Chapter Two: Black as Night

[Tessa]

Tessa mentally sighed, so once again the team was breaking apart to have pity parties in solitude; were they doomed to repeat every rookie mistake? Would they ever work in relatively efficient ways with each other? Even she couldn’t find a definite answer to her own questions.

She watched Barry as he walked away, figuring his pride was bruised, teenage boys had more ego than anybody else she’d ever met…save for the occasional businessman. Tessa didn’t know what the reaction would be if she ordered him to stay with the team, especially since she wasn’t the leader. Near as she could tell Dr. Strange hadn’t appointed one, they were working in anarchy. Then there was Paige, her pride was definitely wounded; if it was one thing Tessa had learned from her observance of the metamorph, it was that she didn’t like to be strong-armed…and ‘Toria, she wasn’t even going to try and decipher what was wrong with her, she had explained a little. But it still hadn’t given a full scope for why she was in such a mood.

“We have bigger issues right now than wounded pride.” She projected mentally to the team making her thoughts as forceful and broad as possible, her voice was void of any emotion, it was hard-edged and firm, “That was a pathetic showcase of teamwork just now, I don’t want to have to witness something like that again, but we can’t change anything now. We lost our informant, the only advantage we have is we know what we’re dealing with.” Tessa paused, a thought racing through her mind, Barry had said he needed some air, he was going out on the street alone, he had made himself a potential target, again.
“Where one is, more will be. We’re relatively safe in the house, if there was more vampires they would have attacked, but we shouldn’t make it easier for them to find us by splitting off. Until we know exactly what we’re dealing with, you’re all making yourselves targets.” Tessa mentally shuttered at the possibility of more vampires, but she knew it was inevitable, especially with the way the city seemed to be.
“You don’t have to speak to each other, but until we get better intel I would suggest we stay in groups.” She was completely emotionless, her face void, her voice void. Right now she couldn’t afford to fall into any sort of emotional stupor, not with the team already in the state they were in.
“This is our base for the time being, it’s not much, but as long as word doesn’t spread about Red Death, we should be able to treat it as a safe house. I don’t know if we can afford to sit until sunrise, but I don’t know how safe the city at night is if we’re relatively clueless. Input would be appreciated, I’m not going to work out a strategy on my own, I can, but I don’t want to. I’m not your leader, it’s not my job, this is a group effort and what we need to be doing is talking out a plan, not moping like a bunch of rookie heroes.” She knew that her last words were harsh, but if she let half the team mope like their dog had just died they would get nowhere very quickly.

At this point she didn’t care about hurt feelings, emotions were a foreign thing to her right now. What she wanted was to get a plan in motion, get the job they were sent to do done, and move on. But they couldn’t do that if they were all running off half-cocked in an emotional state of misery.
“Are we clear?” Tessa asked, “It would be appreciated if you came back voluntarily, but I’m not above dragging you back up here and having Spiderman web you to the wall.” Tessa looked at the remaining occupants of the hall, her blue eyes cold as they rested on the masked arachnid-esque hero, “Are you willing to do that, if need be?”