---

---

"Wait… what? They're letting me go?" Zeke shook his head in front of the office manager. He had been called in there a few moments ago; Zeke had assumed this was something about how good he was at this job, but now, he's going to lose it. Of all the times to become an unemployed person, it was right when the economy was taking a hard downturn because of the plague and the storm.

"Yes, we are." The manager, a white man with blonde hair and steely blue eyes, folded his fingers together and spoke with a neutral expression. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Zeke scoffed. He briefly turned away before planting his hands on the table, looking at his manager straight in the eye. "You're sorry, my ass. I bet you're happy now that I'm gone. You're lucky my mother won't be beating you with a chancla."

"No, Mr. Salazar." The manager replied, still neutral in his tone. "The company is laying you off because of… this."

Holding up his phone, the manager played a video showing Zeke conjuring a pair of stars and floating them around before detonating one. "Mr. Kont sent me this footage."

"Kont…?" Zeke gritted his teeth. His friend that he showed his powers to. Who now turns out to be a filthy traitor that threw him under the bus for no reason at all. Maybe he hoped to get a promotion in his stead.

"From the way you described your… Altered abilities to Mr. Kont, it would appear that you're not just a fire hazard, but also a radiation hazard." The manager lurched forward, hands still folded. "We can't endanger our workers in this company."

"Is this a joke?" Zeke angrily scowled at him. "I've worked here for five years. I get Altered abilities and suddenly I'm a liability?"

"The PR department recommended it." The manager coldly replied. "Though… we are willing to erase that footage, provided if you peaceably leave today."

"Hmph." Zeke pointed a finger at the manager. "In that case, do it now."

"Not until you leave, Mr. Salazar."

Zeke shunted away the thought of shoving a star down the manager's throat. That was a shame, though. "Fine."

Zeke turned away, slamming the door shut as he went to his desk and began to gather his belongings.

"Zeke?" Another of his friends in the office ran up to him, visibly worried. "Its barely 10am, where are you going?"

"I'm fired." Zeke replied in a matter-of-fact way. "Because I'm different."

"Nonsense!" The woman retorted. "You're one of the best! Why would they throw you out?"

"Because, Linda." Zeke looked down on her, virtue of their ten inch height difference. "I'm an Altered. I make stars and apparently I'm a fire and radiation hazard. Okay? You happy now?"

"No, I'm not…" Linda shook her head. "That doesn't change a thing about who you are, Zeke."

"It changes my employment options." Zeke replied, shoving his laptop into his bag. "The law may just say that we can't be in medicine and law enforcement, but that's just on paper."

"I'm so sorry, Zeke." Linda touched his wrist. "I hope you get a new job soon."

"Thanks Linda." Zeke replied. "Take care here while being under the capitalist overlords."

…

A few minutes later, Zeke went into the corridors of the office building, briskly walking with a suitcase and backpack.

Then… There he was. Kont.

"Hey, Kont." Zeke pretended to act friendly as he came across his former friend, still trying very hard not to throw a ball of plasma at his face.

"Hey, Zeke-"

*Smack*

Kont was slammed against the wall by a punch fueled by the flames of betrayal and pain. "Ow! What was that for?"

"For throwing me, your loving friend, under the bus, Kont." Without another word, Zeke walked away, leaving all of that behind him. Kont might press an assault charge… but he can't care about that anymore. He deserved that, and more.

Soon enough, Zeke was in the parking lot. He got in his car and drove away, not once looking. It looked like that was all for today…

It wasn't.

When he had gotten some distance between himself and the city center, the news flew abuzz with a slew of destruction wrought by a giant woman. Zeke blinked as the titan exhibited not one, not two, not three, but four… no, how many was that, even? He couldn't remember how many, but there were a lot. And he watched as one of the buildings that got destroyed turned out to be the one he had just left, the place from which he was fired.

"No…"

There were quite a few people he knew that died right then and there. Linda, the manager, even Kont. That last one may have been a traitor, but he didn't deserve to die. Either way, it looks like we will have to go to a few funerals in the coming weeks… and talk about his luck of being fired right in the nick of time.

Maybe, just maybe, he should also visit some old friends.

---

---

"Why didn't you turn around? Those people did n-not deserve to die, they were simply following orders..." One of the copies spoke up with a nervous tone. Maybe the question would be sufficient for him, but she knew better than that. Ideally, Michele wouldn't have to witness any murders as she had seen more than enough of her fair share back in Brazil, but this was different, much more different. The war between the Altered and the normals was only getting started, and Michele knew for a fact it was only going to get worse from this point on. "Look, I don't mean to tell you what to do, but we can't allow ourselves to contribute any more to this division. It will make it worse for us.”

"Orders, orders, orders…" Karagoz repeated in a seemingly vain attempt to grasp reality as his right hand twitched like a cymbal. "Almost my whole life, I've followed orders… Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria… I've only ever bow-ow-owed…"

The flames intensified, his hands weaving the fire into the shape of a dragon's gaping maw. "What are we going to do, if not to fight back? This is only the beginning! We were oppressed and looked down upon since before we gained these… gifts. And now, now that we are the superior race, they will step down upon us even more, take every opportunity to bury us in the ground, until we are rounded up in camps and slain! The only way… is to fight."

To Michelle, the way he spoke, the tone of his voice, it would make it clear that this man was completely mentally unhinged. A loss of mind, brought upon by the horrors of war and the annihilation of family and friends. His mind was shattered and drifting apart…

"If you are not for us, then you are against us…" Karagoz muttered from beneath his gas mask. "But… you have one chance to turn away. Go."

The flames slithered alongside him. "Before I change my mind…"

Everything was blurry and somehow time seemed to have retarded to half its usual speed. Rafael had spent the better part of an hour sitting alone in his dark apartment searching for answers, resolutions, anything... in a handle of vodka. Even after getting halfway to the bottom, he was just as lost and depressed as he was before.

His inner monologue played out a solemn melody to an otherwise upbeat song, bastardizing it to match his mood. He was done sitting alone with his thoughts. He decided it was best to venture out. If he couldn't improve his own vibe, perhaps there was someone else out there who could. Then again, the city was still reeling from the attack earlier in the day.

It was the early evening hours. The sun was making its escape across the horizon while the moon had already stared to beam down its reflected light. Rafael tried to consider what it meant, now, that he was a confirmed altered human. His considered the impending curfew, the treatment he was sure to get from the "normies" and, oh god, even his parents. Would they care? Surely not but... maybe? It was too much to process. He was going to need another drink.

As Rafael stumbled down the street, he gave an uncoordinated salute to each passerby, using all his concentration not to fall over upon or in front of them. Just get to a stool, he told himself. He looked up at the neon signs of the buildings he passed. The images visually echoed and traced as his eyes moved in any direction, but he could sort of make out some familiar shapes. Finally his eyes fixed upon what he was looking for: "Pour Judgement Tavern".

The bar wasn't much to look at from the outside. Some white, peeling paint covered the exterior walls. The two windows at the front facing the street were tinted black and covered in security bars. In between them was the entrance: a lone door covered completely in stickers advertising a variety of bands.

Rafael grabbed the doorknob and gave it a tug. Much to his surprise, the door hadn't opened. The doorknob, however, was still in his hand. Rafael furrowed his eyebrows as the fog of confusion took over. He looked at his hand and then back at the door before realizing that the knob had broken completely off and molded to the shape of Raf's fingers within his grasp.

"Cheap pizza sheeyit," he slurred at he let the knob fall to the ground. Sticking his finger into the doorhole where the knob once was, Rafael managed to slowly and carefully pull the door agape and slip inside.

As one enters Pour Judgement, they are met with the loud ruckus of a local band playing on the small stage at the far end of the building, a smoky haze that gave evidence to the fact that no one was adhering to the No Smoking sign posted out front, and a dim atmosphere that took the blinding edge off a drunkard's eyes. To the right side was the elongated bar that stretched the entire span of the wall, lined with barstools and patrons of various flavors. To the left were a few billiard tables, a dart board, and some vintage pinball games. This was a dive, for sure, but it's exactly what Raf thought he needed.

He shuffled over to one of the empty stools and plopped down before putting his elbows on the counter and propping his head up atop his closed fists. "VAHKAH!" He shouted out in the general direction of a distant bartender. "Preez, I mean," he added politely. Were he anyone else, he might've gotten thrown out then and there for already being a general mess. Luckily, Rafael and his roommates were regulars at this particular establishment, which afforded them a little leeway. After his first shot was placed in front of him, Rafael sank it down his gullet with ease before setting it back down and giving the counter two taps, a wordless request for more. He then spun the stool, taking in the faces of the people around him while the bartender reloaded. "Now wish one of deez muhfukkers is gon be mah new bess frin?" he asked aloud, forcing a queezy grin.

---

---

The last twenty-four hours had certainly turned things upside down for Sarina and her search for an altered target. Her investigation and search was put on the back burner after president Forrester’s announcement on new laws that were put into effect against altered individuals, Hell Sarina had to jump straight on the phone to HQ to find out if she still had a job and how she could do her tasks with the new laws in effect. Fortunately, for her, the agent found herself to be exempt thanks to her current line of work. This ultimately was not what stopped her from carrying out her search yesterday, no it was the sudden multiple attacks from altered that happened after the said announcement, checkpoints attacked, fighting between altered and the most noticeable one that really halted the proceedings, the giant lady.

With all the death and destruction yesterday, it gave pause for Sarina, it kind of reminded her of why she was working for liberty, she had other motives of her own of course, she was by no means perfect, but here she could at least help stop those that would cause so much harm and fuck everything up for those that want to try and make an honest or peaceful living. Either way, this was just a little setback thanks to the work back at HQ to get the vital information and some observation of her own to understand her target. It took some time but it paid off as Sarina was pulled up at the side of the road several houses away from where she believed her target was hiding out at a friend’s place, no doubt this friend didn’t realize or have the full picture. But that didn’t matter for she had a target to bring in.

Checking her paperwork once last time, she was looking for Caitlin Rivera, the individual in question is believed to have some sort of Superhuman sonic scream, something Sarina had not witnessed herself yet. Placing the file back into the folder, Sarina stepped out of her Black Dodge Durango before adjusting her top and locking the vehicle up. Walking down the street towards the house, she was thankful that she could wear clothing over her suit, otherwise she would stick out like a sore thumb. After a few moments Sarina had walked up to the premises and knocked on the door where she was met with silence.

After a couple of knocks to no answer, Sarina heard some sort of noise from within the premises that she could not distinguish and so went over to peer through the front windows of the property, seeing the living room but not any movement, it was suspicious no doubt and quite frankly she was getting ready to go just bust the front door in and search for her target that Sarina was dead certain was hiding here. A noise to her right caught her attention which caused the Latina to snap her head round to see her target, the dam woman actually tried to sneak out the side gate quietly and make a run for it.

But wasn’t quiet enough. “Ma'am stop!” Sarina said as a foot chase immediately happened, why did they always run, well she did to back in her younger years so maybe it was Karma giving her the finger. “I just want to talk!” Sarina yelled once more chasing her target, the foot pursuit however would come to an abrupt end. Caitlin would quickly spin round and concentrated a scream in her direction that sent Sarina hurtling back in the air back to the front of the house they were once at and rolling on the ground several times, her target had bolted leaving the agent disorientated and one hell of a ringing in her ears.

Sarina had managed to get to her knees for a moment, swaying slightly as she tried regaining her focus. She had a small cut on her face, nothing a bit of cleaning and a plaster couldn't handle, but one of her ears felt weird, placing a couple of fingers over her ear before bringing it back, she saw blood, she was bleeding from the right ear. “Hijo de puta” She said quietly to herself as she slowly stood back up and staggered back to her vehicle in an attempt to clean herself up, update HQ and once again try to relocate her target that managed to escape.

---

Explosions were going off right & left, buildings were falling apart. The entire city of Atlanta was on fire, people were screaming, bullets were flying through the air. Sirens were blaring, windows were shattered, Amalia was seen running towards Floyd before catching on fire and melting. The name KIVA was being yelled out by people on fire suffering. Suddenly Floyd jumped up in a cold sweat screaming. Looking around Floyd saw that he was laying in Amalia's bad and everything he was just seeing was another horrific future vision. "AAAA!!!!!!!!!" Floyd screamed at the top of his lungs before stopping upon seeing he was okay. Holy shit holy shit...holy shit the dreams are getting worst Floyd wiped his forehead which was covered in sweat & noticed his heart was pounding. He noticed that Amalia wasn't in the bed with him anywhere and wondered if she'd heard him screaming. "Fuck I'm starting to hate sleeping." Floyd muttered to himself as he pushed the covers off him, and slipped on his underwear & then his pants.

Amalia had woken up before Floyd, she had navigated very carefully out his arms to make sure he stayed asleep. When she got up she put on cropped grey hoodie and some black spandex shorts, her normal morning attire. She tip toed her way into the main room, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind her, before tying up her black hair into a high ponytail. 'I said I would make him breakfast but I have no food in the house...' She laughed to herself as she sat down at her drawing table and drew up some buttermilk pancakes, syrup, and her personal favorite topping, peanut butter. She also drew some eggs and proceeded to manifest everything. Walking into her kitchen that attached to her dining room, it was actually at the front door. She had an island counter and then the fridge, microwave, stove, and other counter lined up next to the front door. She whipped up the eggs into scrambled eggs, seasoning them with salt and pepper and then threw the pancakes on the stove in a pan to heat them up and make them crispy. As she was cooking a thought occurred to her, 'Oh shit. He was high and on something last night. Will he remember what happened? What if he regrets it? Am I just another side girl?' Amalia paused her cooking and stared down at the food, wiping a single tear from her eye. She was happy last night with him. It took a wild turn from Floyd coming over to talk business to ending up in bed with him, but his humor and warm side made her happy. Amalia shook her head, determined not to think about it too much. When she had finished pulling the last pancake from the pan and getting the spread ready she heard him scream. 'What the fuck?' Her heart raced, beating at the sensation of hearing Floyd sound like he was scared or in pain. She quickly ran to the room to find him getting dressed, she breathed a heavy breath, her chest collapsing, "Are you okay?" She said out of breath, staring at him with a concerned pout.

"Yeah I'm....fine...I.."Floyd paused wondering what to say, he recalled last night vividly in spite of how high he was. He'd felt a real bond with Amalia & enjoyed the two of them opening up to each other about their lives, their history, their struggles, dreams, aspirations & even nightmares. Of course the type of nightmares Floyd was having thanks to Luna were one's he hadn't shared with anyone. The things he saw in his dreams were things he didn't even feel he should share with anyone. The interlude of thoughts was cut off by the smell of breakfast. Sniffing the air the aroma of fresh food entered his nostrils. Mhmmm it smells amazing out there, wow is that for me? "Sorry about that I had a really bad dream, I didn't mean to startle you." Floyd opted to not wear a shirt, it was summer after all plus his muscles needed to breath, right?! "But wow something smells amazing out there, what's going on the kitchen." Floyd asked with a smile as he walked over to her hugging her and giving her a kiss. The disturbing images of the future were still fresh in his mind, and it was clear they were heavy on his mind, but he didn't know if he should bring up what he saw. The image of Amalia melting was burned into his brain and that caused him to hug her a little tighter while she was still whole he didn't want anything bad to happen to her.

Amalia welcomed his embrace, she liked feeling his chest against her. She felt a blush grow across her face as he hugged her tighter. She was happy that he kissed her and held her for a moment, it reassured her fears that this wasn't a mistake for him. But she still felt concern for him and whatever his nightmare was. Amalia hugged him back, pulling her arms around his muscular body. Was it bad that she was already turned on this early in the morning? Amalia rolled her eyes internally, a mental eye roll so to say. When she pulled away from his hug she looked at him and said, "I am sorry you had a bad dream. If you need to talk about it, you let me know. But I did make you breakfast!" She was concerned, yes, but she almost thought that it may be the best idea to get some food in him and help him get back into his humorous mood and give him some happiness. "I made," she took his hand and led him into the kitchen, "pancakes and scrambled eggs!" She showed off the spread, holding out her other hand that wasn't holding his in a 'Tah-dah' fashion. She hoped that it would be enough, she could always draw more but part of her didn't want him to know that she was living off of the food she was drawing.

"Pancakes and scrambled eggs, wow you shouldn't have! But I'm glad you did." Floyd was ecstatic at the breakfast that awaited him, sure he wasn't high anymore but he still maintained his love for food in all states inebriated or otherwise. As he was led in the kitchen a grin came across his face as he took a seat at the table and went to kiss her hand in thanks. "Syrup please, and as for my dream being bad well it was more then bad, it was plain awful but..." Floyd hesitated for a moment pondering on if he should divulge to Amalia about what he saw or not, normally he wouldn't want to bring such negative news to the table, but he found himself really caring about her and seeing her melt in that vision made him feel as if he should warn her of the potential dark days ahead. "So...I told you I was a sponge right well...the very first parlor trick I sponged soaked up lets me see things before they happen, most of the time while I'm dreaming and....I saw the world...I saw you." Floyd paused momentarily to allow the gravity of what he said to sink in

Amalia felt the blush on her face come up again as he kissed her hand, she needed to figure out how to control that before she embarrassed herself. "Pancakes are the best food when you had a long night." She smiled at him and then started to fix him up a plate. As she finished with the plate she listened to him, as she finished it was when he got into the details of the dream. Amalia slid the plate towards him and leaned across the counter to listen to his words. Even though he was the epitome of doom and gloom in this moment, she wasn't too worried. "Okay, so I guess something really bad happened then?" She spoke slowly, to show that she was understanding him. Maybe it was because she had already lived the last three months feeling like more bad things were yet to come. She almost felt prepared to hear whatever he had to say.

"A long and very fun night at that." Floyd said with a smirk as she fixed a plate of food for him. He rubbed his stomach to quell his hunger as he heard it growl. Calm down buddy the food is on the way. Floyd jokingly spoke to his tummy within his mind feeling both his mind & body being eager & welcoming for the food Amalia had prepared for them. Floyd began cutting through his eggs & pancakes, while also dowsing the pancakes in syrup before starting to eat the delicious breakfast. To think all this had came about from him coming over to request her help with the doctored Alter ID's. "Yeah I mean the end of the world, and all of humanity is really bad." Floyd quipped in a non chalant manner not that he wasn't worried or unconcerned but more so that he was overwhelmed by the sheer reality of his visions. "Most of the visions I've had are of bad stuff that hasn't happened yet, but the past ten days I've been seeing pretty much the same thing but from different angles & locations, this time I saw you getting burned alive as well as the rest of this city, all cities Amalia..& the only recurring theme in everything I've seen these past few days is something called Operation KIVA." Floyd concluded this time with more concern & worry in his voice, showing that he was terribly frightened by the glimpses of the future he was witnessing and really at a loss for words as well as plans on how to both figure out & prevent the calamities he saw in his dreams

"Okay, so you are having visions of the future." Amalia grabbed just one pancake and a few eggs and started playing with them, not eating quite yet. She watched as Floyd ate, laughing a bit internally at him dousing the pancakes with syrup. "It sounds really bad, I won't lie," She said while shrugging her shoulders, "but it sounds like you have a lead. Operation KIVA? Right?" She stared at him for a second before coming around the counter and put a hand on his strong back, "You know. The future isn't always set in stone. You are having visions of horrible things happening but you have a lead on why it is happening. We have this incredible powers, so why can't try to stop it?" She ran her hand down is back in a calming matter, "Do you have any idea when this will happen?"

Floyd continued wolfing down his food & relaxed a bit as Amalia rubbed his back easing the tension he had about the apocalyptic future events that haunted him. "Yeah I have to stop it right?" Floyd grinded his teeth a bit while contemplating on the reality of what he was facing and whether or not it WAS his responsibility to deal with Operation KIVA. "From what I know Operation KIVA is some type of project being developed by a company called CyberCorp. I actually saw them on the news yesterday afternoon announcing the project on live TV." Floyd recalled witnessing CyberCorp's CEO unveil Operation KIVA as some new riveting security system that would revolutionize the United states military & law enforcement. "As for a timeline I know it takes place a year from now, and I don't really know what it is or how to stop it." Floyd pouted as he finished telling Amalia what he knew about Operation KIVA

Amalia listened to Floyd, growing a little more intense about the situation. It sounded bad, really bad. Amalia didn't want him to feel that way though. She had spent so much time worrying about the future when everything first happened that she started to remind herself that she just needed to live each and every day by itself. "That's a start, at least you kind of know who may be in charge of it." Amalia turned and put a hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes, "Listen. I don't know who is going to stop it. But if you haven't seen anything different, if the visions are the same each time, then that means nobody has stepped up to the plate yet. Maybe you need to, maybe that's why you are seeing it. But you aren't alone," She let out a small laugh and continued, "there is a lot of people out there with powers now. We set a clock, we have a year before this crazy doomsday. That means you, no, we. We have time to find people who will want to stop this." Amalia smiled at him gently then said, "Mejor el diablo que conoces que el diablo que no conoces," letting her thicker accent come out, "My great-grandmother used to say this. She said that the famous quote of 'Better the devil you know then the devil you do not know' originated from Puerto Rico. It was one of the kinder things she used to say to us!"

I do not speak spanish I got kicked out of class for the rest of the semester in ninth grade ehhh ooh thank gosh she's translating it wow that advice hit right nowFloyd's ADHD thoughts rattled through his head as Amalia spoke, she knew just what to say to boost his morale & make him feel better about such a dark & devastating situation. He remembered when Mike clowned him about being the literal living incarnation of the blessed with suck trope when the harsh precognitive nightmares had begun, and was grateful that nightmare of a power had evolved into his favorite ability. But here with Amalia it was much different, she pointed out the positive aspect of this power. The ability to deter the world from the apocalyptic course it was heading in his visions, to figure out & fight this Operation KIVA for the betterment of all mankind.

He was reminded of the fuzzy bubbly feeling he felt in his heart last night when he confessed his feelings to Amalia. This ensured him that it wasn’t just his emotions being enhanced by the combination of pain medication, medical marijuana & horniness for Amalia’s oh so sexy curvy figure. He had genuine feelings for her, perhaps the narcotics removed the blanket he’d placed over those feelings but was that a bad thing? Sitting here finishing his breakfast and listening to her made him feel better & more confident about dealing with KIVA. “Thank you so much Amalia, you have no idea how much that helps. Sometimes I overthink things, especially bad things. Believe it or not I’ve got anxiety, and these visions have been making it flare up.” Probably part of the reason I’ve been smoking so damn much more lately too Thoughts of marijuana caused him to briefly speculate about how this thing whatever it was with Amalia would play out with Rita.

Certainly he shouldn’t keep banging her and Amalia. He was a gentlemen even if he had plenty of other faults & being an empath he didn’t want to play with people’s emotions or hurt them. Especially after the sensitive intimate conversation he had with Amalia last night, he knew what it was like to be targeted & broken while already vulnerable. That was something he never wanted to live through again & certainly not anything he wanted to put anyone through especially Amalia.

As he felt genuinely more happy just being around her he felt a sudden sharp pain. He gasped for breath and stood up quickly. He winced, closing his eyes in pain, saying ahhh as if in pain and fell backwards.

For the first time in a long while he experienced a vision of the future while he was conscious instead of dreaming. The scenery around him shifted, no longer was he sitting down at the table with his breakfast with Amalia’s gentle touch to his cheek & her soothing words about gathering other altered to stop CyberCorp’s devastating project. Instead he was in the streets of San Francisco walking at a brisk place. He quickly noticed the street he was run walking on was one he was familiar with and not too far from his shared condo with Mike.
He had little time for familiar sight seeing as he noticed a woman scream, and looking up in the vision he saw a middle aged woman on the edge of a roof. His mouth widened in the vision as she lost her balance and slipped off the edge. The height she was falling from was at least 25-30 stories so plummeting to the ground from there would surely result in death. He ran towards her to no avail as the woman plummeted towards the ground picking up momentum. As he pointlessly rushed towards the woman he felt like time slowed down and speaking of time he jerked his head down towards his wrist eying his watch. Seeing the time caused him even more concern as this was happening less then an hour from now in reality with Amalia.

Luckily before he was forced to watch the dream play out it’s brutal conclusion he snapped back into reality. In the real world he’d only been zonked out for about a minute at most and noticed that he was sweating a bit and had completely fell to the ground. He groaned a bit, as he put a hand down on the ground to push himself up and slump back Into his chair. Instinctively he peaked at his wrist and sure enough it was less then 30 minutes before then the time o his watch In the vision of the woman falling to her demise.

“Oh fuck..Amalia I gotta go, listen I..I just had a vision another one while I was awake!” Floyd wiped the sweat from his brow and sheepishly brushed it against his pants pocket. “UM oh yeah most of the time they happen while I’m sleep but I’ve had two while three now while I’m awake. The first one was about some guy getting hit by a car, I…I thought I was just tripping on drugs but as I was walking to uh..handle some business in a parking lot that exact scene was about to play out, but I rushed forward and tackled the guy seconds before the car came rushing down the street and crashed into an ice cream stand, luckily unoccupied. Apparently the guy’s breaks went out, the second one was me winning 50K on the lottery, of course I played the numbers can’t change that future ha ha..but yeah this is just like the first one, I…know where it’s at, I gotta stop it or some lady is gonna fall to her death, but but get back to me about the ID’s and we can talk business then, and we can talk about us…what us is or what we are.” Floyd corrected his improper grammar at the end as he was rushing, he knew he was unloading a-lot on Amalia about the visions but he couldn’t sit idly by and potentially let someone die. It was painful enough almost watching it unfold in his vision, but seeing he was short on time and that place was about a 20 minute drive away he wanted to hurry. Usually that would mean it’d take him double the time to get there with California’s traffic, but luckily that giant woman’s rampage yesterday had left the streets quite & mostly empty since then from the residual fear that the attack of the 200 foot tall woman might reoccur at any waking moment.

Amalia was glad that she could talk to Floyd and try and help him through what was happening. Honestly, she had started to worry that with everything crazy happening against altered humans that they would all turn bad. She was worried about the humanity that would remain in those who were altered with how they were being treated. "Any time, I am always-" before she could finish Floyd was having his vision. She let out a small scream herself while watching him be in intense pain. She had no idea that the visions could happen while he was awake. Amalia didn't know how to help him, she didn't know what was going on. Her heart hurt, she reached out to touch him on the shoulder. And then he was back and explaining everything how his visions worked, how he had prevented things from happening before, and about his latest vision.

"I would make a joke right now about how you can change the future, and for the better, so you should have just gone and won the lotto, but," She gave him the a weak smile, "It sounds like you need to go be a hero. Just stay safe, okay? We can talk any time, I will be here drawing up some IDs and other fun things. If you had a vision of this, you need to take care of it." Amalia kissed his cheek and bit her lip while smiling, a little worried about what was happening between the two of them and what he was about to go do. But she had to let him go, someone needed him more than her.

---

---

Zeke was not a regular.

Of course he didn't frequent bars. He was supposed to be a model citizen, abstaining from drunkenness and thugly behaviour. Everyone who knew him will tell anyone that asks about Zeke that he was just the best guy. You sad? Count on him to give you hugs. You hungry? He will give you cash and bring you to a Mcdonalds. And so and on. Best man, no?

Today, though, was different. Zeke had just narrowly avoided being trampled by a colossal woman, being fired and banished from his workplace mere minutes before the incident in downtown San Francisco that claimed the lives of 26,000 people, give or take. This was one of the bloodiest days of American history indeed. Even the battles of the Civil War and the world wars didn't have so many deaths within minutes. Minutes. MINUTES. Not hours, or days. Just minutes, mere moments where thousands were snuffed out forever.

After his first shot was placed in front of him, Rafael sank it down his gullet with ease before setting it back down and giving the counter two taps, a wordless request for more. He then spun the stool, taking in the faces of the people around him while the bartender reloaded. "Now wish one of deez muhfukkers is gon be mah new bess frin?" he asked aloud, forcing a queezy grin.

Wearing a black overcoat over a grey shirt coupled with a pair of jeans and sandals, Zeke stepped into the bar, his face bearing a morose expression. He'd lost quite a few friends today too, and he wasn't entirely sure if living through this terrorist attack was a blessing or a curse. He shuffled forward, every step bleeding with the feeling of insecurity.

Taking a seat on the stool, he asked for a shot of wine, complimenting his request with a smirk that hid his inner turmoil. Receiving the shot, he dunked it down, setting the cup back on the counter with a bit of weight behind his hand.

Zeke was going to pull out his phone and make a call when he turned to the left, spotting a familiar face on the counter. It was the guy that he occasionally brought narcotic plants from, and maybe a friend. He had this look of loss on his features; something like the one that Zeke carried right now. Maybe...

Inching closer, Zeke leaned towards Rafael. "How about an old friend?" He said, nodding. "What are the odds that I'd find you here... you good?"

Time: Early Morning
Location: Floyd's Condo, San Francisco
Interaction: Just a fly

---

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" Michael shouted as electricity coursed between his finger tips. He moved his hands far apart and chuckled. "Damn this is sick! Like…. Shit man, I have powers…. I really have powers." It was as if he was trying to convince himself of the fact. His eyes peered down towards the hardwood floor where what was left of a fly laid.

To think he would discover his powers trying to pop a fly that had infiltrated his home. He had missed the fly, but the electrical discharge from his hands zapped the insect as if it had been charged with the death penalty. He swept up the deceased fly that fell apart into ashes he smirked and disposed of it.

Electricity…. That's my power. Dope, I can work with this. Be the black Cole McGrath or like a young Black Lightning. Taser punches, electrocution… can I charge stuff? Wait… can I drain stuff. I gotta write this shit down… I gotta tell Floyd… He won't believe my ass through text, I play too much. Michael had to head to work, despite having powers now. He grabbed his keys wallet and carefully placed his phone in his pocket. He'd settle for just telling Floyd about the powers when he ran into him later. They were roommates so he didn't think it would be long.

Dressed in a charcoal suit and tie, Michael stepped out the door, with a positive outlook for the day.

Time: Morning
Location: Downtown San Francisco
Interaction: None

---

Paige was furious, and that was starting to become a constant emotion, if not the only one she was feeling. Ever since loosing her job as detective her life was spiraling into one misfortunate event after another. After so many years working as a narcotic detective her career had become an integral part of her identity. So loosing what she perceived as her ability to make an impact on the world was a devastating blow.

Her anger issues were prominent and had gotten her on paid leave in more than a few instances due to police brutality. Many in the public perceived her type of behavior problematic in the policing communities, but among her brothers & sisters in blue she was respected. After all law enforcement wasn’t a job that you could afford to coddle others nor one where you benefited from being nice. Day in and day out she was exposed to the worst elements of humanity breaded from individuals roped in the depths of criminality.

The media tended to portray many who were victims of police brutality as innocents, first time offenders or hapless victims of institutionalized racism. But for those who actually wore the badge & went out day & night on patrol to purge the world of it’s worst elements the truth was known. As such those previous instances and suspensions where not seen as marks against her character or capability as an officer. Rather they were seen as admirable sacrifices made by an honorable officer who hadn’t yet allowed the profession to drain her of morality & the drive to right the wrongs committed by the worst elements of society.

Still the incident that had led to her firing was one that had caused even some who had stood by her to question her behavior. Racism wasn’t something she was often accused of being that her own father was African American. But there were many in the black community which shunned her for her choice to fight crime that perceived her & other ethnic officers as “Showing out” for “mass. An ignorant belief for sure, perpetuated by many of the same individuals who thrived economically from criminal behavior & actions.

“Are you okay Paige” Paige looked up to see none other then her former partner Dean Rivers, he’d showed up to come see her & offered to take her to grab some ice cream. She was happy to see Dean as they didn’t work together those moments they shared were less and less. But she’d been on the job for almost ten years so they had a decade of experience shared in-between them.

“Yeah I’m fine, just reflecting on everything. With the way the world is, and the media always painting us as literal demons In human flesh, the job is becoming harder & harder. Honestly I’m starting to see me getting removed from the job as a blessing in disguise. The only problem now is getting hired anywhere.” Paige pouted as she picked up her spoon and took a few scoops of her strawberry ice cream before plopping it in her mouth. She mhmmed in satisfaction from the cold sugary treat entering her system.

“Look I get it Paige, might as well address the elephant in the room. That kid Banker is a bastard, and clearly looking at his record he’s up to no good. I know how it feels to see motherfuckers like him flash some cash that they no doubt earned from drugs or other shit, but what did you think was gonna happen planting drugs on him.” Dean protested bringing up the exact event that had gotten Paige hemmed up and led to her loosing her career as a decorated veteran SFPD officer.

“You said it yourself tho! Dean you know what he was doing, we were both investigating that motherfucker, the energy plague is one of the worst things that ever happened, but for the first two months the quarantine actually had one positive impact on the community. Less drugs, then all of sudden after 2 months of things finally looking like we might actually WIN the war on drugs for the first time in ever, drugs start flooding the damn streets again. Everything we fought to stop was happening again, overdoses, junkies robbing people, people who actually wanted to get rid of they addiction being unable to relapse because they poison of choice wasn’t on the streets. People got they brothers, sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers…back.” Paige faltered off.

Dean frowned he knew what this was a bout, having worked at her side for years he knew the In’s and outs of what made her tick. He knew her vulnerabilities emotional & physical, as well as her motivations specifically in relation to her career. He felt as though all officers had a reason for doing the job, and Paige’s was clear. Her mother had been a heroin addict & that led to her & her younger sister Mia practically raising themselves. Dean was no stranger to the dangers of drugs himself, seeing as how they’d de-railed his promising acting career. “I know, and you know I wanna put em all away myself, it’s just like you seen what happened when we don’t play by the rules, we get burned.”

Paige just huffed and sighed she knew Dean had a point. But Floyd was more the just some dealer to her, what he did was personal. Her sister Mia was in a coma fighting for her life, because her and her friends had gotten some pills from Floyd. The painkillers he presented to them for consumption had fentanyl meaning they were pressed. As if that was’t bad enough Mia’s friend overdosed ad Mia herself as well, only while her friend had died Mia was still fighting for her life. Thinking about her sister laying at home as a vegetable because of one mistake in indulgence was infuriating. Sure she had chomped her little sis out for playing with fire and potentially walking down the same steps as their heroin addicted mother. But, at the end of the day family was family & because she’d poured herself into this job she didn’t have much of that.

“Look you know what happened to my sister. I just have to do something. Job or no job, she’s lying about fighting for her life, while he’s having the time of his.” Paige bitterly pointed out the contrast between how Floyd was living versus her little sis who’d indulged in the spiked pills of his.

“Just stay out of trouble Paige.” Dean’s words rolled off his lips effortlessly and full of concern for his ex-partner. Paige gave him a reassuring smile to indicate that she was doing just that despite the circumstances of her getting fired, and her fiery burning desire for revenge on Floyd for polluting the streets with drugs including the ones that hurt her sister. Dean wasn’t entirely convinced as Paige was relentless and a small part of him admired her resolve to try to take such a dangerous law breaking man off the street at all costs even at the cost of not just her career, but her own freedom…her whole life.

Couple Hours Earlier
Frank’s sudden passing had disrupted the smooth running of Floyd’s drug operation. Thanks too his powers of invisibility he’d managed to traffic larger amounts of drugs to nearby illegal states including Utah while mostly avoiding detection. He’d learned to expand his invisibility to matter he was in contact with including his vehicle. As the partially electric powered vehicle hardly generated noise it was perfect for stealth runs during the early hours of the morning whilst invisible.

But as his body had been found lifeless two days ago, now the concern had grown among the other smugglers working with Floyd. The facts surrounding his death were confusing at best, and outright worrying at worst. It seemed like a hit was carried out, and not in a typical fashion. Many speculated the obvious that the attack was carried out by an altered. None of the smugglers knew of Frank or Floyd’s powers but they did know that a man who was found dead with no signs of any traditional attack may have bit the bullet to a supernatural demise.

“Javier you hear about that? Frank fue asesinado por alterado, lo único que tiene sentido.” The man communicated to the one known as Javier who was scaling up cocaine then adding cutting elements to double the portions of the drugs.

His associate just rolled his eyes he was here for money, and not to speculate Frank;s death. He’d found Frank to be a quite capable smuggler but Floyd was the one who cut his checks not Frank. “Mateo estoy aquí para trabajar no hablar rumores” Javier responded to Mateo before spitting and sealing up the ounce of coke before lighting a marbolo.

“Aye I-“ Before Mateo could finish his sentence he screamed out as a bullet was lodged into his back, then two more as Mateo stumbled forward hitting the ground spewing blood. Javier jumped over a nearby desk ducking behind it and drawing his weapon yelling out. Three other smugglers in an adjacent hallway rushed into the room with AR’s drawn yelling out for Javier. They all noticed a woman walking slowly twirling a firearm, a Glock 18C machine pistol.

“Kill her!!!” Javier yelled, and the three opened fire on her. She clasped her fully auto weapon to no avail as her body was riddled with bullets. The sharp metallic rounds seared through her flesh drawing blood from multiple wounds as she hit the ground. That woman was none other then Paige Turner carrying out a one man or well one woman attack on Floyd’s drug warehouse on the outskirts of tow.

Javier peaked his head over the desk to see Paige’s condition & fully rose up after seeing she was dead. A popping noise was heard, followed by more as if some metallic popcorn was being grown I the microwave. Paige rose up from her wounds as her body began closing up & healing after the ebullets were split out. Gripping her weapon she opened fire, spraying the three shooters killing them instantly. Javier had ducked back down at the gunfire and rolled towards the door trying to escape the apparently invincible lady.

As he was rolling towards the exit door his face met her foot. He grabbed his nose now shattered after Paige kicked him. She leaned down and whacked him on the side of the head with the blunt side of her weapon, the proceeded to wack him a few more times. "Listen if you want to get out of this Alive it’s simple tell me who is you guys supplier, Floyd Banker’s supplier.’ Paige asked as she pressed the gun against Javier’s temple.

“Please I don’t know and If I did I can’t tell you, the Salzaras have no pity on snitches, they will kill me and my daughter.” Javier pleaded for mercy, before realizing he’d divulged info. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes, Salzaras, I’m quite familiar with that name, as I’m sure you are is well. I must say I had to kill everyone here before someone was willing to tell me what I needed to know, go home to your daughter Javier…I’m feeling generous for your co-operation.”

“R..R..Really?” Javier’s eyes widened he was practically trembling he hadn’t meant to spill the beans on Rita, but if that eared him another day of life he was about to take it.

“No.” Paige pulled the trigger blasting through Javier’s head, blowing out his brains with rapid fire. A pool of blood slimed from his skull onto the ground around him as Paige rose up and blew some residual smoke from the barrel of her gun before holstering it. “Salzaras huh, you playing with the big leagues now Floyd. Lucky for me thanks to this plague no matter what you shoot at me I won’t be stopped.” Paige grinned and walked over to the bags of cocaine opening them up and dumping there contents on the floor wasting the drugs, then knocking over tables with pills stepping on them. After destroying much of the product she saw out in the open she made her exit from the warehouse now with new intel to further her mission of vengeance against him. This was no longer about right or wrong, or police procedures. With the powers she’d been given from recovering from he virus, all she wanted was her bloody revenge against the thug who’d put her precious Mia in intensive care.

Out in the Pacific Ocean...

---

The giant woman took off, yet Gonzalez was still falling down to the ocean below. He attempted once more to teleport, and although he was successful, he wasn’t back in San Diego as he had planned.

“Oh shi—“

The young sailor fell into the water a few feet below him after teleporting there instead of teleporting back to the base. Right away, Gonzalez realized that the water was relentlessly cold. However, eventually he was able to get his bearings straight and that’s when he realized the USS Abraham Lincoln had been capsized and every single crew member onboard was dead by that point. Gonzalez couldn’t help but shiver, both from the freezing waters and the fear that was slowly starting to settle within him.

No, I can’t...stop it!

Gonzalez forced his eyes shut and attempted to teleport back to San Diego just like before. Much to everyone’s surprise, this time he spawned right over the desk where the meeting was being held. A collective gasp was heard across the room as a soaking wet body landed on the desk, knocking random items out of place and ruining various paper reports.

“Get a corpsman in here, now!” Captain Holt shouted, pushing some individuals out of the way to get to Gonzalez.

---

The man was clearly out of his damn mind. Michele couldn’t help but feel bad for him as she had previously witnessed what untreated mental illness could do to someone. Initially a bit hesitant, Michele then turned her back to the man and walked away, thankful to still have her life. Graças a deus por isso, she thought to herself, her clones disappearing from existence once she was out of his line of sight. It was then Michele pulled out her cell phone to get a hold of her cousin. With the current situation going on around the city, Michele wanted to make sure that she was okay. Her cousin was the only relative she had in San Francisco, or anywhere on the west coast for that matter.

The phone rang, but no one answered. Instead, Michele opted to leave a voicemail. "Eu preciso falar com você, me ligue de volta.” She then put her phone away and looked back to where the giant woman should have been, realizing she was gone. Just what the hell was going on in San Francisco? And had her cousin been caught up in the middle of it?

---

Lose my damned number.

Anya stared as Marcus disappeared from her sight. She then placed a phone call to her handler advising him that Marcus had rejected her offer and he wanted nothing else to do with her. In turn, she had been advised to chase him down and kill him. Anyone who wasn’t a friend of hers was an enemy, and to her people, having an enemy who knew your true identity and knew whom you worked for was very dangerous business, dangerous enough to kill them in order to prevent the truth from getting out. She had tried to reason with her handler explaining that Marcus could be trusted to keep the secret, but they wouldn’t have it. Anya then hung up the phone, making her way to the exit so she could return to the office and await further orders whether or not the FSS agents would be evacuated.

Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco
Interaction:

---

Floyd was rushing to the location he saw in his vision. He was determined to change the course of time and alter what he saw in the vision. After speaking with Amalia briefly he left he wanted to discuss the future and what they would become.

He’d gotten several messages from Rita that he hadn’t noticed while doing the nasty with Amalia. As he got to a red light he opened his phone to see the messages and raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck” Floyd uttered as he observed the content of the messages. It was so disturbing he wasn’t aware of the light turning green until hearing several aggressive honks behind him.

no no no this can’t be?! What the fuck happened?! My whole operation is gone?! How HOW?! HOW?!!!! Floyd was in shock still ignoring the cars behind him. Finally a car zipped around him and rolled down the window. This managed to catch Floyd’s attention who rolled down his own window. “Hey”

“Move out the fucking way!!!! Your blocking the damn road stupid bastard!” The man yelled, a middle aged white man dressed in business casual with an ugly hair-cut. The man’s face was reddened with anger for the brief moments in time he lost waiting behind Floyd in traffic. He then zipped off speeding in a rage.

Usually Floyd would have popped off at him, but the combination of the precognitive vision he’d seen about the woman falling to her death and now learning about his warehouse’s eradication from Rita who was fuming was too much. Sure he’d made some enemies over his life, but who had the resources & ability to wipe out all his smugglers. It was one thing to loose Frank to some mysterious death, but this was too much. So much was happening all at once and it was beginning to become too much for him to handle.

Rita was obviously upset, but he wondered if she wasn’t partially to blame. After all she was the Salzaras in the relationship. Perhaps something wasn’t all the way 100% with her, he wondered. Anyway back to his drive he was rushing towards the building now he was getting closer he had to save the lady.

Meanwhile, On the Roof
“Listen Amelia I’m telling you to do the right thing! I know how your husband thinks about people like me! But I’ve been your best friend for years, and now you have a chance to do good ! You can prove that everyone who’s associated with the government isn’t a bad person, I don’t think that. But lots of other black people do and for good reason, how could we not? All the shootings we see of unarmed black people on the news, and now this whole altered business is making it worst.” The woman protested to her friend. A slim black woman with long black hair, dressed in a gray dress was speaking.

The woman she was speaking to was the woman from Floyd’s vision. A white lady in her early 40’s, with brunt hair. She was sporting a black knee high dress, and had a knock off Birkin bag slumped around her shoulder. She was listening to her friend rant about her latest social justice movement, and how her husband’s racially discriminatory behavior was bad for her reputation and morality. “Listen Dawn, my husband can be a bit….culturally challenged I’ll give you that. But what you’re asking me To do is go against him. Against the rock, the foundation of my household, we have kids! I..I don’t know about this movement, besides I’m not an active CIA member anymore, I’m a house wife, a mother, I’ve got a family to focus on and build.”

“So that’s more important than your future, your legacy? This isn’t right, you want to be on the right side of history. Altered Lives Matter is bigger than BLM, because what they’re doing to the altered is even worst than what they’re doing to us. The new laws President Forrester issued yesterday are horrible, shameless. How can you side with that simply because it doesn’t effect you.” Dawn argued with her friend, the two were having a fierce debate on the rooftop 27 stories in the air.

“Look Dawn, ALM that’s your business okay. And your right it’s not my damn problem, I’m not racist you know that. But I love Jonah, he’s not perfect but which of us are? Besides the altered ARE a problem, the woman from yesterday caused 29 thousand people to die!!! Our world is in danger, I’m sorry but I can’t support that movement. If you want to do it then you do it, but if you want this to be the division of our friendship then so be it.”

“I can’t believe you….but fine be you, do you.” Dawn stated, and stormed off angrily. Amelia shook her head she was upset. She didn’t want to loose her best friend, but she couldn’t support ALM. She fished a bottle out her purse, and downed some of it. The alcohol was calming her nerves and helping her out. Unlike her husband Jonah she had picked up quite the bad drinking habit.

Her drinking had become progressively worst the past few weeks. She’d seen less & less of Jonah who was tied up with work at Liberty. Of course she didn’t know about what he was doing, but she knew he was doing some work involved with combatting the Altered threat that threatened the country. She plopped down on the roof and took another shot. The alcohol she guzzled down was helping her. “I just don’t know what to do, and your not giving me any answers.” She was speaking to no one in particular, as she leaned down. She clasped her hands together in a prayer position and closed her eyes. “Dear God, lately I haven’t been the best. I feel like I’m failing in my marriage, failing my kids, and now myself. I’m loosing to the demon in the bottle, but I don’t know what to do. I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but if you could give me a sign on what to do. Is Dawn Right, maybe I should use my connections and experience to help.”

Amelia released her hands and opened her eyes. She looked towards the sky as if awaiting some mystical or heavenly sign but of course there was no response. She frowned and struggled to get up, mixed with her anti anxiety medication she was feeling a bit sluggish. Tha mixture wasn’t a safe nor a healthy one but it was what she required to keep her mental state together. She slipped the plastic bottle of honey jack Daniels into her purse and turned to walk towards the edge of the roof. Everything was so much, so intense in her life. For a brief moment she considered stepping off the ledge. Perhaps then she could have a face to face with her maker and ask them why she was deemed ready for this suffering.

She recalled her parents stating that God never gave anyone a challenge they couldn’t handle. While her pastor would agree with that, she didn’t feel that was accurate. “No I can’t jump, I have to…go back to my life. “ Amelia turned to leave but suddenly the unexpected happened. Her foot slipped she reached forward as if to grab her bearings but there was nothing to hold on to. “OH NO!!!” Amelia screamed the alcohol and pills had distorted her sense of balance, and led to the very thing she had pondered doing. She cried out as she fell off the ledge screaming as she fell over.

Back with the Hero
Floyd had arrived just in the nick of time. He parked the car and hopped out. Looking around he spotted the exact building. “I’ve got to get up there and save her.”

Right as Floyd said that, the unspeakable happened. His eyes widened as the woman from the vision slipped over the edge. “NOOO!!” Floyd yelled, he’d did all this & dealt with being berated by that angry man in traffic to try to get here in time. He heard the woman screaming, and he felt his body freeze.

He’d tried so hard to get here in time to save this woman, but it appeared he was too late. Maybe Amalia was wrong, they couldn’t change the future. If he couldn’t even prevent this woman from dying, then how could they stop KIVA? Floyd fought back agains the impending feeling of doom that was surging through his body. When the most unexpected happened, something he couldn’t have accounted for.

“What the fu-“ Floyd cut himself off noticing his feet were hovering above the ground. He wasn’t bound by gravity anymore, he was…flying. “OH shit!” Without thinking and operating purely on instinct he caused his body to move up. There was no time to be stuck in amazement, Floyd rushed upwards. Taking flight he flew forward and met the woman a few feet from falling off the roof.

“AAAH” The woman screamed as Floyd’s arms came around the woman. Floyd pulled forward still defying gravity and landed on the roof nearly falling as he got her to the ground.

“Holy shit…did you just fly..” The woman asked in shock, her words somewhat slurred from the drinking as she looked at Floyd in amazement.

“I..I…guess I did…” Floyd uttered back in shock.

Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Liberty Head Quarters
Interaction:

---

Patricia had led Jonah down to the containment center where Agent Green was. Jonah was fueling with rage ready to Interrogate this man. Somehow he was connected to Lori Martinez attack, every intelligence agency in the country was scrambling to find her. She was the number one priority for all agents everywhere. Her vicious attack was one of the most brutal in United States history, and right about now he was glad Liberty wasn’t a public organization.

The tension was so thick in the liberty office it could be cut with a knife, at least in the California Division. Seeing as Jonah was the head of the operation & this had taken place at his home base all eyes were on him. When Jonah arrived in the cell, Agent Green didn’t even want to look at him he already knew what this was about.

“I know what’s going on out there Jonah, Director Hanes.” Agent Green quickly corrected himself, feeling as though the least he could offer his former director was professional respect.

“Oh now you want to be proper, it’s too late for all of that. I don’t give a damn about all of that, what I want to know is why your giving out intel to strangers outside the agency. You came straight from the big leagues like me, we didn’t talk much back at the CIA but I’ve seen you around. This traitorous behavior is un-heard of from someone like you, just tell me why? Why?”

“Why? Because these monsters need to die, what happened downtown, what happened in Chicago, I want to prevent all that. Perhaps you haven’t done your research, but my daughter was at that school! She died, do you know what it’s like to loose your precious little angel. I swore everyday I’d protect her, my wife can’t even look me in the eyes. We don’t even speak anymore besides courteous hello’s and good bye’s when we see each other in the house. So when my source made me an offer I couldn’t refuse I took it.” Agent Green responded, for a guilty man he didn’t seem to have much remorse.

“What offer could you not refuse huh? Helping those fucking monsters, that’s how you honor your daughters memory?”

Agent Green lunged forward towards Jonah tackling him into the cell wall. Three Liberty security guards burst into the cell removing Green from the director, one of them pummeling him a few times. Jonah waved his hand and yelled enough ending the altercation. Jonah waltzed over to Green and decked him in the face drawing blood. As the agent hit the ground Jonah kicked him a few times then spit on him. “You piece of shit, your mine! Forget jail, your going to Guantanamo if you get out of here. That was just a little taste of what’s going to happen to you, you know how we treat traitors.”

“I’m not a fucking traitor you are! Keeping these things alive, prison isn’t good enough for them. My source was killing them, so yeah I gave out intel to a third party, one who was doing what needed to be done!!!”

“Killing them.” Jonah paused as if the words Agent Green said were shocking. His head started to spin, this wasn’t exactly what he expected the traitor to cough up intel was. He ordered the three security guards to leave, and stand by outside of ear-shot assuring them he would be okay.

“Oh so your gonna do me like this huh, go ahead and kill me then Jonah, I don’t give a damn, I’ll die knowing I fought for my country.” Green had no fight in him life, but the last thing they’d ever strip him of was his dignity.

Jonah stared at the agent, despite the rage that fueled him, he had some mercy. Some level of understanding, but it was if his actions didn’t align with his words. “So you mean to tell me, you went outside of your orders to eliminate altered?”

“Yes…and I’d do it again and again and again, I don’t give a damn what Liberty guidelines say. They all..need to die.”

Jonah shook his head and walked over to the wall of the cell punching it twice. “Damn it Agent Green! You fucking idiot.”

“I’m the idiot, your the one always going on about how you hate the wetbacks and monkeys! You hate them because of color, but I hate them because of what they are, monsters! You have no room to talk.” Green shot back noting Jonah’s outward racism which brought about confusion on why Jonah was confronting him about his under-handed tactics to purge the world of the altered menace that now plagued it similar to the energy plague they were spawned from.

Jonah was scratching his head, probably a diversion to avert the pain in his skull from plowing into the cement walls of the cell. “Your telling the damn truth, which means..” Jonah’s voice faltered & trailed off breathing heavily as if trying to come up with an answer that explained everything. From Green’s behavior to being a traitor to Lori’s massive attack that ended with thousands of citizens & soldiers being slaughtered.

“That means what Jonah, are you having some epiphany about how I’m right and your wrong? I guess that’s not common for a man like you huh.”

“No….it can’t be.” Jonah croaked his voice weakening and he grabbed his stomach as if a sickly feeling was overcoming him.

“What you really can’t stand the fact that you’re wrong? Your falling apart because of it?!”

“No you fucking idiot, don’t you see what’s going on. Damn it, you should have came to me. I don’t want these freaks to be alive either, you got played!!” Jonah’s fear and weakness had converted into pure unbridled rage.

“What the fuck are you going on about” Agent Green responded a little less unsure of himself, confused by Jonah’s change of tone.

“You’ve been feeding it…your source. Think about it, the attack even in these cells you’ve been made aware of your massive fuck up but you had no idea how badly you fucked up. The attack the woman demonstrated multiple powers, Martinez. She was held captive for the past week, then all of a sudden she sprung free today spewing all sorts of powers. Many of the powers were held by the targets you so called sacrificed to your source.”

“So we’ve got a whale of an altered, what the fuck do you mean I fed it? I certainly wasn’t taking no altered out to fucking eat.” Green shot back once again on the defensive and reeling from Jonah’s accusations.

“You fool!” Jonah replied as this new idea formulated in his mind. “You may not have known or realized but I believe you’ve created the biggest monster of them all. Martinez was shown using the same abilities of many of your targets, all of whom are reported dead and who you claim were slain by your source. If Martinez had all those powers why sit in custody for over a week, the answer is quite simple that’s not Martinez…that’s your source..”

“Mu source?! Have you lost your mind!!!! My source killed them, I confirmed the deaths, I obtained reports!!!”

“That part may be true, but they weren’t slain for some mission to purge the world of altered, but to become the strongest. An altered with the ability to take the powers of the others most likely by killing them & you led them to more powers!!!! Every single person that died today is partially your fault!!!!.”

Agent Green’s face was pale, the color drained from his face and he nearly fainted. Suddenly everything began to make sense, all the questions he had about his source the unexplainable scenario’s she’d passed to him in regards to her killing methods. “No…no…no…fuck….if what your saying is true…..then I don’t even truly know who I was working with…Agent Mayas might not even be real…they’re not real…Jonah…I’m so sorry…what do we do how do we fix this?!”

“Simple…”Jonah pulled out his gun and fired two shots into Agent Green’s skull causing him to fall to the ground dead. “Starting with you.” Jonah put his gun back in his pocket and stepped out of his cell. The three guards had rushed over to him as soon as they heard the sound of shots ringing out.

“Director Hanes what happened are you alright did-“

“I’m fine, but Agent Green isn’t. It seems he slipped and fell into some bullets. He tried to reach for my gun, he managed to grab it but unfortunately while doing so he pressed down on the trigger killing himself, a traitor all the way till his dying moment, perhaps the reason two bullets came out was punishment from our maker. “

“But that doesn’t” As the agent was about to speak on how that didn’t make sense Jonah pulled out his gun, but the two other security guards stepped in-front of him and looked at Jonah with pleading eyes. Eyes that indicated they’d agree with his story and perhaps even help make something better, but whatever he learned from Green that pushed him into killing him need not result in another liberty employee dying as well.

“So you agree with my story, the truth then? Good it’s your only option if you value living, as well as your family, we have work to do.” Jonah spoke coldly a look of worry, anxiety & fury intertwined & mixed on the scowl that occupied his entire face. The dark truth of the Martinez situation was an even worst reveal then that of a real altered taking up the mantle of Reaper. Between giving that radical leader a platform pre-loaded with followers & his own agent helping the one posing as Lori to obtain more powers he had a big heaping pile of shit.


The search for Lori had proved most unproductive. Jonah had no idea if Lori was even the creature’s real name. He was on the phone with his wife Amelia who’d proven to be too problematic lately. He was disgusted of her association with her so called “best friend” an African American. He was on his laptop doing some research on Dawn Pope to see if anything truly problematic would pop up.

A casual browse indicated that nothing beyond his own innate hate for her people was coming up. He paused as a google search brought up something very troubling.” Altered Lives Matter.” Jonah scowled as he clicked on the link. His eyes widened in shock as it brought him to more information about the movement Amelia’s best friend was getting involved with.

“Damn it Damn it Damn it!!!!! You sure know how to pick them!” Jonah barked as he slammed his fist on his desk. He was fuming with rage, and he whipped out his phone to call his wife. As he was about to press down on his contacts he set his phone down. He was far too enraged to engage in conversation with her right now, and he didn’t want to upset the already sensitive nature of their relationship. Instead he went down a few contacts to his father and dialed him.

“Hello Robert Hanes speaking, oh it’s Jonah. Sorry son, you know my eyes aren’t as good as they use to be these days. What’s going on?”

“Dad…I just needed to hear from you, I’m having trouble at home with Amelia. It’s…her best friend.”

“Oh dear, you mean the colored girl? Ya know I warned you about her tendency to look the other way with associating with those…things, but she’s been good to ya. As long as she’s not bringing them around the kids I think you’ll be all right, and as long as you make sure my grandkids don’t end up thinking like her.”

“No trust me dad there not around the kids. They’re hardly around anyone with the quarantine, I’ll be damned if we make exceptions for apes.”

“That’s my boy!” Robert’s voice beamed with pride, and Jonah coudldn’t help but fashion a smile on his face to hear his father was proud of him for upholding the family legacy of they’re ideals. The thought of his daughters messing with a darker colored human wasn’t possible. Not because his daughter didn’t have free will, but because Jonah would kill them brutally possibly in-front of her so that never happened again. And if they actually touched her, Jonah might even harm her himself but he pushed those negative thoughts outside his mind. These days they were far too young for that, and he found it humorous that thoughts of future interaction with boys had managed to quell his thoughts about the actual problems he had in his life right now.

“Well the best friend she has is apparently involved with this nonsense altered lives matter, and those things are probably the only creatures I hate more then her kind. I can’t risk any association leaking out to my family, and I was wondering if I could call in a favor, I know what you told me pops, but I’m in the middle of a major case and lives are at stake.”

“Son.” Robert’s dad let out an audible sigh over the phone. “Ya know I could lecture you, but I can hear it in your voice. I’ll make the call and get it taken care of, I know love is something that can’t always be perfect, but I won’t let it hurt you and your career..”

“Thanks dad I love you.” Jonah smiled and after a few more moments hang up the phone. Looking back at the nonsense he saw on the laptop he closed out the tab and went back to the files he had on Agent Green’s targets. He heard a knock on the door and after saying come in Patricia made her way into the room another folder in hand. After yesterday Patricia had moved far up in his list of favorite people at the office, in her other hand was his favorite caffeinated drink. Setting it down on the desk Jonah clasped his fingers together and smiled. If I wasn’t already married I might take a pass at her

“It’s been confirmed Director Han-Jonah I mean. Lori Martinez’s father committed suicide and her mother is in critical condition fighting for her life. Apparently she was a “victim”.” Patricia used the word victim very sarcastically showing that she might have shared very similar views to Jonah about certain people. “Of a “terrorist” group called the Purists, a religious group tied to Pastor Travis Mendez of Los Angeles. He has made several sermons about how he believes the altered are either demons or nephilim.”

“Nepha-what?”


“Half angel, half human hybrids.” Patricia responded without bating an eye, she always made sure to do her research on anything she presented to the director.

“Oh okay, well I can’t say I believe in it, but if it’s getting people to hate the altered then I think he’s got the right idea. As far as Martinez’s parents backlash is to be expected from any person with an ounce of patriotism or empathy towards the lives loss in the carnage yesterday. Even IF Lori Martinez WAS the true perpetrator of yesterday’s calamity her parents residence would be the last place she’d curse with her presence.” Jonah replied with zero empathy whatsoever for the Martinez family & the predicament giant Lori’s rampage downtown had no doubt caused them.

“Understandably so, I must admit I’m not an avid reader of any holy books myself, oh and witness protection has been denied to Lori’s extended family. Apparently they don’t qualify based on a technicality, so what’s the verdict?” Patricia questioned now that she’d gathered all the intel on the whereabouts & happenings of the Martinez family.

“It’s not shocking that nobody is jumping in to protect them, not after what the country thinks Lori did. We still have no more leads on Green’s source but I do believe I know a way we can be productive in the meanwhile. Reach out to Benny Stein & the leader of the purists, Pastor Mendez, tell them both I have a proposition for them.” Jonah finished with a sinister sneer on his face as he gave Patricia her new orders.

---

---

“I am Stacey Williams with ABC7 news reporting live from just outside of Astraea’s security depot here in San Francisco, here we can see many displaced people, many of which are families or been separated from families coming to the facility after their herculean effort to convert the back carpark into a camp but using small pre fab homes that were delivered overnight and put in place together.” Stacey points towards what they could see from their location as they had not been given permission to enter as of yet.

“Unfortunately as of yet, we have not been permitted to enter the private grounds at the moment, but we have been told at some point soon we can. This decision was likely made by Nyssa Devout, the daughter of the famous Franklin Devout, owner of Astraea Corporation. She has been pushing Astraea into more domestic areas, making strides into making private security and humanitarian aid divisions within the company.” Stacey took a moment for the camera to show many of the displaced citizens turning up and slowly being let into the premises.

“From what I have been able to found out so far, is that the people turning up here are being medically checked over by some doctors and paramedics, of whom were also displaced after yesterday’s deadly attacks where one of the main hospitals in downtown was destroyed. Several ambulances have been seen arriving here earlier and have been here since, helping security and humanitarian personnel deal with the influx of people and take some pressure of the local FEMA camps. It is also Rumoured that miss Devout herself will also be visiting the makeshift camp to inspect its progress. I hope to give you more updates soon, this is Stacey Williams with ABC7 news”

---

---

Nyssa Had been staying in one of the fancy hotel’s after arriving late in the evening yesterday. She wanted to oversee the San Francisco operations first hand, and ensure that the temporary changes that had been made to their security depot where going smoothly as she hoped and of course to see how people were settling in, overnight operations along with the immense amount of delivery trucks and human resources to get this operation of the ground in such short notice was impressive but she couldn’t slack of now, there was so much work still to be done. She was still quickly tidying herself up, wearing a white business suit and drinking a cappuccino when her phone went off.

She let out a sigh, her phone had been going off quite a bit over the last twenty-four hours, more than normal, making her reminisce of the days she would turn up on the cover of a Forbes magazine, it was a good distraction from the constant work she does now. Looking at who was calling, it was Franklin. “Hello dad.” She said sweetly. “I am fine, honestly, and no I have not shaken the security detail this time.” She would roll her eyes and she listened to him. “I know you told me not to come down here… Look dad, I am aware of how dangerous it is here, but you know me and this is important, there are people here that need all the help they can get and I am going to do my part.”

Taking another zip of her cappuccino, she listened to her concerned father, no doubt her mother would be losing her shit once she realized her daughter, against her parent’s better judgment, had gone to oversee the humanitarian efforts in person. “Honestly I will be careful dad; I promise” she ended softly. Of course he was probably worried about her being altered and not in the safety confines of home or Astraea’s HQ. “I understand, my driver will be along soon to pick me up, I will text or call later dad. Promise me you will stay safe to, tell mum I love her okay.” Nyssa chuckled a little. “Love you to dad, speak soon.”

Placing her phone down, Nyssa got her things together before she took a moment to look out the window of her hotel room. Seeing everything with her own eyes, TV just doesn’t do it justice and it annoyed her no end seeing so much death and destruction happening on home soil, but she had to keep her emotions in check as best she could for now, Last thing Nyssa needed was a repeat of the incident she caused a while back in L.A where letting her emotions get the better of her had changed the weather from a bright sunny day to a miserable wet one with some rain. Her little staring into space was disrupted by a knock at the door, a member of the security detail was just checking in on her and made her aware that soon it be okay to leave.

Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Safe House
Interaction: Sanzhar @The Man Emperor

---

The next morning Jace was up and cooking breakfast. Some bacon, eggs & sausage links were all he required to be ready. He decided to cook up some extra and leave it on top of the stove covered up in case his new friend wanted any. A long night of rest combined with a couple corona’s had been enough to get him rested & relaxed for the next day. As he was wolfing down his breakfast he was flipping through different news channels to get more intel about recent events with altered humans.

“Great so this Lori chick is fucking it up for damn near everyone, she don’t walk around at Godzilla size so I gotta find her and wring her neck.” Jace spat out angered by her violent actions downtown, and his inability to confront her yesterday due to being drained from engaging the mutant & fleeing the authorities afterwards.

He fetched a piece of paper and a pen. He decided to leave a message for Sanzhar in more traditional means since he’d terminated his phone the day prior out of fear of being traced by authorities. He paused for a minute to think about what he was going to etch on the paper before settling on a message.

Yo it’s ya boy no name needed cuz ya know haha
Anyway I’m sliding out yeen got no phone so
I’m writing a message down
The rest of the breakfast on the stove is yours if you want it big dawg
I’m headed out to meet my home girl to ask her about your situation
And handle some business of my own
There’s guns underneath the cushion of the couch
And guns in the drawer by the stove
And more guns in the back of the fridge behind the orange juice
If I don’t come back within 24 hours I probably got double crossed by this chick
Not that I expect you to do anything but forewarning I’d make my way out
Of this spot after a whole 24 go by.

Jace finished the letter and wrote his burner phone number on the bottom of the paper, not wanting to risk leaving his real phone number out. He’d deliberately not written his name or his alias as shade on the paper, again not wanting to implicate himself. After that he left heading out the front door, he took out his car keys for the jeep but recalled that he abandoned it in the forest area 23 minutes out. Considering the chase he had he figured it wasn’t a smart move to retrieve the vehicle any-time soon as it was probably swarming with cops & soldiers. Even if it wasn’t he was paranoid they could have found out and left a trap, or a tracker on it.

So he went the opposite way from the way they came yesterday evening from dropping off the car. After about 25 minutes he’d reached civilization, he decided to leave his backpack with his SHADE gear at the safe house. Especially since he was on foot he didn’t want to be spotted with the gear, the only things he had where his regular phone, Burner phone, a pistol tucked in his jeans, Air Pods,
Wallet & some cash. Luckily he’d stashed his duffel bag at Nikia’s store in a spot out back while he was over there yesterday.

He briefly pondered on the cash’s safety there, but neither Nikita nor her mother knew where the spot was or how to access it meaning it would be out of their Hands. While he trusted Nikita somewhat, his mom didn’t have that same courtesy extended to her from him. Really he didn’t trust either of them with those sums of cash, but in hindsight it was good he didn’t bring them to the safe-house because he wouldn’t have left them over there with metal man. He might have had friendly streak yesterday to save him from military & monsters but people were funny around money.

He opted to call an Uber to a used car dealership he was familiar with. On the ride there whilst in the back-seat he recounted the travel money he had with him around 20K. After giving the driver a generous $100 tip he went inside to handle his affairs. He ended up purchasing a used 2012 black charger for around 9K in cash after haggling the dealership owner down from $12,500. He also convinced or rather pressed him into letting him borrow the dealer tag that was already on the back of the car.

The last thing he wanted to do was be riding around with no tag at all, and the fact that he hadn’t submitted to the blood test meant he still had his old form of identification. A quick google & twitter search alerted him to the fact that now In order to purchase vehicles one required the new license that included your altered status. President Forrester’s new laws weren’t going to be easy to get around, and especially so in San Francisco after Lorizilla’s attack downtown. He was just happy that he had another vehicle that wasn’t the jeep, and some temporary tags to keep him from getting hemmed up in a regular traffic stop.

Now that he had transportation, he needed to get in contact with the FSS woman from yesterday. He had felt a little iffy about a partnership with a Russian spy, but perhaps he’d made the best choice after all. The laws here were extremely oppressive of his kind, and he felt a double whammy being an African American male & a superhuman.

He could only imagine how much worst it was in other states for people with his combined discriminated status such as Georgia, Alabama, & Mississippi. His next step was one of upmost importance as well, he ended up running by a burger joint to grab a bite to eat. Sure he’d scarfed down some breakfast earlier, but he’d split his portion in half to leave some from Sanzhar. Partially to be courteous to his guest and partially to not give him another reason to leave & wander around the safe-house. It dawned on him that he knew little about that man besides the fact that he was a journalist, had the power to control metal & saved his life yesterday from two simultaneous threats that almost ended it.

While he was still grateful, that really wasn’t enough. At the same time he was a man of his word, and offered that man safe housing at least until he could get in contact with Anya to confirm whether or not his true identity had been compromised during the conflict yesterday. But what if it had was he going to remove him from the safe house & toss him to the wolves. Not only did he have it’s location he also knew of his dual identity as Shade, which even Nikita & his own family wasn’t aware of.

Jace took a seat at a table in the burger joint he’d ventured out too. Grabbing the bottle of ketchup he sprayed some down on his burger & fries before going to town with his strawberry lemonade handy. “What a fucking day.” Jace said aloud to himself as he sated his hunger with a handful of fries.

Looking out the window he admired his new charger, it was the perfect excuse to splurge on a new vehicle. The jeep being compromised made it practically necessary so he had no qualms on spending drug money on the vehicle, and he’d managed to stay under 10 thousand to avoid the transaction having to be reported.

“I’m gonna need to find a new way to spend that money, maybe buy my way into partial ownership of Nikita’s mama store, that’s one way to get Lionel off the back, but it might get me into some shit with the IRS. Then again after what that ruthless bitch did yesterday there’s bound to be people hurting, people need help, I can’t believe she whacked the fucking hospital.”

Jace was talking to himself quietly about what his next move would be. When Sanzhar had asked him yesterday, he’d deflected and simply stated it would be business as usual. But so much had changed in the past 24 hours. His new association with the Russian agent, the violent altered attack on his home-turf and strangest of all was the mutant attack. Aside from Lori & Lionel beating down his girlfriend’s mom for funds he found that to be the most alarming. He’d dedicated his life to using his newfound powers to rid the streets of crime one body at a time. So in a way he felt he was obligated to confront altered human criminals as well.

The only problem aside from how much more difficult that would be then tearing apart high school drop out thugs was the attention it attracted from law enforcement. In combination with the strain it put on his powers to go against worthy opponents he didn’t want leave himself vulnerable enough to get nabbed by regular street cops or worst heavily armed soldiers. He’d read about how the President had deployed the actual U.S Military to San Francisco this morning & rumors of the city being put on lockdown in the next 48 hours.

“Whatever” Was all Jace had to say about that as he went back to his meal. Soon it would be time to regroup with the agent from yesterday. He was looking forward to that, more so about the promising intel on the mysterious Liberty organization she’d brought up yesterday. They seemed to be the most credible & dangerous threat to him posed by government forces. He’d went out of his way not to use his powers in a brutal manner against his would be captors yesterday, but Sanzhar had played a large role in that.

The nature of his powers left him little non-violent options against anyone trying to enrapture him. But with people like Lori wrecking the city & slaughtering thousands he wouldn’t always have the luxury of being able to diffuse conflicts with the national guard & police non-violently. At least not without tag teaming with Sanzhar, and he wasn’t in the mood or business of working with others as a full time thing. He was much more comfortable doing this as a solo gig for a multitude of reasons least of which was the fact that he didn’t want to incriminate himself for multiple murders around another person who wasn’t bulletproof like him.

His phone buzzed and he went to pick it up. He saw a strange image of Shade standing on a rooftop. “The fuck?”

He swiped to the right to see it was from an unknown number. Seeing three gray dots at the bottom alerted him to the fact that the person was in the midst of typing a message. “Who the hell is this”

The next message caused him to be concerned it simply read “I know who you are, and what you do.” Jace paused feeling his anxiety he never knew he had starting to kick in, even lessening the taste of his half eaten delicious cheese burger. He didn’t respond causing another message from the random number to come through. “I have proof of what you do, and I’m willing to share it to the world, unless you help me save my own world.” The message came through and struck Jace like a bullet from a semi automatic weapon.

Who the fuck is this, and what the fuck are they talking about? They can’t know who I am, but they sent that picture of Shade. Is it bruh from the crib, does he have another phone did I make a mistake, I swear I’ll kill that motherfucker with my bare hands The confusion and anxiety were now being intertwined with rage and the sting of betrayal. He thought about hopping in the charger and speeding off to the safe-house to kill his new house guest. He paused as the phone began ringing, it was the unknown number.

“Hello” Jace answered right away half expecting to hear the journalist’s voice on the other hand telling him he got played.

“Hello Mr. Williams, I must say I’m quite the fan of your work, a bit bloody if you ask me, but who am I to judge, after all that right is reserved for God” the voice on the other end of the line was one Jace did not recognize, for a brief moment he was happy it wasn’t Sanzhar. That was followed by more confusion & fear of who the hell he was talking to.

“I don’t know what your talking about buddy, but you got the wrong fucking idea.”

“Really okay, how about this I’m going to send you a link to a private youtube video. Go ahead open it and enjoy the contents, I’ll stay on the line Mr. Williams.”

Bing Bing, sure enough the link was sent. Jace muted the caller and opened up the video. His eyes widened in shock, there he was in 4K fighting the mutant. The moments he captured were of the initial battle he had against the mutant before he’d managed to knock it away and retrieve his mask from the bag. That meant it was a bystander who instead of fleeing from the beast that was ripping people to shreds stayed back to catch him on film. Jace closed the youtube app and returned to the call un-muting the mysterious man on the other end.

“Okay you got my attention, apologies that I didn’t let that motherfucker kill you, clearly I made a mistake, I didn’t know.” Jace spoke with anger in his tone, starting to get the picture that this stranger with the nerve to capture his heroism on camera was someone he’d saved.

“Alright so we’re both aboard this truth train. You may call me Adam, I’m what you might call an admirer. You see I’ve gotten tied up in some real messy business, taking some money from some very violent people, and let’s just say I’m short a couple…hundred….thousand.” Adam added the last part on the end and Jace laughed.

“So you got involved with some loan sharks and now they finna kill you, man sounds like you shoulda fed yourself to big, tall and ugly yesterday huh, I’m happy to know I only prolonged your suffering on earth.”

“Oh but no you didn’t you see of the men who I owe money too, two of them were already silenced by Shade, I guess for their involvement with the distribution of some pretty nasty narcotics. Suffice to say the remainder survived and they now want their money more than ever since there drug flow cash has been wiped out permanently. I need you to kill them and if you don’t I’ll be telling the entire world about your true identity, I’m quite capable with drones by the way. I actually had one follow you for quite a bit after you split, oh and I managed to get your sidekick on footage too both before and after putting on his mask, all in one continuous video, hold on I’ll send the link for that as well.”

Bing bing, oh brother the same deal. Jace eyed the footage from the second youtube link and almost crushed his phone in anger. This Adam guy had some nerve, gets his life saved and now wants to blackmail both Jace & his new journalist ally into committing murder. “Oh so your trying to make sure you get killed huh either by me or them, your not good at this whole surviving thing are you” Jace retorted with venom in his voice.

“On the contrary Mr. Williams I believe I am doing spectacular compared to yesterday morning. Anyway I’m a generous man, so even though I lack time I will offer it to you. I’ll give you 24 hours to make your decision do you want to fix my problems or gain some new ones for yourself. Exposing you will ruin your life, it won’t save mine, but at least we’ll both go to hell together. I’ll be calling you around the same time tomorrow to see what you decide, enjoy your day Shade.”

Click, the phone went dead and Jace set the phone down on the table. Looking at his food he turned away he’d lost his appetite. It seemed the age old saying was still true, no good deed goes unpunished.




Time: Late Morning
Location: San Francisco, Middle Class Suburb
Interaction:

---

“PLEASE NO!!! SPARE US!!!! Rita we’ll have the bread tomorrow, trust me the guy we gave it to he’s suppose to give it back tomorrow, we just need a little more time.” A Vietnamese man dressed in business casual was speaking pleading with the Salzaras siser.

He had two associates with him, one black man & another a white man. They were all gathered in the living room in a nice suburban neighborhood. Rita had loaned the trio $50,000 dollars for some project they claimed would triple her returns in a week or two’s time. The problem was that it was getting close to a month, in fact one more day and it would be that exactly.

“Listen to me Chang, I don’t have time for this, I told you I need my money now. Something’s come up and my man won’t be happy if I’m not bringing that fifty back now your telling me this project involved a fourth person? Sadly they’re not here to feel the burn are they? Lucky them right?” Rita taunted the trio who seemed to be cowering in fear.

The caucasian man decided to speak, he was dressed in goth attire & had dyed his hair red. “Listen Rita I.”

“Shut the fuck up Rob! You will speak when spoken to, honestly you all should be more like Nate he ain’t said a word unless he’s been addressed, in-fact Chang I’ve always hated you the most.” Rita’s hands lit up with fire which elected screams from all three men. Rita unleashed a funnel of flames that consumed Chang.

The Vietnamese man screamed in agony as the fire engulfed him. Rob & Nate both sept out the way as both Chang & his couch were engulfed in fire. The smell of burning flesh assaulted their nostrils as Rita poured more flames onto the man. Incinerating him, his skin, his body, and his furniture. As the flames spread and danced towards the remaining duo who were on the verge of tears. Rita snapped her fingers and recalled her power. The flames that were beginning to spread through the living room were all dragged back into her hand.


Chang’s corpse lay on the carpet unrecognizable and charred. “Unless you two want to join him in HELL, I suggest, I ENCOURAGE & DEMAND you bring me my motherfucking money immediately!!!!!!! I figure if there’s a fourth guy then one had to go, three’s the limit, and besides as Chang said he was the least involved so he was the least likely to be able to cough up the money right?”

“R..R..R. right Rita, We’re going to get in contact with him right away, we’ll have the money tomorrow night.” Rob yelled

“Fuck that, tomorrow afternoon! Rob is tripping, he’s tripping! Don’t burn us please!!!” Nate pleaded, the first words the black man had spoken in the past twenty minutes of their encounter.

“Yeah what he said, I’m tripping, falling, no balance all of that.” Rob added in-between gasps of fear from witnessing Rita’s violent display of her flaming powers.

“Hmph tomorrow afternoon it is, and please don’t try running, I have people with eyes everywhere, if you want to test that theory it’ll be your last test ever in life. And I’ll take my time burning you both to a crisp slowly, like a turkey roast if you try. I need my fucking money yesterday!!!!” Rita screamed at the men.

Finally feeling as though she instilled enough fear in them she left slamming the door on her way out. The two men were shaking with fear at what just happened, the third member of their musketeers was fried alive. Soon after both men got up, and we’re moving with purpose. They’d pissed off a Salzaras and now they were suffering the fiery wrath of one.

“Yo fuck! She killed Chang, what the fuck are we gonna do! I think I got like 5K in my savings, and I can borrow 2 from my credit card, what do you have?!”

“Me?! Fuck I mean I’ve got 4K in my joint savings account with my wife, and like $1500 in cash, and if I sell the rest of my perks I can make that 2 bands, but fuck this. We shouldn’t of listened to Chang, talking about give the damn bread to Adam, I knew it! We shoulda just fucking re’d up on crystal and stuck to what we was doing, but nooooo we gotta listen to Chang, cause his buddy Adam is the fucking plug for money huh, that’s why I’m finna sell my fucking medication and your getting a cash advance from your fucking American Express right?! Even if we do all of that shit, that’s 13K, we’d still be short 37 grand. No fuck that, I don’t give a damn if Chang is dead, Adam’s going give us that bread.”

“He’s not going have it till tomorrow evening that’s what he said, and he’s been bullshitting us for two weeks. I’m thinking whatever he tried to do ain’t work we might be dead, we gotta run.” Rob replied to Nate who responded by pulling a gun out.


“No fuck that we ain’t running, you ain’t running! I gotta a wife, and two kids. I can’t go no fucking where, you two the ones who got me roped into selling meth cause of y’all fucking problems. Yeah I wanted the money, but now a super powered drug lord’s sister is coming up in my house burning people alive and my $1300 couch! My Wife is getting back from Hawaii next week!!!!! Enough is enough, clearly whatever he did ain’t fucking work. Adam gotta cough up that 50 bands, and not tomorrow evening, tomorrow fucking morning or I’m gonna blow his fucking head off. “

“Oh yeah killing him going get the bread back?!”

“So you think we going get burned alive, and that cock-sucker going live, you got me 100 million percent fucked up!” Nate responded angrily almost growling.


“I’m just saying why you ain’t point the pistol at her, you shoulda shot her ass when she turned around if anything.” Rob replied frantically this whole situation was one giant mes they were roped in financially and otherwise.

“He’s on trial for insider trading for 40 million fucking dollars!!!!!!!! HE HAS a 50 piece tucked away somewhere, I don’t give a fuck if it’s his LAST his EMERGENCY money, this is an emergency! Look over by where my couch use to be, and you’ll see a charred asian man on the ground! “

“Fuck I mean wasn’t he shopping with Chang on crystal, he mighta snorted or smoked that shit away, you said it yo self if he was hitting for 40 million he mighta burned through his emergency cash, he thought he was rich, he was rich, hell that’s why Chang gave him our bread! He said he was going turn our 50K into 5 mill, and we split three ways, pay off Rita & get out the meth game.” Rob responded as he put his hands on his head rubbing his temples angrily while stressing out.

“Well that motherfucker better un-snort or un-smoke that shit or we gonna be smoked FORREAL! Give me ya phone or I’ll kill you right now.” Nate screamed and snatched Rob’s phone texting Adam furiously that he had to meet them in the morning with the money or else.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, this is crazy this is crazy!!! “ If only I ain’t spend all that money on that girl I met on that roleplaying site, xoxomissclaire, fuck fuck fuck!!!! I had to have spent at least 50K on her alone over the past four months, damn it!!!! All those oh thank you Magix, oh your the best Magix, wow I’ve never met a man like you magix, fuck I was so stupid!!!! Rob was filled with regret for the money he wasted simping over a girl he’d met on an Internet forum. He’d blown through his savings as he was living off the money they were making from selling crystal. He had reached a breaking point his life was falling apart.

“Come on let’s go, we ain’t finna just sit here, we finna keep an eye on that motherfucker, just in case he tries to pull some dumb shit, we need to be ready, if he do try to run he going take some money with him, and that’s when my Glock going go bow bow, either way whether he give us that shit in the morning or try to run with it, we going get it. I’m not finna get lit on fire, and I’m not shooting Hector Salzaras sister either by the way you dumb motherfucker. Cause getting chopped Ito tiny pieces or fed to alligators or both at the same time is almost worst then being burned alive, come on.”


Nate commanded as he tucked his gun and motioned for Rob to follow him out of the house. He didn’t want to stick around and ponder the depth of their situation not with there friend’s roasted corpse looking back at them on his now burnt carpet. All he was thinking about was getting paid, getting that money to Rita & then going back to his life before selling meth without ever looking back.

Meanwhile Rita was back in her car and had pulled out of Nate’ driveway a while ago. She’d stopped at gas station to fill her tank. She sighed as she pulled the pump out and placed it back on the rack. Usually Floyd was the one who filled her gasoline, but he wasn’t with her right now. This was a horrible day, nothing like last night when she was excited about him buying that bar & strip club. She’d offered to go half on the expenses with him, which she regretted today.

The drug warehouse they had was littered with dead bodies & destroyed product. She only had 22 grand to her name in cash, the rest of the money was in her bank & stocks. Pulling out the money she needed from her stocks wouldn’t help her in 24 hours as it took a few days to liquidate. As for the bank that would raise questions with her brother who she was skimming drugs from. He was well aware that quite a bit of narcotics were missing from the last few shipments, and by now she knew he’d asked his girlfriend Cynthia who was out in California to investigate.

She regretted loaning the money to Nate. But he’d been a consistent client for meth for the past few months, and had always done business before the last two weeks. He claimed he had a money move that would bring her back an extra 100K which was an offer she was tempted by. Sure just like Floyd they didn’t now she was stealing drugs from her brother to sell them, but they weren’t stupid enough to cross her. She was a Salzaras, the sister of the most notorious & now most powerful cartel in California ever since the energy plague got the border closed down yet Hector was still able to get drugs flowing into the states.

She started up her car and lit a Newport once she was away from the pump. She felt like she was stuck between a rock, a hard place & an even harder place. The joint drug warehouse she had with Floyd was a total loss, she’d loaned over twice the amount of cash she had on hand to her biggest meth dealer only to experience “complications” for the first time ever. Hector was on to the fact that drugs had went missing and no doubt if she made the wrong move he could figure out was her. She couldn’t risk doing anything out of the ordinary like randomly pulling 25K out of her account which her brother monitored to make sure she wasn’t trying to kickstart her own operation out in California. Then Floyd was trying to buy TAP in the next 24 hours, and she didn’t have the cash she needed. The last thing she needed was for him to get wind of that and start asking questions that would cause everything she built with him to collapse.

“Fuck!” Rita yelled out angry but this curse she let out wasn’t about the stress of everything that was happening. She noticed she’d left her card in the terminal at the pump, and gasped. This is not the time for me to be leaving my card! With the current financial crunch she was in, there was no room for errors as far as misplacing any cash or financial instruments what-soever.

Luckily she wasn’t but a small distance away close enough that she could see the pump and that it was still unattended. She spun the wheel around making a u-turn and zooming back to the pump. After coming to a screeching halt that left skid marks she hopped out the car & retrieved her bank card.

Rita was extremely grateful that she noticed the card had been left behind right away & that no other unsavory character had managed to snag it. Getting back in her car she opted not to pull her seat belt around her figuring that she only had a short distance to get back to her place from here. Potentially getting catapulted out her seat was the least her eyes, not with everything else that was happening at the same time.

Rita was logged into her mobile bank app to check to make sure no one had used her card for gasoline in the extremely short time it took her to come back to get her card from the pump. Whilst that was mostly just her own paranoid thoughts considering it was where she left it she didn’t need any more problems. Seeing that everything was okay Rita decided to go inside the gas station to get a beverage. Unfortunately for her "problems" came looking for her when she stepped back out the gas station walking back towards her car.

“HEY BITCH!!!!!!!!! HOPE YOU LIKE IT HOT, CAUSE HELL IS FUCKING BURNING SALZARAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The screams of a loud woman immediately snatched her attention away from her phone. She looked up to see a woman she didn't recognize jumping out a jeep that was now hurtling towards her. The woman none other then Paige Turner hit the ground pressing a red button on a black detonator in her hand.

BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Oh-shi” Rita exclaimed as Paige pressed down on the button the second it collided with the pump triggering a fiery explosion that engulfed the entire gas station in flames. Several people were heard screaming as the combination of the bomb & gasoline filled pumps created a massive fiery spectacle that swallowed up the entire area.

Rafael squinted for a moment, taking in the image of this newcomer. His brain began to compute at a speed that would make a tortoise look like The Flash. "You talkin' tah me or that?" he said finally, nodding at the phone in the man's hand. "Wayminnt... Did you say you were lookin' for me? You a cop?" Rafael pushed himself off the barstool and began to sway in place before leaning in towards the man. A single hand hovered over his mouth as he whispered ridiculously loud. "Yuh gotta tell me if yer a cop. It's the law, bro. And fuck the law. And fuck you, t-" Suddenly he stopped.

With both fists, he forcefully rubbed his eyes before squinting back at the man analytically. "Heeeey! I know you, man!" he exclaimed with a much more welcoming tone. "You're Z..zzz.. Zed? Z-word. Probably not Zebra. Bro, is your name Zebra?! Man! I didn't know you were a cop! We coulda been barterin' this whole time! I give you a sack, you make my speeding tickets disappear... you know, tit for tit! You scratch my back, I get a back scratch sorta thing." WIth a sloppy grin on his face, he turned back to the bar and shouted at the barkeep. "Ay! Get my boy Zebra a cold one!"

---

---

With both fists, he forcefully rubbed his eyes before squinting back at the man analytically. "Heeeey! I know you, man!" he exclaimed with a much more welcoming tone. "You're Z..zzz.. Zed? Z-word. Probably not Zebra. Bro, is your name Zebra?! Man! I didn't know you were a cop! We coulda been barterin' this whole time! I give you a sack, you make my speeding tickets disappear... you know, tit for tit! You scratch my back, I get a back scratch sorta thing." WIth a sloppy grin on his face, he turned back to the bar and shouted at the barkeep. "Ay! Get my boy Zebra a cold one!"

Zeke winced internally as he just heard Rafael call him by two completely different names. Zed, that was a little more forgivable,
as that was just one syllable off from correctly pronouncing his name. Zebra, though? That was a whole other beast that he couldn't fathom to be a possible variation of his name. It didn't even sound like it rhymed with the real one. Oh, great, he's drunk to all hell. Guess I'll have to roll with it.

Chuckling nervously, he took another sweeping look at the insides of the bar, making sure that none of his other friends and acquaintances were, lest he be outed as someone that hangs out with what society would deem as an undesirable segment of itself. And his family, oh no, they shouldn't even be here. If his brother or mother were here he'd panic, not for himself, but for them. Those are some really grand citizens.

"Well, buddy, it's actually Zeke. It is positively, absolutely, and completely not Zebra." Zeke gently corrected, though the tone of his voice betrayed a sense of being a little rattled. Why wouldn't he? He lost his job, which in turn saved his life as the giant lady from earlier smashed right through his former workplace. And here he was, with his occasional weed dealer. "Say, Raffie." He asked the drunken man, taken a sip off his cold shot of beer. "You notice anything strange happening to you, lately? Because I did. And uh... I got fired for it. From my job."

Zeke couldn't care less if Rafael was one of those that thought the Altered were strange monsters. It is not like he'd go on a social media spate with a continual stream of posts screaming 'Zeke is Altered!' He was never going to be one of those people that one places in their resume as 'references'. So what if he thinks badly about it?

Oh, yes. Why did he ask, anyway? He wasn't thinking straight. Not anymore. Not when his alcohol tolerance was as low as it is.

"Who would have imagined that me being fired would be the thing that keeps me from being squashed by a giant women..." Zeke went on. He sighed deeply, letting his point sink in. By that point, he better not be called a zebra anymore.

---

---

He fetched a piece of paper and a pen. He decided to leave a message for Sanzhar in more traditional means since he’d terminated his phone the day prior out of fear of being traced by authorities. He paused for a minute to think about what he was going to etch on the paper before settling on a message.

Around an hour or so passed after Jace left the safehouse before any more signs of life stirred within it. In the wee hours of the morning, out came Sanzhar from his allotted bedroom, still a bit groggy from having a deep sleep. He was, after all, always a deep sleeper, and it would take hell and more to wake him up out of time. He stepped into the dining room, smirking at the food that his host had so graciously left for him.

"Ah, you're so sweet. You even have a note here..."

It wasn't nearly enough for the kind of eating Sanzhar usually partook in, having a big appetite while being such a compact man. Plus, he'd often cook his own food. Sanzhar was well taught by the parents in the culinary arts, and could be counted on to make some good stuff... if only there were ingredients. Right now, he'd like some manti; fried dumplings with lamb and pumpkin in them, or baursaki; fried dough that literally drenched in oil, that a joke at the expense of the oil companies could be made there.

Or... maybe porridge and tea. Preferably iced tea with milk and pearls. He had taken a liking of those kinds of tea after a Korean friend of his treated him to boba. Ah, yes. Pearls.

Anyway, there wasn't much to do now, except to eat breakfast, and then wait for the confirmation that his identity was safe and sound. Sanzhar sat down, taking a knife and a fork from their places from their places. When one had the power to control metal, eating with silverware was so much easier. And easy did he eat. The fork and knife moved in their own volitions, cutting through bacon and eggs while Sanzhar pulled out his notebook from his bag. He always kept writing related things in his bag, as one could never know if today had a good story to write, or if an idea pops up. Either way, as the fork floated around and fed him, Sanzhar furiously wrote down what happened yesterday; the walk from home, the attack of the mutant, saving both himself and Jace from death, and being chased for the stupidest reasons anyone could ever think about.

Either way, there isn't much for him to do. He can only wait.

And wait he did.

Time: Early Morning
Location: On the road, San Francisco
Interaction: @Damo021 Nyssa

---

"As good as electricity might be, teleporting to work would suuure be useful… Damn." Michael frowned in the driver's seat of his white BMW X6 as Redbone by Childish Gambino played inside.

Michael thought traffic in San Francisco was bad before, but Lori's attack had done enough damage to create significant delays in traffic due to closed roads and detours. Then there were the checkpoints on the major streets that he had to avoid.

"I'm about to be fired. Damn, I should have left the condo early, but instead, I was playing with electricity." While in standstill traffic, he shot a text to Nyssa.

Running late. Traffic 💀

Late Morning

Michael parked his vehicle in the parking garage of the Doubletree Suites hotel where his client/one-of-his-bosses was staying. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it whenever he got his paycheck. Besides, the parking garage kept his vehicle in a safe location while he used the company car. He had been given the spare key so he could take the vehicle when it came time for him to escort Nyssa Devout. He had driven her around enough times to match her energy. She was nice, smart, and really seemed to enjoy helping people. Even now, she was continuing with her agenda of helping those in need, despite the attack the previous day.

He smiled at the armored Cadillac before getting in the driver's seat to make sure his seat and mirrors were just right. "Perfect." Michael nodded before texting Nyssa once more to let her know he had arrived.

Your vehicle is ready and will await you at the entrance.

He took the vehicle around for a spin in the parking garage before heading for the front entrance of the hotel.

"Who would have imagined that me being fired would be the thing that keeps me from being squashed by a giant women..." There was a wave of seriousness. A tsunami of calm sobriety. It triggered anytime someone said something that mattered and gave Rafael pause. This man, this associate, this friend... They exposed their belly leaned into a confession.

"You're altered, too," Rafael concluded with a dumbfound sense of bewilderment. "You... Okay, yes, I..." His voice broke as he stopped himself to look over his shoulders, trying to quickly identify any eavesdroppers. Satisfied, he leaned in closer and cupped his mouth once more. What came out next was a horse, terribly smelling whisper. "I'm altered, too! No shit! Hit by a GD vehicle at full speed and just walked it off. Just walked it off, bro!" He shook his head, as if trying to let the cobwebs drop out so things could make sense again.

"Ayy!' he stated loudly before muting his volume down once more. "So what can you do, bro? What super power gets you fired from Corporate America?"

"Oh... you're one too?" Zeke nodded his head, taking in the sure coincident that the two of them losers had superpowers now. Just what were the chances of that? It seems like that God is making everything go his way today.

"Well..." Zeke leaned closer and whispered to Rafael's ear. "I can make little stars. You know, like the sun, but handball sized. I could just show you if you like..."

"Dude..." Rafael's mouth fell agape, the image in his mind going wild at how a power like that could even work. "I mean, YEAH, BRO! Do it!". Just as he egged on the show, he suddenly became aware of loud moving mass of people with varying degrees of sobriety around them. "You can just, like, make a star in here?!"

"Of course not!" Zeke hissed, keeping his voice low so that none of the people here heard what he was saying except for Rafael. "You know we can't use our abilities in public ever since that law got passed, and with that Lorizilla woman causing so much devastation, it's just going to get even worse."

Sighing, Zeke nudged him at the shoulder. "I'll show it to you somewhere less public. But first..."

Zeke went on and took another shot, and stood up from the counter after placing the payments of his orders in front of the bartender. "Your place is nearer, right Raffie?"

Raf was beside himself with excitement. As he stood up, he patted down his own shirt and pockets, taking a quick inventory of everything on his person to make sure he wasn't about to abandon anything important. As he looked behind him back at the counter, he saw a beer that had hardly been touched. It's owner must've been in the restroom or something because the stool in front of the glass was empty. After a quick glance to the left and to the right, Raf grabbed the beer and began to chug frantically while pointing over Zeke's shoulder at the front exit. He gave Zeke a gentle shove toward the door as the bottom of the glass drew up higher, the beer nearly gone. As the last gulp went down, Raf let out a desperate cough before shouting "Go, go, go!"

Raf discarded the now empty glass on a random table as they made their way out of the bar and started the short trek to his abode on foot. Once they finally made it, Rafael opened the door to a dark living area. Both couches sat unoccupied. The lights hadn't even been turned on. The somber realization that Dave had still not come home was starting to make Rafael's buzz turn sour. Thoughts of a ruined friendship crept up in his mind. He turned to look back at Zeke and forced himself to snap out of it and return to the present. Raf flicked on the room lights and plopped himself onto the leftmost couch.

"Alright, my dude," he started. "Show me the galaxy!"

Surely enough, Zeke held up one of his hands. Streams of stardust emerged from thin air, collecting into a singular point of seemingly distorted space. A second passed before the plasma reached critical mass and kindled into a celestial sphere of heat and gravity. For all intents and purposes, it was a star alright.

The dwarf star itself was of a golden hue. It would hurt a little to look at it directly, but it will have the luminosity of something like a lamp rather than a massive flashlight.

"It seems like I can only have two of these active at any given time." Another star coalesced on his right hand, floating and slowly rotating. "And... it's pretty dangerous."

Zeke then crushed one of the stars in his palm, leaving nothing but dust behind in its stead. "Now, friend. What's yours?"

Rafael took in the display with absolute wonderment. "How is that even possible...?" he asked rhetorically in a hushed whisper. He looked at his own palms and, for a moment, began concentrating very hard. He even stopped breathing as his eyes went glossy and red with the strain. Even the wrinkles in his brow became increasingly intense. Finally, after such a massive clutch, he let out a bursting exhale. "Welp," he said. "I definitely don't seem to be able to make stars."

He looked back up at Zeke. "Well, like I said at the bar, I got hit by a car earlier today," he began to explain. "And I sorta bounced a bit. But, like, there wasn't any damage. Well, my clothes got fucked, but I wasn't damaged. So I guess my power is that I'm immune to cars..." With every word, he became more suspicious of his own diagnosis. He suddenly pulled out his phone and began typing away with his thumbs. "Sorry, don't mean to be one of those guys but I've got to send myself a reminder. Tomorrow I should definitely see if I'm immune to boats, too." He hit 'send' on his self-addresses text message and began putting his phone away. Suddenly it chirped to life. Raf got really excited for a moment before realizing it was his own text that he had just received. His shook his head vigorously for a split second, as if the stupidity could just be thrown off of him like water on a dog.

"I'm getting thirsty. I'm going to grab a couple more beers." Rafael pushed himself off the couch and headed toward the refrigerator. "Hey, man. Earlier did I hear you say you got fired for you powers?" He grabbed two bottle and popped off the caps, letting them fall to the floor. "What did you do, create a new sun in the middle of an office or something?" He returned to the living room with a sideways grin and an offering of libation.

"Nah, it wasn't like that." Zeke chuckled as he took the bottle that Rafael offered to him. He was amazed, though, that Rafael had durability and super strength now. "I showed what I could do to one of my most trusted co-workers when we hanged out. His name was Leon Kont. And... you know what he did?"

Zeke sighed, taking in a sip. "He sent a video of me using star powers to the HR department, which winded up with my manager telling me that I'm fired because stars are a fire and radiation hazard. Even though it only appears when I want to. I think that they're just doing it for the PR."

Taking in a deep breath, Zeke looked away. "And guess what, I survived because of that." Zeke didn't think it worthy to mention that Kont actually survived and was in the hospital right now with bad but survivable injuries. Maybe he'll pull an apology later.

"Bad things happen for good, I guess." Zeke then took another swig... and started getting a bit giddy. He had never drunk this much before.

"Bro, that dude sounds like a Leon CUN- Wait, so your company knows you're altered? Sheeyit!" Briefly, Rafael pondered what it would truly mean to be an outted as a member of scorned society. He imagined it would be an experience he would have to personally endure, eventually. Hell, he already had a taste of it with his roommate's reaction and it tasted bitter. Rafael took another oversized drink as if trying to drown such thoughts. "Do you got a girl (or a dude... no judgement here, bro)? Do they know, too?"

"I've got no one in the romantic sense. Not in the last five years, anyway." Zeke shrugged. "Though my family knows and they're cool with it. Not anyone elsssse, though."

"Ah, you're better off," Rafael stated with another swig of the brew. "To lone wolves," He toasted as he raised his bottle into the air. As he looked at Zeke, he could start to see the tells; the little signs that the alcohol was doing its job. "Ay, you can probably crash here tonight. I've got one roommate who I hardly ever see and another one who just found out I am altered and didn't seem to take it well. I gotta assume he ain't coming back tonight, at least. You could probably take his bed or ride couch. Then, tomorrow... you and I will start to enact our master plan!" He huffed out a laugh before standing up to retrieve a new bottle. The one in his hand had quickly been emptied. "No one will see us coming!"

Time: Late Morning
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada - Corinthian Hotel Lobby
Interaction:

---

Nathan Forrester was a huge fan of Las Vegas, he loved the atmosphere. So much money was flowing through the city from tourism, casino’s & other ventures. As a multi billion dollar business owner it was easy to see why he was a fan of the place. He was sitting in an expensive restaurant in the lobby of the Corinthian hotel. As he was examining the menu he was checking the time on his watch.

He’d scheduled a meeting here with Clancy Horville, one of the most respected & intelligent scientists in the country as well as the world. After much back & forth conversation he’d convinced the scientist to meet him in person in Vegas for a potential offer. Clancy was adamant about nothing being guaranteed or confirmed because of his position. Currently he was the head director & scientist at CyberCorp which was known as the Forrester Corporation’s main & primary rival for revolutionary technology.

“Wow that was some bathroom break kid, I was scared you bolted for a few minutes there. I’m guessing you were contemplating it though, the appetizers couldn’t have messed up your stomach that bad” Nathan retorted before reaching for a glass of champagne and taking a few sips.

Clancy had an excellent poker face, and exhibited no emotions that either confirmed or denied what Nathan said. “Listen Nathan, firsts of all I’m 26 please don’t call me a kid, second I’ve thought about what you said about the infusion technology & what you’re really interested in Operation FatherWatch. I don’t think it’s something I want to get involved in, the fact that your using them for the infusion technology is no only risky uncharted territory but undeniably inhumane”

“For something to be inhumane it has to involve humans Clancy, which people who breath fire, fly, and shoot lightning from the tips of fingers are not. Unless you’d consider the aliens from Star Wars or the Predator as humans then maybe I’ll respect your classification a little more.” Nathan answered calmly, he wasn’t in the business of debating ethics & morals. Many of his critics assumed he had none, and that didn’t bother him in the least. His priority was financial generation for his company & unlimited success for his family.

“Wow just wow, I’m not the biggest fan of them-“

“Well I’d hope so, who is, especially after that absolutely downright horrible calamity that happened yesterday the San Francisco Massacre, one of the most if not the most atrocious events in our country’s history. You know EVERYONE is looking for her, and as someone who’s well connected and the older brother of the president spoiler alert we have no leads. The nation is terrified that someone like that, menacing & unnaturally powerful is out there on the loose and can strike at any moment maybe not even in California. Hell she could be in this hotel and the intelligence community doesn’t know. You don’t find that to be. a major problem?”

“Sure it’s a problem, but it’s not my problem.”

“Oh right, would you be saying that if your mother, or your father had been victims of Lori’s attack yesterday? You’re blessed that it hasn’t happened, but there’s nothing preventing it. Nothing is stopping her from killing us right here as we speak, and not just her there’s others out there with nefarious agenda’s for innocent hard working Americans. Our country is all but at war, it’s only been 3 months since 10 million citizens were killed in the Energy Storm. We had all but a few days of a break from that before the energy plague was next up to wreak havoc and the altered soon after, plus all of the previous crooks & organized criminal organizations from before haven’t slowed down, in-fact I’d reckon they’ve gotten even worst taking advantage of all the chaos going on in the country & the government putting more focus on it’s new superhuman criminal elements. With your help, your intelligence, my money, my resources we can stop all of that, we can quite literally save this country from the literal brink of its destruction. Every great empire in the past has fallen, we can make sure America is the first that doesn’t!!” Nathan pleaded with the mid 20’s scientist for his help with the project.

“Stop acting like your doing this from the bottom of your heart, just like the blood tests with your brother in the Oval Office he’ll have his administration adopt this technology countrywide & use emergency policy-making to add more billions to your network, with an added bonus of unparalleled good publicity for the so called good your doing for the nation. The worst part about this is it’s not just the altered that are getting used for this software or targeted with it. This…this is like the first ultimate step to a vast change in the landscape of America & everything it stands for. Your brother adopting a completed version of this software can and possibly might single handedly lead to the eventual conversion of the United States from a democracy to a police state.” Clancy shot back with some edge in his tone. It was clear he wasn’t going to allow the older Forrester brohter to pull the full over his eyes. He was known & renowned for his intellect, many tech companies across the globe wanted him in their midst. Even Apple had sent out representatives to pitch lucrative positions to him over the past year due to his stunning work with Norman Chaplin & CyberCorp.

“I understand the more negative possibilities and yes I’m a relentless capitalist but I’m also a patriot and so is my brother & every member of my family if anyone is planning on using this technology for corrupt activities it won’t be the Forrester Adminisration. My sole interest in Project FatherWatch outside of massive financial gain, is purging the country of it’s overbearing active succesful criminal elements, as far my offer to you I’ll not only match your Current salary at Cybercorp I’ll double it, and offer you a 25 million signing bonus.” Nathan replied with a slight smirk on his face. Throwing around huge numbers was his way of converting others to his side & getting them to see eye to eye with him on any matter.

Clancy hesitated no doubt because of the amount of cashflow Nathan was offering. He was far from poverty working with Cybercorp, but he’d practically become a multi millionaire overnight which would change him & his family’s financial future for the better. “25 million signing bonus…”

“So now. your starting to see the benefits of joining the winning team, and the right side of history, your name will be engrained into our society & your contributions to society will be studied for multiple future generations to come. “I know you’d come around once everything was laid out, besides your main concerns about Project FatherWatch are unfounded. This is a dire situation otherwise it wouldn’t be something I suggested or even brought up financial windfall or not, In light of everything taking place especially damage & deaths incurred in recent events we as Americans have to ask ourselves one question now what’s more important privacy or peace."

“Your really comparing privacy to peace to justify this.” Clancy scoffed at Nathan’s audacity, everything he’d heard about the Forrester’s was true but more then that it was only a understatement to how Nathan was In person.

“Yes this is the first step to a new era of peace & prosperity. We can deal with the unruly altered, gangsters, organized crime, & traffickers in one stroke. We can rescue everyone in transit to be enslaved sex slaves Or bystanders blackmailed into smuggling. More then ever we need a victory, we need to win, the morale of this country is dampening in all 50 states, let’s work together and provide the illumination.’

“The illumination huh.” Clancy couldn’t help but chuckle, Nathan was so good at selling his own lies, it wouldn’t be shocking if he believed them himself. “The offer is very lucrative, as you know most likely from doing your own research on my position and earnings the signing bonus alone is more then what I’m generating from Chaplin. But there’s other things that matter to me like loyalty to people & my country’s freedoms being maintained. A I predicted over the phone I can’t compromise my code or beliefs to participate in your project. I’ll be taking my leave now I have a flight to catch to D.C, I wish you the best Nathan.”


Clancy rose up and Nathan slipped him a business card before he left. Shortly after the waitress came with Nathan’s steak dinner. Nathan was ready to eat, and while the food was amazing his mine was on the infusion technology & Project FatherWatch. Right as he was slicing his well done premium meat up with his knife his phone rang, the CEO quickly answering upon seeing the caller ID.

“Hello, hmmm yes of course. He was shook by the offer, he was close to getting on board.

“Yes but you used the word close, so he’s not on board.” The voice on the other end asked.

“No not yet, and that needs to be fixed right away. Contact Kingsley, bring her in, I don’t care whether she works her mojo on Clancy, Chaplin or both of em Long as the result is Clancy on board right away, get that done yesterday we’re in unprecedented territory after the giant whore with multiple powers attacked San Francisco yesterday, Like I said get it done now.” Nathan finished in a commanding tone before hanging up and going back to finishing his meal irked that Clancy had turned down his initial offer. Oh well the easy way hadn’t worked, but at least with the hard way he could include a budget cut to the tune of about ten million. A smile crept across the elder forester brother’s face at the thought of saving more money for just a short extension of Clancy’s start date at the Forrester Corporation.




Time: Late Morning
Location: Downtown San Francisco
Interaction:

---

Yesterday had been a rush, so many people had died. The San Francisco Massacre as it had now been dubbed was all over the news. The fact that a group of reporters had been murdered in such a cruel way was also stirring the networks. The reported death toll being a few numbers over 29,000 pleased Adora. Her intent was to stir controversy & bring further stigma towards people with altered human status. President Forrester’s new implemented laws had caused protest to erupt from minority communities with many members who weren’t even altered humans.

The massacre had effectively halted all said momentum, and drastically lessened the support of altered humans even among minority communities. Nobody wanted to profess allegiance to the altered after the horrific mass murders that had rocked the nation. Whilst the actual Energy Storm & even the plague had claimed more victims, her attack had caused the most amount of deaths in both a short time & from a singular event. Everything wasn’t gravy however, she hadn’t been able to reach Agent Green & figured he was compromised.

She’d suspected that his time was coming to an end recently, & his phone line being off all but confirmed that. Damn it I’m going to need to get a new contact inside Liberty if I’m going to get more access or to lead me to Tartarus. If I get to the compound I’m in for a thanksgiving feast oh if only even Green wouldn’t share that information, what a pity Adora was eager to locate Liberty’s secret hidden underground prison facility for altered humans. She figured the more superhuman violence she caused the harsher life would become for the altered which would inevitably lead to more of them being rounded up.

Either way she was happy she had something to do right now. Something that could end up being a major game changer for her line of work. Inside an LAPD police officer we came to Andrea Rojas an LAPD detective who’d been making headlines recently. Over the past two months she’d helped bring down several kidnappers, murderers, & drug dealers. Her career was sky rocketing upwards but that had gotten her in the chief’s office. The chief was a place woman Jean Patterson who’d been on the LAPD force for a little over two decades now. Andrea had many less years then her under her belt, this was her fourth year in the LAPD. She’d done two years prior in Oakland but that was the extent of her law enforcement career thus far.

But over those past four years she’d built up a good relationship with Jean, in & out of work. Jean was in uniform taping her foot against the floor angrily with an angry scowl on her face. She was reading a file pausing momentarily to take brief angry death glares at Andrea who shifted uncomfortably in her seat-infront of the chief’s desk. She knew what this was about, and with everything going on D.C as well as Lori’s attack yesterday she already imagined where this was going & what outcome lay ahead for her.

“So are you outta your fucking mean Rojas, do you care about your life? Your career, how the hell your gonna provide for your two sons without a fucking job?” Jean got right to it, even tough they were friends her ruthlessness was never suppressed when it came to matters of work.

“Look Jean, you can’t expect me to have this ability, and not put it to use. Look how many people I’ve put behind bars in the past two months alone-“Jean snapped quickly cutting Andrea off.

“That’s the god damn point and what I told you! I stick my neck out for you and you do out here being a damn super detective. How the hell do you explain this, with everything going o people are asking god damn questions. I’ve been here for more then 20 fucking years and even I had some problems dealing with people wondering if I’m altered just cause of how I look. I’ve had a-lot of shit being a black chief, but never had to put up with people thinking I’m a mutant or on my way to doing one because I kicked a damn virus. You think cause you recovered in three days people ain’t gonna find out huh, but there’s records for everything! You know this for christ sake you’re a god damn detective. I’ve looked out for you but you just don’t give a fuck huh. Now the national guard’s got check-points posted administering blood tests all across the city, and you best believe the hammer’s coming down because they just banned all of you people from law enforcement.”

“What?! You can’t be serious chief, I thought we had a deal, you said you would look out, you know I’m not like those things! I’m not like that bitch from yesterday.” Andrea knew she’d get in trouble for using her ability to aid her work but never thought it would end up with her actually loosing her position.

“Oh okay, so you want me to go down with you? After what happened yesterday what do you think they’ll do to me for willingly and knowingly keeping an altered officer hired? Oh and before your slow ass ask how they’ll know, maybe it’s the fact that in the past 2 months you’ve brought in more major criminals then the past two years. Shoulda kept your super fucking hearing to ya damn self, people asking questions and I don’t wanna answer them! I don’t want to fire you, I want you to quit, sooner or later every officer’s going to HAVE to be tested Andrea, maybe I’d be more comfortable playing dumb a little while longer if you weren’t out here being as effective as the whole department combined, and then some.” Jean glared at her friend.

Andrea was crushed, police work was her passion. With her heightened hearing & caring heart she didn’t have it in her to let crime go by unsolved if she knew about it. Hearing the pleas and racing heart-beats of innocent people kidnapped & forced into sex work many of whom had cases that had long went cold. Or the desperate pleading of a person before they were brutally murdered for debts to greedy drug pushers who viewed non payment even when the victim had no means to pay as disrespect. She could recall speeding through the streets to prevent those murders, but was only ever close enough to actually stop two. The rest she was at least able to detain the monsters red-handed after there senseless murder of people suffering from addiction. “Fuck it Jean, I guess I just expected you to look out while I was looking out for others.” Andrea responded defeated at her chief’s commentary.

“I..I…I don’t give a fuck, I told you what’s up. Don’t try that stupid shit with me, you’ve got 10 days to get th hell out yourself or I’ll do it. So if you wanna play super cop one more week go ahead your already fucked, at least bring down someone who matters.” Jean added at the end, she was frustrated with her friend. Knowing the harsh circumstances of altered life In the country she didn’t want to see her get caught or exposing herself by using her powers in her career. She wouldn’t mind trying to keep her on the job longer if it wasn’t for her recent actions that indicated unusual behavior in her policing work.


Andrea got up and left the office slamming the door. She grabbed a few things from het desk and waltzed out without speaking to any of her co-workers. She hopped in her cruiser, and made her way home only stopping to grab food for her & the boys. She’d dropped them off at her mother’s house this weekend because she’d had her fuck buddy over & needed to relive some stress & tension.

Upon getting home she was welcomed to the smell of fresh BBQ ribs, and her friend with many benefits Joe singing Rod Wave. “You look so good to me yeah, I don’t know another broken heart or sleepless night. God please guide me right,, she looks like the girl of my dreaaaaams, yeah you look like the girl of my, you look like the girl of myyyyyyy, you look like like the girl of my dream.” Joe sang in a wonderful voice on cue as Andrea got home and wrapped her arms around him kissing him.

“Oh my, wow I didn’t know my pussy was that amazing, singing like that makes me think you wanna be more then friends Mr. Harris.” Joe grinned and kissed her again, before leading her to the kitchen where he had a smorgasbord of food. BBQ Ribs, Pulled Pork, Baked Beans, Collard Greens, Mac n cheese dripping with flavor, corn-bread, and grilled chicken. “Hey Slow your roll were still just friends, but my benefits don’t just include the super pipe & the tongue it comes with A1 grilling, excellent barbecuing & a voice that would make Trey Songz & Rod Wave jeleous.” Joe joked, he always picked up on her bad moods when she walked in the door & tried to ease her mind. They really had been friends the past four years, but both of there careers had led them away from there less busy partners & Ito each others arms or rather beds to satisfy each other’s needs in accordance with their mutual filled schedules.

“Sounds like I might need to step up the benefits I’m offering then, thanks Joe you really are so clutch right now, after the talk I just had with that bitch Jean.”

“That bitch Jean? I have’t heard that one before, I take it she’s not trying to cover for you being altered anymore? Look fuck her, there’s bad altered out there, but your out here making LA a safe place, which I think clearly a lot of LAPD officers ain’t doing. I’m finna run to the store to grab some BBQ sauce, soda & some honey jack I may have guzzled down the last two shots you were saving the Rod Wave vibes got me, really the usher ones.”

Andrea playfully punched Joe who after sharing a kiss with her was out the door. Once she’d seen his car leave through the blinds she instantly made herself a sample plate of everything ad retrieved a 375 mil flash of Hennessy VS stashed in the back. With no chaser required she downed two shots that her nerves so badly needed. “I’d have beat his ass if he finished or even opened the henny, ugh it’s not even your fault Joe, but when a girl needs a drink, she needs a drink.”

“I agree whole heartedly>”

Andrea spun around nearly dropping the VS, except it was caught by nothing but air. Andrea lost her concern for the bottle and red her weapon seeing she was far to face with Lori Martinez from the news, albeit at normal size. “You…you monster…your from the news, you killed all those people.”

“Yeah I had quite a bit of fun yesterday, it was such a rush, I’ve been practicing that trick for a while, so it was thrilling to be able to use it in public. It’s going to make a return, in-fact several, you almost dropped your drink girl.” Adora spoke as if they were friends, exhibiting a calm cadence even though she’d broke into the struggling detective’s residence. Using TK the bottle shot to her the top spinning off and floating at a tilt allowing her to take a shot. Just as quick the top re-tightened on the bottle and zoomed to the right landing on the closest counter top. She patted her chest with TK massaging away the harsh burn & Henry taste she hadn’t consumed in a while. “This is why I mostly stick to drugs these days, I’ll take heroin or coke nose burn over my throat being raped by henny ORRRJack like your man candy” Adora continued rambling on feeling even more comfortable as the henny did it’s job. A damn good at one that, which granted was inanely easy due to all the other drugs in her system amplifying the potency of the alcohol.

Click Bang Bang.

Trigger pulled, two shots fired. Andrea clenched & winced for a brief second, expecting blood to splatter on her face as there was little distance between he & the super killer. Her eyes stretched open slightly then fully widened in shock. Both shots had missed and were lodged into the roof. “How the fuck, they woulda had to curve.”

“Pointer keep your eyes open when shooting, don’t tell me you don’t find the blood of your enemies, prey, & victim splashing on you to be delightful. Accompanied by some screams of terror, crying & pleading for their lives to be spared it’s pure ecstasy. Gets me all tingly in my baby maker.

“What the fuck are you! Go back to hell where you came from!!” Andrea pulled the trigger again taking Adora’s advice and keeping her eyes open.

The bullet whizzed towards Adora who used TK to deter it’s path causing it to zip past Adora’s forearm just barely missing her and hitting the sink. “No what the fuck do you want with me”

“Hmmm your ears, you see I can think of quite a few benefits of those DUMBO ears, much better yes then dealing with kidnappers & putting up all the good dealers, you got some nerve especially with the border closed, I can’t have you fucking up the coke supply ouchea.” Adora stepped forward causing Andrea to tense up and reach for her knife.

“I won’t help you with shit!” Andrea barked as a streak of electricity slammed into her chest sizzling her skin causing her to cry out and drop the knife. Adora launched two more electric bolts into the officer singing her knee and her elbow causing her to slump back against the wall. Adora then lunged forward grabbing Andrea’s neck and using her power. Andrea screamed out in pain & terror as Adora drained her. Irate from her yelling Adora used TK to forcibly shut her mouth an invisible force jamming her lips together as she was stripped of her life, of her everything.

Letting go and stepping back she felt triumphant as Andrea’s lifeless corpse hit the kitchen floor with a thud. “Okay it’s much better now.” Adora then walked over to the plate Andrea had and went to town. After scarfing down the meal she took a seat in the living room closer to the front door, shape-shifting into Andrea & bussing out her cocaine & heroin to do lines off Andrea’s table using a rolled blue $100 she fished from the real Andrea’s pocket.

She put her hearing to the test, and tapped Into Andrea’s memory to utilize the power. “Perrrrfect”

“Wow I can’t believe It took me 22 minutes, I can’t keep the pussy waiting”

”Oh shit I’m way too drunk to be driving fuck I gotta get back home, if I get a DUI my wife will kill me”

”Yooo this is nuts bro I’m so fucked up, these shrooms are MAGIC bruh like Harry Potter

”I can’t stand this stupid bitch! I hate her, I’m gonna fuck her up, how DARE she give my PS4 away fucking slut”

”I know he’s fucking cheating on me with Felicia, that stupid ass man. He must think I’m fucking DUMB, I’ll show him a dumb bitch

Her hearing was massively expanded, this was the power she desired. This was the ultimate replacement for Agent Green, now her hearing was grand. She’d been stalking Andrea who she happened to stumble across when she was invisible and a conversation she was having with her brother about her ability had peaked her interest. Of course the nature of her power meant Adora had to be very carefully in stalking to her, using a combination of flight to hover above the ground to prevent alerting her with foot-steps and using sound manipulation to nullify the sound of her heart-beat, breathing & other similar small sounds that normal people wouldn’t here but that her super hearing would easily detect.

The best part about this power was that it was only semi-passive, this is the reason why Adora didn’t snatch the power right away. She wanted intel from Andrea herself to figure out if her hearing was amplified 24/7 or if it was something she could dial up or down at will. Her biggest fear was siphoning some power from an altered she killed that would end up being more problematic then beneficial or would cause drastic change in her life that was mostly uncomfortable.

Soon after the door unlocked and Joe walked inside, Adora was still in Andrea’s form. She’d slipped into something more comfortable that showed off her figure in Andrea’s form. “Hey baby I’m glad you’re back.

“I can tell” Joe said eagerly and embraced her in a kiss. As the two lips locked, it wasn’t long before they were up in the stairs and engaged in a lustful tryst. Downstairs Andrea’s corpse lay on the floor whilst upstairs Adora was getting her back blown out by Joe.

Time: Late Morning
Location: FEMA Camp
Interaction:

---

Arriving at the FEMA Camp for the second time was a lot different today. Marcus refrained from using his powers and actually drove to the location. The less he used his powers, the easier it would be to remain under the radar.

Thanks to Jason, he would find Angel rather quickly. His target was known for her deeds in the community, and less known for her shady practices. An angel alright. One of life, but also death. Marcus hadn't been privy to what her ability truly was, but an eyewitness testimony described it as her taking life from one person and giving it to another. There were probably good intentions, but the method was downright twisted.

He didn't have to make a bold announcement this time. He saw her… Actually, he saw two of her. Two women matching the description Jason had implanted in his mind but dressed differently. They were greeting each other and both happy to see the other.

Not clones. Twins Marcus quickly deduced as walked across the camp. A few recognized him from the day prior. Hushed conversations and keeping out of sight quickly became popular within the camp. As he moved closer, he had a neat idea on how to figure who was the one he sought. The two women didn't notice him until he was within reach.

"Angel? I got someone that needs… Bingo!" One twin expressed confusion, the other was far more attentive as if she had heard the plea for help before. The selfish and the selfless were easy to pick from. You only needed seconds for a determination. A quick fist borrowed through the girl's chest cavity before both Marcus and the girl vanished from sight. As he carried Angel to a more secluded area, blocks away from the FEMA Camp, the heat of his hand burned away much within the upper portion of her torso. He violently snatched his hand out of her chest, allowing her limp body to fall to the concrete floor. The job was completed swiftly and Liberty would realize Marcus was keeping his word about the list. A few more, and then Forrester. Oh, and there was Lori...

Time: Early Afternoon
Location: San Francisco, Liberty Head Quarters
Interaction:

---

Patricia was getting to work on making contact with the Pastor in charge of the purists & Benny Stein. He wanted to work something out between of them, sort of a power team up. Benny Stein’s talkshow was pro government & anti altered an excellent combination for working with him. Pastor Mendez had some biblically inspired beliefs that he didn’t agree with as a strong agnostic but that was fine with him. Even though they all started from different places on they all got to the ed of the track together.

He went on doing research for the rest of the morning, and taking calls from different agents working different case, Most of the calls were based out of the California office, but a couple were from liberty operatives working in Washington D.C, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Vegas, Houston & so forth. As he was putting together the final touches on a field report about Agent Green’s death from the security guards he received a call from his main field partner Angela fields

“Hello Angela, what do I owe you the pleasure?”

“Cut the formalities, I need back up I need you, I’ve been following the lead you got from that kid Xavier, I’ve got another team looking for the native once our facial recognition software, but there’s been a recent string of break-ins in Oakland. Forced entry into vehicles but not the typical baseball bat or crowbar way. Entire doors ripped off and flung into the streets, meet me I’m about to send an address, take a chopper to the rendezvous point I send, and bring some big guns, motherfucker got in the shoulder on the traffic footage and just leapt away, I’ll see you soon get your ass out of that office.

Click, the conversation was over. Finally some action Jonah had studied the masked altered “hero” having watched said camera footage with Angela yesterday evening before calling in the towel and heading home to his wife & kids. Within moments he got additional messages from Angela sending the information she’d discussed on the phone.

He tossed on a tactical vest, and grabbed a larger gun to strap onto his back. He slapped on a belt with multiple pockets, that alongside his cargo pants meant he had enough pockets to carry around all the gadgets he felt he’d need for this encounter. He shot a text to Paige to let her know what was going on and what to get done before heading to the bathroom,

25 Minutes Later
The chopper made its landing and Jonah emerged from the aerial delivery vehicle. The rush of being able to take down another one of the three altered he learned about yesterday was letting him ignore California’s intense summer heat. He went to his text thread with Angela & tapped into her location which she had set to be shared with him for the next 2 hours.

It wasn’t long before he was approaching Angela herself, he’d passed through two streets with several damaged vehicles. SUV’s, cars, jeeps, bikes & more vehicles galore hada. Wide varying range of damage. Doors ripped of the hinge, roofs pushed in, windows shattered. “Oh wow this guy’s mad.”

“Tell me about it, I’ve been keeping an eye on him while I waited on you before I make a move. So far it looks like he’s looking for something, most people break into vehicles looking for cash or tings to sell, but isn’t he supposed to be a superhero.” Angela questioned having read the field report about this guy’s conflict with the ice wielder. Patricia had also given them access to police reports which corroborated the fact that this man was a supposed hero fighting against other dangerous altered criminals, and regular ones.

His conflict with the justice system came from the fact that he was acting as judge, jury & executioner towards his targets. Murdering them rather then allowing them to be cuffed & hauled off to jail. Not that Jonah minded that particularly after all they weren’t focusing on bringing Shade in after his conversation with Anya yesterday. But this guy was no Shade, he was damaging people’s property and ad already ripped up people’s means of transportation across two streets Jonah didn’t want to let him hit a third. “Yeah well he’s no hero clearly, he’s not playing the role so we might as well bring him in. Good thing is while it’s been reported that bullets bounce OFF Shade, we have a police report & footage that shows that even though mister super punch over there is strong he Ain’t invincible.”

“Right alright then how do you want to play this Jonah? I go in first or you? I figure we shouldn’t alert him to the fact that there’s two of us off the bat?” Angela questioned clearly trying to come up with a strategic maneuver to take this altered down.

“I’ll go in first, I’ve been itching for action and according to your paper work you almost got fried by super whore yesterday, leave it to Jonah.” He commanded oozing with authority as he rolled out the corner clutching his weapon.

The altered man was ripping the doors of a mini-van when he noticed the red dot on his chest. He cursed something quietly and turned to face Jonah clearly upset about the confrontation. “This has no involvement with you, stay back citizen and go by your own way if you don’t want to get hurt.” Super Punch said.

“Or what you’re gonna punch the air at me? I don’t think so, I was kind of a fan of you but your out here ripping cars up and I’m thinking damn what If that was my car? Who covers mutant attacks, Geico, All State, I know farmers doesn’t, so I’m gonna take you in. You took out some real scum on the streets, so I’ll be gentle.” Jonah remarked sarcastically as the altered just shook his head.

“It’s not what it looks like, I’m the same as I was before, I’m trying to keep this damn city safe! I gotta get more, I need more strength, more power!!!” Punch screamed and clapped his hands together creating a sonic boom that launched Jonah flying back into a wall causing him to gasp as he connected with the concrete.

“Fuck this, you’re done freak!!!” Jonah yelled as he got up, Punch charged him. Angela came out the cut shooting at the masked property damager. He screamed as two of the bullets grazed his shoulder causing him to loose his momentum. Jonah came up bum rushing him bashing I’m in the face with the butt of his gun drawing blood.

“I’m not a freak you dumb ass I’m the hero!” Punch screamed and jerked the gun out of Jonah’s hands and spun around kicking him in the chest. His super strength causing Jonah to be flung backwards clapping his body into a street pole.

“Some hero you are.” Angela rushed out firing a shot into Punch’s shoulder, then another into his shoulder blade. Punch screamed from the shots hitting and spun around leaping into the air. His strength causing him to hurl through the air and smash against Angela’s chest an audible crack being heard as the agent and masked vigilante crashed into the ground.

“Enough of this sacrifices must be made when the ignorant intervene with greatness & the security of the world!” Punch screamed as he grabbed Angelas gun and ripped it in half, he then lifted her up by the neck and slammed her into the ground causing her to cough out blood. Angela rose up to fight back only for Punch to smack her twice then push her into the ground.

“I won’t give up you bastard, you’re kind won’t win.” Angela retorted spitting towards Punch who barely moved out the way. Angrily he lifted her up pushed her then ran forward slapping her once more, an audible crack was heard as Angela soared forward slamming into the door of a jeep with a hard thud.

“ANGELA!!!!!!” Jonah screamed rushing towards Punch lunging for his own discarded gun. Punch turned around and charged towards the Liberty Agent not wanting him to grab his weapon. As Jonah snapped the gun up Punch ducked and rolled towards a parked Hyundai and ripped the door off right as Jonah opened fire. “Your gonna pay for that motherfucker!!!”

“Yeah make me then!” Punch yelled as he charged towards Jonah the door in hand, Jonah whipped out a grenade tossing it at Punch. Punch swung the door forward to knock the grenade back only to be assaulted with multiple shots from Jonah who now had an open shot. Punch coughed out blood as the shots penetrated his chest and collapsed the door hinge and grenade falling on top of him. Jonah ran back as the grenade detonated ducking down and covering his ears as it did. The screams of punch were all that was heard as Jonah turned to face the altered.

“Wish granted you piece of shit.” Jonah marched over towards the bleeding altered, a normal man would have been killed by that volley of shots. Even though he was far from bullet proof and explosion proof, he was enhanced enough to survive that move. He was in horrible shape oozing blood, but with medical attention he might be able to pull through. Not that Jonah had much concern for the lives of altered humans.

“You messed up, your gonna pay for this in the blood of innocent people, I was the good guy.” Punch said with much less vigor then before the combination attack used on him. Jonah spit at his face and smashed his foot against his tattered mask.

“Not in my book, anyone who hurts my agents is a villain, and now I’m going to look you in the eyes before I remove you from this earth.”

“No…d…don’t..” Punch tried to reach up to stop Jonah but he was too weak to stop the liberty director at this point.

“Shut…the..fuck..up.” Jonah spoke calmly he pulled the mask of the supposed hero tossing it aside “Now I..w…..what…” Jonah was in utter shock as he stumbled back upon unmasking the habitual car damaging altered. “H..How..is this possible..it can’t be…the reports…everyone so far.” Jonah spoke in between gasps.

Angela who was in bad condition herself had managed to prop herself up against a vehicle using it as support leaning her back against it. Punch’s final volley of melee attacks he’d used on her had did a number on her, and while she wasn’t in critical condition she wouldn’t be able to just walk of that super beating with ibuprofen. “What is it Jonah, what’s going on? What’s wrong?!” Angela called out to her partner wanting to know what about unmasking this altered vigilante menace had him shocked and at a loss for words.

“Angela..he’s…he’s like us…not them he’s white.” Jonah uttered in shock, seeing another caucasian man like himself was behind the mask of the super strong altered who’d brutally beat down his partner and nearly killed them both.

“Surprised huh…hahahaha..you have no idea what’s going on! This is only the beginning, it’s getting worst from here, the reason I am what I am is the reason Oakland’s going up in flames you stupid fed, your so far behind your not even helpful or effective. All you people do is rescue criminals, and give them second chances.” The de-masked altered spat out before coughing out blood again.

Jonah clenched his fists, none of this made any sense. It went against everything he knew thus far, the intel and the knowledge he’d gathered, everything Liberty had compiled. To think his own people, the ones he truly wanted to protect could be afflicted with the same sickness as the woman who leveled San Francisco. This can’t be, he must be an outlier he..I know “Really? That’s what you think? Perhaps your right, allow me to make up for that mistake.”

No one can no, this could change everything, these new rules could affect the people that really matter. Me, my wife, my daughters, Angela, all the good people in this country, I won’t let that happen. Jonah pulled out a second gun, his back-up pistol. He leaned down and placed the cold steel of the weapon on the altered’s temple. “Hmm” Making a last minute choice he lifted the gun and opened the altered’s mouth plunging the barrel of the gun inside his mouth before pulling the trigger. As he predicted despite his strength exterior, his insides were just as vulnerable as the rest of them. There was no more talking from the anomaly he was dead. “That’s what you wanted us to do right, no more second chances, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”