Angstbomb stared at the mirror. He looks badass. There was no way around it. His suit was tight, and in dark colors just like his old stuff. The silver lining however, ran down from his color to divide the black into distinct shapes that made him look downright stellar. The belt with the Slight Heroics logo was a nice touch. Throwing on his coat, he found that it complimented his outfit perfectly. The outfits hood peeked up and he pulled it over his head as it threw shadows across his face. A smile crept up on his lips as he watched himself in the mirror. He had come to this world a nobody, a grunt meant to die for the glory of some stuck up bitch.

He would have none of that. All that pain, all that suffering. He was meant for greater things. They may laugh at him. But he knew the depths of his own darkness, and he would tame it. He would show the world.

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Its not every day a drunken alien gets to meet a bonified Billionare. But the company could be better. Brosephs bloodshot eyes glanced at everyone present. Taking in the giant, bumbling creature that was Steve. He decided out of all these people, he liked Steve the most. Steve seemed a simple, kind soul. Slower then a snail in a tarpit sure, but kind. He grimaced softly as the poor creature fell backwards, but kept his tongue in check as their host lost his temper. There was no need to add fuel to the fire just jet. Thats when the hologram popped up. He didn't knew humans cracked that kind of tech yet.

Leaning back, he got to his feet as the others left. He saw Steve struggle. ”Don't worry” He said and put a hand of Steves shoulder. ”I'll help you along.” This gesture seemingly suprised their benefactor who raised a eyebrow at the alien. Clearly, his opinion of the perpetually drunkard shifted if only in the slightest. Brick just looped his arm over the giant shoulders of his new ally and gently led him out of the room. ”Besides. We got our rooms next to one another.” He explained as he led the frankensteinesque thing down the hall.

”So your name is Steve? Right?” He asked as they walked. ”You can call me Broseph.” He said.

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One and a half hour later, Briefing room:
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”Will those two be alright?” Archie asked, raising a eyebrow higher still. It threatened to rebel and escape his face at this point. The Hologram seemed to crack a smile at this. With everyone at their rooms, the two sat by the table as Archie shifted trough news reports on his uPad. There was reports of a brewing gang war in Mercury City, with a superpowered crew hitting one of the mobfamilies gambling joints. He couldn't let that bother him however, Dodgeville was in far worse a state then Mercury City ever had been. They would consider themselves lucky if it was just mobsters duking it out. Dodgevilles criminal families had been consolidated under S.H.A.D.E. He still had no idea what the stupid name meant. But the cities heroes had no way to keep up with the organinzation. And even those who weren't shade used the overall chaos to further their own agendas.

He would clean it up however. Oh yes. He had the resources, the will and now the people. The latter part just needed guidence, a purpose.

“Mr Brick may be a brawler, but he has been described as ”honerable and kind” despite being a bouncer. That's saying something.” The hologram noted, bringing Archie out of his thoughs.

”I thought his entire race were beligrent drunks?” He asked scratching his head. ”Like, really, really infamous drunks. That's what Prince Nova tells me anyways. When I called him to ask about Brick, I could hear the disdain and feel his rapidly deteriorating approval of my idea.” He asked, bringing up the entire roster onto one screen.

“Well. Prince Nova is Ahaian. Their planet is the end of the line for all Bartonians when they go on their life defining benders. You can imagine what a mess that might be.” Archie conceded.

“They.... they take benders as a rite to adulthood.” Mr Merlovich sounded absolutely flabbergasted.

“Yes. And they do it as a means of spiritual development.” The hologram added, a note of amusement in voice.

“Ah. And the Rat? Gutter was it?”

“Like Akira and Steve. They are the result of mad science more or less. Victims as much as anyone.” The hologram noted.

“It is gonna be tough, people generally don't like rats.” He muttered.

“I am sure he will overcome. Now. If I could direct you to the blueprints we found regarding Re-” Archie was interrupted by an alarm going off.” Red lamps began to bleep. Mr Merlovich spun around and rushed over the computer. His fingers flew across the hardlight keyboard as he began to shift trough information. Archie shrunk and appeared admist the control panels as a tiny hologram instead.

“Sir. It-”

“I see it. A bank robbery at 11th street.” He said, flicking up several feeds from the bankrobbery in progress. “And...” He flicked trough some other stuff. “A distress call from the Mechanic. I'll have to split the group. Allright. See that everyone has switched to their gear and get to the hangar. They had enough time to get ready and clean up. Oh. And send someone to guide Steve will you?”

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Situation; There is a loud siren currently blaring away, and the intercom is asking for everyone to head to the hangar. Apperently, this place has a hangar. The wonders of Money nad more money at work.. By now you should have gotten some time to get your bearings at least somewhat. Your new com-pieces come with a hologram interface that will let you communicate with one another as well as bring up what ever intel and maps provided you.

It hadn't taken Gutter all that long to find his room in the tower. It would need some work....

However before he started work on redecorating the room so as to be more comfortable in his paranoia filled little head, there was something that he really needed to do; Stripping off the dirty old rags that he had been wearing, Gutter ducked into the shower and into a heavenly bliss that he hadn't been able to feel for a very long time.

............................................................

When Gutter emerged from the shower quite sometime later, he seemed like a whole different rat creature! His fur was all fluffy and seemed to be a much lighter shade of brown then he had originally appeared. If anyone saw him at the moment, he would look like a semi-cute ball of fluff. Taking the opportunity to look over the outfit that had been designed with his body shape in mind, he had to admit that there was an appeal to it. It had clearly been designed to allow him to slip through the shadows without drawing attention to himself while giving him the freedom to move around as he required.

It didn't take long to don the costume. There was something... right about wearing it too. It had even come with a pair of dog tags with the SH symbol on it, which Gutter was proud to wear and a com piece that seemed state of the art. Now properly bathed and dressed, Gutter lifted his head in order to get to work on fixing up the lighting in his ro-

A siren and announcement went off, calling all team members to the hanger.

Grabbing his tonfa's Gutter darted out of his room at great speed, moving surprisingly quick for a humanoid rat creature. He recalled where the hanger was on the map earlier as he dashed through the various hallways to reach his destination; It would appear that he was the first one there.

Moving fast and staying ahead of the others, Cassandra darted into her room, carefully shutting and locking the door behind her.

As soon as it was closed, cutting her off from the outside world, she breathed out, a long exhalation of relief that drew out all of her nervous energy, leaving her body truly limp and still. Finally. That meeting had taken a toll on her nerves, and it was only now that she was finally able to relax, breathe a little, and take a moment to actually think.

She stayed like that for about a minute, as her mind whirled through plans and judgements and analyses, before slowly rising to her feet and stretching a little. A quick search of the room revealed some fairly simple furniture, and what appeared to be her uniform. One piece was a light grey unitard that would cover everything from her ankles to the top of her neck, hugging tight against her skin. Cass shuddered at the thought. She'd look like a skeleton in that thing... although based on what she could see of the structure of the material, it was damn tough. Besides, her gangly appearance would be mostly covered up by the other main part of the suit, a large black coat with deep pockets, large enough for her to hide in if she needed to. The set was completed with a dark visor that looked and felt like plastic, which fit uncomfortably over her glasses, and a simple pair of stiff, dark shoes. The team's logo was on everything, although thankfully not too large or obvious.

With nobody else around, she decided to try it on. It was only when she put on the unitard that she felt the thin wire running through it, and noticed the tiny earbud hanging out the collar. Slotting it neatly into place behind her ear, she donned the coat, the shoes, and the visor, before finally checking herself out in the mirror.

She winced. Shit, I look like a penguin. Perhaps it was a bit of an exaggeration, but swaddled in the large coat, with her pale face poking out the top, she did make for a rather comical sight.

Unfortunately, before she got a chance to change out of it, her peace and quiet was shattered by a loud blaring, and a sudden, repeated demand to gather in the hangar. Groaning to herself, she complied, peeking out of her door before briskly stepping out into the hallway, and heading to where she knew the place was located.

As she walked, Cass fiddled with her ear-bud, bringing up a holographic display onto her visor and opening communications. Useful tools, but also slightly unnerving. Were these really meant to help them, or would their employer be monitoring everything they said and did? Either way, she decided it would be best to see whether the system actually worked and turned communications on, listening for any sound of others using it. After a moment of silence, she decided to speak out herself. "Hello? Anyone else using this yet?" Her voice remained quiet and quavering, but would hopefully reach any of the other who'd gotten themselves hooked up.

While she was doing this, she almost unconsciously found her way to the hangar, stepping in to find it utterly empty. Was everyone else really that slow? With an annoyed sigh, she let her head drop, only to see the rat-person who had been there the whole time. The sudden realization elicited a terrified squeak from her as she flinched back away from him, instinctively cowering before she realized what she'd done, at which point her cheeks went red again. "Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't, didn't, uh, realize you were here." She tried to laugh, to lighten up the situation, but it came out more like a gasping croak, which had the exact opposite effect. Damn it! She couldn't even get along with the rat.

Her eyes fell to the ground, and stayed fixed upon the concrete as she stepped close to the wall, pressing herself against it and hoping that nobody else would notice her.

Steve smiled at the strange-looking man from before as he offered to help him reach his room, and even walked with his arm on his shoulder. He still thought the man looked strange, but since he was being nice to him and offering to show him the way to his room, that probably meant that he was actually a nice person, which Steve liked. Upon being asked about his name, he simply responded with 'I'm Steve!' and a dopey grin, marred by the staples still in his face but nonetheless pleased. It was one of the few things he remembered about his past life with absolute clarity, and he had never let it slip from his head. Hearing the alien's name, he decided he should try to make that one of the things stored alongside his own name, and so he nodded, then began muttering the word 'Broseph' to himself, over and over and over, occasionally accompanied by a qualifier along the lines of 'You are Broseph', and doing his utmost every time to pronounce the alien's name correctly just to make sure it stuck.

Finally, the pair reached their rooms, next to one another as Broseph had stated. Steve, figuring out which room was his by looking at which room Broseph went into, moved into the room opposite, and found himself in quite a nice place. There was a nice bed here, and a wardrobe which had lots of clothes in it. And laid on on the bed was a suit, apparently fitted to just the right size for Steve. He squealed a bit with glee- he had his very own suit!- clumsily pulling off most of his clothes down to his underwear before remembering that the door was still open, and that Sophie always said that he should close doors when taking off clothes, so he did that. Then he also remembered that the shiny man had wanted them to clean up, which meant that Steve had to think about what needed cleaning at the moment. He looked around the room, and it looked like there wasn't anything that needed to be put away; he looked in the area for showering, and that also looked clean; finally, he looked at himself, with only his underwear on, and he decided that even if he looked clean, the shiny small man had probably wanted him to clean himself. So he took off his underwear, stumbled into the shower, and promptly spent the next hour or so making sure he was completely clean, only partially for the sake of making absolutely sure. There were sticky ducks on the floor of the shower which meant he was less likely to slip over, and he decided if the man who had hired him and the other people, including Broseph- Steve smiled as he continued to repeat Broseph's name out loud- did make sure that was the case the same way it was at home, then he did like that man.

After the shower, he came out, grabbed a towel in one fist, and ran it over himself, succeeding to some extent at drying himself off, then put his underwear back on with some difficulty, then tried to put the suit on. He was still a bit wet, and putting clothes on was always more difficult than taking them off, so this took about twenty five minutes. But, he managed to do it without tearing any of the fabric, and then managed to attach the badge that came with the suit on the suit's belt without poking himself with the needle, and then put the... the walky-talky on his... uh... on his belt again, he thought to himself. He'd ask how he should use it or put it on himself later. Last but not least, he grabbed his leather jacket and put it on over the top of his suit. He decided, as he looked at himself in the mirror, that he looked like a very good superhero after all. Maybe he should have done superheroing in the first place? Then he might have avoided the... thing, that happened, maybe...

It was at this point that the siren started going off, startling Steve into a fit of shouting for a couple of seconds before he calmed down. However, because he knew that loud noises like that usually meant that something needed to be done, Steve promptly stumbled out of his room, and... and then... and then he didn't know what to do. Nobody had told him anything, and he wasn't sure where he needed to go. He thought extremely hard for a moment, then wondered if the walky-talky did have a map on it, because he'd asked the shiny small man whether he could have a map before. He pulled it off his belt, stared at it, then pressed a finger against the screen, pulling it back as it started to glow, with symbols that... he didn't know what the symbols were. He wanted to figure out what to do, so he didn't look like he was too silly, but he also wanted to try and figure out what to do without being told, which was obviously a difficult task for him even with quite simple things, and this combination alongside the repetitive loud noise was starting to cause Steve a lot of stress. Umming and ahhing to himself to make it seem like he was in deep thought if anyone passed by, and to stop himself from freaking out too much, he started to press random buttons on the communicator, hoping that one of them would eventually open a map he could follow around the building.

Angstbomb surveyed his quarters after he was suitably satisfied with his appearance. He moved over the black, simple metal desk that he had been provided and sat down. Then he fished out a a black orb out of his pocket and pressed a single blue button ontop of the orb. It hummed to life and glowed, rising from the palm of his hand to float mid air, slightly above the right end of the desk. Then it projected a holographic image of Anduyel and two other similar fey.

"Look Enwen, Alreyn. I am doing it. I am not gonna allow the Matriachs madness taint my life" He leaned back and closed his eyes. Feeling suddenly tired, darkness crept up over him. He awoke to the blaring noise of a siren. He rushed out the door only to collide with someone.

"OOF!" He let out a grunt as he fell back onto his ass. He glared towards the other individual whom he recognized as Phaidra. She was the only one who dressed remotely like him, and thus she was the only one worth noting. His mind raced. He didn't want to start a conflict, but he had the social skills of a emotionally crippled sloth at the moment. He winced and tried, affixing the most fake smile to ever grace a face.

"Nice boots. Phai right?"

Phai had elected to not leave her room until she was told she had to do otherwise. It was small, poorly lit decent but still sketchy, and she was already quite fond of it. It was her very own cave. Phai pulled out her earphones and settled back onto her bed, happy to spend the rest of her free time listening to her favorite bands seriously abuse their falsetto powers. Just as she’d finally chosen the song with the proper (dark, deep, and troubled) emotions a loud alarm went off. Phai jolted upright, cursed a bit for good measure, and glared at the ceiling. They could have just used their freaking com system, no need to go all death-to-your-eardrums.

Except, maybe it was a good idea to use the alarm not the com, because that thing was, as she was quickly discovering, horribly confusing. Phai glared at it and fiddled with the thing as she stalked out of her room. The alarm was telling her to go to the hangar but she had no clue where that was. The device was supposed have hologram whatnot that could tell her where to go, but the way to activate that function had eluded her so far. Just as she was about to resort to throwing the tech at the wall to see if that’d jumpstart it Phai was stopped by a head on collision.

“Seriously?!”, She glared at the person who’d run into her, causing her to topple over in the process. The dude had paler skin than her own and his clothes were pleasingly gothic. Had he not just run into her like an idiot she would have been inclined to like him from the get go. But now-
okay. He complimented her boots, all was forgiven.

That said, she still had her pride, so she took a moment longer to glare at him before she responded tersely, “Thanks. Yeah, I’m Phai, or Phaidra, or Variant, whichever you prefer. You’re the Angstman right?” Phai held up her seemingly non-functional com, “You know how to work this shit?”

"You press the red button..." Anduyel said while deadpanning. He showed her, clicking his own comlink. It buzzed to life. "And then you tweak the volume with the blue slider thing." He showed her that to. "And It is Angstbomb. But my real name Anduyel. Most call me Andy." He explained as he got up to his feet once. He helped her up as well, extending a hand for her to grab onto.

Phai grabbed onto Andy's hand, using the leverage to climb to her feet. Okay so when he said it like that it seemed kind of...simple. But still, no way she could have known that from the get go and and it still didn't explain how to work the holomap."Thanks again, but I'm more interested in figuring out the map function, based on the alarm and the rather loud voice I think we're supposed to be going to the hanger."

"Right. Uh. Hold on. I think i know. 'Show holo-map'" He said into his compiece, only to realize to late that the little blue light was a projector. The holomap flashed right into his eyes. A searing, angry pain like he just stared into a small sun shot trough his eye. He flailed, closing his eyes "HOLOMAP OFF, HOLOMAP OFF!" It died down. "Ok. Let's pretend that didn't happen." He grumbled as he leaned against the wall. Flipping the little projector part of it outwards, he tried once more. This time his voice was a hint less eager. "Show holomap." It beamed up infront of them, their current path and the Hangar highlighted.

"I'm no tech guy. But it seems a you do most thing by voice command."

Phai smirked and raised an eyebrow at the spectacle she’d just witnessed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems to me you’re a regular Edison.”

Phai looked over the map in front of them, “A’ight, seems simple enough. Let’s go.” Sticking her hand in hands in her pockets she started off down the hallway, turning around to chat and walk as she did so.
okay, so the collision may have been her fault as well, but whatever.

“So what’s your deal? Power and species-wise that is?”

"I am a former warrior of Niffleheim. A dark elf." He said as he kept pace with her. "As for my power." He scrunched up his face as he channeled some of his feelings into the ball that appeared in his palm. He felt the crackle of power as anguish and pessimism coiled like dark tendrils from his very core. "I channel despair and negative energy" He said as the ball grew to the size of a handball.

Phai paused, blinked a few times, and looked at the elf incredulously, “You… channel bad vibes into orbs o’doom, and your super name is Angstbomb?” Phai let out a short laugh, “Well all right, that’s decently kick-butt.”

The dude was an elf, a dark one not some dopey forest protector or santa helper thank god, so Phai felt pretty comfy telling him her power. The Collins rep wasn’t really crossing dimensional boundaries. “I can muck around with gravity, but no demonstrations will be happening because the cool down time’s a bitch.”

Phai paused for a few moments, thinking about what they’d each said, “So, your fighting is fuelled by the darkness of your emotions, and my goal in life is to make a black hole. Man, the rest of the goths out there can give up and go home, we pretty much win at this.”

"What... Is a goth?" Angsbomb blinked. "I like the way it rolls of the tongue.."

"Right," Phai laughed, "You wouldn't get that reference. Goths are basically peeps that dress in dark clothes. Plus there's some awesome music to go with the movement, I'll play you some when we don't have a mission to go on."

"I see." 'Andy' murmured as they rounded the corner and headed down the stairs to the hangar. Once inside it, he marvelled at the site of it all. "Our benefactir sure didn't hold anything back when he constructed this place"

"No, he most certainly did not. Let's just hope it's all above ground, I mean, seems like he's trying to do a good thing but this is Dodgeville." Phai stuck her hand hands in her pockets and slouched a little bit more than she had been, "Looks like labcoat and ratman are already here."

"Ah yes. So they are." The elven invader took a similair, slouched pose as he leaned against the wall, affixing a nonchalant, brooding look. IT came natural to him. "Glasses girl, rat person!" He raised his voice to get their attention.

Jessica couldn't help but be offended.

"A collar?" she asked as she stood in her room, staring at the thing on her bed. "A collar?" Part of her understood that surely Mr. Merlovich didn't intend any sort of offense by presenting this, but that didn't help much. She figured a collar meant a lot of things:

• 1. It implied ownership.
• 2. It suggested the wearer was less than human.
• 3. Cats wear collars. Cats are awful.

Jessica certainly wasn't a cat, and she didn't think she was awful. She also didn't consider herself less than human, but rather a sentient biological entity with intelligence equivalent to that of above-standard humans and also a lot more kickassness. Really, how many humans could claim to have such awesome teeth? And finally, she definitely did not consider herself owned by Mr. Merlovich or anyone else for that matter. No. Jessica was Jessica, and Jessica was a free genetically-enhanced clone with raptor DNA.

The tall woman rubbed her forehead for not the last time as she tried to decide what to do about this. Raptora's instincts told her to go straight to the source and start a conversation with Mr. Merlovich (or eat him; but she ignored that part of her instincts). He seemed reasonable, and he had what seemed like infinite wealth, so the chances were good that he'd make the change for her. In fact -

And that was when the sirens started to shriek. Jessica was glad for once not to be in her raptor form. She knew that would have hurt in her raptor form.

Jessica started bolting for the door, then quickly stopped, grabbed the collar, and slapped it on about her neck. She immediately felt a pang of regret for doing so, reminded distinctly of the mind-controlling collar Capitão Caos had used to turn her into a mindless battle slave. It also reminded her of the electric death switches built into this collars. She sincerely hoped this new collar had neither of those abilities.

She had already transformed into her raptor form and started dashing down the hall when she first spotted a very confused looking Steve. It took her a couple microseconds to remember who he was: Steve, the stitched fellow whose reduced reaction times and child-like responses seemed to suggest he possessed some sort of mental disability. Another couple microseconds later and Jessica observed just why he was confused: he was messing with his own Slight Heroics logo communicator, trying to figure out how it worked. He wasn't succeeding.

Always the helpful woman, Raptora jumped in front of him and started to explain, "Don't worry about that just yet. Just follow me to-" And that was when she started to see that same shock and fear spread across his face as earlier.

The information clicked. He's afraid of me, Jessica understood. Somehow, that hit her harder than any punch.

The raptor's form shivered and shook, and her body twisted and bent like before. She popped back a moment later in her human form, holding her hand out and smiling encouragingly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm Jessica. Come on. I know where to go; I memorized the map."

With that, Jessica started leading Steve off to the hangar, pushing unhappy thoughts out of her head. She focused on the superheroism she was about to take part in, and it was going to be awesome.

Brick awoke to the blaring, introduing noise of sirens. HIs head felt like a melon being beset with a sledgehammer. His eyes slowly widened in to fullness, alertness suddenly overtaking the pain of a bad hangoever. He felt like throwing up, his eyes were as red as the brickcolored bonepotrusions that adorned his skull. He stumbled out of bed, narrowly dodging a full face plant as he catched himself last second. Groaning, he heaved himself up from the floor like a man doing his hundreth pushup in a row.

"What's... with.... the noise" He muttered as he hurridly got dressed. His clothes were formfitting, the padded outfit hugging his alien, muscular form rather well. He grunted as he had some trouble pulling on the shoes, almost tipping over as he did. Pushing out onto the corridor as a ma- a alien with a purpose, he began to follow the holo map. His mind wanted to tell him to go back to bed. But his alien metabolism was allready coming to terms all the alcohol he had consumed and his head was getting clearer by the second. By the time he reached the hangar, he waved at the other present.

"Oh. I see I am one of the last to arrive?"

..................

The Hangar as it was. Was huge. Cavernous and domed, one had to crane their neck to look at the uppermost point of the ceiling. It was clear they were rather deep underground for it to have this much space. The hangar itself was relatively empty. Some men and women walked around and checked on varius machines, crates and other assorted things that littered the hangar floor. IT was clear that the hangar was finished very recently. At the farthest end of the massive hangar, was a long dark tunnel, wide enough to fit a boing if they needed. As Brick looked its way, light began to blink in sequence up the tunnel and back. And then a what looked like a blue and white stealth bomber came rolling down the tunnel. As if on que, Merlovichs voice was heard from behind Brick. This startled the alien who stumbled away from the CEO.

"A beuty eh? I give you the White Wing. My latest invention. A fully steath capable, compact jet made for tactical troop deployment. It will take you to where you need to go whenver we need you on a mission fast like. Like now." The jet as it were, was about the size of a a smaller private yet. Only instead of being a long tube with big wings, it was one big wing shape.

"Now, Before you go on to fly with Slight Heroics Airlines~~ Let me congratulate on pulling of the uniform look splendidly!" He clapped his hands together excitedly. "Now. We have two situations occuring simultaneusly. Brick, Raptora, Grunt, RED and... Gutter. You will be answering a distress call from a ally of ours. The Mechanic is currently under unknown duress.Find out what is going on, and help her anyway you can. Mechanic is a bright girl, and rubbed elbows with some of the more extrodinarie and outlandish beings out there. Your appearences should not be to much of a problem for her."

"Mirage, Junkyard, Skillshot, Variant, Angstbomb, Calculus. There is a robbery underway. Contain and apprehend. But make sure to priotize the safety of hostages and civilians. Any questions?"

For the most part, the sirens hadn't lit a fire under Cody's ass. In fact, he was damn frustrated by them, and begrudgingly threw on his bomber jacket over his new uniform. Though he was moving slower than molasses he was confident that the emergency would still be there when he arrived. He took a few moments to appreciate the shine on his new boots, which would surely soon be dragged through mud, or alien entrails, or nuclear snow, or something worse. Taking a deep and calming breath seemed to help as he finally entered the cavernous hangar. He looked around. As far as he could tell, he wasn't the only person missing, meaning a few other stragglers would surely show up after him. Cody almost chalked the raptor girl up as late, but realized that she had simply assumed her human form. That led him to an interesting riddle. Which was the true form and which the mutation? It was a classic case of whether the cretaceous chicken came before the fleshy egg-carrier.

He realized Merlovich was talking, but paid him no mind until he began to assign teams. Carefree as he was, he didn't want to be the lost fieldtrip kid who goes with the wrong group, ends up in the women's room, and is pummeled by made-up ladies in pumps. No, he'd never go through that again. So, he waited. The bulky ones were grouped together, sent out on a vague mission for someone called The Mechanic. "Unknown duress" could be anything from a hostage crisis to the phones lines going down and he was glad he was sent on a task with clear direction. Robbers and civilians. Stop one, save the others. He knew he'd be an invaluable asset to the team if only for his forcefields. If a sticky situation arose, he could easily stand between some of the sitting ducks and a few bullets.

That gave him pause. He didn't know much about the others on his team, seeing as they didn't so much wear their powers on their sleeves. He already had a strong dislike of Variant and her shit attitude. A stuck-up cynical little princess she may be, but he hoped her attitude could be backed up by a useful powerset. Hearing the name Calculus, he knew his was right about his assumption regarding the girl he'd encouraged earlier. She was skilled in maths, apparently, meaning her forte would be more theoretical, such as knowing the right angle to shoot one of his balls if he wanted to ricochet and hit something out of a criminal's hand. She came with the right team, then. Strategy and delicate calculations don't seem like the Bruise Crew's thing. He'd already figured out Mirage before Merlovich gave her a name. Magician's assistant til the day she'd die, that one. Junkyard... he admitted to having completely overlooked him the first time around. He hoped he could control metal and that he wasn't just one of those guys who makes cannons out of cathode ray tubes. Last but not least was the string-bean sob-queen. Angstbomb's cape name was so painfully on the nose that Cody prayed his power wasn't making others feel his existential dread and exaggerated ennui.

He was panicking now, ever so slightly. They had no battering ram. It was a bunch of tactically minded ranged folks or so it seemed. They'd need surgical precision to end the conflict from afar.

Clapping Angstbomb on the shoulder, he decided to be the positive one, "This'll be fun, huh? Nothing quite brings people together like protecting civilians and cuffing lowlifes." His grin was pretty fake. He didn't know why he bothered. All his life he'd been pleasant, but never really the ray of sunshine he was pretending to be, not since, well... the blonde turned to Calculus next, "Were you nervous earlier today because you hadn't gotten in a lot of superheroic practice with your skills? Don't worry about that. If you just tell me where to aim, we'll clear the place out." To demonstrate, he formed a small ball and shot it like a marble at the floor, watching with pleasure as it rebounded and leaped back into his hand.

Then, an actual question occurred to him. "Merlovich," he started, "We're going two different places, right? Are we both taking the White Wing? What's that seating arrangement gonna look like?" He envisioned carpooling, grade-school style. Carpooling plus a drunk alien, a Frankenstein's monster, a raptor, a rat with clothes, a mopey elf, a math genius, a clumsy Mattel toy, a vaudevillian magician, a dour nihilist, a scrappy mechanic-type, and, well, himself? He felt carsick.

Steve, having been pre-occupied with trying to get his communicator to show him the map, was not aware of the presence of the giant dinosaur from earlier until it leapt right in front of him. It took him half a moment to process this, but once he did, he found himself nearly-paralysed with fear, because there was no table that it had to go around this time that he could get a head-start on it with if he needed to, and also it was right next to him where did it even come from.

He might have tried to punch the dinosaur then, if it hadn't done something almost as shocking by turning back into a person. He half-recalled that this was one of the weird-looking people from the meeting, and that the dinosaur had been a person at the table before they turned into a dinosaur... was the dinosaur also this weird-looking person? He was too scared that the dinosaur might come back and turn out to want to eat him to think this over very much, and as a result, he remained dead silent for the entire trip from his room to the Hangar, his expression switching between concern, fear and shock multiple times.

It finally locked into awe when he saw the awesome aeroplane. It was amazing and shiny, and it had blue and white on it, and it was really big and shiny, and Mister Kadun was saying a lot of long words that Steve didn't understand to describe the plane which clearly meant it was awesome and cool and shiny and stuff, and long story short, he was exceptionally impressed with the jet. He only started really listening to Merlovich again when he heard the word "Grunt", which he knew was his own superhero name; 'I'm Steve!' was uttered in response to that, and afterwards, he managed to gather that him and four of the other people in the room were going to go and help another superhero, who sounded like they were very famous if they were able to call in new heroes that easily. He wondered why they needed his help, since he had just started to be a hero, but he gradually decided that if he was going to be a hero, then he needed to do things like help better heroes first, and maybe he would end up being the hero who got other heroes to help him some day. Maybe... but for now, he needed to help the other hero. That thought set in his mind, he began ambling over to the awesome plane, ready to get into it and go to the place he needed to go.

The rest of the menagerie seemed to take forever to arrive, forcing Cass to spend agonizing moments wondering whether to pipe up and start a conversation. In the end, she took the easy way out, staring off into space as she rode out the awkward silence. When someone finally did pipe up- the handsome elf, who appeared to have hooked up with a similarly surly young woman -it was even worse: they'd already decided to call her 'glasses girl.' Usually it took at least a day or two for someone to stick her with that nickname.

Luckily, before she could bleat out some cringey greeting of her own, the alien guy showed up, followed quickly by Merlovich and his fancy airplane. Calculus's face seemed to light up as she saw the machine, her eyes sweeping over every visible detail, widening a little more with every moment as she took in the design, the aesthetics, the sheer cost of actually building the damn thing, and the fact that she would now get to ride around in it at insane speeds. Maybe he'd even let her learn to fly it, if she explained what she could do with such a powerful thing...

Her attention quickly shifted back to Kaden as he uttered her 'hero' name, along with a list of others and a job they were supposed to do. Immediately, her face lost all its excitement, along with any hint of other emotion. Shit. Not only did she have to go and stop a robbery- a robbery with hostages, which meant guns, which meant fighting followed shortly by her funeral -but they'd put her on the team with all the other wimps. So not only was Calculus being sent straight into a terrifyingly dangerous situation with orders that amounted to 'fix it,' she was going without any of those bullet-tanking hulks who might've been able to actually handle the situation. Shiiiiit.

Barely breathing at all, she stumbled slightly towards the plane, resigned to her fate, when the kind man from earlier started speaking to her. When Merlovich listed their names, she'd quickly noted which was which, and now knew this guy to be Skillshot. Maybe his power was being super good at shooting things, then? His next words seemed to confirm this, and visibly cheered her up a little, as she breathed out in relief and stood up in a vague imitation of confidence. "I... can do that. I think." Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. This guy could just set himself up with a sniper rifle hundreds of meters away from the action, and then she'd point out targets until all the bad guys were dead and the team could all go home without getting shot!

Then he demonstrated that his power was throwing marbles. Hopefully, he missed the look of utter horror on Cass's face as her last hopes of survival were dashed.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Walking as if in a daze, she made her way towards the plane. She'd already figured out where to sit for the best odds of survival in a crash, but there wasn't really any point in that any more, was there? She felt numb, almost as if she were dead already. Why couldn't the damn billionaire have sent them to go rescue lost cats, or at least do something that didn't involve them all getting slaughtered? Maybe she ought to just quit now, and take her chances. Except then, nobody else would hire her, and she'd likely end up homeless. At least it would be marginally better to go out with a bang.

Behind her, Cass heard Skillshot talking again, asking whether they should all take the plane if they were heading to two different places. Come to think of it, how did one get to a crime scene on a plane? They were in a city, it wasn't like there were places to land a jet everywhere...

Then she remembered what Merlovich had said earlier, as he showed off his fancy wing-jet. 'Tactical troop deployment.' In the current context, that sounded a lot like 'I'm going to drop you out of a freaking plane onto a building full of armed criminals.'

SHI-
...
...
...
Crap.

Gutter's ears and tail twitched a little in the strange human's direction at the call of Rat Person. Sure, it was what he was and there was no denying that, but it implied that the manthing didn't consider him worthy enough to have his name remembered. "Gutter's name is Gutter sickly manthing." Gutter muttered darkly as he glanced in the direction of the two members of their team that seemed to be fatally attracted to black make up. Glancing towards 'glasses girl', Gutter offered her a small nod of his head in acknowledgement; Silly looking manthings in black should take the time to learn their names after all.

Shortly afterwards the meeting got underway and their missions were offered to them, teams being set up shortly afterwards. Gutter ears started to twitch a little bit once more as he started to bite at a part of his arm that was itchy in thought while he considered the team build up and the missions that both teams would be sent on... Considering his own skill set, Gutter removed the arm from his mouth in order to speak up to converse with their benefactor "Mr Merlovich, Gutter would like to swap places with Variant. Team Mechanic could use a magic user while Team Bank could benefit from having more sneaky-sneak on their team. Less dead hostages."

@Hellis@Turnaround Amy