---

Liz narrowed her eyes, keeping her bow drawn as she considered what to do while she had time.

"Get off my roof and we can talk!" She called over cautiously, distrust dripping from her voice. "And only cause of the girl and... Dragon?"

Once everyone was seemed like they weren't going to attack her, Liz would slowly get down from the roof herself, keeping her distance while getting close enough they didn't need to yell anymore.

"My sister disappeared, I find her in the woods acting all weird, she fights me all the way back home, and I had to induce a coma through my... Power. Then you all show up, in a shifty ass van, parked all crazy and suspicious as hell," she said as soon as she was within earshot. Hesitation, she continued, "I... May have acted irrationally. But you attacked me first!"

Glad that the fighting was over, at least for the moment, and relieved the injuries were kept to a minimum, Agent returned from her titanium form and climbed down from the roof. I can't waste my energy, she reminded herself, Not yet.

Once they were all down and calmer, the archer began to explain her point of view and how everything happened for her. She also seemed defensive about her actions, which Agent understood. Maybe their van did look a bit shifty.

"You're right, we shouldn't have attacked," Agent said, not trying to point out Marcus specifically. She too understood why Marcus jumped so quickly to the call of action, but it didn't justify anyone's actions. "We're here to find the missing kids and bring them home."

"Maybe we started on the wrong foot, but if we all work together, maybe we can find the rest of the kids," Agent said. She was trying to be as diplomatic as possible, just like the heroes in her comic books or on the television. The difference was, the fictional heroes always had a plan. If that didn't work they had a backup plan. Right now, the mismatched trio had no plan, but Agent knew making enemies was the least helpful thing they could do. This archer had a sister who was victim of the kidnappings. If she could find her sister, maybe she could find the others too?

Marcus landed on the other roof with a thud. He went down on his knees and grabbed onto the tiles. The surface turned slippery due to the constant rain. The kid stopped momentarily to regain his balance before pursuing the archer. He climbed back to his feet but became distracted by Ally. Clenching his teeth, he grew frustrated.

"Not the enemy? She shot me!" The arrow placed inside Marcus' shoulder dissipated but the wound remained. By calling attention to it, Marcus felt the lingering pain. He instinctively held onto his arm and cringed. Chef Object tipped his head back and heard the archer speak. She informed the team of her troubles regarding her sister.

The team received a mission to stop the abductions of a suburban neighborhood. A woman used magic out in the open and admitted to putting a child in a coma. Obviously, this could not be coincidental. "I don't believe you," he retorted. Marcus slowly decreased the space between them as he tried to make his way in the rain. He raised an eyebrow and almost slipped when the woman started accusing him. "I attacked first? You pointed an arrow at me and shot me!"

Marcus jerked his head over to Ally. "Work together? Are you serious? If you think I'm not getting one punch on this chick, you're crazy! I'm going to punch her on the shoulder and see how she likes-"

---

---

Marcus stopped his rant. He sensed a shift in the rain as if something moved beside him. The droplets on the tiles sounded differently momentarily, and Marcus noticed something in his peripheral. He made eye contact with Ally; the hero hesitated to move his eyes to the side. Sighing, he turned his head thinking the rain or the archer played with his senses.

Marcus almost lost his footing on the roof. He quickly grabbed the air and regained his composure when he noticed another individual on top with him. The teen kept his breathing to a minimum because he did not know how to react. Beside him, a young girl stood upright with a bitter smile. She wore a rose-patterned dress and Converse sneakers; both articles of clothing were stained with mud and grime. Her hair unkempt and tangled in a blonde mess. The girl's skin had a pale complexion; however, black rings covered her eyes. Marcus noticed her eye color was a haunting red.

Chef Object quickly observed his surroundings. He bit his lower lip when he realized how oblivious he became. The entire situation regarding the archer and the rain messed with his senses. Marcus noticed the girl brought friends, almost all of them were in the same age group. They carried the same grungy appearance. Two began to climb the roof. Four started to approach Kurt in the street. And three of them stood behind the archer.

Marcus turned his attention back to the girl beside him. "Are you okay?" Her response resulted in a small giggle. "What the fuck do you want?" He growled and became defensive. He did not like this one bit.

"To play," She calmly cackled. She raised her arm and began to move her palm closer to Marcus.

Marcus pulled his shoulder back and winded it forward to strike the girl. He did not believe she literally meant to play. Her appearance worried him. "Son of a--" Marcus was not able to complete his curse or his punch. The girl pressed her palm on his stomach. A force from her hand pushed him off the roof and onto the street.

The rubberiness of his body forced him to bounce. He laid down on the concrete and wiggled around. He felt pain on his internals. "Let's all play!" She sang. All the kids began approaching.

The front door to Liz' house became wide open for an odd reason.

Curtis sat helplessly on the ground as he listened to the talking coming from the atop the roof. He looked at his shoulder honestly surprised by how much it hindered him, he shook his head as he heard the Yelling. He couldn't make out what they were saying because of the constant downpour so he just let out a sigh and flicked his tongue. But he twitched as his tongue retracted into his mouth, he smelt something, he couldn't be sure what but there was something there now that wasn't there before. He stood up and looked around, he made sure to keep his wounded shoulder under cover. He kept flicking his tongue sniffing the air to make sure he knew if more things were coming, the rain was not helping him at all, everything had a damp smell to it making things practically indistinguishable from one another.

Then Krut felt something. He looked around and for a moment it seemed that the air had changed then it was normal again, Kurt couldn't explain it. Then he noticed the talking on the roof had stopped, maybe he'd finally be able to get involved with the conversation. Then he saw them. Little kids emerging from the dark, he was confused by this. All these kids just showing up out of nowhere. "Umm guys? Are you seeing this?" Kurt felt like he could hear the other talking but his mind was focused on the children. He regained his grip on reality as he heard Marcus hit the ground. He headed towards Marcus but before he could say anything he saw the kids start to advance on him. Kurt then put a hand out to help Marcus up "What the heck is going on? Where did all these kids come from?" Kurt looked around worried by the creepy kids, something was up but he didn't know what he was going to do. He surely couldn't hit these kids, they were so small and frail. Plus morally he wasn't sure he could bring himself to strike a child even if they could take the hit.

---

Liz was about to retort angrily at the maniac picking fights at random when everything went... Weird. She thought she could hear the lizard talking, but her attention was on the falling form of her attacker. He bounced comically, before seeming to be in incredible pain of she had to guess.

There were children everywhere.... And she recognized them. They were distorted, yeah, but..."These are the missing kids!" She yelled out.

A shiver ran up her spine, prompting Liz to turn around. There were three of them there, their haunting red eyes burning into her. They said something about playing, and that's when Liz noticed her front door open out of nowhere. That seemed... Ominous.

Liz shook her head, backing away quickly before bumping into something. Glancing over her shoulder she saw the lizard, which she gave a nervous smile. "What do we do?"

Ally was listening to Marcus's angry retorts to her request for teamwork. She was so focused on his argument, trying to figure out a way to further dissolve the issue, that she didn't even realize they were being surrounded by children.

"What the..." Agent muttered, looking at the kids. Heck, the only part of them that resembled children was their size. Other than that they almost resembled demons with their off-putting red eyes and shadowed faces. She took a step back away from them.

The archer then shouted out that these were in fact the missing children. "Well, we found them!" Agent shouted out, trying to hide the fact that she was extremely creeped out. What happened to these kids? Only a few days ago, Ally truly believed these kind of things in the world did not exist. That she was unique in her powers. That people like Marcus and Kurt didn't exist. People like Russo were just for comics. These kids looked like they came straight out of a horror movie. What were they, a group of teen strangers who were hardly briefed on the topic, supposed to do? Even if these kids attacked, these kidnapped children most likely had some sort of demonic charm on them. She doubted if they fought back they could do any real damage. Then again...

Agent glanced at the archer who seemed to have some sort of magical bow. If it was magic, perhaps she was the only one who would be able to successfully fight these children.

To some extent the teen wasn't really paying attention to the boy that was leading her. When he stopped she nearly ran into him. The sudden change in demeanor from the boy prompted her attention. Things were happening fast, a pace that Lydia thrived on. Activity gave the needed mental stimulus to keep her engaged with what was going on in front of her. More people were running back to the neighborhood. Someone was being taken? Interesting. The boy taking off running and being called to follow was enough to get her to come along. This was fun. What was going on, what would she find.

Upon arrival she stopped to observe the scene. The children had arrived before her despite her moderately increased speed. A little trick she discovered due to her mind and body reacting faster to the signals sent. Blinking several times she watched as a teen boy bounced comically off the ground. Eyes darting every which way the whole thing made little sense in the normal world. A girl with a bow and arrow, a lizard man, a metal girl, children that appeared to be possessed. Ordinary people would be stunned by the whole thing but the asian girl just grinned.

Walking forward casually it quickly became clear that what was going on here was hazardous to everyone present. She didn't quite know who was the aggressor though since the children seemed to be the ones attacking. What they called "play" she severely doubted meant the usual fun a child should have. Twitching slightly her body began to hum like a live wire as she began to build a positive charge. If they wanted to play then so be it. "You want to play." She extended a finger to the child approaching Kurt.

An arc of electricity jumped from her finger and struck one of the kids moving toward Kurt. There was no intent to kill, but it should be enough to seize up the average human body and drop them to the floor. With any luck that would make her a priority target and bring them all to her for her next move. Pausing as if she hadn't just tried to electrocute someone she slipped off she shoes and set them nearly to the side.

Marcus cringed on the cemented road. Holding onto his stomach, he couldn't help but feel the punch did more damage than a kid should normally commit. Pressing his palms against the ground, he began to slowly pick himself up. The entire event only annoyed him. Fortunately, his rubber ball effect helped soften the landing from the roof.

Although, Marcus' whole backside became drenched. The road proved incredibly wet due to the falling precipitation. Marcus handled the rain, but his clothes were now soaking wet. Quickly, he started squeezing his uniform to squeeze out some water. His arms shivered slightly; the weather did leave him cold.

"I'm going to hurt you real bad," he warned. The teen gave some possessed kids a mean look. After condensing the water in his uniform, he proceeded to head over to a group of kids. Knowing they might not know of his power, Chef Object jumped incredibly high to get the jump on them. He began falling down with a fist ready to collide. "Let's go, kids!"

---

---

Marcus' superior jump did surprise the group kids. These older individuals in teens did have powers and some of them did have powers that were self-explanatory based on their appearances. The lizardman must have super strength and characteristics that of a lizard. Marcus, however; did provide a bit of a surprise.

Marcus brought his fist down on a younger boy. Stumbling backward, the boy had to pause to regain his balance. This could result in Marcus feeling confused or maybe even weak. Chef Object put enough strength to at least knock out the kid,
but the boy just shrugged it off.

The surrounding kids proceeded to rush toward Marcus with a flurry of punches. The other kids followed in pursuit. They knew not to take any lost time in dealing with the older teens. Some kids pounced on Kurt, punching and biting on his backside.

One kid dropped to his knees after finding himself electrocuted. He stood back up but dropped again. The water from the rain only increased the damage. After he collapsed to the pain, some nearby kids noticed the source of power. They gritted their teeth and wondered how many older teens were present. "Another one? Kill them like the rest," One child shouted.

When Lydia shot her stream of lightning, she would understand the output of energy needed to take down the kid matched enough to take down a horse. Two kids rushed at her sides attempting to flank her as she calculated this measure of strength. They pressed on in a fast motion, almost identical to the speed as the kid before.

Three children readied to charge toward Agent. They growled and all hopped at the same time. All of them were young girls in dresses.

---

Liz shook her head, entirely confused at the situation. "What..." She mumbled at the chaos.

But the children had left her alone, going after everyone else, especially those who had attacked them.

With the intent to kill.

She shivered at the realization, trying to decide who needed help more. She hoped the lizard guy and the nice girl would be alright, as she quickly climbed on top of their van. Up there she had a better view and position, and she raised her bow. Materializing three blunt arrows, she let them fly at the girls attacking the lightning wielding newcomer. The intent being to hopefully hit them with enough force to help the girl from being overwhelmed.

Immediately after she shifted, and began firing shot after shot at the kids swarming the jerk who had attacked her. She wasn't aiming at vitals, she didn't want to leave permanent damage after all.

The entire time she kept an eye on her house. She still wasn't sure what was going on with her door.

Agent watched with shock as the new teen entered the scene and didn't hesitate using electricity to knock out one of the children. Does titanium conduct electricity? she wondered, not wanting to find out at the moment. She watched as one-by-one everyone seemed to be targeted by the demonic children. She was about to come to the aid of one of her companions when she found herself surrounded by three little girls. Without any hesitation the little girls sprinted and leaped at her.

Instinctively, without much thought, Ally transformed into her titanium form again. She crossed her arms over her face, wanting to minimize as much impact as possible. They hit with almost enough force to knock her down. One clung onto arm, one on her leg, and the other on her back. She could feel their hands clawing at her, but they found nothing to dig into. Another girl pounded her fists across Agent's legs, trying to find some sort of weakness.

Agent let out a chuckle watching the kids try to exploit a weakness. For a moment, she felt completely invincible. "Haha, think that'll hurt m- WHAT THE?" she shouted, looking at her arm. She held it out parallel to the ground. One of the girls had latched her teeth into arm. Agent's eyes widened as she saw very shallow dents and grooves form in her arm. Sure they were small, almost non-existent, but on top of the damage from the other day they would surely be bothersome.

Agent shook her arm- hard. The girl wriggled, but only held on tighter. Ally felt panicked. She felt like a fish with a hook stuck in it. Ally pushed the little girl off, using a lot more force this time. The girl let go, but immediately sprang back.

The other girls seemed to get a similar idea, biting on her instead of holding on. Agent felt bad hurting them, but they didn't seem to be hurt by a piece of metal hitting their face, so how much could they take? Heart beating, she dropped to her knees, hitting the child clamped onto her shin. Maybe if she could make herself a smaller target she would have an easier time keeping them off? Even if that didn't work she would at least be giving them less to bite.

As she twisted around to hit the girl on her back with her shoulder, she heard Kurt's screams for help. We have to stop these kids!

Marcus' legs shook and stirred, his balance started to show weakness. The multiple punches from the various kids proved quite strong. They definitely packed some heavy muscle within their attacks. The chef could feel a lot of pressure in each punch. He flailed his arms in the air and around in his body in the means of blocking some of their moves, he managed to recover and decrease the amount of damage given to him; however, some of the punches still made it through.

Marcus moaned after sensing a pair of knuckles directly head to his gut. A puff of air immediately released from his mouth followed by frequent panting. Gritting his teeth, Marcus did not enjoy his situation. The entire situation kept him embarrassed. More likely, he should be babysitting these brats, but instead, they are ganging up on him. The hardest part to accept that Marcus was losing.
He convinced himself that he would collapse before them defeated. Marcus started contemplating what to do. His rubbiness helped him prolong the battle thankfully.

Then Marcus noticed his opportunity. The three kids around him stopped their onslaught of punches and cringed. Their faces distorted to show pain and surprise. All of them stumbled in place, they turned around to see what had transpired. Once they rotated,
Marcus could see a familiar projectile lodged in their bodies. Looking up, he saw the archer from before perched on the van. Connecting the dots, Marcus grew furious. "Oh! Now I'm getting help from HER!"

Marcus did not want to receive help from someone who previously injected a painful arrow into him. Utilizing his opportunity, he grabbed one of the distracted kids by the shoulders. Angrily, he proceeded to swing the tot around and knock the other kids around. "I'm going to beat a kid with another kid!"

---

---

Some of the kids knocked around by the other child that Marcus swung around was having difficulty trying to get back on their feet. They growled and started speaking in demonic tongue. Hissing came out of their mouth, proceeding to stand their position and keep trying to the best the older, rubber teenager.

Kurt's body smashed a child between the metallic skin of the van and his hulking weight. The kid couldn't withstand the pain and released the lizard from his grasp. He slid down to the floor next to the tires. Spitting on the floor, his obvious expression determined annoyance. "Get him. He needs to die," the kid grunted. The other two adolescents clawing and biting on Kurt's back heard their teammate. They nodded to each other, sliding down his scaly back to grab his legs. With the combined strength of the two kids, they were capable of picking City Dragon a couple feet off the ground. They proceeded to toss him to the van and top it over on its side.

Ally's quick thinking did put the kids off of her. Their legs sort of made the trip due to the sudden velocity and speed. One of the girls stood and tried elbowing Ally; her elbow becoming bruised with every hit once impacting the titanium shell. "What is this? How are you able to do this?" She cried out and decided to stop hitting her with the elbow. After a couple of hits, her elbow opened up and start seeping blood. The young girl shook it off, attempting to push Ally over. She also ordered the other girls to get up and assist her.

The two younglings rushing toward the electric woman began to slow down after becoming attacked by sudden arrows. They continued forward.

Everyone seemed busy trying to fend off the little hellions. All of the super-powered teenagers had their hands full. Even then, they all probably turned their heads to the sound of shattering glass. At one of the houses, the second floor bedroom's window busted. This house belonged to the mysterious archer. The noise of broken glass was followed by four kids jumping on the sidewalk.

Each child held onto a limb of the archer's sister. The sister appeared to be paralyzed, asleep even. The children that abducted her began accessing the situation. They exchanged glances with all of the teenagers; short growls were made. Then in an instant, they immediately shifted into a sprint. Running across the street, they entered the forest.

---

Liz looked around as the van shuddered from an impact, and a good thing too. Moments later the hulking mass of the lizard was coming towards the van, and she'd barely had a chance to avoid being crushed as the thing tipped over, jumping high and landing on the now flipped over van's side next to the lizard's head.

She was annoyed. First that rude boy gets angry over her help. Then her perch gets destroyed, and a window in her house blew out.

.... Wait, what? Liz stared in disbelief as four kids ran off with her sister.

Disbelief turned to shock. Shock turned to anger.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TAKING MY SISTER, YOU FREAKING POSSESSED BRATS!" She yelled, giving chase.

As she ran she fired her bow nigh constantly, aiming to severely hinder every child in her way. Aiming for shoulders and thighs she fired, inadvertantly possibly helping everyone at once.

Once she cleared the sidewalk and chaos she pulled back her bow to full draw, releasing an arrow that should strike one of the children carrying her sister in the spine. She released a growl upon letting the arrow fly, bolting after the group before it had a chance to connect.

They were not getting her sister again, not even over Liz's dead body.

Well, the children proved human after all. Everyone was occupied fighting their own foes which mad things difficult to coordinate at all with pretty much anyone. Other than the children looking possessed there wasn't much indication with just who she should be siding with. The sound of shattered class caught her attention.

The clatter of shards reminded her of an incident she had caused with her powers. It was early on, a time when she had been more experimental with her powers and less cautious. Overloading herself at the time the resulting surge had busted the window on the room and fried ever electronic nearby. Everyone was lucky the place hadn't caught fire and no one else got hurt.

Her little day dream ended as she watched casually four children carrying off another. It took her a moment to process Liz's protest to what was going on. It seemed reasonable that the kids were the aggressors here, stealing away other's family. Eyes darting to two of the kids that were almost upon her. As the children dove at her Lydia ducked and ran toward Curtis. While the scaly humanoid was doing his best to beat down the one's attacking him she figured he could use help. Whether the fists would land or not the electric woman intended to assist. That was without entirely ignoring the ones after her already who were hot on her heels. Grabbing Kurt's massive arm she tried to guide him toward a light pole. "Come, you will be safe!"

Ally listened to the solid strike of the elbow against her shoulder over and over. She held tightly in the ball, not sure how to handle these young children. Would attacking them hurt them? And if so, how much? Ally caught the glimmer of red on the girl's elbow and now on Ally's shoulder as the possessed girl screamed. "Look, you won't hurt me, so you guys can... Knock it off or something!" Ally shouted back to the little girls.

Her reasoning, of course, seemed to have no effect. Instead, the group of little girls decided to try and push her over. In Ally's metallic form, she was much heavier than her flesh form. At first, she doubted she could be pushed down- they were just little girls! Then she remembered that they weren't ordinary girls. As Ally felt herself getting pushed over, she planted her left hand in the ground. With her right, the side being pressed on by the girls, hand, she created a fist and hesitantly slammed it across the girl with the bleeding elbow's face. Naturally, her hesitationed lessened some of the power from the blow, but she hoped it would be strong enough to make a point. Ally figured if she could hurt their little group leader, they would stop their assault and she could help the others.

Kurt was getting ready to go for the kids that were again advancing on him, but he felt a tugging on one of his arms. he turned his massive head towards the source of the tugging, luckily it wasn't another demon child but actually another teen. She was telling him to come, but he couldn't turn tail and run from the kids, they would surly catch him. He hissed in pain yet again as his bandages had been tampered with by the child and water was collecting in the hole that was made. "We can't leave, not ye-"Before Kurt could finish one of the kids had yelled out, this caught Curtis' attention. Then they'd all started to retreat, from the words the kid used it sounded like there was someone clearly in charge. And they were not happy. He shook his head as some of the others had started running into the forest. Kurt turned his focus back to the girl who had pulled on his arm.

"As much as I'd love to be safe, we have to follow those kids. We can't just let them kidnap that child." Kurt then paused for a moment and looked down at the one kid who was dazed from his attack. He then grabbed the kid and lifted him off the ground. "And I think this kid will be able to help us with that." Kurt knew he was being kind of inconsiderate of this new girls feelings but he wasn't going to sit by as a kid was taken, or as his allies charged into danger. He couldn't let them do that. He looked around to see if anyone else was still there with him, he spotted Ally. "Agent! I think I got a way to get to the bottom of this!

After dealing a couple of blows, the little girls suddenly stopped. All of the kids stopped. They looked to whichever child yelled out the command and ran back into the forest. Now's our chance! Ally thought, looking up as the kids retreated. They could just follow the group and stop whoever, or whatever, was possessing these children. Ally shifted back into her flesh form, feeling slightly tired from the few minutes in titanium form, and popped up onto her feet.

Just as she was about to chase the children into the forest, she stopped herself. What would she do without her allies? Allow little kids to jump her and possibly possess her as well? As the last of the kids fell back into the forest, Ally was called by Kurt.

She quickly turned around to see a dazed child in the hands of Kurt. He didn't look too good, not by any measures, yet he still managed to snag one of the little kids and give them a possible lead. "Awesome!" she said, although the whole situation was still a bit odd. She made her way to Kurt and asked, "How do we make him talk?" She couldn't see it being easy getting this kid to reveal any information or secrets and yet she was not willing to perform any kind of torture, possessed child or not.

---

Liz looked at Chef in disgust, unbridled fury on her face. She spat on the ground between them, turning away before she shot him. He might have just cost Liz her sister. While being in a magic coma might stop the girl from acting, Liz could only theorize that it would make it easy for this entity to take better control over her sister.

The thought made her shake with anger.

"Next time you get in the way of saving my sister, I'm going to kill you," she growled before stomping away.

The lizard and metal girl were discussing the captured one.

Liz walked forward, lifting the hand not on the bow. "I'll make him talk," she said quietly, laying a hand on his forehead. "Where did they take my sister?" She growled. "You have three seconds before I use my power. I'm betting a shield will sever this psychic connection between this bastard and you. One..."