"I'm sorry," 'Chelle says, faux-seriously, "I would never have inflicted them on you, but they were at ours when the alarms went off and wouldn't be left behind."

The rope grabs them back. Not very dexterously, but firm and gentle. Fernando does the part of taking them up in the air and zipping towards the Vaeteri's Daliath Temple. A light rain starts falling. "Four more volunteers!" Fernando shouts.

Suddenly, they are wearing bracelets, the kind ensued to people during disaster relief. For a moment, they might even think it was Felix, but they catch a glimpse of the speedster, and they had long black hair.

There are people shouting instructions, and they are herded to get a ward on them. Everything is moving very fast.

Aaren is good at fast, regardless of his normally laconic nature. "I have experience with conjuration," he says to the first person who seems to be organising the relevant thing.

Aaren is directed to an area to ward volunteers against drowning and hypothermia. Meanwhile, his children - after being warded - are assigned costal duty and herded into a van. Which is partially drives, partially flies towards their destination at considerable speed.

They're edgy, nervous, but they're definitely interested in the specifics of this van, trading theories quietly with each other, trying not to be too loud.

The van tumbles, jumps, shakes and even bumps into things (leaving no harm behind), without the occupants feeling that they are inside a washing machine going down a hill. From that they can figure out that the vehicle is likely privately owned and finely tuned to the driver. An elderly woman with a bowler hat. The custom decoration composed entirely of worn soft things adds credence to this theory. It was likely some sort of mural made of stuffed animals on the van's ceiling.

Add after a long stretch of skipping on the water like a stone, their drive shouts. "Prepare to be on the move! I will leave in three seconds with people hanging on the door or not!" Externally the movement is abrupt, but they are cushioned from any impact and the doors open automatically.

The barrier is just a house-sized construction of concrete and metal, which they are now on top of.

They disembark rapidly, despite Alain looking briefly conflicted about the idea of hanging off a door, but they've got a job to do here, and they're damn well going to do it.

Someone comes out a cabin, going after the van, but it's far too fast. The thin old operator, turns to them. "This section of the barrier is stuck, again. Do any of you have a power useful for moving large chunks of metal?"

"I'm a technopath, so that might be me?" 'Chelle offers.

"Okay, hurry up." He starts hurriedly guiding her towards the cabin. He turns to her friends and says. "The rest of you! Go down the hatches marked white! At least two per hatch! There is a panel with instructions!"

Teo grabs hold of Alain and tugs him over to one of them, waving vaguely at 'Chelle.

'Chelle is too busy moving in the direction of the cabin to bother responding. What's she looking at?

A plastic control screen that glows bright orange. It's very obviously newer than the rest of the structure. "Look." Says the operator. He demonstrates by pressing buttons. The one to put the dam down on the water gives a message saying that the structure is already down, then he presses the button to retract the structure back and that says that the structure is already retracted. "It won't move!"

"Okay," 'Chelle says, and rests her hands on the screen, closing her eyes.

Everything looks different when she's doing this, and it's not even really sight, more feeling. The problem is easy enough to diagnose when she's using her powers - the sensor that tells the dam where it is has been clogged, she's not sure by what, so it's reading as both up and down simultaneously. She can fix that. She overrides the reading that tells the dam it's up, and instructs it to descend.

The dam descends. Hitting the water without the sound of a splash, but instead of the resonant ting of vibrating metal. They feel the structure shaking with the stress.

Inside the hatches, the various volunteers can find runes and instructions: take turns, put your hand on them and push a bit of health and a bit of stamina. Moderate bits.

Alain and Teo are pretty good at swapping over with barely any pause - like the two of them are already used to casting in unison.

Their only view to the outside is a reinforced porthole. Though that grants the sight of the water in front of them growing still, not in the undisturbed and flat, but with the waves slowing down to the point of glassy stillness.

Then suddenly, the waves started to break, crack and raise upwards. The wall of water hits with speed and violence, the structure shakes, but holds.

For the most part.

'Chelle gets to see it. The wave hits the concrete and goes up. Higher than any building in Milirevi, apparently dispersing into harmless mist.

Further down the barrier, the ward gives in and the invisible wall breaks. The rest of the barrier holds, but there is a localized wave going through straight to the city.

'Chelle stares at the wave in horror, reminds herself that her family are safe, can't help but worry anyway, hands white-knuckled on the nearest unbreakable surface.

She and the operator can observe as the partial wave sweeps across the city. Boats are carried over far further into shore than they were ever supposed to be. Many places have smaller versions of the barrier ward, but not all. And sometimes the different wards working separately have weird effects making the water rebound and hit again on the surrounding buildings with more force, crumbling places that survived the initial onslaught.

The Govad district where the full-augments live is the worst hit, being directly on the waves' path and being less consistently warded.

All the while dots zip about on the ground and the sky, marking the presence of people racing against the force of nature.

Racing against nature is sure a difficult task. They have been expecting for the wave to go around the barrier, hitting the city from the sides and inward. The exact opposite happened and everyone is rushing to change tactic and redirecting the bulk of search-and-rescue.

However, Felix and Parafi's primary task remain the same: find people and make sure they don't drown or die of hypothermia. But maybe Felix needs to be reminded of that.

It's not the first time Parafi's seen devestation like this, and he's handling it the same way he has before - by pushing his emotions and away - but this time, he can actually help. When he notices Felix getting overwhelmed, he touches his elbow gently, hand overly warm, but not painfully so.

Felix takes in breath, it feels like he has been holding it for far too long. His heart is pounding desperately, but he can't get distracted.

"Right. Hold on onto me." They go into the danger zone.

They are not the only ones, but even with the evacuation warning and their specialized role there is no shortage of people to help- shit, that woman is stuck between two carts with water up to her waist.

-Can Parafi get one of the carts to burn without harming the woman? Make it easier to move out of the way?

Yes. With some controlled burning, they can free the woman much more easily than doing by moving the cart. This free Felix to provide some strategic healing to deal with the worst of her injuries. Barely awake she clings to them for warmth. Felix makes sure to say tell Parafi that he is clever, though there isn't much joy in the compliment. Someone with a floating stretcher spots them and collects the woman before flying away.

They are called over to a half-destroyed building half covered in ice. Felix tries to approach and retracts back when ice starts to form in their direction. "Whoever is in there notice me coming and reacted."

Parafi considers it. "I'll go," he says quietly, and starts to walk forward.