Season One Episode 7: Search and Destroy

## Synopsis for "Search and Destroy"

### Search and Destroy

The next day, Project S.A.D. drives to the van's location, using the tracker, and is in the front room of a building. From the back, Joey notices him and flees, remembering him from the facility. Project S.A.D. begins following Joey in a humble manner, ending up outside, downtown, on sidewalks adjacent to glass buildings with tables, the chase scene takes place.

Joey makes a valiant effort not to turn into water, because of his clothes even though he can easily slip back into them while reforming to his human form, and he continues to run. When caught up to, the two engage in a brutal battle that ends with Project S.A.D. knocking Joey unconscious momentarily before Joey ultimately escapes.

As Joey rejoins Nick in the van, Nick questions Joey about what happened. Joey tells him that he was being chased by a guy from the facility he was held in and deduces that the only way he could have been located is if they were being followed with a tracker, which Nick discovers and disposes of in an empty lot.

### Liam and Project S.A.D. Talk

Liam is frustrated with Steve (Project S.A.D.), who returns to G.I.L.T.. In a room, just the two of them, Liam yells at Steve for letting Joey escape. Steve, calm with no emotion, says that trying to capture someone who can turn into water is physically impossible and that Joey was more trained than before. Liam is unimpressed, but to reestablish his reputation and demonstrate his power without the need of the Syndicate Industries, Liam wishes to continue his research into recreating and replicating Joey's abilities and DNA even though it has failed multiple times, so Liam plans to resend Project S.A.D., though it seems Steve has different plans as he quits while telling Liam that his desperation is blinding him from something that can't be done.

### Joey's Suit Upgrades

Ayo, Kimbrianna, Scarlette and Joey, dressed normally, are hanging out at Nick's house after school, which Joey was unable to attend. Later, Nick and Kaliyah are in the base, where they are inspecting and upgrading Joey's suit.

While Ayo, Kimbrianna, Scarlette and Joey are hanging out in the living room, the doorbell rings and a delivery guy arrives, bringing food ordered by Nick to the residence.

While Nick remains at the base, Kaliyah goes to eat and hand Joey a suitcase capsule that contains his new upgraded suit.

### The Octet

Meanwhile the Octet, a secret crime organization of rich men and women who rule Hughsworth and Dallas from the shadows, are meeting at their headquarters, sitting at an octagon shaped table having the mayor, seven others and, behind them, their bodyguards or for the Octet, in quote on paper: their "Guardian Knights". The whole group isn't there, but currently at the meeting is

1. Jolt, aka Francis Dillon, the bodyguard of Felicity Moon, aka Pantheress;
	* (Can generate electric shocks like an eel, stingray or outlet)
2. Ethan Robinson, aka Fortune Killer, one of the crime bosses, but without his assassin;
3. Wildbrig, aka Wadeson Stockman, the bodyguard of George May, who is popularly, but privately known as Cleaver by the public and his followers, as the public is unaware that they are the same person;
	* (A superhuman with a ginormous arm cannon)
4. Revnnon or the Revenge Cannon, aka Mariella Lopez. A hired gun with her own back up as well; Rocky. Pointed in the right direction, she always gets the job done. She is the bodyguard of Izo Taylor, aka the terrorist "Sirius";
	* (An expert swordswoman martial artist with cybernetics, superhuman feats and the power to absorb energies)
5. Paragon, aka Sabrina Damon, the bodyguard of Bastion McRoberts, who is only known as Peregrine. Similar to Cleaver, no one knows his identity;
	* (A very durable superhuman that can interact with technology and is a skilled hunter)
6. Bruiser, aka Adrian Wilson, bodyguard to Lonnie Cortez, known as the Trigger within the Octet;
	* (An excellent street fighter and hand to hand combatant who is extremely dense and resiliently rigid)
7. Drakaina, Anna Meerson, who is actually undercover as the Mayor's assassin as she has been living her life already doing various investigations after the disbandment of the World Protectors.
8. and lastly, Jeana Butcher, the top crime boss. Like Cleaver and Peregrine, Jeana is only known as Prima. She is also at the meeting without her assassin.

The mob bosses devise a plan to continue to secretly raise an army of Altered warriors from the databases of escaped prisoners, so that they can destroy and rebuild the city as they please with no competition with the military to stop them, and discuss how they will handle certain situational threats.

On the other hand, the mayor is about to disagree when Anna stops him and shakes her head, signaling and reminding him to agree to their terms.

Later, in the Mayor's office following the meeting, Anna sits on the couch while the Mayor stands behind his desk looking out the window with his drink, where Anna and the Mayor discuss the Octet meeting. While the mayor complains about the meeting, pointing out the unstoppable plan, Anna, "defected" to the enemy team and in need of assistance, contacts Nick to see if he has an idea.

### Mortals New Mission

Nick, Kimbrianna and Ayo have been working on the Octet for some time now. Since the Octet is unknown, they don't necessarily call them "the Octet", and they indirectly mention them as a secret society. They now have additional assistance in the form of Scarlette and Kaliyah, although Kaliyah was already involved prior to Scarlette, as she has been with them for a little longer. Joey, on the other hand, has no intention of participating in the missions, though he has no idea why he doesn't want to go, as he just doesn't want to.

Before, Nick only had a hunch about mobs who worked in the shadows, secret like Ayo did as the vigilante White Shadow. Nick learns from Anna that the secret society is real, that their name is "The Octet", that they are an Enigmatic Criminal Syndicate and that the mayor was one of the Octet's good guys during her time there. He is only a member of the group on her advice, in order to avoid a war he cannot win. Crimes committed by the Octet are…

* Trafficking
* Instigated Assassinations
* Conspiracy
* Forgery
* Incrimination
* Organized Crime
* Corruption
* Torture
* Kidnapping
* Destruction
* Blackmail
* Forced Confinement
* Assault
* Robbery
* Terrorism
* Human Experimentation
* (Possibly More)

Now, working with Nick again, Anna intends to continue studying the Octet to gather additional information and act as an information broker for Nick, relaying details about the Octet's plans, working for them while feeding her true allies powerful information as Nick's team would do shadow operations to match the tactics used by their enemies.

### Transitioning Steve's struggles from Noon to Night

Liam recieves a notification of money being taken from his bank account. Without notice, when Steve left G.I.L.T., he had hacked into Liam's account and stolen a large sum of money, which he plans to use to quickly flee from the state. In his hideout, Steve spends some time alone, thinking, and begins a quest to remember some of the memories he has been forgetting. Throughout the day, Steve conducts research on the laptop, attempting to understand the world and himself, despite the fact that he retains only his identity but not his life's facts, information, or experiences. A montage, transitioning between several scenes of Steve laying on the couch throwing a ball up and down in the air, thinking about his identity and his purpose. Then he is sitting in the kitchen or at the dining table, watching television with his laptop open.

It is during this memory quest that Steve begins to recall his true past, that of a Navy SEAL Marine who became a cop and lived a relatively normal life with a girlfriend with whom he had issues until he was involved in a car accident, which is the last thing he remembered before shortly thereafter when he gained his cybernetics and lost his memories. Finally, he concluded that Liam erased some of his memories about his past, just as they had done with the escapees. Having a feeling there's more to himself, he continues to look, but Steve is unable to remember more of his past. He struggles and becomes frustrated, and after an extended period of frustration, he gives up.

### Escaping Liam's Control

Later, Project S.A.D. finds an illegal cybernetics dealer in C-Town City, and asks him for help in freeing himself from G.I.L.T.'s control, so he can take down Liam. The hacker manages to remove Steve's tracker, pays him with the stolen money from Liam and leaves to plan his next move against Liam: attack all of Liam's holdings within the city and uncover his lies, becoming obsessed with exacting revenge against Liam, but first he goes to set himself up with a base when looking into a new residence to move into.

### Liam's New Plan

The following day, still December, Ayo, Scarlette, Kaliyah and Kimbrianna are in school while Joey is at the house alone and is on the phone with his parents. Meanwhile, Nick, who works at G.I.L.T., catches a glimpse of Liam from afar. Liam has been attempting to contact Steve constantly but has received no response in nearly 24 hours, leading him to believe that Project S.A.D. has failed to capture Joey. Noticing that Project S.A.D. has not reported in, and with no one to pursue him, Liam decides to take matters into his own hands, not trusting anyone else to capture Joey and also mainly theorizing that he could become a heightened version of himself like he always wanted to, though because of Joey, he now know exactly what abilities he wants, whereas he didn't before, having so many choices and wanting to make the right choice before it was too late. He begins a new project as a result of his inability to rely on and contact Project S.A.D., whom he believes is either missing or dead; M.I.A.. He enters a secret laboratory, where he has a variety of materials, serum tubes, other technologies and scientists who work in secret and separate from the regular scientist employees, planning to use samples from his time working with the government and Syndicate Industries.

### Drakaina and Nick's Investigations

Ayo, Scarlette, Kaliyah and Kimbrianna meet at Ayo's car after school. He then drops everyone off at Nick's house before going home.

Hours later, that evening, after everyone has completed their homework, Joey and Kimbrianna are looking at the computers in the base, while Nick and Kaliyah brief Ayo and Scarlette on the situation regarding the Octet information received from Drakaina, which is of a location that turns out to be one of Jason's, the King of Clubs, former clubs before he locked himself in his Manor following the disbandment of the World Protectors. It appears as though the Octet have taken over the club as one of their operations and Drakaina is supposed to watch over it tonight. White Shadow and Tenebris depart the base and Nick's house shortly after being debriefed to investigate the location, a warehouse at the docks near a lake, where they track one of Lonnie Cortez's henchmen taking hold of an operation that is taking place there.

There, White Shadow and Tenebris strive to find proof of the Octet's secrets. While White Shadow sneaks through, Tenebris takes out the henchmen who stand guard outside. Once inside, with the information from Drakaina, White Shadow, with Butterfly's technological knowledge, gains access to one of the Octet's servers, but he and Tenebris are discovered when guards outside aren't responding and are found knocked out. Upon escaping, White Shadow with his speed and Tenebris with her strength work together to clear out a wave of the Octet's henchmen.

### Octet Discoveries

At the base, everyone except Ayo and Scarlette are present, as Ayo had to go home after the mission and dropped Scarlette off beforehand. Meanwhile, Kaliyah is investigating a file they were able to recover and discovers that it contains a corrupted video of some of the things they do behind closed doors as well as further evidence that includes locations of warehouses, future construction sites of the Octet, weapons and cybernetics provided by G.I.L.T., and blueprints for what to tear down and build over. Things not even Drakaina knew about. The files include a manifesto of some of the Octet's criminal operations. The Octet's darkest secrets and the data evidence will force a government investigation.

Later, due to having no school, Joey has been sleeping in the mornings, so at the moment, he is the only one awake in the living room alone watching tv.

### Octet Criminal Exposure

After being exposed for criminal operations, not all, but some of the Octet's warehouses were compromised and forced to shut down, although the Octet's existence and the members' involvement are still a mystery, though the Octet are still drawn to anger of the events that transpired.

That night, the Octet meet to discuss why the exposure happened and decide to have their assassins investigate to track down who is responsible for the allegations, with one of their "henchmen" claiming it was the "White Blur and some woman". One of the Octet members believes the White Blur to be a myth, but is reminded that the Octet is a secret as well.

With the operations bringing supply down, the Octet leaders leave to their roles to deal with damage control.

### Steve confronts Liam

Meanwhile, Project S.A.D. infiltrates G.I.L.T. and confronts Liam, who is armed with a Walther P99 and flanked by a sizable security detail. Steve implies that he is aware of his memories, but because Liam also saved his life, Steve is not seeking vengeance and is willing to give Liam a chance despite the fact that he will continue to ruin his life, just as he did when he stole his money. Steve also serves a warning to Liam that if he commits any additional crimes or does anything else to anyone else, Steve will be there to put an end to the situation. Steve departs unharmed following the brief discussion. While the security guard inquires about Liam's well-being, Liam orders them to have the scientists prepare the project immediately rather than waiting until tomorrow.

Almost an hour after the confrontation with Steve Waller, aka Project S.A.D., everything is set up for Liam's project. Liam subjects himself for his project, rather than another, to a dangerous test of an experimental treatment, experimenting with his company's new but unstable performance-enhancing chemical vapor to specifically give him abilities that could be extremely useful in countering and capturing Joey: The elements of fire and heat.

Before they begin, Liam and his employees double-check that everything is in its proper place and inform him of the current situation, whether there is additional work to be done, and when they will be completely finished.

Liam gets ready by putting on a protective hermetic suit and enters the tall cylinder cell chamber, which is equipped with large fans, heaters and a stabilizer for radioactive liquid. When the process begins, he begins fusing the serum and things begin to unravel, going horribly wrong, causing an explosion to occurr, ripping the helmet from the suit and causing the metal from the walls to burn into his skin, but only on his face.

There is destruction. Dead doctors and scientists lie in the rubble and mess that was G.I.L.T.. The entire laboratory is demolished. Outside the room, it is revealed that most of the scientists survived the disaster. Only one is missing and possibly affected, yet, he is not in the room with Liam, so there is hope from the others that he had made it out in time. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the suit Liam was wearing remained intact, indicating that no part of his body was truly damaged.

Liam is barely awake, bending down on one knee in pain while exhaling and inhaling heavily before he passes out.

### Project S.A.D.'s Motive

At the same time, Steve is preparing to enter his hiding place, a storage unit, through the garage door as it opens. Having heard the news, People believe that Liam has vanished over the last month. He also witnesses numerous acts of violence on the news, and knowing his history as a cop and as Liam's "evil doer", Steve prepares to wage a one-man war on Altered and regular crime, but primarily Altered, given that they are the reason crime has increased. He has a variety of weapons stashed away as he customizes his battle attire before taking on a bounty to track and kill as many Altered as he can, supposedly freeing the world from their demise.

**Next Episode**