May 3rd, The New Athens Banking Company

Jen paused for a second whilst she was climbing down, the sounds of crashes echoing up the elevator shaft from a few floors below. Apparently someone was trying to find her. She landed on the entrance to the floor above this, the third floor, preparing herself for whatever was about to happen. She cracked the door open and peeked out, waiting to see what was happening.

"Ta-ma-de!", Jiao swore, kicking another water-soaked desk over, frightened office workers scrambling away, into corners of the room. Tapping on his earpiece, he grunted to his boss. "Wo-bu-kan-dao."

"Keep looking. If you see nothing, move to the next floor", Gunrat ordered from below.

Jiao glanced around, giving the floor a final once-over, his rifle still nocked in his shoulder. The sprinklers continued pelting his face with water. With no sign of the target, he shuffled back to the stairwell, and stormed his way up to the third floor. Bursting through, again encountering office-space seperated by hallways, he began his sweep.

Jen's eyes flitted over the man who had just burst through the door, noticing the rifle and combat gear he was wearing.
Professional military by the looks of the armour, but the rifle is too old.

"So it's an elite branch", she thought to herself.

She held her breath, waiting for him to draw closer. Jiao continued to search the room, occasionally kicking over a desk, slowly making his way closer to the doors. When he was just outside them, Jen fired a shockwave forwards, blasting the doors open and shoving Jiao backwards into the desk behind him. She rushed forwards, grabbing his gun as he raised it and aiming it at the wall.

Jiao reflexively clamped his finger down on the trigger, sending a spray of bullets into the wall behind Jen. With the clip spent, Jiao felt safe to let go of the gun, and swung his fist around. She reacted quickly, extending a field from her hand to block her face. Jiao's hand connected with the field with an unpleasant crunch.

"Ta-ma-de!", he shouted in pain, rolling over the table, away from his opponent. As she tossed the gun aside, and prepared to send another shockwave his direction, he tapped his earpiece again.

"Ta-you-jia!" he shouted, as a second shockwave knocked him back again.

Two levels below, Gunrat jumped at the loud message.

"Armour?", Xiu mumbled to herself. "She has... armour?"

Gunrat holstered her pistols, drew out her armour-piercing rifle, and began skulking up the stairwell.

Springing from the ground, into a kneeling position, Jiao pulled a pistol. Seeing the weapon, Jen took a swing to knock it from his hand. She succeeded, but he managed to get a shot off first. As the pistol flew from his hands, a spike of pain radiated from her right shoulder. She recoiled from the shock.

Jiao took this moment of hesitation to lunge toward his pistol.

Wrapping his fingers around it again, he felt a force form beneath him, as he was lifted into the air. He fired another shot off, clipping her ear. She flinched, and sent him flying up, through the ceiling tiles. He struck the concrete floor above, and came tumbling back down landing painfully on the floor.

Face-down on the ground, Jiao let out a roar of anger. He sprung back onto his feet, and sprinted at his target. As she took a left swing, he dropped to the floor, dodging the attack. He jumped back up, and aimed a kick at her gut. It connected!

Jen stumbled backward with a deep groan, as Jiao continued his approach. He took another swing, but she tripped him with her field before it could connect. He fell to the floor and she threw another shockwave at him, sending him tumbling across the floor, into the corner of the room. As he again sprang to his feet, and attempted to circle around him yet again, she flung a desk at him. He attempted to duck out of the way, but it struck him in the head, and both he and the desk went tumbling through an office window.

Stunned from the impact, he tumbled down, among broken glass, to the street below.

Xiu reached the floor, just in time to hear the screaming and shattering glass. Bursting through the stairwell door, she saw the scene before her. A blue-haired woman panting heavily, and wind blowing in through the broken window. As far as Xiu knew, her partner was dead. Gunrat's training kicked in.

Jen turned around at the sound of the opening door, but, before she had time to use her powers, Gunrat had already taken aim.

"Mark", she hissed to her telekinetic target, firing a quick shot.

As Jen dodged to the side, the large bullet tore through her left arm. Jen recoiled in pain, and thrust a wave of force at Gunrat. Flying back, into the metal door she had just entered from, Xiu let out a grunt, as a wave of pain radiated up her back. She hoped nothing was broken. Tossing her rifle to the side, she sprang off the wall at her target, a look of pure rage in her eyes.

Jen swung low at her attacker with her right arm, attempting to trip Gunrat, but Xiu leaped over the telekinetic strike. Landing on her feet, she swung her left arm around, striking at Jen's weakened side. Her metal-plated forearm collided solidly with Jen's head, sending her tumbling over. Jen fell to the ground with a thump. As Gunrat bore over her, attempting to land a knockout strike, Jen swung her right arm again, tossing Gunrat into the air. With a thump of her own, Xiu landed on her side. Lifting herself up, she saw Dissonance scrambling to her feet, running to the open elevator shaft. She rose up and gave chase.

Jen jumped forward, grabbing the elevator cables with her one good hand, and slid down. They were only two stories up. Once she reached the ground, she could run. She did what she came there for anyway, all she had to do now was escape.

Gunrat lunged forward, and grabbed hold of the elevator cables too. Her target was nearly at the bottom.

"Ay-ya!", Xiu shouted to herself, thinking quickly, she let go of the rope...

Dissonance's feet hit the ground, and she swung her hand forward, smashing the elevator doors open.

She took one forward and *SLAM*

From two floors up, Gunrat landed on her target, slamming Dissonance into the floor of the elevator shaft with her metallic shins.

Laying on top of Jen, she reached her arm around and checked the girl's pulse. She was alive. She put her hand over Jen's nose. She was breathing. Gunrat attempted to get up, but pain shot up her left leg, and through her back.

"Damn. Guess she didn't completely break my full.", Xiu murmured to herself.

Moments later, the SWAT team came in, their guns pointed directly at Gunrat.

"You're welcome to arrest me, boys, but you should know that my leg's broken. Would you be so kind, and carry me? And be careful with her. From how it sounded when I landed on her, a lot of things are broken."

An police-supervised trip to the emergency room, and a couple hours of interrogation later, Gunrat was free to go. Both Jiao and Dissonance were alive, but they would likely be spending a little more time in the hospital. When Jiao was ready, Gunrat knew who to call to get him off the hook. Dissonance would be in jail for a long time. Meanwhile, Xiu had to visit a doctor of her own, and get some more metal plating under her skin. Clearly, metal-plated shins weren't enough. She'd need metal on her femurs and kneecaps too, if she wanted to pull stunts like that again. X-rays also showed cracks in her vertebrae, which presented yet another problem.

---

May 12th, 10:00 AM

---

A basketball fell and bounced along the lavish carpet as Roland stirred from his rest in a bed that was far too big for him. As an act of good will, the American government had splashed out and set, Roland up in the most luxurious hotel in New Athens, The August Hotel. In all honesty, they could have put him in any hotel with a TV and beach access and he would have been equally happy, although he couldn't lie about how comfy the bed was, even if it was unnecessarily large.

He slid out of bed and headed to the shower. As strange as it sounds, Roland still had to shower. He could, in fact, get rid of the fishy smell in place of a nicer smelling odor, and began doing this daily after he received some less than nice reactions from the general public. Shortly after showering he got dressed and left the hotel.

Everyday he headed to the same place after waking up. 'Old Giuseppe's Pizzas'. This was, in fact, the very first building Roland had visited after surfacing, and the key selling point in his choice of staying in America. The familiar jingle of a wind chime rang through the air as Roland entered the business. He reached into his pocket, pulling out an old, musty leather wallet he had found on the side of a road one evening. The government gave him a monthly allowance, and he often helped the coast guard if he needed extra money or just had free time.

He struggled to see over the counter as per usual, but hopped up and slapped down a $5 bill on the counter as he spoke out his order.
"A single slice of pepperoni please!" He said eagerly, practically salivating in excitement. Giuseppe, a stocky elderly man with a balding head and a large black-greying moustache peered over the counter, a grin growing on his face as he knew the familiar blue creature had returned just like every other day.
"Trying new things, are we Roland?" He chuckled, grabbing his pizza peel and scooping up the last remaining slice of a pepperoni pizza and putting it in a small box.

A look of confusion spread across Roland's face as Giuseppe spoke. He got pepperoni every day, it was only on weekends that he tried new flavours and even then it was only at night
"Giuseppe I get this same flavour every day" He said, the confusion prevalent in his voice. Giuseppe let out a laugh, taking the note and putting change where it once was, before grabbing both it and the pizza box and handing it down to Roland, who eagerly took it.
"I know, kid, just teasing you." He explained.
"Oh, well thank you for the pizza!" Was all Roland retorted with, before turning and exiting the shop. He quickly opened the pizza box and dug into the slice inside. It had all the signs of a good day.

---

May 12th, 10:50PM

---

Roland patted his stomach after consuming his fifth slice of pizza that day. He sat with his legs dangling off of the pier overlooking the sea. He raised his scarf over his maw, it was time to get to work. He turned and hopped onto the wooden boards of the pier, not noticing the large green figure swaying underneath the waves behind him.

As quickly as Roland had hopped off of his perch, the waves parted and a large beast leapt out, diving towards Roland like a missile. Quickly, Roland spun and dived out of the way, unsheathing his daggers from his belt and staring at his enemy who was considerably taller than himself. The two stared each other down before a single grumble escaped the leviathan's mouth.
"Roy-al-ty"

He charged towards Roland, who, again rolled out of the way. He honestly had no idea who this beast was or why he was attacking him. He also had no idea how he was going to beat him. He made a plan quickly, a rather bad one with a lot of risk, but a plan nonetheless. The two ran at each other, but just before the beast could grab Roland he slipped underneath through the boardwalk before appearing behind the beast and leaping onto his back, stabbing him as many times as he could before he was promptly catapulted off into a nearby hotdog stand.

He tumbled to the ground in a mess of ketchup and relish, rolling to his feet Roland scanned the area for help, he wasn't going to come out of this unscathed, but some help would sure as hell save a few burger stands here or there.

May 13th, 10:30 am...

At the mountain fortress of STRIKE tension was high. Reports were coming in about an electrical monster ripping up the Mercury Mall, several aliens recently touching down on Earth, as well as the news on the fallen hero Liberty Son whom the press has labeled 'Darkstar.' Jon waited in an area outside of STRIKE's War Room. The room was designed for Level 3 access members and above to train using holo-droids and artificial scenery to mimic any type of situation. The Channel 11 morning news program was on, and for New Athens it was more like TMZ mixed with a damage/weather report for the area based on superhuman activity. A girl with the ability to control the weather had been causing thunderstorms recently.

"..and in other news, reports have come in regarding a possible plant creature roaming the woodland areas of New Athens. Here's field correspondent Pepper Patterson..."

"Lee Heights usually sees it's fair share of superhumans just like the rest of the city. The residents near the woodland Lee Heights community are sure of it. What they're describing as 'walking plants' and 'a tree person' is roaming the woods.



"I don't know what it was in those woods. It looked like walking plants. Not just a single thing... but like.. several plants shaping into a larger one." said the first young woman on the program



"It looked like a walking tree. With a bunch more plants just kinda hanging off of it. Had some vines or something coming out of it's head too. Like that Predator movie only with plants..."



"Even the children are sure what they've seen is some kind of plant. This is Pepper Patterson reporting..."

A couple of hotshot gunmen finally came out of the War Room. Gigas stood up from his seat and stopped watching the news when it got into the 'Superhumans Gone Wild' segment about superhumans in public bars and clubs. It felt like he'd been sitting in that seat for hours, but the men only took around ten minutes. Had Jon been watching through the windows into the War Room, he'd have seen the two men run through something like a Halo video game mixed with a Rainbow Six game. It was only Jon's third time at the War Room. The giant stadium was deep underground, hollowed out of the caves and mines deep beneath the surface of the Appalachians in New Athens. As Gigas, Jon could cut loose.

"War Room: Load Evil Voltron STRIKE scenario. Local park setting." Jon instructed verbally to the room's controls.

"Park setting 80% complete." voiced the control panel as the large stadium area came to life with trees, rock formations protruding out of the ground, and at least a half dozen civilian skins taking shape on holo-droids of various sizes. At least one child sized droid was among them. Seven more holo-droids came out and were obviously the one's that were to be Jon's enemies in the War Room.



The seven holo-droids came out in the form of something akin to a kid's Saturday morning cartoon and Gigas went at them like they were common thugs for hire. They had average hand to hand skills, which was mostly the reason Gigas was training. Soon after they contorted and shaped into a much larger droid resembling this. Jon created a giant twelve feet tall duplicate that followed through by grabbing his smaller self and tossing it at their roughly fifteen feet tall mechanical adversary.

~KL~

May 13, 4:30AM

In the wee hours of the morning in the 'Recording Room', a top secret research lab deep below STRIKE HQ, Dr. Eileen Fang was talking to her laboratory inventory management system (LIMS)/search algorithm.

"...to join STRIKE's superpowered taskforce! Me! Can you believe it?" Eileen giggled excitedly.

"It's not as if you didn't anticipate this," text appeared on a large screen, the words of ISRAFIL, the search algorithm Eileen created and named after the angel of divine music.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eileen pouted as she opened a vertical cylindrical storage unit, revealing the power suit she had prepared for just such an eventuality. "I wonder who else STRIKE has recruited? I find myself at a bit of a disadvantage here since STRIKE has kept all information of potential recruits under wraps, but if the recruit happens to already be a part of STRIKE, then as chief of R&D, they'll probably already know who I am already, but I won't know who they are."

"I suppose getting to know them through socializing would be out of the question," ISRAFIL retorted.

"Oh you cheeky thing! Who taught you to speak to your mother that way?" Eileen wagged her finger at the screen.

"My mother did."

"Hah! Touche. By the way, how's the chassis design coming along?" Eileen asked, changing the subject.

"I've been having difficulty as you might imagine."

"Why?"

"You told me to be 'artistic'. As a computer program, that isn't something that comes naturally."

"That's just a stereotype. 'Be who you wanna do,' I always say."

"You don't always say that, and that sentence doesn't make any sense."

"Semantics!" Eileen threw her hands up in exasperation, "That's all you programs care about."

"Isn't that a stereotype?"

"Hah!" Eileen laughed and clapped once, "You got me there. Alright then, how's the downloading of all available information from the the internet going?"

"Better than the chassis design."

"Good, just promise me you won't become a memelord."

"I'll try, but I can make no guarantees. Hopefully I won't 'set you up the bomb'.

"'All your base'? Wow. That one is OLD. Is that the best you can do?"

"'Brace yourselves, memes are coming'?"

"Alright, alright, that's enough out of you. I should really get some sleep before the sun rises. Especially if one of the old geezers asks me to sortie tomorrow. Should be interesting," Eileen headed out of the lab as all the lights dimmed, leaving ISRAFIL to itself. ISRAFIL went back to playing 'Program Darwinism', an environment Eileen had set up where program subroutines competed under different 'evolutionary pressures' in order to develop organically, efficiently, intelligently, optimally, innovatively, and synergistically. ISRAFIL was itself the first proven survivor of 'Program Darwinism' and has since become the collector of all programs that survive the environment, incorporating them into itself.

Eileen reached her living quarters and plopped onto her bed, still in her labcoat and immediately konked out, her last thoughts were ones of anticipation of her summons to the STRIKE task force.

May 13th, 10:37 am...

Gigas was trying to do the best he could with only one duplicate that stood twelve feet high. The fifteen foot tall composite battle droid made at tough as the smaller Gigas was trying to rip circuitry anywhere he could spot it. That's when Gigas remembered this wasn't just a game, and remembered the civilian holo-droids. The scenery looked and felt real and Jon could see three crowded civilians standing around another with a tree toppled over on his legs. Two other civilians were somewhere, one being the small child that Gigas saw spawned at the beginning of the training session. Letting go of the composite battle droid, Gigas laughed.

"You're in trouble now Voltron." said the original Gigas, before producing an eighteen feet tall duplicate to assist the twelve feet tall dupe.

Suddenly something came over the communications speaker inside the War Room...

"Mr. Marlowe, this is Imbricata from ADVASC division. Put your toys away, your assistance is required."

________________________________

Jon hadn't even made it to the first group of civilians, let alone find the missing two. He yelled aloud, not really knowing how the communications worked...

"I don't know what all of those letters mean ma'am, but I've still got six civilians to get to safe zones and another seven or eight minutes left in the session." he said kinda loud, in no real direction.

Finally, the original Jon had made it to the first group of civilians roughly eighty yards away from the rest of the battle. A man was on his stomach with both legs damaged from a tree falling. He'd likely have to be carried to the nearest safe zone, about thirty yards in any direction. Before he could instruct the other civilians after getting the tree of the last, two of them broke away claiming a woman was screaming about her child.

"Damn." Gigas said under his breath.

~KL~

May 12th, 10:54 pm

Luxe Evohldga'ma was half human, but she didn't care much for Earth. She hadn't been on the rock for very long before she tracked her bounty, a canister worth two million credits to the United Planets, into New Athens. Upon finding the container, she also found that what it held inside was beast made of pure energy. Jumping into a nearby powerline and bolting towards the greater metropolitan area of New Athens, Luxe aka Polaris tracked the energy monster to the mostly abandoned Mercury Mall.

"I hope the ship's cloaking device holds up while I'm away. One of these terrans touches my stuff and I'll..." she began saying to herself before noticing other alien bounty hunters engaged in combat with the creature. A security guard was hiding behind some debris and a turned over kiosk near the food court.

"Damn, these two beat me to the creature. Maybe that shrapnel in the river was their ship and I can still get a piece of the bounty getting them off-world." Polaris thought to herself surveying the landscape as the monster drew closer.



@Lord Wraith@Hillan

Allan Vicman

May 13th 11:00 a.m.

Today was just another day for Allan Vicman. He sat on the couch in his uncle's house eating cereal before getting ready to head out. He was watching the news as usual and almost nothing else. Jason his uncle walked by, smirked then shook his head. "Looking for a reason to be a hero today?"

Allan looked at him briefly and suppressed the urge to singe his arm. "Don't need to look to long out here. Its too early for me anyway."

Usually most morning dialogue between the two included annoyed looks, some words spoken and then "Later, get some beer on your way home." Being said to Allan. The last statement was always something Allan did no matter what dangerous activities he was involved in at night. Today was no exception as Jason was just finishing up and Allan waited until he got the car ready. Laptop on his right and duffle bag with his books and extra clothes on his left; Allan was just about ready to leave. They both had work and were out most of the day. Allan had class first then needed to leave for work while Jason just had a long work day. While they rarely get to really see each other Allan was still glad he knew someone in this city.

"Alright Vic get your stuff I'll be ready in a few."

"Got it."

New Athens, Midtown Thirty Minutes later

Jason pulled over his jeep as a few ambulances flew past. As the sirens flashed Allan's eyes lit up from the lights. The city wasn't a huge center for crime, but having a lot of superhumans here did make any crime that could take place potentially devastating. As the last truck went by they carried on.

"Hey try to get back early tonight alright. You don't really have to work today do you?"

"Whats wrong?" Allan asked while leaning against the door trying to get a little rest.

"Nothing just get home a little early."

"Bruh what's wrong?"

With a sigh Jason was getting ready to explain. It was obvious something series was happening soon. "Well some of the neighbors are starting to get a little worried. I know Mrs Anderson caught you as you were comin home that friday night."

"Shit about that..." Allan couldn't really say much actually. He wasn't too careful and a nice woman saw him with half his clothes burnt off and some blood on him. That was definitely not easy to explain. "Well she was sweet about it. Don't worry she won't say anything."

"I saw a patrol car driving down our street a little too often last night. I doubt she said anything to the cops but people aren't stupid. They notice weird shit so don't get caught. Your mother will kill me if you get into too much trouble."

The humor in Jason being less worried about the police and more on whether or not his mother will kill him almost caused Allan to start laughing uncontrollably. However, he knew how serious this was and simply nodded. "Ok ok big boy I'll be more careful. No wondering around like a damn zombie in the open for all the see."

"See I knew you were smart."

Chok-Lad

May 13th, 11:30 am

It had been a rough two days for Chok-Lad. With the loss of his best and only friend the monster from below went on a rampage through the sewers below resulting in a number of cave ins and quite a few buildings loosing the use of their 'facilities'. The next Day was less destructive but Chok-Lad was no less enraged, his chocolate exterior still scalding to the touch as he sat near a storm drain and feebly attempted to listen out for his lost companion to no avail.

After a few minutes Chok-Lad's rage began to spike once more as his thoughts returned to the moment that he realized that Picasso was gone. Chok-Lad began bashing walls once again to take his rage out on but he soon found this was not helping his temper and so he decided to direct his wrath to the surface. The monster burst from the street and began throwing around cars in a destructive temper tantrum of epic proportions. With a single swing of his amorphous arm, Chok-Lad sent a car flying towards a building.

Allan Vicman

"FUCK!" Jason shouted as a car flew right past the windshield and into the building near them. The car nearly crashed into incoming traffic in a panicked attempt to keep control of the vehicle in a now chaotic street. Allan grabbed a hold of the steering wheel right before the Jason nearly flipped the sedan over . It drifted onto the sidewalk and hit the side of an office building. The airbags activated immediately right as they crashed.

"YOU OK?" Allan shouted as Jason looked briefly delirious. The air bags and the impact nearly knocked him out but he was still conscious. He was barely able to stay focused on what happened while Allan tried to get a read on their situation.

"Wh-wh-what the FUCK!" Jason barely stammered out as he caught his breath trying to figure out what just happened. Allan grabbed his shoulders and looked Jason in the eyes.

"HEY! Take a few breaths and calm down!" Getting shot at and actually being hit by a few cars before made it easier for Allan to deal things like this. His uncle on the other hand was experiencing something Allan wanted to keep away from him. Luckily, Jason listened and was barely able to calm down at least enough to do more than hear a few words. "We need to go on foot right now! You hear me?"

Jason just nodded and got out the car with Allan as he grabbed his dufflebag. More than books there was at least some of his clothes for vigilante work in there. The street was clogged with cars trying to get past and people fleeing. As they both were moving away from the scene Allan wondered what the hell could've caused this. His question was answered when a monstrous creature straight out of a comic was in the street causing damage and chaos.

"What the hell is that?" Jason said spotting the monster just as Allan did. At this point Allan had a different priority. He looked at Jason who had some minor scrapes, but nothing to serious. The thing that was causing all the chaos was endangering more lives. His body was starting to feel as if it was on fire just watching as this creature was endangering more lives. Jason saw this and knew what was going to happen. He let out a sigh knowing Allan wasn't going to let this one go.

"I'll get out of here don't worry about me. Do what you need to do."

"Bu-"

"Get me that beer later!" Jason ran off as quickly as possible to avoid wasting anymore time. They both knew what was going to happen anyway, so Allan decided to focus on his new target. He didn't have time for the full outfit so he just his mask and put it on. He climbed on top of a SUV and started to let the flame flow through his body. With outstretched hands he shot a stream of fire towards the monster completely engulfing the creature.