Lyger stood there for a moment in shock at the sight of Sam sitting in the car before him. However, he quickly snapped out of it as her words registered in his mind. Realizing that their pursuers were closing in, he jumped into the passenger seat of the car and motioned for the others to follow suit. Once the other three heroes had jumped into the back of the car, Sam pulled away from the curb and began driving down the seat.

“You might want to lose that.” Sam said, motioning towards Lyger’s mask.

Lyger just looked at her, then to the three heroes in the back. He shook his head, and realizing that she had been right, reluctantly removed his mask.

“Sam, what are you doing here?” Kyle asked, genuinely shocked by the absurdity of the situation.

“I heard about what was going on and thought I’d come bail you out.” Sam said, then, not waiting for Kyle to respond added, “Who are your friends?”

“Sammy, Zac, and Kelly.” Kyle listed the three friends one by one. “They’re the people that Iron Knight sent me to recruit in Albany during the whole Pax Metahumana crisis. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing here though.”

Sammy gazed at Lyger as he introduced her and her friends to a girl whom she assumed was Sam that Lyger mentioned back when he was under the SIlver Sorceress’ enchantment. How she looked at the cat-themed hero probably could have answered his question about why the three of them were even in Crown Ridge. When Zac noticed her almost obsessive stare, he quickly nudged her with his elbow in order to get her to cut it out.

“See. Looks like I was right.” Sammy whispered to Zac as she rubbed her side where he had elbowed her. Although she did not elaborate on what she meant by saying that she was right, but it was obvious to Zac and Kelly that she was referring to Lyger’s sexuality and Sam’s gender.

“Whatever.” Zac mumbled to his girlfriend’s best friend before turning back towards Lyger. “So, where are we headed?”

“I guess we’re going back to our place.” Lyger said to Zac, unconvinced that bringing three relative strangers into the home he shared with Sam was the best idea. “I don’t think we’ll be able to do anymore tonight. The CRPD is going to be on high alert looking for us.”

“Well, I guess seeing your place is fair, since you broke into our apartment last time.” Zac mentioned. “But getting shot at is all the action that I can handle for one night. You won’t be seeing me running back out there anytime soon.”

“We really appreciate the hospitality.” Kelly tried to make them seem a little more grateful for being rescued and all. “I guess things will cool down tomorrow so that we can get back to our hotel and get our stuff.”

“You broke...You didn’t tell me you broke into their apartment.” Sam chided Kyle. “That’s kind of a dick move.”

“It was easier than ringing the doorbell.” Kyle told her, and an image of he and Radiance walking up to the front door of the apartment that the three meta humans shared popped into his mind and a slight grin crossed his face. “Kelly’s right, it’s probably best for you guys to crash with us tonight. You might want to put on your power-nullifiers, they’ll be looking for me and three animal like metahumans.”

Zac and Kelly both activated their power-nullifiers, which both returned the two metahumans to their full-human forms while replacing their superhero costumes with their regular human clothes. However, since Sammy did not have a power-nullifier, she could not do the same little trick.

“So not fair.” Sammy pouted.

Lyger watched as both Zac and Kelly activated their nullifiers, returning them to their normal state. However, he also noticed that Sammy did not seem to have one.
“Don’t you have a nullifier?” Lyger asked Sammy.

“Nope.” Sammy muttered.

“Well, these bands were designed to hide powers that were caused by that Doctor Diplodoc’s serum. Kelly tried to elaborate on why Sammy did not have one. “Since Sammy’s powers were not created by that same serum, the nullifiers don’t affect her.”

Kelly momentarily pulled off her band, which caused her to revert back to her wasp-like appearance. Then, she reached over Zac and slapped the power-nullifier around Sammy’s wrist and activated the device. However, even though the nullifier was active, it did not cause Sammy to lose her cat ears and tail.

“See?” Kelly said as she took back the wristband and placed it back on herself, returning her again to her human form.

Upon seeing that the nullifiers did not work for Sammy the way they had worked for her friends, Lyger felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the girl. However, he also knew that several private companies, such as Midas Industries as well as military organizations had been making progress in next generation power nullifiers that would work for metas that may not have gotten their powers through Dr. Diplodoc’s nefarious experiments. He knew that with Harry’s connections, he could probably help her get her hands on one.

“No promises, but I might have some connections that can help you with that. I’ll make a call.” Lyger told Sammy as the car slowed in front of the brownstone that Kyle and Sam called home. Sam pulled the car into the driveway and stopped.

“We’re here. Let’s get inside before someone sees us.” Sam announced to the others.

“I’ll wait here until you have unlock the door.” Sammy said as she leaned against her side of the car. “Having a catgirl standing in front of your house in her superhero costume is a little too conspicuous.”

“Good call.” Sam told Sammy. “Kyle, go get the door, I’ll stay with her until we can get her inside.”

Kyle nodded at Sam in agreement.

“Right.” He said as he turned to face the other two. “Follow me.” Kyle said to Kelly and Zac as he motioned for them to follow. He led them up the front steps of the brownstone and unlocked the door. Once the door was opened, Kyle turned to Sam and Sammy, who were still standing near the car and let out a sharp whistle while motioning for them to get inside.

“Lyger.” Zac addressed the hero, not sure whether he should address him by his superhero handle or by his real name that his girlfriend had just used. “Could we have a word? Alone.

Meanwhile, Sammy turned and peered down both ways down the nearby street, checking to make sure no one was watching. Once she confirmed that the coast was clear, she darted towards the house, stopping right in front of the front door.

“Well, I guess it’s ladies first.” Sammy said before grabbing ahold of Kelly’s wrist and pulling her inside of Lyger and his girlfriend’s house, much to the embarrassment of Kelly, who did not think that they should be barging inside like that.

Once the ladies were inside, Kyle looked to Zac who had asked to speak to him in private and nodded. He motioned for Zac to go inside and led him in through the living room and into the kitchen. Once they had gotten into the kitchen, Kyle led Zac down a narrow hallway and into the room that his father had used as a home office before he took off for the West Coast after Kyle’s mother had died. Since then, Kyle had used the office as his own, spending countless hours in the room doing research for classwork.

“You can call me Kyle.” He told Zac. “What’s up?”

“Well.” Zac began speaking after he had checked to make sure they were out of earshot of the others. “I don’t know whether you have already guessed why we’re here, but I just wanted to give you a little heads up.”

“Actually, I was trying to work that out.” Kyle told him honestly. “What are you doing here? Don’t you guys know how dangerous Crown Ridge is?”

“Of course we know that it’s dangerous. But if Kelly and I didn’t tagged along, Sammy would have come here by herself. We couldn’t let her wander around the city by herself!”

“Why would Sammy come here….oh.” Kyle said as the reason for the visit suddenly dawned on him. He had suspected that Sammy had developed a bit of an attachment to him during their time together in West Virginia, but he hadn’t realized that her feelings were quite this strong.

“Took you long enough.” Zac commented on Kyle’s epiphany. “She’s obviously here for you. And while I do believe it would be good for her to hear from you that she’s being a little obsessive about this, please don’t be your usual blunt self. You can determine how hard she takes the news. Plus, since my girlfriend is her best friend, I’m going to be the one who will have to listen to the aftermath.”

“I wouldn’t…” Kyle started, trying to choose his words carefully. “Look, I like Sammy. She’s a good kid, and the last thing I’d want to do is hurt her.”

It was true, in the short time that he had spent with Sammy and her friends, he and the girl-cat had developed a bit of a bond, one that was strengthened when they took turns saving one another during the final battle with The Silver Sorceress and the other Pax Metahumana terrorists. However, it had been a platonic bond, at least on Kyle’s part.

“Alright, how are we going to do this?” Kyle asked, perplexed by the predicament.

“Well, for starters, you have to explain that you have a girlfriend and are, if I am assuming correctly, in a committed relationship.” Zac explained. “She can’t keep going on believing that she can somehow win you over.”

Kyle had been taken aback by the sheer absurdity of the situation. Of all the things that he has prepared himself for, this was not among them.

“I’ll take care of it.” He finally said after a momentary pause.

“Just make sure you do it right.” Zac responded to Kyle, placing special emphasis on the last word that he said.

“I got it.” Kyle said, his tone not giving away anything about how he was planning on letting Sammy down. However, the fact that he was here in his home with three other heroes instead of out on the streets tracking down the Winter Park Gang seriously irked him. As far as he was concerned, his “visitors” took a very big risk to come to Crown Ridge. This city wasn’t like others, it did not take kindly to people acting outside the law. Shortly after the emergence of meta humans, the Mayor Betsy Hoffman went about setting a strict “No Capes” policy, which naturally, was disregarded. However, the CRPD enforced this order fervently. They arrested every vigilante that they could get their hands on. Unfortunately, some of the interactions between cop and cape did not go as smoothly, and deadly force was used. Naturally, the tactics used by the CRPD and Mayor Hoffman were effective, and after a short time with the exception of Lyger and a few other determined individuals, Crown Ridge was mostly vigilante free.

Not only had the arrival of Zac, Kelly, and Sammy cause Lyger to lose valuable time to stop the Winter Park Gang, and by extension The Shroud Syndicate, from doing whatever it was that they were planning on doing, it put them on the radar of not only the CRPD, but the Shroud Syndicate as well, and the Shroud were not known to simply forgive and forget.

“But we’ll deal with that later. You guys have no idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into.” Kyle told him.

“No, not later. Now.” Zac snapped back. “This cannot wait. If we’re in so much danger, you don’t want Sammy to keep failing all over you when we’re in trouble.

“That won’t be an issue.” Kyle told him. He knew that Zac was right, if they were going to be out in the field with him in Crown Ridge, he would have to lay it all out in the open. Otherwise, Sammy might get too distracted while out there with him, and that could lead to a fatal mistake.

“You’re done, you aren’t going back out there.” Kyle said after a brief pause.

“Yes, telling Sammy, ‘don’t do this,’ is so going to work. I mean, we wouldn’t be here if she would take no as an answer.”

“This isn’t up for debate. You don’t know this city, and believe me, what you don’t will get you killed, and I’m not going to have that on my conscience.” Kyle told Zac as he turned to go back to leave the room. “It’s nothing personal, this place just isn’t safe for you.”

Location-Natural History Museum, NYC
Time-Noon
@fdeviant @Fallenreaper@Demonic Angel

Ji grumbled more, not noticing the warning growl Ben had given her. Her sister was suppose to be at work! She glared at her sister. ”There comes a time...Ji said as calm as she could be, though it was obvious she was gritting her teeth to keep her voice on the down load.

”There comes a time where I hope that I can go one week without having to scold you like a pup Yeong.”She said gripping both of her sister’s shoulders tight enough to keep her in place. ”But you...you make it so so so so difficult. If I wasn't a werewolf, I probably would have had ulcers by now from how many times I had to do this Yeong” Ji let go of her shoulders and began to walk back in forth in a futile attempt to calm herself. She ignored her sister’s smartass commentary like an expert.

”Yeong, I-She jumped when she heard loud howl and she turned her attention back to Ben as he turned back to Ben and saw him completely in blood, but back in his human form. She slowly went over to him.

”Ben?"JI asked looking concerned for the boy. ”Are you ok?” She asked. Noticing he was naked, which was something that often happen with newborns until they learned to remove any clothing before turning into their other forms. She saw a nearby dark grey sheet dangling over some of the stuff that was around them and grabbed it swiftly and draped it over Ben's shoulders as she helped him set up. The sheet was obviously soaking up blood, but she didn't care since the dark grey color helped hid it.

Ten minutes after leaving her motorbike, Fletch had made it to the rooftops close to where the dust and smoke originated from. Panting from all of the running and climbing she had to do, she rested behind the parapet of the building as she looked down at what was supposed to be the middle of a fight between two metahumans. As she looked, she noted that one of the metas had a silver and black suit and recognized the meta as War-Pulse, one of the metas that had helped the city during D-Day. The other meta that the mercenary was fighting was an unknown entity, though it does beg the question to Kayla’s mind: Why is War-Pulse duking it out with another meta in Lost Haven? She wasn’t even aware that there were other metas in the area, but there was only one thing in her mind in seeing these metas fighting each other, punching each other in the middle of the ruined street: I am so under equipped for this city.

It wasn’t long before the fight came to an abrupt end. The first thing Kayla noticed was the metal, drone-like objects appearing in the horizon. As they approached where the combatants were, one of the drones appeared to focus on the pair of them. Before she realized, a piercing sound erupted in the area, causing her to cover her ears and flinch. As she looked up to see what was happening, it was when the second drone deployed its own weapons. Her response to the weapons was abrupt, realizing what kind of weapons they were, ”Shit!” She began running away from the fight, not caring if she was seen or not as it would have been redundant if she was caught up in the explosion that came. The detonation started to level the building that she was on. Thinking fast, Fletch grabbed one of the grappling arrows and loaded it into her bow, attaching the loose strand of cable to the opening in the shaft of the arrow. Not even checking to see if the cable was secured to both the arrow and the cable-retracting mechanism on her arm, she drew and fired the arrow at a building across the street. As soon as she felt the grapple connected after detonating the small charge to destroy the shaft and launch the hook further, she sent the retractor into overdrive. She was yanked away from the building as it began to crumble underneath her feet. Due to the emergency of such a move, she collided with the building she was travelling to, causing her to groan in the impact. Fortunately for her, the building she arrived at was stable enough after the explosion to not crumble.

Looking up at the fight, she saw the van at the center of the explosion and the men grabbing the unknown meta. A few second later, the van began pulling away, going in the direction of… The Financial District? That small bit of information alone was enough to confuse the hell out of Fletch. If the men had been smart about it, they would have taken the bridge away from Chinatown and go to the next county. The Financial District was the least likely place where meta-kidnappers would have taken someone to. Whatever the case, seeing the destruction of the buildings, she needed to question War-Pulse. He was the only person who would know the details on what happened here and possibly why the occupants of the van took the other meta. However, she was unsure on how the meta would do once he regains consciousness. She drew an arrow from her quiver and drew it back, the sight aimed at the unconscious man. Slowly, she crept forward from where she stood, the let-off from the compound bow allowing her to hold the drawn bow with ease.

A load groan announced the return of War-Pulse to the world of the conscious, the mercenary groggily pushing his torso to a sitting position.

“Ugggh... talk about your explosive climaxes....” The mercenary growled to himself as he rubbed the back of his head, never one to lose his sense of humor. “Not exactly the way I pictured that fight ending, I was hoping for more of me winning and less finding myself underneath a pile of rubble...again...for like the fortieth time.”

Of course, this grumbling didn’t bely what had just happened. Not only had he failed to reign in the dangerous bioweapon, but something had managed to interfere with their fight as well, ending in her escape. With a strained grunt, the mercenary tugged a piece of rubble off of his lower half, hucking it into the burning piles now surrounding the crater in which he lay. It was rare for him to feel any sort of soreness, but the amount of fighting he had participated in had worn him severely, and it showed. His clothes were not much more than tattered rags, remnant of a pristine battlesuit now smudged with ash and dirt. His skin had held up considerably well, only minor bruising and cuts littering his body, his kinetically charged healing factor would hopefully allow him to recover within a few hours, slowed only by the mass amount of energy he had expended tangling with the young Racheli. Clearly Warden had not been exaggerating when he explained that the girl was extremely dangerous, everyone seemed to want her or wanted to protect her. What exactly had given her such power that even he would be taxed by it?

Of course, once he got to his feet, his attention quickly changed to the sight of another costumed vigilante, a young woman by the looks of it. She was garbed in orange and black, carrying a light load for easy travel, though the most peculiar feature was the bow she currently had drawn, now aimed squarely at his chest.

“Oh good, just when I thought I had my fill of costumed vigilantes.” The merc jeered loud enough for her to hear. “What, you coming in to get the kill steal and take me in? I just got exploded, Lego-lass, I don’t think the pinnacle of the stone age is going to put me down.”

Fletch paused her advance when the mercenary announced that he was conscious again. The entire time, she felt nervous, standing this close to someone who made her bow and arrows seem like a toy gun to a tank. She still kept the bow’s aim at him as he removed the rubble that was on top of him and getting up. What are you doing, Kayla? she thought to herself as the mercenary acknowledged that she was there. This is the kind of person that can snap you in half and not even blink. She didn’t hesitate when he spoke to her, keeping her cool as he jeered and tried to intimidate her. ”Well, considering that you did look extremely exhausted fighting that other meta before getting knocked out by a couple of high-tech drones, this pinnacle of the fucking stone age is a good enough of an insurance policy in case you went off on one.” She was cutting it a little bit close, seemingly goading the mercenary on to a confrontation. ”Besides, I think I would be the least of your worries considering the direction the van went.”

“Wait, there was a van?” War-Pulse said, his eyes widening in shock. The pieces began to click together, the sudden explosion becoming much clearer to what exactly had occurred. “That means...the explosion...that wasn’t a gas line popping...I got sucker punched by a third party!”

The Merc scoffed in annoyance, soccer kicking a dog-sized boulder down the street in frustration, the sidewalk getting chewed up at the rubble’s landing point with a loud thud. “I didn’t even get compensated for my hard work! Bastards probably let me soften her up to sweep her out from under me. How did I not see this coming in the city of Freaks, Geeks, and Demon Portals?”

He turned back to Fletch, who still had her guard up and her bow drawn, still ready for anything the unpredictable kinetic warrior was going to do. He gave her a steel glare, one that rang out his frustration at the current revelation. “So I’m going to go out on a limb here and you know which way the soon-to-be scrap metal and dead interlopers are, so I’ll be blunt. Tell me where they are so I don’t have to beat it out of you.”

“Yeah, there was a van,” Fletch responded to the mercenary’s question. Her thumb was relaxed, away from the trigger to the release aid. “I guess you didn’t notice that the person who you were fighting, whoever it was, is nowhere to be seen in this rubble.” As she listened to him rattle on about what she concluded was ‘the job’, she was keeping both eyes on him, trying to predict when he went off the handle and lunge at her. While yes he was much stronger and probably quicker than she is, but launching an arrow from a compound where it can reach its peak speed of 350ft/s in less than 2/10ths of a second at this distance, he would certainly feel it in the state he is in. But would it puncture his skin? That was something she didn’t know and, hopefully, won’t find out.

When she saw his gaze turn to her, feeling the frost coming from them, she remained calm. Yeah, she was nervous all the way down to her core from the mercenary, but she needed to retain her focus on the steps of her shot cycle. As his viable threat was said, she slowly brought her thumb to the trigger and slowly squeezed the muscles in her shoulders, ready to shoot if he makes a move.

“Owww….my head…” Groaning could be heard in an alleyway as a figure lied slumped against a wall. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the plant-based hero Evergreen...and needless to say, he looked in pretty rough shape. One of his arms was just gone, leaving a stump where it once was, much of his plant-like body had a wilted, dried-up look to it, and there were a number of gouges all over his body.

He was having a tough time recalling what had happened with that fight against the merc and his technopath friend. Had he won? Well, he was alive, that was a start...but he couldn’t see Nemesis anywhere...did this mean he had failed to protect her? His reserves were running close to empty and he needed some sunlight...fast. Despite his blurry vision, he managed to make out some rays of sunlight peeking out over the rooftops.

For a moment, he just lied there, staring, as the sun came up...before groaning, “Where the heck were you when I needed you like an hour ago…? Nevermind…” He dragged himself over to the spot where the sun’s rays had landed...and almost immediately, he felt his strength coming back. The wilted sections of him became rejuvenated to a more healthy shade of green as the gouges in him started to slowly close up. He focused and the stump where his arm once was grew out and reformed into a new limb.

After flexing it to get a feel, he let his cloak reform as he finished adjusting everything, “Not quite a hundred percent, but it’ll have to do...yo Gaia?”

A groan could be heard next to him as her spirit self formed next to him, yawning, “Ughh...ah, about time you came around, partner. Now, let’s go find that girl before she causes more trouble for us…” The plant man nodded and scaled his way to the rooftops before taking a look around the area.

Evergreen actually winced at the destruction, “Ohhh….something tells me Nemesis had a hand in all this..”

“Wow, your deductive skills are truly amazing. You sure you’re not related to Sherlock Holmes?” Gaia snarkily remarked which caused her partner to roll his eyes.

They headed towards a particularly large cloud of smoke...and down below they saw a crater where a certain mercenary was standing, facing off with a person whom looked like a modern version of Robin Hood...and by the looks of it, things were about to get ugly. Not if he got anything to say about it.

“Alright, I think that’s enough!” The plant warrior called out from the rooftop where he stood before swooping down on a pair of wings and morphing his arms into shields as he landed between the two individuals.

As a third voice rang through the tense air, Kayla relaxed again, thumb shooting away from the trigger. This had been a good thing as the person behind the voice came into view between her line of sight with the mercenary. It was a good thing her thumb flew off of the release aid trigger as the newcomer had a startling appearance of the wings being made of plants. The shield that was facing her would have taken the arrow without any problems, but it was something she definitely wouldn’t do as it would had been perceived as an attack. God knows what would have happened to her then.

The mercenary’s face scrunched up into a bitter scowl when the plant warrior called out his entrance. “Oh great, you’re still here. I was hoping ol’ tinbucket could take care of you, but apparently technology hasn’t conquered mother nature yet!”

“Look...I got no idea what’s going on right now but we all need to relax! And to give you an incentive….LOOK AROUND YOU!!!” He suddenly roared, pointing to the destroyed scenery.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we’ve caused enough damage to the city for one day...so you got a choice...either zip your lips and listen, or both of you go through me...your choice.”

Pointing the bow down to the plant man’s feet, she relaxed the compound bow, the strength yanking the string to the string stopper. ”I hadn’t been here for what caused the damage and the bow was for my safety in case he went off once he gained his consciousness,” she responded to the plant man, releasing the aid from the D-loop and placing the arrow back in her quiver. She then turned to War-Pulse ”Besides, I would be glad to give you the information about the van that took whoever you were fighting as I was nearly caught in the blast.”

A tense silence followed after both Evergreen and the bow wielding woman had their say, the force of nature flitting his icy glare between the two vigilantes. Then, in a deep huff, his face seemed to relax, his frown melting from tense to defeated as his body drooped slightly, the signs of exhaustion more evident now as a weary admission left him.

“All right, fine.” He scoffed, “We’ll play this your way, Greenpeace...for now.”

With those words, he took a brief hop to get out of the crater he had currently been embedded in, turning his attention to the destruction. “Though...as much as I want to know where that van went and what it looked like...cops are probably going to show up within minutes and I’m a few solid explosions from being out here in my birthday suit. I’d say we leave Lost Haven’s lovely new national monument of destroyed buildings and high tail it to somewhere less conspicuous.” He turned his attention back to the other vigilantes. “Either one of you got a ballin’ secret hideout we can crash in?”

“...Huh…” The plant man scratched the back of his neck, looking a little surprised with how easily he’d managed to get them to listen, “That was actually way easier than I thought it would be...guess I’m better at this negotiating thing than I gave myself credit for…” He took a look around the area before waving to the others, “I wouldn’t exactly call it a “hideout” but I do have a place where we can lay low and work out a plan. Trust me, it’s the last place anyone would think to look for us. Also…”

At this, he addressed Pulse, “I got some stuff back at my place that you can use to patch yourself up...and you look like you need something to refuel with anyhow.” True, he was taking a gamble by letting the merc in on his turf, but for the time being they were on the same side. Besides, desperate times called for desperate measures. Evergreen was going to get Rach back...and there was no force on Earth, within the Earth, or above it, that would stop him from doing so.

Fletch seemed to be at ease when the mercenary agreed with the notion about leaving the place before people came to the scene. All the meanwhile, she followed the events that led to the explosion, keeping track of the van details that she would then relay to the group. Unbeknownst to the two metas, she blushed slightly when the mercenary mentioned about being close to being ‘in his birthday suit’. It was more because she felt embarrassed about the thoughts that came from him mentioning it. Nevertheless, the plant-manipulating meta suggested going back to his place. ”That sounds fine with me,” she commented, confirming that she would tag along. Suggesting her place would have been a pain as it was on the other side of Lost Haven and the risk of Mia walking in seeing both of them in her apartment as well as her in this outfit. That would be difficult to talk myself out of it. However, she needed to get to the plant man’s place. ”I’ll need to get my bike though, but I do agree that we need to work out a plan to deal with whoever caused this. Especially when the people I saw at the scene might have seen me in the aftermath.”

The Immortals were finally victorious, now that they had foiled the nefarious plot of the Game Genie. However, their work was not quite yet finished. After the Immortals had the Game Genie in their custody in the city hall, a man barged into the damaged building, dragging behind him an injured girl.

“Hey, who invited Fonzie?” Talus blurred out when he caught sight of the newcomer. He then turned his attention back to the Game Genie. “You’re not also planning on unleashing television characters on this city, too, are you?”

“What?” The Game Genie cried out, “My name is the Game Genie. That’s not my thing!”

Despite what the girl’s vain pleads that she was fine, it was blatantly obvious that she needed immediate medical attention for wounds that probably would have killed a normal person long ago. The Son of Osiris stepped forward, knowing that his powers could do the job without her needing to go the the hospital.

“While the PhD. that I possess does not make me that type of doctor, I can be of assistance.” The Son of Osiris communicated telepathically with everyone in the immediate vicinity. He raised up his staff that was tipped with an Egyptian ankh above his avian head and caused a ray of light to shine down upon the injured girl, When those particles of light struck Eva’s wounds, her skin and flesh began to grow back, covering up the wound as if it had never been there. As Eva turned a bit under the odd rays of light while Hound Dog stepped forward holding her sword.

“So.” He said watching her wounds completely disappear. “This Cat totally gonna recover? That’s wicked. I mean it totally looks gone, name’s Hound Dog by the way. Found this sword alongside her seemed a tad bit important.” As he laid it next to Eva’s currently sleeping body. “And then we gots this beast over here, assuming he’s with her as well. Right-O Kittens, seems like everything's wrapped up, know I didn’t get a lot of limelight this time but if any of youse needs me give me a call.” With that line he produced a business card with his name and number printed on it. “Actually spent a little dough making these.” Handing one off to Osiris.

“Alright. We will take this into consideration if something really bad happens.” The Son of Osiris told him telepathically. “And last we saw her, she was indeed wielding that sword.”

“Gotta make the world a better place right.” He said with a bit of Rockabilly flair, motioning with his hands a gesture from a bygone era.

It was on that, that Eva started to stir wet from the drool dripping off Dicken’s maws as he dumbly looked down upon her. ”I really hope this washes out, It’s not the smell but the consistency.” As she flicked off the goop she began to realize her pain was gone, touching her wound only to find it gone. ”Dickens! Your goop healed me! How could I not have know this.”

“Actually. It was this guy right here. One of the Immortals.” Hound Dog said pointing to Osiris behind him. “Good to see you up though, can’t believe you survived a wound like that.”

”Yeah, can’t bleed. Suppose that’s the only bonus I get for doing this Hero stuff, everything still hurts though, I am not sword proof clearly.”

“And I would highly recommend that you try not to sustain such injuries again.” The Son of Osiris commented via telepathy, “I won’t always be around to fix you up.”

”Oh yeah, maybe next time someone with a knife comes at me I’ll ask them nicely not to stab me, no. Just need to get better at this thing. Being a Champion, yeah. Gonna involve a lot of things trying to kill me, kinda the Job apparently.”

“So many people these days are so eager to rush into things. Sometimes, as the tortoise, it is best to take things slowly before diving into the deep end. It’s a dangerous world that we live in and one wrong step can get someone killed, especially a child like yourself.”

”Not much I can do, things are going bloody south, and there are only things I can do.”

With that somber piece of advice said, the Son of Osiris turned to a different subject matter. Ever since the Immortals were formed and became active in Pacific Point, whenever they had averted some sort of crisis but also allowed some sort of collateral damage to happen, they would always try to pitch in with the clean-up effort. Nobody ever likes people who leave a giant mess in their wake, even if they had just saved the planet from imminent destruction.

“I assume that you two will be here at the crack of dawn tomorrow to help out the effort to clean up the mess that the Game Genie inflicted upon this city.” The Son of Osiris told the two other heroes who were not part of the Immortals.

”Not sure. Depends upon what leads I get on another thing, that could cause destruction. A Nuke of sorts what’s that word, for when you speak of it, as an expression.. I. Can’t remember. But things are going down in New York for now I can’t promise I’ll be here.”

“Kids these days.” Odysseus shook his head. “They can’t restrain themselves from rushing off to do something before they have finished the first task at hand. Especially since you dragged that giant abomination through this city.”

“I’ll be here Boss man, this here’s my City too after all.” Hound Dog said with glee.

”HEY! He’s a Dickens thank you very much. And he was attacked by giant monsters and a slayer of demons. Which is par for the course for me. Right. Still let’s see you dig up leads on a literal Demon with a magic nuke.”

“Sounds like a piece of cake to me, when compared to tracking down that accursed Shroud Syndicate. They’ve got shell companies for their shell companies.”

”You’re welcome to lend a hand, if not well I’m at a dead end.” As Eva spoke a door creaked off in the distant halls of City Hall with Arthur floating on out from it’s frame. He had seen the events unfold, but wondered how well Eva could handle herself and if need be lend his own aid. He had came in somewhere in the building and has not seen Eva yet, but as he floated he saw lights and an open room. With his spectral trail left behind he slowly entered to see people crowded around, and Dickens off in a corner.

The Son of Osiris was about ready to interject into the conversation that Eva and Odysseus were having about whose tasks was more toilsome. However, since the Egyptian god of the underworld and the dead was the source of his powers, he sensed a specter approaching towards the group of assembled heroes. Although he could not see the ghost in much detail, he definitely knew that it was there.

“The solace of the dead is the hope of a blessed afterlife. A human’s soul that has been condemned to wander the face of the earth for eternity is not a fitting end, even for most evil of men. But I can give this soul the rest it needs.” The Son of Osiris extended out his staff in the direction of the spectral form of Arthur, although everyone else would have thought he was pointing at nothing.

”What? What in bloody hell are you jabbering about. What’s solace. Or fu@# something.”

”Colorful as always. Mind telling him not to exorcise me, although he’d have a hard time at it. I’m bound to you and the sword.”

Eva’s eyes set upon Arthur as he floated on closer. ”Oh, hey Arthur. Okay, staff guy it’s cool. Arthur’s with me. Besides you really don’t wanna be known as the Guy who kills King Arthur, well. Okay again. Or is that unkilling him? Can you kill a ghost?”

“It would be neither. It would be more akin to transporting the soul to whichever afterlife that befits it. I’ll let it be for now, although I would have to say that it is rather cruel to not let one’s soul cross over into the afterlife.” The Son of Osiris then lowered his staff after he had responded to Eva.

”Cruel is finding a semi worthy successor to my name and not passing everything I know to her. You can sense me, if you can’t hear me then convey that to your friend Eva..”

”Wait, semi worthy. OH Bloody hell. Don’t make me regret asking him not to kill you. He’s a workaholic who is a pain in my arse but won’t leave until he’s done with his business. Which involves teaching me how to fight. Of course, it’d be nice if you were a better instructor.”

Arthur scoffed at her attempted to insult him. ”And yet you seem to be intent on rushing head first into battle, instead of controlling its flow. But yes, blame the dead King, The Greatest Swordsman to live. Well. Western Swordsman. I have yet to test myself against Eastern combatants.”

“I was gonna call this Crazy Cat even crazier but man, I’m getting weird vibes that way. It’s like something just displaced the electromagnetic spectrum over theres.” As he spoke he did get an odd look from a few of them, probably inquiring about his knowledge of such a big word. “I ain’t no dummy, sure I dress the way I do but my powers require extensive knowledge of electrical currents and fields. I’m applying to College next year after Graduation for a degree in theoretical physics. So shut it youse.”

Scott Hunter looked in the mirror as he finished tying the dark blue tie that Alexa had picked out for him to wear to dinner. Normally, he wasn’t a suit and tie kind of guy, but tonight was an important night. He and Alexa would be joining her parents at AnGio, one of the hottest and most exclusive new restaurants in Lost Haven. It was a night that Scott had been dreading. Alexa’s parents, particularly her father had been adamantly against their relationship from the very beginning. They did not believe that Scott was a good fit for Alexa, that because he didn’t come from money he was beneath her. He knew that he was in for an evening of passive aggressive insults from her overbearing father and slightly more tolerable mother, and with recent events still playing fresh in his mind; he knew that he was just not in the mood. However, he knew that this was important to Alexa, and because there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her, he was going through with what he knew would be a nightmarish night.

“Scott, you’ve got to see this.” Alexa’s voice came from the living room. Scott took one last look in the mirror to straighten his tie and give himself one last look over before heading out into the living room to see whatever it was that she wanted to show him.

He found her standing in front of the TV with an agonized look on her face as she watched whatever it was that was unfolding before her.

What now? he thought to himself as he joined her in front of the TV. When he saw what was unfolding before him, his heart sank. The image on the screen showed an old warehouse, which had been the venue for a rather large rave engulfed in flames.

“San Francisco fire fighters have been working tirelessly to contain the blaze, but are losing ground. Reports are coming in that there are a number of people trapped on the second floor, unable to escape because the makeshift staircase that was in use has collapsed, trapping them on the second floor. I spoke with--” Scott tuned off the television and met Alexa’s gaze.
“Go.” She said, knowing that he couldn’t just let those people die. “Do what you do best. I’ll cover for you.” With her blessing, Scott made a dash to the bedroom where he quickly changed into his suit.

Emma Kershaw knew that she was going to die. What was supposed to be a fun night out at the rave had become a hellish nightmare. She had been upstairs watching DJ Testa spin the way that only she could when it all started. Between beats in the music she thought that she had heard people screaming, but wasn’t sure if it was a part of the song, or if something was actually going on. Soon, she noticed people had started making their way toward the stairs, but before she knew it, the entire upstairs had filled with smoke, making it impossible to see in front of her.

She could feel the temperature rising inside of the warehouse as flames shot upward, igniting the walls and ceiling. She pushed through the smoke in the general direction of where she believed the staircase had been set up. She was determined to escape this fiery deathtrap; however, her hopes were dashed when she heard the wooden pallets that doubled as the staircase to the first floor fall over. She let out a cry the reality of the situation hit her, and she knew that she would not get out of the warehouse alive. A surprising sense of calm washed over her as she accepted her fate, and she reached into her pocket and produced her cell phone.

“Mom, I’m going to die. I love you.” She typed into her phone’s digital keyboard. Then let out a whimper as she pressed “send.”

As she still pushed forward, not knowing where she was trying to go, hoping to find any break in the structure that would allow her to escape, she felt someone brush past her before collapsing to the floor. Suddenly, Emma felt strange. She became lightheaded and found it harder and harder to draw breath as she was overcome by the smoke.

Well, this is it… she thought to herself as she found herself unable to move any further. So she did all she could do, she reached over and put her arm around the person who had been overtaken just in front of her. She could tell that it was another young woman, and her breathing was very faint. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before the smoke and fire claimed them both.

“It-it’s alright…” she said weakly as she closed her eyes.

Suddenly, she heard a loud crash. She had assumed that it was a part of the warehouse collapsing. However, the influx of fresh air caused her to stir a bit. She looked over to where the sound had originated from, and for an instant thought that she was hallucinating. She saw a man hovering in front of a hole in the side wall of the warehouse, and then realized that her prayers had been answered. The floating man was not a hallucination at all. It was Icon, and somehow he was there to save her.

Icon knew that he didn’t have much time. The people trapped on the second floor had already begun to be overcome by the smoke. So he moved quickly to get as many people out of the inferno as he could. First, he noted a young woman laying on the floor with her arms wrapped around another, as if she was trying to shield her and comfort her in their final moments. Icon raced toward the two women, grabbed them and threw one over each shoulder.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you.” he said as he flew them back out of the hole that he had punched in the side of the building, and delivered them to a waiting ambulance where the paramedics were waiting with fresh oxygen. He didn’t stand around for long. He put his hand on the shoulder of the young woman who had been cradling the other for an instant, as his way of giving her even the slightest of comfort, and then raced back into the burning warehouse to do what he could do for the others trapped inside.

Emma watched the blue and silver clad hero race back into the inferno just seconds after dropping her and the other party-goer off at an ambulance where she immediately had an oxygen mask put over her face and encouraged to breath. Even though she was in a bit of a haze, she knew that Icon had provided the miracle that she had been hoping for.

“Thank you.” She said breathlessly as the hero vanished from her view.

“This is where things get complicated.” ℝoot explained into her phone to her volunteer while syncing her EEGARD to her home computer. “Say what I say. Do what I do. Be what I am... ” ℝoot added and compulsively verified the pairing of her phone to that of her avatar’s before locking the door to her apartment. The connection was a digital substitute for a sympathetic connection to her avatar and now that the telepathic link was established the phones could be allowed to resume their normal operation. Now she pushed through to and from her and her target’s mind. At the same time she pushed the lobby button and muttered her tagline: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” while knowing full well what was to happen next.

Outside Midas Industries the answer was given in an equally under-the-breath tone: “The Shadow knows…” The line came from an elderly gentleman of gentry, well into his seventies but equally well aged. He tentatively leaned on a smart-looking cane as he delivered the line, before springing into action. He wore a two thousand dollar black suit with silver pinstripes, and a matching fedora. A fed-aura one might say as his attire, the manner in which he carried himself, and an immutable aspect in his presence marked him as a man out of time. A true 50s gangster.

The man strolled confidently into the lobby of Midas Industries while, simultaneously, the girl stepped out of her run-down apartment building. The girl hesitated as she mounted her vespa for in this moment the man was approaching the elevators.

“Sir,” the receptionist mechanically said without looking up from her desk, to which the man in the suit nodded and tipped his hat. We’re not invisible… ℝoot thought to her elderly counterpart, I’m radiating a sense of familiarity and belonging into everyone who sees you. To them you’re an everyday part of their routine. Do not do anything to disrupt that. To each human element in the system The Shadow merely belonged wherever he was seen, and paid no mind when observed.

ℝoot started her vespa and, as her mind raced, her EEGARD translated and displayed on-screen the actions she was having her computer take. The head’s up display didn’t obscure her vision and she began driving toward her destination: the IMEI that she had identified earlier is one that now had GPS enabled.

Biometrics… she received from her avatar as he stepped into the elevator. It was a basic fact of security that every system had a weaknesses. That was because they’re not designed to keep everyone out. Only to keep the wrong people out. The trick is to either get the system to think you are the right people, or that you simply don’t exist. In this case a little of both was required and the thoroughness of the system was its weakness. Every person’s biometrics was on file, and every access was recorded. Upon mental command the man held his phone up to the microphone and it emitted a high-pitched pulse: a virus explicitly designed to be read by voice-recognition software encoding its bits in the variation of the tone.

Moments later the time on the elevator’s clock changed to the moment the occupant she traced here had initiated the lift. “Welcome Ms. Sparks,” the elevator said as it began its descent. ℝoot had used the internal clocks and recorded time-stamps to trick the computer into thinking it was the moment between conformation of identity and engaging of request, so the elevator took her avatar to the place where Ms. Sparks went previously.

Midas sat behind the large oak desk that adorned his office watching the security cam footage of the battle between Racheli and the mercenary War-Pulse. Though he had watched the events as they had initially unfolded via his secret access to the city’s network of security cameras, he found the footage even more impressive upon a second viewing. As Midas watched the damage that the young woman wrought in Chinatown, his lips curled upward in a proud sneer. This woman, this Racheli was an absolute powerhouse...and she was all his. With Racheli under his employ, Midas knew that the possibilities were endless, and he was looking forward to putting his newest acquisition to work.

Suddenly, the chime from Midas’ private elevator sounded. Surprised, Midas looked to the elevator door located in the corner of his office, almost hidden by the ornate wooden panelling that decorated the office space. He anticipated seeing his man servant, Livingston walk through the doors. However, he was slightly taken aback when he saw a man in a dark pinstriped suit and fedora. As the man stepped into Midas’ office, the CEO couldn’t help but to picture the man in the 1940’s or 50’s in a speakeasy surrounded by loose women and gangsters.

There was something off about the man, and aside from his strange choice in wardrobe, Midas couldn’t quite place it. However, not one to take risks, he reached for the pistol that was strapped to the underside of his desk, though he refrained from pulling it from its hiding spot.

“I don’t know who you are, but you must have brass ones coming in here like this. Now, what is it that you want?” Midas asked the man as he strolled toward Midas’ desk.

The clack of diamond on marble resonated through the room as the man who stepped off the elevator centered himself. It was imagined that the elevator announced the visitor as Ms. Sparks which they both knew to be wrong. The elderly man dressed in avarice looked up in a passing glance, from his younger counterpart who simply exuded it, to the screens that monitored the same battle that brought him.

His cane tapped, and his leather shoes clacked on the stone, as the man approached while deliberately ignoring the explicit question. There was a primal aura about him. One that initiated and perpetuated the fight-or-flight response in all those who looked upon him; particularly the one hiding behind a gun.

“You have the look of a man who keeps informed so you know who I am.” The man said in reference to the placement of his name—of his foretold coming on every news broadcast, on every channel, and on every report of the day. “I am The Shadow. As for what I want…” The Shadow shook his head. “You ask as if you have some power to deny me.” A wry smile crossed the gentlemanly caller’s face as he stepped forward once more casually closing the distance between the two.

“I am here to offer you one opportunity. Stop.” The earlier passing glance to the screens monitoring the meta’s battle made it very clear what was to stop and so it didn’t require further clarification. “You’ve attracted my attention and that does not end well for you.”

Midas’ lips curled into a sneer as as he listened to the man’s thinly veiled threats. Never one to shy away from a challenge, the man who introduced himself as “The Shadow” genuinely intrigued Midas. The man’s mere presence presented several questions, most notably, how did he get past security, more pressing...just how did he trick the company’s biometric scanners into believing that he was Ms Sparks.

“Is that so?” Midas asked the man. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you will have made an enemy you are not qualified to engage.” The Shadow stated as simply and as naturally as if he was giving the time. He glanced again at the monitors before adding “One of many powerful enemies.” The Shadow lifted one hand off of his cane, and placed it on Midas’s gun to gently push it down to his side.

“The fact that you are hiding behind that gun. That your first instinct was to put it between us for your safety. That tells me you are out of your league. That you can not fathom just what you are dealing with. The enemy you will have made.” The Shadow’s hand left the man’s gun and rejoined its opposite atop the cane. “You are being given an opportunity that most in your position do not get. You should seize it.”

“We’ll see about that. But I am feeling generous today, so I am going to give you an opportunity that few who have been so brazen have ever gotten. I’m going to give you the chance to walk away from this with your life.” Midas told the impeccably dressed man. “You don’t get to be in the position I am unless you are ruthless and willing to do whatever you have to do in order to secure your success. I have no problem making you disappear and making sure that no one ever finds any evidence that you ever existed. So take this opportunity and leave. Walk away, and forget that you were ever here, otherwise you will be making a mistake that you will not live to regret.”

A long sigh escaped the gentry as his eyes drifted over the man’s frame, as if he expected more from Midas than what was presented.
“I’m not actually here.” The Shadow said through through its flesh avatar as the elevator dinged for the second time since he arrived.

Midas listened to the man continue speaking, yet what he was saying made no sense. At least it made no sense if you took what he said at face value. However, Midas began piecing together things that the mysterious stranger had said, and it did indeed paint an interesting picture. Midas was well aware of the various metahumans that had begun populating the world in recent years, each displaying varying powers, he supposed that it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities that somewhere out there, there was a metahuman who was able to mentally control others. However, that posed another problem for him. Just who was controlling the man who stood before him, and what was that person after?

Midas drew the pistol again and squeezed the trigger. Not hard enough to cause the gun to fire, but hard enough to vindicate his feelings. It was not a point of fear, but rather a point of caution, that he let the man go. The Shadow had blown past every defense in his organization, for a face-to-face meeting to deliver a warning or threat of some kind.

A threat sufficing where very direct and violent action could have easily been substituted instead. It was the warning that drew his interest though, and there would be time enough to test later. After all, this man's presence didn't present any intimidate danger to anything other than his pride. The Shadow was patient and Midas too must be patient.

Taps of diamond on stone, equal in number to his entrance, sounded The Shadow's exit from Midas's inner sanctum. As the doors of the elevator closed with him inside it greeted him once more "Welcome Ms. Sparks."

Voyager

Beware the Depths: Part 2

"....DROWN...!" the colossal creature bellowed as the anchor was swung into the air. But this time, Voyager was ready, rolling to the side as the anchor swung down and sunk into the road, launching a flurry of psiblasts at its face. Shielding its eyes with its free hand, it wrenched the anchor upwards and swung it like an axe, narrowly missing Voyager again and cleaving into the building with the overswing.

"That's a perfectly good building you're trashing!" Voyager mockingly scolded, punctuating her taunt with a few choice energy blasts, causing the monster to stagger back. A splash of cheers and whoops rose from the crowd when the shots connected, reminding her that she wasn't exactly alone.

"Go Tentacle Head!" someone cheered enthusiastically.

"It's Voyager!" the tentacle-headed heroine retorted. "Though your support is greatly appre-EEE!" A low swing from the anchor caught the back of her ankle, sweeping her legs out from underneath her and landing Voyager squarely on her back. Blinking stars from her eyes, she managed to regain her senses long enough to commando roll out from underneath the anchor as the creature brought it down where her head once was.

"FEAR...THE OCEAN'S...WEIGHT...!"

"*pant* I-is everything this guy says so dramatic?" Voyager asked no one in particular, out of breath as she stumbled into a fighting position. "You need more lines!"

"You tell 'em Voyager!" someone shouted over the din of twisting metal and crumbling concrete. Dodging another ponderous swing of the anchor, she caught the side of the street for the first time. There seemed to be more people there than before, and they were all cheering her on. Emboldened by their presence, Voyager deftly leaped over the creature's sluggish back-swing and doubled up on her Psiblasts, causing it to roar in shock and pain as the energy blasts struck him in his massive chest. Drawing back the anchor, the creature lifted its foot up into the air and stamped on the ground. Voyager opened her mouth to mock it for being angry before she saw water erupting in bursts from the road starting from where its foot came down. Throwing up her Psiforce barrier, the ground burst below her feet and sent her tumbling backwards, where she slammed heavily into the bumper of an abandoned car.

"Oh that is deeply unfair," Voyager groaned, painfully getting to her feet by pushing herself up from the car. Her entire body ached from the effort of standing, pain shooting from her back as she prepared another set of Psiblasts. Something wet was collecting on the back of her uniform, and she couldn't tell if it was the water from that attack or...

"I am not finished yet, though," she announced shakily but still defiant. Her colossus of an opponent merely laughed, a cold, mirthless laugh that chilled her to the bone as it raised its anchor to its shoulder again and trudged forward, ready to slay his enemy once and for all.

"Oi, Tentacle Head, catch!" Voyager recognized that voice. She turned around excitedly, only to be struck between the eyes by something plastic and light before it tumbled into her hands.

"Ouch! Hey, what was that-" Voyager started before she gasped suddenly at the warm sensation that flowed suddenly through her body just as suddenly as the bursts of water, soothing the sharp pains and filling her with energy she never felt before.

"Just hold that and blast Nautilus with your powers!" Jordan Fletcher shouted, slightly muffled by the motorcycle helmet she was wearing as an impromptu disguise. "He's tough but stay on the offensive and you'll beat him!" Voyager looked between Jordan and the item she gave her, some sort of creepy white mask with a red teardrop painted on, before wrapping it around her arm with the strap to free her hands. The morbid little object had given her some strength back, but not as much as knowing Jordan was behind her, cheering her on. She couldn't stop now.

Drawing on her newfound energy, Voyager unleashed another psiblast as the monster raised the anchor. The giant roared in pain as the blast exploded on its chest, she watched in amazement as purple flames, the same color as her usual attacks, erupted from the point of impact and spread over her enemy's armor plating. Easily dodging the wild, blind swing of the anchor, she turned on her heel and shot another psiblast with the same effects, the ground shaking as the colossus stumbled backwards in pain. Voyager strode forward as the monster retreated, peppering him with shot after shot and easily jumping around to dodge his wild swings before countering every one of them. The cheering on either side intensified as the monster fell back, and the half-alien heroine couldn't help but smile when she heard them chanting her name.

"NOOOOO!" the monster thundered again, the fury in its voice compounded by its helplessness against the half-alien girl's attacks. "MY....VENGEANCE....WILL....NOT..."

"HAPPEN!" Voyager interrupted her enemy with a double-handed psiblast, punching through the monster's outstretched arm and going off with the force of a bomb, throwing dust into the twilight air. Relaxing slightly, she turned to look back towards the crowd, smiling tiredly.

"H-heh," she announced weakly, giving a lazy two-fingered salute that almost knocked her off balance. "Guess...I am...not getting...sunk today. Whew..." Basking in her moment of glory, she thought longingly of the sofa Jordan had managed to smuggle into her home at the labs and made to leave.

Then someone screamed, and Riley heard the hauntingly familiar sounds of groaning metal. Every good feeling in the world melted away as she turned her head to spot the surge of water punching through the concrete, heading straight for her. Voyager didn't move a muscle, partly out of shock but mostly because she thought trying to dodge it wouldn't have worked anyway. "T-today is a good day to die..." she said shakily, bringing up a flickering Psiforce barrier. Seconds later, the ground underneath her exploded in a geyser of water, more intense then the ones that approached her, launching the helpless alien girl into the air again. Flailing helplessly, she heard the hauntingly familiar sounds of the rattling chain as the anchor was swung through the air. She felt at least one of her ribs snap as the heavy iron slammed into her chest, sending her on a death spiral across the road and back to the ground again. A loud snap rent the air as Voyager landed in a bruised and bloodied heap on the ground, only to be flung another few feet from the heavy impact of the anchor in the ground.

Voyager coughed, tasting something salty in her mouth. She tried to get to her feet only to fail miserably and collapse with a whimper. It hurt to move. It even hurt to breath. And when did it get so cold? Pushing herself up slightly with one arm, she saw through blurred and unfocused eyes that her right leg stuck out at an odd angel. She wiped the sweat from her eyes and the back of her hand came back stained green. It felt darker then it had been a moment ago. It took Voyager's shell-shocked mind a few seconds to realize that was only because someone was standing over her. She gasped in shock as the monster towered overhead, the furious red eyes gleaming, its right arm ending in a stump with pixels flaking off of it. Her eyes trailed over to the good arm as it raised the anchor into the air overhead and brought it swinging down.

"No....NO!"

The anchor sparked and flashed as it impacted her Psibarriers, thrown up at the last second. In desperation Voyager held her shields against the weight of the great weapon. Tears came to her eyes as it forced her arms into her chest, pressing her against the ground.

"DO YOU HEAR THEM CALLING?" the monster taunted malevolently, shifting its weight on the anchor, crushing Voyager under the combined weight. The PsiBarriers shimmered and cracked from the combined effort of Voyager maintaining them and the great metal man attempting to shatter them.

"N-no...I'm not...going,"

"THE DEPTHS WILL ALWAYS RECLAIM...WHAT IS THEIRS."

"...not...reclaiming...me..." Voyager felt light-headed. She was suffocating.

"DARKNESS....AWAITS...."

"No..." Voyager gasped, baring her teeth as her eyes began to glow. "...not...today..."

The glass on her inhibitors began to crack.

"...DROWN...."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The darkened street was illuminated with a purple glow as energy erupted from Voyager's eyes at the sound of her last, defiant scream. The beam of Psienergy struck home, knocking the metal beast's great head back as the focused PsiEnergy cleanly pierced its body and vanished into the night sky. The eyes fading from the wicked red into black nothingness, with one final groan the great iron monster rolled backwards and fell on its back with a thunderous slam before fully dissolving into tiny pixels. Voyager, with the weight of the anchor removed, lifted her head tenderly, her eyes a pure shade of vibrant, glowing purple.

"Oh...didn't know I could do that..." she commented weakly as the energy slowly faded away, the old color returning to her eyes. "Neat..."

Voyager lowered her head again, looking up at the stars in the night sky, wondering if Jordan or Mr. Martel would find her here. Her eyes began to droop.

She was so tired...

Location: National History Museum
Time: Late Afternoon

The youngest sibling allowed her eyes to flicker from her sibling towards the exasperated sigh. It felt strange having another werewolf inside the same room but then again it also felt strange having the person in wolf form with what seemed to be a human inside the room. Most cases the young woman’s sibling would have been freaking out or even attempting to form a logical excuse. Yet here she was attempting to be calm as well as stern. A single question formed inside the girl’s mind as she listened to the new aqantence closely. What had just happened to keep Ji from wanting to rip her a new one?

The werewolf’s eyes returned back towards her sibling once she spoke. In a way she wished the oldest would just keep her mouth shut at times so they wouldn't argue. ”If you were human we wouldn't be having this conversation Ji. I'm not a puppy anymore so you don't need to keep an eye on me 24/7. Did you ever think that the reason I'm acting up is because I want you to stop treating me like a child? I mean I understand that you're the oldest but give me some space and start trusting me.” The young woman said in a harsh tone. It wasn't that Yeong didn't Emory her sister’s guidance but at times she always felt like a demotic pet. Leashed up for a walk until the wolf learned to obey her master. In truth this wasn't what she needed to feel. The girl missed feeling free and the ground underneath her paws, running deeper in the inhabited range. ” As for anyone else appearing I wouldn't know. As far as I know Ji and me are the only ones who should be here.”

Her attention then turned towards the other woman. ”I take it as Ji spilled our little secret. Some much for keeping that one under wraps. Guess she just couldn't help but show off a bit.” the woman commented mentally scolding Ji for taking a huge ass risk before continuing. ”I hate to say this but I believe you're correct. At least for now. Though if you don't mind introducing yourself once we’re in a safe place,” she commented just as Marie leaned down in front of Ben.

When the puppy turned back into his human form the woman shifted in her spot. For once she was speechless considering that Marie was able to shift him back fairly easy though by the looks of things the young man’s body still wasn't quite used to change. Perhaps a few more shifts and it would become just like theirs. Flesh turning into what seemed like dead skin, making it easier to peel away, leaving less of a mess behind. ”” It gets easier as time goes by kid. Unless you're like Ji and tend to get dusty. Unlike the OCD person I tend to be much more cleaner.” the girl shot at her sister.

---

“There we go,” Mia’s voice broke out behind Avatar's figure, his hand jerked his joystick to move him deeper into his apartment. He turned then reversed out of the way before parking the wheelchair and allow his home nurse to enter in his wake. Her arms pinned two filled baskets to her hips as she swayed inside, her walk paused long enough to twist and shut the door behind her with a soft thump.

“That felt good didn’t it? Getting out and enjoying yourself?” Mia asked in a cheerful voice, her body disappeared into his bathroom. Avatar heard her prop open the cabinets beside the sink, nearly everything within his reach, then emerge with an empty orange bottle in her hand and a frown on her lips, “When were you going to tell me you were out of them, uh? According to the date, you’re not due for a refill until the end of the month and yet the bottle is empty a week early. What happened to the pills?”

Avatar inhaled deeply then proceeded to explain, knowing that Mia would not likely believe his fabricated lie, “I knocked them over into the toilet bowl when I went to take them a week ago. The whole bottle fell in and I didn’t feel like hauling the mess out, so I retrieved the bottle and flushed the pills. I never told you because I thought I could last until the end of the month.”

“Bullshit. It was that junkie, Terrance, wasn’t it? You just gave them to him, didn’t you?” Mia demanded to know, her eyes narrowed on his image and seemed on the verge of beat it out of him.

From her intense glare, Avatar already knew she wouldn’t accept any other answer than the one she deduce despite it being false. He hadn't given them away, but sold the prescriptions for additional funds toward his project. In his mind they weren’t working and pointless to keep around if they failed to accomplish what they were designed to. His expression remained neutral to what she accused him of doing as she groaned loudly, her arm tossed the bottle into the nearest trash. It made a hollow thunk loud.

“I don’t know why I even bother trying,” Mia mumbled. Her right hand’s fingers rubbed her temple while she looked at the miniature father clock on the mantle and turned back to him, “Let’s get these groceries put up then I got to leave. The babysitter is going to cost me an arm and leg if I'm late again.”

Quickly, Mia bent over the counter as began to rustle through the numerous groceries before she handed select ones off to him. The lower cabinets were soon stuff with dry and can goods, all non perishable, while she filled the fridge. Admiring her work, The nurse turned to him then commented, “do you need me to stick around or you good for the night?”

“No, I’ve taken care of myself without you before and I’m pretty sure Tyler is wondering where you’re at,” Avatar’s hand pulled the joystick from its parked position into motion, his wheelchair twitched and began to roll away. The whirling sounds echoed through his hallway while he vanished from sight. Mia bit her lip, her vision caused his back to goose bump as she continued to debate within. Finally, his action made her decision for her. She reached for her jean purse and quickly checked for her car keys before she exhaled. When her hand reached to twist the door open once more, she made one last pause then she was gone.

From his bedroom window, Avatar’s hand parted the curtains while he spied her casually stroll down the street and slip into her vehicle. The headlights came to life while it gradually edged from the driveway and into the urban landscape. It easily melted into the other numerous cars passing by in the night.

His hand released the curtains. Once more hidden from the outside world, he twisted his wheelchair’s joystick and the front flipped about to guide him toward his desk in the corner. Now the experiment begins…

---

Koi Docks was known to harbor all things corrupted. From local street gang hideaways to selling of narcotics, even minor turf wars that left the boardwalks soaked in misguided blood. Not even the salty ocean breeze could cleanse the air of the iron stink. Even tourists were smart enough to keep their distance when the sun went down and few treaded there willingly. Several abandoned storage units, from warehouses to shipping containers, all stood silently to witness the hidden crimes to come after dark. Among the buildings closest to the docks, a single one emitted light through plastic covered windows and into the shadows nearby.

Anyone that kept tabs on the local police reports would recall officially it was a privately owned warehouse, no new shipments going in or out for two months. With no evidence of illegal activity or connection to the local gang, the authorities were forced to leave it alone. Some even believed the chief of the Tri-PD might’ve been paid under the table in order to prevent stake outs by the front door.

Deep within the warehouse, the clicking taps of a keyboard echoed within the makeshift workshop. Aaron Turner, a talented mechanic and technician, hunched over one of several computer monitors. Wires snaked their way across the concrete floor then connected to a single humanoid droid stretched out across an X shaped slab, cold and inanimate for the time being. The design had been pretty complex in Aaron’s experience compared to the high tech shit the Shroud Syndicate, notorious by the police standards, made him fiddle with. Sadly their presence was very scarce in California region(he couldn’t go back to the gang with the police eyeballing him after all) and being an ex-con made work even harder to come by when better, squeaky clean options were available.

Desperate and funds dwindled to scraps, he had been picked up by Avatar about three months back. His job was easier than most: follow the blueprints he been given down to the very letter. No questions asked and have each project completed by the established due date. While the paroled criminal found it odd, he couldn’t resist the tax free ten grand each task brought and went to work eagerly.

Now, with this strange metal thing staring him in the face night and day, Aaron began to wonder what the hell he got himself into.

He relaxed and fell into the chair back, the springs groaned from the weight. He let himself bounce once then twice and even a third time to the headphone’s blaring beat, the hard custom mixture of rap and rock vibrated in his attention. Meanwhile, his eyes flickered across the computer’s luminous screen still monitoring any change in the droid’s status.

The monitor continued to display a flat line.

Aaron sighed in boredom, the dullness aspect of his employment scraped painfully over his mind and his legs kicked at the floor. He rolled over toward whatever pizza remained then reached for a slice. The moment the luke warm surface touched his skin, the monitor’s line spiked. His head jerked back in surprise. Again, the line jerked like a pulse in a steady beat across the screen. Shock and stun amazement spread over his expression, his eyes widen when the droid’s hand twitched. Gradually, Avatar pulled upright then turned its faceless shield to the frozen individual.

---

When Avatar jacked in, tingling and numbness washed over him. Instinctively his self preservation reflex tried to fight the losing battle as he fought to remain calm, the sensation of his mind falling away from his body dangerously close to death itself. Surprisingly enough, he recalled feeling this sensation often when trapped back in China and loathed it. His fingers tightened then abruptly released before he went completely slack in his chair.

Darkness literally swallowed him up. Sound, sight, and other needed sensories that the living took for granted didn’t exist within this vast emptiness, his attempts to move pointless since he had no way to register them. Slowly the floating sensation came to an end when his mind started to find anchorage within something. The sound of a pulsing beep, sharp and harsh on his dulled mind, caught his attention. Impulsively he tightened his fingers and the pulse grew stronger, the pace increased with his excitement that filled his core. Originally he had worried it wouldn’t work. Failure would’ve resulted in his mind stuck on the brim of death, forever darted between the computer systems and his flesh. For him it was an unpleasant thought but well worth the risk.

Now, he had to determine additional theories and test his ability to adjust to the sensory systems. Activating his visual visor, light and color flooded his attention. It distracted him for a moment as the system hummed to life. It fed him a continual stream of his current surroundings, namely what he focused on, but a slight disappointment came to him. When compared to his natural vision, the colors were saturated and dulled from the usual vibrate appeal. Like someone had toned down the colors on a computer. Mindful about the flaw in his calculations, he decided to test additional systems.

Gears grinded, subtly, as his torso moved and began to sat upright. They moved well enough through their reflexes lacked the smoothness in the human body. He concluded that was likely due to the fact the droid hadn’t been tested since its creation, an issue he intended to sort when he explored the city. He held up his arm and admired the craftsmanship for a moment before he turned his head to the only other individual within his warehouse: Aaron.

“You did well in the construction,” Avatar’s mechanical and gravelly voice rang out, his arms reached to the back of his head. His fingers carefully detached the various wires attached to his spine and let them drop off one by one.

The sound shot Aaron from his stun state of mind, the man immediately pushed to his feet and let the chair roll back. He then moved cautiously over to the droid, “Did you… I don’t... Fuck. Fuck me hard, what the hell are you?”

“That’s a simple enough answer. You know me as Avatar. I hired you if you recall? I designed a Neuro Syn Link system to digitally translate brain waves into data, then downloaded it into a dummy corporation's wifi network and followed it to the warehouse where I then jacked into the droid’s system,” Avatar spoke bluntly, still in the process of removal,“However, I’m a bit disappointed in the visual and audio intake. I might have to adjust the custom built A2PD recording system for both and observe how they do before considering completely redesigning it.”

Aaron paused then blinked dumbly at Avatar. His voice increased in pitch over his exclamation, “Whoa, wait. You mean to tell me that you’ve literally downloaded your mind into that thing?!”

“Crude wording, but correct.”

“Damn… but why? Why would you do that to yourself?”

“The current physical situation I’m in was… unsatisfactory. Now that it has succeeded, I have to run a few tests and alter the equipment to improve it.” Avatar causally spoke then hopped off the table, his legs bent and sustained his movement easily. He continued to test his joints and other functions, Aaron narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean ‘run a few tests’? Like do you mean here in the warehouse because I have to inform you, there’s no high tension or stress equipment able to likely do what you’re aiming for. That would take months to ship in and se-”

Avatar interrupted the mechanic when his hand held up for silence,“No, this city is the perfect testing ground. Numerous unusual individuals have been reported to be within the area and would make excellent adversaries to test the limits of my experiments.”

Aaron paled at the thought of Avatar bring supers back to him and risk going head to head. His hands made a time out gesture by crossing one hand over the other in a T, “Whoa… Wait a moment, time out. I didn’t sign on to take on capes and I’ll be damned if I risk getting arrested over your bullshit.”

At the man’s side, his hand had shifted for his cell in his back pocket. Gradually and carefully, he tried to sneak it out then discreetly dial the police. Aaron had became distracted in trying to type the right number that he didn’t realize Avatar had began to walk toward him. His eyes snapped up when a large, blue and black hand closed over his own then began to crush the andriod until the screen cracked. Feeling the glass bury itself into his fingers fastened against the once flawless surface, Aaron found his throat sized by the machine he had created. Avatar tightened his fingers over the windpipe then yanked the man from his feet into the air.

“Such a pity, I was hoping we could work together a bit longer. If you can’t keep your silence, I’ll assist you in that and ensure you never utter another word again. Thank you… for all your assistance,” Avatar commented when his fingers flickered with electrical energy and jolted into the skin, Aaron Turner’s body tensed and twitched. Cooked flesh filled the warehouse’s air as the wattage died down, the corpse to hung limply from his outstretched arm. Calmly Avatar loosen his grip to let the corpse drop over his shoulder and determined the best fashion to get rid of before he walked into the night.

It seemed like the day had been won. All the video game characters had disappeared and the remaining citizens of Pacific Point were released from the digital prison that the Game Genie had trapped them in. While the video game characters did cause some havoc around the city, the actual amount of damage was actually not as catastrophic as one would think it would have been. Sure, there was some property damage, but it wasn’t like entire blocks were not leveled to the ground. Thank goodness it wasn’t like the Avengers’ movie out here, or the bill to fix up the city would be ridiculous!

While Kyra was preparing to create a small portal to get us back to city hall, I saw an intact store window with a television playing whichever local news that happened to still be active. The news station was showing coverage of the aftermath of a fight between one of the video game characters and a local hero. Although it seemed as if the hero had won, it was not a good sign that she wasn’t moving. At first glance, I didn’t recognize her, but after the newsreel continued to roll, I think that I might know who the injured hero was.

“Hey, Kyra.” I asked Firefox, which interrupted her concentration on the portal she was trying to make. “Is that that alien girl we ran into at city hall?”

“Alien girl?” Kyra replied back. Her brow as furrowed. “When did that happen?”

“Oh, yes. You were still trapped when that happened. We might want to make a quick pit stop before we met up with the others. That girl doesn’t look so hot, after the beating she probably just took.”

“Just give me a sec.” Kyra told me as she concentrated on creating a portal to where the crowd had formed around the injured hero, who as several blocks away from our current location. She held her arms out in front of herself, touching the tips of her fingers against one of them. She then pulled her hands apart, almost as if she were pulling something apart between them. As the space between her hands drew apart, a portal began to appear.

“Alright, let’s go.” Kyra at least said after she had finished crafting the portal.

“I just remembered how much I hated my first experience going through one of those things.”

“Well, at least you’re not being thrown through one of them this time.” Kyra winked at me. She then gestured towards the portal, showing that she wanted me to go through first.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward towards the portal. When I was only inches away from it, I inhaled a second time, closed my eyes, and took a few more steps forward. After a few steps, my curiosity could not help itself. I peeled open one of my eyes. However, instead of finding some weird interdimensional limbo world, I discovered that I was still in Pacific Point. In fact, I was where that alien girl had passed out, with the ever-increasing crowd had formed around her.

“See, it wasn’t that bad, right?” Kyra elbowed the side of my human torso.

“Whatever.” However, our joking mood quickly turned sour when we got a closer look at the condition the girl was in.

“Oh, God. She looks worse than she did on the news.” Kyra gasped when she saw Voyager. The alien-girl that I momentarily met back at city hall definitely took quite a beating from whatever she was fighting. One of her legs appeared to have been broken and she was losing quite a bit of blood, which was eerily green colored. And who knows what other internal injuries she had sustained.

“I’m going to grab Osiris so that we can move her without doing any more damage. While I’m gone, just try to keep pressure wherever she’s bleeding.” Before I could even voice my opinion, Kyra had already formed another portal and hopped through it.

I looked down at the poor girl, who was now lying down in a pool of her own green blood. That strange tint of her blood made me hesitant to touch her, since I wasn’t sure what was causing it to turn green. Sure, I have a healing factor, but I’m pretty sure that it’s standard practice to try to avoid direct contact with fluids like blood. Therefore, I took the makeshift approach. I tried to cover the obvious wounds with a coating of webbing. I hoped that it would at least apply some pressure while I waited for Kyra to get back here.

Suddenly, another portal opened up a few feet away from me and the little injured alien-girl. Kyra was the first to exit out of it and she continued to concentrate on it in order to keep the portal open. The Son of Osiris followed shortly afterwards. He held his staff out in front of him and towards Voyager and slowly raised the staff. As the staff rose, so did Voyager, until she was floating a couple feet of the ground. Then, the Son of Osiris slowly turned and send the alien-girl through the portal, with him following close behind.

“Alright. Let’s get out of here.” Kyra finally told me once the girl and the Son of Osiris were through the portal. Then, we each took turns entering the portal. Once we both went through it, we found ourselves back in city hall, where the other Immortals were, along with that girl with the sword and some other guy who I did not quite recognize. There’s so many new heroes popping up across the country. How am I supposed to keep track of them all?

When we arrived, the Son of Osiris was in the process of gently lowering the alien-girl down the ground, making sure he wouldn’t cause any pain. Once she was resting on the ground, the Son of Osiris raised his staff up into the air. A bright light began to grown on the little Egyptian symbol that was on the end of his staff. After enough light had built up on his staff, it then rained down in the form of a beam onto the injured girl. As the rays of the light were soaked into the girl’s skin, the wounds that she had sustained began to heal until they were gone. It was almost as if nothing had happened to her. Her green blood was still crusted on her skin, but the at least she was not in critical condition any more.

After he had healed the girl, the Son of Osiris fell to one knee, almost as if the process had tired him out. He closed his eyes and rested for a moment. Once he had recouped some of his energy back, he used his staff to pull himself back on his two feet.

The Game Genie’s plot was foiled. Pacific Point has been saved. Even some of the people who needed immediate medical treatment were healed. But the real question that probably was on all of our minds was what’s next.

The reeling in Ben’s head had started to dissipate as he shook it clear, his brains seemed to rattle against his skull. Sickness pulsed from his constricting navel then threatened to erupt from his mouth and spill his greasy meal upon the concrete in one motion. Shit was an adapt description to what he currently felt like. He swallowed back the sour taste while his mind’s awareness took stock of his condition, a weak attempt to right himself. On all fours and positioned on the ground, it didn't take him long to realize what had happened.

He had changed… Again. Memories, hazy ones, surfaced to his mind through they felt distant and strange to him.

Growling under his breath, his hand reached to wipe away the blood crusted on his eyelids and unblur his vision. He had just started to raise weakly to his feet when Ji flipped the tarp over his shoulders, his knees twitched and tried to give out from underneath him. She steadied him enough to prevent him from toppling into the hard concrete still covered by his discarded fur.

The tarp’s surface scratched at his tender skin and stripped a bit of the coagulated blood off. Cheap and itchy material rubbed against his skin causing his hand raise to his shoulder and scratched it. He needed a shower badly. However he had too many issues to deal with and no time to properly sort them out.

When Ji asked if he was alright, his hoarse voice replied, “Yeah. Just feel like I got trashed for the first time and seriously need a shower.”

He turned toward Marie, “If you're done here, can we call my agency guardian and get out of here? I really… Really need to get clean up. It might be hard to explain why I look like I got butchered, yet there's not a scratch on me.”

Ben weakly gestured with his hand toward the shredded remains of his clothing, “His number is in there and so is my cellphone. However, I'm pretty sure I heard my touch screen being shattered. I hope someone else carries one.”

_{banner credit to Hellis}



---

Time: Present Day - Evening
Location: Lost Haven, Maine

It took little time to get organized. After the meeting had taken place The Ambassador and Silence parted to gather their resources and information. The Ambassador sent her air sprites into Lost Haven’s docks and train yards, looking for traces of magic. Flitting about Syndicate controlled territory, looking for who wasn’t meant to be there. Anything that could give them direction. While Silence had his own spies to move. They provided the human intuition, the hunch that air sprites lacked to follow through on.

Due largely to combined efforts, they were able to find armed humans (with no ties or affiliations to the Syndicate) moving mysterious crates in one of Lost Haven’s train yards. It warranted their investigation.

A text from Silence brought the likes of The Ambassador, Bach and Mandate to the location. The air sprites in the area honed into her arrival greeting her with their most recent reports. They arrived by portal well out of sight from any prying eyes. The sprites led her to where Silence was safely observing the handful of people using the bordering brush lines to his advantage.. The train yard generally deserted, in between train arrivals save for the one currently being unloaded by their targets.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur.” She greeted him. The Ambassador settled on a more discreet outfit for the evening’s work. A sleeveless black top, with dark blue capris that clung to her, her waist was cinched with a leather belt. On her feet were black running shoes. She tied her blue hair away with a thick black hair band. Her purse was slung around her shoulder, where it always sat.

“Ambassador.” Silence nodded curtly as she walked within view, though he made an unimpressive sight. He was simply dressed in a navy-blue tracksuit, top and bottom, and he had two firearms tucked into the back of his waistband. Other than that, his pale face showed no real signs of his usual subtle alterations, he was about as natural as he ever was, which was never the whole picture.

“And this would be another of your ‘friends’ I presume?” Uncertainty had crept its way into the thief’s heart, but it was only barely perceptible in the slight intonation he put on ‘friend’. He was of course referring to the large, inhuman, golem behind Odette. He made no mention of Bach, giving little indication that he had even spotted the angry little imp letting his emotions betray him beside the Ambassador, where he was throwing a serious glare Silence’s way.

Mandate was behind her, the necklace removed to reveal the golem in her true mercurial form. The Ambassador had informed the golem of the night’s work ahead of them, who they would be working with and what to expect. Odette knew Mandate would provide the much needed muscle in case they ran into anyone above their individual skillsets. Bach stood just to the right of Odette, glowering at the sight of Silence. The night they had returned from the meeting dissolved in an explosive argument over what had happened. Bach went straight from dislike into absolute loathing of Silence.

Mandate peered down upon Silence from where she stood, head tilted ever so slightly as she considered the curious human. To her, the question seemed obvious. She spoke without a single movement of her fake mouth, her smile remaining firmly affixed. ”I’d like to think I’m friends with Miss Ambassador.” Her voice was rather upbeat, its strange tones harmonious. She was quite certain of it, truthfully. It made sense.

“Silence, this is Mandate. She is one of my friends. Mandate I’d like you to meet Silence. An associate.” Odette gestured to him, noting his tracksuit with a level of distaste. “She will be providing a level of muscle, Mandate please be sure to protect Silence as well from bodily harm.”

“Yes, Miss Ambassador.” Mandate replied cheerfully, nodding and straightening up.

“I, see.” Silence had some experience with the strangeness of the Ambassador’s pawns before now, so he was able to put the oddity of a talking golem behind him for the time being and focus on the business at hand. He gestured to the men and women down in the train yard, only barely visible through the rather thick underbrush clinging to the sides of the railyard, illuminated by torch-light and rail-side lamps. There were a few of them, some armed, others not so visibly.

“We have over a dozen armed men and women down there, but I find myself more concerned about what weapons they may hide from sight. Are any of those, down below, Vampires like we spoke about, Ms Ambassador?”

She stepped up beside him and observed them, none were displaying inhuman strength nor speed. From a distance she couldn’t quite see their eye colour or note their skin tones. The air sprites in the air around them whispered their answers in her ear. “No. They’re human, armed as you said. My sprites confirmed they are alive and have not displayed any powers.”

“Well, that makes things far easier. I would like to suggest we do something cunning, but frankly, I doubt even people of their calibre would fail to recognise something was off if I attempted to make contact with them. So, unless you have any better ideas, Ms Ambassador, I was going to go down there and eliminate them.

From her little clutch purse she pulled her magical tome free, flipping to her illusionary spells. “I agree a quick decisive removal will be best. I’ll start with a distraction, a basic but small crowd centric illusion spell. Please note that it will not last forever, it’ll give us a few minutes at best. Mandate, please focus on eliminating a fair few of them, save a couple to question when all is said and done. Hurt them a little if need be. Do not damage the product they are moving.” She replied stopping on a page. A spell she used once before but amplified to target multiple individuals.

Mandate straightened up further at the mention of elimination. Her piercing gaze switched from the men in question to the Ambassador, then back again. ”Is there anyone in particular you’d like alive, Miss Ambassador?” Her tone was shamelessly anticipatory. Her time with the Ambassador was wonderful, but the lack of ‘aggressive investigation’ had been itching at her mind.

She tapped her chin thoughtfully noting the older man giving orders, pointing where to pack the crates. She saw a couple truck drivers nervously at the wheel with radios close at hand. She pointed to the man giving orders and then the drivers. “Keep those ones alive for us to talk to, the drivers and the man in charge. Kill everyone else.”

Odette began chanting the spell, long uninterrupted Words of Power spoken in French. The faintest glimmers of over a dozen silver needles appeared around her. At the sorceress’s command she sent the needles forward, aiming directly for their heads.

Over a dozen men worked to get everything unloaded, from Mandrake to Phoenix Ashes and all in between according to what the buyers purchased before hand. One of the men moving crates was fresh as a guy directed him and made small talk. “So you see, we ship these out from Vegas and load them up onto waiting trucks, the buyers plan what they want ahead of time and they funnel cash for the purchase. Just make sure not to break anything, we’d have to refund and set up another trade.”

“I don’t get it why not have a market place or some such.”

“That comes after, once we get a foothold in a city. Until then we ship these out like so. We deal with local markets and shops directly, and show them we’re better stocked and priced than their own suppliers.”

“Suppose that makes sense, but what’s with all the security. Not like anyone’s gonna knock us over for Mandrake root.”

“Be surprised kid, even this weird stuff can fetch a nice bit gotta know who to sell it too. Besides this is Lost Haven, Cowl’s in charge of this town. Might not like anyone else doing business. Now let’s get this unloaded quickly, so we can let our shippers know the freight is loaded up.”

Assorted crates were sifted from the train and hoisted away as multiples of people both men and women carried off the usually large balsa wood crates, each having a three man crew heaving the crates onto the white truck. As a crate fell on top of Button Man's foot causing him to yell in pain but for the man who dropped the crate he heard nothing as his fingers went numb his hands failing to keep their grip and among the other Button Men similar effects had started taking place bouts of dizziness confusion and loss of equilibrium as they stumbled and fell. Two seemed rather unaffected as one grabbed his rifle and readied for an attack.

Odette clicked her heels automatically Bach grabbed her shoulder shrinking in size quickly, she closed the spell book and hugged it. The beginnings of a ward wrapped around her at the string of chanting, “Protéger mon corps, protéger mon esprit, protéger mes vertus.” On each round of chanting the ward wrapped about her in more layers, to the untrained eye while the spell worked it obscured the air around the sorceress.

Protect my body, protect my mind, protect my virtue.

When the spell was complete she said, “Mandate if you’d be so kind to begin, Silence and I will be behind you.”

“It seems like a few may still have their faculties, be mindful of their fire.” Silence left them with a final warning, and with that the thief disappeared into the brush, his dark-blue clothing working to his advantage as the night seemed to envelop him wholly. It would seem as if he wanted to be about as far away as possible from his less than stealthy allies when bullets started flying in their direction.

”Of course, Miss Ambassador.” Mandate tore her gaze away from the curious sight of the illusion at work, nodding politely to the Ambassador and observing as Silence seemingly disappeared. Humming lowly, the golem lowered herself into a starting position of some sort. She went hurtling forward with barely any warning, launching herself into a sprint through the thick underbrush. Unnervingly silent, save for the pounding of her feet.

She hit the ground in the train yard at full speed, and did not slow down. Her charge was directed towards the man who had been giving orders, her crimson gaze intent. If anyone knew what the Ambassador needed to know, it would probably be the human giving orders.

The sight of a charging Silver Behemoth had him scrambling for his gun, his limbs gave way and his knees fell upon the ground as gravel dug into them. The gun seemed to stretch with every movement as he fought against whatever this force was, it was then a blonde haired man stepped between them teeth shining as he lifted his shirt yelling.”I’M FIRE’N MAH LASER!” To which anyone who could hear him automatically cringed. Even his own Boss felt disgusted as he watched the beam smack into the Silverish Creature; to no effect. As the blonde haired man stood there as if he just realized how out of his league he truly was.

Mandate did not slow down, even with the man’s strange beam dancing across her form in vain, unable to cancel her forward movement. She did not spare the time to wonder upon his strange choice of battle cries, either; the time for such things came later, after he was dead. The humans had apparently spotted her, but the gap was already mostly closed, so what did it matter? The golem was a sleek, mercurial wall in stature, and her stride allowed her to eat up distance quickly. The sprint simply made that even quicker, but it was delayed somewhat by Mandate stooping as she ran, slowing marginally as an idea pinged her consciousness.

Mandate’s fingers slid through the loose stones beneath her feet without losing any speed, lifting away with a handful of the rocks in question. Her stride halted with a sudden stomp of her foot, her great mass only sliding marginally as she twisted her body and drew the handful back. ”I hit harder!” She doubted that announcing attacks was any form of tradition, but she was eager to participate.

Even with only a small fraction of the golem’s strength, the rocks were launched at the strange human like a spray of oversized, stone buckshot pellets aimed for his upper body. His eyes widened as the stone shotgun tore through his torso separating his body from the gem that was embedded into his stomach which probably was the source of his powers. The gem fell among the stones and pebbles while the other Button Man had reached for his gun narrowly missing a good chunk of buckshot as his head pulled back up just as it tore through Blondie and missed his ear.

The sorceress wasn’t far behind the golem, she lept from the bush line high above the trees and landing deftly on top of the train box car digging into her pocket she loosely threw a handful of seeds. Words of power gave life to the seeds, plant life sprouting instantly. The walls of tree trunks blocked the entrance of the car separating a few of the men and women from their exit. Gun shots echoed and ricocheted, terrified by losing their senses. Trapped within. She crouched low hand splayed against the boxcar. The symbol of a yew tree glowed blue.

“Piéger.” She spoke. The trap ensnared everyone inside, sapping their life away. Desiccating their bodies within seconds. In her hand the energy gathered in a little ball of light.

Mandate found herself quite satisfied with the results of her throw, as spontaneous as the idea had been. So satisfied, in fact, that she forewent hurrying at a sprint as she had before. Instead, the golem jogged forward, her eyes lingering on her handiwork before she found herself nearing the downed man. Her jog became a hurried stride, unconcerned with the supposed threat presented by armed humans. They were non-entities, except in the way that their fire might endanger someone more important, such as Miss Ambassador.

Her weight doubled without a single outward indicator, then did so again, her every step suddenly sounding significantly heavier as she approached. She reached out, intending to simply bring her full weight down upon one of the man’s legs whilst grabbing him by the collar. He did not need to be able to walk to talk, she reasoned. She paused for a moment as her foot began to crash down, wavering on one foot, before slowly easing it down. She pushed, listening and waiting patiently for the feel of breaking bone.

“The fuck wrong with you!!?” As the Button Man screamed in pain with the weight of the Golem crushing his femur. “Get off me you goddamn tin can. Get off, I’ll talk I’ll talk!”

Silence ran out of the bushes further down the track, keeping his stature low as bullets whizzed through the air after ricocheting wildly off the golem. His services weren’t really required for this, but the other two were getting a bit carried away with the wanton murder, and he did want some questions answered. Not wholly trusting his allies for such a delicate task, he crept around the field of battle, keeping his back to a train-carriage as he spied two men shaking off the disorientation of the Ambassador’s spells. They were isolated, but armed. They also cursed with a west coast Nevada slang which told him they were members of Barron’s organisation and not buyer security. He sprinted towards them, using the cacophony of sound emanating from the golem’s thunderous advance through the trainyard as cover until he was close enough to ensure success. Then, with a horrible casualness for arguably the most human among the little trio of mass-murdering robbers, he pulled a silenced pistol and fired it into the bigger man’s knee-cap from the side, downing him for a swift execution. The second turned his head in time, but not his weapon, as Silence pistol-whipped him flat across the face, and taking advantage of his stagger, he stepped in close enough to punch the man in the wrist. The unfortunate guy dropped his weapon with a grunt, his limb suddenly deadened by the impact from Silence’s metal-clad knuckles. He looked up in time to see Silence’s pistol aimed directly at his head.

“Get on your knees.” His hands raised as he tried to visualize a way out of this, though with his weapon gone and a gun firmly pointed at his head it was either survival or death. While gunfire erupted around them it had quickly begun to die down already, he saw others being dispatched before they could fight against whatever force this was. He saw his Boss under the foot of a massive silver machine or at least he thought it was mechanical, his hand reached for his phone and he knew his boss was sending an alert, wouldn’t do any good now but Barron should know soon enough shit went down and that’s all that mattered.

Mandate had already turned her attention away by the time the man made his move, his leg broken beneath her foot and his form tossed a few feet to the side by a gentle motion of her arm. Incapacitated as he was, she felt no particular concern towards anything the man attempted. She paused to stoop down, retrieving the man’s gun as bullets ricocheted off of her impenetrable form. They were such curious things, guns. Familiarity hung heavily around them, as if they were an old companion.

Shrugging, Mandate squeezed until the weapon crumpled, allowing it to fall from her hands as she resumed her charge for the nearest man capable of firing properly.

Odette took a few steps back from the edge of the boxcar noting Mandate’s success and assuming Silence found his own success, out of sight. The sound of gunfire was terribly loud, the stray bullets caught her off guard, flinching away, her wards protecting her. She could see the spell’s effects waning, the gunfire less erratic. Their fear giving way to desperate push against their assailants.

They took their aim away from the clearly bulletproof golem and aimed for Odette, the human woman exposed above them. The concentrated fire took more layers of her ward forcing her off the boxcar to take shelter on the other side. She took several steps back away from the train, knowing her next objective would be to stop the trucks from leaving.

It would simply mean having the angle right to clear the train and the men on the other side. Odette eye balled the boxcar. “Another hail of gunfire could deplete your ward.” Bach advised.

“They won’t be expecting me to reappear.” Odette reassured him, he was expecting her to reappear as herself. That would be silly.

She began casting her spell, a perfect projection of herself shimmered to life before her. Her eyes shut with concentration visualizing the projection moving as she would. The projection of herself moved to jump back on top of the boxcar, reappearing above their enemies. Odette left the projection where she was, crouched in a position as if to shield herself. The very real sorceress moved around the car to the next, squeezing through the links making a run for the truck.

As the drivers began to regain more of their senses, they frantically grabbed their keys attempting to shove them into the tiny slot with utmost care. Or with the care a magically drunken driver could prepare for. Beginning to turn on the engine he saw something in his mirror, a quick blur of a woman.

She casted a levitation spell strong enough to lift the truck several feet into the air, her arms guiding the truck higher. It was firmly under her control. The truck lifted higher, the tires well above her head nearly at 7 feet. It took effort to keep the truck floating, her brow furrowed. Chanting, “Soulever, soulever, soulever, soulever.”

Bach vaulted off her shoulder returning to his normal size to perform the same spell, holding it in place. Odette backed away then made a simple hop onto the side of the lifted truck. Pulling the door open and surprising the driver inside.

“We, ain’t with them? Yeah. That’s what I’m going with. I just drive the truck.” The driver said as the truck floated in midair and while Odette dealt with the driver the rest of Barron’s men had been all but subdued. They were not ready for the trio of powerhouses that came at them. No amount of guns on the planet could prepare them.

Odette didn’t respond, her expression stern to the driver’s comments. His hands were on the wheel, hanging on. More seeds appeared in her hand, she threw them with Words of Power, the seeds quickly transforming into thick plant matter restraints tying his hands to the wheel. With his hands restrained she rooted through his pockets finding a small pistol, safety on and loaded with maybe five rounds and a knife. Tossing them out the open driver’s window. Bach took the signal, lowering the truck back to the ground. Odette removed the keys from the ignition then pocketed them.

She exited the truck out the passenger’s side jogging around to the driver’s side, she scooped up the weapons as well. Pulling out the driver, noting the gunfire had slowed to a stop. She restrained him again at his ankles and wrists using another levitation spell to drag him along back to Mandate and Silence.

The Pole had followed his captive’s eyes as he looked desperately over at the scene of the Golem standing on a fallen man. Silence’s own eyes narrowed as the man knelt to the ground.

“That man over there is your superior, then?” He asked suddenly and without warning, allowing his captive’s face to say more than he ever would. With a grim nod, Silence waited for the fighting to stop and with the last pops of gunfire fading from his ears he waved his captive on over to his boss. “Crawl, do as I say or this will be your last day on Earth.” The man had no real choice but to acquiesce, as Silence urged him on over to Mandate and her captive, sparing a moment to glance at the Ambassador as she floated another captive over. It was good to have spares, in case any examples had to be made.

Mandate, for her part, had taken to the act of rampaging amongst human beings like a fish to familiar waters. The only marks upon her body came in the form of dust clinging to the joints of her arms, and she returned to her captive with a casual stride once the gunfire had been entirely subdued. She watched with her strange form of a smile as the Ambassador approached, shifting in her position with a smoothness that ran contrary to her inorganic form.

Odette approached the others carefully stepping over the strewn bodies of Mandate’s handiwork, glancing at their captives. Silence held his own at gunpoint while Mandate had ruined the man’s leg. All three of captives showing different signs of pain and terror. Flicking her wrist speaking to her captive “On your knees.” Lowering him to the blood soaked ground, he bent his knees accordingly.

So looked to Silence then Mandate, she nodded, “Line them up and let’s begin.”

“Now, you may be wondering why you are alive, and I am here to tell you that you may not be for long. It would be best if you consider this an interview, of sorts. You are being interviewed to see if you are capable of delivering a message for us back to your superior, and if you get the job, you get to live.” Silence paced before the three stricken criminals. “First question, and I will know if you are lying, who do you work for?”

“I work for a blood thirsty Garbage Pail Kid. And my leg is totally fuck. You silver tin can shit heap.” He yelled, intending to piss off Silence with sarcasm.

“I work for Liberty and Freedom!”

“I, don’t work for for these guys. I work for the buyer's man.”

As the three individuals gave their respective responses, the man who had a broken leg due to Mandate spat a bit of blood towards the Mercury Golem. “That’s what I think of your questions.”

“Don’t antagonize them man, look I work for the Market, a place in Lost Haven that sells magical items. That’s it I swear I just drive the trucks. Just let me go.” He said crying out as honestly as he could, while it was true he didn’t work for Barron directly the three before him likely would not believe him.

Mandate responded to the man’s remark by calmly placing her foot down upon the patch of spittle and blood, grinding it downwards until the gravel made some rather unsightly noises below her mercurial foot. She did not ask questions, however, nor truly speak at all; that was more of the Ambassador’s area of expertise, she reasoned.

“Very defiant, and foolish. Liberty and Freedom, hmm?” Silence pulled the trigger, and a heavy pop filled the air as his suppressed pistol launched a slug directly into the joker’s knee-cap. Silence had a poor sense of humour. “I have heard that is quite the excruciating place to be shot, the knee, as I am sure you can now attest. Trust me when I say that while death is almost always unpleasant, a painful death is even more so. Fuck with me again and I promise you the latter.” Silence calmly ignored the buyer’s man, he would be dealt with later, but for now he was of no great concern. It was the man who referred to his boss as a blood thirsty garbage pail that caught his attention, there was fear there, fear of a boss with a very long arm. Yet with Mandate hovering over his crushed leg, it would only be a matter of time before the unfortunate fellow reconsidered who he was more afraid of. Self preservation always wins out with the rational sort. Raising his voice a little to be heard over the grunts and cries of the knee-shot man, Silence directed his next question at the man who called Mandate a silver can, whatever the fuck that meant. “Now, you can continue to answer my questions like a dead man walking, or you can answer me truthfully and avoid wasting the valuable time of my supernatural friends and I, who will otherwise be forced to torture you quite extensively. It is really up to you.” Silence hovered next to the boss, half crouched, his pistol aimed suggestively at the man’s unblemished knee-cap.

Odette watched him work standing just a few feet away coldly glaring at each captive in turn, folding her arms. Her brow furrowed at the vulgar language. It really was no point to make a fuss about it, it simply irked her. It lent well to maintaining a rather sinister veneer but for added effect she called on the Arcane Stream her body outlined in blue light, the blood puddles at her feet turning to ice. Expending a little energy to hold the image.

Silence took point on talking with the captives, he was demonstrating complete control. Inspiring no small amounts of fear. She reasoned if she were to step in now it would split the focus, break the narrative. It was a rather new experience, rarely did she find herself steeped in the grit of The Shroud Syndicate’s work. Smuggling was simple, straight forward. She went down the list of ways to clean up the bodies. Burning, burial, or weighed down into Lost Haven’s bay…? The smell of death was permeating the air already.

Bach stood beside her, he commented dryly in French. “I suppose Silence is good for something, even though we did all the heavy lifting.

Odette turned her icy glance on him before turning back to the captives. The message was clear for him to shut his mouth. He shrugged giving her an impish grin.

As the Joker cursed and spat obscenities in pain, the Garbage Pail guy who currently hated Mandate for her obsessive use of force spoke. “It don’t matter what you do to us, you are wholly fuck. Once the Boss hears bout this he’ll show you pain. He flayed a man alive, and when he started dying he kept his heart goin. So we don’t fear you. We’ll die soon enough from our wounds, or from his bullets.” He said pointing to Silence. “Besides I think the Boss would like to see you all. Barron. Yeah. He’d love to pay you all back for the kind treatment you’ve given us.”

“Barron, is it? He will never find us, he probably will not even find you, not unless you go back to him on your knees and pray for forgiveness. Maybe he will even spare you if you can be useful and deliver our message. Besides, it is not him you should be afraid of right now, it is us. Ms A, if you would be so kind as to inflict some incredibly potent torture upon this screaming fool here, I am sure this man would find it quite educational.” Silence let the Ambassador do her work, the defiant boss still needed softening up for now.

She nodded solemnly, “I suppose there is no way around it.” She stood before the supervisor, she noted. “Is that all the Barron has done? Flayed someone alive? I had some expectations, but that is quite mundane.”

“Mandate, would you be a dear and hold him in place? I’m afraid he’ll be thrashing and flailing about.”

“Of course, Miss A!” chirped the towering golem, pleased to be of use once more. It struck her as impolite to use such a name for Miss Ambassador, but Mr. Silence surely had a reason. Stooping down, Mandate grabbed onto the front of the man’s clothes, tugging him upwards with no regard for his comfort. He was manipulated as easily as an unresisting pillow, his back pinned to her front and his arms pinned at his sides by a sort of reverse-bearhug. Standing at her full height left his feet hanging a good distance off of the ground, helpless in her grasp.

“Thank you.” She said approaching the man with her hands outstretched her fingers resting on his temple lightly. Making direct eye contact. “This will not be pleasant.”

She began the spell, a particularly direct illusion. One that wasn’t nearly as effective unless she had complete access. In the state the man was in now, he could do little to defend himself from her. Long uninterrupted lines of French began softly as a whisper building in volume. Volume largely meant to unnerve her target and those around her. Blue light surrounded her hands, seeping into the man’s head giving her access to his mind, breaking down his flimsy willpower. His emotions were erratic, the pain from his broken leg, fear for his life… it was as easy to read as an open book.

Such was an ordinary man.

Her chanting paused rarely for breath. She went straight for his subconscious dredging up the man’s worst nightmares, painting a very vivid world for his eyes only. The chanting changed to a new repetitive spell, tricking his mind into a fight or flight mode. The muscles along his arms and legs went taut with strain, eventually spasming out of control. Screams built, pouring out of him. Odette worked for several minutes creating his own tailored nightmare scape before stepping away allowing the spell to run it’s course.

“Give him a couple more minutes and we will see how he feels.” Odette raised her voice over the sound of his screams.

There were delays between the audible responses the other two men displayed and the sheer inhuman torture the other received. But the Ambassador aroused quite the response when their silence finally broke. “The fuck was that bitch?”

“Oh fuck oh fuck. We’re doomed, I hate you mafia types. I really do. I should’ve called in sick.”

Odette pulled her lip up in disgust, “Disgusting, foul mouthed grunts. Appreciate your moments of sanity, for you two may as well be next. The Barron only wishes to command powers such as mine. Flaying is the least of your worries.”

She gestured to the supervisor.

“And now realisation sets in, if you tell me what I want to know you may die horribly, may, yet should you continue to refuse me?” Silence shrugged. “Then we will definitely kill you, horribly, in such a fashion as you just witnessed. Now, what do you say. Feel like talking?”

“Yeah, fuck you. I’ll tell you what you want, but I hope you choke on dick.” There was visible fear on his face, he tried to pull a facade of control despite being powerless. Soon they’d learn what they desired. All the while, Mandate’s grip ever so slightly tightened on the supervisor. Her smile was gone.

“Where is your shipping manifest?”

The man told him, and Odette quickly retrieved it. She flipped through a clipboard skimming the inventory looking for something more substantial than base ingredients for potion brewing, ritual scrolls, and spell tomes. It was generally very basic.

The supervisor was in the middle of telling Silence to go fuck himself and giving out information on what he knew about supernatural ingredient procurement in equal measure when Odette chimed in.

Interrupting the supervisor she said, “Rather base line delivery. If it is not you shipping artefacts then where might we find more valuable product?”

“Vegas, bitch. It’s where Barron keeps his best stuff. You want more details, find someone in Vegas.”

“Enough swearing and petty defiance, you can do better than that. Where exactly did you pick up the ingredients, where is this warehouse located?”

“You have been there then, tell me, what is their security like? Every man and woman you have seen in the place and their capabilities, tell me all you know.” Silence waved at his companions to back off for a moment, and he let the lid off his aura just a tad. Always bubbling to be free, to be downright disruptive, his debilitating psionic powers filled a five foot area around him, dousing the man, weakening his ability to reason. There was awash of thoughts his mind began to falter and spill out. As Silence listened he began to blurt out more and more things, his cat Percy, the various warehouses in Vegas, the fact there’s a hub of dispatchers who manage shipments and deliveries.

“Very helpful, to a point. I believe I am done here.” Silence turned as if to leave, his face thoughtful.

Keeping her expression stone cold, her fury building at the casually crude insults. “If that's all we need to know, please Silence take a few steps back with me. We should be clear.” Beckoning Silence to join her.

“Mandate, kill all three of them. Those two,” She pointed to the supervisor and the man Silence captured, glaring with certain fury “violently please. The truck driver make his death-”

“That will not be necessary.” Silence had already lifted his pistol and turned at the waist, firing a silenced round into the unfortunate supervisor’s head. Two more followed, placed directly through the forehead of each captive, in one swift move the criminal had executed all three. “I would rather not have their deaths be any crueler than necessary, now.” He explained, tucking his pistol away with a weary sigh. Bloody business, that’s what good honest thievery had become.

Odette shrugged, throwing up her hands, “Whatever helps you to sleep at night, Silence. What should we do about the mess? I’m not impartial to burial, it is a simple matter for me to open the ground several feet deep.”

“We want to send a message to this Barron, leave the corpses where they lie to tell their own stories.”

What once was blank space upon Mandate’s features became her equivalent of a pout, her head tilting as she extended the body away from her with one hand. Her gazed traveled from it, held in front of her like a kitten, to Mr. Silence. ”That was rude.” she chided softly, dropping the body and seemingly forgetting about it from there.

“Indeed he was. Let's head to Las Vegas, we still maintain the element of surprise.” Odette said, walking clear of the bodies beginning to craft her portal. Blue light illuminating her hands, the bright rift of the arcane stream opening before her.

“I will meet you in Vegas, keep your phone handy.” Silence said, turning away from the villainous duo. There was no way he was going through another of the Ambassador’s portals again, not so long as he had any other choice.

Her door formed and the portal was complete, she replied, “Don’t be ridiculous, the portal is taking us directly to the city. Why bother wasting time and money on a plane ticket?”

“Because experience has taught me something, Ms Ambassador, do not trust what you do not understand.” And with that, the criminal had no further words to say and walked briskly out of earshot. Disappearing in the foliage surrounding the train tracks.

Mandate watched the strange gentleman disappear in silence. ”I trust you, Miss Ambassador.” she offered.

She rolled her eyes at his back. Then replied to Mandate her tone considerably softer “Trust is earned, to be sure. You have earned my trust as well, Mandate. You did well today.” Opening the door she led her way through, stepping into the city of light and sin.

Eva looked down at her ratty clothes, her disguise in ruins. ”Think I’m gonna pop on home and grab a new Hoodie. My superhero costume isn’t as durable as everyone else’s, won’t take but a few minutes.”

“And while you do that, we should probably hand this guy over to the cops. Unless we wanna drag him along with us. What’s with the bathrobe though?” Hound Dog asked.

“It is NOT a bathrobe!” The Game Genie threw a temper tantrum, “It’s like the garments of the Sith, or wizards, or academics!”

As Eva began walking past the reception area and towards an open door. She closed it, then opened it swiftly turning the bland bronze knob that had seen soo much use over the years. Merlin watched her enter and snickered.

”Being saved by an Egyptian Champion. How undignifying. Still better than Hindu Gods I suppose. No matter. Be on your way.”

Eva rolled her eyes, while Merlin blurbed about Gods, she could care less who saved her although she might ask Osiris if he is another Champion, what Merlin said about him did catch her attention.”Thanks. You care soo much right, You could see that and opted not to help.”

”Be on your way.” Merlin said for a second time without any particular emotion. While Eva opened the door to her own room she saw Aunt Briley there waiting on top of her bed.

“Eva.” She ran up to her and gave her a bearhug “I saw you on the news briefly, the Newscopter saw you and Dickens but couldn’t approach, as they call him a monster. I suppose that was fortunate as your only disguise is gone.”

”Tis why I’m here. I really need to look into something better and more durable. I gotta get back out there, there’s things I need to check up on and Dickens is by himself.” Eva rummaged through her dresser and pulled out a white hoodie it had faded in color but was still white. ”Be back soon.”

“I’m glad you’re safe.” Aunt Briley said as Eva grasped her door to leave back to Merlin’s Library. She thought to herself, shouldn’t tell her about being stabbed. Yeah best not bring that up.

As she returned to the City Hall of Pacific Point Dickens was staring at Gajana much to his displeasure. He looked towards Eva as she entered the room and hobbled over licking his eyeballs with his tentacles. ”Remember, don’t. No staring at people. Or trying to eat them.” Eva said under her breath as she patted his maws. ”Bit whiter than I want, but yeah. At least I can cover my face again. I’ve met Mages and Witches by the way.” As she spoke to Game Genie. ”While I haven’t met a whole lot of them, none seem to wear robes. Maybe I just haven’t met the right ones, dunno. The look is silly though. You’d look better without them, just overall you know.”

“Well, I guess you have never read or viewed any general fantasy fiction if you’ve never seen a wizard wearing robes!” The Game Genie shot back with his words.

”Right. Just saying, you’d look nicer without them. So, what’d I miss?” As she wandered about for a few seconds until she saw Voyager.

“Welcome back.” Hound Dog stated.

””Voyager, You alright? She looks terrible, like a truck ran her over twice. She gonna be alright, Ossirs. Umm, that wasn’t quite it. Orsis, no.”

“It was Osiris. Son of Osiris actually. I know you didn’t hear his name all that well after taking a beating so I understand, although here’s hoping he doesn’t mind having his name butchered.” Hound Dog said to hope alleviate tension.

“Just don’t call him Shirley.” Talus interjected before everyone’s attention was diverted towards Voyager, who was finally starting to wake up.

”...nuqDaq….’oH...” Riley suddenly mumbled weakly, still out cold after her brutal fight. ”...puchpa’’e’...luq…”

“That, it sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before. Wait, is it from Star Trek? No, can’t be.” Hound Dog questioned himself as he tried to identify the strange language.

“Pretty sure it’s Klingon, Hot Dog.” Talus tried to correct Hound Dog, purposefully calling him by the wrong name, “Either Klingons actually exist, which I highly doubt, or somebody has been watching way too many reruns of Star Trek.”

Hound Dog shot Talus an annoyed look. “Call me Hot Dog again, and I’ll give you the worst case of static cling you’ve ever had. You’ll have socks clinging to you for days, so don’t bug me Clyde.”

“Jeez, nobody can take a joke, now a days. Everyone has to be so serious.” Talus defended himself, even though pun was obviously bad. Hound Dog was about to make a retort when the recovering half-alien made a more coherent sound.

”Ohh, my head…” Voyager moaned, her eyes fluttering open for the first time. ”Wha...where am I?”

”Voyager, you’re awake. Things didn’t pan out as we thought, looks like both of us got laid out and bloodied. We’re in City Hall, hasn’t been long since we stopped Game Genie here.”

”Penny!” Voyager piped up, sounding relieved. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, tenderly feeling her ribcage through her green-stained outfit. ”Yeah, guess we both got pretty beaten up. But hey, we got the bad guy, score one for the good guys!” She still sounded strained and winded after her long fight, but some of that eager enthusiasm was starting to come back.

”You know, I thought you were some animal like meta. But green blood and tentacles are a little odd. Still glad you're okay, felt bad your first outing was kinda a mess.”

”I thought everyone had green blood,” Voyage said innocently.

Meanwhile, a couple Tri-PD patrol cars pulled up in front of city hall. Four police officers stepped out of their vehicles and entered into the building.

“We’ll take this from here.” One of the police officers told the heroes while two of his colleagues went over to the Game Genie and dragged him off the ground.

“My plan would have worked, if it weren’t for these meddling heroes!” The Game Genie cried out as the Tri-PD officers carted him off to their squad cards.

“Yeah, yeah.” Talus taunted the Game Genie as he was taken away. “You forgot about the tentacle monster! But a word of advice: don’t call it stupid. You never know what it might do.”

”Are you talking about me or Mister Dickens?” Voyager asked, groaning slightly as she finally got to her feet again.

“Really?” Talus said, barely kept himself from breaking out into laughter, “Did you think that I meant you when I said ‘tentacle monster’ instead of that big hunk of drool over there? At least have some self-confidence.”

”Well I have tentacles too, and I don’t like to be called stupid either,” Voyager retorted with playful indignance, twisting one of her head-tentacles around a slender finger.

”Dickens does seem smart, but not intelligent. At least I don’t think he is. So tentacle hair, yeah. Must be bloody annoying to wash it.”

”Not too hard I guess,” Voyager remarked thoughtfully, running her hands along the two longest tendrils. ”Though I wouldn’t know, not having hair...

“Welcome to the club.” Talus said as he placed his hand on his head. “I only have metal plating for my skin, so I don’t even have hair. And poor ‘Siris over there has plumage on his head.”

“Wait, you mean that’s not a suit? When was anyone going to mention that?” Arachne asked, since she thought that Talus was just a regular human in a mechanical suit, like Iron Knight.

The other Immortals exchanged confused glances until Talus finally spoke up. “Oh, we kind of thought you knew. Well at least that cat is out of the bag!”

”Well. You pull off the bald look good. I’m always coloring and trying new styles.” Eva said as she was sure the Police had already gone lifting her hood, ”I’m doing this rainbow color right now, with a bit of a half shave.”

”Whooooah...” Voyager said, entranced by Eva’s brightly colored locks.

“Well, I have found that Turtle Wax does make my head shine.” Talus laughed as he rubbed his head with his metallic hand.

“You know. Takes a fair amount of effort to style this pompadour, but well. I’m sure I’ve got things to be doing here, so time to burn rubber. Oh, before I go. Here’s a couple cards for you twos. Laters.” Hound Dog said as he handed a card to each Eva and Riley who he knew them by their hero names then took for the door.

”Right. Cards.Well normally I try not to remove my hood, but seeing as there’s no point now that I had to fetch a new hoodie why bother right now.

”Oh, okay,” Voyager said, giving the card a confused look as it was the first time she noticed Hound Dog before his departure. ”...what do I do with this?”

Eva looked towards Voyager and responded puzzled.”It’s a contact card. His name and cell number likely. Why would he give these out.”

“Probably to get some more exposure or something.” Talus tried to answer Eva’s question.

”Maybe I should make some cards then!” Voyager concluded cheerfully. ”I can put something cool on it...like a Bird of Prey!”

“I’m not sure that’s quite a good idea.” Arachne told Voyager, “While it might seem like a fantastic way to network yourself with other heroes, if one of those cards were to fall into the hands of one of your enemies, you might be having someone kicking down your door in the middle of the night.”

”He must be sure of himself and his powers then. Otherwise this does seem to be a large risk. I really should look into a new outfit more durable. Something blade resistant. I’m not fond of being a pin cushion. Either way, I’m glad Voyager is okay. No one else seemed to take injuries so if we’re all healed up if we have nothing more.” Eva asked to the group not sure where things will head next. ”It’s getting late. If I have time I’ll be here tomorrow assuming nothing big happens. Good Night, and sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

”Qapla', Penny!” Voyager called after her. ”Ooh yeah, I think my friend’s going to be worried trying to find me, take care friends! Voyager out!” And like that both the knight and the alien had vanished into the night, leaving the Immortals alone.

“Well, that was...interesting.” Talus stated a loud. “They were quite the colorful group.”

“They obviously should leave this work to the professionals, like us..” Odysseus bluntly showed his disapproval of the other heroes, in a manner that one could conclude was reminiscent of something that Lyger would say.

“Oh, come on.” Talus threw his arms up in defense of the three heroes who were no longer present. “Everyone has to be a noob at some point.”

“Did any of us sustain injuries that could have been fatal and that required immediate healing from Osiris here?” Odysseus glanced around at his fellow Immortals, seeing that none of them said that they had such an injury. “My point exactly.”

“Oh!” Arachne suddenly raised her hand. “I have a healing factor, so I would be fine either way.”

“You didn’t need to use it today, so your point is moot.” Odysseus rejected Arachne’s statement.

“Well, it is getting late, so I better get home.” Arachne said, slightly ignoring Odysseus. She then turned to Firefox. “Well, I could get home on my own, but your luggage is still in my car. Can you teleport us there? Could save us from walking.”

“Of course.” Firefox agreed. She then created a portal that would lead the two metahumans where they had left Arachne’s car.

“Don’t forget we have some cleanup work bright and early tomorrow.” The Son of Osiris communicated via telepathy.

“Drat. Looks like I’m not getting any beauty sleep tonight.”

“Come on, Vol. Don’t be like Rainbow Dash and try to skip out on the community service!” Talus joked.

“Wait. Did you just make a My Little Pony reference?” Firefox asked. “You’re not a brony, are you?”

“What’s a brony?” Odysseus asked. “Is is like a guy who signs up for Girl Scouts?”

“No, no. We’re...um...I mean they’re...I mean…” Talus stumbled over his own words. “You know what, I’ll let you know later.”

“Well, at least we know his weakness now.” Arachne said. Then, she and Firefox departed through the portal.

“They’re never going to let that one go, are they.” Talus sighed.

“I assume not.” The Son of Osiris said.

“Them?” Gajana laughed. “I’m never going to let you live that one down!”

While Eva had long left Arthur took his time lingering around, examining some of the rooms within city hall mostly out of curiosity. And when he had returned to the group he had found them all but gone as the last ones already began to make their leave. ”Oh. Yeah fine leave the Greatest King behind.” With a sigh he floated over towards a doorway. ”Used to being alone anyways. Young Punks.” Arthur said in frustration.

“Welcome to the ever-sunny Pacific Point, Mr. Arthur.” The flight attendant told Chris as she opened the door on his private jet, “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you.” Chris paused for a second so that he could glance down at the name tag on the flight attendant’s uniform. “Pam. While I’m mostly here for business, I always try to make even the most boring tasks fun.”

Just the prior day, the city of Pacific Point had been the target of an attack by an unknown villain who called himself the Game Genie. Despite how recent the event was, Pacific Point had almost already recovered. Besides a few minor repairs that still needed to be completed, life was almost back to normal. Not quite back to normal as if it never happened, but as much as it could in a world of superhumans. Chris already had prior plans to arrive in the city later that week; however, his presence was required much earlier due to that Game Genie fiasco.

As Chris descended down the airstairs, he was followed first by Maya and then Minerva. There were two limousines waiting for Chris. One was designated to take Chris to the local S.T.RI.K.E. headquarters. The other was there to take Maya to the upscale hotel that they were staying in.

“I have some business to take care of first.” Chris turned to Maya as they approached the limousines. “It shouldn’t take long. I’ll meet you back at the hotel, if you don’t mind.”

“I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?” Maya replied. They exchanged a quick kiss before parting ways, both entering into separate limousines.

“So, what do we know about this Game Genie?” Chris asked Minerva as the limousine departed towards the S.T.R.I.K.E. base.

“His real name is William Kovacs.” Minerva answered, reading the information off her tablet, “He is a recent graduate from Caltech and has registered an I.Q. of 185.”

“Well, that’s the first problem.” Chris said, boasting about his own alma mater. “Everyone knows that M.I.T. is better than Caltech.”

“We’ve contacted his family, friends, and colleagues, and they’ll all surprised that he tried to digitalize the entire city of Pacific Point.” Minerva continued, ignoring Chris’ banter about the rivalry between M.I.T. and Caltech.

“Well, isn’t that something that usually happens in cases like these?” Chris asked. “You always hear people saying that they never would have expected that person to be a criminal.”

“In most cases, yes. But this isn’t a typical case.” Minerva corrected Chris, “The Game Genie’s memories do not seem to match up with reality.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he keeps going on and on about a hero called the Blue Blur. However, none of the S.T.R.I.K.E. databases have any record of a hero by that name.” Minerva said. “Also, besides Icon, he didn’t recognize many of the public heroes, including those who apprehended him.”

“Wait, he didn’t recognize me! I’m slightly offended.”

“Well, you better get in line, because there are about a dozen other heroes in front of you.”

“Well, unlike those other heroes, I have a VIP pass to jump to the front of the line.”

Location: National History Museum
Time: Late Afternoon

”At times I wished I brought my own phone. But considering I don't I'm in need of one.” Yeong’s head turned towards Ji's, a smirk placed on her lips, before she attempted to locate the number from Ben’s shredded clothes. Under normal circumstances the woman would have mentioned that the using many should always bring on extra pair with him. Just in case something like this like this would happen again in the future. Which would considering how the guy was going so far.

The girl noticed that there was something embedded into what was left of one of the pockets. She gently grabbed at one of the bloodied corners, nose wrinkling, as the youngest sibling groan in disgust. ”I always hated the first few transformations. They always made me think that I was going to bleed to death.” she commented as she patted her sister’s pockets down. When Yeong founded what she was looking for she slipped Ji’s phone out of her pocket and called the number. After a few minutes of talking the woman hung up. ”They're on their way.”

What a day. At first, I thought that the whole ‘help cleanup Pacific Point’ would have been quite a chore. However, it has kind of given me a different perspective on this whole superhero thing. Punching bad guys in the face and hoping they don’t cause any more damage isn’t the only thing heroes can do. I felt like giving back to the community was going that extra mile. Sure, we do help save citizens from superpowered nutcases, but no one likes to see the repairman leave all his tools scattered around and a mess of oil on the ground. It just helps keep the goodwill with the average person so that they don’t think we’re only in this for adrenaline rush.

Once I got back to my apartment (I always change back into my regular clothes long before I get anywhere near my home. I’m sure the paparazzi would have a field day if they saw Arachne crawling into this place), I immediately turned on the shower. They always say that you will always be sore the day after you had done any sort of strenuous activity. Combining the fiasco that was yesterday with the cleanup we did today, I was exhausted, despite my spider strength. Besides getting cleaned up from working all morning, the hot stream of water felt fantastic on my sore muscles.

After I had finished my shower and dried myself off, I wrapped one of my towels around my body and then took a second one and covered up my wet hair. Once I had taken the short walk from my bathroom to my bedroom, I started to look through my closet for something to wear. Since I was exhausted and therefore didn’t want to go out anywhere today, I just pulled out one of my t-shirts that I would wear around my apartment and a pair of shorts from my dresser.

Right when I was peeling off the towel that was wrapped around my body so that I could pull on some clothes, I heard the doorbell ring. Someone would be at the door right when I did that. Well, since I wasn’t going to deal with anyone for the rest of the day, unless it was an emergency and kept ringing the doorbell, I was just going to let it go. Once I pulled on my shirt and the rest of my clothes, I plopped myself down on my couch and turned the TV on. While I was channel surfing for several minutes (sometimes there is never anything on TV), I noticed that whoever was at the door didn’t ring the doorbell or knock again.

Out of curiosity, I got up from the couch and checked the peephole in my front door. I didn’t see anyone standing in front of my apartment. Therefore, I quickly opened the door and peered around. Still nobody. However, sitting in front of my step was a brown shipping box. At first I didn’t want to touch it because I wasn’t expecting anything in the mail, especially something that came in a box. When I first checked the box, I was a little hesitant because there wasn’t a return address. However, when I saw how the package was addressed to me, I immediately know who the sender was. If I were to tell you that ‘Vol’ was placed between my first and last name, I bet you get guess who it was with one try. What was Talus up to now?

Therefore, now that I knew who sent the package, I picked it up and brought it into my apartment. After I found a pair of scissors and sliced open the packing tape that held the box shut, I pulled open the box and found, besides some sheets of paper (probably directions, but who read those?) and the packing peanuts, one of the Game Genie’s miniature cubes. I guess Talus was serious about helping me out with that cosplay photoshoot that was going to take place later this month.

Once I had set the loose sheets of paper aside and placed the cube on the coffee table that was located in front of my couch, I pulled out my phone and dialed Will’s number. I’m sure he could help me brainstorm an idea, especially since now my imagination was the limit considering what those cubes that the Game Genie had made. While my phone was dialing, I quickly got up from the couch and grabbed my laptop. More likely than not, I probably wouldn’t recognize many of his suggestions, so I wanted to be able to look them up so that I could give them either the thumbs up or down.

“Hey. What’s up?” Will greeted me over the phone as I set my laptop on the coffee table and took a seat on my couch.

“Do you have some time to brainstorm some ideas with me for that video game costume thing?”

“Sure.” Will said. I heard the clicking of keys on a keyboard over the speaker of my phone. “Do you have any ideas or preferences yet?”

“Not yet.” I told him while I examined the cube in my hand. “I’m not really sure where to start.”

While Will was pondering about some suggestions, I discovered that there was a button on the side of the cube. I guess my curiosity got the better of me, so I pressed it. A small flash of red light was emitted by the small device. For a moment, I thought that I was going to take another visit to that virtual prison where I was teleported to the first time I got zapped by one of these devices. However, nothing happened, which was quite surprising. But right before the red light went off, I heard Will begin speaking and when the light did go off, Will’s voice suddenly was cut off.

“Will?” I turned my head towards the the hand that was holding my phone. However, I discovered that, even though my hand was in the same position that it had been just a few seconds ago, my phone was no longer in my hand! What’s more is that I noticed a all too familiar black and gold armor on my arm (and on the rest of my body, too. Also, my hair had changed from my natural blonde hair to a lavender color that I had when Talus first freed me.

“Damn it, Talus.” I then found my phone sitting right next to me, as if, when the cube changed my appearance, I had disappeared momentarily and the phone fell right down to where it was.

“Everything alright?” Will asked, probably since he did not hear we respond for a few minutes and since he heard me curse.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “One of the other heroes I know made an annoying practical joke at my expense.”

I then turned my attention towards the sheets of paper that Talus included in the package that he sent me. And this was what the first page said.

Vol. If you are reading this and you currently look like Camilla from Fire Emblem: Fates, that means you didn’t read the instructions. As a courtesy, I made that character the default setting. If I had not, you probably would be trapped in that device without any way to escape. So, you’re welcome. Now, please read the instructions before you do anything else. Also, I have included a list of video game characters if you are not sure where to start. Good luck! Joel.

Figures. In order to give Will some more time to brainstorm some ideas, I asked him to call me back in a few minutes. Although I have to be honest, I also needed some time to read through these instructions and figure out how to turn myself back to normal. Once I had finished going over the pages that Talus sent with the cube and finally figured out how to make myself look normal (I had to use a USB cord to plug the cube into my computer and some sort of software popped up on my screen), I then did some quick Google searches on the names that Talus provided. Once I was almost through the list when Will called me back.

“Ready to compare notes?” Will asked.

“Alright” I turned my attention away from my computer screen for a moment. “One of the other heroes tried to give a helping hand by offering a list of potential characters. However, they fall into three categories: either I would never be caught dead in the costume, my body would make it look like some weird “sexy” Halloween costume, or it is a spider-themed character. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why the last one is a problem.”

“This certainly narrows down the options.”

“I’ve been just Googling these characters and right when you called, I was about to look up someone called ‘Spider-Gwen’. That’s not some sort of superpowered version of Emma Stone from the Amazing Spider-Man movies, is it?”

“I mean, that’s one way to put it.” Will responded to my question. As he answered, I began to type the name into the search engine, just out of curiosity. And the search results made my jaw drop.

“OH. MY. GOD.” I vented my frustration at what I saw on the computer screen. “Marvel has the guts to steal my likeness after they handed me a cease and desist order! I mean, if you were to give her a pair of backbreaking boobs, she’s basically me in all but name. And some of the fanart that I’m seeing now has already done that. What hypocrits!”

“Yeah…” Will said, “Marvel made that change two or so months ago.”

“You’re not reading it, are you.”

“Um…” Will paused. “Maybe…”

“You are!” I accused him. “My own boyfriend paying money for stories about a knockoff version of his girlfriend.”

“Wow, that’s harsh.” Will tried to defend himself. “Does it make it any better that I image that you’re the protagonist?”

“Will. You might want to stop talking while you’re ahead.”

“Alright…” Will sighed. “What would be a good character for you to dress as. Hmm...How about Samus Aran?”

That name sounds kind of familiar. After I typed her name into my search engine, I responded to my boyfriend. “I know that Iron Man has kind of popular in the last couple years, but I don’t think that’s what my employers are looking for.”

“I meant Zero Suit.” Will corrected me. As I added that phrase into my search engine, he continued to talk. “I mean, she doesn’t wear anything more revealing than you already do as a superhero. You should be able to look the part. Plus, Samus isn’t a spider-themed character, so that should fulfill all three of those requirements.”

“Hmm…” I pondered for a second. I guess there are worse choices out there. “I have to put the phone down for a moment. Just letting you know that I’m not hanging up on you.”

After I had set my phone down next to me, I turned back to my laptop and pulled up the window that had first appeared when I plugged the cube into my computer. In the center of the window, there was a heading that was labeled “character” and next to it was a rectangular box where you could type in a name. At that moment, the name “Camilla” had been entered into the box. I took my mouse, highlighted the text, and then used my index finger to click the backspace button. Then I filled in Will’s suggestion in its place, making sure to type the entire name. It would suck if that cube would create that entire power suit and the weight of it sent me falling through the floor. That would be terrible.

Once that was finished, I turned back to the cube and clicked the button for a second time. The same red light flashed again. One moment, I was sitting on my couch wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The next, I was dressed in a light-blue bodysuit that this character was accustomed to wear. When I got up, I was surprised that I had some sort of heels on.I have to qualify that by saying they weren’t stiletto heels, but it kind of weird for someone who’s supposed to be athletic. Once I got to my bathroom, I checked myself out in the mirror. I have to say, it does look like a professionally made costume, as if it were made for a movie or something.

“So, do you think you’ll stick with her?” Will asked after I brought my phone back up to my ear.

“Well, unless we can think of someone better, I guess so.”

Well, at least I got that out of the way.

---

Marie let out a sigh of relief. The day’s excitement was finally coming to a halt. She relaxed her tense muscles, brushed off bits of dust and viscera left behind by floating displays and Ben’s transformations, and took a moment to herself.

”Marie?” Holt’s voice melded with her thoughts, the ethereal and familiar raspy tones soothing her even more. ”Are you alright?”

Marie chuckled softly to herself, hoping the others weren’t paying attention. Holt’s concern was always genuine and appreciated, yet, given his stoic nature never ceased to surprise her.

”Yes,” she responded internally, ”I’m fine . . . for now. I’m more concerned about Ben. He’s been through a lot today and he won’t remember a fair portion of it. Can’t be easy living like that, not knowing where you go when you lose yourself.”

”It will come to him with time. Such is the way with werewolves. They rely upon instinct. The more he learns about himself, the sharper those instincts will become, not unlike your instincts as Gwyneth, which you have clearly displayed this evening. It is no small feat, compulsion, and to coax a werewolf into its human form . . . that is a power the likes of which I have scarcely seen, certainly not in this century. Have any memories returned?”

”No, unfortunately. But the power was familiar; it comes in waves. I can’t imagine what Gwyneth must have been capable of at full strength.”

It was both an empowering and deeply troubling thought. It occurred to Marie that, aside from the glimpses she had been granted of her former self, she knew nothing of Gwyneth’s character. If she possessed great power, how did she use that power, to what end?

Marie dwelled on this thought longer than she realized, for her pondering was interrupted by a small knocking on the storage room entrance. This was, undoubtedly, the caretaker Ben had mentioned earlier. He was from the “Agency,” if Marie recalled Ben’s words correctly, an organization about which she knew next to nothing, but one who had a reputation for meddling in the affairs of magical folk. However, seeing as this caretaker was here to help Ben, not contain him, Marie felt no need for animosity.

”Holt,” Marie engaged her familiar silently, ”Go to the Red Devil and bring with you a few of Puck’s imps to help clean up this place. I don’t want him or this Agency thinking that I’m incompetent enough to risk exposure.”

Holt gave a silent nod before fading into the shadows of the room. As time passed and the group readied to leave the museum, feint whispers filed into the space followed by a slight chill, broken statuettes, pedestals, stone flooring and pieces of the wall slowly being mended by invisible agents of The Red Devil.

Richard Midas watched as the bizarre man in the pinstriped suit left his office through his private elevator. He was seething on the inside that such an insignificant peon would have the audacity come into the sanctity of his office and threaten him. Midas instantly regretted not shooting the man right between the eyes, showing the man…and whoever it was that he was working with that one does not cross Midas without consequences. However, Midas’ lips curled upwards in a devilish grin as he picked up his phone and dialed the number for the head of Midas Industries security.

“Jordan, we had an incident. A man in an outdated pinstriped suit will be getting off at the ground floor from my private elevator any moment.” Midas said as the phone was picked up on the other end.

“Would you like us to detain him, Sir?” Peter Jordan, the head of security asked.

“No. I want you to follow him. He was able to bypass security and access my office to threaten me. He clearly isn’t working alone. I want you to allow him to lead you to his co-conspirator, or conspirators. Once he has done so, I want them eliminated.
“Very well, Sir.” Jordan replied as he hung up the phone.


Peter Jordan had followed the mysterious man in the pinstriped suit from the moment he stepped foot from Midas’ private elevator. Jordan, along with a pair of his more experienced officers followed the man, who had referred to himself as “The Shadow” in his dealings with Midas from the Midas Industries building to Allen Park, just several blocks away. There was something odd about the man, though Jordan couldn’t quite place it, the man did not move like a normal person. His movements were jerky, almost as if a child were using a sort of remote control to guide his movements.

“This fuckin’ guy…” Jordan said to no one in particular as he watched the man made his way across the park toward a row of low income apartments. “Alright boys, stay on him. I don’t want to lose him here.”

The Shadow entered one of the tenement buildings on what was known to locals as Harper’s Row, a relatively controversial residential block just several blocks from Bristol College. The college administrators as well as the residents in the surrounding area were up in arms over the relatively high crime rate along “The Row,” and there had been a number of attempts to bulldoze the entire block in the name of gentrification. Those attempts had been largely unsuccessful, which left Harper’s Row standing in its current state. Jordan and his men followed the man in pinstripes as he descended to the lower levels of the building. Once in the basement, the man continued along a narrow hallway until he came to a dingy door near the end of the hall. He didn’t knock, and he didn’t take out any keys to unlock the door. He simply turned the knob and went inside.

To Jordan, this was strange. Nobody in this neighborhood kept their doors unlocked. Jordan placed a single finger to his lips, motioning for his men to be quiet, then in a single movement brought his hand forward, pointing at the door that “The Shadow” had just entered. They followed closely behind the man, and when they reached the door, they found that it was still open, never having latched behind the man as he entered.

When they entered, they were almost overcome by the smell. A rancid combination of burnt okra and cat piss filled their nostrils as they moved inside, an odor so powerful that it nearly caused Jordan’s eyes to tear.

Jesus Christ… Jordan thought to himself as he moved in on the man in the pinstriped suit, who was talking to someone. When They rounded a corner into the living area of the “apartment,” Jordan found the man in the suit speaking to a young woman of fair complexion and silver, almost white-ish hair.

Before either of the apartment’s occupants knew what was going on, “The Shadow’s” chest exploded as the ammunition from one of Jordan’s men’s sawed off shotgun went through him. The older man never uttered a word, he never cried out in pain. He simply slumped to the floor and breathed his last breath. The young woman on the other hand, her head and face decorated by the man’s insides, began to cry out in terror. She shrieked and pleaded for her life and Jordan grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to her feet. Then, he gripped her by the scruff of the neck and flung her across the room. She landed with a thud, and tried to get to her feet, but in her panic, she was unable to make her legs work. Instead of getting up and running, she flailed around, unable to get her balance. As Jordan watched the young woman struggle to get to her feet, he was reminded of a newborn deer as it tried to gather its bearings for the first time. The thought didn’t distract him from his duty. Jordan moved toward the young woman with bad intentions, striker her hard in the face with a deliberate roundhouse right, which shattered her jaw on impact. Then he did it again, and again. He hit her with punch after punch until the once borderline attractive woman was unrecognizable. Then he picked her up and tossed her to the ground again, where he continued beating the woman until she was barely conscious.

“You made a big mistake, little lady. You really have no idea who you were screwing with, do you?” Jordan said to the beaten and bloodied woman as he pulled out his side arm and fired three shots into her skull.

“Okay boys, time to clean this mess up.” Jordan said as he reached into his pocket and produced a small device, about the size of a stick of chewing gum. The device itself was a new type of explosive that Midas Industries had recently developed for some of its more discrete business dealings. The device itself was still in the testing stage and thus, had not yet been brought to market. Jordan pressed the activation switch that began an internal count down.

“Two minutes, let’s get out of here.” Jordan told his men as they made their way toward the door. As Jordan left, he noticed something scribbled on the dead woman’s desk, a notepad with the work Root scrawled upon it. Jordan didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, and didn’t care. In less than two minutes, it wouldn’t matter. The entire building would go up in an explosion that investigators would eventually conclude was the result of a gas leak. The initial blast would be so hot that it would immediately incinerate any organic material within a fifteen foot radius, leaving no trace of the woman or her unfortunately attired companion.

Jordan and his men made their way back up the stairs and out of the building. Jordan was pleased with how well his men had performed. As they crossed the park, Jordan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Just as he hit the quick dial button for Midas’ office phone, the tenement on Harper’s Row erupted in a ball of fire and smoke, the blast so large that it leveled several buildings and shook the ground.

“It’s done.” Jordan said as Midas picked up the phone.

Kyle was alone in the master bedroom getting his gear on as he prepared to head back out into the city in pursuit of the Winter Park Gang’s hired thief. In the time that he’s spent in Crown Ridge, he’s been able to put together a list of leads on the organizations whereabouts as well as their network of hired goons. He planned to sneak out while Sam kept the others company in the living room, and hoped that by the time anyone noticed that he was gone, it would be too late.

“Going somewhere?” Sam’s voice came from behind him.

“Yeah, I’m going to see if I can track down the thief from the museum or the guys who got the jump on us...or both.” Kyle said as he stretched the cowl back over his head and face.

“No, you’re not.” Sam shot back in a tone that surprised Kyle.

“What?” Kyle asked, with a noticeable amount of surprise in his voice.

“We’ve got a house full of guests that you brought home, why don’t you take the night off and spend it here?The bad guys will still be there tomorrow.” Sam said.

“I need you to keep them company while I’m out.” Kyle told her. “They aren’t prepared for what this city can throw at them.”

“Do you really think that they’re going to be okay with that?” Sam asked him as aggravation began to grow within her.

“They don’t have a choice.” Kyle told her.

“And do you honestly think that Sammy will just sit here with me and her friends?” Sam asked. “The girl is absolutely in love with you. She’s not going to let you go anywhere without her, and to be completely honest with you, I wouldn't be able to stop her.”

“You noticed that, huh?” Kyle asked, somewhat embarrassed by the situation.

“Please. Ray Charles could see what’s going on there.” Sam said with a smirk. “Not that I can blame her, but you need to do something about this before it goes too far.”

Unbeknownst to Kyle and Sam, someone was standing within earshot of their master bedroom. Before Kyle’s girlfriend left to find Kyle, she had given Sammy one of Kyle’s t-shirts, which almost looked like a dress on Sammy, and a pair of shorts. While Sammy did have her superhero threads to wear, they made her look too conspicuous and that costume could endanger the identities of the others.

Just a few minutes prior, Sammy was wondering whether they could get some refreshments. Since it would have been rude for the three metahumans to just scavenge through Kyle’s refrigerator, Sammy tried to find her two hosts. Although Kelly suggested that she wait until they came back, Sammy ignored her advice and went looking for their hosts. That was when she discovered that Kyle was trying to skip out on them and that even Kyle’s girlfriend could tell that Sammy held a giant crush on Lyger.

After overhearing Kyle and his girlfriend speaking about her, Sammy tried to sneak away so that they would not know that she was eavesdropping on their conversation. However, her feline abilities did not seem to include an uncanny amount of luck, or at least not in that moment. For when she tried to slowly creep away, the wooden floors beneath her feet creaked, betraying Sammy’s presence just outside of her host’s bedroom. When she heard the noise coming from the floor, Sammy froze in place, not quite sure whether she should just make a break for it back to where Zac and Kelly were.

“Maybe that explains it. I’m not blind, or de…” Kyle stopped mid-sentence as he heard the sound of the floorboards outside of the bedroom creaking.

“What was that?” Sam asked as Kyle was already halfway across the room heading towards the sound.

Kyle opened the bedroom door and much to his relief; found Sammy standing in the hallway, her face turning a slight shade of red from embarrassment from being caught in the hallway.

“Hey Sammy, do you need something?” Kyle asked, equally embarrassed. Neither he nor Sam were used to sharing their home with others, and thus had grown unaccustomed to the sounds that come along with having a full house.

“Um…” Sammy stumbled with her words because she was paralyzed out of embarrassment, “Could we get some drinks and snacks?”

“Oh, of course.” Kyle said, almost kicking himself for being such a bad host. “Follow me.” Kyle told her as he lead her back down to the kitchen, with Sam also emerging from the bedroom and joining them.

Kyle and Sam let the others help themselves to the contents of their fridge while they heated up a frozen pizza in the oven. While the pizza was cooking, Kyle joined Sam, Sammy, and the others in the living room and they talked. Although Kyle had been on edge at first, his desire to rush right back out and track down the Winter Park Gang began to wain. Instead, he found himself doing something that he hadn’t done in months: Having a genuinely good time. Eventually, the pizza had finished cooking and Kyle went back out into the kitchen to get it ready to serve, and moments later came back with the pie sliced up and ready to eat.

As they ate, they talked about a number of subjects. They talked about their exploits in West Virginia during the Pax crisis, a conversation in which Kyle deliberately avoided the topic of how the Silver Sorceress had enchanted him, causing him to have visions of Sam’s death. Zac and Kelly told them about their abduction and subsequent rescue, as well as their reactions the first time they saw Sammy after her transformation. Although Kyle was familiar with their stories, hearing them tell the tales gave him a new insight into them as people, and not just files on a computer. Not only did he learn about them as people, he also learned that he actually liked them. Although he and Sammy had bonded in West Virginia, he had never really cared for Zac all that much. Kyle thought that he came off as being a bit arrogant, and carried himself with an air about him that Kyle just found off-putting. However, after actually getting to spend time with the three of them, Kyle found that they actually got along quite well.

Then there was Sammy. She was a nice girl who had performed well under pressure. However, she seemed to allow her feelings for Kyle to distract her, and that had almost gotten her killed tonight. Although he was very fond of the girl, he was with the love of his life, and he knew that he had to get this thing with Sammy settled, and quickly. He looked over to both Zac and Sam, who had each spoken to him about the need to quash this, and to do so in a way that wouldn’t crush the poor girl. Then he looked to Kelly, who like Zac had an air about her. However, with Kelly it was more of a “hurt her and I will kill you” sort of vibe. Kyle knew that he had to talk to Sammy, and that it was time. He just had no idea how he was going to do this.

“Hey Sammy, come for a walk with me.” He said as he got up from the chair he had been sitting in and motioned for her to follow him upstairs.

Sammy’s heart leapt inside of her. She was slightly surprised by the offer to get up with Kyle alone. She wondered what was up. It almost seemed as if everyone except for her were in on something. However, undeterred by being kept in the blue, Sammy hopped up from her seat and followed Kyle up the stairs. While they ascended the stairs, her heart began to flutter at the uncertainty for Kyle’s invitation. Before she had met Kyle’s girlfriend, who happened to have an almost identical name as her, Sammy thought playing the role of “Black Cat” or “Catwoman” would be a piece of cake. However, now that she finally seen Sam with her two eyes, things all the sudden became real.

Kyle led her through the house until they came to a doorway down the hall from the bedroom. When Kyle opened the door, it revealed a narrow stairwell which was reminiscent of something you might expect to see in a home built in the 1700’s. At the top of the stairs was another door.

“I know it doesn’t look it, but it’s safe.” Kyle said to Sammy as he led the way up the old staircase, each step creaked under his weight.

Once at the top of the stairs, Kyle opened the door and stepped out into the brisk night air onto the widow’s walk on the roof of the house. This place was at one time his sanctuary. When he was a child he would spend hours up on the walk where he would play and daydream. After the death of his mother, Kyle found the solitude offered by the widow’s walk refreshing.. He would spend hours up there alone, looking out over the city while he talked to his mother, and imagine her response.

“You know, when I was a kid, I’d come up here and read comics and pretend I was a superhero protecting the city. I never thought in a million years that I’d actually be doing what I’m doing now.” Kyle said with a lightness in his voice. “This city might have a lot of problems, they always seemed to go away when I was up here. In a way, it still seems like that’s true.”

“I guess we’re in the same boat there. If you would have told me just a few months ago that I was about to be transformed into a cat-like person, I would have laughed them straight out of the room.” Sammy told Kyle as she stood next to him. “And yet, here we are.”

Kyle smiled at the statement. There was something about the way that Sammy carried herself that Kyle found refreshing. She was fun loving and had a great sense of humor, even if she did seem a bit innocent at times. He gazed out at the street as he tried to figure out exactly how he was going to approach the real reason that he brought her up to the widow walk.

“Sammy, I like you. You’re a great person and I think that you’re going to be a great hero.” He told her. “I get the feeling that there’s more to this whole thing than just wanting to come to Crown Ridge to take in the sights. Look Sammy, I do care about you, and I’d never want to see you hurt. But I have to be honest with you...I’m with Sam, and I do love her.”

When Sammy heard what Kyle had to say, her cat ears began to droop as she sighed, looking over at the skyline. “A lot of heroes have it easy: they can just hang up their tights and blend in with everyone else. And if they can’t simply do that, they have some other way to bypass the issue. Zac and Kelly can hide their powers with those wristbands. And even without those devices, they still had each other while getting adjusted to their new powers. How else could you explain them sleeping together when Zac is terrified by wasps and Kelly is basically a human one!”

Sammy then turned her head towards Kyle and continued. “But I don’t have that luxury. I can’t just hide who I am with some gadget. Even though they tried to make me feel comfortable with my powers, it just never been enough. And that’s saying a lot since Kelly and I have been friends since elementary school! I always felt as if I was the loose end that could accidentally reveal Zac’s secret identity. When people start seeing the publically known cat and wasp-girls with a male hero, the math isn’t that hard to do.”

“I was just hoping that I could bond with someone in the superhero community other than my friends. Normal people just don’t understand our lives. How crazy things get. When the average person sees me, they might only see me as some weird furry or something. But I was hoping that someone who has seen the bizarre things that happen in our lives could see past that. Sure, I might have cat ears and a tail, but that doesn’t make me any less of a human than anyone else.”

Kyle listened to Sammy, and as she spoke it was if someone had kicked him square in the gut and knocked the wind right out of him. He completely understood where she was coming from, and he sympathized. He had never considered exactly what it must like to be her, being unable to hide her powers, or even just take a break for just a minute. Every waking moment was a reminder of what had been taken from her. She hadn’t asked for these powers, and she wasn’t born with them. They were forced on her, and as these thoughts went through his mind, a renewed anger swelled inside of him.

“Sammy, I’ll always be here for you. If you ever need anything…” He paused for a moment as he reached for her cell phone that was hanging out of her pocket. He quickly went into her contacts and entered his personal number. “Call me. I mean it, we’re friends and you’re stuck with me.”

Sammy just stared with amazement at her phone. It almost did not feel real, but right before her eyes was Kyle’s contact information, including his phone number. “I promise I won’t bombard you with texts! We don’t want people growing suspicious about why you’re texting another girl named Sammy.”

Then, Sammy momentarily thought about what Zac and Kelly would think about her having Lyger’s personal number. She thought that they might try to convince her to delete the contact information because they might believe being able to contact Kyle whenever she wanted would only be enabling her.

“We might want to put this down under a pseudonym.” Sammy then told Kyle. “Zac and Kelly might freak out if they knew I had it.”

“Forget about what Zac and Kelly might think. This has nothing to do with them. We’re friends, and I’m always there for my friends.” Kyle said as his posture changed slightly. He looked down to the ground and a frown involuntarily crossed his face. “Or at least I try to be.” He finished his thoughts momentarily drifted to Ronnie and Addy, both of whom he felt that he had let down. For a moment he let the silence linger in the air before he returned his gaze to Sammy and forced a smile.

“Look, you’re an awesome girl, and someday you’re going to make somebody a very lucky man. But I want you to know, that we….Sam and I, will always be here for you.”

“Thank you!” Sammy lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Kyle. Her cat tail was swaying back and forth behind her hugged him. She then peered up at Kyle. “It really means a lot to me.”

“Hey, no problem.” Kyle told her. “And I meant what I said in the car. I can get you something that will help you with that.” Kyle said as he motioned to her ears and tail. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them, they suit you. But I know people who specialize in just that sort of thing, and they owe me.”

“Well, I guess it could be worse. For a little while, my head was stuck on a cat’s body. And let me tell you, it sucked!” When Sammy heard Kyle bring up the possibility of him getting her something that could hide her catlike features, she squeezed her arms around him for a second time. “That would be wonderful. I hope you won’t have to go through too much trouble to get them.”

“Nah, it won’t be a problem. I just have to make a couple of phone calls.” Kyle told her as she released her grip on him. “You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have the chance at a normal life...and I’m going to do what I can to help you with that.”

A world below

China Town, Lui Fan Happy Chicken Resturant.

Fat Hoi had not had a good day. For the last three days, the local pimps had gone missing only to come back beat up and with fingers missing. Then one day ago, his second in command, Haulong was kicked off bridge at the outskirts of the town. And when Fat Hoi had a bad day, everyone around him suffered. So it was, that there was a young waiter lying on the floor with a broken nose while everyone around them just stared at their own feet. This was triad country, and nobody fucked with the chinese maffia on their own turf.

Not the Sicilians with their armani suit and greasy hair. Not the Syndicate thugs who had the run of most of the rest of the city anyways. Certainly not those dirty Yakuza. Yakuza, just the thought of them made him even angrier. He lifted one meaty palm and smashed it into the young mans face. He yelped and flung back onto the floor. It was his own thought, being so damn handsome and make Fat Hois girl smile at him instead of Hoi. Picking the man up by the collar, he reeled his arm back for the cup the grace.

That’s when Fat Hois day got worse.

Five men, stepped inside, followed by a young woman in a modified kimono. She appeared entirely calmed as she surveyed the restourant. And then she spoke, in a steely voice. “Everyone not wanting to die today, stand by the walls. Do not move.” She drew a flawlessly made katana from a sheeth at her waist.

“Hoi Lo Loutzun, Fat Hoi” She said as Hoi stood up, his men getting up aswell, reaching for their weapons. “The Hoshima Clan send its regards” Before Fat Hoi could bring up his meaty arms before him, the entire resturant turned into a blood bath. Everyone not by walls were gunned down, the restourant filling with the noise of gunfire and the wet thud of bullets punching trough flesh. Hoi just barely managed to get up his shield in time, the bullets bouncing off the metas invisible barrier.

“Hohhh… You were a meta all along.” The woman said, stepping towards the massive Chinese man. “That makes this more fun.” Hoi knew, looking into those dull, emotionless eyes that fun was not on he menu. And then he was dead. His head severed cleanly from his body.

“Let’s go. We got two more places to hit up” The woman said coldly as she turned around before Hois body could hit the ground. A flick of her wrist sent the exess blood on her blade splattering onto the floor by the feat of the Waiter that had his face punched earlier. He stared, pale faced and terrified at her. She simply wiped her blade off with a napkin and walked out, being helped into a black car that sped off into the distance shortly afterwards.

Thus. A war had begun.

---

What most people do not realize about gang wars, is that they often take off within hours of the first shot. The need for posturing leads to quick and brutal retaliation. It is one of the reasons you do not just off a big name goon like Hoi without ample preperation. Unfortunately for the Hoshima Clan, The Jade Spider triads had been anticipating a new war for years.

--

The Akibara Happy Toys was not actually a toystore. Well, not a toystore for children anyways A small establishment that sell imported sextoys and games from japan, its true purpose was the massive cellar where uncensored porn was made and sent back to japans black market. A market that the triads had cornered for years before the Hoshima wanted a cut of the buisness.

Mr Akibara was a thin, perpetually cold and often neurotic fellow that had been the clans facade for a good ten years. When he saw the two women in jade green jackets, he knew they weren’t one of their new girls. When one of them summoned a energy blade in one hand and before one of them cut him from top to bottom in one impressive cut, his last thought was about how bitter he was to never been allowed downstairs.

The entire store staff, nine Yakuza Juniors and two cam girls were trapped inside the store and cellar as the girl with the blade lit it on fire and left a enchanted chain around the door handles. Nobody survived.

--

Another thing about wars between criminal organizations, the innocent always suffer.

--

Only two hours after the retaliatory hit, two more Triad owned joints, one illegal sweatshop and a clothing store, stood in flames. About twenty five more triad members were at the morgue. Four more Hoshima owned establishments had also been hit, two in Litte Tokyo, a restourant bombing left 24 dead, half of those high ranking Yakuza who had been there for a birthday bash. They had believed themselves safe when someone teleported inside with a bomb. The three other places hit were all pawnshops and asian import stores.

Five hours into the war, The head of he LHPD called both Little Tokyo and Chinatown as no-go zones. This after pressure from the higher ups since there had also been a superpowered brawl in its outskirts earlier, even before the two criminal syndicates decided to go all out.