background, clouds cradling it almost akin to a chokehold, and then it zooms in to show an island in the middle of the ocean, a lump with a jagged cone tip sticking out from the water surface, it's estimated size unclear. It's a detailed impression contained in an invisible sphere.
Very, very highly detailed he can believe even for a split second that he is there in person, unaffected by the pressure of being that high.
"Woah! What's that?!" Skull exclaimed, chair screeching back with a jerk of his legs.
"A real time satellite view of that location. I thought it was too specific and took a look. That there is a volcano, inactive for the past 75 million years." He reveals a frown, "It hasn't shown any signs of erupting until now but..." He does something with what is seemingly just a piece of stone marble and the camera pans, showing them a wrecked civilization completely submerged undersea, fishes swimming into and out of broken windows, "Just twenty-four kilometres from it, a fault line had been activated just last week, causing that Kalil Tsunami and completely devouring a fourth of Mindanao of Philippines. And now..." He twists the ball some more and the view retreats to the planet earth as a whole again, a bright red light appearing to blanket a half or so of the piece of bio-rock, some numbers flashing by beside it.
"Well, it might just erupt in three days. Predicted to cause a chain reaction on the ocean floor to erase the entire Australia and some parts of Europe and Asia."
Stunned silence, the kind that cleared the air of its previous spark that could only be expected of gathering formidable individuals with such jarringly different values in one room.
Things are progressing too fast.
Rafaele blinks and Viper cocks their head with a tight edge to their lips betraying surprise.
"...what?" Lal spits out.
"It will eradicate a bit less than half of the world's population."
There's another, disbelieving, pause.
"Disregarding anything else, what does this person want us to do with this?" Rafaele demands, perhaps a bit faintly.
Luce bites her lip, speaking slowly, skeptical, "I think... I mean, we were all specifically sought by this person after all. They must believe that... somehow, we might be able to do something about it. He did term it as 'to save'."
"That is ridiculous." Viper asserts.
"Evacuate people?" Skull suggests.
"To where? And in only three days? With what even? What can fit all those people? And if we let the public know, it'll just cause mass hysteria. What can we do within only three days?"
Lal press her temples, having seemingly already moved on from the fact that more than half of the people surrounding her are people she should be arresting -at least compared to earlier, the shock must've lowered her guard an infinitesimal bit.
"I also think this person means for us to deal with it directly." Fon smiles grimly, "Somehow."
Rafaele's eye ticks, "Then they're delusional. How can you expect seven people to deal with a natural disaster? I sure as hell can't shoot it dead."
"That's...?"
They stew on it for minutes on end.
Luce breaks through the other's mutterings, chewing on her lip.
"Verde, do you have any idea of what would be necessary to stop this?"
He looks at Luce blankly, "If I have the time to build-"
"Let's assume that you already have what you need, how will you fix this?"
"Well," he begins, staring at the hologram, "I will deactivate the chemicals, add something to it or maybe drill a completely different path to harvest it, as long as I don't let it release the toxins into the air, better if I can prevent it from spreading in the water too. I can also just directly cool the magma inside and prevent it from getting momentum at all to erupt. Priority is to stop any shifting in the plates at all cost. But no matter how many ways I can think of, we don't have time to do anything."
There is a troubled, helpless, silence and just as Rafaele is about to declare that there is no hope at all anymore and they will be better spending their time booking a trip as far away from the impending death as possible, Lal speaks up hesitantly, brows pulling together.
"... I might be able to, I mean, subdue, the um, chemicals. Or- or cool the magma, too."
Everyone stares at her.
Lal refuses to falter under the pressing gazes and proceeds to elaborate.
"With Rain Flames. I mean."
"... excuse you? What do you mean?" Rafaele blurted out.
"Do you know... Do you know how big of an area you'd have to encompass and how dense your Rain Flames would have to be..."
Verde trails off and Rafaele feels the incredulity rising when green eyes lower and turns thoughtful, shooting Lal occasional intense stares.
"... if it's digging through rock, I can utilize my Storm Flames."
Oh, here's another crazy one.
Fon's tone has that same cautious slowness that isn't quite certain but neither doubtful of his own statement as everyone is gradually adopting. Maybe he didn't have the chance before now to test if he can tunnel through a giant lump of rock.
Wait a minute, he's a Storm? And for that matter, she's a Rain? He's been convinced she's a Cloud with how she never seems to run out of bullets chasing him down even with just a shotgun.
"I... would be able to isolate the area, at the very least."
Viper's murmur is barely audible even in the complete silence of the room -and the sound proof walls too.
"And how are you going to do that?" Rafaele deadpans.
"Mist."
Oh they are Mist.
Wait, how will that work? He can't think of a way for an illusion to be of help in that.
"This... might actually just work?" Skull says, bewildered.
Seven people planing to single-handedly stop a natural disaster of this scale with little to no equipment, quite literally with only their Will.
Rafaele wonders what emotion he will have one day when he reminisces about this shotgun wedding/partnership. If he will even live long enough to reminisce anything.
Because damn is he not going to miss this.