Within the first mere seconds of stepping into the arena, Neutro could make out what kind of "terrorists" these were simulating. The organized and well-paid kind. They possessed all manner of fancy toys, unlike the bumbling and desperate types he was initially expecting. In hindsight, it seemed foolish to believe Pariah would do anything so petty. At the sight of such firepower and organization, Neutro immediately took action and prepared himself. In a split second, he shifted his body's mass to that of a main battle tank; the turrets wouldn't sit well with him if he were anything less. The floor cracked underneath his focused weight, though managed to support the hero for the time being.

When the clinking of grenades made themselves apparent, he bent on a knee and covered his turned head with an arm. The blast fazed him little, but the obscuring cloud did its job. With a swipe of his massive arms, he vacated the area of a small amount of cloudiness and realized at that moment he'd been painted with a red dye. The turrets began to fire up. Without hesitation, Neutro positioned himself before as many allies as possible, and as the bullets whizzed for them, his toughened body served as a living shield. Endless projectiles smacked into his torso, head and limbs, but he did not flinch. A few allies realized what he was doing and took cover behind him as best as possible, hugging his legs or hovering behind his torso. Listening in on Strix's proposition, Neutro took charge and made for destroying the turrets with some help.

"Stick behind me!" he yelled to those behind him. Neutro crouched low and kept his arms to the side, creating as much of a barrier he could to protect the followers from the hail of bullets he was already tanking. As the turrets were approached, closer and closer, their fire felt even more powerful, and Neutro almost struggled to inch close enough. He lowered his head and stuck his arms before it, shading from their barrage until finally...

Neutro reached out and grabbed on the turret barrels, still firing. With a simple twist of his wrist, the metal barrel was bent such that the machine was no longer operable or useful. With its gunfire subsided, his allies dispersed from behind him, flowing off to perform other important tasks. Neutro stood himself up and lowered his mass for the time being. Without the immediate threat of the turrets, he didn't need quite so much defensive capability.

Wenchang listened attentively to Olympia's plan. The problem is that the hostages would start dying as soon as they tried anything. The idea to use precise electrical volts to disable the opponents was solid, however it relied on slow reactions of the villains. Like in chess Wenchang knew it was never a good idea to assume that your opponent will make a mistake when constructing your plan.

"I like the plan but could we stall them. If possible we could reduce the risk by releasing agent 15 gas to knockout both the villains and hostages, or at least make them drowsy, should they have super human constitution. Also unconscious hostages were easier to handle than kicking and screaming ones."

Wenchang was cool, calm and collected. In situations like this getting riled up and excited was dangerous and useless. Caring too much about the hostages would be a mistake, but at the same time counting on someone he didn't know to quickly disable multiple villains seemed risky to say the least.

"Sounds like you're going to have your hands full Blondie. I'll see if I can't find anything else for you on these łajdaki " Silvertongue muttered through the earpiece after Olympia had listed the details of the crooks and what they had demanded. All in all it wasn't much for Volt to go on, but at least none of them sounded like they'd be especially insulated, which meant he could hurt them as easily as they could hurt him. Still, as silver linings go I've heard better.

Not long after the VTOL touched down with a lurch. Hi-Voltage followed Olympia and the others out, his experienced eye running over the scene quickly. The police had cordoned the area around the bank off, but were now locked in a Mexican stand-off with two of the villains, one with a knife to the neck of a hostage. By his dress and age the hostage was probably a manager, and looked like he was seconds away from pissing his pants. Tommy wouldn't have blamed him if he did, the Lightning-Slinger was afraid himself. Volt stood close to Olympia as she conversed with the police commander who outlined the situation. The Greek Demi-Goddess turned to him.

"Can you knock out the villains without harming the hostages?" she asked. The Lightning-Slinger thought about it, running scenarios through his head. He was confident enough in his ability to aim and fire that he was certain he could hit the hostage-takers without hitting the hostage's themselves, and he knew he was quick enough off the draw to do it before the villains could react. That avenue wasn't free from problems though, namely being if he did hit a target the danger was the electricity arcing from either villain to the hostages they were holding. The shock would be lessened, but would definitely still hurt, and if any of the hostages wore pacemakers or had a weak heart then the outcome could be fatal. The other option was for him to use his control over magnetism to fire off some metal objects at the crooks. That had its own perils though. Due to the concentration required his aim wasn't as good when manipulating metal, so he could end up missing, or just striking the hostage. Neither option was particularly golden, so it was a good thing that the hero Olympia referred to as Sonja came up with an alternative plan.

It was almost brilliant in it's simplicity, to use the cover of being pizza delivery boys to enter the bank and take the villains down from within. We've just plagiarised the Illiad. Hope Homer doesn't sue. Sonja asked how his American accent was.

"Forget about it," Piped Szymon in his ear, quoting Donnie Brasco to make it sound more like Fohgettaboutit. Volt, trying to keep Silvertongue's existence a secret from the League for now, had to stop himself from pointing out that Donnie Brasco was set in New York, not Chicago, so the accent was drastically off.

"It's passable." Tommy responded out loud, approximating a Chicagoan accent he could. Truth be told it wasn't great, but then hopefully he wouldn't have to say much.

Olympia jumped on the plan and ran with it, volunteering Volt to bring in the pizza. He had to agree that he was probably the best choice, even if the thought of entering the band alone with all those hostiles gave him the shakes. Apart from Olympia he could probably take a punch better than anyone else in attendance, and with his firepower he could distract the villains long enough for his teammates to extract the hostages then save his ass. . . Hopefully.

A hero in a mask, Volt had heard Olympia call him Wenchang earlier, offered up a small amendment to the plan. By also gassing the place Wenchang figured they could make the job easier, 'calming' the hostages and discombobulating the crooks. Volt couldn't say he agreed with the methods, but if the pay load was as good as Wenchang indicated then it could be a major boon.

"I like the way you lassies think," he grinned, trying to show a bravado he didn't entirely feel, "Olympia, it's you're call. If you want to go with the gas I could smuggle that in with the pizza. Wait until the numptys are all good and gathered, then hit the fuses to Wenchang's 007 gas. Same time I can start blasting, keep em all busy and concentrated on me until you can bring in the cavalry. Some of you guys get the hostages out, the rest come running and make sure I don't get nutted!"

"Give me a second" Arachnid replied through gritted teeth and she stepped aside to check herself over. The asshole had cut her pretty deep but from what she could tell it was just a flesh wound and as long as she avoided any hard landings she could easily still handle henchmen, however fighting actual villains she would have to leave to the other heroes.

Turning back to Evergreen Arachnid grimaced before stating "He got me pretty good but thankfully he somehow managed to miss everything major, I don't think I could handle anything with powers but henchmen I should be able to handle as long as I avoid being knocked on my ass. SO basically I'm good to go."

Caleb(who had pretty much escaped notice up until now) was quick to react when the doors opened, charging out as one with the crowd until catching sight of the grenades.

"Well, that was fast."

Without a moment of hesitation, Caleb jumped, leaping over his fellow heroes and attempting to sprint out of the grenades' range as fast as possible. If he was successful, he would begin to attack the henchmen, carefully aiming for shoulders, knees, and other debilitating but nevertheless survivable targets as he advanced.

If, on the other hand, he was not fast enough, and found himself coated in red paint, he would fall back into the crowd of metahumans, firing a single arrow at a turret to see what damage he could deal.

Rainmaker's Team

Evergreen nodded grimly and said, "Very well. But if that changes you're going back out." She raised her head and looked at the continuing battle, "Seems like you may get your chance to prove it." SilverWolf's tomahawk hit Shade's leg and the villain cried out, but the knives managed to only graze the villain. The axe was stuck in the villain and he tried to hobble away, at the same time a half-dozen henchmen came around the corner with Twister at the lead. Twister took the wounded Shade in one of his tentacles and backpedaled away, pointing at SilverWolf, "Kill him." The henchmen raised their assault rifles and began firing, trying to cover the escape of their bosses.

Olympia's Team

Olympia shook her head at Wenchang, "We can't use military-grade chemical weapons like that on civilians, that gas is also known to cause mass hysteria. It's much too risky. And it probably wouldn't do anything to Sarin anyway. But I do agree Hi-Voltage needs an edge. Talk to the Commander. They should have all kinds if non-lethal grenades like a flashbang. Pop one of those when the villains gather, shield your eyes and ears, then take them out while they're indisposed. Sonja teleports the rest of us in to deal with the rest, and gets the hostages out. Shock and awe. Literally."

She smiled at Volt's imitation of a Chicago accent, "It'll have to do. Get suited up with whatever you need. We need to move fast." A few minutes later Volt changed into a pizza delivery uniform with a jacket to conceal his little surprise and a large stack of pizza boxes. Shank and Bouncer were still at the front with their henchmen and the situation was deteriorating quickly, with Shank raving wildly and Bouncer tensing to twist the neck of her hostage. It all rested on Volt's performance now. Once he made his way in he had to draw out the villains and convince them of the ruse for at least a few moments.

Pariah's victims

Eclipse's barricade did indeed shield the majority of her group from the worst of the effects, but several people were still temporarily blinded, deafened, shocked, or sprayed in the eye. They simply did not all become immediately immobilized. Changeling found himself coated in infrared paint and the turrets tried to knock him out of commission before he fell back behind cover. His arrow fired with enhanced strength did not destroy his metal target but the turret did spark some and moved somewhat slower and fired at a lower rate. Strix's gambit allowed a slight reprieve as his paint splattered cape covered one turret.

This confused the automated systems for a few seconds as they were also programmed to not fire on each other. His pellets jammed up several turrets and his distraction allowed Nuetro and several others, including Zenith's superpowered cousin Apogee, to destroy several turrets. The overall effect was that almost all of the turrets were now out of commission, either destroyed or jammed save for around a half-dozen. The heroes had several moments to break for better cover and establish defensive positions. Pariah's voice flowed over the intercom, "Good. You have learned the first lesson, that you never know what will happen and to think on the fly. Now for the next lesson."

By now the Henchmen had ample time to prepare. From their positions on the ground and on high-rise buildings they began pouring fire at the heroes, their ammunition consisted of assault weapon versions of the foam rounds that the turrets used. The men were professional and trained and fired well-aimed bursts to suppress the heroes and immobilize anyone unlucky enough to be out on open ground. At the same time the simulated civilians were panicking and running around everywhere and the heroes had to take extra effort to not harm any in the cross-fire. Several other henchmen brandished grenade launchers loaded with concussive rounds and fired them at the heroes as well. Several others were armed with Sniper rifles and tried to take out the heroes with long-ranged precision shots.

The heroes had escaped the first kill-zone but now they found themselves in another one. And to make matters even worse the automated drones began swarming on their positions and fired small millimeter foam rounds as well as bursts of electric energy. There were dozens of the drones and they had the same Infrared targeting systems as the turrets. The heroes had lasted a few minutes but they now needed to survive the next few more.

"Good luck, honey," the Spirit of St. Louis said to Hi-Voltage, giving his shoulder a squeeze. The CPD had been appraised of the plan and were doing their part to support their superpowered backup, announcing over a megaphone that the pizza was on the way. Sonja noted with a grim smile that the civilian preparations included several more ambulances arriving and standing ready.

They had to do this right.

"Alright, everybody come in tight. I can usually only teleport inside an enclosed space or small radius, and given that we're outside. . ." Sonja smiled, tried to cut some of the tension with a joke. "Just so we're all clear, if any of those hostages happen to play for the Cubs they're getting left behind. Everyone ready?"

The brief moment of pride SilverWolf experienced when his Tomahawk hit the target was quickly replaced with concern. As the enemy's reinforcements arrived, SilverWolf knew exactly what was about to happen. In an instant he bolted laterally towards an alcove at one of the storefronts, which was fortunately bordered by concrete pillars. Bullets came flying through the corridor, threatening to tear him apart at any moment. Even with his foresight and exceptional speed, it was difficult navigating his way to safety; he was constantly readjusting his path, dodging, swerving, and rolling which only served to lengthen the amount of time he would be exposed to the danger. The last few feet were the most difficult, as the henchmen seemed to finally lead their target properly. With a glimpse into his future, SilverWolf knew there were no good options left. He dove for cover, as he foresaw, twisting his body through the air in hopes of sustaining minimal damage. He caught a single round through his left bicep, just below the shoulder, and another deflected off the hardened piece of his chest armor. He hit the ground with a thud, sliding into the protective corner of the alcove.

Holding his wound tightly with his right hand, SilverWolf called out to the team members he could see not too far away. "Could use a little support over here!" As soon as the words left his mouth he actually smiled. He had taught others on the benefits of team support and mixed tactics many times, but he had always assumed that he would do just fine on his own. He was glad that he had others with him in this moment, and hoped they would all be as reliable as they looked. While he waited, he produced some white willow bark from the pouch on his waist and began to chew it. As he chewed calmly, he took a studied look at his arm and was glad to find the bullet had gone completely through, leaving a far less complicated wound to deal with. From a separate compartment of the same pouch, SilverWolf retrieved some Arnica herb and ground it vigorously between his thumb and forefinger before applying it topically to the wound. This slowed the bleeding and drastically reduced the pain. Finally he grabbed a leather band and tied it around the wound, pulling hard with his right hand and teeth to cinch it as tight as he could. Once his work was completed, which only took a few seconds with how practiced he was, he scanned his surroundings again quickly to see how his teammates were doing.

Gabriel was glad that his Purification ability had managed to stop the bleeding but he was also grateful for the assistance from Evergreen. He then heard the sounds of gunfire and saw the villains' henchmen cover their retreat by firing massive amounts of bullets. One of the bullets grazed his cheek but thankfully his superhuman durability helped protect him from taking serious harm. He needed to subdue the criminals quickly before they killed someone with their reckless shooting spree. He raised his flaming sword up in both hands with the blade pointed down at the ground, and shouted, "Wicked criminals, feel the wrath of God!"

He drove the tip of his sword into the floor and a torrent of flames shot across the floor and went straight for the thugs. The flames circled around the men and formed a wall of a burning inferno. The criminals were trapped and it was hot enough for them to drop their weapons in order not have their fingers burned from holding their guns.

"If any of you can freeze things then do it when I make the flames vanish and trap them so they can't escape or resist arrest" Gabriel said to his teammates as he waited for one of them to get into position to do it. Once they did that then he would put out the divine flames and his teammates would take the thugs into custody.

Wenchang noted Olympia's comments, they were true. He would have to keep his illegal weapon use to a minimum it seemed. Nevertheless he was not going to be teleported anywhere unprepared.

'Please allow me a moment to prepare." Wenchang addressed to no one in particular. "I will be no time at all"

Wenchang dropped down to his knees, and with efficient practiced movement opened a portal which he dropped through. Appearing back out a moment later wielding a heavy knuckleduster on his left fist, and a small satchel bag over his shoulder.

"Are you going to take the time to ask them?" joked Wenchang dryly, stretching his arms and neck. "I'm ready whenever you're ready"

Good, Permafrost was down for the count! Blast Girl spun on her heel, in time to see a ring of fire encircle the henchmen who had been hanging about. Good thing it didn't cut off the whole section of the building... Beyond it, Blast Girl could see the escaping villains. Oh, no! No way was she going to let them get away! She broke into a sprint, the armor covering her boots clanging against the floor as she tore across the ground. "I'm gonna try and stop 'em! Permafrost is down, up against the wall back there!"

And with that, she ran past the fire, the flames wavering. She hoped that some of the other heroes followed, but she was confident! If she could get in fast she could take the bad guys out, no problem! One of them was injured, she could see that for sure... and while she definitely didn't like that a lethal weapon had been used it looked like it was aimed to disable rather then kill. The rings around each of her wrists spun. Right! She just needed two good shots, a hit for each, and she could take 'em down! That meant getting in close... and fast... Blast Girl concentrated. Gravity suddenly weighed on her just a bit less, freeing her up so she could put on even more speed and head right for the villains!

Arachnid winced as she nodded, her wound hurt like a bitch but she would have to deal with it later. Turning her attention to the new risen inferno she saw one of the other heroes charge towards the escaping villains and smiled admiring her bravery. Turning her attention to the encircled thugs she turned to her teammate who had treated her injury and decided that now would be a good time to return the favour. Looking up she saw some advertising she could perce on and drop a web net onto the criminals below. Taking off running she swung up to the advertising and grabbed the main support pole, swinging up to balance herself and looking below in order to make sure that she was in the right position to drop the net.

"Drop the flames and I'll ensnare them in a net" she shouted to Gabriel taking aim as she spoke.

“This is a Goddamn terrible idea!” Silvertongue's griping was starting to wear something awful on Volt's nerves. After all, it wasn't like the hacker was in any danger, safe as he was sitting in his room in front of a computer screen. It wasn't like it was Silvertongue who had just walked past a police cordon carrying a stack of pizza's to a bunch of deranged, superpowered, killers, wearing the borrowed clothes and cap of a pizza boy. The icing on the cake had to be the live grenade sitting in his jackets pocket though, an intimidating weight to it even knowing it was just a flash-bang. Ah, the joys of being a superhero I spose.

Shank and Bouncer had spotted him now, a look of incredulity on their faces at the sight of him. Shank gripped the bank manager even tighter.

“What the fuck is this!” snarled the knife wielding teleporter. Bouncer looked on with the kind of detached curiosity that a cat would give a mouse just before it pounces. Looks like its show time. Volt tried to make himself look as timid and afraid as he possibly could (not the hardest of acts at that precise moment) as he edged closer to the villains.

“I dunno man, it's p-p-p-pizza's man. . . They told me you wanted p-p-p-pizza's man, told me to bring you p-p-p-pizza's man. . . “ Stuttered the Lighning-Slinger in his put upon Chicagoan accent, a convincing tremble to his voice. The act was easy to pull off, seeing as Tommy felt near terrified. The only thing that kept him from turning tail and running, the thing that always kept him from running, was the knowledge that this was his responsibility. People were in trouble and he had the ability to help.

“Fucking pizza! That was just a joke!” growled Shank. The teleporter shoved his hostage towards Bouncer and stalked towards Volt. The knife wielding crook grabbed the top box of pizza and tore it open. Hi-Voltage wasn't sure what the robber was expecting to find in the pizza box, but pizza didn't seem to be at the top of the list. Shank's jaw went slack in shock before he burst out laughing, laughing so much he had to hold his sides. The hostages looked on in apprehension, and Bouncer started to demand to know what was so funny.

“It is pizza! They've acceded to our demands, we're gonna be getting outta here after all!” cackled the teleporter in glee. His mirth disappeared in a heartbeat though, his scowl sliding back into place.

“Looks like its lunch time huh, you wouldn't mind joining us would ya?” The teleporter's hand shot out to grab a fistful of Volt's borrowed jacket. The Lightning-Slinger began to whimper, begging the crook to let him go, but was ignored outta hand. Which was good really, the plan wouldn't work half so well if the bad guys just sent Volt strolling back to safety.

"Nah ma-a-an, p-p-p-please let me go, I ain't n-n-n-nuffin to you man," begged Volt.

“Bring those snivelling fucks back inside Bouncer, we might as well eat this grub before it goes cold” called Shank, handily ignoring Volt's pleas. Tommy realised that could only mean one thing, that his entrance inside was gonna be a mite more sudden than he would like. There was a sharp popping sound, and suddenly the airy, sunny street changed into a cool, air conditioned bank building. Volt felt his stomach lurch, momentarily struggling to keep his breakfast from making a reappearance. God I hate teleporters. It looked like they were in the front lobby, as the tillers desks took up one entire line, and there was several seating areas and signage's for waiting lines. That was good, meant the heroes wouldn't have to look to hard to come and save him once things got dicey.

Shank grinned a predators smile at Volt as he forced the Lightning-Slinger into a desk-chair in the corner, before shouting to his comrades to come and get lunch. There was some choice responses from the other crooks, but sure enough they started to file into the room. None of the three had any hostages with them, which was a Godsend. Volt figured they each musta left their charges 'tied' up in their respective rooms, maybe Sarin had even left hers in the vault. This also told the Lightning-Slinger that the crooks weren't that smart, if that wasn't obvious enough from the fact that they attacked Chicago on a day like today. Bouncer came in the front door, her hostages and lackeys in tow One big lad, Volt figured him to be Boomer, looked at him and demanded to know who he was. Shank answered for him, saying that he was the pizza guy, and was stupid enough to get hauled in as another hostage. Volt felt that was a bit uncalled for, since Shank hadn't left him much choice in the matter. Didn't matter that Hi-Voltage did want to be here, the teleporter didn't know that!

“Hey Blondie, what's your measurements again? I'm ordering you're coffin now, it'll save me time later.” Silvertongue snarked in his ear, really what Volt wanted t hear just about now. The robbers were now gathered around the pizza's, tearing into the food and laughing about their supposed victory over the police and League. Volt decided they were now in the perfect position for his 'surprise'. After all, there's no time like the present, right? His right hand dipped into his right jacket pocket, retrieving the grenade, his left going for his goggles.

"Euch, pizza's gone cold" complained Sarin, turning her nose up at the offending slice, like it was the worst thing to ever happen to anyone in the world. Bouncer let go of her hostages -who both fled into the corner of the room- to grab a piece herself.

"Pizza's at its best when its cold, it . . . what the hell is that noise?" The noise in question was a faint tinkling, like a coin rolling across the floor. The villains stopped their eating to cast around, Boomer looking to the ground when he felt something knock into his feet. The exploding man felt his heart drop when he recognised the grenade. He looked up to who he thought was a pizza boy, only to be confronted by the grinning Volt who had shoved his fingers into his ears.

"Ah, damn" the big rogue managed to get out before the flash bang exploded with a deafening burst and a blinding flash of light. The room burst into confusion and chaos, the villains struggling to understand what had happened while Volt fired bolts of lightning wherever he thought he had last seen the crooks before the world had exploded into white, knowing how crucial it was for him to keep the villains on the back foot until his allies arrived.

The furious sounds of the melee could be heard from outside, telling the heroes gathered there that it was time to strike.

"Alright, now!" Sonja said as she heard the flat crack of the flashbang from inside.

Magic, in all forms, requires some sort of ritual, an exchange of some kind. One of the more popular theories about that was that it sated an entity that demanded entertainment or a show of respect before granting a favor. In her particular field, rituals took the form of the spinning box, the top hat, the deck of cards. Or, in this particular instance, an elaborate bent-knee arm-waving flourish. The puff of smoke and bang was perhaps a little much, but hey, it looked good.

Abruptly, they were no longer standing on Chicago asphalt, but waxed marble. The tight group of Wenchang, Olympia, Sonata, and Graviton blinked in the soft fluorescent lighting of the bank's lobby. The Spirit of St. Louis looked around quickly, saw the disoriented villains groggily clawing at their eyes and ears, Hi-Voltage spewing lightning bolts at them. And also the bank manager and one other hostage, blinded and deafened. Too easy for them to catch a bolt of lighting, a blade, a mouthful of toxic gas.

Sonja moved quick, head low, towards the two hapless bystanders, arms extended as she grabbed both of them. "Alakazam!" she shouted as she pulled her second teleportation in less than five seconds, the puff of smoke taking them outside the bank. Wordlessly she shoved the two liberated hostages towards the waiting police officers, a light sheen of sweat already starting to form on her face. This many complicated tricks like teleporting were going to do a real number on her, especially this close together. But she had to do it. Lives were at stake.

And so, the black edges of fatigue encroaching on her vision, she disappeared in another puff of smoke, back into the bank.

Gabriel watched as Blast Girl went on the chase after the two villains and he thought the heroine should waited for them to regroup because who knew what type of tricks the super powered criminals would use. His attention was pulled back to Arachnid when he saw her do an areal maneuver and grabbed onto a pole above the trapped thugs. When she told him to drop the flames, Gabriel nodded and pulled his sword from the ground. almost immediately the flames disappeared and were now open for his teammate to apprehend the disarmed criminals.

He then thought of Blast Girl heading off on her own and he turned to the rest of his teammates, "we should run after Blast Girl, it is not safe for her to be chasing after two villains without a plan of attack or teamwork."

Gabriel was ready to take on the super villains but he was part of a team and needed to get use to working with others.

Rainmaker's Team

The now disarmed thugs were ensnared by Arachnid's web and they struggled to no avail to escape. The rest of the superhero team took care of the remaining henchmen in the vicinity and SWAT officers arrived to detaIn them. Rainmaker noticed Blast Girl running off and she scowled, "On me!" She flew after the young heroine with the team in tow. Meanwhile said heroine was running after Twister and Shade, who were making good their retreat. They passed several stores and rounded a corner.

Blast Girl followed and she saw Shade, grinning. Suddenly she felt herself be lifted in the air as one of Twister's tentacles wrapped itself around her wrists. He smiled, "Lookie here Shade. A little hero who lost her way. Thanks for following us girlie, we needed a hero hostage." Shade laughed with a nasty gleam in his eye. Twister picked up Shade with his free tentacle. Then he ran deeper into the mall, signalling another group of around ten henchmen to take cover and level their rifles, hoping to catch the heroes in a crossfire. And yet, as tight as Twister's hold was, perhaps there was a way for the young heroine to escape his grasp.

Olympia's Team

Volt's gambit had remarkable success in confusing all the villains. His shocks managed to incapacitate Burnout and Boomer, sending them to the ground seizing in pain. But the rest were not so easily disabled. Shank had instinctively teleported away at the first sign of danger and Bouncer had backflipped behind a nearby desk. Sarin had morphed into her gaseous form and the grenade's effects were mostly averted.

A second later the other heroes appeared in the lobby. Graviton altered gravity to hold Burnout and Boomer to the ground and sent several henchmen to the floor as well. Sonata emitted a sonic shriek that incapacitated the other henchmen in the lobby. Bouncer flipped back over the desk and leaped at the nearest hero who happened to be Wenchang, ready to slam her foot into his face. Shank had reappeared behind Volt and raised his knife to stab the lightning slinger in the back. Sarin had tried to suffocate the two hostages before Sonja rescued them and now the sentient cloud of poison made it's way to her intent on murder.

For a few moments, Blast Girl was kind of stunned when she suddenly felt herself lifted into the air by tentacles around her wrists. She wasn't exactly used to dealing with an enemy who had this kind of ability, but she wasn't going to give up just because he had grabbed her, no way! He didn't know who he was dealing with, either! Blast Girl might be young, but she'd had a year of experience. While that might not be much in the eyes of other heroes, it still meant she had some idea of what she was doing! And she had just the idea for this. After all, she wanted to catch the bad guys, right? Shade didn't have to let go, he just had to stop being able to move her...

There was a minor issue of a little property damage, but some cracks in the floor would be a lot less then what these guys could do if they got away.

"You sure as hell took the wrong person to be your hostage!" declared Blast Girl... and she focused. The lightening she had done of the effect of gravity on her body sharply reversed, heading rapidly in the opposite direction. As the forces of gravity weighed more heavily on her, it'd be harder to move... but she could do it! She just had to fight her way through it and keep moving! The air rushed by as she slammed into the ground, the force cracking the floor beneath her.

The next part was a lot more simple. The bad guy still wasn't close enough for her to hit... so Blast Girl attempted to yank him towards her by jerking both arms back as hard as she could, hoping to get him into punching range!

The form of bouncer leaping towards him and the distinct view of her foot heading in the direction of his skull meant only one thing, Wenchang had to react fast. His brain raced, analysing his options, trying to find the one which result in Bouncer disabled but not dead. Severing her foot from her leg would probably be frowned upon by the League, and after the comment about the knockout gas he wasn't too keen on extreme action. He could try to use his knuckle duster to crack a bone, but he din't know the extent of her super agility so wasn't confident in his ability to best her at close quarters fighting. Chemicals it was, he was afraid he would seem like a one trick pony.

As Boomer closed in, in one movement Tom threw his elbow up in a high guard, and drew an aerosol can from his satchel, aiming it at Bouncer's face. As he felt the heavy impact on his arm, probably a fracture, but he wasn't sure, he unleashed hell with the spray. A red mist shot from the can, a highly concentrated solution of cayenne pepper and water, aimed at Bouncer's face. Given that her endurance was nothing special, if she didn't avoid it she would be incapacitated for at least half an hour. If she did somehow dodge it, Tom would follow up his assault with a series a quick precise knuckle duster strikes to the face and neck, and another blast of his special pepper spray.

Note to self; do not piss off Pariah.

With that out of the way Chris continued to listen to his answers with a building reluctance to complete the task. But it was too late to back out now, or was it, and so she had to go on and complete the task to the best of her ability, or did she, and hope for the best.

Following the others down the long hall way, working hard to calm her suddenly queasy, and looked back just in time to see the doors close shut removing any hope Chris had of pulling out of the exercise. No, she had to do this. This could be a brilliant opportunity for her to improve herself and help so many people in the process. As the group neared the other door, looking very demonic in the red lighting, Chris secured her goggles and took a deep breath to calm her nerves before charging into the wide outside with the others.

One of the first surprises to confront Chris was that the outside wasn’t actually the outside but actually a very large room complete with buildings and road signs. How big was this building anyway because Chris was pretty certain that it didn’t big enough to hold this from the outside.

The sound of several things landing in front of her drew Chris’ attention away from the people with scary looking guns to the objects sitting deceptively innocently just in front of her. A woman in tight fitting clothing shouted for Chris and the others to gather around her to which Chris wisely complied before one or two others were quickly sent flying in a blinding white flash. Blink furiously Chris managed to quickly clear away the blotches of white in her eyes just in time for red paint to splatter her, covering her right side in the crimson mess.

Feeling the gas now tearing down her throat Chris listened to the man who looked like a giant owl as he gave instructions for them all to get out, before taking flight down the street by the wonderful transportation of grappling hook. A large black arm wafted away the stinging gas and Chris turned to see the huge black monolith person, Neutro if she recalled that magazine article correctly, acting as a moving shield as it staggered its way to a nearby turret.

Chris was in awe of these people as they moved to take down the turrets, many of which Chris hadn’t noticed, without even flinching although after that a few did get taken down shortly after the henchmen got to work.

“The Hostages are our main priority.” Chris shouted over the racket of fighting, watching as a few more cracks formed on the shield. “If you can make another one of those I can carry you on my back to the bus.” The bag that had been on Chris’ back flopped to the ground as she bent over slightly in front of the woman urging her to climb on. Either way Chris would then sprint down the street lunging from side to side in order to dodge the bullets intent on stopping her.

Changeling stood at the edge of the group's cover, periodically sticking his head into the open to briefly look over the enemy, all the while doing his best to keep his paint covered body away from the electrified foam.

He looked outside the cover. Henchmen with machineguns. If it had been normal bullets then Changeling would have had no problem charging in to fight them hand-to-hand, but with that foam he'd be down in seconds.

Changeling pulled back into the cover, leaping up in an attempt to impale a drone on his dagger.

He looked again. Just civilians over there. He grabbed an arrow and shot it at a henchmen, aiming for the man's forearm. He returned to cover.

In his next check, he found a sniper. Changeling pulled his bow taut, and shot at the sniper twice, one aimed at each shoulder.

"Hey, Gadget Guy!" he yelled to Strix, "You don't happen to have anything up your sleeve that can get me on top of one of these buildings, do you? If I can get up top, I ought to be able to cover whoever's going to get the hostages!"