Young Bloods(IC, Reboot Open)

[The Republic of Atria]

A sword? She's probably better with one than I'd be. It also means that her powers are likely physical in nature. Wyatt though to himself. He rose his arms to block Park's thrust, and judging from the pressure she was applying her powers were definitively physical. It was like fighting Orro, except she used a sword rather than a spear. He threw his magic arms to the sword to parry her blow and get some space to change his strategy. He dispelled his arms in favor of a new construct, one he felt the most comfortable with. Parrying it with a sword would be much harder than doing it with a spear.

In his hands, a light blue scythe appeared about 7 feet in length with the blade being about 2 feet wide. To top it off, he started with an air channel. He twirled the weapon, kicking up a brief gust of wind. The blade was as dulled as he could make it to prevent him actually cutting off something she would probably need. "Alright. Change of plans." He swung the weapon at her, but was too far away for the weapon to actually hit. Instead, it sent a blast of air at the woman.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

A sword? She's probably better with one than I'd be. It also means that her powers are likely physical in nature. Wyatt though to himself. He rose his arms to block Park's thrust, and judging from the pressure she was applying her powers were definitively physical. It was like fighting Orro, except she used a sword rather than a spear. He threw his magic arms to the sword to parry her blow and get some space to change his strategy. He dispelled his arms in favor of a new construct, one he felt the most comfortable with. Parrying it with a sword would be much harder than doing it with a spear.

In his hands, a light blue scythe appeared about 7 feet in length with the blade being about 2 feet wide. To top it off, he started with an air channel. He twirled the weapon, kicking up a brief gust of wind. The blade was as dulled as he could make it to prevent him actually cutting off something she would probably need. "Alright. Change of plans." He swung the weapon at her, but was too far away for the weapon to actually hit. Instead, it sent a blast of air at the woman.

Wyatt blocked her thrust. He delivered his attack to parried her blow, and then they had spaces between both of them. Nice of him to think about some spaces before closer interaction, too. She prepared her left hand at her holster, pistol of hers. Her right hand gripped at the sword, though she perhaps will reconsider her option of doing gun kata and sword at the same time.

He produced a scythe. Like the big ones. "Good...dang," she mumbled it. Gust of wind, that weapon is more than just melee weapon. He swung the weapon to her, bit too far. The blast of air, however, was something for her. She held it out, but she was blown a bit far. "Wow, that's something," as she put pulled her pistol in holster, she pulled it out for some shots to the air in an attempt to distracts him.

Then, she ran to him, rushed at the best speed she could reach, sword on hand. This time it is a straight thrust to his. Until she could pull him in a close combat, mano to mano, sword is the best method.

[New Neros]

Andrew Marks

Walking Down Market Street
The Meek and The Mighty, Part 2

Black Luminous continued walking down the street, with both Mar and Andrew in tow behind him, able to effortlessly clear out crowds with his impressive size. "Mar and I are very much able to do superhuman things, powers and the like." He said with a smile, waiting at a crosswalk. "You're more than welcome to come train with us, we have special facilities to hone and craft your powers, as well as trainers to guide you." He turned and gave Andrew a smirk, "But I don't know where St. Martha's is..."

"I do," Mar said after a quick google search, "Across town, not far by car, but a long ass walk."

"Hm," Turpin hummed, "How about this, why don't you go back to the Orphanage, take care of whatever you need to, and meet us at Cesar Chavez Park? The one right off the bay, near the docks, at around five pm. We may have some business we need to take care of as well, but we'll be free after that. Don't worry about anything, you're safe with us. I'm still very much impressed that you've decided to fully invest in becoming a hero, it is a monumental undertaking that not many people succeed in doing, but with proper guidance, support, and friendships, you will succeed."

"Alright, my man," Mar said, grabbing the snake-hybrid teenager by the shoulder for a second. "I can call you an Uber to take you right to St. Martha's. Sound good?" She said with a sweet smile, holding her phone out, ready to place the order at Andrews' request.

[New Neros]

Imperial Avenue
Captain Quake and the Gladiator

Gaul sprinted to the side and slammed his entire body into the back wheel of the lead car, knocking it to the side and causing it to screech to a halt some feet ahead while the car behind it screamed to a stop just inches away from Gaul's body. Dressed in his martial artist clothing, skin tight shirt with some baggy pants, weighted boots and gloves, he looked the part of a superhuman in full dress. A crowd of people turned their heads to watch the scene unfold, hearing the car tires squeal and the various shouts and hollers of others, bringing several people to train their eyes on Gaul.

One of the back doors clicked open, and out stumbled a man with short, unkempt blonde hair, a faded yet chiseled jaw line, all while wearing some mis-matched clothing and smelling of day-old alcohol. A light fuzz dotted his chin, but his bloodshot eyes were focused and direct as he made eye contact with whatever made his motorcade come to a halt. "I sort've hoped that I could get back to Los Angeles without much of a hassle, but I guess I need to sign your autograph or something?" Captain Quake said with a hand wave, leaning back on instinct, impressively dodging a would-be devastating first hit from Gaul.

The villain's eyes widened as he watched Quake dodge his first blow, standing shocked as the heroic leader took two steps back to put some distance between them. "Then I guess I should sign your cast or something." He said, sloppily throwing a punch at the air, causing a harsh shockwave to permeate and nail Gaul directly in the chest, causing him to slide back on his heels. Gaul clutched his ribs, they were rattled but intact, and looked up to focus on Quake entirely. Quake raised an eyebrow, impressed that the man could take a firm hit like that. "Well now, looks like you're more than just an average Joe. Tell me, young man, what's your name, you look a bit familiar, because obviously you don't know who I am, the all-powerful Captain Quake, leader of the Stars of Los Angeles."

Gaul tightened his fists and swayed his shoulders side to side, coming forward with a right punch at Quake's head, which the cocky hero dodged effortlessly, but did not realize it was a feint, as Gaul continued his momentum and slammed his knee cap hard into the Captain's chest with a hollow THUD. Flashed with anger and stumbling back some, Quake leapt to his feet and flexed ever muscle in his left arm, charging it full of vibrational energy, preparing to escalate the fight as needed. "I don't like to talk when I fight," Gaul stated, "But you probably have an idea of who I am based on that last hit, and on based on your expression."

"Mustafa Gaul." Captain Quake said with venom, "You call yourself a villain, but you're no better than a murderer. You killed Solar, the Light of the Southwest, a good friend and compatriot. Armorer was attacked by a vigilante yesterday, in addition to the villains at the Zoo, and now Gaul, of all people, decides it's time to fight Captain Quake?" He said, referring to himself in the third person. "I don't have time for any games or show boating for once, no, you don't get the happy-go-lucky shit-talking Quake, you have me bloodlusted and ready for revenge. Don'y blink."

Without warning, Quake threw his left arm forward, stepping into the punch with his left leg, and right in front of Gaul, a wall of black appeared all at once. Amidst the screams of terror and cowardice, Gaul lost hearing as the sonic wave created by the earthquake ripped apart his ear drums, and was caught up in the wreckage of the street, sending him several hundred feet down the avenue. Dust covered buildings and cars alike, windows were shattered all around and city water lines were busted and flooding quickly on the street. Gaul stood up on both feet, eyeing carefully as Captain Quake's silhouette became clear in the settling dust.

Breathing in and out, Gaul relaxed his body, every muscle and tendon became loose, fluid, able to move and react at speeds Quake couldn't keep up with, he hoped at least. Approaching faster than he had before, Gaul threw several rapid punches at Quake, spun, and kicked the hero as hard as he could, witnessing first-hard as his punches landed unapologetically, yet Quake was able to block the final kick with both of his forearms. On instinct, Gaul moved in close to Quake as he threw another serious punch, utilizing his martial artist techniques to deflect the energy of the earthquake by blocking Quake's punch, sending the vibrational wave against a nearby building, causing irreparable damage to it's foundation.

Gaul put some distance between himself and Quake, taking a quick glance at his left arm, the one he used to block the attack, and saw it shaking violently. "He's so confident with his power, he can shake my very bones." Thought Gaul, struggling to re-form a fist with his left hand, but powering his way through it, ignoring the pain of the bone splints throughout his wrist and forearm. "He's not able to take as much damage as Solar could, but can give out plenty more damage." Gaul smirked at that thought, "He should be getting easier really soon."

Gaul approached with the same tactic as before, faster and stronger than earlier due to his empowerment from additional damage, but Quake unleashed a new tactic to counter it, and that was preemptively striking Gaul in the middle of his combo. Gaul on reflex threw his own punch out to block it, letting his right fist collide with Quake's left, sending a devastating shockwave for several blocks, sounding like a cannon had gone off all across the city. Gaul recoiled from the blow, his hand destroyed from the elbow down, his hand bleeding horrendously from the impact, while Quake seemed none the phased by the attack. He wasted no time in following up his attack, though, and charged Gaul with a low shoulder tackle.

The tackle landed and Quake drove hard into Gaul, but the martial artist was far better trained, and quickly locked his arm, though broken, under Quake's chin and yanked up hard. The maneuver ended Quake's momentum and put him into guillotine choke, Gaul leaning over him and pushing his weight onto the hero, pinning him closer to the ground and away from his own center of gravity. Quake turned red and grit his teeth, trying desperately to get a good hold on the ground with his feet, but Gaul sunk the choke tighter every milisecond. In vain, Quake threw taps against Gaul's side, thundering them with vibrations and causing the villain to grunt and growl with pain, but refusing to let up.

In less than a minute, Quake would either be dead or knocked out completely, but to the very end, he kept throwing punches and hitting Gaul, to the point that his skin had ruptured and he was bleeding profusely from the open wound, splattering blood across the destroyed street with each hit. With seconds to spare, and no air remaining, Quake was desperate, and turned his hand against the ground instead of against Gaul, pouring every ounce of strength and stamina he had left into hitting the ground. He tapped the asphalt and cracked it viciously for several feet all around the pair, but Gaul still did not let go. Quake's arm grew limp, and he clenched his fist one last time...

---

The Stars and Orion

Gaul whipped his head forward in time to see the bottom of a pair of boots, and to an outside observer, a red lightning bolt slammed into Gaul face-first, throwing him away from Quake and causing him to rip concrete down the street as he skid to a stop. Quake coughed and heaved violently, free from the vise grip Gaul had him in, a blue-clad female kneeling beside him and holding a hand to his back. Gaul jumped backwards from a sitting position, though, as he dodged a kick from the red armored bastard that blind sided him. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Gaul, our newest, edgiest upstart villain. How would you like your ass kicking? Hopefully painfully." Red said with a sneer.

Gaul stepped to the plate and threw a fast punch at Red, hitting nothing but air as the super-fast hero appeared behind him. "Tsk, tsk, too slow." He teased, Gaul spinning his momentum and throwing a high kick behind himself, were Red formerly was, watching with seething, angry eyes as the hero floated high enough above him to render his kick useless. With immense speed, Red dropped his own boots onto Gaul once more, sending him hard against the ground, throwing up dust and debris all around. In a flash, Red was standing next to Blue and Quake, watching the spot where Gaul fell. "Think he'll get up?" He asked, looking at Quake rub his throat.

"Definitely." Quake wheezed, "I hit him with earthquakes hard enough to break buildings, what makes you think that will put him down?"

"I dunno," Red stated, "I put some heart and willpower in that kick, though!" He said, Blue punching him in the thigh lightly, "Hey what was that fo-" In a flash, Blue was gone, and Red was left to care for Quake. "Damn, she's fast. Hmmm." He said, kneeling down next to Quake. "Tell me, where did Gaul touch you?" He said sarcastically, Quake flashing him an angry look that clearly stated, "Not now", Red quickly getting the picture. "Sheesh, alright, well, should I get you out of here? Blue and I can handle this, I think, so you need to-"

"No." He spurted out, "I'm staying." Slowly, Quake climbed to his feet and stood there for a moment, breathing hard and deep as he caught his lost breath from being choked. He slammed both of his fists together, creating an earthquake all around him as he did so, "I'm not going to let him get away." Up until then, Blue was dancing circles around Gaul, and just rabbit tapping him here and there, enough to piss him off but not enough to cause major damage, but she served as an adequate distraction for Quake, who literally ran at Gaul and delivered a stunning, knock-out-worthy hit his jaw, causing a thunder-clap to echo down the street as Gaul flew into a nearby concrete building, embedding himself on a pillar deep within it's innards.

Red ran to the two and was just in time to see the carnage inflicted on Gaul, audibly gasping and whispering "oh shit, worldstar" as Gaul was quite literally punched through a building. The trio stood idle, carefully watching the building for signs of life, each one on edge as the opponent they were facing simply refused to stay down. Without warning, Gaul shot like a lightning bolt from the damaged building, aiming to return the favor to Quake, but Blue quickly tapped Red, trading her flight for strength, and punched upwards against Gaul's stomach, throwing him off just enough for Quake to land another hard hit against his skull, this time, causing the villain to crash along the asphalt, ripping it more than it already was.

Blacking out for just a mere second, Gaul swung his body up and sat in the crater he had made, unable to see out of his right eye as Quake hit him so hard, it had swelled shut, and finding himself hard of breath as his jaw was nothing but dust and splinters, several teeth missing to boot. With his one good eye, he gazed at Red, Blue, and Quake, a flash of determination and willpower flooding his body, driving him forward to stand once again. The Stars readied themselves as well, knowing their opponent was ready to return, and seemed to get stronger and faster with each attempt.

---

[The Republic of Atria]

Well, he managed to not only get the first hit in, but remain in control of the fight. As long as he could play defensively, it was easy. As soon as he saw Park draw her gun, he felt genuine fear that she was going to actually shoot him during a training exercise. Wyatt created a shield circular with an air enchantment large enough to cover his entire torso and just a little more. Fortunately Park just decided to leap at him with her sword. He had little issue blocking it with his massive shield. So far it seemed all she could do what charge at him with her sword. He felt kind of bad about doing what he did next, but a fight was a fight. Both of them needed to get better.

He shoved the shield forward, letting out a much more powerful blast of wind than he did with his scythe. " Sorry if I'm being a little rough, Elena said to treat this like a somewhat real fight. My priority is not getting hit by that sword of yours."

[New Finnish Republic]

Red

---

Several hours after returning to Wonder Island...

"...and in other news, reports have came in over a grizzly scene that police encountered in downtown San Diego. In what police believe to have been a case of gang violence, police found over a dozen bodies found dead in an alleyway. It appears that a gunfight broke out that soon escalated into full on war, as several of the bodies were found burnt to a crisp thanks to one individual using a flamethrower device. The identities of several of these victims have already been discovered, but a handful are still yet unknown. Authorities claim that while the battle took place in a high-crime area of town, something to this scale hasn't been seen in some time. Several suspects linked to gangs within the area have been detained, but police are still uncertain who the culprit is."

"What a tragedy, Barbara. I can only hope that police can find the people responsible for thi-"

Red clicked the TV off, unable to watch any more of the news. Sitting on the couch in the main living room, he let out a loud groan that echoed in the empty hallways of the Tower. Glancing over to one of the windows, he could see that the sun was already beginning to make its way down towards the horizon. While the sight may have been spectacular for others, he only felt a sense of frustration knowing that he'd accomplished nothing with his day.

When he returned, his clothes were singed and covered in ash, evidence of his fight the night before. It had taken him him almost a half hour to clean his body of the grime, and even now he still felt as if he was due for another shower. He had to force himself to eat, as any sign of hunger had vanished from him as he instead spent his efforts on trying to salvage any bits of information he could on the helmeted vigilante whom he had the misfortune of meeting last night.

However, even after exhausting the wide range of resources he had available, he wasn't able to find a single clue as to who she was. There were no criminal records, no police reports, not even a mention in the news about her. He could only chalk this up to two things: Either she was new to fighting crime, or she was damn good at covering her tracks. Whichever of the two it was both meant headaches for him, as this meant he had no way of finding her.

What made things worse was that he hadn't found anything else new about the Roberto family's murder case. Police seemed to have found no further leads into the case, and seeing as Red's only lead had his throat slit before he could talk, this meant Red was effectively stuck in the mud.

Frustrated and with nothing better to do, Red spent remainder of the day moving the rest of his things into the Tower. The moving company seemed a bit suspicious with the move, but a few extra dollars in tips seemed to dispel any questions they might have had. As a security measure, Red would make sure to monitor their electronic communications for some time to ensure that they didn't try and release any sensitive information to the public about the Tower. He doubted he'd have any issues as the most these men saw was brief sections of the building, but he didn't want to take any chances.

Once his stuff was fully moved in, he did his best to try and think of any different way he could try and tackle the two main problems he was dealing with. He was pretty much in the dark in terms of information, which meant that he had two options. He could either wait for something to come up that would serve as a lead, or he could go out and try to find things out himself. Seeing as Red wasn't the type to just sit on his ass and wait for things to happen, Red decided to choose the latter of the options.

As day began to turn into night, Red donned on his outfit and geared himself up for what was to come. Mounting his bike, he gave the Tower one last look, his thoughts turning to his teammates who off on some remote area, probably relaxing and having a great time together around a campfire or something. For a brief moment, Red considered on just giving up on his investigation and rejoining the other Young Bloods. He knew he'd be having one hell of a better time there, as much as some of them annoyed him.

However, the sound of police sirens echoing in the distance reminded Red exactly why he was still here. If he didn't get to the bottom of things, he knew nobody else would. And he doubted he'd be able to live with himself knowing that he gave up on those two children, whose murderer was still out there.

And so, Red sped off towards downtown San Diego.

---

Marionette

"Please lady, I'm begging you, you don't have to do this! I don't know who you're working for, or who what they're paying you, but I swear I can make it worth your while to just fucking let me go!"

Marionette tilted her head at the man cowering in the corner of the room, keeping the pistol in her hand pointed right at the man's head.

"You think I'm doing this as a job? Come on, why would I ever do such a demeaning line of work?"

The man's eyes widened in confusion.

"Then why the hell are you doing this?"

A wicked smile spread across the girl's face.

"For fun, of course."

Before the man could try to make sense of her response, the girl's finger pulled back on the trigger, splattering the man's brain across the wall. Looking down at her feet, a look of disgust replaced her smile. Some of the blood had ended up getting onto her shoes. Seeing as these were designer shoes made all the way from Italy, anger immediately erupted inside her, causing her to place several more rounds into the man's dead torso. She continued firing until a clicking noise was heard, indicating the gun was out of ammunition. With a sigh, she lowered her arm and placed the firearm in her purse. She also took off her rubber glove, putting it in a separate compartment of which she'd later burn to eliminate the evidence.

Glancing at the remains of the dead man before her, she couldn't help but feel a hint of annoyance that she was out in the middle of the night at some rundown apartment. The place reeked of marijuana and was littered in trash. How this man had lived in such conditions was beyond her comprehension, but she supposed she couldn't have expected much from a drug dealer like himself.

Reaching into her pocket, she retrieved a small flip-phone and began to dial 911. Before an operator could answer, she cleared her throat and prepared to speak. As soon as the operator answered, she did her best impression of a panicked voice, something she had heard countless times.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Oh God, please you guys have to help! I think someone's been murdered!"

"Ma'am, please stay calm. Can you give me some information first?"

A small grin appeared on Marionette's face before she continued her act.

"Well I was walking down the street, when all of a sudden I saw some guy break into a window of an apartment. I heard some shouting, and then all of a sudden I heard a bunch of gunshots! Oh God, what if he saw me too?! Please, you've got to help me!"

"Help is on the way, ma'am. Just stay where you are and we'll make sure you're safe. Can you give us your location?"

Marionette rattled off the location to the operator, who continued to reassure her. It was clear that she was buying Marionette's act, which was a good sign as she had one last card to play.

"Is there any more information you can give about the suspect?"

"I barely could see him in the dark, but I think he was wearing some brown jacket with jeans. It looked like he had some stuff on his waist, maybe more guns or something? He had red hair and wore a mask that covered his upper face."

Marionette pretended to break out into hysterical tears.

"Please, come save me! I don't know if he's going to come for me or not!"

"Police are almost to your location, ma'am. Just stay p-"

Snapping the phone shut, Marionette rolled her eyes at just how easy that had been. Humming a tune, she made her way over to the window she had actually broken into, making sure not to cut herself or her clothes on the way out. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of the approaching police, but she paid them no attention as she gracefully hopped down to the streets below.

She wasn't wearing her usual attire, instead dressed in jeans and a hoodie that covered her most of her face. After walking several blocks, she reached for the phone she had used earlier, tossing it into the air before using her thread to rip the device into pieces. A few seconds later, a pair of police cruisers sped past her, oblivious to her presence as they made their way to the scene of the crime.This scene had been played out several times tonight, each time with Marionette pretending to be a witness to the murders she herself had caused. It was tedious work, and she was ready to call it a night.

Yawning, Marionette glanced up at the night sky above, her thoughts not on the acts she had committed but instead on a certain boy whom she was soon to meet. However, she doubted he'd be happy to see her, considering the circumstances he'd find himself in. But that mattered little to her.

No, she was going to get what she wanted from that boy. What that would all entail was still up in the air, as she didn't know whether or not she'd want to strangle him or run her hands through his hair as she got what he'd teased her with several weeks ago at that zoo.

Maybe I'll do a little of both. He might just like that, she devilishly thought as she walked down the dark streets of downtown San Diego.

---

Red

After several hours of patrolling the streets, Red was about to give up on his search. He had already interrogated several low-life scum who had tried to get a jump on him, only to find out they held no answers to his questions. Most had know idea where The Deep End even was, and for those that did, they had only heard about the infamous bar through rumors.

Frustrated, Red was prepared to head back to the Tower when all of a sudden he heard a woman screaming in a nearby alleyway. Slamming the brakes on his bike, he quickly hopped off and began to run towards the source of the commotion.

He found a shady looking man pointing a knife at a young woman who was holding onto dear life for her purse. By the looks of it, she was likely some prostitute whose night's earnings were stashed away in the purse. Red knew that if this girl were to lose it, she'd be given a beating by her boss, which was likely why she was so determined not to lose it to the mugger. The man likely knew this as well, but didn't seem to care as he threatened to stab the girl if she didn't give him the money.

Red had encountered this so many times now that it hardly provided any sense of danger to him, but he knew he needed to act fast before the mugger lost his patience. With a sigh, he whistled over to the two, causing the man to snap his head over in Red's direction. The distraction was just what the woman needed, as she suddenly slapped the man in the face, causing him to stumble back in pain and allowed her to run away to safety.

Crossing his arms, Red couldn't help but let a small grin appear on his face, much to the anger of the failed mugger.

"You know, there's better ways to pick up a girl than that."

The mugger gritted his teeth, pointing the knife towards Red.

"Look here, fucker, you just cost me a lot of dough right there. Now you're gonna pay with your blood."

Red rolled his eyes at the threat.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I've already done my donation to the Red Cross this month. I'm gonna have to wait a bit longer before I can donate again."

Fury filled the man's face before he lunged out towards Red with his knife, attempting to slash at his throat. Red merely sidestepped the attack before grabbing the man at the elbow and twisting, causing the man to drop the knife and scream in pain. Red just shook his head in disappointment.

"I've got some good news for you though: I'm a universal donor. Odds are that you'll be thanking me later."

With a sharp kick, Red placed a foot straight into the man's abdomen, causing the air to fly right out of the man's lungs. Not giving him a chance to recover, Red finished him off with an uppercut to the nose, causing blood to spurt out from it as the man was sent flying backwards from the force of the blow.

Shaking his fist, Red looked down at the now unconscious man below. He was a bit disappointed at how easy it had been to take him down, but was glad that he'd at least done something positive for the night. He would've appreciated a thanks from the woman he'd saved, but she appeared to be long gone. He shrugged his shoulders at the thought, considering the fact that perhaps she would've been a little too thankful for the rescue. With her line of work, that could spell a whole lot of trouble, albeit fun, for the young hero.

Red was about to place handcuffs on the would-be mugger when suddenly police lights flashed behind him, followed by slamming doors and the sound of shouting policemen.

"Hands up where we can see them!"

Turning around, Red looked on with confusion as several police cars had suddenly surrounded him. The officers all had their weapons drawn at him, their fingers on the trigger as they continued to stare him down. Not wanting to become target practice for the police, Red hesitantly complied with the order. However, he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"What gives, guys? I don't know if you noticed, but I just did your job for you guys by saving a gal from that fellow over there."

The officer who had originally yelled at him narrowed his eyes as he and the others slowly approached him, their weapons still trained on him.

"You think what you've been doing tonight is what we do, you little punk? Contrary to belief, we don't act as the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Unlike you, we actually uphold the law and don't leave a trail of bodies behind in the process."

Red raised an eyebrow, not knowing what the officer was trying to tell him.

"What the hell do you guys mean? While he might need a new nose job, that guy there is still breathing."

The officer merely scoffed at his response.

"Only because we got to you before you could finish the job."

Red could only stand in confusion as the officers continued to approach him.

"Look guys, I don't know what you're on about, but I can promise you that-"

"Get on the fucking ground now, and don't say another goddamn word! If you move an inch, we aren't going to hesitate to open fire!'

By now, the officers were within reaching distance of Red. For a brief moment, he debated trying to resist and escape, but he knew well enough that there were too many guns trained on him at the moment for him to risk it. With no other option, he complied with the officer's order, getting on his knees as he placed his hands behind his head.

The moment he did, the officers swarmed him, tackling him as they forcefully placed handcuffs on him. They began to strip him down of all his weapons and gear, even going as far to remove his mask from his face. At the last bit Red tried to resist, but there were too many bodies on top of him to have a chance.

Suddenly, one of the officer's sprung up from the pile. In his hands were Red's pistols, of which the officer in charge narrowed his eyes at before turning his attention back to Red, who was now being held in place by the other officers.

"We've got our murder weapons. Two Sig Sauer P229s, chambered in .40 caliber. Kid, you're fucked more than you can believe."

Red's jaw dropped, as he realized what this meant. The police must have found his gun back in the alleyway, and had somehow tracked it back to him. But how the hell they had done that was still a mystery, as there should have been no way for them to be able to trace the unmarked pistols back to him. That was the whole point of them being unmarked in the first place.

Suddenly, Red was dragged up onto his feet for several yards before being forcefully tossed into the back of one of the police cars. He tried to escape, but the door was slammed in his face before he had a chance to make his move. Cursing, he kicked at the window, hard enough to crack the glass. One of the officers, noticing this, opened up the door before pointing a taser at him.

"Calm the fuck down right now, or I'm going to pull this trigger and keep squeezing until it runs out of juice!"

The threat was enough to get Red to stop, although his anger continued to manifest in his voice as he shouted back at the officer.

"At least tell me what they hell you're arresting me for you bastards!"

The cop seemed puzzled at first by his reply, before switching to anger himself.

"Over a dozen counts of first degree murder, including the murder of the entire Roberto family. You're going to put away for the rest of your life, kid. Enjoy the scenery on the way to the station, because it's gonna be the last time you're going to see anything besides bars."

Red could only stare at the officer, all of the energy from before now drained from his body. They thought he was the murderer? That he was the one who killed those kids?

"YOU FUCKING IDIOTS THAT WASN'T ME, YOU LYING SACKS OF SH-"

His words were cut short as 50,000 volts of electricity surged through his body. Pain drowned out all thoughts from his brain as his muscles twitched uncontrollably. True to his word, the officer didn't let go of the trigger until the device stopped working.

Not like Red would've known, as his consciousness was soon erased as his vision suddenly turned black.

[United Kingdom of Poland]

On the plane

Wendy jerked awake as Roy sat down with her. “Yeah, I’m alright. I…I guess I just expected yesterday to go a lot better for me. Yesterday we had two villains that were perfect for me and I spent so much time trying to be clever and find them on the security system that I missed the fight against Dante and only showed up to fight Thunderstruck after he had trashed half the team. And don’t even get me started on the media circus. The only reason I didn’t add to our teams ‘highlight reel’ was because I fried the guys camera when I panicked.”

“I guess I’m just wondering if I made the right choice joining you guys.” She added after taking a deep breath. “If someone with my p… my insecurities and inexperience isn’t making things worse like everyone out there is saying.”

“I appreciate you checking up on me though. It… it means a lot.”
----------------
At the island

Wendy shrugged her shoulder at Mars’s request. “Makes sense. Though I can’t promise this won’t be a complete and utter mess given neither of us are very good at fighting without said electronic toys.”

Putting on her coat Wendy turned to face him. “So, shall we play a game?” she asked with a smirk. Charging Mars, Wendy wound up her right fist in an attempt to finish Mars off as quickly as possible in a telegraphed attack that only exposed her inexperience.

[Charmera]

---

Casimir felt delighted when Cassandra accepted his offer for sparring. The two of them of them hadn't really spoken at all to each other and Casimir had always thought doing physical exercises with people created a bond between them or at least laid the foundation for one. Although he found it odd how she mentioned she could repair herself. I wonder what that's about. There would be no time for wondering, however, since Cassandra sent a hurtling fist at his face. What freaked the hell out of Casimir was how her hand split to reveal a lazer cannon of all things. Before her fist or the shot could make contact Casimir bent over backwards dodging both attacks.

He reverse-somersaulted at least two meters back from where he initially stood. Throwing his duffel bag off into the distance, he got into a fighting stance bringing his clenched fists up to his face.

"Holy shit! You're an android!" he yelled out in a completely flabbergasted tone, "That's so cool!"

Cassandra paused, her software analyzing Casimir's speed. She had not anticipated he would dodge, but it was still quite instructive. She estimated his speed to be somewhat beyond human. Her current calculations put it anywhere between 834% and 1230% of human maximum. It was an impressive capability.

"Oh. Yes. I am." She replied, pausing. "I may have neglected to inform the team directly about that. I had assumed that most of the members would have known."

[Cool: Human Slang, meaning can vary but is generally positive.]
Lets hone in that estimate to a more accurate range...
[Execute maneuver B1232]

This time Cassandra didn't make do with one single punch. Instead she went for a flurry of blows, chaining punches, kicks and various other moves into each other.

"Feel free to attack back at any time. I do require data to optimize assault estimates for the team."

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

Amir Zairi
For the most part of the trip, I spent my time sleeping on the slow, gentle sways of the airplane. Others might having a hard time sleeping with that, but for some reasons it lulled me to slumber all along the way. The last thing I remembered of the trip was when Alexis and Kiris debating which movie to watch, and one of them screamed heresy. Afterwards my vision got blurry and when everything cleared up again, I could see the lush forest and green fields surrounding our plane.

I stepped outside the plane and covered my eyes as the sunshine blinded my eyes. There are times when I am quite sure I have a vampiric ancestor or something when this happen. I scrubbed my eyes a few times before I opened my eyes and looked at the island.

Naja didn't tell us anything about training on an island resort, so it quite surprised me. I spent a few minutes gawking at the green, dense forest and the majestic mountain in the background. I lost the track of time for awhile and before I realized it, everyone had gone sparring with each other. I tried to look around for somebody to spar with, but it seemed that everyone already got their pairs. Where the hell is Red anyway? I wouldn't mind sparring with him rather than standing around doing nothing.

Luckily, I saw a girl still hadn't got her sparring friend and tried to ask her. She 8one of the new member from the zoo, so it would also be a good time to introduce myself.

"Hey, you're Alice right?" I patted her back. "I don't think we have been introduced properly. My name is Amir. Have you got a friend to train with yet?"

[Auropa]

Mike Kross
At some point during the flight, Mike managed to fall asleep. It was far from a peaceful rest as the memories and doubts from yesterday continued to linger at the back of his slumbering mind. When the plane finally landed and jostled Mike awake, he was almost glad to be back in reality and away from his thoughts. He wasn’t exactly scared of what he was doing but he couldn’t shake the realization of just how real what they were doing was. People had died yesterday, they almost died and to top it all of, his reaction to it was to lash out at his team. After rubbing the last of the drowsiness out of his eyes, he rose to his feet and made his way out of the plane. However he was be feeling on the inside, he wasn’t going to let it be the cause of him falling behind.

"Alright, now that everyone is paired up, I want one of you to attack the other. Nothing too dangerous, but you should make the defender work hard to stop you. Let's see what you can do!"

‘Not what I was expecting’ he thought to himself. Admittedly, it made sense. The new instructor hadn't properly met them yet and would have to see them in action before helping them develop properly. Pausing for moment, Mike tried to think of how he could best use his powers in a sparring match and how he could try to push himself without ruining his still recovering body. After a bit of thought and a few ideas, he realized there was one person he wanted to challenge. Making up his mind, he made his way past his other team members as they partnered up and began to fight… and occasionally shout out random animals…'huh'

Soon enough, Mike found who he was looking for. “Roy” he called out, making sure to hide his previous doubts and worries behind his trademarked wall of self-confidence and analysis.
“Are you still free to spar?” he asked as he began to lower his body into a more defensive stance and place his hand on his holstered baton in anticipation.

[Absolon-7]

---

It turned out Cassandra was an android after all once she matter-of-factly confirmed it. Now that he thought about it, her being a machine was honestly not that weird or out of this world compared to other things he had encountered since he had received superpowers. It was still pretty awesome he would get to be friends with an android of all things. Cassandra followed her statement with a blizzard of punches and kicks that, trying all he might, he was only capable of blocking two-thirds of them at least. The ones he couldn't block or redirect hit him harshly with each one sending waves of pain throughout the area they struck. Freaking hell! Cause she's a machine there's no way I'll win by attrition. Although..., he thought while remembering that they where on a tropical island. And what was a hot and humid jungle guaranteed to have? Mosquitoes.

Since he would only be summoning a single species, a really frail and weak and species at that, calling them over would only take a fraction of the time it would an entire horde of every species available. Now all he had to do was buy himself just a moment of time where he was in control of the fight. If he could go on the offensive that would be his chance to get them all here.

"Don't mind if I do Cass!," he bellowed in between redirecting her attacks. While they where supposed to spar like it was a real fight and Cass could just repair herself, Casimir thought that he would still feel really guilty if he dented her or punched off a chunk of her body. That meant punches would be out of the question. All that left were open palm strikes and kicks, both of which he thankfully had a few creative techniques for. During one of her punches, Casimir threw his own hand forward but instead of catching it he guided her arm towards his opposite open hand and caught her fist. At the same time he jumped up, bringing his legs all the way to hist chest, and launched both legs at her side with tremendous force. After impact, he used the kinetic energy to launch himself back his own height away from Cass.

"Haha! Take that!," he quipped but the joy wasn't for long as his body realized it had hit metal. "Holy shit!" he yelped in pain with his knees buckling. Catching himself on the way to ground he braced himself on his knees grinning as he realized that a huge swarm of mosquitoes was now heading in their direction. The swarm flew across the beach hovering over the other teammates sparring matches and it immediately dove straight towards Cassandra's head.

"Let's see how well you deal with not being able to hear or see me!" he yelled at her as the swarm gathered around her. He grasped his knees in pain hoping he could ignore the pain by the time Cassandra dealt with the mosquito swarm.

[The Rebel Alliances]

Alexis Cain/Raven

I used to think that the problem with being an outlaw was that you never stopped looking over your shoulder. Always looking for the cop or rival who would do you in. It was not until I started this whole vigilante business that I realized that I was no more paranoid than I used to be. Living in this side of town, looking over your shoulder was like looking both ways before crossing the street. It was just something that you did. Having showered and changed at a truck stop I made my way back into my crap motel, just hoping the neighbor who was constantly harassing me about spending time with him was not in, or at least, not hanging out in the halls or the lobby. Thankful for that at least I passed by the late night clerk as I waved a 'hi' and went up the stairs on my way. I always took the stairs, never wanting to be trapped in close proximity with any of the tenets who lived here with me. I passed by the first several floors until I reached mine and advanced down the hall with a yawn. I am normally a night owl, but these past few nights have been taking their toll.

It wasn't until I got to about half way when I noticed them.

Two Officers, knocking on a door.

My door.

To say it was unexpected was a understatement. I did expect them to catch up to me but not this fast. And I wondered what crime they were working. Could it have been the murder of David Aims possibly? That whole deal in the alley way with Mask was far too recent. It didn't matter. I just need a plan of escape now.

I can't just turn around. One of them has seen me, possibly the only thing stopping him from recognizing me is that I am wearing make up hiding my bruises and a red haired wig with a cap and glasses. Another by product of being an outlaw, some precautions against being recognized was just common sense. But if I turn around all of a sudden it may draw their attention.

Other options?

Well, turns out asshole is actually shooting bullshit with a pal of his outside his door. I know that he will let me in, but I also know what he is going to want. And I will have to give it to him, or possibly even them. After all, I cannot risk a fight to draw attention.

But then there was this other kid, maybe a year younger than me just unlocking the locks on his room. I had a window of moments if I was going to go for him, but the issue is...I have no idea how he will react to me. He has a cut on his cheek bone and a busted lip, still bleeding slightly. So he is likely already on edge. Aside from right now I have only seen this boy a few times and never spoke to him. I only had a second or two to ponder my options, and in that span time seemed to slow to a crawl.

I would hate to have to f*ck some idiot's brains out just for a place to hide. Really isn't my style, but the alternative could be too risky.

Making my decision I quickly moved over to the young man with the cut on his face, I leaned in pretty close and made sure that I was heard by the officers.

"Baby, I cannot believe those bullies hurt you like that! Let's go inside so that I can take care of you." Before he could respond I leaned into his ear and whispered so that only he could hear me.

"I have $300 if you just let me in your room for the night no questions asked." He didn't say anything for a moment, only giving me a look and then the officers. Until finally he opened the door.

"Yeah, lets go on in. They got me good today." With that I flashed the officer a friendly smile and hurried on in the room with my new roommate for the night. I quickly reached into my jacket where I was keeping all of my cash on me and passed over three crisp one hundred dollar bills. His room was about as bare as mine, the only addition being a desk filled with computer equipment in the corner. Taking the money he seemed to ignore me for a moment until he scooped up a cigarette and patted his pockets until he came to the realization that he was missing his lighter.

"Got a light?" He asked as we both sat on the creaky couch. Pulling one out of my pocket I kicked my feet up on his coffee table and leaned my head back, flipping on the news as I let my bones rest from the day until the boy next to me spoke up again.

"So, what are you wanted for?" My head snapped.

"Come again?" I questioned.

"Those officers were outside your door and you just payed me a months rent for a night. What are you wanted for?" I dropped my head again and sounded off.

"Murder." He laughed it off.

"Yeah, whatever. Names Nicholas by the way. Nicholas Finch. What about yours?" He clearly did not believe me and that was fine with me. Lighting up a cigarette myself I exhaled some smoke as I introduced myself.

"Alexis." I said just now getting a good look at the man up close. He was very thin, bags under his eyes suggesting that he did not sleep much and quite pale to, he really needs some sun. We sat there smoking for a few minutes as I finally removed my wig and hat and glasses, throwing them all on the floor as Nicholas started again.

"You sure you are not a hooker? A lot of those around here, pretty sure I saw one the other day with that same exact wig too." I then rolled my eyes at him and leaned in a bit.

"Do you want me to be a hooker?" I asked teasingly. He blushed a bit and I laughed as I shoved him.

"Relax, I am not a hooker. Your not that lucky Nick." Just as he was about to say something I poured myself a glass of whisky and was about to drink when I noticed the news headline.

Local hero 'Mask' in custody for suspected murder of more than a dozen victims.

Then they showed the mug shot of who I knew was the man I was fighting against and alongside just last night. A mask like his is not as effective as he would like. Only thing it hides are your damn cheek bones. I was really hoping to cross paths with him again, and Nick seemed to pick up on my interest.

"You know him?"

"Yeah..." I answered only half paying attention I leaned forward and turned the television up. All while trying to think of a way to bust this 'hero' out of jail.

After all, no one should have to spend jail time for something they didn't do.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Well, he managed to not only get the first hit in, but remain in control of the fight. As long as he could play defensively, it was easy. As soon as he saw Park draw her gun, he felt genuine fear that she was going to actually shoot him during a training exercise. Wyatt created a shield circular with an air enchantment large enough to cover his entire torso and just a little more. Fortunately Park just decided to leap at him with her sword. He had little issue blocking it with his massive shield. So far it seemed all she could do what charge at him with her sword. He felt kind of bad about doing what he did next, but a fight was a fight. Both of them needed to get better.

He shoved the shield forward, letting out a much more powerful blast of wind than he did with his scythe. " Sorry if I'm being a little rough, Elena said to treat this like a somewhat real fight. My priority is not getting hit by that sword of yours."

Park admit, Wyatt pulled a better fight than most of the enemies she fought so far. Thunderstruck had armor, so he had an artificial advantage. Wyatt's more natural in nature. She couldn't beat him close combat, but using her gun would be absolutely terrible and guaranteed a danger on her side. Naja already discussed the nature of killings that she did, and she disapproved of it. Typical heroic person. She's not heroic, and there's no way it can be reversed. Even if she didn't maim Wyatt, she is a vampire. Vampire needs blood, and blood from animals can only do so much for her.

Park dodged Wyatt's blast, this time bigger and more powerful. She got hit by it, but fortunately her arm didn't suffer much. "It's fine, Wyatt. I like being roughed by people," she smirked on it. Park threw all cautious out, as she ran to Wyatt, this time with more speed and attempting a flurry of strikes and slashes with her sword, as well as kicks. An attempt to makes Wyatt unable to deliver his attacks.

[Galnius]

Angelica
A short, fair looking girl waved goodbye to a girl with wispy butterfly wings in front of a recently closed Ice cream shoppe. Odd most places, but around here it was actually quite a normal sight to see. Her name was Angelica Dalin, and whilst she lacked the obvious signs that her now departed friend had, she felt fully confident walking home alone in the evening. She was, after all, nearly an adult now. Furthermore, she had yet to experience the more.... unsavory parts of human nature. At least, not in her memories.

It was because of that that she didn't see the issue with the man following behind her. Nor did she see anything to hint that his offer to walk her home was any kind of suspicious. Even the offer of a shortcut didn't set off any alarms. Nothing did, until he grabbed her and slammed her against the wall.

Of course, the track was going both ways this time, as he had no reason to believe this small, naive girl was anything more. Thus, it came as quite a surprise that when she screamed...he couldn't drown it out by putting his hand over her mouth. In fact, they were far too busy covering his ears, as the windows and doors around them rattled at the few hundred decibel cry.

[Finland SSR]

The Great Floyd Tolson!

---

The bar in the neighbourhood had decided to close for the night, despite the steady stream of revenue coming from Floyd Tolson's lavish spending, so the wandering swordsman walked out of the thick, alcohol-dense air of the pub into the cold breeze of the San Diego evening. Nothing but the setting sun, the dim stars and the artificial lights of the town to reflect on... all of that, except a sudden powerful scream.

Were Floyd enhancing his hearing right now, he was sure that his ear drums would have popped from too much pressure - which would suck. You know how long it takes to get those back?

"What was that, a cockerel?" he muttered to himself, looking around to see if nobody was gunning after him. Everyone else in the neighbourhood appeared to be just as shocked as him - especially when this cockerel was breaking windows and shaking doors with its scream alone. So... probably not a cockerel.

Probably a person. Probably a person in need. Eh, he has time, might as well go check it out.

Running across the empty streets, Floyd quickly made out the source of the cry - one of the dark, unlit alleyways at the sides, which immediately spelled trouble for everyone involved. Once the swordsman actually reached the alley in question, he noticed two blurry figures standing ten to twenty meters away. Pretty close to one another, and with screams coming out. A few thoughts instantly popped into Floyd's mind, the biggest one being - jeez, what a greedy guy, not even saving some for him, maybe he needs to learn a lesson. Almost instinctively, the man pulled out his sword from the hilt on his back and turned off all senses but vision, hearing, balance and limb perception. This immediately enhanced those senses enough that the swordsman could tell just how creepy looking the guy was. And that the victim was a girl. A young-looking girl, one might add.

Nope, nope nope. Floyd may be no hero, but he was not the type to tolerate events like these.

In the span of a few seconds, the swordsman lunged forward, running across the alleyway at breakneck speeds and shoving the man away to press him against a wall and place the flat side of the sword on his neck. Any sudden movements and that neck could turn into a blood fountain.

"Easy there..." Floyd muttered towards the creepy man's ear, then turned his head around to face the girl. "What are you, crazy? Letting yourself almost get raped like that..."

[The Flutterlands]

Andrew Marks

Andrew smiled broadly, happy to meet meta humans like himself and the Young Bloods. He wasn't exactly sure how many super people there were in the world. Certainly not many as he only hears about them on the news. The boy has heard of other races as well. Though he hasn't met any of them. The only thing closest to himself Andrew has met was Naja at Wonder Island.

As cool as these people were, however, and as tempting as their offer was, he still didn't know them. He took a moment to think about it. What do you think, Rango? Andrew asked his boa constrictor, relaxed around his shoulders, They seem nice and their offer seems genuine. Should I go?

Rango slithered a little around Andrew and stared at Mar and Luminous. They do seem nice. he replied, Ask the caretakers though. You should not be going off with Strangers either way without them knowing.

Andrew smiled and nodded, turning to Mar. “Cesar Chavez Park, right?” He said with a grin, “Yeah, I would like to go. Never tried Uber though.”

[The Republic of Atria]

Well, he managed to not only get the first hit in, but remain in control of the fight. As long as he could play defensively, it was easy. As soon as he saw Park draw her gun, he felt genuine fear that she was going to actually shoot him during a training exercise. Wyatt created a shield circular with an air enchantment large enough to cover his entire torso and just a little more. Fortunately Park just decided to leap at him with her sword. He had little issue blocking it with his massive shield. So far it seemed all she could do what charge at him with her sword. He felt kind of bad about doing what he did next, but a fight was a fight. Both of them needed to get better.

He shoved the shield forward, letting out a much more powerful blast of wind than he did with his scythe. " Sorry if I'm being a little rough, Elena said to treat this like a somewhat real fight. My priority is not getting hit by that sword of yours."

Park admit, Wyatt pulled a better fight than most of the enemies she fought so far. Thunderstruck had armor, so he had an artificial advantage. Wyatt's more natural in nature. She couldn't beat him close combat, but using her gun would be absolutely terrible and guaranteed a danger on her side. Naja already discussed the nature of killings that she did, and she disapproved of it. Typical heroic person. She's not heroic, and there's no way it can be reversed. Even if she didn't maim Wyatt, she is a vampire. Vampire needs blood, and blood from animals can only do so much for her.

Park dodged Wyatt's blast, this time bigger and more powerful. She got hit by it, but fortunately her arm didn't suffer much. "It's fine, Wyatt. I like being roughed by people," she smirked on it. Park threw all cautious out, as she ran to Wyatt, this time with more speed and attempting a flurry of strikes and slashes with her sword, as well as kicks. An attempt to makes Wyatt unable to deliver his attacks.

"You... What? Excuse me? Don't make this weirder than it has to be!" Too much information. If she did that to throw him off, it was working a bit better than he wanted it to. Park went back on the offensive and refused to let him do much beyond huddle behind his shield. He had an idea on how to escape, but he wasn't too sure if he'd get in trouble for using excessive force. On the other hand, he did want to show that he had been practicing and that his abandoning the team yesterday wasn't for nothing. Plus he convinced himself that Park could likely take what he was about to do.

"Alright then. Then I won't feel too bad about this!" He replied and swapped the air enchantment on his shield for a fire one. Once it was done, he slammed the shield into the ground which let out a large firestorm for about 8 meters in front of the shield.

Pleasedon'tburntodeathplease.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

“Wait, if the rule is that there are no rules then I don’t have to follow that rule.” Kirisvala mumbled to herself as she tried to make sense of Carter’s statement, all while maintaining her position. As Elena approached to give her a few pointers and show her a more adequate stance, however, the alien girl nodded along, observing carefully and then attempting to mirror the stance to the best of her ability. While one might think that a Hadrian might know how to take advantage of their own anatomy best, Kiris had not received any sort of formal combat training in her life, so she decided to trust Elena.

Their new combat instructor then gave the order to begin sparring, and Carter began counting down to zero, both him and Kiris bracing themselves, with the latter waiting attentively for the countdown to conclude.

However, there was no zero, only a “GORILLA!” and a very confused Hadrian, who tilted her head even as the blond boy flew towards her with his leg outstretched. Seeing this, Kiris frowned. ”What does an ape have to do with anything?” She wondered, looking at the rapidly approaching Carter and shifting her posture a little to make it harder for her to get pushed over. Then, just before the flying kick connected, the alien girl clasped her foe’s leg with her claws.

“Flyyyyyyyy!” She shouted cheerfully as she quickly spun around, using Carter’s own momentum to hurl him away from her.

“ACK!” Carter yelled as he was flung across the sand, completely caught off guard by the sudden throw. And her claws were bloody sharp! Landing on all fours like a big ol’ overgrown cat, he rubbed his thigh, a few lone drops of blood snaking down his bare leg. The pain was sharp and stabbing, but he refused to let it bother him. Smacking his fists together in a boxer-like move while tilting his head, he threw both back, as if he was charging up for something.

“HAAAADOUKEN!” he yelled as he flung a powerful, tight ball of wind out of his hands, hurtling straight for Kiris, before sending a small wave of air at her feet, blowing the powdery white sand everywhere. She let out a small muffled cry as the cloud of sandy dust enveloped her, obscuring her vision.

Just a moment after said cry, however, came a short yet loud roar that forced the sand away and went as far as to rustle the leaves of nearby trees, though fortunately the other Young Bloods seemed a bit too immersed in their own sparring matches to be disturbed by the Hadrian’s roar. Now able to see, Kirisvala watched as what was basically a ball of swirling air hurtled towards her, and was barely able to bring up her claws in order to protect the fleshier part of her body from the impact.

Flung away by the force of the winds compacted into Carter’s attack, the alien girl eventually landed near the edge of the clearing, using her claws to quickly stabilize herself after falling. Taking notice of her surroundings, Kiris let out a playful grin before turning around. “Try catchin’ me if you can!” She shouted at Carter before rushing off, using her claws instead of her feet to move along the ground at an astounding speed and effortlessly climbing a nearby tree, hiding within the canopy. Swearing under his breath, the blonde boy soon let off in hot pursuit after the black-horned girl, dashing forward in an almost inhuman, Olympic-athlete’s sprint, quickly gaining small ground on her. Tracking her progress up the tree, Carter leapt forward managing to grab a decently high branch with his hands, wrapping his legs around the thick, old trunk and pulling himself into a sitting position. Both continued to fly up the tree, dodging from branch to branch, attempting to outpace each other. Eventually, both somehow reached the same branch, facing each other.

“Night night.” Carter whispered softly with a small grin etched on his face, before letting off a blast of air directly aimed at her chest. However, the force of the blast was a little greater than Carter had originally intended, leaving him unprepared for the recoil. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and this one was a smack in the chest so great it caused him to shift his weight slightly, losing his balance and toppling right off his branch, and before he could say “Jack Tar”, he was man overboard. He let out a muffled cry as he went down, desperately trying to make a cushion of air to protect himself from the sand below, which had once seemed so soft and powdery, but now seemed so hard and uninviting.

He landed with a “FOOOM!” as he hit the ground, letting off a light groan. Luckily, he avoided breaking his back, but that was definitely going to sting. His wrist also felt a little weird, a bit stiff.

Kiris, meanwhile, was faring slightly better. Though she was soundly knocked off the tree branch, her natural ability as well as the longer reach of her arms allowed her to grab onto a lower branch to avoid falling to the ground, and, with some effort, she launched herself to another tree and worker to regain her footing. Once that was done, she began putting some distance between herself and Carter again, moving faster along the forest’s canopy than she had on the ground. Mere moments passed before she was out of sight, though if Carter tried to find her, he would notice the sound of the soft, delicate song that led back to her.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

"You... What? Excuse me? Don't make this weirder than it has to be!" Too much information. If she did that to throw him off, it was working a bit better than he wanted it to. Park went back on the offensive and refused to let him do much beyond huddle behind his shield. He had an idea on how to escape, but he wasn't too sure if he'd get in trouble for using excessive force. On the other hand, he did want to show that he had been practicing and that his abandoning the team yesterday wasn't for nothing. Plus he convinced himself that Park could likely take what he was about to do.

"Alright then. Then I won't feel too bad about this!" He replied and swapped the air enchantment on his shield for a fire one. Once it was done, he slammed the shield into the ground which let out a large firestorm for about 8 meters in front of the shield.

Pleasedon'tburntodeathplease.

Wyatt seemed distracted apparently. From what she said? But wasn't she said...oh. Oh, okay. She got it, now. It was an unintentional distraction from day one. But this was no time to smile or to grin, as Park did delivered flurry of strikes. Wyatt huddled down behind his shield and time will tell whether this would be the important attack.

But then Wyatt did something. Some kind of magic changing to fire. And he slammed his shield to the ground which let out large firestorm. And a long one, as Park was thrown off-guard and despite her dodge attempt, it was a futile and a bit of failure as she was thrown a bit far. Once she was able to not fell down, "Argh! That was one hell of an attack!" she yelled. She stood again, but this time she was injured, more or less. Her healing power proved to be helpful in this case, as she recovered slowly from the major attack.

Magic is her new weaknesses, apparently. That is beyond physical combat.

She took her sword and swinging it around slowly with her right hand. Wyatt's too powerful, only because he is not a physical fighter and reliance on his magic power. She is not capable enough of stopping one, so she decided to take a drastic measure. Her left hand, has a pistol on it. She is thinking about what to do next...

[The Republic of Atria]

"You... What? Excuse me? Don't make this weirder than it has to be!" Too much information. If she did that to throw him off, it was working a bit better than he wanted it to. Park went back on the offensive and refused to let him do much beyond huddle behind his shield. He had an idea on how to escape, but he wasn't too sure if he'd get in trouble for using excessive force. On the other hand, he did want to show that he had been practicing and that his abandoning the team yesterday wasn't for nothing. Plus he convinced himself that Park could likely take what he was about to do.

"Alright then. Then I won't feel too bad about this!" He replied and swapped the air enchantment on his shield for a fire one. Once it was done, he slammed the shield into the ground which let out a large firestorm for about 8 meters in front of the shield.

Pleasedon'tburntodeathplease.

Wyatt seemed distracted apparently. From what she said? But wasn't she said...oh. Oh, okay. She got it, now. It was an unintentional distraction from day one. But this was no time to smile or to grin, as Park did delivered flurry of strikes. Wyatt huddled down behind his shield and time will tell whether this would be the important attack.

But then Wyatt did something. Some kind of magic changing to fire. And he slammed his shield to the ground which let out large firestorm. And a long one, as Park was thrown off-guard and despite her dodge attempt, it was a futile and a bit of failure as she was thrown a bit far. Once she was able to not fell down, "Argh! That was one hell of an attack!" she yelled. She stood again, but this time she was injured, more or less. Her healing power proved to be helpful in this case, as she recovered slowly from the major attack.

Magic is her new weaknesses, apparently. That is beyond physical combat.

She took her sword and swinging it around slowly with her right hand. Wyatt's too powerful, only because he is not a physical fighter and reliance on his magic power. She is not capable enough of stopping one, so she decided to take a drastic measure. Her left hand, has a pistol on it. She is thinking about what to do next...

His counter was much more effective than he thought it would be. Fortunately the woman seemed more than hardy enough to take it, though she did look significantly more agitated. Perhaps maybe calling it off before she decided to actually use that gun of hers. "Ummm, maybe we should call it off?" He offered. On the out side he tried to look as reasonable an professional as possible, on the inside however, he was celebrating his first genuine win. All blood, sweat, and tears he spent training with Orro paid off. Though he was a bit more defensive than he would have preferred, he figured it was the optimal strategy. He looked to his mentor who seemed to be watching every fight. When he noticed Wyatt looking a him, he nodded approvingly.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm very sure things would have been very different if you could use that gun."

[Zarkenis Ultima]

As Nathan waited and observed, Alexis quickly pulled out and donned most of the gear that she had brought along for the trip: the blue visor she had made for herself, a harness of sorts that bore a large blue orb that appeared to be acting as a power source, and her trademark electronic gauntlets, which had undergone a few modifications since the mission at the San Diego Zoo. As a final step, she bent over to press a button on each of the sneakers she had been wearing all along, activating the software that controlled the rocket thrusters they housed.

Just about then, Elena called for the sparring matches to begin, and Alexis looked at Nathan with a playful smile on her face. “Alright, hit me with the best you’ve got, Nate.” She challenged.

Nathan was a little worried about sparring with her. He was unsure of the full extent of her powers, vaguely knowing that they had something to do with technology. The process of her unloading and equipping her various gadgets only served to concern him further.

Smiling at Alexis’ starting words, he took a few steps back, cautious. He ran forward without warning, aiming to slam his elbow into her side. He withheld his full force, still suspicious of the tricks she had to have under her sleeves, and also unwilling to damage any part of his body before he gained some kind of energy to use.

After hitting her, he warily jumped back a little bit, certain she would go on the offensive.

“How’s that?” he asked, smiling a little. As he withdrew, however, Nathan noticed that, though he was certain his elbow had impacted something solid, Alexis was in exactly the same position as before, unaffected by the attack. Looking closer, he saw the vestigial blue light of a field of sorts that enveloped her.

“Not too bad, but you’re going to have to try a lot harder if you want to actually touch me.” The blonde girl stated, feeling a lot more confident than she was at the start of the exercise, though she knew better than to let her guard down. Opting to go on the offensive now, she used her rocket-powered sneakers to charge at Nathan, closing the distance between them in an instant and aiming to hit him with what appeared to be an open palm to his chest. However, her true intent soon became apparent: the moment her hand came in contact with him, a wave of force surged forth from her palm to repel him, sending him flying back.

The pain from falling into the sand wasn’t too much for Nathan, but he was still a little surprised. He had expected her to be at least stunned for a moment or two, enough for him to find an energy source. Not to mention that there was now sand all over his clothes. Grunting a little as he brushed himself off, he stepped forward closer again, careful to stay out of range. The tech she was wearing protected her a lot more than he had thought.

Maybe I can grab the energy from the field? he thought for a second, before disregarding the idea. He would have to touch it in order to do it effectively, and there was no chance of him being able to do it long enough. He’d just have to gather what he could from her attacks.

Nathan suddenly kicked out with his leg, aiming to trip her, as he went for a punch to her stomach, much harder this time, since he knew she could handle it.

“Woah!” Alexis cried out as she felt the force that caused her balance to topple, leaving her vulnerable to Nathan’s attack. The fist squarely hit her torso, and the forcefield that her harness projected around her body absorbed the entirety of the impact, though she was still physically pushed back several paces.

Good thing I designed this to keep small particles out too. The blonde girl thought to herself as she fell onto the sand, but she soon dismissed the thought and hastily stood up, knowing that even though it was a sparring exercise she shouldn’t give Nathan any advantages if she could help it. So far, it was clear that he was a lot stronger, something unsurprising. But with her special footwear, she was fairly certain that she had a massive advantage in terms of mobility, and she intended to make good use of it.

Not wanting to give Nathan a chance to take the initiative again, she charged him just like the last time, practically skating across the sand as she moved. However, this time, instead of attempting to attack him head-on, she leaped into the air at the last moment before arriving in melee range. Then, before landing, while she was still in mid-air behind him, she turned her body to deliver a rocket-powered kick to his shoulder.

This time, however, he was prepared. The kick pushed him forward a few paces, but that was all. He grimaced in pain at the bruise it left, but decided against using the little energy he had absorbed to heal it. It couldn’t hurt him too much during the fight, and he could always heal it later.

His relative lack of energy in the tank prevented him from attacking again as well. Previous offensives had proved her suit could handle anything he could throw at it, at least unpowered. He needed to get the tank to at least a quarter full if he planned on winning. Turning around swiftly after the kick, he stepped back into a defensive stance, urging her on.

After the kick had connected, Alexis struggled a little to land on her feet, but regained her balance quickly enough. “You’re not going down easily either, I see.” The girl remarked afterwards, while trying to think of how to attack next. It seemed like something as simple as what she had done was unlikely to get her very far, but doing anything more complicated than that was quite risky, as he was the better fighter of the two. A difficult puzzle indeed, but Alexis enjoyed the intellectual challenge.

Deciding on her next attack plan, she rapidly charged towards Nate once again, this time rapidly skating on the sand around him, both to kick up as much as possible to obscure his vision, and to keep him guessing the angle from which she would strike. After circling around him for several moments, she suddenly moved towards him, stopping just short of him before crouching and pressing both of her palms against the ground, releasing an even greater amount of force that flung both of them high into the air.

“Let’s see how you handle yourself off the ground!” The blonde girl challenged him.

As soon as Nathan felt the air whoosh around him, he knew he was in trouble.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, waving his arms around frantically.

He could do a lot of things, but flying was not one of them. Alexis seemed to be having fun, or at least seemed less scared of their imminent death. He couldn’t just absorb energy from the air, not like he had when Carter was controlling it. Situation after situation ran through his mind, all ending with his defeat. They were almost to the ground already, and Nathan sighed and braced himself.

He hit the sand hard, stinging his skin and flying into his eyes. His vision was blurry and faint at best. She had temporarily blinded him! And then there was the pain. He hadn’t landed too hard, but the landing was jolting enough. The entire lower half of his body ached. Without vision or the ability to stand, he was essentially defenseless.

Reluctantly, he used the energy he had to heal his major bruises, standing up and trying to blink. He still couldn’t see clearly; all he saw was outlines.

“Apparently not very well,” he chuckled with her, rubbing his leg as Alexis landed rather gracefully a few feet in front of him, aided by her rocket sneakers.

He was out of energy, and now she knew he couldn’t handle an attack like that. There was nothing to stop her from doing it again until he yielded, and Nathan hated losing. Lunging at her outline, he decided to try going for the visible parts of her armor: her visor, her gauntlets, and her harness.

He first went for the harness, aiming a fist towards her torso once again, expecting her to block. And block she did, rather masterfully. However, she wasn’t expecting him to change course last minute, opening his palm and grabbing her left arm, grasping at the gauntlet.

“Wha- hey, let go!” She protested as she tried to pull her arm free, to no avail. She figured that the easiest way to get him off was to repel him with her other gauntlet, but he seemed to think the same, grabbing her right wrist with his free hand before she could use it to free herself. She frowned, quickly realizing what he was doing: her HUD soon informed her that the energy levels in her gauntlets were rapidly dropping, and she had to resort to turning them off with a mental command, but by then, much damage had already been done.

“Well, try grabbing this one, then!” She said as she sent a rocket kick straight to his stomach as a last resort.

Nathan smirked a little as his plan seemed to work, but his flow of energy was abruptly interrupted. Her rocket kick soon afterwards was unexpected. Didn’t I drain the entire suit? he thought momentarily, confused at his incomplete success. He made a rather hilarious “oof” sound as the kick connected, bending over and holding his midsection.

“Let me try again?” he asked weakly, trying to stall and catch his breath.

The energy he had acquired could heal the physical injury, but it couldn’t replenish his air. He began to back away slowly, straightening himself out as his breath returned. If he wanted to fully force her suit to power down, he now only had two options: the harness and the helmet. The harness was tempting, obviously the source of power, but that only meant it was probably the most protected.

He poured some of the energy into his leg muscles, running forward into a high jump that landed him at her back. He began to go for her helmet, but realized why he had failed in previous attacks: he had forgotten about her rocket-powered shoes!

He bent down swiftly, knowing she’d have a counterattack soon enough, and slammed both hands around the feet of the suit, trying to gather as much energy as he could before she shut that off as well. Indeed, she realized his intention quickly enough and cut the power to her thrusters with another mental command, but this left her with few options to continue fighting.

This is gonna suck. She thought as she whirled around and slammed her visor against Nathan’s face with all the strength she could muster. Her headgear had been designed to be as durable as possible to protect against a few potential threats, and though it was not meant to stop bullets or anything like that, it was strong enough to withstand a decent headbutt, and she doubted he’d grab onto her like he had been doing so far. On the other hand, it wasn’t nearly as good at absorbing impacts as the shield projected by her harness, so even though she wasn’t that hurt, she still took a few paces back while trying to get her head to stay in place.

Now free from Nathan’s grip, but having few other ideas, Alexis quickly surveyed her surroundings, trying to come up with yet another plan. Quickly settling on one, she turned her rocket sneakers on again, charging at her sparring partner for the third time that match, with much less care and restraint than before. Using what juice remained in her shoes, she grabbed onto Nathan’s waist and shot off, heading straight towards the treeline in the distance.

Nathan felt a drop of blood fly out of his nose as he was carried towards the trees further away from the main battle area, his head pounding. He was more than a little disoriented, especially because of the quick change in scenery.

“What the hell?” he mumbled as he saw one tree grow closer and closer with each passing step. Alexis felt his hands grabbing onto her shielded outline and her visor as well as he tried to drain what remained of her gadgets’ energy, but he was mostly unsuccessful and she paid no mind as she continued her charge, leaping high into the air and slamming him into the nearest tree.

With what seemed like an earthshaking crash, Nathan fell from Alexis’ armored arms onto the roots of the improvised weapon she had used, sporting a major new bruise all across his backside. He didn’t have enough energy to heal all of it, so he had to resort to just fixing the bones and worrying about the rest after.

Wiping the blood from his nose, he felt the insane urge to laugh. That had hurt, and it had hurt hard! He stood up instead, ignoring the way his surroundings seemed to spin and steadying himself against the very tree he had crashed into. Once he regained his footing, he left the tree and began towards Alexis again. If he could just grab the helmet for long enough, he could depower the suit and fully heal itself, but that would prove to be quite a difficult task.

Observing him, Alexis was surprised and a little frustrated that he managed to stand up after that, but also very relieved, as after the deed was done she wondered if she might not have been too hard on him. She soon realized that this was not the case. He was still a little dizzy as he lunged towards her, aiming to pin her towards a tree or the ground. Instead, he crashed into a different tree as she just barely escaped his grasp. He fell to the ground again, shaking his head.

“Ow,” he said, pushing himself up. “Well that hurts!” he chuckled a little bit, slowly blinking as the world began to stabilize itself.

Aiming to end the battle already, Alexis re-activated her gauntlets and positioned her so that Nathan was between herself and the tree that he had crashed into. Then, with only what speed her own two feet could afford her, she ran up to Nathan, raising her hand to swing it at him. Unsurprisingly, he caught it with ease, along with the other one when she tried to finish the job.

Although her blows did force Nathan back a couple steps, he was able to keep hold of them long enough to draw out the last vestiges of their energy. It was enough to clear the grogginess that was clouding his brain, but there was none left over for his back or nose. Still, she seemed almost out of tricks.

While grasping her arms, Nathan also slyly stretched out his leg to topple her, simultaneously transferring one arm to the other so he had a free hand. Latching onto her helmet, he attempted to drain it, feeling the muscles working under the skin of his back as he healed them. Just short of fully healed, she managed to break out of his distracted grasp, using her [powerless, but still metal and hard] shoes to switch positions with him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was healed enough to stand up again and subdue her against a tree, finally able to reach her shields, which glowed a faint blue as he touched them. He could feel the energy travelling throughout, and relished the energy that flowed into his tank. It wasn’t long before the shield, already weakened, retreated away from his fingers before disappearing entirely.

Believing the fight to be over, Nathan withdrew, and tried to catch his breath, bending over with his hands on his knees as the energy worked further to heal his body. Turned away from Alexis, he couldn’t see her blushing furiously at the fact that she’d been pinned down against a tree like that, by a boy no less. He also couldn’t tell that she was walking up to him, up until she whacked him on the head with her gauntleted fist, which was made of metal and hard enough to cause him a good amount of pain.

“Thought I was done for, did you?” She said, a little playfully, though she was clearly a little tired by now. Either way, before he could react, she wrapped her arms around his torso, grinning a little at what she was about to do. Nathan intuited it as well, but couldn’t do anything before the blonde girl suplexed him with all of her strength.

Getting up after the deed, Alexis walked up to a tree and leaned her back against it, trying to take a break. However, she made the same mistake that Nathan had made earlier, assuming too soon that the battle was over. Soon enough, her sparring mate stood up too, roughed up by the suplex but still in a far better shape than her, as he still had his powers playing in his favor, and she had used up all of her assets by now. She did not even have the element of surprise anymore, and she knew that the battle was pretty much over, but she didn’t feel like going down yet.

Getting into a fighting position as proper as she could manage, she motioned Nathan to come at her, with him gladly obliging. Much to her surprise, she was able to block a few blows, as well as cause some damage with her metallic gear, but he was the better fighter in the end, and after taking a few punches to the arms and torso and eventually getting pinned to the ground, she finally stopped struggling.

“Alright, I concede, you win this one.” She told him. Then, in a quieter voice. “So, um, could you… get off of me?” She said, blushing a little at the fact that he was currently on top of her.

Panting heavily, Nathan stood up, offering his hand to help her up.

“Well, that was quite the fight!” he sighed, smiling. “You almost had me there knocking me against the tree!”

The duo began laughing, recounting the highlights of the battle, Alexis inserting a new battery into one of her gauntlets and using it to patch herself and Nathan up. They soon returned to the main sparring area and Elena, watching their teammates.

[Scotatrova]

Diego Belcourt

The heat of the afternoon sun blazed the back of Diego's neck as he decided to sit down and take a rest. He had been walking for what seemed like weeks. By now, he had safely made it to the outskirts of the city and had decided that he would begin to trek North, up to where the last remnants of his family, or perhaps extended family, lived. Los Angeles. But he knew that he might not make it, not because of the distance, but because this was bounty hunter territory, and not just your average bounty hunter, the ones that were trained and skilled in hunting those with "gifts". At least that's what he knew from his experience in the area, and he would be damn lucky to make it through the day. He followed along a trail that was headed North, and there was also trail of prints, fresh prints. The direction was confusing, as the footprints cut around to head east.

Diego heard male voices farther up the path, and he cut behind a line of thick brush and crept toward them in silence. The men spoke with the uncaring loudness of people who were not afraid to be heard. There were three of them, standing in a clearing formed by the crossroads of two trails. He recogized one of them. He was the old partner of the woman that had been also hunting him, and he knew his name, Matias. His fashioned Arab scimitar was slung from his waist. The others were strangers; big, brutal looking men. One was a redhead who wore a necklace of faded white trinkets. But Diego knew what they actually were. Bone. The other was brownskinned and wore matched .45 automatics in shoulder holsters. He edged closer to listen to their chatter.

"I still don't get why you want to try and sell him to the Bear," said the gunslinger.

"Yeah, why risk it?" agreed the redhead. "Bear don't want to make deals with you, Matias. He wants to feed you to the lions and be done."

"Nah, you guys got it wrong," insisted Matias. "If I bring him Little Belcourt, then it's gonna be forgive and forget. You'll see."

"Seriously man," said Gunslinger, "you ought to cut your losses and head north. Go up to LA or San Francisco. Get outside of the Bear's backyard, cause even if you managed to bring in Little Belcourt, Bear'd just take him from you and do to you what he did to Bobbie Gomez. Stake you out and feed you to the swarm. We tried to tell Bobbie the same thing, but did he listen? Nope. Now look what happened."

"I know," said Matias softly. "That was ugly. Bobbie wasn't a bad guy. And it's not fair for White Bear to blame us for what happened with the Belcourts. Me and my crew were all the way up in Carlsbad when that happened. Nothing we could have done to get there first."

"Uh huh. Bobbie tried to run that by the Bear, and look what it got him," agreed Gunslinger. "The same thing you're gonna get if you don't put a lot of gone between you and the Bear's territory."

"No way," said Matias stubbornly. He produced a piece of paper from a packet and shook it at them. "I know how much the Bear wants Belcourt. You see the price on this thing? You ever saw bounties like that? No! The Bear wants him, and he'll kiss my butt if I bring him in."

Redhead took the paper and read it, nodding "Yeah...a man could retire off of this."

A flurry of thoughts came into Diego's mind. Who was this "Bear" that they kept talking about? Is he really the one that wants him dead, or perhaps even alive? But that soon all faded away. His fear and confusion warped into anger and rage. They want him dead just like they wanted his family dead. Now wasn't the time to run away or hide, now was the time to fight. Fight, or be killed.

"If you're lucky," said Diego as he stood up from behind the bush, "it'll cover your funeral expenses."

The three men spun toward him. The gunslinger made a grab for his twin .45s, but Diego fired a single smooth blast that was too fast for the eye to follow. The blast landed into his forehead above the eyebrow and gunslinger hurled backward. He layed sprawled along the trail. That left Matias and Redhead standing on either side of him, both in wide-eyed horror and confusion. "Holy jeez" whispered Matias. "Belcourt!"

Redhead sneered. "I know who it is." He narrowed his eyes to feral slits. "You just hurt our friend pardner. You don't know the trouble you're -" Diego shot a blast in the dirt between the man's feet. "Save it for someone who cares," he said quietly. "Lose the hardware." The smoking crater of the ground offered no option for debate. Weapons clanked as they fell to the ground. "All of it." warned Diego. They look disgusted but began removing knives, two shot derringers, strangle wires, and brass knuckles from hidden pockets.

"Kick them away. Good. Now listen to me," said Diego, his eyes flat and hard. "You guys have one chance to walk out of this."

"What are you offering?" demanded Redhead warily.

"Straight exchange. You answer my questions and I let you walk out. If you know anything about me, you'll know I'm not one to lie to, and you'll know I keep my word. You walk out and I go somewhere else. I don't see you again. You don't hunt me, or anyone else ever again."

Matias snorted. "What's it to you where we work? Seems you were leaving town."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone. People are talking about it all through the network. Little Belcourt leaving San Diego for good. Going on some quest to find the last of his family, or at least that's the cover story."

"Way I heard it," said Redhead. "is that you lost your nerve, running from White Bear and bounty hunters. White Bear says this whole area is his now. He's bringing in more muscle than you can handle, so you're cutting out to save your butt. The whole searching for your family is just a cover story."

"Does anyone actually believe that?" Diego asked, amused. "I don't know of this 'White Bear' or what the hell he's planning on doing with me."

"Doesn't matter. With you gone, the Bear will own the entire network, and the hunters will believe what he wants them to believe. Bear's like that. Take out the top dogs, and become the top dog."

"Everyone needs a hobby." Diego said neutrally.

"What is it you want to know?" asked Matias. "To let us walk?"

"First, I want that piece of paper," demanded Diego. "It's a bounty sheet, right? Give it to me. Don't get cute about it either. Put it on the ground, weigh it down with a rock. Then step back." Redhead did as he was told. He backed up until Diego ordered him to stop. Diego stooped and plucked the paper from under the rock and glanced at it. The text read:

Reward

Payment on Delivery

Mason Belcourt: 20

Crystal Belcourt: 13

Diego Belcourt: 10

Theo Hale: 5

Diego read the text in his head. There was only one number beside each of the names. "I'm only worth 10 dollars?"

The two men laughed at each other. "Million. You're worth 10 million."

Diego stuffed the paper in his pocket. "Who's looking?"

"Everyone's looking," said Redhead. "The whole network of hunters working your trail."

"You're the first I've seen. Except for Matias' female friend."

"Then you're looking in the wrong place. Everyone knows the routes you've been running, and we got word that you were heading out. Everybody, and I mean everybody knows that White Bear's got a stack of cash on this."

Diego considered. "This is a lot of money. What's White Bear's stake? Especially if I'm leaving?"

Both men looked momentarily confused. "What do you think man?" asked Matias, perplexed.

"If I knew, I clearly wouldn't be asking." said Diego "And you're wasting my time."

"Oh man," said Redhead, "this is great. This is like those comedy shows. This is fricking hilarious." And suddenly Redhead made his move. He kicked a baseball sized rock at Diego and charged forward in a powerful tackle. They must have shared some kind of signal, because Matias was only a half step behind him. Redhead caught Diego around the chest, and Matias slammed his shoulders into Diego's thighs. The three of them crashed backwards into the bushes in a cloud of torn leaves, dust, grunts and yells. And then a single male voice let loose a high pitched scream. A death scream.

[Charmera]

Amir Zairi
For the most part of the trip, I spent my time sleeping on the slow, gentle sways of the airplane. Others might having a hard time sleeping with that, but for some reasons it lulled me to slumber all along the way. The last thing I remembered of the trip was when Alexis and Kiris debating which movie to watch, and one of them screamed heresy. Afterwards my vision got blurry and when everything cleared up again, I could see the lush forest and green fields surrounding our plane.

I stepped outside the plane and covered my eyes as the sunshine blinded my eyes. There are times when I am quite sure I have a vampiric ancestor or something when this happen. I scrubbed my eyes a few times before I opened my eyes and looked at the island.

Naja didn't tell us anything about training on an island resort, so it quite surprised me. I spent a few minutes gawking at the green, dense forest and the majestic mountain in the background. I lost the track of time for awhile and before I realized it, everyone had gone sparring with each other. I tried to look around for somebody to spar with, but it seemed that everyone already got their pairs. Where the hell is Red anyway? I wouldn't mind sparring with him rather than standing around doing nothing.

Luckily, I saw a girl still hadn't got her sparring friend and tried to ask her. She 8one of the new member from the zoo, so it would also be a good time to introduce myself.

"Hey, you're Alice right?" I patted her back. "I don't think we have been introduced properly. My name is Amir. Have you got a friend to train with yet?"

Alice paused, then nodded. This would probably be a great chance to meet and get to know a member of the team. She would have to try her best not to be too awkward and nerdy around him, as he would likely be her gateway to the rest of the group and to generally fitting in.

Though, then again, he doesn't seem especially un-nerdy. She thought. At least it's not that ice lady. I have a feeling she would give me the cold shoulder.

"Um. No, but I'm guessing you want to train with me." She replied. "Amir... right? I think? Anyway you can... go first I guess. I guess that's how this should work... right?" She didn't exactly stutter, but she did seem uncertain and talked with an incredibly fast and frantic pace.

---

It turned out Cassandra was an android after all once she matter-of-factly confirmed it. Now that he thought about it, her being a machine was honestly not that weird or out of this world compared to other things he had encountered since he had received superpowers. It was still pretty awesome he would get to be friends with an android of all things. Cassandra followed her statement with a blizzard of punches and kicks that, trying all he might, he was only capable of blocking two-thirds of them at least. The ones he couldn't block or redirect hit him harshly with each one sending waves of pain throughout the area they struck. Freaking hell! Cause she's a machine there's no way I'll win by attrition. Although..., he thought while remembering that they where on a tropical island. And what was a hot and humid jungle guaranteed to have? Mosquitoes.

Since he would only be summoning a single species, a really frail and weak and species at that, calling them over would only take a fraction of the time it would an entire horde of every species available. Now all he had to do was buy himself just a moment of time where he was in control of the fight. If he could go on the offensive that would be his chance to get them all here.

"Don't mind if I do Cass!," he bellowed in between redirecting her attacks. While they where supposed to spar like it was a real fight and Cass could just repair herself, Casimir thought that he would still feel really guilty if he dented her or punched off a chunk of her body. That meant punches would be out of the question. All that left were open palm strikes and kicks, both of which he thankfully had a few creative techniques for. During one of her punches, Casimir threw his own hand forward but instead of catching it he guided her arm towards his opposite open hand and caught her fist. At the same time he jumped up, bringing his legs all the way to hist chest, and launched both legs at her side with tremendous force. After impact, he used the kinetic energy to launch himself back his own height away from Cass.

"Haha! Take that!," he quipped but the joy wasn't for long as his body realized it had hit metal. "Holy shit!" he yelped in pain with his knees buckling. Catching himself on the way to ground he braced himself on his knees grinning as he realized that a huge swarm of mosquitoes was now heading in their direction. The swarm flew across the beach hovering over the other teammates sparring matches and it immediately dove straight towards Cassandra's head.

"Let's see how well you deal with not being able to hear or see me!" he yelled at her as the swarm gathered around her. He grasped his knees in pain hoping he could ignore the pain by the time Cassandra dealt with the mosquito swarm.

The test was going well. Roughly 29.45% of her attacks were going through, which showed a remarkable ability to defend. Testing further would have been redundant, and likely would have exhausted Casimir before further tests could be conducted, but then suddenly Cass was caught quite off guard as an unexpected attack came in. One of her punches was suddenly redirected to the side and caught with the other hand. She was about to attempt to grapple him in response, but he suddenly jumped and sent a double foot kick right into her. She was staggered by the blow, even though it didn't do much damage to her it halted the flow of her attacks entirely, her manuver patterns were disrupted.

Then came the insects. She frowned as her vision was suddenly blocked by the swarm. This was quite the conundrum, as if she fired widely into the group of insects she might hit the others or even the trees and start a forrest fire. She would need to act outside of precedent.

The response time of the average mosquito is faster than my own effective combat response time. However their flight speed won't be able to outstrip my average projectile.
[Plan locked. Execute new manuver.]

Suddenly Cassandra jumped back with incredible android speed. The mosquitos responded to this quickly as she predicted, but were unable to reach her before she suddenly raised an arm and sent a punishing blast of plasma energy which devestated the horde. Their numbers were now fewer and so it would be harder for them to bother her.

This delay has likely given {Casimir} time to plan an offensive. Cassandra thought. In the limited time between now and then, she quickly prepared to bombard any further insects before they got to her. They are an unexceptable distraction. In a real fight it would cost possibly fatal time to deal with.

[Finland SSR]

10 Years Ago

Back when Floyd was not yet Great

---

It took him lots of effort, listening in on strangers and plenty of Googling, but the teenage hero Point-Blank was finally able to dissect the root of the mystery plaguing the city of Fresno for the last few months. Who was behind the series of mysterious kidnappings, all happening in the light of the day with no traces of who it could have been, and which terrorized the population of the town? And it was none other than this British boy, who knew America little and Fresno even less, who uncovered the veil in his apartment, with some serious luck involved, of course - it was a murder cult. A superhuman murder cult.

Reactions to the beginning of the age of superhumans were as varied as the colors of the rainbow. Some embraced it, others feared it. A tiny minority, meanwhile, took to the mystical. Building cults around this new subspecies, calling them everything from descended angels to crawling demons. Floyd was well aware of this minority from the earliest days - his home city, Birmingham, was and still is frequently visited by the "Cult of Steel", declaring that Captain Steel was not just a superhero who saved the United Kingdom in World War II, but actually a manifestation of God, and the current British heroes like Lady Pentagon or Reactor are his angels, sent to maintain order and the British way. What can you say? Crazies.

This cult, meanwhile, named "the Eye of Liberty", was a whole different beast. They are a group of zealots who believe that all these superhumans popping around actually acquired their powers through sacrificing virgins and pacts with the Devil, and so they want to repeat that and grant themselves powers the only way the know how. By throwing virgins into a bottomless pit, hoping that God hears them and gives them the power they desire. According to them, the famous Liberty was the first to do this, and supposedly, they even know the name of the person she threw into Crater Lake to acquire Satan's blessing. Floyd couldn't even believe it at first. How could someone be so deep into insanity? But this is a massive world, with seven billion of us, and among those seven billion, who says that you can't find fifty of sixty who are completely nuts?

Sneaking into the designated three-story unattractive brick building, armed with only his bright white superhero suit, a trusty steel baton and a lot of guts, Floyd began to descend down the deep depths of the building's cellar - according to Deep Web information, this building once used to be a wine cellar and a pub before it got closed down during the economic crisis and abandoned, so it makes sense that it would have an extensive basement. The young hero knew well that this mission was the most dangerous in his life so far, and that's what made him excited - finally, he will have his big hero debut! After abandoning his studies in Thomson High out of sheer anger at the system, Floyd, with the alias Point-Blank, became a vigilante hero, but so far, his career was only riddled with failure. Any encounter with a supervillain would end badly for him and he knew that, and while he could deal with simple thugs or thieves, he was pretty sure that anyone with a baseball bat and a flashy suit could do all he has achieved...

Sure, Churchill once said that success is going failure from failure without enthusiasm, and Floyd certainly did his best to keep his enthusiasm up, but he could only tolerate so many bleeding noses and painful knock-outs. It's all because of his power. His power is awful. You couldn't beat a kid with it, not to mention an adult human.

The first few floors of the cellar were peaceful, the only notable thing there being lots of broken and empty wine barrels. Nobody bothered to clean them up... The lower he went, however, the more creepy it all started to get. The rooms got tighter, only having enough room for a narrow path and a few shelves of bottles, eliminating all potential sources of hiding. Meanwhile, the tiled floor started getting splats and pools of blood, knocked out teeth, and so on.

And a disgusting stench. Imagine tainted wine and beer mixed with blood and an overall humid environment. Floyd had to turn off his sense of scent completely just to cope, but even then, he felt an awful feeling in his gut. As he descended down a yet another wooden staircase, he finally heard an another human being - a small group of them, as his hearing implied, gathered a few floors below. That must be the heart of this conspiracy. The plan was simple - if it's clear that these people are up to no good, leap in and beat the crap out of them. After all, if they're seeking to gain superpowers, they probably don't have them... so it shouldn't be too hard.

Leaning behind a wall, next to a shelf of brandy bottles to the left and a wooden staircase to the right, Point-Blank pulled out his baton and turned off a bunch of unnecessary senses, leaving him with enhanced hearing and sight, then began carefully peeking his head out to check. And it was all of the worst things he could imagine. The lowest floor of this cellar had been extensively expanded, with all alcohol and shelves removed, and a wide gaping pit had been dug out in the center. Around it were a bunch of hooded figures, none of whom Floyd could recognize, obviously, and a chained, struggling young woman. Her mouth was closed shut with a towel wrapped around her jaw, leaving her only able to moan and grunt as she was slowly pushed towards the pit.

"Our light in the darkness, bringer of free will, take these gifts in exchange for a bit of your power," one of the hooded men spoke in a monotonous voice, something you'd expect to hear in a church. "To inform you to grant the power of flight to our brothers... take this."

A bird's feather was thrown into the pit.

"And as for the soul to sacrifice in exchange for your power..." A bunch of Latin words Floyd couldn't understand followed.

Bollocks, they're going to throw that woman!

If he didn't intervene now, he'd have the blood of an innocent person on his hands... but then again, there were at least six of those cultists gathered around the pit, a fight would not be in his favor. Regardless, Floyd stepped forward, taking the first step down the stairs. Then his brain caught up and immediately got him to pull back against the wall - however, this brief moment of bravado was enough for the wooden staircase to shriek, and the cultists stopped the ceremony.

"Brothers, we are being watched."

Floyd's ears caught the sound of a pistol getting cocked. Cunts... So they have a weapon after all. There was no other option but to fight, though. He could run away before the men caught up to him, in theory, but that would be the complete opposite of heroic. And this was supposed to be his big hero reveal, too...

What's the worst that could happen? I have a superpower, they don't. They have a gun, but I can... scare them, or maybe deflect those bullets in mid air... Just like Griffith does!

With a sudden surge of bravery, or maybe just sheer stupidity, Floyd descended down the stairs and exclaimed as loud as he could:

"Stop this at once!!"

"Who is this?" one of the cultists spoke in a raspy voice.

"You are about to face off against the hero, Point-Blank! The vigilante with perfect precision, who is going to take you into a world of pain!"

With a quick low start, Floyd rushed forward, running towards the hooded man with a baton in hand. His mind already laid down an idea how this is going to go - he'll smack that gun off the cultist's hands and go on a massive brawl, beat these cunts one on one and walk out with the rescued woman in his hands into police sirens...

Bang.

Blood squirted out of Floyd's shoulder and the young hero immediately got blown back by the impact, crashing to the floor.

---

Floyd would wake up a few days later, and not in Heaven or Hell, but in the Fresno public hospital. As it turns out, the Los Angeles Stars had been on the trail of the cult for a good few weeks, and mere hours after Floyd was shot and thrown to the side, assumed to be a corpse, the superhero team broke in and easily swept through the opposition.

Outside of appearing in the news for a split second, being carried to the hospital alongside the starved victims pulled out of the bottom of the pit, Floyd was completely unknown to the news or the heroes. He, his struggle, his hopes and dreams were nothing but a casualty captured on shaky cam for 80 milliseconds.

The winners of the superpower lottery were saving the loser, again.

Floyd was sent home after a brief surgery and a few weeks of rest, but the pain of the shot echoed in his mind and body for years to come.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

Amir Zairi
For the most part of the trip, I spent my time sleeping on the slow, gentle sways of the airplane. Others might having a hard time sleeping with that, but for some reasons it lulled me to slumber all along the way. The last thing I remembered of the trip was when Alexis and Kiris debating which movie to watch, and one of them screamed heresy. Afterwards my vision got blurry and when everything cleared up again, I could see the lush forest and green fields surrounding our plane.

I stepped outside the plane and covered my eyes as the sunshine blinded my eyes. There are times when I am quite sure I have a vampiric ancestor or something when this happen. I scrubbed my eyes a few times before I opened my eyes and looked at the island.

Naja didn't tell us anything about training on an island resort, so it quite surprised me. I spent a few minutes gawking at the green, dense forest and the majestic mountain in the background. I lost the track of time for awhile and before I realized it, everyone had gone sparring with each other. I tried to look around for somebody to spar with, but it seemed that everyone already got their pairs. Where the hell is Red anyway? I wouldn't mind sparring with him rather than standing around doing nothing.

Luckily, I saw a girl still hadn't got her sparring friend and tried to ask her. She 8one of the new member from the zoo, so it would also be a good time to introduce myself.

"Hey, you're Alice right?" I patted her back. "I don't think we have been introduced properly. My name is Amir. Have you got a friend to train with yet?"

Alice paused, then nodded. This would probably be a great chance to meet and get to know a member of the team. She would have to try her best not to be too awkward and nerdy around him, as he would likely be her gateway to the rest of the group and to generally fitting in.

Though, then again, he doesn't seem especially un-nerdy. She thought. At least it's not that ice lady. I have a feeling she would give me the cold shoulder.

"Um. No, but I'm guessing you want to train with me." She replied. "Amir... right? I think? Anyway you can... go first I guess. I guess that's how this should work... right?" She didn't exactly stutter, but she did seem uncertain and talked with an incredibly fast and frantic pace.

Amir Zairi
"Alright then," I replied to Alice, adding a small courtesy smile. I rolled the sleeves of my jacket. Not out of any fashion statement, but rather to put my pair of gauntlets to view. If the last brawl in that zoo taught me anything, it's that you can never be to prepared. Relying merely on rune-scrolls and basic enchanted object would limit me to prepare only for threats I have advance knowledge of. I could not really afford that. As that one person says, "you never now what's gonna come through that door. That's why I prepared these gauntlets.

I distanced myself from Alice and stood some fifty feet away opposite of her, giving her and myself some room for mobility. I waited until she looked ready, and I asked her one last time for a confirmation. "You ready girl? Let's start in count of three, alright. One," I twisted my wrist around, "two," I shouted at her and pooled my energy on my palm, "three!"

With the last shout, I activated the gauntlet, projecting a sigil right in front of Alice. Light based runes are, complicated, in a way. They are as strong as any other kind of runes, but a lot more delicate and at times unpredictable. Etching the ground would produce a more reliable result, but I was aiming for fast and flashy, and these runes would be adequate. I reached out with my magic along with the light that was projected on the ground, flaring it up into a burst of light and kinetic force, sending dirt and grasses flying everywhere.

I watched intently for the new girl's next move. The aftermath of the explosion left my eyed blurry with the afterglow of the magical energy and floating dusts. I could see her silhouette with my glasses though, and my left hand readied itself on the hilt of my sword. Damn, I wasn't sure what to expect from Alice. I was just hoping her powerset was not something that would turn this into a curb-stomp battle.