Yikes, the Skunk? Badger? monochromatic girl hero got flung super high by the Almaniac. Like suuuuuuuper high. Aaron was torn between going after the villain or making sure that the girl landed safely. Aaron didn’t see anyone else moving to help her, so it looked like he had to take action. Vaulting himself upwards, using the few bookshelves that were still standing, Aaron leapt towards the airborne girl and- oh god this was a mistake. He may have underestimated the abilities of his Miraculous form. He knew that he got stronger but he didn’t think that he’d be this powerful. This jump was INSANE. Another really important thing he forgot to take into account, Aaron Meyer was very, VERY bad with heights. There were times where he could manage it in his civilian form, but his Miraculous form seemed to accentuate the vertigo he felt in high places. Must be an Armadillo thing.

Boy, it sure would be nice if we had a hero capable of flight to help with this situation right now, he thought bitterly, as he felt some seriously un-funky stuff build up in the pits of his stomach. His nausea and dislike of the Eagle Miraculous only grew the longer he hurtled though through the air.

Luckily he had calculated his trajectory well and caught the girl in his arms before landing safely on two feet. He hadn’t collided into her too roughly, which was another plus.

“Nice to finally catch up with you,” he grinned at her, trying to sound suave. It was a bit difficult to do so when he felt that he was going to barf on his boots at any second. He dropped the girl to her feet before addressing the others.

He was so caught up in the battle that he hadn’t properly examined the other Miraculous users who had arrived. Spider, Badger, Eagle (ugh), and the girl he had just caught, Raccoon. It was easier to tell now that he was safely on the ground. Good thing he hadn’t accidentally called her a skunk Miraculous in his frenzy. Another one, a Dragonfly it seemed, had entered during the latter part of the commotion.

"Sorry I'm late!" The Dragonfly guy stood with square shoulders, spoke with questionable confidence in his voice. "Let's not waste any time now! We should chase after her."

"As much as I can respect wanting to know your partners, I think we should save the rest of this for later.”

Aaron shook his head.

“The Almaniac barred the windows so we’ve got no idea where she went. She could be anywhere right now. What we need to do is regroup and assess our current situation.” Aaron spoke his mind, projecting confidence into his voice much like how the Dragonfly had attempted. It probably didn’t work considering how shaky he still was from the jump.

Action without thought wasn’t the way to go, no matter what Eagle Boy kept endorsing. They wouldn’t be getting anywhere if they didn’t have a plan or an idea of what they were dealing with. This included not just the Almaniac, or Ms O’Neil as she was apparently called, but also their Miraculous powers.

“I think we should start with introductions,” he jabbed his thumb to his chest, “My Miraculous is the Armadillo. And as for names, you can call me-“

Huh. The appearance of the villain was so sudden that he hadn’t even considered a superhero name. He thought on the spot. Armordillo? Armadrillo? PlateMan? He thought back to the research he had done on armadillos in the library, the book he had read before the book on Navajo antiques. It was a book on animals and their defensive evolutionary traits. He read about how armadillos had scutes, the plates on their back, but another thing that had caught his eye. Sclerites, the hardened body parts of invertebrates such as lobsters. The word “sclerites” was of Greek origin, something that reminded him of his late mother. And as for the original word…

Aaron smiled.

“You can call me Skleros. It’s Greek for “hard”, referring to the armor on my back. As you can probably infer-” Ooh, “infer”, that was a fancy word- “the Armadillo Miraculous specialises in defence.”

“Hawky Harry is right though, we need to work on freeing the students. Someone who’s small enough to fit in the vents should help him out with the escape route.”

Skleros’ back armor and his general lankiness wouldn’t help with the vents.

Corrine had been watching as the other costumed folks joined the confrontation, when the chaos suddenly stopped. Then it begun anew, and the woman had turned her piercing red eyes to Corrine and flung her arm out. Corrine didn't have time to think before she was sailing through the air, away from the group. She closed her eyes and braced herself. Oh god, was this how she was going to die? Being flung at high speeds into a bookcase by a crazy librarian? Her first day of being a superhero and she was in mortal danger? Any thoughts of librarians and death were cut short as she felt herself being caught in someones arms. Wait, what? She slowly opened her eyes and looked up to see who had caught her. Oh, it was the armadillo boy. That was unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome. Being caught by handsome boys is definitely better then crashing into bookcases...

“Nice to finally catch up with you,” he said and grinned at her.

Oh crap, he was speaking to her! "Uh, um, yeah" She stammered out, feeling her face heat up. "Smooth Corrine, real smooth." She thought, scolding herself internally.

After being set onto her feet, she turned back to the others to see what damage had been done. The heroes she had seen before were all standing around, plus another one. This one seemed to be dragonfly themed from what she could see. That meant there were six of them all together in the library. Herself, Spider, Badger, Dragonfly, Armadillo and Eagle.

“The Almaniac barred the windows so we’ve got no idea where she went. She could be anywhere right now. What we need to do is regroup and assess our current situation.”

Corrine looked towards the windows to confirm. Indeed, the windows were completely inaccessible, as were the doors and the Almaniac was nowhere to be seen. Well, she doubted a floating, rampaging librarian would be hard to find. She turned back to the group and watched as the boy who had caught her stepped forward and introduced himself. Skleros, huh? That's clever. Corrine stepped forward, ready to introduce herself.

"I have the Raccoon Miraculous. My name is..." Hmm. She hadn't had time to think of that. What name had to do with raccoons... She ran what she knew about them through her head. Striped. Colorblind. Sneaky. Nocturnal. Nocturnal... Nocturne! There, that sounded perfect. "Nocturne. I suppose my specialty would be stealth. It's a pleasure to meet you all." She added out of habit.

She glanced towards the eagle boy, Talon, as he spoke and uncomfortably shifted away from him. She didn't like the way he was looking at her and the other two girls, it felt creepy. The last thing she wanted was to give away her identity, especially to a pervert like him.

"I don't really think that's necessary. No offense, but all of us have just met each other, and I don't feel comfortable giving out my information. I don't need to put my loved ones in danger like that."

In hindsight, things could have gone a lot better. Much, much better.

The air was still for a brief moment as the Almaniac ceased her attack. Then, like a sudden storm, absolute chaos. Books whipped around at high speeds, several Quinn had to block with her sheild to avoid a first class ticket to the hospital. Someone, a Dragonfly Miraculous user by the looks of it, rushed towards the fray. Meanwhile, the Racoon looking girl was thrown high in the air by the cackling librarian. Yup. Definitely could've been better.

Quinn grimaced as the girl soared through the air, expecting her to land like a cracked egg. Instead, the boy with the armored behind managed to caught her with a smoothness that would've caused even James Bond to whistle in admiration. Quinn cracked a small grin. He'd have to teach her a few tricks. Er, after this whole librarian situation, of course. Speaking of which...

She glanced at the window the Almaniac had flown through and groaned at the barricade of tables. So much for hoping that she'd finish lunch in time. The defensive line was too thick to sneak through, and it'd take too much time methodically removing each table. Enough time for the Almaniac to spread even more chaos and destruction. She turned back to the group. For now, at least, she might as well get to know the rest of her mysterious teammates.

"The name's..." She paused. Nocturne. Skleros. Talon. Both names were cool and fitting. She had to think of something cooler, something that was unique, something like..."Bold Badger," In that moment, Quinn felt anything but bold. She was an artist, not a name-giving-person-worker. Still, at least she hadn't called herself 'Stripey' or, Heaven forbid, 'Shieldy'. Bold Badger. It was simple enough. Yeah...maybe it wasn't so bad after all. "I've got the Badger Miraculous, if you couldn't already tell."

Her cheeks flushed as she noticed Talon staring. "Hey, buddy!" She lightly bonked him on the head with her sheild, indignation clear in her eyes. "Eyes are up here." She crossed her arms, looking over the other users. They were like her. Some could even be going to her school, or even living in her neighborhood. Still, she wasn't quite ready to reveal herself. There was safety in her secrecy, and she was determined to keep it. "I already told you who I am. You don't need to know what lies beneath the mask."

She walked towards the vents, peering into the darkness beyond the bars. Before, she would have seen nothing but pure dark nothing and felt the soft blow of the AC. But now, as Quinn placed her hand on the vent and closed her eyes, something was different. She couldn't just see where the vent led to. She could feel it. She could feel the smallest shudder of machinery in the metal walls, and the faintest brush of air pushing and flowing in the tunnels. The faintest ripple, easily collected by her newly heightened senses. Her eyes snapped open. "I can lead the students out," she offered. For once, Quinn's small, narrow stature was actually helpful. She carefully unscrewed the vent covers with her the sharpened end of her gloves and turned to the freed students with a wide smile. "Alright, kids, who's ready to skip school?"

Nancy was happy for a moment when Almaniac seemed to calm down, because that would mean Nancy could stop being a hero, at least for now. But no, that wasn't what fate had in mind it seemed as Almaniac opened her eyes again, looking even eviler now. And she was also going back to doing evil things as one of her first moves was to launch the girl with the whip into the air before making her great escape with the books. Nancy tried to lasso her with her web string (because chasing her outside would be very annoying) but all she got was some books. Well at least she managed to save some of the books right...ugh.

And with that, Almaniac managed to fly out of the window and leaving them barricaded in with the tables over the windows and the doors shut. So not only did they have to worry about chasing her down, but they would have to find a way out first, well at least the girl that had gotten sent flying got caught before she could get hurt so that was good. But still, this whole hero thing was sounding less and less appealing...Well at least they had another hero show up, so maybe that would be less work, or not, who knew.

Then they all started to talk with one another, and the eagle dude decided he was going to try and step up and try to be the boss. Nancy was pretty sure teamwork was important, but she wasn't about to just follow some guy who decided he was going to be the red power ranger all of a sudden. Though she did help free some of the students that were trapped. Just because she was starting to dislike someone didn't mean that she would just leave others to be trapped. Once that was done, roll call started. Nancy took in all the names that were given and she was one of the last ones to say her hero name.

"Okay um, I got a spider theme going on and my name is...let's see...I'll probably be sued or something if I go with spider girl...You can call me Spinstress" It sounded like a good name at first...till Nancy remembered what people usually refer to when they say that. Ah well, she was too lazy to change it and she wasn't going to ask the guy who was ogling her and the other girls for name suggestions. "As for who we are underneath our masks, I would rather not mix my now two lives. That, and we're surrounded by people who are not heroes." She added as she gestured to all the people they just freed who were staring at all of them. Did Talon think they all would just ignore what they would say or something?

Anyways, soon after Bold Badger (Nancy got the feeling she was going to start calling her BB eventually. Maybe later she would ask if that would be okay) told everyone she could lead the kids out. But they still had to find a way for the rest of the heroes to get out as Skrleros didn't look like he could fit in it.

"Okay, guys, any plans on how we ourselves can get out of here?" She asked the others. "I mean, it shouldn't be that hard right...Maybe one of you can destroy the table's blocking the windows? I would but," She held up her web string, "unless I make a giant sticky wrecking ball, I don't think I'm going to be much use right now."

He looked at the stacks upon stacks of books that had fallen off the shelves and now sat on the tables. Looking at the students, he tilted his head back and forth before jumping on one of the stacks. "Alright, everybody!" he called to the students with a wide grin. "Since it's partially your fault the teacher went crazy, How about those of you stuck in here start putting the books away in order. It would be less work for her to have to clean up once she got back."

With the students freed and everyone trying to find a way out, Talon began looking around the room. He suddenly got an idea, giving himself a wide, sly grin. "Wrecking ball, you say?" he asked, looking at the armadillo miraculous. "I have an idea that's so crazy it just might work. First, who among us, other than Skleros, as the most physical strength? Spinstress, gonna need some thick web too. Skleros, you look sturdy enough to be a wrecking ball to free us." He took one last look at the group before staring at the door he intended for them to break down.

This has to work. he thought to himself, turning back to examine his ally's thick shell. There's no way it shouldn't. He ran over to examine the door quickly before looking at the group. "Unless someone would rather find and climb through a vent." he added. "I think this would be easier." Spinning his tonfas rapidly in his hands, he quickly flew back to the group, landing with a slight stumble as he looked at his weapons. "I'm gonna have to learn how to land better." he said to himself before turning his attention back to the group. "Unless anyone has a better idea, I think my wrecking ball idea should work. Especially on the door I was looking over."

Skleros was outraged to say the least. This… this TALON guy certainly had some guts. First he ogles the female members like a gigantic creep, then he demands their secret identities as if he’d never read a superhero comic and then he has the GALL to talk to them as if he were their leader.

"I have an idea that's so crazy it just might work.”

That was the final straw. To suggest such an outlandish and ridiculous idea fuelled a rage that Aaron rarely ever felt. It made him feel so … offended! He should have been the one to come up with this awesome plan! How dare this perverted jerkface think up something so brilliant. Aaron suddenly felt very sulky.

He took an angry step towards Talon and poked him in the chest.

“Crazy plans like this … are my favourite kind of plans,” he begrudgingly spat, “Now I don’t like the way you talk at us, or the way you’re staring at the ladies in our group. But I know a good plan when I see one. I’ll co-operate, for now. But only ‘cos there’s a telekinetic book-themed psychopath terrorising the city that we need to stop.”

“And as for you nasty brats,” Skleros boomed at the newly released students, “you heard Birdman here! Start cleaning. Maybe this will be a lesson for all of you to treat the faculty better.”

Then he walked towards the door they were planning to break, giving it a once over. Yeah, this plan could work. Skleros rolled his shoulders before shouting the magic words.

“Armor Up!”

He felt himself becoming bigger, more powerful. By the time the transformation finished, he was twice his usual height. Skleros found himself able to curl up into a ball and did so.

“Ready when you are,” he shouted, his voice slightly muffled by his new position as a human wrecking ball.

---

Nicholas had remained quiet for most of the introductions. Anyone who knew the young man would have noticed how strange it was for him to not be the life of the party. In the heat of the moment, the new Miraculous wielder just couldn't shake the excitement and anxiousness of being an actual superhero. Bounding up and down on the spot, Nicholas took note of his companions. Talon, Skleros, Nocturne, Bold Badger and Spinstress. Each Miraculous unique in their own way. He suddenly felt all eyes on him. Not literally of course; the others were busy helping out the trapped students and arguing with Talon. Though there was a certain stillness in the air, like they were all expecting Nicholas to finish up the introductions with his own. It took him a moment, but eventually the Dragonfly Miraculous cleared his throat and spoke up with his usual, obnoxiously cheery voice.

"Man, look at us!" He began, slinging his arm around Skleros' neck as a friendly gesture, "We sure do look like one hell of a bad ass squad. I'm Ni-". He immediately stopped himself, recalling the words originally spoken by Nocturne about keeping their identity a secret. He wasn't entirely sure why, since being recognised as heroes seemed like a sweet deal. Though he didn't want to be the only one revealing the big secret. Secrets could be cool as well.

It was here he had to stop and think. If he couldn't call himself Nicholas, then what should his hero name be? He could always go with Dragonfly, but he didn't want people associating him with an awful parody moving staring a now irrelevant Nickelodeon actor. He thought back to everything he knew about Dragonfly's; which wasn't much. You don't just find yourself randomly looking up these things. Though he did recall that Dragonfly's, as well as similar insects, all fell under one umbrella term. Making the decision final, Nicholas was ready to introduce himself.
"Call me Odonata! I'm the Dragonfly Miraculous. I'm not really sure what I specialise in. Though I seem to be able to see everywhere around me at once. That's kind of neat. Oh I also have this!" Moving away from Skleros, Nicholas spent the next few moments giddily playing around with his baton, pretending it was some form of magic wand.

Talon spoke up about his idea to use Skleros as a wrecking ball to escape. While the Armadillo Miraculous didn't seem very fond of him, he agreed with the plan and began growing in size seemingly at his command. It was truly a spectacle, though Nicholas was focusing on something much different than Skleros' sudden increase in mass. Not that it wasn't cool, and Nicholas would normally be jumping up and down with excitement for his new friend. However at the moment, something had caught his eye. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that he was seeing something that the others couldn't. Skleros, now a giant of a man, seemed to have an addition to his suit; a pair of golden, translucent dragonfly wings floating ominously a few inches from his shoulders. The wings remained stationary, and even Skleros seemed oblivious to them. It was quite obvious, even to Nicholas, that this strange development had something to do with his powers. Holding onto that thought, Nicholas decided it would be best not to rush into anything. He wasn't given the run down on what he was capable of, and he didn't want to run the risk of harming a team mate accidently.

Nancy felt like she was going to regret making that sarcastic suggestion when she saw Talon smirk after he got done ordering the rest of the students around. Which meant he was probably going to order them around and-oh! there he went. Great. And it was one thing for him to keep suggesting this stupid plan, but Skleros had to go along with it and did a second kind of transformation to make himself a big wrecking ball. Nancy looked around for help to see if anyone else would say anything about it. Nocturne was silent, Bold Badger was in the vents trying to help some of the other students out, and the late guy, Odonata, seemed to be staring at Skleros and not paying too much attention to the wrecking ball discussion. Welp.

Nancy took a deep breath before saying, "Okay, I know you guys want to get out here bad. But quite honestly, this is one of the worst plans ever. One, I don't know if my...web? string? whatever! Could even handle the strain of doing this! what if it snapped as I was swinging you around and you ended barreling into someone! Speaking of which, say this plan of yours does work Talon, and we do bash through the door, we'll be bashing anyone who might be on the other side to boot! I probably can't even swing him around in here anyways. I would need room to swing him around and theres to much in the way, like shelves. Unless you want to create even more property damage than what knocking through the doors would cause!" Nancy let out a frustrated breath as she leaned her head back. "We need a safer way ou-..." she paused as she noticed something...the ceiling...it had those big foam tiles on it. the kind that could be moved so whoever did maintenance here could fix whatever went wrong with the pipes. And things were usually pretty spacy up there to boot. That! That was a way out!

"I think I see a better way." She told the guys before taking some of her string and balling it up some at the end to act as a weight before swinging it around a little before throwing it up to where it stuck to the ceiling. Once it was good and stuck Nancy quickly scrambled up to the top and moved one of the tiles away to reveal a small space (still bigger than the space in the vents, so even a regular Skleros would be able to fit) and pipes.

"Well guys," Nancy said as she tore off enough rope to reach down below so the others could climb up, "You coming with me or what?"

Talon frowned as one of the girls started talking to him like he was an idiot. And then she got an idea, "Well, I did ask if anyone had a better plan." he said as he began spinning his tonfas fast enough to fly up to the ceiling and through the hole. Once safely positioned, he reached down to help the next person in. "Do you think we should bring the students this way or not?" he asked, looking at the spider girl. He didn't prefer to but figured he'd ask. He didn't know how much weight the ceiling could hold. Looking around, he saw a path with enough room to easily enough fit everyone. "By the way, I know it's a moot point, but I was going to be the one swinging him and I would've asked for a lot of web to make a rope sturdy enough to hold him. From my position by the ceiling and my dexterous feet, I would have been able to swing him back and forth as to not hurt students inside the library and I do believe all the other students ran after they saw what happened to the librarian." Once everyone was up, he began along the path he had seen, not caring if they followed him or found their own path. Not wanting to test the weight limit of the ceiling too much, he flew the whole time. Once in a spot he could slip down into the hallway from, he lifted another tile to drop from, keeping his eyes peeled for anything and everything. "All clear!" he called up, flying again to help anyone to the ground if they needed. He didn't think they would, as each of them were strong enough to take most pain and brush it off pretty easily while in their hero forms, and possibly out of hero form for a few of them.

Corrine stood off to the side in silence, watching the train wreck unfold before her. She sighed and shook her head. There were so many holes in the plan, and it endangered the people around them! She wanted to speak out, but she doubted that the oh so mighty Talon would listen to her. She'd met his type before, most of her father's business partners had the same attitude about them. Self confident with a hint of superiority and smugness. She couldn't stand it. Her life was already full of being talked down to and ordered around by people like him, and she sure as hell wasn't going to let this part of it be like that too.

Corrine was shaken out of her thoughts by the spider themed girl, Spinstress, pointing out exactly what was wrong with the plan. Corrine stifled a smile at the look on Talon's face. She liked this girl already. She continued to watch with interest as the girl seemed to get an idea.

"I think I see a better way."

Corrine watched as Spinstress threw her balled of string towards the ceiling and climbed it, popping off one of the ceiling panels. Of course! The crawl space above the ceiling was larger than the vents, and was made so the maintenance crew could crawl around and check on things. This time Corrine did smile, raising an eyebrow as Talon defended himself, and said something about his dexterous feet. When he was done, she walked over to Spinstress and her rope, nodding at her before grabbing it. She hesitated, glancing back at the others. She didn't doubt that they could all fit in their normal forms, but she doubted that Skleros could fit in his current state, and she didn't even know if he could turn back, or how long it would take. She wasn't sure about the others, but her Kwami had told her that she had five minutes after using her main power before she transformed back into a civilian. If that was true for the others, they had to hurry it up. Mind made up, she quickly climbed up the rope and into the crawl space. Once inside, she began crawling in the direction she thought the hallway was. She carefully pushed one of the tiles off and dropped down. After making sure she was in the right place, she strode through the small crowd of students that had gathered towards the library doors. Taking a breath, she grabbed the handles. She wasn't sure this wold work, but she had to try.

"Absolute Access!" She shouted, her eyes shut tight. Her Kwami had told her about her powers, but she wasn't quite sure of how or even if they worked. She opened one of her eyes at the sound of the door emitting a quiet click. Nothing seemed different, but there was only one way to find out. She tugged the handles and watched, shocked, as the doors swung towards her. She had hoped it would work, but she hadn't fully expected it to. Glancing around the room, she cleared her throat.

"Hey guys! The doors are open now. I didn't know if everyone could go through there, so I thought maybe I could unlock the door from the other side" She explained, slightly nervous. She knew they were supposed to work as a team, but it had just been the simplest option. She hoped they understood.

Skleros listened, growing more sheepish as Spinstress pointed out more flaws in the initial plan. He was so excited to play around with these new powers that he hadn’t even considered property damage. Being a hero was surprisingly finicky. So many things to take into account.

“Wow.” Skleros startled himself as he starting speaking. His voice was a lot… boomier when he was in Armor Mode. “That… is a lot better than the first plan”

Aaron took pride in his scientific mind, but that didn’t mean that he was above receiving criticism. Sure, it was totally embarrassing but there were times when he had to admit that he was flat out wrong. A scientist is always open to new arguments, no matter how much it undermines their own. Aaron reminded himself to remember this philosophy. All in all, he was thankful that he had teammates to cover his own shortcomings. The “act first, think later” attitude was something he’d have to work on if he was going to be a permanent hero. Especially if he was going to have to work in a team.

“Eh heh. Guess I got overexcited. My bad.” Skleros scratched the back of his head in a flustered manner. It was surprisingly hard to do in this upgraded form. Speaking of which, he wasn’t going to be travelling far with this sort of bulkiness on him. There was no way he’d catch an aerial, psychopathic villain like this. Time to de-transform. As he shrank, he observed Talon flying around, then Nocturne heading to the door he was about to break down. He grinned as she used her Miraculous powers to somehow open the doors. Absolute Access, it was called? Aaron stored that information for later.

“Woah, awesome stuff!” he smiled and gave the monochromatic girl a friendly pat on the back, “Time to finally kick some villain butt!”

He was about to jaunt out the doors when a sudden beep from his gauntlet snapped him out of his fervor. The scale pattern on the ketoh had only one marking left. Didn’t Arrlo say something about a time limit before? Active Powers drained it quicker, right? Was he going to lose his transformation?

Skleros turned frantically to his allies.

“Uh, it seems that I’m outta- I’ll just meet you guys there! K, bye!”

He sprinted out of the library, hoping to find an empty toilet block to de-transform, or at least a vending machine where he could refuel Arrlo.

He had to admit, he didn't think using his powers would be this difficult. He had tested it out a few times before, but those had only been for short, brief moments on strangers. It was one thing to transfer his powers to strangers, it was another to assume direct control over them. The best way to describe it would be two minds in the same body. He saw everything through Almaniac's eyes and his own, heard everything she heard and everything he heard. Twice the input for one person. And Almaniac was aware of everything going on around her, and of his presence within her mind. She was also not very happy about it. He could feel her struggle against him, trying to retake control, like a child throwing a tantrum.

"No, we're not going to attack that fire hydrant. Stay away from that police officer. Do not destroy the market." he continuously scolded her in his head, trying to keep her on track.
"BUT I WANT TO!" she would always scream back at him, renewing her mental thrashing. It was like reasoning with a super powered toddler. He made a mental note that the next person he gave his powers to had to be slightly more mentally stable.

There was a sudden clatter at the door, and his concentration was broken. The mental link he had forged between him and Almaniac was severed. He quickly turned around, looking to the door. Great, someone was trying to get in, a teacher probably. He grit his teeth, hissing with displeasure. Of course. He would have to find a better place, and quickly, before Almaniac ruined his plans. He needed his mental link with her to take his powers back, or she needed to give them up herself. That was what Hex had told him. Without her as his puppet, he was defenseless, without armor.

Not wanting to open the door and be questioned by the teacher, Clair walked to one of the windows, cranking one open and climbing out of it. His shirt caught on the latch, tearing a hole into his sleeve. He grimaced. That was something he'd have to explain to his father. Now, where was she? He had last had her fly near Dupont circle. That wasn't that far, and if her one-track mind of destruction was anything, she was probably tearing up the park. If he could get close enough to her, he could reestablish his mental link with her before the other miraculous users even made it out of the building. It was going to be a race, but he had the upper hand. He knew where to go.