Young Bloods(IC, Reboot Open)

[Galnius]

Dan 1
Lisette responded predictably to Dan's little word play, letting the immature man know that he had indeed determined the prudish part of her personality to be correct. However, she also proved to be sensical when she asked what should we gain from being bait. This irked him some as he wasn't accustomed to people defying him, but they did run in similar social circles. Perhaps, he thought, he should stop looking down on her as hard as he was. Sure, she seemed like she had fun by watching paint dry, but her style wasn't too bad and she had shown up to the party. Maybe she just needed a little push in the right direction.

"Tell you what", he said slyly. "I may just have something. I was saving it for the Outriders, but considering only one or two showed up I have a good amount to spare. See, I have five tickets to the upcoming NASL tournament. Full passes, of course. And a few suites rented out. However, I could understand if you don't want to. You act as if the only time you leave the house is if your parents force you too, and I wouldn't want to take you away from whipping servant boys or whatever you do in your spare time. Maybe having them whip you....? Oh well, I can't really offer you money so that's what I'll put on the table for now. Tell you what, I won't even have you be bait until after the tournament. Wouldn't want you to go missing if I fail to save you yeah? Then another of these tickets would go too waste. I can only be in a few places at once, after all."

Dan Alpha
Dan was geniunely insulted. No powers? They didn't see him just split or come out of nowhere? "Well I never...I have powers!" To prove this demonstration, he split two more times, putting him effectively in five places at once. Of course two aren't around, but still. "See?", began Dan Alpha.

Dan A continued with a second point, with the other Dan's nodding in agreement. "Anyway, rich is a power by all rights. I have information, secret bases, guards, supplies, and can buy off police. Can you buy off police? Didn't think so."

The third Dan, who preferred to be called Dan First, brought up another point. "That, and unlike these idiots and many you know, I am actually charming, which means I can get into places."

"Oh you're the charming one?" countered Dan Alpha. "The guy who had to buy out a girl to avoid a lawsuit for calling her a hefty bag?"

"I called her dress a hefty bag, actually. It's not my fault she was sensitive about her weight." The argument escalated between the two, with Dan A rolling his eyes. Dan and Dan were so immature. They might scare away the Outriders!

[Aidannadia]

Alcyone rapped on the door hurriedly. "Aleta! You insolent whelp! Give me the syringe!"

"No, you old hag." Aleta cupped the shot of foul liquid in her palm. This hell of a life could finally be over. She wouldn't have to deal with Auntie's rules, or the feelings of guilt she had for her father not being around. After all, all those years being sick, it must have taken a toll on the man. She must be somewhat responsible for his passing. As the knocks on the door became more frantic, Aleta's expression hardened. "I'm staying in here and I'm not coming out!"

The beating on the door stopped. The air was quiet. A small hmph could be heard from the other sides, and then words began to slither underneath the door. "You know what? Do it. It'll save me a lot of trouble." Aleta was shocked, and became belligerent in the face of the words.

"What did you say to your adoptive daugh-"

"You're hardly flesh and blood with that rat father of yours. He was always trouble. If your mother had listened to me, you would have never been born anyway." The words slided off Alcyone's tongue with a cruel tone. "And she passed in childbirth, having you? What a disappointment. You even went on to kill your father. It might be best for you to stick that syringe inside yourself for all I care. Finally breed out the weakness in the family line. Maybe then I can start over with a clone that was never so small and wimpy to begin with. Cloning tech has gotten so advanced nowadays, yknow?"

Aleta was shaken to her core. To hear these words... she might just be better off....

---

Beep. Boop. Beep. Boop.

Lights blinding in her eyes, Aleta struggled to make sense of the world.

"What-" She coughed heavily, feeling a sharp pain in her chest. A tsk could be heard from somewhere beyond the lights.

"That'd be the broken ribs. I might be accelerating the healing process, but I'm not a miracle worker, yknow?" Aleta recognized the voice of her Aunt.

"What am I doing here?"

"Oh, you suffered quite the bout. News thinks you might have died after the wounds you sustained, but I had the Chaffeur pick you up before you were able to bleed out."

Aleta could hear the words, but they didn't match up in her head. For so long, she had divided her life in two, using and thinking different names for people in different places that the idea of her worlds crashing was delayed for a good few minutes, but when the weight of that realization came crashing down, it hit her just as hard as the pain shooting up her arm. "Fuck!"

Tsk, tsk, tsk

"The arm was shattered. There'll likely be nerve damage, but it'll survive. Unfortunately, it looks like my hypothesis is correct; You are immune to the medicine I'm applying for the pain. It's honestly a miracle you've been out this long. Otherwise, I might never have been able to do the reconstruction that I've done already." Alcyone purred. Clinking could be heard, and Aleta turned her head to see blood being cleaing from gloved hands.

"How long?" Aleta managed to cough out.

"A day or so. I've kept you in my laboratory to keep your identity a secret, so no worries on that end." Aleta gave a pained sigh of relief, and relaxed.

"How long- you've known."

Tsk tsk "Not long. You're have remarkable guile, but I had my suspicions. Looks like you're your mother's daughter after all."

"My mother... What?" The lights went dark once more, and Aleta went back out cold.

[Absolon-7]

Wyatt, Sept 12

Alexis

Mars, Roy, Angelica

Casimir Herman September 12th
He nodded along to Wyatt's approval of the sparring idea and it was especially convenient as Wyatt wanted to test his past month of training as well. There were things about Wyatt that would make it difficult most notably his ability to fly but also his terrakinesis and seeing as most of the island was undeveloped he had plenty of ammo. He wouldn't just have to pay attention to how Wyatt fought either as he also had to pay attention to his very self. Figuring out where he was sloppy would be crucial for correction if he wanted to beat those NASL heroes to make a name for himself. He couldn't afford any half-assed measures in his fighting ability. The prospect was exciting if he had to be honest but he could sympathize with holding it off until breakfast was over. Not like he was finished either.

"Just the answer I was hoping for," grinned Casimir, "You know I'm really only used to hearing 'go out back' when I got into fights at school." In other news, Mars had thankfully taken his jest well and sat next to Casimir along with conversing with Roy, "Hey, Mars, you know how you love looking at all those replays from previous tourneys? Looks like this one you'll be able to look at yourself and the rest of us and see how cooler we are then those grown ups. Especially me of course."

Casimir was quickly finished with breakfast and began to leave but not before hearing Roy talk about plans for after the opening ceremony, Casimir snickered, "Too bad she can't let us off the hook for a drink or two this time. And if you don't mind me guys I'll be heading to the training grounds. If you hear any earthquakes or buildings exploding that'll just be me and Wyatt havin some fun."

Casimir would head over to the vast expanse of dry grass that was the team's training ground and he partook in some stretches to get warmed up. He was dressed in a plain white shirt and sweat pants which wouldn't be that much of a bother moving around. Now to just wait till the dra'qunni showed up.

Viviana Couture September 12th
Viviana gave a confused look at Quinn as the dog barked at Alexis depriving the girl of a chance of petting the soft ball of fluff. It seemed Casimir had quickly gotten food out for Quinn so Viviana resigned to stop petting and let him go eat his own breakfast. The small dog would scurry to the food devouring it in bite sized chunks. Viviana fast walked back to her seat to finish up but what caught her eye was Alexis serving herself ice-cream for breakfast and not just that but using waffles as slices for the ice cream sandwich. The sigh itself was mouth watering object of envy but she stopped herself from wanting as eating that along with the waffles she was finishing would not be good for her weight dagnabbit!

She resigned herself to finish her own waffles and listened in amusement at the NASL talk. It seemed Casi was going to get yet another fight but thankfully it was just a friendly sparring match with Wyatt. As he walked out her boyfriend ruffled her hair which prompted her to stick her tongue out at him. She ate another waffle piece before tapping her cheek with a finger but she pushed herself out her chair.

"Anyone want to take bets," she said with a grin, "I don't know with what though. Okay maybe not a good idea."

[The Republic of Atria]

Sina

Bael, Aug 8

"You can sit I'm pretty sure. As long as you're in the circle. I'm pretty sure you just won't get teleported if you're outside of it, but I'd rather not end up in a 'half of you got teleported but the other half didn't' scenario." He explained he finished up the runes exactly as Onu's book told him and carefully put it back. He had another copy of the instructions at his place so getting back wouldn't be much issue.

"What wards she put? I honestly have no idea. I just imagined some stuff to make the walls stronger, maybe the doorknob makes you forget why you were there or something. That'd be kinda funny. I think she said that the windows don't show what's happening inside, but that's pretty much some guesses. I don't think she put anything that zaps you since... Yeah, that would be weird." He said as he walked over and touched the rune, the symbols all blowing a bright neon blue for a moment before the pair was whisked away to the wondrous city.

They immediately reappeared about a foot off the ground of a tall building's roof. Bael fell and almost lost his balance. "...Dammit. It was SUPPOSED to put us in my room. At least it's the one I live in." He grumbled. "Whatever, it's not a big deal. Unlike back in San Diego, it's wholly expected that that you go on tops of buildings. Also, Welcome to N'Toak!" He said with a rather jovial tone and motioned towards the big beautiful city.

One could easily spot many other Dra'Qunni flying around the city in the distance. The buildings looking clean, well maintained and sleek. "So... Unfortunately, I don't have any us money." He could ask his "dad" for some, but he still wasn't completely sure how he felt about the man yet. "We could go get some food and fly around to look for something within the "free" price range." He suggested. "I think the humans and us are doing some sort of peace meet thing today."

Bael, Sept 12

Casimir was more than happy at his acceptance, even bringing up the fact that when he heard "go out back" it was because he was getting into fights at school. "I... Never really got into fights." He got picked on a lot, but as far as he could remember he never really got too physical with anyone. Even though he really wanted to. And with summer vacation ending, he'd been thinking about just dropping out of high school. Sure he could go back and probably coast by pretty easily, especially now that he got his confidence back and superpowers to go with it.

But he'd also be boring old Wyatt Sutherland instead of Bael Da'Chataka... That was an idea. Coming clean? Or maybe just show up and pretend Wyatt never existed? It was something he thought about as he scarfed down the rest of his food and grabbed his loincloth from his room.He caught himself in the mirror for a moment and he swore he looked just like his human glamour. Which was odd because he didn't even have Alexis's hologuise with him at the moment, nor did he actually cast the glamour spell.

A few blinks and the reflection of his normal scaly self was all that met him. He shook it off and made his way out to see his Polish opponent already there and getting warmed up. "Alright so how do you want to do this? First to say uncle or surrender or something? Or are we doing some sort of arena rules?" He asked stopping across from Casimir and readied himself for a fight. All the reflexes from sparring with Kaban and Orro came flooding back and his tail shot straight up in response.

"Ready when you are."

[Auropa]

Mike Mathews
Wonder Tower Kitchen, September 12th

Barely surviving the intense burning as it was, Mike didn’t hesitate to take the water Mizu offered and gulp it down. When the pain had finally numbed enough for him to regain feeling in his face, he couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“You know, I can’t deny that I'm feeling more awake now. Though next time, I think I’ll keep to coffee.” He added as he grabbed his own prepared breakfast, split across two plates was his own assortment of pancakes and waffles practically buried under their own variety of toppings. It wasn’t exactly healthy (or even close to it) but he figured that’s what the fruit covering would at least partially hide.
“Wish I thought of the chili idea, could’ve given these a bit more kick.” He said jokingly as he passed one to Mizu, keeping the other for himself.

Looking around the room he could see the kitchen coming to life as more and more from the team steadily entered in. He felt a little guilty about still not knowing most of the newcomers but figuring out his new powers, trying to train up with his team and just getting ready for school again had all been huge drains on his time these last few weeks.

“Kinky.” He joked through a mouthful of food as he overheard Cas leaving to ‘have fun with Wyatt’. Taking the time to chew the mountain of food in his mouth, his mind began to wonder. Eventually, it settled back on the tournament, specifically what it could, or even should, mean for them along with all the different things that could go wrong for the team.
“Hey Mizu, how are you feeling about being in the tournament?”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sigil Sevens
Wonder Tower, September 12th

“Well then...” Naja said a little hesitantly. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

“I am Synthetic Integrated Guardian Unit L7 dash 772. I was created by the SIG brain trust and developed for the purposes of providing a reliable, cost effective option against modern terrestrial and known alien threats. My power source is currently a mark 4 fusion drive approximated at 4 more viable years of operation before dropping under 70% efficiency. The currently equipped chassis’ yield and deformation levels are below 12% and is still resilient to direct forceful impacts of-“

The carefree robot that had been happily running its diagnostics in front of Naja, was Sigil. Claiming to have recently returned from a journey around the globe, the robot was found during the Warwolf raid by one of the many hero teams united in the recent battle. Apparently, Sigil had tried to inform a Warwolf force that they had tripple parked and forgotten to pay the meter fee, unsurprisingly, a fight broke out. By the time the heroes arrived to intercept what they thought would be another patrol, they found 8 unconscious soldiers carefully placed across a few nearby benches and draped under a few blankets, beside them, a hand written letter of apology detailing the new parking location of their vehicle and its keys. Following it up, the hereos came across the unexpected sight of Sigil waist deep in a nearby well hunting for coins. After helping the mysteriously friendly robot pay its parking fare and promising to take care of the APC, they took him into their custody. Now, several weeks later, Sigil had been led to Naja and her youngbloods. After proving himself as a capable fighter and showing a borderline complete lack of social awareness, the hero teams agreed that he needed to be watched. The unanimous result was to leave him with the snake heroine.

“-is made from AISI2304 stainless steel of admittedly unknown origin. This frame consists of 8340 individually monitorable pieces and is capable of self-maintenance, field repairs and material acclimation should the-“

“Sigil!” Naja finally said as she forcefully put down the hobbled 'user-guide' of a personality report the others left with her “While I appreciate you being thorough. I already know what I need to about your… specifications. What I want to know is more about you, as an individual. What drives you?”

“…………My legs? Correction. I was driven here in car, a plane before that, another car before that and a boat before that, each with intervals of this chasis’ legs.” Sigil stated in an almost prideful and chirpy but still somehow monotone voice as it tried to answer its new friends’ question before lowering its head slightly as a new thought crossed it.
“Althought, in terms of time, my legs have a clear 72.23% majority over all other considerable options but in terms of distance driven, that falls to only 38.41%... Is this perhaps a more acceptable response Ms.Naja?” Sigil asked as its head slightly tilted to better observe and record the snake woman’s features.

After a brief and mostly suppressed sigh, Naja continued on undeterred “As interesting as that is, I was thinking a bit more on the emotional side of things. How about, why did you agree to come here and why are you willing to work beside us?”

Apart from the occasional muffled click and whirl of his optics shifting and refocusing, the room fell silent as Sigil tried to formulate an answer to her question. “I like people.” It eventually answered, “I was made to fight, break and destroy. I choose to defend, help and protect instead.”

“And why is that?” Naja asked leaning forward ever so slightly at the robot’s first real sign of thought and emotion.

“People... do not know their purpose. Without direction a machine shuts down, yet you choose to make your own. I do not understand it, but I admire its chaotic beauty and I have seen the goodness that can come from it. And that goodness is something I would very much like to protect and learn from… Does this better answer your query Ms.Naja?”

“It most certainly does Sigil.” Naja said with renewed energy. “Now, I don’t want to sound be discouraging but being a part of the team means having to fight. And a lot of the time we need to fight some of the worst kinds of people. Are you sure you’d be up for this?”

Catching her by surprise, Sigil didn’t so much as hesitate before giving his answer “I have seen people with nothing try to share and those with everything continue to take.” he said with his eye locked onto Naja.
“I know there is bad, but there will always good too. People seem to not often forget this. When they do, they lash out, become bad. When someone is bad, they can be dangerous to others and themselves. My creators were turned bad and I had to fight to escape. I am sad I could not help them but I do not regret my actions. I stopped them from making me, not me and something bad instead. Ms.Naja, I do not enjoy violence but I understand that sometimes there is no other choice and in those times I am ready to defend what I believe is right.”

“Well then.” Naja said with a warm smile “Welcome to the YoungBloods.”

“Exciting” Sigil said as a shower of 8bit confetti and disco lights adorned his dimly lit central screen.

[Finland SSR]

Mike Mathews
Wonder Tower Kitchen, September 12th

Mizuma Ishiwara, the trickstery Selene!

September 12th

---

Hearing Mike confirm her guess, the purple-haired girl giggled a bit and picked up a waffle from his plate, immediately starting to nibble on it. After the spicy chili from earlier, having something sweet was definitely on her mind. Mizu took a glance towards the rest of the room, watching more and more of her teammates step in to the kitchen, have breakfast and plan out training spars before they have to head out for New York, then turned her attention towards Mike when he asked about her feelings about the tournament. The girl gulped, downing a bite of her waffle, and her expression turned sour.

"I-I don't know..." she responded, looking down to the floor. "I mean, it's amazing that I'll be participating in an event like this, but... the Leagues are all about spectacle fights, and I'm not really cut out for that..."

Mizu's eyes turned towards Casimir and Wyatt, the two physical powerhouses of the team, walking out of the kitchen after having agreed on a spar. "Besides... Only six people can be on any given team in a League match, and there's over twenty of us. When we have to figure out our team, they're gonna pick powerhouses like Roy, Wyatt or Casimir, not me."

---

Bael, Aug 8

The Mad Lass, Sina As'tari!

August 8th

---

Thankfully, the wait for Bael to prepare the rune did not take that long, and it all got spent listening to him explaining all that he knew about this house's wards and how they could be working. Sina scratched her head thinking about the idea of the doorknob making why they were there, though. If the house was still there, then wouldn't the person forgetting just see the door again and try opening it again?.. Regardless, Bael quickly completed the rune and a jet of light rose from the complex drawings, and once the Dra'Quinni opened her eyes, she saw herself plopping down on the rooftop of a towering skyscraper in a completely unfamiliar city.

Bael's words meshed with the background, the vigilante immediately running to the edge of the roof and leaning over the railing. The panorama of the city was breathtaking, all the spires and skyscrapers which looked like they were built to get jumped off were eluding, and hundreds upon hundreds of fellow Dra'Quinni anywhere you look was unimaginable.

"This... this looks amazing!" Sina yelled out, her tail moving excitedly while her eyes were glued to the panoramic sight. Bael was saying something about not having any money and that there was some sort of a "peace meet" happening today - the vigilante did not even offer him a glance.

"Who cares?! I gotta go down, see this up close! And talk to people!" she declared, leaping over the railing and jumping off the roof.

---

Dan Alpha

The Mad Lass, Sina As'tari!

August 6th

---

Sina watched Dan showcase his superpowers with sparkling, gleaming eyes. The man could not only warp the fabric of reality, but also duplicate himself numerous times, each time with a separate personality! Imagine how useful that would be in battle! They could double their numbers through all of these Dan clones!

Isaac, on the other hand, was far less enthusiastic. Only his well worn power of sticking through all the hardships of life was keeping him away from sticking the barrel of his pistol into his own mouth. With nothing else left to do, the Bolivian vigilante suddenly pushed Nick's unconscious body into Sina's grasp.

"H-huh?.." the Dra'Quinni muttered in surprise, watching Isaac release a defeated sigh.

"Yeah. This is just great. Half of our team's dead or gone and the replacement is a guy who's so 'intelligent' that he qualifies for disabled parking spaces. What a fucking treat to deal with, ain't it?"

"...Where are you going with this?"

Another defeated sigh from Isaac's side. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me, Sina - and you, too. Fuck it, I'm leaving."

"What?!"

Isaac wasn't bluffing. He shoved his pistol back into his pocket, turned around, and started heading towards the exit out of the basement. Sina's eyes followed him for a few seconds, before she finally called out:

"You mean leaving this basement, right?"

"I mean that I should have left when Vendetta died, Sina," Isaac's response flew back at her immediately, the Bolivian vigilante offering her a brief glare. "This team was her idea, not any of ours. See what's been happening to this team ever since Four Roses? Yeah, it's telling us that there's no point in continuing without her."

"But..."

Sina remained where she stood, her hand weakly reaching towards the departing Isaac, then finally dropping down. "Don't... Don't leave..."

[Union Princes]

Fahcelkel
Pre Time Skip

Arin thought about Mika’s proposal for a slumber party. It seemed childish at first but she is reminded of her own loneliness as a kid and took pity on Mika. “Sure,” Arin agreed though she still sounded hesitant.

“When do you want to start the slumber party?” the redhead asks, “I’ll have to tell my dad about it.”

Time Skip

“Alright, this is it. Here we are again.” Arin’s father announced as he pulled the car over in front of the base of the Young Bloods, Arin’s new home. “Last chance, are you sure you got everything you need?”

“Yup.” she responded as she got out of her car with her suitcase and backpack.

“I know you don’t like me lecturing you about responsibility with boys and money just as much you don’t like lecturing me about smoking and beer…” Her dad rambled on, “So I’m gonna cut to the chase: this is a dangerous job. Even more so than mine…

“I know, dad.” Arin groaned.

“It sure was a fast two days since your interview.” he mumbled. “I’ll visit you when I can. Maybe bring Barney along too.”

“Thanks, dad.” She smiled. “I’ll also try to visit home sometime.”

As the pair said their goodbyes, Arin’s father made one last remark.

“If your new pals have an engineer or some sort of supergenius, tell them to get you a flamethrower.” he said with a smirk as he put on his sunglasses. “It’ll suit you powers. And try not to burn the whole place down.”

---

Arin wished her father gave her that lecture. It was a whole new environment to get used to. Since she was the only new fresh recruit, there wasn’t really someone that shared the same boat with her. Arin also wished for Mika to be here too. Just to have a familiar face around.

The weeks of training were very demanding for a first-timer like her. After being put under the leadership of Wyatt, Arin was trained to near exhaustion learning how to tackle, grapple, and restraint her opponents. She could only wonder how painful it would be to take down real opponents.

Now, she was fighting Renata, a superhero who is as slippery as an eel coated in oil. Arin was bewildered as to why she couldn’t catch her no matter how she fast she lunged. Renata meanwhile was puzzled on why Arin wasn’t using her powers.

“I am using my powers..” Arin pants, “When I catch you, of course! I just don’t want to hurt you too badly.”

[The Republic of Atria]

Sina

Bael Aug, 8

He smiled a bit at Sina's reaction. She seemed about as impressed and excited as he was when he first arrived. Though unlike him, she wanted to see all of it as soon as possible. Of course rather than pace herself and pick a few places to go look at first, she jumped off the edge as she is want to do and darted around to go look at things. Of course this was completely opposed to the nice day of maybe trying to find a museum or something. Not that she would sit still for longer than 5 minutes to actually learn anything, but still.

He didn't want her to get lost or worse, leave a hyperactive and violent woman in a place she's never been before and get herself into trouble in the process. She probably wouldn't go that far... Probably. He just had to catch her, which would've been extremely difficult in and of itself, but she had a small head start and probably some level of insanity on her side. What did I get myself into... He sighed internally, jumped off the building, and spread his wings in pursuit of his crazy friend. "Sina!" He called out. It was unlikely she heard him with both the distance and the noise of the wind.

Why were all of his friends so annoyingly high strung?

[Finland SSR]

Fahcelkel

Renata Martinez, the heroic Stella!

September 12th

---

Out of all the answers which Arin could have given Renata, she managed to give the one most surprising. She already was using her powers! Or, more specifically, she would be using her powers, if she managed to catch her opponent with one of her many slaps and grapples. Not that powers which activate upon touch were unheard of, but... usually, they give at least some sort of visual indication of being active. Say, a person with the ability to set his fists on fire having fists of fire. Just an example.

"Well, if so, then I've been making the right call..." Renata muttered under her breath. Seeing as her strategy always revolved getting out of range and blasting her opponent, the fact that she had been denying Arin the use of her powers during the whole match was very reassuring... Before Renata could open fire nor Arin could try attacking again, however, a buzz loudly above both of their heads. The match was over, the time until they have to depart for New York was ticking...

Renata had already had breakfast and packed all of her bags, she started as early as six, but she didn't know whether Arin was as prepared as she was, so she opted to concede. "Guess that's gonna be it for today, then." The pink-haired girl stepped out of the ring, making her way to a nearby counter and taking out a few pills from her purse.

"How are you doing in that little head of yours, Arin, by the way? Not... anxious or anything? You've only barely joined and you'll already get tossed to the League." As soon as Renata finished her question, she downed her pills with a glass of water.

---

Bael Aug, 8

The Mad Lass, Sina As'tari!

August 8th

---

A faint voice reached Sina's ears from the distance behind her - the average person might have missed it in between all the wind, but Sina had enough experience as a hunter to know that even the faintest sound might lead to something terrible. In this case, it was just Bael, leaping off the building right after her and calling out to her.

Of course he's going to try to stop her, or at least go after her. It would have been weirder if he chose to simply let Sina get away scot free. Which is when a sinister plan built itself up in her mind. The Dra'Quinni vigilante suddenly stopped and spread her wings as a makeshift parachute, coming to a screeching halt and watching Bael fly past her less than a second later from sheer inertia.

"Bael!! Where are you going?! You can't just jump off without waiting for me!" Sina yelled out, being the one to go after her peer this time, then started laughing heartily.

[Tomia]

Mars, September 12th
"Ya, its going to be surreal", Mars said to Casimir as they finished eating. Meanwhile he heard Roy chuckle at the bug hero's comment before he headed off for practice. "Hopefully Casimir and Wyatt don't over do it. We're going to need them both to be healthy for the tournament." He commented openly, as Viv asked if people wanted to take bets.

That afternoon
A few hours later, Naja was ferrying everyone onto the team jet, having gone room by room to make sure everyone was packed with their equipment and a few days worth of clothes. Roy took a bit longer to pack than usually, since he had to make sure Quinn was packed for as well. Fairly on time however, the two strolled onto the plane, Quinn in Roy's arms as the squad leader took a window seat near the front, expecting Wendy to join them.

Similarly Angelica, who had already been packed when she arrived, got there fairly early and was waiting for Alexis in a seat towards the back. Mars however, didn't really know where he should sit. It wasn't that he didn't have friends he would sit with, it was just that he was still readjusting to not doing things side by side with Kiris. The two had been together at the hip for over a month and it was strange not having her around. So ultimately he just sat down in a middle row next to the window, figuring he'd sit by himself if no one joined.

Once everyone was inside and ready to go, Naja made an announcement from the front of the plane.

"Alright everyone, this will be about a 3 hour plane ride so get comfortable. This plane is heavy enough so please no arm wrestling to pass the time." She said, pointedly looking at Casimir and Wyatt.

With that done the pilot prepared for take off and Angelica buckled her seat belt. "Want to watch a movie? I downloaded some to my laptop for the flight." She said to her girlfriend, taking out her laptop from her bag.

[Finland SSR]

Marina Collazo, Ecuador's finest!
Icarus Sarantos, the heroic Blackout!

August 10th

---

Marina's legs fidgeted a little as she looked from side to side, observing both sides of the path by which a series of public chess tables stood, including her own. It's been a while and the person she had been looking for still hasn't showed up, so... Did she make a mistake somewhere, or miscalculate? Or simply didn't guess correctly - after all, people can be so unpredictable sometimes. She might have gotten up from her seat and departed before some unwanted passersby challenged her to a duel, but...

Suddenly, the blonde Bakeneko stood up, marching past the chess tables, her eyes locked upon a familiar blonde mane in the distance. Well, familiar to her, likely not the other way around.

"Hey! Mister!" Marina called out, waving her hand, her feline ears twitching ever so slightly. "Mister! Would you like to go for a game of chess?"

Puzzled, the young man looked up from his phone and glanced around before ascertaining the source of the voice calling out to him, spotting an attractive blonde woman with cat ears sticking out of her hair - he would've raised an eyebrow at this, but really, who had time to be surprised nowadays? His best friend was teaming up with an alien and a dragon, cat people were hardly more shocking.

"Uh... me?" He mumbled, half to himself, before looking around. Indeed, he was the only one nearby and she was looking straight at him, so that answered that - there was really no way she was making a mistake there.

Hmm... is she... a fan? No, I don't think she is. He mused. The media would happily eat up the story of how a new member of the Los Angeles Stars came to be, of course, but he hadn't even had his debut yet. Donovan had made it very explicit that Icarus wouldn't be allowed to operate openly until it was absolutely certain he would avoid screwing up and behave in front of the cameras.

So then... who are you?

Despite his doubts, he outwardly reacted with a smile and a nod - after all, there was always the chance that this was just some bored lady with bad luck in finding chess partners. He just hoped the marks across his face wouldn't scare her off.

"Sure, I have a bit of time to spare." He replied kindly, before walking with her to the nearest table. "So, blacks or whites?"

Hearing the blonde boy's response, Marina's face immediately struck a grin and followed it up with an enthusiastic nod. "Yes, thank you!" she exclaimed, following after her soon-to-be chess opponent to one of the unoccupied tables by the path.

"I'll take whites, if that's fine with you," the Bakeneko answered and leapt at the seat, her expression and movements alike brimming with energy and enthusiasm. "I'm so glad you found the time to join in - it's been a few weeks since I've had to leave San Diego and I haven't had any luck in finding new friends here so far."

Marina's eyes grew slightly wider, staring at the teenage boy on the other side, while she picked up one of the white pawn pieces and fiddled it in her hand. Immediately, she noticed that... something had changed since her last observation of the vigilante. He didn't have those glowing marks before, did he? "You know what's been happening out in San Diego, right?.. The Warwolf occupation of the city, all the violence breaking out, heroes getting arrested, accused of crimes, clashing with law enforcement... Not a safe place for a super like myself, right?"

"Yeah. You made the right call moving here before something bad happened." The blond boy replied with a nod. He had been distracted tossing a black pawn up and down, smiling with amusement at how excited Marina seemed to have the chance to play with a complete stranger - and a teenager, at that! - and had thankfully missed her creepy wide-eyed stare, but now that she had mentioned Warwolf, his full attention was on her.

"I'm actually from San Diego, too - well, not exactly, but I had been living there until about a week ago. Things got... ugly." He said, holding back a sigh as he recalled the worst of what he had to go through during Warwolf's occupation. It still hurt to recall some of it, but... it was all in the past now. The boy shook his head and then looked at the board.

"It's your move, isn't it?"

"Ah, yeah, you're right."

Marina put down the chess piece in her hands, looked down at the board in front of her and moved her first pawn. The first turns of the chess match flew by while the woman internalized her target's response and planned out her next move.

"Before something bad happened, you say... Unfortunately, that wasn't the case," the blonde Bakeneko replied, her voice turning somber and mind quickly crafting a story. "I had a nephew back in San Diego. Not the most well off or hardest studying teen by any means, but a good soul and... a blast to have around sometimes. And then I wake up one morning to hear that he and a few of his friends got murdered by a violent vigilante in the streets. That's when I realized that I was no longer safe in that city."

Marina leaned forward ever so slightly, placing down a bishop threatening the center of Icarus's lines, and maintaining her stare. "...and then they just acquitted him of all crimes. Unbelievable... Even if the leaked footage of that night was real, it was still so irresponsible for him to only drop down after they killed my dear. Suspicious, perhaps... You must have heard of what happened, right? It was all over the news in San Diego."

"Your... nephew?"

Icarus froze in the midst of moving a pawn forward to defend his other pieces as he heard the cat-eared woman's story. To meet a relative of one of the people he had failed to save that night was very unexpected, and it wasn't exactly a pleasant surprise to have those old wounds pried open again, moreso when it seemed he was still blamed for their deaths. He could feel something amiss regarding her story, as well. Still, there was not a lot he could say, not without giving away his identity to this stranger, something that would undoubtedly cause more issues than it would solve.

"I see... I'm sorry." He spoke, finally completing his move and waiting for the woman to make the next. It was safe to say that at this point he wasn't very focused on the game. "I heard about it, yes. A vigilante called Blackout." He said.

"I heard he disappeared."

"Perhaps..." Marina muttered under her breath, resting her head on her hand. "He's not easy to break, isn't he?.." Despite that, the vigilante had said more than enough.

Marina did not linger onto her rhetorical question for long and made her move. Her pieces on the chess table continued the attack on Icarus's positions. "Would you look at that? We've talked about so much and we don't even know each other's names yet."

The blonde Bakeneko pressed her hand upon her chest. "Nice to meet you, my name is Marina. As for yours, well..."

Without waiting for the teenager to introduce himself, she continued. "I suppose you prefer Icarus to Blackout, don't you?"

Icarus frowned at this. "So you knew..." He muttered, calmly retaliating by capturing Marina's bishop. "Figures. It was too much of a coincidence that I'd meet the relative of one of those guys here... not to mention none of them had cat ears." He pointed out. Having made his move, the young man leaned back on his seat and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"So then, what's your angle here?" He asked in a decidedly unfriendly tone. "What do you want from me?"

"You're quite the clever boy..." Marina replied, the Midwestern accent in her speech vanishing instantly and getting replaced by a Hispanic one. What followed was the click of a pistol underneath the table.

"I'm from the National Intelligence Secretariat, Ecuador. Don't make any sudden movements - remember, we're just two migrants from San Diego sharing our life stories by the chess table." the blonde Bakeneko continued and moved her knight to continue forcing an attack on Icarus's center. "I'm sure a man with a mind like yours has already figured that out, too, but I'm here because you have been getting awfully close to the Caudillo's daughter as of late."

Marina twisted a lock of her hair with her fingers, constantly maintaining her stare. "And - I'll have to be honest with you, Icarus, you are making a grave mistake."

Icarus' scowl grew harsher still, and he narrowed his eyes as he heard the cat-eared woman - a spy, as it turned out - introduce herself as a member of an Ecuadorian intelligence agency, threatening him with a firearm in the same breath. The boy remained unfazed by this, however. So that's it... one of her father's cronies, then. I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later...

"I think I'll be the one to decide whether my relationship with Renata is a mistake or not, Marina." He said with little effort to cover his hostility, glaring at the bakaneko all the while. He didn't acknowledge Marina's move with her knight - the chess match was all but forgotten now as far as he was concerned, the boy complying with his opponent's request and making no further moves. "Is that everything?"

Despite getting told off, Marina seemed completely unfazed, keeping up her usual smile, then suddenly feigning surprise and placing her hand upon her chest, speaking:

"Oh, dear, Icarus, don't see me as a some sort of villain now! I could not bring myself to wound someone with such a pretty face... Someone with such potential, and such a long life ahead of them still..." The feigned surprise was quickly lost at the way's side, replaced by the Bakeneko with a sly smile.

"I'm not trying to threaten you, I'm trying to help you. After all..." Marina continued. "You know Renata very well, don't you? How she acts, what she is like... Imagine how a person like her would react to finding out that her love vanished without a trace. Would making her go through that beat a break-up and allowing her to move on?"

Those last few words were enough to make Icarus lose what little patience he still had to deal with this situation. The glow on the marks across his face and hands became just a little brighter as he continued to glare at the bakaneko; his eyes seemed to be affected as well.

"You ask me not to think poorly of you, claim that you've no intention to harm or threaten me... and then do it all the same. You'll have to forgive me if I don't put any stock in the words of a liar." He spat. "I don't know what action movie cliché you crawled out of, but you're going to have to come up with one hell of a threat if you want me to just abandon Renata after everything we've been through together."

Making a brief pause, the blond boy brought up his hand to place a mangled mess of metal on the table - Marina's gun, or what remained of it. "Now, I've no reason to continue listening to your nonsense. Throw everything you've got at me for all I care - I'm done breaking promises."

Standing up, Icarus flicked the white king, causing it to fall over, and then turned to leave.

The sight of her mangled weapon got Marina to flinch slightly, but, aside for that, the woman maintained her discipline at the face of Icarus's rebuttal. Losing her tranquilizer left the situation a little... problematic. Sure, she still had her Fox-Fire at hand, but knowing the abilities of the departing vigilante, any conflict between them would be far too much of a close call for her liking.

"You can call me a liar as much as you want, but remember that at least one thing I told you was true," the Bakeneko stated, trailing after the blonde teenager with her eyes. "That you are making a grave mistake."

If Icarus turned around, he'd see that both of the seats by the chess table were now empty - a small American curl leapt into the bushes of the park, vanishing into the foliage.

[The Republic of Atria]

Sina

He followed her, calling her name until he saw her reaction and slowed a bit at first to let him catch up. Of course he sped up his flying even more to close the gap as quickly as possible, but he underestimated just how skilled she was when it came to flying. From his perspective, it appeared she had stalled in the middle of the air while he shot right past her. He looked back to see that she wasn't falling, instead calling out to him, likely making fun of him for blowing right past her.

He sighed and smiled a bit. A harmless little prank. If that was the worst she was going to do then maybe his worries about bringing her into the city were more unfounded than he thought. Sina quickly caught up to him and he sighed a bit. "You got me pretty good there. I knew you were pretty good at flying but that was a pretty cool air brake maneuver you pulled." She was considerably lighter than he was, so it made sense that she could pull something like that off relatively easily. "If you ever get sick of the whole vigilante thing, I'm sure you could get into some professional flying team or something. I'm pretty sure that exists." He offered. He did hear about races that took place. Maybe they could enter and hopefully win some money?

"I've got two ideas. I already know which one you're going to pick, but I'm going to tell you both anyways in a tiny hope that you'll subvert my expectations. The first one was some sort of museum of history. It's free and we could always learn something about our own people. Or, the second one. I know there's some sort of flying tournament or race or something going on. We could go do that. Worst case scenario, we kill an hour or two. Best case, we win some money and can go eat."

[Bentus]

Voice
Midtown, San Diego

---

Standing in shock, Beverly’s mind struggled with what Steven was saying. It couldn’t be possible, and yet - they’d dealt with the impossible before, hadn’t they? The teacher’s aura didn’t given any indication that he was lying, but he’d always been good at hiding his feelings from her. And there was always the chance that he had simply lost it and actually believed what he was saying. But that wasn’t it, and Beverly knew it. She’d known Steven long enough to know that he wouldn’t have joked about something like this, not after she’d seen what Angie’s death had done to him. If it was true, then where had she been all this time? Why had she hidden away while they had mourned and grieved and moved on? Feeling unsteady on her feet, Beverly steadied herself on a table as she tried to take it all in.

Steven slumped into a chair, allowing the uneasy silence to hang between them as they shared the immense weight that seemed to have suddenly sprung into the air. Eventually, the man sighed and said three words that Beverly had hardly ever heard uttered from his mouth: he didn’t know. Glancing up, she looked to see her old friend with his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped as he allowed the stress and strain from the shock encounter to show. She felt a pang of empathy for him, understanding perhaps better than anyone else how he must have been feeling. And yet, he took a deep breath and turned to look her in they eye.

“...What do you need help with?”

The question caught Beverly by surprise. With Steven’s revelation, she had nearly forgotten why she had come in the first place. The thought struck her with a stab of guilt, but it also caused any words to get caught in her metaphorical throat. She’d come to get Steven’s help with Yoshiro and the Young Bloods, but when she stopped to think, what had she been hoping he’d do? The man was a genius, but what did he know about ancient telepaths and dealing with hostile beings possessing a young girl’s soul? What did he know about reaching into someone’s mind and pulling them to safety against the odds? What could he have done that she hadn’t already thought of?

Shifting uncomfortably, Beverly felt her shoulders slump. Damn it, Steven. I don’t know. She eventually said. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I told Naja that I could help, but I have no idea how. That thing is inside Yoshiro’s head and it knows that it’s holding all the cards. I met it after Naja told me, you know? And when I looked at its aura, whatever was left of Yoshiro just felt so incredibly weak and faint. Beverly’s mental tone was pained. I could get rid of it if I wanted, but it would kill the girl if I tried. And even if we got rid of it safely, I’m not even sure how much of her will be left for us to save.

She allowed the words to hang in the air, the realisation at the sense of hopelessness that had been eating at her weighing down just as much as the thought of Angie still somehow being alive. This had all been pointless. She hadn’t gained anything from coming back, and in fact had just been reminded why she had tried to cut herself off from any memories of her old team. Beverly needed to be focused, and this wasn’t helping.

Frowning, the telepath pushed herself to her feet. I’m sorry to have bothered you, Steven. I think coming here was a mistake. She stated plainly, turning to make her way towards the door. Pulling it open, she paused for a moment. Tell Angie that I said hi. I’m...glad that you found her again.

---

Lisette
Midtown, San Diego

---

Ignoring Daniel’s tangential musings, Lisette repressed the urge to gut the heir where he sat. Listening as he revealed his offer, the girl’s mouth twisted into an irritated frown and she folded her arms across her chest. “A full pass ticket?” She scoffed. “Is that really the best that you could come up with? I’m not some long-legged nobody that you can whoo with a cheap trinket like that. That might impress people closer to your level, but I could get my father to buy me one of those if I just asked him with a smile.” Lisette rolled her eyes, disappointed that it seemed like Daniel really was all talk and no show. “Plus, I’ve been to the tournament plenty of times. If that’s all you’re going to offer then forget about it.”

The wide grin on Daniel’s face, his certainty that he had the pretentious girl wrapped around his finger, faded in an instant. Frowning, he felt his hopes get dashed at her response, a slight feeling of indignity rising in his chest as his offer was so callously rejected. Well then, that didn’t work. There has to be something that she’d want. As Lisette turned to once again look outside the car’s window, confident that she was just wasting her time by talking to him, Daniel’s eyes fell upon her wrist. His eyes narrowed on her watch: the limited edition LA Stars face catching the street lights as they drove past. It was the kind of item that a kid might have worn, back when they were excited about toys and clothes plastered with cartoon characters and princesses. But it was a clue, and one which caused a light bulb to click in his head.

Biting his lip, Dan hesitated. It was a final trick that he’d been keeping up his sleeve, but he was sure that he could pull it off. He had the connections through his family’s business, and if he swooned the right people and offered compliments in the right directions...yes, he could do it.

“So, you’re a fan of the Stars then?”

Blinking in surprise as Daniel restarted the conversation, Lisette turned back to offer him another scowl. Eyeing his confident smirk with suspicion, she wondered what kind of game he was playing at. “Yeah.” She replied, cautious about where this was going. “Of course I am, in fact I’d say that I’m a way bigger fan than you’d ever be. Why?”

Acting as if he were uninterested, her host shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, no reason. I was just thinking: if you were - I don’t know - their biggest fan, I would have thought that you’d have been more interested in my offer.”

Lisette scoffed. “Oh please, you and I both know that Full Pass tickets are hardly that big of a deal.”

There was a twinkle in Daniel’s eye as Lisette reacted. This was it, he knew it! She was like a fish that had been caught on his line. “Oh yeah, definitely. Unless it was upgraded with VIP seats and behind-the-scenes access to the LA Stars’ own viewing box, with a chance to meet with the team as they prepared for their matches.”

Having been ready to dismiss whatever new nonsense spilled out of the man’s mouth, Lisette froze as she heard what he actually had to say. Her jaw dropped, disbelief shining in her eyes as Daniel looked on in triumph. “No. Way.” She declared. “You’re lying, there’s no way that someone like you would be able to get something like that!” Her mind was whirling around, struggling to comprehend how a lazy bum like Daniel could have landed tickets with such perks. “That’s - that’s the sort of stuff that they don’t even offer on tickets, you know? You’re lying!”

Daniel smirked. “No, I’m not. My parents have sponsored the Stars for years, and I’ve got some pull with their managers. If you do this, I’ll pull some strings and make it happen.” Lisette sat with her mouth agape. “Of course - it’s the sort of thing that only a real fan would be interested in.”

“I’ll do it.” Lisette declared, determination mixing with irritation in her eyes as Daniel questioned her commitment to her favourite heroes. “But you better deliver, with proof or something, or else the deal’s totally off.”

Pouting and not wanting to see Daniel’s smug face as he emerged victorious, Lisette turned around and once again locked her eyes on the moving landscape outside the window. However, no matter how much she tried to stay angry at having given in to the other man’s proposal - she couldn’t stop her mouth from twitching upwards into an excited grin. She could only hope that the idiot didn’t notice.

[Absolon-7]

Bael, Sept 12

Casimir Herman September 12th
Sooner rather then later Wyatt had arrived to the training field prompting a smug smirk to pop onto Casimir's face. The dra'qunni asked what sort of rules they would have which made him pause for a brief second from his stretching. He didn't want it to be as chaotic as the team training sessions in how folk lost. He still remembered and resented Carter for faking a surrender in the second team wide training camp but he got just desserts not long after so it didn't matter now. Before the team itself he'd hadn't never really sparred anyone when he had powers. He did have some lessons from him but those times were best left forgotten.

"First to surrender works," said Casimir to his now opponent across from him, "Nice and simple like it should be."

Casimir slouched forward and brought up both fists up to his face as a shield. If he had to categorize Wyatt as a chess piece he'd be a rook to Casimir's knight as he was certainly one of the team's main pillars. Or he thought he'd fit as a rook. He had only played chess like three times before all with his sister who soundly killed him each time. Casimir loosened his shoulders as he hopped on one foot and then the other as he sized the distance between them In a sudden blitz of speed Casimir rushed forward and unleashed a gale fury of dozens of straight jabs aimed directly at Wyatt's stomach. Best option for now would be get a taste of his reaction times and defensive capabilities. At the tail of end of the assault, Casimir twisted his hips around to deliver a low kick at Wyatt's ankle like a swinging ax pendulum.

Afternoon of the 12

Eventually it would be time for the team to head for their anticipated destination of New York City. Now, he had never been to New York City but considering the skyscrapers he could get in some last minute web swinging practice. The police and pedestrians might find a flaw in the idea but not like he'd be breaking anything. Hell, there might even be some sweet pictures of him taken. It looked like there were only a few more steps until the Young Bloods made their first foray into the NASL tournament. Just a few more steps for him showing just what he's made of and going beyond any of those stuck-up heroes expectations. Casimir was leading ahead hoping to pick a good seat as Viviana followed behind.

"So I heard compared to San Diego's skyscrapers, New York is basically if someone had a seizure while copy pasting them all over," said Casimir nonchalantly.

"You could say that I guess," snorted Viviana in between bouts of contained laughter, "Buuut there's tons and tons and tons of other stuff. Dontcha know I spent a couple vacations there with family a few times. They have the best pizza!"

"Food? Now you're speaking my language, Viv," said Casimir as the two got some seats around the back.

Casimir noticed that Mars was by himself and as he had been for the better part of a month since Kiris left looked quite mopey. Sorta reminded him of Egor from the Winnie the pooh but skinnier and with a big mech. He looked over Viv and pointed his eyes at Mars before darting them back at his girlfriend. She seemed to understand once she looked over and nodded to him. Casimir gave her a wave and mouthed a 'bye' as he strolled on over to Mars. The brunette would take a window side seat as she strapped herself in for the ride ready for the view. Meanwhile Casimir arrived next to Mars and placed a hand on the headrest of the seat next to him.

"This seat taken?" he asked and not really waiting for an answer as he strapped himself in. Casimir raised an eyebrow at the look Naja gave him once she made some announcements but he paid no mind to it. Once it was time to take off Casimir looked over to Mars, "Hey Mars, let me ask you this: let's say one day the cops come to arrest you for stealing a shopping cart. They have your fingerprints and everything but you never actually stole anything. How'd you make yourself a free man and find the real culprit?"

[Finland SSR]

That afternoon

Renata Martinez, the heroic Stella!

September 12th

---

"Crap, crap, crap!"

As it turns out, even if you pack for everything ahead of time and make sure to be the first in anything you see, it's all but naught if you don't show up at the right time. By the time when Naja started going through all the rooms and informing the Young Bloods to take their luggage to the jet, Renata was outside, standing on the beach of Wonder Island and occassionally firing off lasers to the distance to expel some of the weaker energies stored in her. Only a sudden phone message from Elle got her to finally realize that she was going to turn up late - and thus, the heroine ran like a wildfire through bushes in the midst of a drought.

With two large bags in each of her hands and a fifth one resting on her shoulder, Renata finally caught up to the jet, shoved all of her luggage to the storage and stepped inside, only to witness that every single member of the team besides herself had already boarded the plane and taken their seat. Thankfully, one was left for her - not so thankfully, that single seat just had to be next to Shi.

Mierda...

Well, on other hand, I guess I should have expected it. Nobody else probably wants to sit next to Shi either.

The prospect of standing for three hours did not entice Renata any more, however, so the pink-haired girl opted to swallow the pill and sit down regardless. After catching her breath, Renata offered a brief glare towards her teammate, then muttered:

"I swear, if I find that gauntlet on Craigslist..."

---

Bael

The Mad Lass, Sina As'tari!

August 8th

---

Hearing Bael speak about potential paths if she drops her crime fighting career, like joining a professional flight team, immediately soured Sina's expression, the vigilante taking a glance to the side. Clearly, he wasn't aware that the Outriders have pretty much dissolved at this point. Isaac and most of the team were gone, she had to tell the news to Nick after bringing him back to the base, and while a few of their peers, like Catarina, had yet to be informed because they were still gone somewhere, their prospects weren't... great.

"Yeah, guess that's an option. Wouldn't find a career like that out in the scaleless world, right?" Sina replied, accelerating more to catch up with Bael. The Elder offered two things for them to do, though he was convinced that she was going to pick a specific one - the first was visiting some boring museum and learn about the history of their species, and the second was to sign up for a flying race and try to win some money.

Flying races! Sina always wanted to go for a race against some of the best of her kind! Bael was one thing and he was a serious challenge from being an Elder alone, but to compare herself to what were, presumably, professionals in the art...

"So, do I even need to answer your question, then?" the vigilante stated calmly. "Do you really not have anything with you, though?.. I thought you said that your parents are moving to N'Toak."

---

Voice
Midtown, San Diego

---

Steven Baker.

August

---

Steven was not the only one who had to stop at simply not knowing the answer. When presented with the question of how he can help them out, Beverly stopped, froze, and finally explained that... she simply had no idea. As much as she promised Naja to help out, like a real hero would do, she simply had no way of freeing Yoshiro from the possession without destroying the girl's psyche, or at least leaving it unrecognizably damaged.

Steven folded his arms, a few basic calculations going through his mind and his eyes fixated upon the table below. Beverly, on the other hand, ultimately decided that her coming here was a mistake in general - she didn't know how to save Yoshiro and neither would Steven. Say hi to Angie for her...

And, true, Steven held no illusion that he could simply stand up and pull out a perfect plan to resolve the entire possession, especially when he lacked information about the ins and outs of what happened. But it was still his student which was at stake...

"I know this seems like an impossible situation to escape from, Bev, but..." the former hero began, rather weakly. "All in all, probability is just numbers and calculations. Do you remember Excelsior? When we were held there, I counted that our chance to escape in our lifetimes was basically null. And yet... here we are. If we managed to beat the odds back then, you can manage it now."

[Charmera]

A Few Months Ago
“I wanna go left but they tell me to go right, don’t wanna be the little girl they’re kissing goodnight…” The blonde sang as she used a pair of pliers and a glowing tool with three prongs to work on one of her myriad contraptions, a device that she had begun concocting that very evening, after a sudden bout of inspiration. “The moral of the story is I got no choice, I must not - Hell yeah!” She suddenly interrupted her own singing and tossed aside her tools before picking up her newest masterpiece, admiring it in all of its glory.

It was a black top hat with a white band on it. But she looked at it as if it was the Holy Grail itself.

“Let’s give this bad boy a try now…” Alexis mumbled as she grabbed the hat and tossed it. Immediately, saws protruded from the brim, and the hat flew in an elegant arc around the lab before returning to the genius girl, the saws retracting just before her hand caught it. “Smooth.” She smiled and placed the accessory on her head, the white band around it suddenly lit up, bathing the laboratory in a rainbow light.

“You may be wondering why I’m working on the best Halloween costume ever when it’s not even September, and the answer is obviously so the idea won’t lose its magic if I wait on it. Also, you’re not allowed to have an opinion. Dumb fairy.” The blonde said to Oberon as if the towering mech was alive. But her antics were interrupted as a metallic noise reached her ears, the sound of someone knocking on the door to her lab. Glancing at a video feed on a nearby monitor, she saw Cassandra’s impeccable butler uniform, reddish brown hair and impassible expression as the android knocked on the door yet again.

Huh? Not the first person I expected to visit… Alexis thought. Having no real reason to refuse the team’s robo-girl, though, the young inventor shrugged and snapped her fingers, the metallic door sliding open in the same instant.

“What’s up, Cassie-girl?”

“Greetings Miss Callaghan.” Responded the android as she walked into the lab. She made a quick observation of the room, scanning it with her machine optic sensors. She had not been in this room before, and therefore it was prudent to make a scan of it for potential additions to a tower defense plan she was considering.

Cass was here for a specific reason, but she found that humans found it rude to begin conversations with that motive declared. She would have to engage in “small talk”.

She turned to the mech. “This is the new gadget you used in the sparring match.” She remarked, then turned to the hat. “That, is somewhat unfamiliar however.”

“Gadget”? What’s she calling a gadget? Oberon is my magnum opus! So far anyways. The tech wizard thought, but outwardly her smile didn’t falter one second as she stepped away from her work table and towards her beloved swiveling chair, grinning as Cassandra’s attention turned from the large mech armor to the top hat she was holding.

“Oh, intrigued about my latest masterpiece, are you? This is only the first part of my wicked Wicked K costume!” She said, throwing the hat once again to demonstrate its effect, watching as it flew through the laboratory before coming back to her and settling down on her head, partially obscuring her face; Alexis let a moment pass before dramatically adjusting the hat, simultaneously striking a pose.

“I still have to add a few flashy details, but it’s basically done. I doubt I’ll take it on a mission, but if I ever have to, it’ll be there.” The genius girl continued, plopping down on her chair. “Anyway, did you need something, Cass?”

“It is an interesting design. I see it is very effective at its function. The aerodynamic movement is smooth, with surprisingly little drag. Your accuracy is also commendable, though I’m not sure what use it would have in superhero combat” Cass commented, trying to give a fair appraisal without sounding rude. She wasn’t sure she had succeeded. “As for its aesthetic value as a costume piece, I feel ill equipped to comment.”

Cass pauses, her robot mind attempting to phrase thoughts in less robotic terms. “I have noticed that we are beginning to combat more and more formidable foes. In the interest of being able to do my best in fighting them alongside you, as a member of the team, I-” Cass stopped as she looked at Alexis. She supposed she could be more succinct.

“Would you be able to… “upgrade” me, so to speak?”

Upon hearing the robot’s request after several moments of her uncharacteristically beating around the bush, Alexis couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. ’Upgrade’ you, you say? Well that’s a tall order girl, not too tall for me, but still. Out of the blue, too. The blonde girl mused, although her own ego quickly overpowered her reflections and a smile quickly appeared on her face.

“Would I be able to ‘upgrade’ you? Can I upgrade you? Well, duh! Not much I can’t do if I put my mind to the task. Will I upgrade you? Well that’s a different matter, girl. See that depends on what exactly you want me to do. What do you want me to ‘upgrade’? What do you want to be able to do?”

Cass thought for a moment before she responded. “After carefully assessing my combat performance, my current suite of combat options and my current abilities, I have found that my battle form is currently unacceptably slow, and its increased damage output does not justify its energy usage. It will require significant adjustments, but those adjustments are unlikely to come without adjusting my core powering mechanisms. Unfortunately, I do not currently know of an energy source that is currently better suited than the one that powers my android body.”

Cass paused, suddenly in thought. “In fact, I am unable to access any files on the nature of my power source at all. At least not for the purposes of dissemination.” Remarked Cass. “Odd.”

“In any case, I have assessed that given our inability to simply increase or modify my battle form. A different form could be a solution to this problem.” She explained. “Which leads me to the most logical and calculated solution possible: I need more arms.”

Alexis rested her head on a fist as she listened to the robot girl explain that she needed something that juiced her up without taking away her mobility, and that modifying her battle form was a no-no because she couldn’t divulgue details on her power source. The blonde girl simply rolled her eyes at that. Girl, if I had the right tools I could make a power source a hundred times better than what you have there anyways.

Of course, she didn’t voice the thought. Instead, she simply nodded along, until Cassandra finally got to the point and made her request explicit. Alexis suddenly straightened up in her seat and looked at her teammate with surprise. “More arms- you want- what?” She took a moment to slow down her thoughts before they went out her mouth. “So you want me to give you more arms? Like that one bad guy from the second Armorer movie?” The tech wizard did her best to contain a small laugh. “Wow, that’s a lot more colorful a request than I expected from you.” She smiled, bringing up her gauntlet’s holographic interface and starting to make a few tentative designs. “You came to the right person, Cassie-girl. It’ll take a bit of time to do, but if you’re cool with waiting, I’ll definitely get it done.”

“Thank you Miss Callaghan.” The robot Butler replied. She took a brief look over Alexis’ shoulder at what she was working on. “I believe four would be the optimum number of extra arms given my motor processing skills. Also any other possibilities to enhance the design would be potentially acceptable.”

“Is there anything you need me to provide? Either in assistance or knowledge?”

The genius girl lightly stroked her chin as she leaned back on her swiveling chair, crossing one leg over the other. Is there anything I need…? Well, I suppose there’s a couple things that could make my job easier. She thought before suddenly looking up at Cassandra. “Sure, I’m good as far as manpower goes but I could use a sample of your code and maybe some of your schematics to make sure that you can properly connect and interface with the arm modules.” She stated, resting her hands on her lap with the fingertips touching as she tried to recall anything she might be missing.

“Oh, I hope you won’t mind if it doesn’t come very quickly? I know I already told you it would take a while, but I also have other projects I wanted to spend time on now that we’re not under the constant threat of Warwolf. I hope that’s not an issue.”

"Not to worry." Cass paused, "Though it would be best if it were ready sooner rather than later." Cass couldn't quite explain why she was concerned for the future. Perhaps an algorithm was affecting her behavior.

[North America Inc]

-Wendy-

Shihong Smith
The last month or so the accompanying media backlash had caused no amount of headache for the hacker and the team; allegations of outstanding warrants too, conspiracy theories had dominated the news cycle. Search results for the team always seemed to have WiFi as one of the first search results, with this entire controversy seemingly harming the good will that the team built up during the WarWolf situation. Personally Shi didn't really care, she had been trained with people who had been assigned as super-villains after all, so what was one family of has-been thieves. But that also meant Shi didn't care enough to help Wendy with this headache; with but a phone call she could of ended this for Wendy. They even asked her about it, but she decided not. Why? Because it leads to moments just like this.

Shi plopped right next to her squad leader and began sipping her drink, hearing her plea. As she thought it over, she wondered how she should play this. Maybe it would be for the best if she developed a friendship with Wendy, just for now; besides, she was a leader with no direction. Would it be so wrong for her to help her? "Well, technically you can ride this out in a bunker until everyone forgets, but I'm guessing you don't want that..." Shi gestured toward the girl and asked, "When people think about you, what should come up? If you know that, well, than creating the right narrative for it won't be difficult at all."

---

-Renata-

Shihong Smith & Ashen Moth
Walking onto the waiting airplane, Ash was wearing a giddy grin on her face. This would be her first time really flying on a plane - she didn’t think the small jaunts that the team had done across the city really counted. She could hardly imagine what it must be like to fly for hours without stopping for a break, but the others had assured her that there was plenty onboard that they could entertain themselves with. The contagious air of excitement surrounding the upcoming tournament only added to Ash’s high expectations for the trip, and she had eagerly counted down each of the last few days.

She’d been sure to train as much as she could, of course, with both Casimir and Mark offering to help teach her how to be a better hero so that she was ready in time. One of the lessons that they’d helped hammer home in time for the team’s departure was to make sure that she’d packed all of her bags well in advance - and Ash was pleased to have succeeded at the first challenge of her adventure. But nobody had warned her about the second.

As she scanned the cabin, with two large wheeled suitcases being dragged behind her, a backpack and even more bags being held in her two remaining arms, Ash’s smile slowly crept downwards into a frown. Turning to each row in turn, the girl’s confidence wavered as she saw that all the others onboard had already settled in with a partner for the journey. Casimir was sitting next to Mars, Viv was beside Shi, Angelica and Alexis were talking among themselves...Ash stood in the aisle as she increasingly began to worry that she was simply going to have to spend the flight sitting all by herself.

As Ash stood alone in the aisle of the airplane, most of the Young Blood talked and hung out amongst themselves; not that they were to blame for not noticing her, but it still had to hurt. Standing up to stretch her back before the flight took off, Shi was partially annoyed by how cramped everything was; this was a major downgrade from her actual private jet. As she twisted back and forth, she noticed Ash standing alone in the aisle, frozen in indecision; I wonder what set her off this time., Shi mused. Scanning the rest of the plane, to see if there was an open seat for Ash, Shi realized something. Everyone else was here besides Renata. “Hmm…”

Playing with her ponytail, Shi inconspicuously jaunted over to the Moth Girl, as if she was doing so by accident. With her trademark grin, “Hey Ash. I saw you standing over here. I just wanted to check you were okay?” Placing a hand on her shoulder, she pulled her in for a partial side hug. Looking side to side she remarked, “Oh is it because there are no more seats for you?”

Pulled from her reverie as Shi addressed her, Ash smiled sheepishly at the other girl. “Oh, no it is nothing!” She hastily replied, immediately embarrassed that her friend had gotten up to check on her for such a childish concern. Pausing, Ash decided that she may as well continue. “I mean, there are many more seats that are free. It is just that, I had thought that everyone would be sitting with someone else.” Realising that she wasn’t being especially convincing, Ash hastily added, “But I am definitely ok to sit by myself on this flight - it is only three hours, yes?”

Looking directly into Ash’s eyes, Shi shook her head, “Ash you don’t have to lie to me. We are more than teammates after all. We’re friends! If you want to sit next to someone, why don’t you take my seat? You see Viv over there?” Shi pointed slightly to the left to the second row, “You like her right?”

Blinking as she followed Shi’s gaze, Ash thought about the implied offer. She still hadn’t really had a chance to get to know the rubber superhero, despite having been on the team with her for quite some time now. Usually Ash felt like she’d leap at the chance to make a new friend, and yet this time something held her back. Confused, she pushed aside the strange sensation as she turned to offer Shi a smile. “Yes...I mean I do not really know her, but she seems quite nice.” If nothing else, Ash knew that Viviana was a good friend of Kabuto’s. He’d even said that they’d known each other from before he was even a Young Blood. And if they were a friend of Casimir’s, then it naturally made sense that they would also make for a great friend for her. Gradually, the idea began to grow on Ash, despite her guilty feeling at taking Shi’s spot. “Are you sure, Shi? If you would rather sit there then I can be by myself.” Despite her words, Ash’s tone made it clear that she was silently hoping that the other girl wouldn’t rescind the offer.

“No I’m sure go ahead.” Pointing at the red hue on Ash’s face, “I can see how excited you are just by looking at you!” Guiding her to the seat, Viv was talking with some other teammates around her; taking her bag from the seat she mentioned to Ash, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m sure my seat will be just as fun as this one.” Walking a few feet away before walking back, she added, “And remember Ash if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

“Oh yes, I will. Thank you very much, Shi.” Ash was practically beaming as she darted over to where Shi was sitting, leaving most of her small caravan of bags behind her to be loaded into the plane. Stopping next to the row she extended an eager hand out towards her newest seat-mate, unable to wipe the grin from her features, Ash nevertheless made an effort to try and showcase her manners. “Hello Viviana! It is good to see you today. May I please be seated next to you?”

Sitting down at the back of the plane, Shi nestled her head against the wall of the plane, waiting for her to show up. Scrolling through her feed to pass the time, the boisterous sound of luggage being hastily thrown into storage was more than enough to alert Shi of her impending arrival. Playing the role of the rather apathetic passenger, Shi let her music play as she heard Renata come inside and realize her seating arrangement. Beyond the melodramatic sighs, they both didn’t say anything for quite a while, as if the air in the whole plane was being sucked out. Finally the tension was broken with a simple insult, "I swear, if I find that gauntlet on Craigslist..."

With a dismissive glance and resigned indignation, Shi went back to looking down at her phone, not saying a single thing to the Ecuadorian Princess. They had not talked once since the fight, and Shi didn’t get to play the victim card much; she quietly wondered if Renata had any regrets about the fight, maybe the silence would shine a light on that.

[The Republic of Atria]

Casimir

He nodded as Casimir agreed that it would be first to concede. He figured taking the arena approach would be better considering what they were going to be doing tomorrow, but it was just easier to keep going until someone gave up. "Sounds good." He agreed and even before he could agree on a countdown Casimir had initiated the fight pretty much immediately. He only just realized that he had never seen Casimir fight. At least not with any length. Which had it's advantages and disadvantages. It would help him learn to adapt on the fly and more experience in the mid-fight, but he also had little idea of what to expect.

Turns out the Polack was actually quite good at fighting, going straight for the abdomen in a rush far faster than he thought. It was hard to appropriately block that area, instead leaning forward to limit his ability to hit, but even with that, the guy's blows still hurt. He swapped to manually breathing to keep the air inside where it belonged. While looking for one, Casimir obliged with breaking off and going for a low kick.

Having been thwacked in the legs plenty of times by the butt of Orro's spear, he had learned the best way to deal with that: He jumped, not high, only about a foot, but he pulled up both to avoid the kick. Once the moment of danger passed, the Dra'Qunni retaliated with a series of strong, precise blows, also aimed at his opponent's abdomen.

Sina

He noticed that Sina had a strange reaction to his mentioning of her team. Had something happened? She told him that Alexis was killed not too long ago, maybe she was more beaten up about that than she said? It obviously bothered her, despite her best attempts to deny it. He opted not to pry too much about it. "Probably not." He agreed. It wasn't even a contest, she wanted to go to the races.

"I guess you don't have to answer that. Let's head over there." He said and as he started to leave, Sina asked if he really didn't have any money. "I don't have any money that would be worth anything here. My parents have some yeah, but I don't really want to go begging them for money every time I want to go do something. On top of that, they're supposedly helping translate for us and the humans." He explained. He knew they would be more than happy to give him some to let him explore on his own, but they would want to know what he was going to spend it on, and he wanted to keep Sina as secret as possible to avoid death by embarrassment.

They quickly approached a building that looked not unlike a stadium a sign that read "Public Races Today, Inquire Inside" in the scratchy language that was Dra'Qunni. He didn't have the utmost confidence in his ability, but Sina would probably do better. As they went inside, another sign hanging dictating the prizes. First, second and third all got some small cash prizes. Not huge amount, but enough to go buy a nice dinner or something shiny. Thinking about it for a moment he figured it'd be a win win.

Best case, he and Sina won some money and could go out to eat or some nice place to relax after. Worst case, they lost, had some fun and something to talk about. Maybe he would swallow his pride and take her to meet his parents. As they entered, they were approached by a rather lithe man who was already sizing up whether or not they would be good contestants.

Once he was within reasonable speaking distance he start speaking in a slightly gruff, but welcoming tone. "It looks like we've finally got some real contestants here and not just a few kids who peaked long ago. Names?"

"Oh, uh, Bael."

[New Neros]

The Thraxian Invasion
Squires and Champions

August 25th
Cosmic

An early morning as always, Cosmic leapt from his bed abruptly and stretched - Figuring that if he closed his eyes again, he’d just sleep more and push back everything he wanted to accomplish that day. Darklight was visiting her family, and his assigned squad seemed rather indifferent about training with him. At times he wondered if they even liked him, but rather than ponder on depressive thoughts, Mark pushed them out, and began to turn his mental energy into physical, accomplishing some body weight exercises and more in-depth stretching to draw out the strength of his well-toned body.

After his morning routine just out of bed, Mark threw on some basic shorts and an undershirt and made his way down to the cafeteria of Wonder Tower, passing by some of his teammates also up early and exchanging a friendly greeting. Still, he was after fruits and juice, companionship would be sought out around lunchtime. Always stocked and full of anything you could ever want, Cosmic found his usual breakfast for two oranges, an apple, a banana, and a protein bar, and quickly scarfed them down at a table by his lonesome, as usual. He cleaned his mess and made his way out of the Tower, pocketing a second protein bar, and preparing to complete his morning by running up and down the streets of San Diego.

Mid-day began to approach as a sweat-drenched Mark Nemo started to come up on his thirtieth mile, having taken some stops now and again, but having a well-trained cardio was absolutely key for heroic activity; a lesson that was drilled into him during his tenure in the Ultra Corps. He slowed to a jog and finally to a walk, sliding down onto an empty bench somewhere within Balboa Park. He leaned his head back and breathed deeply, completely filling his lungs and then exhaling everything several times, feeling the endorphins rush through his body as he recovered from his activity. Pulling his head back up, Mark took the time to watch the pedestrians and people having fun at the park, smiling as he felt happy to still be home, more or less. “A fast moving object has entered the atmosphere.” A voice called in his head, the hairs on his neck standing on end as he jumped up from his bench. Above the park, a shadow was cast over a space several hundred meters across, a ship of unknown origins appearing in broad daylight.

“Shit,” Cosmic muttered, clenching his fists and bathing his body in a light coat of energy, adopting his Ultra Corps uniform. In a small clearing some distance from Mark, three energy beams were launched from the ship, three figures materializing on metallic plates. Definitely alien in nature, they were blue with long pointed ears, dressed some armor that evoked tribalism but glowed with runic technology. Despite his interstellar nature, Cosmic wasn’t sure what kind of aliens these were, so approached with caution. “You are in violation of several interstellar agreements, but I can overlook them if you three beam back up and leave.”

Of the three, one remained at the back and held tightly to a sword-like weapon, while the two in front of him gave off the appearance of impulsive, animalistic warriors. “A leader and two lieutenants,” Cosmic thought, “Send out the minions then intervene when they’re dealt with, eh?” The two front aliens looked back at their commander, looking to him to make the call as to what they should do then. He was booming and powerful, much like a leader should, and demanded Cosmic identify himself first. “Well, I will give you that courtesy, so long as you return the favor.” He began, “I am Cosmic, member of the Ultra Corps and the Young Bloods.” A strange silence befell the invaders, prompting Cosmic to wave his hand a bit. “And you are…?”

“I am Champion Thurmond,” The leader began, his lackeys parting ways as the leader took center stage. “I have stormed many planets and space stations in the name of my people, the Thraxians. I have taken life when they demanded, served with devotion and bravery, and upheld our honor throughout. I have been gone for years, far from my homeworld, destroying a race of machines that would see fit to enslave my people if but a single megabyte remained. I absolutely succeeded. Upon my return, though, my homeworld was but ashes, my people slaughtered to the last child, my family either dead or prisoner off-world. My tears were only subsided by rage, and the wanton destruction carried all the tale-tell signs of the Ultra Corps.” He raised his golden weapon to point at Cosmic, which looked more like the end of a giant spear than a true sword, “I have tracked the energy of one such member to this world. You will answer for the sins of your Corps, and I will rip your beating heart from your chest. Perish!”

As he spoke, his two officers bolted forward faster than Cosmic had expected, who barely managed to block the blow from the first alien, his mind racing after the backstory Champion Thurmond just unloaded on the human. Counter-punching the first Thraxian, Cosmic was unprepared to respond to the side-kick of the second, the pair seeming to attack with primal aggression and rage, yet refined enough to showcase themselves as powerful warriors. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” He blurted out suddenly, spinning on his heel and leaping back to avoid being hit by both Thraxians, “I’ve been here for the past few days, no other Corpsmen are around for several lightyears, and I can prove it.”

“Save your excuses, genocidal maniac.” One of the Thraxians spat, rushing at Cosmic and sweeping his leg from under him, grabbing his face while off-balance, and slamming the back of Cosmics’ head into the soft dirt of the park. “I am Squire Orthel, my family perished in much the same way as Champion Thurmond, and I cannot wait to spill your blood.” His partner spoke as well, declaring himself to be Squire Paellus, who also suffered the same tragedy and wanted revenge.

“Okay, I get it, you all have the same fuckin’ backstory, but none of you want to take the time to listen to me!” He yelled, trading a series of blows with Orthel while avoiding blows from Paellus, trying his best to avoid getting ganked and stun-locked. “I would have known if the Ultra Corps targeted your homeworld. I would have been there, and I wasn’t!” He was silenced by a punch from Orthel, knocking his head back and splitting his lip, finally pissing Cosmic off enough to get more serious. “Fine.” He stated solemnly, “Want to take your anger out? Fine. I gave you plenty of chances, no one wanted to walk away, so now I’m going to make sure I walk away, and you don’t.” Energy erupted from Cosmic’s body, Orthel and Paellus shielding their eyes from the intense burst, Cosmic taking the opportunity to rush Paellus with a vicious knee to the midsection. A spike of energy erupted past the blue-skinned alien’s torso as the blow landed, Cosmic pivoting midair as his opponent flew backwards, turning his attention to Orthel who had seen the tail-end of the attack and its aftermath. Cosmic flew at him as well, but he was more prepared than his ally, and was able to slap Cosmic’s initial punch out of the way of his face, but Orthel was still shocked at the sheer force behind the blow. Taking his eyes away for just a moment, Orthel locked back onto Cosmic as the hero stepped forward and brought his forehead into the subordinates’ skull, staggering him severely.

Cosmic then charged a sphere of energy in his off-hand, and turned to fire a single blast of Ultra Force at Champion Thurmond, who batted the attack away with his blade effortlessly. “You mistake my men for amateurs, Corpsman. Why turn your back on them after a single strong blow?” As he spoke, a now shirtless and incredibly swelled up Paellus swung hard into Cosmic’s ribcage, Orthel also rising from his knock-down and swelling up suddenly, increasing his power as well. Cosmic used the energy from the hit to carry himself away from the battle momentarily, clenching his teeth at the pain he felt from the blow. In a flash of blue, Paellus appeared in front of him, and Cosmic struck forward quickly, jabbing him in the center of the chest, earning only a grunt and nothing more despite the energy he put in the blow. Night and day difference from the beginning of the fight, that’s for sure, and sure enough, Orthel appeared behind the hero and struck him hard with a chop to the face.

Cosmic stumbled to the side and wiped the blood from his mouth in one quick motion, pivoting on his feet and ducking down on instinct, narrowly missing an overhead strike from Paellus, and counter-punching him hard in the face - Which, now that Cosmic got a good look at it, was distorted and beastly compared to their original, more human-like look from before. Still, the hit was much stronger than his previous ones, and knocked loose a tooth or two as Paellus stumbled back, Orthel stepping forward and hitting Cosmic’s midsection with a vicious uppercut in response.

He saw white for a moment as his body was lifted up and flung skyward, spit and blood spilling from his mouth as he came back to reality, just in time for the Thraxian charging forward to take up his entire vision. A sudden, explosive fire engulfed his fists, Cosmic ducking under the wide swing Orthel took, and drove his fist directly into his stomach, exploding his pent up energy on contact, flashing the entire area for a brief moment as Squire Orthel was sent flying elsewhere for the time being. Re-focusing on Paellus, Cosmic dove at the Squire, who had enough sense to jump back and avoid Cosmic’s reach, but as he swung and hit Cosmic dead on in the forehead, the Corpsman remained stationary, the wind still cutting due to the power of the strike, but the hero simply tanked it with an unblinking face. Sheer determination, despite the trickle of blood that ran down his brow ridge, gave Paellus some pause, which was long enough for Cosmic to hit him with a knee once more, this time, exploding on impact much like he had done to Orthel.

Cosmic breathed in and out for a few moments, slowly counting the seconds as his body recovered slightly from the blows he had taken and the energy he used to dish greater ones out, his fight with Hex forcing him to be more in control of his energy expenditure than what he had done in the past. Still, he could feel the heat of Ultra Force rising in his chest, and spreading that deep warmth throughout his body still made every fiber of his being explode with raw potential. He opened his eyes and looked to the sky, watching as a pair of fists, side by side, flew down on him as Orthel and Paellus paired their attacks to increase their potency. Crackling with energy between his fingertips and arcing with the ground below, Cosmic slammed his palms together and opened his fingers wide as a ball of destructive energy formed between his cupped hands. The ball expanded rapidly for only a brief moment, before being fired like a massive cannon of pure energy, lighting up the entire sky for miles as the energy wave tore through clouds and the air - Incinerating the two Thraxians entirely.

His body gave off steam from the power he had unleashed, but Cosmic was far from out of commission, despite his deep breaths. Footsteps behind him alerted Cosmic to the fact that three aliens came to Earth, and he spent quite a lot of power defeating just two of them, whereas their leader was more than likely far more powerful than both combined. “A noble, fair fight against two opponents.” Champion Thurmond began, his towering form approaching Cosmic with his weapon drawn. Cosmic himself re-positioned himself slightly, facing his feet towards the Thraxian, lowering his upper body and putting both of his hands up. “I will applaud your efforts, but I am here for revenge and blood, not honor or nobility.”

“Aren’t you mad?”

“Furious, but about what in particular, young warrior?”

“I killed your two lieutenants, and you’re all the last members of your species, right? You should be just brimming with rage now.” Cosmic hoped to provoke the man into acting rash and stupid, but he seemed far more wise than that, and did not fall for the goading.

Champion Thurmond chuckled slightly, “They were both willing to lay down their lives for Thraxia, even if it meant going against the Demon of Terra.” Cosmic looked surprised, which Thurmond picked up on. “We did what research we could in preparation, we know of your power and prowess, they are known throughout the cosmos, and what the Ultra Corps can turn a person into. Still, we chose to come, and if we die here, then we die as warriors.” Lightning began to engulf the sword Champion Thurmond held, signalling battle was imminent. “I pray that there are other Thraxians in the stars, because my heart cannot bear the thought that there are none…”

“We can still talk this through, Champion.” Cosmic said quickly, darting his eyes to Thurmond and to his blade. “I can help find who did that to your people, together, we can -”

“The time for talking is over, Cosmic.” Champion Thurmond thundered, “Let an old man grieve.” He hollered, leaping directly at the hero, and commencing the final battle.

[New Neros]

The Thraxian Invasion
Interstellar Soldiers

August 25th
Cosmic


Champion Thurmond moved and hit like a high-speed train, using his entire body to charge at Cosmic with his weapon drawn, Cosmic even side-stepped the Thraxian but he pivoted at the end of his charge, transferring all of his incredible momentum into a shoulder check that sent Cosmic’s body flying across the dirt. Leaping up from the mound his body carved, Cosmic’s eyes widened as he watched Champion Thurmond already coming down on him with his sword, the hero having just enough time to roll to the side as the energetic sword slammed where Cosmic was just a split second before. Not one to waste any moment in a battle, Champion Thurmond swung his sword in the ground regardless, spraying the hero with dirt and worms, Cosmic only being able to back away.

“You know,” Thurmond began, “I was a hero of my people.” He reached forward suddenly in an attempt to grab Cosmic, who slapped his hand away, but had to jump back significantly to avoid the Champion’s thrust attack. “I was not a vicious warlord who scoured the stars and spilled blood ruthlessly, I upheld the old code of honor, never once did I put men to death that did not hold a weapon.” He pointed his greatsword at Cosmic, though, “That star on your chest counts, by the way. It is perhaps the greatest weapon in the cosmos.” Champion Thurmond leapt forward suddenly once more, thrusting his sword at Cosmic, who bathed his hands in Ultra Force energy, and slapped it away with one palm. With his other, Cosmic fired a concentrated blast at the Champion, staggering him slightly, but Thurmond responded with a vicious leg kick that Cosmic didn’t even see coming - connecting viciously with the heroes’ neck and sending him flying once more - This time, away from Balboa Park, and onto the hot asphalt of downtown San Diego.

“Fuck!” Cosmic yelled, sliding onto the pavement and breaking some of it beneath his feet, “I don’t want this spilling into populated areas, or ones where we can really fuck up the property values.” He said quietly, knowing that Thurmond was beyond listening at this point. Another leaping attack followed by a leg kick once Cosmic dodged the first blow, the young hero tanking the blow with his arms folded, but it still sent his smaller frame back some. “Stop trying to chain moves, damn it, it’s going to work once and I’ll be finished!” He yelled, throwing out his palm and swirling energy in it quickly, blasting it forward at Champion Thurmond’s body. The alien invader swiped at it with his blade, bouncing it off the golden metal and sending it crashing into a building near the pair, blowing up part of the store front. “Shit…” Cosmic muttered, opting to keep such blasts minimal next time.

Still, he figured that he needed to go on the offensive - Champion Thurmond seemed to thrive when he’s controlling the fight, so being on defense must send him for a loop. Cosmic gathered more energy in his body and cloaked himself in it, sending himself forward to battle Thurmond rather than send more blasts that would just be swatted away. The Thraxian sent his blade hard against Cosmic, who backed away for a moment to dodge the swing, and went right back in once it passed. As he got close enough to engage, however, Champion Thurmond reached out with his off-hand and grabbed Cosmic’s shoulder, yanking him forward and head-butting the Corpsman with incredible strength, splitting his lips and busting his nose apart. Thurmond grabbed Cosmic’s neck and slammed the teen on the ground in front of them, cracking the road even more so, and to top off the entire combo, brought his ankle hard on the heroes’ chest like a sledgehammer.

Pinned under Champion Thurmonds’ weight, Cosmic struggled to breathe as the alien warrior placed both hands on his blade and pointed it down at the hero. “I must tell you, Demon, I have not been forthright with the weapon I wield.” He said solemnly, small wisps of energy swirling around it. “It is not possessed, or enchanted by any means. It steals your energy, and makes you weaker, simple as that. My only defense against your Ultra Force…” He said, preparing to plunge the sword into Cosmic’s head.

The hero thrashed about, trying to unleash a burst of energy, but only to find it sucked away by the vampire sword. “You were doing a pretty bang-up job before you told me about it!” Cosmic screeched, barely about to breath still. “Fuck! Please! Don’t do this!” He squeaked, his ribs starting to crack under the pressure Thurmond put on them.

“Meet your demise with honor, Corpsman. For Thraxia, for my children, for my wife...Rest with them if you please, or burn in whatever hell you’ve made for yourself.” As Thurmond raised his handle above his head, a strong blast of energy struck him in the back of the head, knocking him off balance, and allowing Cosmic a moment to breathe. As he swung his head around to see who had attacked him, another javelin of white energy struck him in the face and exploded, hundreds of tiny crystals of energy searing themselves onto his eyes and face, the alien stumbling backward and clutching his face while groaning in pain. Cosmic was no slouch in making room between himself and Thurmond, coming mere moments from death, and he too looked for his savior.

“I didn’t think I’d get to use this thing so soon.” A feminine voice called out, standing in plain sight on a circular platform of energy, several more spears of white energy surrounding her, her own body decked out in armor made of lunar energy. “Alexis made me a ring from a moonrock, turned up its light reflection ability, and boom, now I’m not confined to working under a full moon. If you wanted an explanation for why Darklight had to save your ass in broad daylight.” She said with a cheeky grin and a thumbs up, using her platform to float closer to Cosmic, who seemed pretty shaken up from the fight. “Relax, star boy, I heard what he said about that sword.”

“So you didn’t save me sooner?!” Cosmic hissed, rubbing his aching ribcage, several bones broken in his chest at that point. “He broke my ribs through my energy shield, do you have any idea how strong he has to be to do that?!”
“Freakishly strong, stronger than the gargoyles you faced in Hex’s dimension.” Darklight replied, “But we needed more information to beat this guy. All I was able to get was that he’s a strong fighter and his sword absorbs energy. If we take out his sword, he’s only a strong fighter, and then you can cut loose on him, right?”

“R-right.” Cosmic said, catching his breath a bit and rising up to resume the fight, Champion Thurmond clearing his eyes of the energy shards. “How do I do that?”

“Break it?” Darklight said, wondering if Cosmic forgets that he can literally shatter almost any object he can touch with his Ultra Force powers. He nodded in agreement, and began to get his shatter ability ready, activating his eyes without as much concentration as he had done in the past, seeing the physical manifestations of imperfections and seams in the manner of both the blade and Champion Thurmond’s own armor as he slowly approached both Cosmic and Darklight. “He’s coming, and I think he’s fast as fuck, so please don’t wait until the last possible second like you always do.”


True to his heroic self, Cosmic waited until Thurmond leapt first, and followed suite as the Champion lunged forward and thrust his blade at Cosmic, who clenched his first and found the focal point of the fissures at the impossibly sharp tip of the Thraxian’s blade, barely touching his knuckles to it and force-feeding the faultlines with energy, which raced down to the hilt of the weapon. As the weapon broke apart, it released the energy it had held in, catching both Cosmic and Thurmond in the blast and sending the two flying in opposite directions. Cosmic slammed into a building down the street whereas Thurmond was thrown back into the park, snapping several trees in half before he came to a stop, his armor cracked and singed from the explosion. Darklight went after the alien rather than her friend, wanting to follow up on the attack while Cosmic recovered. As she approached, however, the heroine got a taste of what Cosmic was facing just minutes earlier as the Thraxian leapt to his feet and charged at the first thing he saw - Closing the distance between the two faster than Darklight could have imagined.

Instinctively throwing two javelins at the alien, Champion Thurmond slid his body out of the air of their paths while he himself was mid-air, earning shock and surprise from Darklight, who then caused the spears to explode in energy shards as she had done previously, the Champion shielding his eyes and reaching out to grab Darklight. Barely missing the heroine in his lunge, Darklight punished the alien by stabbing his hand with an energy spike, but the girl had clearly never faced an opponent like Thurmond, who brought his opposite hand against her head and neck as she stabbed. She was knocked cleanly off of her energy disc, and landed hard on the ground. Rattled but still aware, Darklight acted quickly and threw up a small shield around her and strengthened it as much as she could, barely about to register when Champion Thurmond landed with his ankle directly on her shield, cracking the powerful defensive structure with his brutality.

“He’s made of diamonds and is faster than I can see.” She said aloud, pouring more energy into her shield as he pressed his body weight into it, cracks healing and then suddenly reappearing as the two struggled. “Just who the hell are you?” She asked, closing her eyes and concentrating, the heroine sending her energy disc to hit the back of Thurmond’s head and distract him for a moment, giving her the chance to escape from being trapped under his heel. As she made some distance, Darklight heard a soft boom several blocks away, correctly figuring that Cosmic was leaping back into action, but gasping audibly when she saw Champion Thurmond effortlessly catch a rampaging Cosmic by the neck, and slam him hard into the ground in a single fluid motion. “Cosmic! Blast him!” She yelled, summoning her own energy to make a few more spears and balls of energy, ensuring she left enough to cover her body in case he too got a hold of her.

“I am Champion Thurmond of Thraxia, interloper.” He said in his alien tongue, Darklight unable to understand him while Cosmic’s Ultra Corps suit allowed him to understand the rugged aliens’ speech. “My fight is with the Ultra Corps, not with you, but I will tear your flesh from your bones if you choose to get in my way.” He tightened his grip on Cosmic’s neck, the hero responding by gritting his teeth and glowing his eyes, sending a powerful surge of energy out of his pupils directly on Thurmond’s exposed head. The alien recoiled but did not release the hero, growling in pain as he threatened to crush Cosmic’s windpipe. Darklight ran into action, finding a piece of exposed torso on the alien that broke when his blade exploded, and sent her energy spears directly into it, stabbing the blue alien deep with both lances, earning a full scream of agony before she even detonated those, searing his deep wounds with energetic shrapnel that tore through his midsection, finally in enough unbearable pain to turn the Young Blood loose.

“I don’t know what the fuck you said,” Darklight spat, “But I didn’t like the tone of it.” Champion Thurmond opened his eyes wide and turned completely to look at Darklight, realizing the danger she represented, and figuring it would be easier to dispatch her then focus entirely on Cosmic. But, Cosmic himself wouldn’t let the alien brute attack his friend so readily, and despite his nearly crushed neck, jumped up and swung hard into Champion Thurmond’s armored chestplate, finding the cracks in it and breaking it apart entirely with his precise application of energy. The impact threw the Champion back some, and left a noticeable hint of exhaustion on Mark Nemo, finally, his constant use of the Ultra Force for attacks and healing mid-fight catching up to the teen. Darklight was caught in the explosion this time as well, being flung back yet sustaining little injuries due to her armor.

A warrior through and through, Champion Thurmond lunged forward at the panting Cosmic, grabbing the hero in the chest with his entire hand. “I told you,” He said, purple blood pouring from his injured side and also slowly forming at the corner of his mouth, “I would rip your beating heart from your chest.” Locking eyes with the alien and staring, Cosmic bit into his teeth hard, and began to scream as the Thraxian crushed the rest of Cosmic’s sternum and dug his fingers into the heroes’ chest, grabbing his breast bone like a dinner plate and ripping it entirely out, spraying Cosmic’s red blood across Thurmond and the grassy park, a large sparkling ball of energy clutched in Champion Thurmond’s hand alongside the boney plate. “Ah…” He said quietly, “Your conduit to the Ultra Force.” A smirk graced his gruesome face, “Now, that is irony. I will use the Force to destroy the Ultra Corps, your sacrifice will not be in vain, young warrior. I will remember you and the gift you gave me on this day.”

“Give it back.” Cosmic grunted, unable to unclench his teeth as his Ultra Corps costume began to disappear, Champion Thurmond placing his other hand on Cosmic’s shoulder in a friendly way, as if he were seeing a good friend off on the battlefield, Cosmic whispering, more weakly, “Give it back…”

[Auropa]

Mizu

Mike Mathews
Wonder Tower Kitchen, September 12th

“If you ask me, there’s too much ‘spectacle’ around heroes today as it is.” Mike said between bites as he thought a bit on Mizu’s comments.

“I mean, sure. Casimir and Wyatt can throw and take a few more punches than most, but there’s a lot more to what we’re doing than just hitting stuff and that's even if we're just talking about fights. Take Tad for example, I won’t even pretend to know how magic works but that’s all about weird mystical book smarts. He literally thinks his way through a fight and he’s one of our best, when it comes to to controlling a disaster and getting everyone through it safely, I can't think of anyone better. Meanwhile Red doesn’t even have powers though I’m pretty sure he can take any one of us down, plus he’s legitametly terrifying. And you can already trick an entire team into forgetting who’s who, what’s what, and even where they are. I mean, you’ve only just started doing this but despite what you think, you’re already one of our heavy hitters. Get some experience under your belt and I can see you totally getting a ring out against anyone here. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, flashy or not, I’m lucky to have you in my team, so don’t go thinking you’re holding anyone of us back.” Not really paying attention to what he was saying as he went and instead discovering that he had managed to mindlessly finish his pancake stack, he turned to face mizu for a moment before making a quick move to snatch one of her remaining pastries.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several hours later

After spending most of the day preparing and researching for the trip, Mike boarded the plane with a small neatly packed bag and went for one of the free window seats left open. There, he sat down, opened his laptop and got back to work reading up on the other teams participating as well as previous winners of the competition. Despite his many mixed feelings on the whole event, he couldn’t deny feeling a sense of anticipation and excitement too, especially now that it was so close. So while he might still have his doubts about it and though a bit more research might not make much of a difference in the long run, he wanted to prepare as best he could.

[Bentus]

A collab. Part 1.

Yoshiro/Scarab
August 31st
Beneath the city of San Diego

---

Yoshiro studied her features in the mirror, assessing the changes to her new body’s appearance. A dark inking of kohl ringed her eyes, while a hint of shadow caused the two irises to nearly pop. A traditional layer of lipstick similarly coated her lips, while the braiding of her hair had completed the aesthetic. The makeup had been applied carefully and delicately by a few of her servants, each line drawn with a devotion to restore their Pharaoh to her rightful, royal appearance. Pulling the mirror a bit further away so that she could see her face framed by the ornate headdress that denoted her Godly status among men, she couldn’t help but feel pleased with her servants’ efforts. And yet, she felt a deep fury rising in her chest.

Lowering the mirror, the girl’s cold eyes held a certain fire as she turned to bear down upon the cultist cowering at her feet. “What do you mean, he found the ritual? Were you foolish enough to allow him to get his hands on it?”

Practically shaking, the woman that had first encountered the Scarab in the tunnels shrunk away. Averting her gaze from the kalasiris-clothed figure that stood proudly on the dais in the centre of the cult’s chamber, she struggled to force a response through her throat.

“When we heard that the interloper was travelling to London, we hoped to use the Professor as bait! We didn’t realise how quickly he would be able to translate the hieroglyphics so quickly, or gain access to the sacred temple back in your original kingdom.” The cultist’s gaze seem to waver slightly, as if a lump of emotions threatened to build up in her throat. “Nor did we expect him to have help. My brother was the one who volunteered for the mission, and we didn’t know what happened until he failed to check in afterwards.”

Seemingly oblivious to - or at the very least uncaring toward - the woman’s connection to the dead cultist, the Scarab scoffed. “Your brother failed. And because of that he’s put everything in jeopardy.”

The cultist winced as if she had been physically slapped, a few tears threatening to drip from her eyes as her brother’s memory was scolded by their deity. She had allowed herself to grieve upon learning of his murder, but had felt her hopes rejuvenated at the appearance of their Pharaoh, and at the prospect of achieving what they had worked towards for so long. She desperately wished that he had been there to share in the moment with her, and yet he had been stolen away so close to their great triumph. Feeling an upwelling of anger in her chest, the cultist clenched her fists. No, she refused to allow her brother’s memory to be looked upon as a failure.

Dropping onto her knees, the cultist lowered herself before the Scarab. “My Pharaoh, please. Allow me to pledge to you on my life that I shall kill the interloper myself. In doing so I wish to gain your forgiveness for my brother’s immortal soul in the afterlife. I shall kill the boy who killed my brother, and I shall sacrifice him in your name.”

Having been seething at the inept failure that had been revealed to her, the Scarab raised an eyebrow as her follower bowed to make her pledge. For a moment, Yoshiro’s figure stood silently as she considered the offer, until she began to softly smile. “Rise, my child. I shall accept your pledge - and I promise to forgive your brother’s memory should you succeed. He would be proud of your devotion.”

The cultist let out a relieved sigh, unable to wipe the excited grin from her features as she was granted this opportunity to avenge her fallen kin. However, the Scarab continued to speak before she could offer her thanks.

“But we have wasted enough of our time already. Let us begin the final ritual, and I shall make this body mine for all eternity.” Yoshiro looked over all of the cultists that stood silently in the room, all dressed in their ceremonial garb and standing proudly as the time of her victory approached. Amidst the eager, blind obedience of her followers, she could feel a foreign aura drawing closer. Good, I would have hated for this to have been too easy. “Stand ready, my children. This will be the ultimate test of your faith - let none doubt your devotion after your actions here today.”

Having said her piece, Yoshiro turned and offer one of the priests a nod. Immediately, the sound of drums filled the underground cavern as the flames from the countless candles and torches illuminating it continued to flicker along its walls. Moving to take her place at the top of the dais at the top of the chamber, the Scarab spread her arms as she felt the ritual begin, determined not to allow anyone to steal her freedom away from her again. Not now that she was finally so close to tearing off the shackles that had been binding her since oh so long ago.

---

Meanwhile…

A pair of guards armed with spears stood at the entrance of a seemingly long abandoned subway tunnel, glancing over at the darkness that lay outside the flames of the torches standing next to them. Their goddess had instructed them to be at the utmost alert, yet even still the two couldn’t help but occasionally allow their minds to wander slightly. It should have been expected, afterall, considering they were going to miss out on the return of the rightful ruler of the world by standing guard in an old decrepit tunnel line.

Thus, as one of the guards managed to see the small glimmer of something metallic in the edges of the shadows, he didn’t think to react to it at all. That was, at least, until he suddenly felt a sharp prick land on his chest. Looking downwards towards the sense of pain, he saw that a small pin with a wire attached behind it had embedded itself into his torso. His eyes opened wide in alarm, but before he could speak a word he suddenly felt a surge of electricity surge through his body, rendering his body completely limp as the shocks continued until he and the guard next to him slumped into unconsciousness. A brief moment of silence occurred, until the sounds of footsteps began to resonate from the shadows.

“Casimir, help me with restraining them,” Red called out to the figure walking behind him, tossing him a pair of zip ties in which they could secure the arms and legs of the now passed out guards. “They’ll be out for some time, but there’s no need in letting them get behind us later on.”

As Red finished securing one of the men, he glanced over to the other two figures standing behind him. “You’re sure she- I mean, it’s here?” he asked Jan and Tadeo whose powers enabled them to sense the presence of the Scarab.

“Call me Kabuto. Rather not some of the crazies here get the honor of knowing my name,” said Casimir dressed in his full Kabuto suit walking out of the shadows. He grabbed the thrown zip ties with one hand and began restraining the guard, “By the way I’ve sent some cockroaches to spy ahead for us. If they got a trap for us I’ll know.”

Jan followed right after his Polish peer, the psionic vigilante's eyes closed shut and body shrouded by a dark cloak, making him quite hard to notice even outside of the shadows. He had accepted the invitation to the mission as soon as Casimir had brought it up to him, but, despite his calm exterior, worry continued to grip him - especially since he was the only member of the squad who had to bear the onslaught of the Scarab's psionic ability, as far as he knew.

The vigilante stepped past both of the knocked out guards and rested his hand on the wall of the subway tunnel, hastily drawing a sign of the Cross in front of himself and focusing for a few seconds before stating:

"Its signature is down there. And it isn't alone. I count…" Jan stopped for a second, counting. "At least a hundred others." Tadeo nodded, confirming Jan’s words.

Glancing down the tunnel, Red let out a small sigh underneath his helmet. "Looks like we're in for a fight." Shaking his head slightly, he regathered himself and turned back to the others.

"Alright, any last questions about the plan before we do this?" Red waited to see if there were any, but seeing none he nodded. "Alright, let's get to it then."

Casimir dumped the guard he tied up on top of the other’s back. Meanwhile a thick swarm of insects flew overhead attaching itself to the tunnel wall and a crawling chaos of a ground swarm circled around his feet following his every move and moving out of the way for every step. He said cracking his knuckles as he walked forward, “Let’s kick these bastards’ back to the bronze age then.”

Seemingly right on time, El Hechicero teleported in a mass of sparkles near the cave door, hand outstretched. “The excited howler may find itself trying to swing from a snake.” The vision of the entrance began to distort like a wet painting, then it popped back into shape. “The alarm is dispelled. We can head further inside.”

Red glanced over his shoulder at Tadeo, shaking his head. “And here I thought the magic words were ‘Hocus Pocus’. Guess they don’t teach that in the Harry Potter books.” Shrugging, the group made their way further into the tunnel with Casimir acting as their scout in case of potential traps. Tadeo would also handle anything on the mystical side of things as well, and considering they were dealing with an ancient demonic being bent on ruling the earth, such things weren’t out of the range of possibilities.

Jan remained focused on the psionic signatures below during the conversation, however, he soon came to realize just how loud all of his allies were unknowingly getting. It reminded him that he forgot to do the one thing he was actually really good for.

Try to avoid drawing attention to yourselves. Jan's thoughts were suddenly broadcast to all of the members of the ragtag group of theirs. I'll link all of us in a mind network so you don't have to shout.

After the impromptu team reacted to Jan’s thoughts - his serious tone betraying his concern at the threat they faced - they continued deeper into the twisting caverns. They moved slowly, checking every corner for any more guards that might reveal their presence and make all of their efforts for nothing. As the tunnels split and forked, with side doors leading in unknown directions within the city’s underground, it was only thanks to Tadeo and Jan’s abilities that they were able to avoid getting lost in the labyrinth. But gradually the graffiti scrawled along the walls gave way to carvings and art with a decidedly more deliberate appearance. Lines of hieroglyphs and icons depicting strange creatures and scenes from ancient history were illuminated by torches, indicating that they were definitely getting closer to their goal. The sound of drums - almost imperceptible in the distance at first - also slowly began to rumble through the walls. The rhythmic, percussive sound mingled with a chant in a strange, flowing language. Combined, the sounds seemed to weave themselves into the heroes’ thoughts, the magical energy building with each word immediately identifiable by Tadeo and physically palpable even to those who weren’t inclined towards the arcane.

Eventually, the tunnels would end in an opening. Emerging onto the lower level of a vast chamber, the team continued to stick to the shadows as they saw the ritual occurring before them. The whole cavern seemed to be illuminated by torches that burned with an unnatural ferocity, flickering with each pounding of the drums as the canting of the gathered cultists rapidly seemed to be approaching a crescendo. With a few guards largely being distracted by the events around them, cloaked figures were arranged in a circle around the central dais - with Yoshiro’s figure visible on a carved throne upon it. If the heroes glanced upwards, they would see that a stone balcony extended on a level above and around the dais as well, with more cultists present on the structure that had been built into the rock. It was a breathtaking room, with the space clearly having been tirelessly chiselled from the surrounding formation with a devotion that beggared belief. And then suddenly, the music would cease.

A silence fell upon the crowd, although the tense excitement was still coursing through the air as the weight of the ritual’s magic still hung heavy in the cavern. Slowly, a robed figure turned to look up towards the Scarab. An elderly man with tattoos and coloured paint adorning his body, he carried a pole with a pot of burning incense as he carefully offered the possessed teenager a deep bow.

“Oh, my Pharaoh. Today, we mortals free you from the bounds that were so wrongly imposed upon you by those who shunned your light.” The man’s voice was raspy, grizzled with age and yet able to carry throughout the chamber with a clear charisma. “Those who feared your power and sought to take it for themselves shall be punished for their transgressions, while your chosen children will follow you as loyal servants into your new Kingdom of the world. Like Osiris before you, those who were jealous of your power tore you apart and sought to scatter the pieces. But we have gathered them with devotion, love and care. And now we offer to you this mortal vessel, a gift from your children and followers.” Standing back up from his bow, the man ascended the dais so that he could apply some dark red paint to Yoshiro’s features. Wincing slightly as the paint touched her forehead, the Scarab ignored the burning sensation as the magic began to eat into the bonds that had kept her tied to the talisman. It was painful, excruciatingly so, but she weathered it eagerly at the prospect of freedom.

“Now we shall make you whole once more, oh great daughter of Set. And then there shall be none who could stand against - ”

Suddenly, a cry erupted from the crowd. “Intruders!”

A single guard stood with his mouth agape, his expression one of horrors at finding outsiders soiling the ritual with their presence. He had been sent on a patrol of the surrounding tunnels, but had eagerly sought to return and watch the culmination of the cult’s goals. The last thing he had been expecting was to see the backs of a few teenagers as they hid at the edge of the cavern. “Outsiders!” He called out again, louder and clearer as even the head priest’s glare turned towards the Young Bloods.

Opening her eyes at the shouts, Yoshiro’s gaze narrowed as she picked out the figures that had disturbed the ceremony. The paint was still burning, but a sinister smile spread across her features. “Oh Red, I’m so glad you made it in time! I see that you brought friends. This wasn’t really an n-plus-one kind of thing, you know.” She chuckled, a slight trail of smoke beginning to waft from the symbols painted onto her face. The paint seemed to have begun to glow slightly, and someone could have sworn that the lines and dots seemed to even shift and move as the magic took hold. “I’m afraid you’re too late. The ritual is done, any connection your friend’s mind has to this body is being cut and torched. She should be honoured that her death will be used for something as important as this, though. Her role won’t be forgotten.”

A million curses buzzed through Casimir’s head as he damned his shortsightedness. He had made his swarm far too dense and far too bunched up thinking a sudden direct attack would be a good idea but this meant he left none to watch the groups backs. With a snap of his fingers a portion of the swarm flew to the lone guard that spotted them and enveloped him in an agonizing cloud of stings and bites.

“Shut your mouth you damn fiend. Whether you like or not were here to park your ass in the grave and get our friend back,” shouted Kabuto pointing at the Scarab but he quickly panned his judgmental gesture to the rest of the cult, “Don’t think the rest of you lowly flops are gonna have it easier. I can take all of you minions on myself!”

"That's going to be easier said than done, Red spoke over the mental network to Casimir. Eyeing the crowd of cultists that were beginning to form up around them, Red couldn't help but feel as if their backs were up against the wall. Glancing over to the others, he tried to think of what to do. He didn't know whether or not the Scarab was bluffing on its claims, and quite frankly he didn't want to believe them anyways. But regardless of what the situation was, there were at least a hundred of the cultists within the cavern, all of which seemed to be armed to the teeth. While their team wasn't lacking in strength themselves, they didn't have the time to get put in a prolonged fight.

"Guys, we don't have time to get dragged into a fight. I can end this all, but in order to do that I need to get close to Yos- I mean, the Scarab. I know I'm asking a lot, but can you cover me here?" Red asked to the others, a grim look on his face as he stared directly at the Scarab who looked down smugly at the group of heroes.

“HAAAAAAAH!” suddenly rolled across the entire cavern, catching everyone by surprise, followed by a cloaked vigilante suddenly running out of the shadow.

For Jan, the matter was simple. Whatever the leader of the cultists had done to Yoshiro, it was going to do something which will bind the Scarab to Yoshiro forever. And if that takes place, and if all that the cult is blabbering about was true, then it could be the end of everything. So, there was no time to wait. So, the vigilante ignored all of Red’s calls for covering him or all of the threats flying from each side of the confrontation and ran out first.

Jan’s furious eyes set towards the horde of cultists staring to surround his allies and he suddenly leapt upward, summoning a floating construct brick above him and springing off of it to the air above. The Scarab’s throne in the distance unfolded before him and the vigilante acted on instinct, reaching out with his hand - not towards the deity nor any of her followers nearby, however, but instead towards the balcony above their heads, tearing apart the cement, railing and support beams alike.

El Hechicero sighed. They always just run in. Oh well. The magician cracked his neck and stretched for a moment as the cultists began to close in. His eyes began to glow violet, and suddenly a portal opened up nearby, spilling out water. “I call upon the Realm of Waves to aid us.” The water washed away an entire column of cultists in explosive force. Tad reached out, and twisted his arm to the left; the portal began to tighten, close, and blip out of existence.

Tad weaved a few signs in the air, though unlike Amir’s magic, Tad’s whole body moved in a kind of dance. Sharks comprised of pure water began to form from the puddles left in the caverns, and they crashed through various cultists as Tad continued to control them with his funky moves.

The Scarab was about to chuckle at Kabuto’s confident declaration, finding the boy’s stubborn arrogance to be almost endearing as well as pitiful. However, a cry erupted from Lech’s mouth before she had a chance to respond. The surprised looks from the hero’s teammates told her all she needed to know about the ramshackle nature of the quaint little squad. This is going to be almost too easy, isn’t it? They don’t even have a plan. The Cultists took a moment longer to react, the rapid speed of the heroes’ attacks catching many of them off guard before the high priest seemed to find his voice at the fight erupted around him.

“Kill them! This is the final test of our loyalty, lay your own lives on the line and we shall all be rewarded for our devotion!” His words seemed to steel the Cultists, and they didn’t hesitate before rushing into battle - the fight erupting across the cavern. While many charged in with their weapons raised, a few seemed to be able to manifest powers and began to wield them against their young foes.

All the while, the Scarab calmly watched as Lech charged headlong towards her. She was content to wait for the hero to close the distance himself. A look of determined concentration was etched into the boy’s features as she felt his powers extend out and upwards. In an instant, the balcony above her began to crumble and the head priest let out a cry of surprise as he raised his hands to prevent himself from being crushed. But, the collapsing debris and rubble seemed to suddenly stop in midair, hanging motionless as the Scarab shook her head.

“My, my. Haven’t we done this dance before?” Calmly lifting a hand, the Scarab wrenched the boulders from Lech’s telekinetic grasp. “I told you: the ritual has already begun, I can feel more and more of my old power coming back to me with each passing second. And you decide that you want to fight me head-on?” She chuckled. “If you’re so intent on throwing your life away, hero, then I’ll be happy to oblige. But I’m afraid that I can’t just allow your friends to run amok either.”

Glancing over her shoulder, the Scarab was grinning as she called out to the shadows. “Oh Nightshade, could you please deal with these little distractions?”
Walking forward at her command, the leader of the Young Bloods emerged with a plain, callous expression. Having cornered him in his room, the Scarab had done what she’d intended and had wormed her way into his mind. “Focus on the more physical ones, kill them.”

As the brainwashed Roy presented his hollow self to the group of heroes the old robbed man next to the Scarab gave a furious grimace to the unbelievers. He placed the golden pole with the incense against the throne and directed two nearby cultists near him with a curl of his fingers. They hesitantly came forward and where caught unaware as his palms suddenly latched onto their faces like adders. The old weathered tattoos glowed a golden hue as he was magically brought back into the youth of his 30’s. His hairline reemerged as a shiny black sheen, his hunched back rose to broad powerful shoulders, his decrepit flesh morphed to iron like muscles. Meanwhile the two unfortunate cultits withered away to gray husks that fell pitifully to the floor.

“Allow me to give them judgement my Pharoah,” the newly invigorated man snarled as he walked next to Nightshade, “The heathenry shall pay dearly for insulting you.”

“I’m gonna make you crawl like a fucking maggot!” bellowed Kabuto at the Scarab enraged in a white fury at the sight of what she had done to Roy.

Whatever you have up your sleeve Red get it ready! Just stay behind me! Kabuto would be the spear of the operation as he charged ahead swatting away the closest cultist. A dozen cultists charged him head on forming a literal meat shield to protect her with weapons ready to swing. One swung a wooden club at him but the weapon broke into hundreds of splinters as Casimir swatted it away and he dropped down to get under the foe’s outstretched arm. He lunged upwards to grab him by the throat as three of the cultists rushed forward to stab Kabuto with machetes. With an iron grip he raised the cultist to the air before spinning in place to throw him head level at the two incoming cultists. He crashed spectacularly onto their heads knocking both down to the ground. Another rushed forward with a broken bottle but Kabuto easily ducked underneath and grabbed him by the knees. Four more cultists tried surrounding Red and Kabuto but Kabuto threw his upper body to the side using the cultist he carried like a giant mace knocking all cultists down like fallen trees under a hurricane. The last few of the dozen guard cultists rushed at him but he rushed at all with such speed that all three were knocked several feet away by a single punch. You got a clear path now Red! I’ll handle Roy and that Jim Jones wannabe!

The formerly elderly cult leader was the first to attack by running towards Kabuto to throw a series of punches at Kabuto but he was soon joined in by Nightshade throwing a series of punches and kicks as well. Kabuto stood his ground blocking and deflecting their attacks, his hands moving like black blurs as thuds and smacks filled the air. He couldn’t afford to lose any ground, not now when they were so close! He just about managed to keep up with both but this was ridiculous. Suddenly an opening! The brainwashed Roy in one attack, lacking the finesse of his normal self, accidentally bumped into the cult leader creating a momentary opportunity. Kabuto rushed forward and slammed an open palm strike right at Nightshade’s nose. A splatter of blood filled Kabuto’s palm as he leapt to the side and kicked the cult leader behind him in the neck before he grabbed Roy by the collar midair. As his feet touched the ground Kabuto powered up his throw and launched Roy to the nearest wall before focusing in on the cult leader again who once again had his tattoos glowing a shining gold. His arms’s muscles seemed to expand over ten times in width while he braced himself and his limbs were left as thick as Kabuto’s torso. Nearly foaming at the mouth he ran forward at Kabuto, gargantuan arms ready to strike.

“Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me,” growled Kabuto raising his fists to a boxing stance.

Behind the Scarab, some distance from the mob of Cultists that threatened the heroes, a wall exploded as if a bomb had gone off on the other side, sending sizable chunks of debris and shrapnel flying throughout the chamber. It’s origin, however, was a large enclosed fist of a massive man, his figure and identity shrouded in dust and darkness as he slowly walked through the entrance he had made. Immediately as he entered, though, the body of Nightshade came flying right into him, causing the muscle-clad man to instinctively grab him by the neck and apply pressure instantly.

“We’ve never met,” He began, walking forward with Roy’s neck completely surrounded by his grip, bringing the young mind-controlled hero directly to his face, noticing how his eyes were empty and outlined in gold - Possessed, clearly, as Invader described. “But you will know me in time.” As a dancing flame illuminated his face, the grisly mug of Mustafa Gaul was made apparent, and though he didn’t react with shock or surprise, Nightshade began to fight back against this new threat. Kicking his leg out, Nightshade buried his boot in Gaul’s chest, creating a loud impact but the villain refused to turn the Young Blood leaders’ neck loose.

Sighing, as if he were scolded by some unseen voice, Gaul released Roy’s neck by throwing him backwards, the purple-faced shadow manipulator still having enough energy to twist his body mid-air, landing perfectly on his feet, shallow breaths taking up his lungs as a harsh bruise immediately began to show on his neck. Two Cultists ran between Gaul and Nightshade, aiming to attack the new interloper with golden staves of candle-lit flames, to which, Gaul effortlessly swatted away. Disarmed and facing a giant, the Cultists still tried their luck once more, earning a solid punch to each of their faces, planting them hard enough on the solid bedrock to crack it, and leaving them out of the fight entirely.

“This isn’t as fun as I had hoped,” Gaul admitted, “To be facing Nightshade, leader of the Young Bloods, you’d think I would be cautious and light on my feet. You’re just a pale shade of what you could do,” He stated, looking past Roy and onto the Scarab overseeing the battle, “It has absolutely no idea what your body and mind are capable of.” Still, those words didn’t justify the next series of events, as Gladiator charged forward to begin battle with Nightshade. Side-stepping the charge, Roy absorbed some of the shadows created by the candles, amping his own abilities and striking Gaul hard in the ribcage, but it did little more than earn a stern elbow from the villain, planting Roy’s face on the ground. “You would have dodged that in your right mind.” He commented further, grabbing Roy by the ankle and jerking him up suddenly.

“Turn him loose and let him fight me.” He shouted, hoping the Scarab would call his bluff and let Roy fight the villain toe to toe, at which point, Gaul hoped the gathered heroes would gain another ally on their side. Instead, though, Nightshade entered the shadows, and removed his foot from Gaul’s grip, twisting his body once more and plunging his entire weight into Gaul’s frame, knocking the villain off of his feet and putting his ass to the floor. “Even a trained dog can get a few good bites in, I guess.” He said, reaching up and grabbing Roy’s hair, yanking it back to expose his face and neck, Gaul putting his other hand into a fist and slamming it into Nightshades’ cheek, splitting it from the lip and sending the hero rolling away.

Rising to his feet, Gaul was struck in the back by a Cults’ dagger, the familiar feeling of a stab wound tearing into his upper back so entrenched in his mind that Gaul didn’t make a noise, and simply turned his head to look at his assailant. A young Cultist, with fierce eyes and barred teeth, a young man who slid the knife out of the villain’s back and prepared to stab once more, but Gaul was much faster than that. He stepped forward and let the cultist trip himself up slightly, using that opportunity to grab the man’s wrist and pull him forward all the way, ripping his arm violently upwards at the last minute as the rest of the redshirt’s body fell down, snapping his arm at the elbow. He began to scream in a gutteral fashion, but Gaul paid him no mind as he re-focused on Roy, the mind-controlled hero clenching his fists and squaring his feet to fight the villain once more.

“Why don’t you try attacking me for once?” Gaul asked, Roy obliging, charging forward and ducking a sudden swing by Gaul, counter-punching the villain in his jawline, causing his head to violently turn and whip to the side. In that same instance, though, Gaul had moved his left hand to grab Nightshades’ collar, and with his grip strength, pulled the hero forward and whipped his head back around to face Roy - bringing the man’s face directly into his own skull as hard as he could, exploding his already bloodied face, breaking his nose and cheek bones with a wet crunch, knocking the hero out cold. Gaul’s own face was now bleeding, his forehead split open and producing a single stream of blood to soak his eyebrows. He turned to look at his allies of the time being, seeing that they were also members of the Young Bloods. “Having to fight your friend, how terrible.” He said sarcastically, “Tell him that it took everything I had to beat him, you know, fluff his ego a bit.” As he spoke, he entered the crowd of Cultists, throwing and slamming them without regard for life or limb, destroying everything he could get his hands on and simply allowing the mooks to get as many hits on him as possible, becoming in essence, a human wrecking ball.

With a powerful jolt and a pained grunt, Jan got flung across the room, rolling across the dirt and cement for several meters until finally stopping in one of the puddles formed by Tadeo’s power showcase - for the fifth time. Despite the pain burning across his entire body, the young psionic vigilante simply clenched his teeth and pushed on, rising back up, locking his eyes onto the Scarab and ready to leap forth for a sixth time.

In sharp contrast, the Scarab still stood on her dais in the middle of the room. She stood with a confident ease, looking down on the other telepath with a smug grin. "Come on, Lech. With your friend's life on the line, I was hoping that you'd put up more of a fight." She purred, enjoying herself as she toyed with the hero. "Or you could just give up, I promise to make your death painless if you do."

As determined as Jan’s spirit was, his body was definitely worse for wear. Every single breath sent a pulse of pain across his body, his muscles resisted every single move, and the Scarab didn’t even seem to be using anywhere near its full potential. What were the rest of his allies doing at this point? Casimir appeared to be busy, so was Tadeo, they had a new, muscular ally appearing out of nowhere, taking down Nightshade and then storming through the cultist ranks…

N-Nightshade?! Why is he here?.. And on her side?..

This went deeper than Jan thought it could.

Weakly, the first word which wasn’t a ferocious scream escaped the Polish vigilante’s mouth. “...Why?” His eyes set straight towards the Scarab. “Why are you doing all this? You want a body, I suppose… and then to take over the world with this cult… but why? You… don’t seem to be the type to just act for the sake of evil.”

That evoked a laugh from the Scarab, the sound echoing out with Yoshiro's voice. She raised an amused eyebrow as she waited for Jan to recover. "Bold of you to assume that you know me at all, boy. Bolder still to assume that you'd even understand if I told you." Twisting her hand ever so slightly, Jan would have felt a build up of psychic energy as the Scarab moved on to the offensive. Around her, debris from the collapsed balcony began to levitate into the air. "I was born with a birthright to rule, a destiny that was stolen from me by those who only saw their own selfish desires. But they did give me the chance to watch generations of man rise and fall from my prison." As the stone projectiles now hovered menacingly around her, the Scarab continued with a calm confidence. "And you know what I figured out? The world is cruel. Humans kill and murder, they cheat and steal, and never seem to have trouble in pulling the wool of logic over their minds. They claim that God justified their actions, or some greater good, or that they were left with no choice. It's all bullshit: lies that you tell yourselves so that you can live with the consequences of your actions. And I'm sick of it. All of it."

With that, the girl extended her arm towards the hero, who must've known what would come next as a storm of rubble began to scream through the air towards him like a hail of bullets.

Before Jan could even get a chance to respond, he was forced to throw up his arms and channel all the psychic energy he had to the air in front of him, whipping up a shield in front of himself. The construct was wide enough to stretch for the entire width of the attack, protecting the people behind him, but at the cost of turning fragile enough to crack with every single larger fragment smashing into its frame.

As the chaos began to escalate to ever increasing heights Kabuto locked bloodthirsty eyes with the apparent cult leader as the formerly old man charged at him swinging his tree trunk sized arms. How clumsy of that fool. One fist came plunging down at him like a runaway truck but Kabuto raised his arm against the incoming wrist and guided it towards the ground. Due to his foe’s topheavy nature the leader’s fist crashed against the hard pavement crushing the knuckles. The slicked haired man bared his teeth in pain from the impact as he reared back clenching his fist. He proved too slow for Casimir as the bug hero grabbed him by the remains of his cloak and used it to haul himself up to his shoulders using his legs like steel pincers to pinch the villain’s neck. Kabuto raised one fist and slammed it down on the cult leader’s forehead. The vast momentum behind it forced both to fall forward but Kabuto stuck his arms out to brace both of them against the ground. As the momentum continued squeezed harder at his foe’s neck and like a catapult he used his legs to launch the cloaked man several meters towards a crowd of cultists knocking the large group over like bowling pins.

Kabuto rolled on his back to back to stand back on his feet. In the brief moment of respite Kabuto jerked his head back to suddenly see the supervillain Gaul of all people do a Kool-Aid Man impression and start helping the group of exorcists out. Thankfully he was kept occupied by the mind controlled Roy or was the reverse a good thing? Whatever, he didn’t have time to worry as the horde of cultists he had knocked out were now rushing for his blood. Kabuto leapt upwards and shot webbing up at a ledge Jan had inadvertently created when he piled rubble on top of the Scarab. He clutched to the edge before swinging his legs to and fro until he got a huge arc letting him leap of in a spin. As he came down he used the face of one cultist as a landing pad before shooting webbing to his left at the chest of one cultist. Kabuto leapt off the unfortunate face and twisted his body in the air to use the webbed up cultist as a fan blade to knock over six peers to the left.

Kabuto crashed against the floor arm first and saw he was farther away from the throne. This wasn’t good as he had to protect Red. He ran forward swatting away four cultists that dared stand in his way but as he got there he felt like he was yanked from behind by giant hands. To his disappointment it was the same cult leader as before. This asshole! Kabuto clenched his fist but with his thumb out and he flung it back striking the man’s front teeth. The strike freed Kabuto from the heavy grasp and left him an opening to deliver a low kick to the ankle. The cult leader tripped over to his back as Kabuto flicked both wrists out to web of his foe’s hands. He lumbered a few steps forward and straddled his enemy’s neck. With his left he grabbed the side of his face and twisted it to the side. He raised his arm slightly up and slammed the head downwards.

“For the head honcho of this whole cult thing you sure are a damn pushover,” jeered Kabuto as he raised his right arm into a hook.

His fist was brought down like a pendulum again and again and again on the man’s face turning the face to a puffed up strawberry parfait in its color. Kabuto would be two busy to notice how the cult leader’s arms receded to their normal size and in exchange the tattoos were once again glowing a dim gold. Once he was satisfied pummeling the face Kabuto got up to address the still numerous amount of cultists streaming at the heroes. Time for backup, boys! A wild grin on his face filled Kabuto’s face as the swarm that had been hiding in the tunnel fanned out and clogged the air like smoke. It whirled around the bulk of cultists keeping the cowardly sheep at bay while enveloping a few stragglers as examples.

Suddenly Kabuto somersaulted forward spinning around with fists raised in the air. It looked like the cult leader wasn’t done yet. The man’s tattoos seemed to be spewing gold now and in a matter of seconds from his fingertips to his shoulders were covered in a gold sheath. He brought his fists up and came swinging at Kabuto who simply started laughing at the gesture. The cultists despite having stronger swings was now even slower than before. As one punch rushed forward Casimir shifted to the side and caught the wrist with his left hand. With quick footwork he spun around enough to drive home a hard elbow to the back of his foe’s skull, sending him sprawling on the floor.

El Hechicero saw a cultist charging up a spell and teleported between Casimir and the beam of energy, completely dispelling the effects in a cloud of violet mist. Tad waved the air in front of him to dispel the acrid smoke left behind, faintly smelling of embalming fluid.

The cultist sorcerer acknowledged his opponent. “Boy, what hope do you have? My knowledge and years far surpass your own. I’ve extended my life for decades. You have barely begun to grow facial hair.”

Tad smirked. “My skills far outweigh my years.” He said simply, shooting a beam of energy at the wizard. The beam was absorbed by the sorcerer’s staff, though the force of the blow sent him sliding a few feet across the pavement floor. The cultist looked surprised, then angry.

“So they do.” The cultist sorcerer smiled, freezing the waters with a twirl of his staff in a path creeping towards Tadeo. The Fae-kin snapped his fingers and twirled his arm, opening a portal sputtering flames in a wide column shooting towards the enemy quickly, only to be blocked by a quick ice spell, the portal and the flames disappearing in a thick steam.

The cultist took a breath, actually relieved he was able to dodge the attack in time. As the steam cleared, his confidence faltered to confusion. Tadeo was nowhere to be seen.

And then El Hechicero clocked him aside the head with a mighty kick, sending him to the floor. The cultist, near passing out from exhaustion, touched the earth and spoke an incantation. His eyes glowed a sickly green, and then he collapsed, defeated.

Tadeo looked relieved…. Until the ground began to shake. From the earth erupted a portal to a nether realm, skeletons chittering and dancing in a green light. Tad cursed and spoke in a foreign tongue, glowing bright violet as the other’s fights began to reach their climax. He held the portal closed. “I think…. I can hold it.” Sweat began to appear on his brow, as his look became one of steely determination.

You’re not the only one... Jan’s thoughts broadcasted itself into Tadeo’s mind after the magician’s statement. He held it - held the Scarab’s telekinetic attack, that is, but at the cost of draining his energy and stamina almost completely. Releasing a deeper breath, the telepath allowed his psionic shield to dissipate - and though the construct was mostly intact, a few fragments and pieces managed to slip through the cracks regardless, one rather painfully cutting through his cheek and leaving it covered in flowing blood.

“That doesn’t… explain anything.” the telepath spoke up, finally addressing the Scarab’s monologue from earlier. Talking about matters this philosophical with his… lacking English skills was going to be difficult, but he was going to try to regardless. “You badmouth humans, you call them selfish and violent… but you’re acting exactly the same. You’re cruel, you hurt and murder others, you make lives worse, and you explain it away with an excuse. But for you… it’s not even a good excuse, it’s just ‘destiny’!”

“And I’m getting pretty fucking tired of hearing your shit.”

The Scarab’s eyes opened wide as the sound of Red’s voice came over her shoulder, releasing control of the pile of rubble as she tried to turn around to face the voice. However, it was too late, as Red had already reached around and tightly grabbed around her waist and trapping her. Panicking, the Scarab tried to push herself away, but Red’s grip was unbreakable. Underneath his helmet on his heads up display, a long paragraph of words began to scroll across his vision, which Red began to read out as fast as his mouth could move. Realizing what was happening, the Scarab used all of its powers to try to force Red away, but he continued to hold on, until eventually the last words were spoken.

“Rahal!”

Upon this word being said, a sudden flash of light erupted between where Red and the Scarab stood. As the blinding light faded, the two were suddenly left standing perfectly still, their eyes locked together in a seemingly empty stare. Some of the cultists looked on in both confusion and horror as they saw their god standing there frozen, unsure of what had just occurred. Indeed, it was only the heroes who knew what was actually occuring between the two, as the plan all along had been for Red to get in close enough to begin the process.

The real battle had just begun.

Yoshiro Namaka
Wonder Tower, San Diego

---

As the team’s scheduled departure grew closer, Yoshiro stared at the few pieces of luggage she’d gathered in her room. With her bed neatly made and most of her belongings already having been moved back to her parents’ house in the past week, her room in the Tower looked much the same as when she first moved in. She’d finished packing a while ago, but she’d found herself hesitating before going to the waiting plane.

After being forced to take a backseat in her own mind, and then residing in someone else’s, for nearly a month, just being in her own room felt surreal. The time since the team meeting when Naja had asked her to take a break had passed in the blink of an eye, and everything still felt strange to the telepath. She supposed that it was the best that she could’ve hoped for, and that she had to just be thankful that things had worked out as well as they had, but Yoshiro just felt like she was still going through the motions. Almost like she still hadn’t really come back.

Glancing up at the clock on her wall, the girl took a breath as she conceded that she couldn’t delay for much longer. Grabbing the handle of her suitcase, she turned to leave the room - the departure feeling more uncomfortably final than she would have liked. Yoshiro had been excited for the tournament all week, but now that it was here she felt weary at the prospect of facing the team on the flight. She hadn’t really had a chance to talk to most of them since the meeting, not in much depth at least. She’d let them down, and she was ashamed because of it. But they’d still treated her the same - without any hint of judgment. Gritting her teeth, Yoshiro frowned as she simply forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

Get over yourself, Yoshiro. They’re your friends and they gave you a second chance. Meandering her way through the Tower, she found that the jet was pretty much loaded and fuelled by the time she made it to the hangar. After she stowed her luggage, the girl steeled herself just before she entered the cabin. Things will go back to normal eventually.

Stepping inside, Yoshiro was met by the din of excited conversation. Most of the team was already present, talking among themselves as they settled in for the flight. Eyeing a free seat behind Angelica and Alexis, she offered her two friends a soft smile as she maneuvered through the aisle. Keeping largely to herself, it still felt strange for her to be among everyone again. Things were made stranger still by the newer members who had joined while she’d been...away. It was eerie, with the world having continued to turn despite the crisis that had consumed her life.

Taking her seat, Yoshiro wasted no time in buckling in. Turning, she looked out of the window as she waited for take-off.

[Finland SSR]

Shihong Smith

Renata Martinez, the heroic Stella!

September 12th

---

Should Renata have been surprised that Shi ignored her comment completely? The woman barely offered her a passing, dismissive glance before returning to her phone, as if nothing happened at all. As infuriating as getting ignored was... would Renata have really done something different if the situation were reversed? She had just as little interest in listening to what Shi had to say as Shi, presumably, had towards her. And why should she? Shi has, so far, shown no signs of being even even a measly tolerable human being, of being recognized any more than one would recognize a stain on the floor. If she sees Renata the same way, then so be it - but that didn't mean that Renata couldn't just answer with the same.

"Fine." Renata blurbed and folded her arms, turning her head to the other side. Fine, have it your way. You want silence? I'll give you silence.

And of course she has to be the one who doesn't get to sit by the window.

This is going to be a long flight...

---

"Oh, uh, Bael."

The Mad Lass, Sina As'tari!

August 8th

---

"I mean, asking them once shoudn't be the end of the world..." Sina gave a throwaway response, but didn't really complain. The two Dra'Quinni quickly passed through a few streets before they finally approached a building which the humans would probably compare to a stadium. Or, at least, that's what a building in San Diego was called which appeared similar to this one. As it turns out, this was the public racing arena - the sign above the door revealed just that.

Signs and billboards in Dra'Quinni language, that's new. It'll take a while to get accustomed to... everything here. For Sina, the mere concept of a city was tied with the scaleless and their cities which she got to witness, in contrast with the little hut which all of the Dra'Quinni she knew in her life lived in - so a city inhabited solely by her kind was still... weird. The vigilante continued looking around while the two of them approached the registry for the race, almost forgetting what they were here for and only realizing when Bael gave his name to the short man in front of them.

"Oh, Sina. Sina's my name." the vigilante immediately spoke up, then started stretching to warm up in preparation for the race. "Is this the professional leagues or just a bunch of novices? I'm guessing the latter from the way you addressed us..."

Unfortunate.

[Aidannadia]

User#125749: Has anyone noticed Pitch has been inactive
User#204290: Its been 3 days
User#759043: Maybe she's taking a break

"Exclusive footage by 5 on your side: The Goatman...."

"Trident standing strong despite recent critiques after a quarter of slow growth. Businesswoman Naftis later tonight will...."

Click. Aleta turned off the news on the laboratory monitor. She hadn't become familiar with her surroundings as of yet, but many of the devices seemed to be far beyond her expertise. She turned to the Chaffeur; he'd apparently been the one to pull her out of the rubble, though she wouldn't have thought him possible of such a feat. He was tall for sure, but wiry and his suit was always immaculate. It almost seemed wrong to think he'd dirty himself with the dust of the rubble. Nevertheless. she owed him her life. She wouldn't have thought for a moment she'd ever think more of him as her Aunt's driver, and yet here he was, watching over her silently by the door as if someone was going to enter the room to finish the job at any moment.

Click. Click. Click. A familiar gait of heels click their way into the lab. Aleta actually smiled meekly.

"Auntie, can we talk?" Her aunt's suit suggested that she was going somewhere later tonight. "If you're busy that's fine though."

"What is it?" Her aunt said.

"Well, it's just you mentioned I was just like mom and-"

"Hardly. Your mother was the sweetest kindest person that anyone met, but you did inherit some of her key traits. Her stubbornness. Her beauty. And her power. I'd thought for a long time that you're blood was befuddled by that rat father of yours, but it seems your traits run strong."

Aleta was used to her Aunt's biting tongue at this point. "Her power?"

"Your mother was an angel. That is true in nearly a literal sense." Alcyone continued. "Her title was Paragon. You may be familiar with the name. She was among one of the more popular heroes. Super strength. Wings. Super Durability. She was perfect. One of the few heroes to remain independent throughout her career, and she was courted by plenty of agencies. She passed on a mission not long after you were born."

Aleta's jaw almost dropped. The famous Paragon, her mother. Lied to all these years. "How could you have let me think I killed my mother all these years? You cruel woman!" The Chauffeur shifted uncomfortably,

"Oh don't start on that. You were going to find out eventually. I was going to tell you on your eighteenth." Alcyone waved her hand dismissively, and Aleta actually became quiet. "Either way, more importantly, I was her confidante. I fitted her suit with everything known to man, from shark repellant to explosives. I was the woman in the chair behind Paragon, and it's your birthright to take over her mantle as a hero now, and I can work with you to save this city." Alcyone's lips curled into a smile.

Aleta wasn't smiling however. She pulled out her IV, and struggled to stand. "I'm no hero."

Alcyone twitched slightly. "You are what I say you are, girl. It's only right that you follow in your mother's footsteps, and together we can destroy the men that did this to you. Together.... we will shine as a bright Paragon for all to see." She outstretched her hand, and Aleta looked at it tempted.

"No. I told you." Aleta turned towards the door, grabbing her leather jacket on the way out of the lab. "I'm no hero."

[Absolon-7]

Bael

Casimir Herman September 12th
Casimir blinked in surprise as Wyatt jumped upwards to avoid his low kick which was equal parts frustrating and astonishing. To pull such a maneuver so quickly meant Wyatt wasn't slouching when it came to training at least. Wyatt began his own counteroffensive by mimicking Casimir's initial attack at the gut. Casimir brought down one arm to shield the initial blows but it was barely on time as on his unprotected flank Wyatt landed a few hits. Casimir clenched his teeth as the punch struck him making him bounce back a few steps. He had to think of how to get Wyatt to yield and end the fight. But just what would be suitable? Casimir leaped upwards and flicked one wrist out to shoot a string of webbing out at Wyatt's shoulder. He tugged on it with a mighty force and brought himself plunging down at Wyatt's head with his knee aimed right at Wyatt's face.

"Get ready for a nosebleed!," yelled Casimir midair.

If for whatever reason the attack failed Casimir planned to jump behind Wyatt and deliver multiple kicks at the dra'qunni's shoulder blades but that depended on Wyatt not having some move up his metaphorical sleeves.

Afternoon of the 12

Ash

Viviana Couture September 12th
As Viviana watched Casimir go to the glum Mars she nestled herself into her own window side seat like a bird stuffing itself into their very own nest. She had been on a plane sorta recently this year's spring break being the last time. She and her family had went to go see Niagra Falls. However, her favorite part of any plane ride was looking outside and enjoying how tiny everything became! It was like some of those miniatures landscapes some folk collected. Well hopefully she didn't get sick or something. A memory of throwing up on her dad when she was seven flashed her mind during one time they went to a plane ride destined for Disneyland. She visibly grimaced and shook her head fastidiously at the event making her tied of braids of hair slap her own face.

“Hello Viviana! It is good to see you today. May I please be seated next to you?”

The brunette looked towards her side and was greeted by the sight of a huge grinned Ash. Viviana returned her smile and pat the seat next to hers although she wondered if her wings would get in the way or something.

"Go ahead, Ashy. Good to see ya too! Ready for the tournament? I've heard you've been working hard for it." she said at the moth girl. An idea passed through her head causing her to rummage through the contents of her purse resting on her lap. Out she pulled a treasured device of her, that being a 3DS and handed it to Ash, "Ever played Pokemon before? Its like those video games we have at the living room you sometimes see us play. Just click the arrows until a fight starts."

Out of the corner of her eye Viviana spotted Mizu at the back of the plane and the brunette twisted her torso around waved her friend down, "Hey Mizu! Come sit in front of me and Ash! We gotta come up with games that can last the flight!"