Young Bloods(IC, Reboot Open)

[Absolon-7]

Immediately on cue, Kirisvala launched herself at the giant at the same time as Casimir's fist rapped the convict's face. The sheer force of their combined attack sent the man across the open field, his body tumbling all the way. Casimir turned to face Kirisvala hoping to get a celebratory high five but she abruptly gave a warning darting in front of him to block a blinding lightning bolt with her claws. Casimir stood in shock as the girl braced another attack from the convict selflessly putting herself in harm's way. Casimir thought that she must be in such incredible pain from the vicious attacks and that clearly she was simply putting up a facade so that he wouldn't freak out.

Thinking quickly, Casimir grabbed Kirisvala by the shoulders dragging her down at the same moment the convict leader let out an electrical discharge. During that brief widow in time where he recharged his attack, Casimir sprinted as fast as he could, clocking at 80mph, straight towards the giant man. Using his momentum, he head-butted the giant's bruised side but he was in turn shocked by a brief painful surge. They both landed on the ground with a large thud each combatant keeling over in pain.

Slowly the two got to their feet eyeing each other as predators would look at rival species. Casimir also got a good look at the giant's condition: his nose was profusely leaking blood from where his punch had landed earlier dripping over a bruised and battered face and the rough texture of Kirisvala's claws had ripped open a hole in jumpsuit revealing a large bruise.

"You made the wrong move, you stupid pig!" breathed out Casimir in a sudden fury. "Attacking a cheerful girl who just innocently wanted to help put you crooks back in prison was a big mistake!" shouted Casimir getting himself into a battle stance.

"Like I give a fuck about that ugly bitch," groaned the man while accumulating a large amount of electricity around his fists.

Casimir didn't bother responding as he pounced towards the man driving his fist straight into the enemy's sternum. The convict leader in return swung an electrified fist into Casmir's face, the electricity sending a burning pain that accompanied the pure physical pain from the massive fist. To both of their surprise it didn't incapacitate him but instead he returned a powerful uppercut to the giant's chin. The giant fell to his knees grasping his face to console the pain but Casmir was having none of it. Without pause he kneed the man's face sending him sprawling on the floor.

Nearly out of breath Casimir walked over next to the convict's face and bent over to pick up the head with his left hand and at once punched the swollen face with his right driving the head into the ground. Casimir stepped over the body satisfied and called over to Kirisvala.

"Sorry I kinda exaggerated how strong I am. My max strength is closer to the strength of ten average people not champion weightlifters, although it would be if I trained harder. Maybe if I didn't exaggerate like that Mars would have ordered someone else with us and then you wouldn't have gotten hurt." Admitted Casmir scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

He didn't have chance to hear her response has the giant convict rapidly got on his feet and braced Casmir sending a gross amount of voltage through his body with the electricity swallowing up the surrounding area in a bright blue light. Casmir shrieked in utter pain unable to process a single thought but pain. The giant convict let him go but not before swinging one last punch at Casmir's face knocking him over. The convict turned to Kirisvala with his bloodshot eyes overflowing with anger. In a bestial rage, he started running to her.

He didn't have chance to reach her since Casimir suddenly rushed at him, clutched the convict's jumpsuit, and with all his might threw him overhand at the ground. The giant's body crashed hard into the earth coiling over in pain. After groaning for a bit he seemed like he really did pass out this time. Well hopefully he was.

"That's what happens when evil brutes like you go up against the great Kabut−! I mean ... never mind," exclaimed Casmir catching himself from almost falling over. "Mind helping me drag him back to the others?" He cheerfully asked while limping towards Kirisvala. "If he wakes up feel free to give him a good wallop. There's also a chance that I'll pass out from the pain so yeah there's that..."

[Auropa]

Taking in one more deep breath, Mike finally recollected himself. The fight still wasn’t over so self-imposed lectures would have to wait. Looking around, he tried to think of his next move. He had hit the panic button and assuming nothing else was happening tonight, help should eventually be getting here. Of course, that did absolutely nothing to help them in the here and now. Pulling himself off the wall Mike steadied himself and looked at his newfound mace/pop-bottle, for now he had to fight, no avoiding that, but the least he could do was try and find something a bit more usable.

As he began to make his way back to the centre of action, one thing quickly caught his attention: the ‘entrance’ the convicts had made onto the island. Specifically, a large, blackened hole leading straight into some underground pipes. ‘Huh’ Mike thought more than a little stunned, ‘if someone had the firepower to blow their way into the island, then why weren’t they fighting the students and why did they make such an overt exit instead of just slipping away’?. More confused than anything else Mike took a second to try and peer deeper into the hole as though the empty pipe might somehow hold answers.
Snapping him back to reality however was the short cry rising above the general chaos.

“Someone… Help,” Wendy screamed. “I can’t stop him from overriding his cybernetics for long.”

For a moment, Mike looked at the edge of the hole. ‘If something blew its way out then… There!’ he thought as he reached into the side. Clasped in his hands was a small line of rebar that had been knocked almost completely loose. Then, with a small grunt of effort, Mike pulled and tore the pipe free from the rubble before clambering to his feet and breaking into a sprint at the source of the sound.

It didn’t take long to find Wendy. Even though it seemed like the fight was coming close to a close, two people standing still in the maelstrom of movement was hard to miss. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he kept up his momentum and charged at the static convict. ‘Oh you’re a big one’ he thought as he moved in. Then as he closed the final meter, he raised the rebar with both his hands and swung into the man’s exposed head to a sickening yet satisfying clunk. ‘And people say the same trick won’t work twice’ he thought grimly as he bent over and tried to regain his breath. But as half a second passed he noticed a distinct lack of a second thud. Turning around, expecting the worst, he looked back to the still standing convict. For a moment he panicked. Mike was already closing in on his limit, especially after putting everything into that last swing, and yet, his target hadn’t so much as shifted under the impact. Desperately, Mike scrambled his brain to try and think of a solution, but at that same moment he realised that the convict still wasn’t moving. Taking a closer look revealed the reason and sure enough, the man’s eyes were half closed and had rolled all the way back into his head. No doubt about it, he was out cold.

“Umm, Wendy.” He finally said between ragged breaths “You can drop him now.” As he talked he tried to straighten up and make sure his schoolmate was okay. They didn’t really have classes together but, at least to Mike, someone like Wendy tended to stand out. Foster kid, introverted sure but still a tad mysterious and about a dozen times smarter than him and was evidently the type of person to 1v1 someone around twice her weight. “Gotta say” Mike finally said, as he began to get his breathing under control “I was not expecting to see you here.” Looking behind her he noticed the flattened patch of ground and started to piece two and two together. “You okay?” He asked with more than a hint of concern. “Some pro super arrived, Shadow… something… I think. Either way, can you walk? He’s cleared the area around the dancefloor and I think a few students are waiting this out over there.”

[New Finnish Republic]

Red

Things were finally starting to look like they were going good for the rag tag group of teens. Whether it was skill, pure luck, or likely a combination of the two, the group had either taken down or were in the process of taking down what looked to be the biggest threats out of the group of inmates. The rest more or less looked like they didn't possess any special abilities, which meant that they would be nothing more than Red was used to dealing with during his usual vigilante work as The Mask.

Four of these inmates remained, seeming hesitant to go on the offensive against their now apparent superhuman foes. Red decided to take advantage of this hesitation by throwing a non lethal grenade in the middle of the group of inmates. Another one of his favorite toys, the grenade launched a dozen miniature rubber balls into the air with enough velocity to drop anyone unfortunate to be standing within ten feet of the initial explosion.

Seeing this come their way, the group scattered in all different directions in an effort to avoid Red's grenade. Half of them managed to do that while the remaining two were unable to get out in time. Howls of pain could be heard as the projectiles hit their targets with enough force to nearly fracture bone.

Two down, two to go, Red thought as he glanced at the remaining inmates. They looked at each other for a brief second before nodding their heads and charging straight at Red. While he could at least respect their tenacity, he couldn't believe just how stupid these two could be. With a disappointed sigh, Red pulled out one of his handguns from his holster and slammed in a new magazine.

Loaded with non-lethal electrical rounds, these bullets would deliver six times the shock of an average electrical fence, an amount that was more than enough to overload the average human's nervous system. With a yawn, Red unloaded about four of these into the first oncoming inmate, dropping him like a sack of potatoes as his muscles were instantly locked up. The second inmate only had enough time to begin to mouth of a four letter word beginning with "F" before he soon suffered the same fate.

Red almost rolled his eyes at how comically easy that had been for him. Without any sort of super powers, these inmates were nothing more than a bunch of moving practice targets for him. He made sure to deliver a few swift kicks to ensure that these last remaining inmates were unconscious. Once this was done, he scanned the area while thinking back to how many inmates he had originally seen before the fight had begun.

"All that should be left is- HOLY SHIT!"

Red let loose additional swears as a body suddenly flew over his head towards the last remaining super powered inmate. Red recognized the kid flying above him as the Nathan from before, and looking back he he noticed Carter, who looked pretty banged up. What they had planned was beyond Red's knowledge, but he supposed all he could do was back them up.

As he turned around and prepared to do just that, he also happened to notice that Roy was missing. It was uncommon for "Boy Wonder" to disappear like that, especially in the middle of a fight.

I swear to God, if he's trying to pick up some girl I'm going to shoot him right in his tights-wearing ass.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

-Snip-

-Snip-

I looked at two lumps of Jell-o in my palm. Before I could give Caleb my best what-the-heck expression, he had gone sprinting to another direction with ridiculous speed. I saw him trying to chase the teleporter with Alexis, although neither one of them were really successful on doing so. I tried to corner Blinky, shooting bolts of light and force whenever I could. He always managed to blink away before I hit him though. Goddamit, somebody got to fix his broken teleportation ability.

Then out of nowhere, I saw Blinky appeared behind Alexis. For a second there I thought he was going to knock her out cold, but Alexis managed to hop out of harm's way and instead gave Blinky a kick on his head. Out of reflex or instinct, he teleported himself away from Alexis, but not too far from me or Caleb.

A grin formed on my face. Blinky was lying on the ground, obviously still dazed by Alexis' kick. I threw the two Jell-o in quick succession and saw how it turned into soft, sticky goo as soon as it contacted the inmate. I caught Blinky right on his arms and I watched for Caleb and Alexis to throw theirs. He tried to wriggle through the goo and teleport away but either the goo somehow prevent him from doing so or he got concussion in his brain that prevent him from moving anywhere. I didn't want to risk anything though, so I drew a circle around him and ornated a simple sigil inside it. I am not very good with mental magic like the one I was casting, but it was a simple spell. As I finished I touched the edge of the magic circle and sent a surge of my will through it.

There was a small static as the energy coursed through and faint, nearly visible light was glowing from the sigil. I watched Blinky's eyes darting around him, not knowing what would happen. As he tried harder and harder to keep his eyes open, I knelt next to him and spoke at his ears. "Calm down, friends" I flashed him an amused smile. "It's only for a while".

Blinky finally closed his eyes and his body followed it by relaxing their muscle. "I sent him for a quick trip to Slumberland" I explained to Caleb and Alexis. "I don't know if your Jell-o will melt or he might be able to teleport along with your desert, so I have to take precautions. He'll be awaken when the dawn arrives."

[Anxiety Cafe]

Nathan hit the ground with a loud crash, his flailing limbs stuck in unnatural positions. One leg was bent behind him, the ankle twisted painfully. Other than that, he didn’t feel anything to be broken. On his other knee, the skin had been scraped off, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as his arm had been before. He tried to flex his leg, the muscles pulling. The ankle screamed in pain, discouraging him from trying to move it again.

He groaned, expecting to be out of the fight for a while. Instead, he heard footsteps.

"Hey, Nathan, you're an energy absorber, right? Well, wind has some kinetic energy in it, right? Yeah, I know, science class paid off, for once. Anyways, you may die, but that's alright. Hey Cass, what are the odds of Nathan dying if I do this?"

Nathan could do nothing but blink at the flurry of questions before he felt himself picked up by an invisible force. Wide-eyed and prepared to inform Carter that telekinesis would not, in fact, give him any energy, he noticed something else. He wasn’t getting picked up by telekinesis; instead, the air particles around him had become so agitated that they were moving him. He had mistakenly assumed Carter’s power.

As he flew through the air, he realized Carter had overshot his path of trajectory a little bit. Absorbing as much of the air’s kinetic energy as possible, he slowed, and dropped like a rock towards the prisoner below.

The convict had his attention on Red, staring in disbelief at the bodies dropped around him. Nathan stayed focused on his mission, enhancing his arm muscles and healing his ankle. The amount of energy the air supplied was surprising, but Nathan figured it was because of something Carter had done.

He kept a little extra in the tank as he dropped himself straight on the prisoner’s fat head. He crumpled, his legs buckling at the sudden force. Nathan too felt his knees buckle, but he jumped off the brute quickly. Rethinking for a second, he jumped back, slapping the big guy on his head and trying to absorb his energy.

Nathan soon grew woozy from the effort, in a matter of seconds. His tank was already approaching a quarter full when the guy threw him off, angrily standing up and glaring. There was fatigue behind his eyes, though. Nathan had done his job.

“Red,” he yelled. “Do something, now!”

[New Finnish Republic]

Red

"Red, do something now!"

"Don't say my name! It's The Ma... Ah fuck it, let's drop this guy already."

Red was intent on doing just that as he raised both handguns towards the last remaining foe. The guy might've been tough, but it looked like Nathan had drained enough out of him that he would be easy enough to take down. A malicious grin appeared on Red's face as he flicked the safeties off and began to unload his pistols into the inmate. As long as this guy is just super strong, these bullets should do just the tri-

Red's thoughts were interrupted when he suddenly felt a fist go straight into his gut, knocking all air out of him. His eyes were wide open in pure shock as blood escaped from his mouth while he was flung back several feet from the impact. He landed hard, tumbling on the ground even further away from the impact. When he finally did stop, his body screamed in pain as the damage from the man's blow continued to effect him.

It took all of his willpower just to even get up from that hit, shaking as the blood trickled from his mouth to the ground below. Red knew the only reason he was probably even alive was the fact that Nathan had already dramatically weakened the inmate as well as that Red was wearing his Kevlar vest. Still, Red didn't think he'd be able to survive another blow like that.

Glancing, he saw the inmate was charging towards him, his powerful legs putting him at the speed of an Olympic athlete. While it was clear that this man was still feeling the effects of Nathan's draining ability, it seemed liked the man's strength was still considerably higher than an average human's. Furthermore, it appeared that he was incredibly tough, as he had brushed off enough electric shock to immobilize a full grown elephant.

Red only had a few seconds until the man was going to reach him. Nathan and the others were too far away to help, so it looked like he was on his own. Red desperately though of anything that could take the quickly approaching super powered man down before he'd end up getting killed by the man. The shock rounds obviously had no effect on him, which meant that many other of Red's gadgets weren't going to do the trick, and likely nor was even the live ammunition that Red carried on him for emergencies. Red had only one option left, and he didn't like it. It could very likely end up killing himself in the process, but the alternative of this possible death was certain death, so he didn't have a choice.

Reaching for his belt, Red grabbed the several black metal discs that hummed to life as Red's fingerprints activated them. They each began to glow a bright Red that flashed slowly that was accompanied with a high pitch beeping noise. Red threw them only a few feet in front of him, right in the way of the inmate who was almost right on top of him. The man, thinking himself to be indestructible, thought nothing of them until he suddenly saw Red giving a half-hearted grin while holding a small device with a button on the end.

"Watch your step."

The man's eyes widened as he looked down to see that he was indeed right on top of these metal discs, which just so happened to be packed with enough explosives to blast through a bank vault's security door. Red dove backwards trying to get as much distance between him and the explosives as he could before pressing the button.

Immediately, a fireball erupted below the inmate who was unfortunate enough to still be in mid stride above the explosive devices. Time seemed to suddenly go into slow motion as both he and Red were flung several feet away from the initial explosion. Fortunately for Red, he managed to hit mostly grass as he once again tumbled across the ground. Unfortunately for the inmate, he was blown back straight into a nearby wall, his upper body crashed through one end while the his legs dangled from the other side. Had it not been for his physical resilience, the explosion would've likely killed the man. Red had counted on that, however.

What he couldn't count on, however, was in own survival. When he pressed that trigger, he felt more like a suicide bomber than a hero, and he knew sure as hell there wasn't going to be 72 virgins waiting for him on the other side. So when he opened his eyes to see that he was beaten up yet still very alive, him being surprised was an understatement. His body ached like hell, and his clothes were more or less burnt to a crisp.

Still, he was alive, and for that he was thankful. He painfully managed to prop himself up to get a glance around to see the results of his gamble. A crater now stood between where he and the now unconscious inmate were, the size of it showing just how much of a punch the explosive devices had possessed. It only reminded Red just how stupid and lucky he was.

What surprised him even more than his survival, however, was when he glanced over to his right to find Boy Wonder. With a girl. Who he was smiling at. Who seemed to be in awe at the mere sight of him. He shakenly pointed a finger at Roy and the mystery girl, who now noticed the still smoking vigilante who had suddenly appeared.

"You...Son...Of...A...Bitch...I'll...Kick...Your..."

Red's threat was cut short as his whole body suddenly collapsed as he finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

[Tomia]

Roy
"It was brave of you to come back for them." Roy told the girl he had helped, before turning his head when she suggested he get back the fight. He saw most of the convicts were taken care of, the kids from the party were preforming surprisingly well. However there were still things to do, for one thing the Mask was laying near by, unconscious but he didn't see any threats near him at the moment. "You're right, I should get going. Do your best to lay low, hopefully the trouble is almost over but you never know this this kind of thing. Well, uh, bye for now." He said before rushing over to the Mask. After he pulled his former rival/neighborhood announce off to safety, he went to find Cassandra as he surveyed the scene.

It seemed that all the convicts had been dealt with, and just when Roy was about to relax and start switching to damage control mode, one of the convicts that he had thought was down for the count started to struggle back to his feet. "Hey, stay down buddy it's not worth it." Nightshade told him, his staff at the ready.

"No!" The man shouted in a rage. "I'm not going back to prison. I...." Suddenly his voice escaped him and his body began contorting and shifting in disturbing ways. Roy couldn't but look away for a few moments... preferring not to see what was happening. When he turned back, where the man had stood was now a massive bat like creature. It let out a massive roar before soaring up into the sky, circling the group of teens, as if it was preparing to swoop down and strike.

"Shit.... Everyone look out! Don't take your eyes off it!" He shouted to the group. He needed to take charge now, or people would get hurt. But he also had to be realistic, this wasn't something he had done before. There were too many people to protect and he needed help.

"I can't believe I'm doing this..." He said as he ducked behind a tree for cover before pulling out his cell phone. He sat with anticipation as the phone rang, until finally it was picked up.

"Naja? Hi, ya I know it's late. Sorry, I need you for something. Mars and I went to party on Wonder Island and well, we kind of got ambushed by a bunch of escaped convicts..." Roy sighed, angry shouting could be heard from the speaker of his phone. "Look! Yell at me later okay? We need your help. We took out all of the convicts, but one of them transformed. I have no idea how, but now he's a bat creature flying above us. It's too much for me to handle I need help." After a few moments he looked visibly relieved. "Thanks, I'll hold it off until you get here." With that he hung up, and turned to see what the creature was up to.

Just then, the creature swooped down on Mars, who had been furiously doing something on his watch and got distracted. "Woah!!" Roy heard him shout as he was lifted into the air. Roy grimaced, gripping his staff tighter. Great job Roy, while you were crying for help your best friend just got bat-napped. He ran out towards the bat, shouting out to get it's attention. When he finally did the bat started to swoop towards him, and Roy threw his staff in a vertical motion, smacking the beast right in the nose. It didn't do any serious damage, but it pissed the bat creature off. It dove up into the air, and dropped Mars in the process. The boy genius was screaming for help as he plummeted at least 8 feet towards the ground, and Roy panicked, realizing he was too far away to reach him in time.

[Yekrenia]

Zoeshiabe (藍健彭)
Kletterian Colonial City of Tawokoshiwa (沃园林), Southeast China

Nothing could seem to shatter the façade of the water as the sun was arising from the east and reflected the dark silhouette's over the horizon. Those same silhouettes inched closer and closer until the calm façade was shattered by the towering oriental retrofuturist skyscapers - most of whom were under construction.

The calm air was then filled with the sounds of civilization and the hustle and bustle of life, both human and Kletterian alike. Cars drive down the narrow fairways and small side streets that crisscrossed the southern Chinese, alongside the overhead railway lines - most of whom were also under construction as well.

Only a handful of new railway lines had been opened to the public so far, but the rest of the city and its infrastructure were coming along. Construction crews - at least for the human ones - were beginning a new day on the job, with half of their Kletterian counterparts already calling in for the morning.

The daylight was blinding for ordinary Kletterians, so any Kletterian wondering about the city were wearing eye protection and sunscreen to shield themselves from the heat and brightness alike. Earth was just as hot as Dasan, but the only difference was that Earth had a bright yellow star - a contrast to Dasan's dim red and blue binary stars.

Subsequently, despite the bustling traffic - vehicles and pedestrians alike - that brought the city to life, it was commonplace for Kletterians to walk around with sunglasses and parasols or protective face masks to shield themselves from the brightness. In fact, even Kletterian-made structures had to accommodate this issue as well.

Until the first Kletterian colonial city began construction in 2012, human-made skyscrapers were outfitted with reflective glass to deflect sunlight and reduce heat. When the Kletterians came along, the Kletterians shared a new transparent material for the windows on skyscrapers called, K-Glass.

K-Glass (or also affectionately known as, Kletterian Glass; "固体晶体电镀 / Kolaikaxediako") was a non-reflective transparent composite material made by the Kletterians to originally withstand hurricanes and high-velocity impacts. Used in both Kletterian vehicles and skyscrapers, K-Glass was vastly different from ordinary glass itself.

Vastly less brittle than ordinary glass, K-Glass became commonplace in newer skyscrapers, since the material was both non-reflective and strong. What would usually take an inch of glass to safely shield a person from high-speed winds were now replaced by a few millimeters of K-Glass, which was lighter yet stronger but just as transparent.

Subsequently, all the buildings in the city using K-Glass still gave off a display of elegance and triumph despite the windows being non-reflective. On the other hand, the K-Glass that lined all the buildings were kept blue to give the buildings a human appearance, as opposed to the ordinary white color or black tint.

On one of the high-rise apartment buildings, the city was home to a notable single residence and female Kletterian on the 35th floor. The green and purple colored curtains had a slit in the center enough to provide a single ray of sunlight into the apartment, though the curtain was closed enough to provide the resident privacy.

The resident's name was Zoeshiabe. Her apartment was of a single bedroom/living room with only a small bathroom near the front door. To the left of the bedroom/living room, there was a study desk with a top and bottom shelf for books, along with a small dark cyan double drawers, and a multi-shelf piece of furniture in the same colour to the left.

In the center and right of the room, there was a small table to the left of Zoe's purple bed with her black dolphin alarm clock on top to the right of the table, close enough for her to reach for it without getting out of bed. Lastly of the room, Zoe was cloaked under her white bed covers while she was reading a novel on her holographic tablet.

Cladded only in her two-piece pajamas, Zoe was only moments from falling asleep, only if it weren't for the fact that she was watching the news alongside her novel on her holographic tablet. The Germans and Verlinians had just completed the construction of the H.B. Finanzturm, which was only a bummer for Zoe for multiple reasons.

First, it was nighttime in Germany, which was the best time for her and most other Kletterians to go about their day on Earth. Second, Zoe could watch the opening of the H.B. Finanzturm from her tablet - she really wished she was there to see it open in person. Lastly, she was about to go to bed soon, since she had an assignment tonight.

Since her arrival to Earth, Zoe had been making a living via solo heists across the most secure places in China. From heist to heist, Zoe had been taking a liking to stealing the most high valuable objects in China. In fact, aside from the cultural similarities, Earth was a very interesting, not for the humans, but for the places on the planet.

If Earth and Dasan were compared as soups, Dasan would be little more than broth with herbs and spices while Earth was like a rich noddle soup similar to Vietnamese Pho. The nationstates on Earth were defined by continents, not so much by archipelagos like Dasan. Also, the flat lands on Earth made Dasan's own little more than crevices in a hill.

But these comparisons only fascinated Zoe when she began living on Earth for her first year. Still, Zoe could only marvel at how humanity could be able to enjoy the luxury of building vast metropolitan cities on open land. This was in contrast to the cities on Dasan, where it was high condensed and compacted by skyscrapers in every direction.

At least on Earth, the cities here at least had one direction where there was land, not just steel and glass in every direction. Zoe loved the elegance and beauty of cities, especially the skyscrapers, but sometimes the sight could get ruined from time to time by the noise and traffic. Subsequently, this was another reason why Zoe loved the nighttime on Earth.

So, it was only as she kept watching the newscasters for the next ten minutes that she eventually decided to turn off her holographic tablet and shelter herself into the covers of her bed. She may have wealth to last herself a lifetime, but she intended to keep it right where it was, since she wanted to enjoy the wonders of life that she got to quench when she was a kid...

[Bentus]

Yoshiro Namaka
Wonder Island Loading Dock, San Diego

---

Yoshiro nodded her head in response to Nightshade, still silently wrapping her head around having a conversation with the masked vigilante. She smiled sheepishly as he complimented her actions, appearing embarrassed by the praise.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, I guess.” There was a slight hint of colour in the girl’s cheeks. By all accounts, she should be thanking the hero who had just saved her life – not the other way around. Before Yoshiro could manage another word however, a large explosion rocked the entire building. A fireball erupted in the centre of the warehouse, illuminating the interior for a moment as if it were daylight. A single figure was sent flying through the air by the force of the detonation, the body crashing down among a pile of crates not far from where the pair stood.

The boy was motionless for a moment, and Yoshiro was about to rush forward to check on him when a cough wracked the smoking body. Clearly with a great deal of pain an effort, the Mask of all people propped himself on an arm. He was wearing a smug grin, evidently pleased with his handiwork. However, as his eyes turned to glance towards Yoshiro, that smile evaporated.

"You...Son...Of...A...Bitch...I'll...Kick...Your..."

He never finished his threat, the fatigue and physical exhaustion catching up to him as he collapsed into unconsciousness. Yoshiro was left standing in confusion, frozen in nervous terror as she tried to figure out what it was that she’d done to get on the fearsome vigilante’s bad side. She offered a pleading expression to Nightshade, hoping that he might be able to explain what the hell was going on and why she’d suddenly found herself in the middle of a bonafide superhero showdown. He ignored the snarled warning from the now-unconscious Mask and didn’t even seem to want to look at Yoshiro.

“You’re right I should get going.” With explosions and vigilantes now mingling with superpowered prisoners, Yoshiro wasn’t feeling as comfortable being left on her own. But before she could even open her mouth, Nightshade was racing back into the thick of things. Left standing next to an unconscious prisoner, Yoshiro tried to process the rollercoaster of events that had occurred in the last few minutes. With a sigh, she allowed her shoulders to slump slightly feeling both tired and embarassed. Way to go, Yoshi. You get a chance to talk to a real-life superhero and you act like a complete idiot. Suddenly, the girl’s eyes shot open as she remembered that Mark was still slumped against a wall, steadily losing blood.

Racing over to where she’d left her friend, Yoshiro ignored the pains and aches in her legs. Sarah would absolutely murder her if she forgot about Mark because she was distracted by some cute boy in a mask. Running around the stack of crates, Yoshiro breathed a sigh of relief as she was greeted by a sly smirk.

“Hi Yoshi, what took you so long?” Mark’s voice was weak, and most of the colour had drained from his face. Glancing at his leg, Yoshiro felt her stomach twirl at the amount of blood that had been collecting around him. Without hesitating, she swiftly tore her the sleeve from her friend’s shirt to use as an impromptu tourniquet.

“Oh, you know, had to go fight some bad guys.” That prompted a harsh chuckle from Mark, although Yoshiro could feel his mind slipping in and out of consciousness. “All wrapped up now though, so we should be getting you home in no time.”

Mark raised a quizzical eyebrow. “We?”

“Whoa!” The surprised shout caused Yoshiro to look back over her shoulder, but the sight that greeted her caught her off-guard. There was some kind of bat creature swooping around the loading dock, a boy gripped between its claws. He seemed to be struggling, but Yoshiro felt a stab of fear in her chest – what on Earth could they do against something like that? She heard a series of loud shouts and saw Nightshade running straight towards the beast, waving his hands as if to get its attention. Whatever he was doing, it looked like it worked as the creature tore away from the hero and higher into the air. But then Yoshiro saw the figure in its claws drop.

Time seemed to slow down as the boy accelerated away from the beast, the constantly pulling hand of gravity working its reliable magic. Nightshade seemed to be frozen, a look of panic etched onto what Yoshiro could see of his features. She didn’t know if the falling boy had any powers of his own, or whether or not he’d be able to survive the fall, but Yoshiro found herself acting purely on instinct. Without thinking, even for a moment, she thrust out without both of her hands and reached out with her mind – picturing herself effortlessly removing the bottle cap earlier. Feeling a sense of calm wash over her, Yoshiro closed her eyes as she felt her powers extend outwards. She could do this.

And then the weight of the boy hit her like a ton of bricks.

Letting out a cry of pain, Yoshiro was pulled back into the present as time caught up to her. She dropped to a knee as her arms shook from strain and effort. Opening her eyes, Yoshiro saw the boy’s figure hovering in mid-air, floating gently towards the ground. Determined not to drop him, Yoshiro ignored the screaming agony in her limbs, pushing aside the feeling that her arms were about to break. The second that it took for Mark to reach the ground felt like an eternity, and as soon as Yoshiro felt confident enough to release him she collapsed. Her whole body felt like it was on fire, and her chest heaved painfully. She’d never lifted anything even close to that size before, but Yoshiro couldn’t help but feel a sense of triumph. Wiping a hand across her face, Yoshiro looked at the red on her sleeve in confusion, not having realised that a river of blood had begun to drip down from her nose. Feeling a sudden fatigue, Yoshiro offered a weak smile towards Nightshade before falling over unconscious.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

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---

Still very much in the fight and preparing herself to block the thundering inmate's next bolt of lightning, Kirisvala let out the tiniest yelp of surprise as she felt a large force upon her shoulders that dragged her down to the ground. Shocked, she wondered for a moment if one of the other inmates might have snuck up on them and silently disposed of Casimir before leaving her exposed on the ground, and shivered at the thought. But as she looked up from the ground and saw the boy charging straight towards the brute, she slowly put two and two together and realized that he had brought her to the ground in order to jump forward himself and attack the inmate. She briefly considered the possibility of him having done that to steal some spotlight, before discarding it; he didn't seem that bad. Ironically, the alternative, that he had done it to protect her, irritated her even more, as this was, quite possibly, one of the few instances where she didn't need to be protected.

After hearing Casimir's heartfelt and furious speech towards the escaped prisoner, the alien girl couldn't help blushing a little. Though she was cheerful and maybe innocent, she thought, she wasn't helpless, but even then, it was a bit moving how angry the boy was at her perceived harm. "Um, C-Casimir? I'm f..." She began, a little too quiet to be heard, and trailing off quickly upon being insulted by the inmate. Blinking once, she narrowed her eyes. "On second thought, kick his arse." She said to her insides, slowly getting to her feet as she witnessed the short but intense clash between Casimir and the brute, grimacing when the inmate got a knee to his face and looking away when his face was driven into the dirt.

"Oh, um, it's fine, I'm not..." She tried to respond to the boy's admission, genuinely feeling bad about how sorry he seemed to be due to the whole misunderstanding. Alas, she was unable to do so, this time due to the inmate's sudden aggression, which she did not see coming soon enough to warn Casimir. Her eyes going wide in shock, she watched as the inmate dropped him and then ran towards her. Once more, she braced for the impact, but once more it did not come, her fellow teen recovering from his impromptu electroshock therapy and threw the escapee to the ground quite hard.

Once everything was over and Casimir began limping towards her while asking for help, Kirisvala, very peeved due to both the misunderstanding and being interrupted twice, finally burst into words now that she had a chance to speak. "Why'd you go and do somethin' so dumb?!" She exclaimed, with far less kindness than before, though there was more concern than there was anger in her voice. Her distinctive Australian accent was making itself fully apparent now, as she spoke with far less restraint. "I'm really flattered that you wanted to protect me, but I didn't need it! I was fine! I'm a Hadrian, we handle electricity a lot better than you fleshy things!" She continued ranting.

Noticing from the corner of her eye that the brute wasn't fully out for the count and was, in fact, reaching out to her with an electrified hand, the alien girl simply reached out and clasped it with her claw, the power flowing harmlessly into her claw, causing at most a few twitches as it had before. "See? I was fine! We had him earlier and you didn't have to get hurt!" She stated. By now, her voice was beginning to soften, as she didn't mean to berate him so much as make a point, but before she said anything else, she noticed that the inmate was speaking as well.

"...You fat, ugly, disgusting..." He muttered with unmatched hostility. Without missing a beat, Kirisvala raised her claw into the air as high as she could in order to lift the inmate, not off his feet, but off his stomach. The brute immediately fell silent; it was one thing to be struck from behind, but it was something completely different to stare directly at the petite technicolor-haired girl as she used her, in his mind, monstrous claw to hoist him.

"Sorry, I wasn't listenin'. Care to repeat that?" She dared him, and subsequently let off a mighty, deafening roar that lightly shook the ground directly around her and caused the grass to edge away from her as if in terror. Cutting it off quickly in order to avoid causing any lasting damage to the inmate or Casimir, she nonetheless succeeded in causing the already weakened escapee to faint.

"I thought so!" She said triumphantly, with a hint of anger in her voice.

It was too soon to rejoice at their victory, however, and Kirisvala soon found this out, hearing a roar that put hers to shame coming from somewhere not too far from her. Spooked despite belonging to a race that literally trains to do that, she looked around frantically in order to locate the source of such noise, and soon her eyes found it, a massive winged beast flying through the air and leaving Mars to plummet to the ground. At that moment, her eyes went wide, her mind panicking. She knew that what they had chosen to do was dangerous, but she didn't want anyone to die, especially not one of her first human friends. Thus, she turned decisively towards Casimir, hastily picking him up and placing him on her back.

"Don't pass out just yet, okay? Hold on tight, but don't grab my horns or we'll both end up on the ground." She warned him, before taking off, using her claws to propel herself forward much faster than her feet could. She was some distance further from Mars than Roy was, admittedly, but she hoped that, with her speed, she would be able to reach him in time to keep him from having a rough landing or breaking something. Whether or not the rough texture of her claws would hurt him was something she didn't want to think about right now, as she tried to focus on saving him.

As it turned out, the alien's efforts were unnecessary. She wasn't more than a few feet away from him when she noticed that he was no longer falling, gently floating to the ground instead. Confused, yet relieved, Kirisvala watched as he landed and then walked towards him, mostly unhindered by Casimir still on her back, until she was close, offering a claw to help him get up and hoping he was smart enough not to hurt himself with it. As she did so, she had the chance to take a closer look at him. She noticed he was fairly handsome, but quickly pushed the thought away, knowing now was not the time for silly things like that. "I know you didn't really fall flat on your face but are you alright?" She asked him.

---

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After shouting at Amir and Caleb to jump into action, Alexis watched as the former immediately noticed what was going on and threw his cups of jello towards the teleporting inmate, slightly limiting his mobility. Without wasting a moment, she rushed towards the inmate with the aid of her sneaker thrusters, and threw her remaining jello at him as well, catching him in the leg and further hindering him. Not long afterwards, Caleb threw his jello as well, fully immobilizing the inmate and consummating his plan. Not content with that, Amir used some sort of spell to knock him out cold, thus making sure that he wouldn't be escaping anytime soon. When the boy explained exactly what he had done, she nodded in acknowledgment.

"Well, that's that then. If he's not waking up tonight then we have plenty of time to get him back where he belongs. We should go and see if anyone else needs-" The blonde girl began, but was cut short by a horrific shriek coming from one of the previously defeated convicts. Startled, she turned in that direction only to see what was happening: Mars being caught and dropped by a giant bat-like creature, only to be caught in mid-air by an invisible force. Now, she was happy about that, obviously, because otherwise he would have broken a bone at the very least, but leaving that aside, a huge man-bat was not something she was equipped to deal with at the moment. Instinctively taking a step back, she gauged her options: she wanted to keep helping out her classmates instead of running away, but trying to bring down the beast was out of the question. Fortunately, besides her rocket sneakers, she had brought a pair of gadgets not focused on offense, so she decided to fall back into a supporting role for now.

"Uh, alright... guys, I'm sorry, but I can't really do much against that thing, I don't have any guns or fancy powers or big weapons to take it down, so I'm gonna go try to help out anyone that got hurt fighting the inmates. See you on the other side!" The blonde said to the two boys she had been teaming up with, offering them an encouraging smile before turning around and taking off at high speeds.

After running for a little bit, she stopped abruptly.

"Okay, now where do I go?" She asked herself as she looked around, trying to spot any injured students. It didn't take her very long to see a pair, not far from each other and fairly close to the superhero known as Nightshade as well. Nodding to herself, she ran in their direction, giving a quick "Hey Roy!" and a wave at the hero as she sped past him, stopping next to a girl who was collapsed on the ground and had a great deal of blood on her face, hand and chest. Initially frightened, Alexis quickly checked and noticed that the source of this was a nosebleed, which relieved her greatly; sure it was still serious, but it was no broken artery.

Now calmer, Alexis went to work: first, she grabbed what appeared to be a red gemstone set on a bracelet she wore on one of her wrists, pulling on it and revealing that it was mobile, and connected to the bracelet itself through a thin silver-like wire. She placed the 'gemstone' on the palm of her hand, holding the wire in place with her middle and index fingers, and then began holding it over various parts of Yoshino's body, the 'gemstone' casting a faint red glow over her that matched the one in Alexis' eyes. She was now receiving information about the girl's health directly into her mind, occasionally nodding to herself as she processed it, and smiling faintly as well: this was the first time she used this particular gadget, and so far it was going swimmingly.

Once she had enough data, she placed the red gemstone back in the bracelet and did something similar to what she did before, but this time with a green gemstone set in a bracelet she wore on her other wrist. She held it over Yoshino's body once again, but this time, instead of a constant glow, the gemstone emitted brief pulses of light. While the red one was meant to gather information, the green one released pulses of energy to stimulate the cells of living beings and, essentially, help them heal. In this case, Yoshino had some internal damage and a severe lack of energy, so Alexis made an attempt to rectify that with the green pulses from her gemstones. It obviously wouldn't take effect immediately, but it was better than leaving her on her own.

"One down, one to go." The blonde told herself with some sense of triumph as she rushed over to the other injured person nearby, an extra-crispy boy whose clothes were fortunately not yet torn apart enough to expose anything embarrassing. As she reached his side, she could hear him mumbling something, even though he was clearly past the threshold of consciousness.

"...Kick... ass... Roy..." Were the words that she managed to make out after kneeling next to him and leaning down to better hear him, which caused her to snicker and shake her head.

"Not in your current state, handsome." She stated with an amused grin on her face before getting to work just as she had done with Yoshino.

[The Republic of Atria]

He was going to be sore tomorrow. That much was certain. Upon looking at the unconscious man he bludgeoned with a rock and seeing the blood covered stone, he dropped it and shuddered a bit. He couldn't believe that he came that close to killing someone. Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to mull over what just happened because a gigantic man... Bat... Thing emerged and growled something about not going back to jail. The man took to the sky, swiping at everyone around him, and flying out of reach. Wyatt wasn't sure if he was the only one present that could fly, but felt that he needed to do something. His parents always told him that the best way to fly was to just do it, rather than try to think about it too much. There was no time for thinking or worry. Wyatt bolted and jumped into the air once again, flapping his wings and gaining some altitude, happy that he wasn't being smashed into the ground and eating dirt. He aimed down and swooped over the Manbat who noticed that he was no longer the only airborne person and flew to the left trying to shake Wyatt off.

"Alright you big fuckin' lizard, you can fly too? Let's see how well!" THe Manbat hissed and flew around and under some tree branches, too close for Wyatt's comfort causing him to back off.

"Come on Wyatt... Think!- Oh... Right I can do that." He'd only ever done it on rare occasions for fun, but he figured that spitting fire at someone in a survival situation was probably okay. He couldn't aim it very well, but people were institutionally afraid of fire, especially those covered with hair. Wyatt dove at the Manbat when he left the safety of his trees, opened his mouth and let out as much fire as he could. It didn't go more than about 10 feet in front of him, but it was enough to force the man bat to get away from him.

"Holy Jesus fuck!" He snarled. "You're actually trying to set me on fire?!"

Wyatt wasn't not trying to set him on fire, but as long as the Manbat believed it that was all he needed. Wyatt flew back down in pursuit, forcing the Manbat to lower closer to the ground, shooting a plume a flame if he even looked like he was trying to gain any more air. It took a few tries to force him back to the group, where he hoped someone would smack him down before he became too tired to fly.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

You know how it goes. Some mess happens and you clean it up, you solve the problem, and then you relax yourself, glad to actually finish something that day.

And suddenly you find that there is an even bigger mess waiting for you.

I hate that kind of situation. So when a giant man-bat appeared out of nowhere and took one of the students with it, I didn't run away in terror. Hell, I was too tired to even worry about it. If anything, I screamed out of frustration instead of fear or anger at nobody in particular.

"You gotta be kidding me!" My shout was then followed by a series of grumbling in Arabic. Alexis had left, which was a smart and wise move. If only I'm as smart or as wise as her. I looked with dissatisfaction when the dragon boy, Wyatt, jumped into the air and started to play cat-and-mouse above the ground. I slowly followed them, aiming my rod to shoot the bat down. No luck for me. Even when he had to evade Wyatt's claws and flame, he could also still evade the magical salvos I'd been sending him. Some part of my brain wonder at the symphony of the red-orange fire and blue-silver bolts how much of the lightshow tonight could be seen from the city, and if the parents were asking half-worriedly what were their children doing here.

I managed to land a hit, but it did nothing other than staggering him for a second. He flapped his black, leathery wings and soared once more to the sky. Dammit, I wouldn't nail him down this way. Not to mention Wyatt might get hit by stray bolts. I needed to find another way. I took a look at my belongings. I didn't brought many with the sack, since I planned to come at a party and not a battlefield. My wallets couldn't do much, neither could the Swiss Army knife. But my attention was caught by the enchanted air-horn.

I put my rod down and hold the air-horn with both of my hand. I sent my will through it and activated the sigils and charms within the mechanism. Unlike the rod or the circle, this one didn't glow as much since most of the runes are not visible from outside. I could still felt the faint static in the air that indicates that the runes are working in order. I didn't know if the man-bat had the same level of hearing as an actual bat, but super bat hearing or not, loud noises would easily put him down. It could also put us down though. I weight the option within my head, trying to determine if I'd be willing to bet the hearing of everyone within the ear shot on my enchantment. Seconds passed and I still couldn't make a decision.

Batface had returned with Wyatt though, and waiting for more time wouldn't give us anything. With my feet I drew a crude circle around me. The aim wasn't to dampened the noise, I needed a loud sound after all. What I did though shifted the soundwave and amplified it a bit, moving it from around five thousands hertz to somewhere above twenty thousands.

Way beyond human's hearing range.

Okay, maybe some of the super students here could be affected to, but frankly at the time I didn't really care about it. All I wanted was to end the whole mess and returned to the warmth and safety of my house. The second Wyatt flew above me with Batface following behind him, I pressed the button of the air horn and unleashed the ultrasonic roar of a thousand lions.

Batface shrieked, a horrible gurgling shriek, and tried to cover his ears with his rubbery hands. Wings. Whatever. For all I know I had just gave him a substitute for shoving a flashbang in his face. He thrashed around in the air and my aim followed him through. Even if I couldn't hear the blast, my body picked up the vibration in the air and sent chill to my back. He was getting closer and closer to the ground, and closer to the gathering students. "Incoming!!" that was all I could shout to warn them. Batface then crashed head-on to the ground, still flailing and thrashing around. It might be effective, but I couldn't pressed the air horn for long. The second he was freed, he could easily clawed at the students, especially the wounded. I hoped somebody could decapitated him quickly enough.

[Auropa]

Kross Matthews
West Gate Prison, San Diego

From a bird’s eye view, the scene was near complete destruction. A mess of twisted steel, obliterated barriers and dozens of corpses scattered all across the battered terrain. Some lay in tell-tale orange while others in a deep blue.

“Bring us down.” Kross finally called out, above the constant roaring of the helicopter blades. The last hour had been a constant blur of movement and chaos after what looked like a standard prison riot turned out to be a full blown break out. Since then it was all hands on deck, it couldn’t have been more than a half an hour since the first PL response teams had touched down. Of course by then, anyone with half a brain was long gone.

With a solid thud the helicopter touched down in the ruins of the courtyard. Running up to meet it was a masked figure clad in black armour with an rarely seen but unmistakable insignia. “Sir” He said while moving to match Kross’ pace as he climbed out of the helicopter “The prison is secure, no casualties on our part but the security staff is all but wiped out, roughly 85% out of commission.”
“And the convicts?” Kros asked while trying to light up his cigarette.
“That the strange part sir. Roughly 40 percent have escaped, the majority being from the high security wings. We’ve got 30 percent dead or dying and the rest back under lock and key.”
At that, Kross stayed silent for a moment as he tried to run the numbers through his head. “So have we been able to find out how the hell this happened?” he finally asked.
“That’s… Difficult to say sir. According to the survivors, the prisoners suddenly had access to powers and overwhelmed security. For the thieves and light time convicts, there was mass movement as everyone ran, but with murderers, gang members and the such. The guys here never stood chance, practically a full blown massacre.” And as if on cue the duo was halted as another pair passed by them carrying bodybag between them.
“And the warden?”
“Deceased. Thoroughly.”
“Perfect.” Kross muttered to himself as the lighter’s weak flame was once again snuffed out. Then pulling out his radio he turned back to the still winding down helicopter and continued.
“Why in god’s name are you still here?” he almost shouted into his radio. “Pull up and join the damned perimeter search. These people are clueless and on foot, the next few hours are going to be our one chance to clean up this shit storm.” After a small delay the helicopter that dropped off Kross moments ago took off and steadily left towards the horizon. And after a small sigh, Kross once again took out his lighter before finally getting a small flame to stick to his cigarette.
“Sir?” The armoured figure asked. “The prison is secured, what’s our orders?”
After blowing out a mouthful of tar and smoke, Kross turned back to the scene of destruction around him. “How many hostiles did you say were here when you’re team arrived?”
“22 Sir. Scattered into small groups. Most surrendered after a show of force but we had to go lethal on 8.”
“Good work captain. Grab your team, raid what’s left of the break room but keep your gear close at hand. If anymore groups show up around here I want PL leading the assault and covering our brothers in blue.” Without pausing Kross thumbed his radio and started speaking as the armoured soldier headed off “Overwatch this is Kross. Ground Zero secured but we’ve underestimated the severity of the situation. Multiple inmates on the loose, highly dangerous and highly powered.”
“Say again Kross, can you confirm highly powered?”
“Confirmed. Alert any acting hero teams in the area, assume all escapees to be unregistered power users, I don’t want dead supers in the newspaper so make sure everyone moves prepared. Over.”
“Copy that Kross, good luck on the ground. Over and out.”
Interrupting Kross’ chain of thought though was a small buzzing from his pocket. Taking out his phone a single flashing icon persisted on the screen.

Idiot Nephew
PANIC BUTTON ACTIVATED
Wonder Island, San Diego.

Taking another drag from his cigarette Kross paused for a moment to think before thumbing the notification away. The kid’s parents were out of town trying to save some flooded country or something, so normally he’d be the one to check on things. With everything happening at Westgate though, he couldn’t afford to leave things partway, so the police would have to take care of this one. ‘Besides’ he thought to himself ‘How much trouble could he get into?’




Mike Matthews
Wonder Island

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH” Mike shouted as he charged the downed bat creature pipe in hand. Not too long ago it looked like the fight was finally rounding down, and with no major injuries to boot. But while Mike was helping Wendy, a massive shout rang out followed by the appearance of some giant bat creature. In the next few seconds the bat proceeded to pick up Mars, nearly kill him, get into a fight with a dragon before being forced to the ground by some fancy airhorn.

Seeing the bat flailing on the ground Mike saw another opportunity and decided to keep pushing his luck. Concentrating on the pipe in his hands, Mike focused on weakening one end before scrapping it across the ground. The result a deformed, messy but sharpened spear. Then breathing out and steadying his nerves Mike re-hardened the pipe and charged the fallen creature. “Keep that over-sized fruit fly down!” he called out as he covered the last few meters and closed in on his target ‘shit those are big claws’ he thought to himself.

While the bat was still in a frenzy from Amir’s handiwork, it gave Mike the chance he needed. Moving in, he ducked under the creature’s first blind swing. ‘Not yet’ he thought as the claws narrowly passed overhead. For the next two steps Mike was lucky enough to stay in the bat’s blind spot. The third step was the one that gave him away. As the creature continued to contort in rage and pain, its head thrashed madly around and sure enough, its eyes ran across Mike. Screeching an unhuman roar, the bat tried to get to full height and crush the new foe but as it raised to one knee its head was forced back to the ground by the unrelenting horn. Seizing the moment, Mike concentrated into the edge of his deformed rebar. Leaned back out of another razor sharp flail, before lunging forward.

Going for the centre of mass was suicide and put Mike into a whole morale mess, so in a split second decision he thrust slightly off to side of the beast’s armpit just as it’s claws passed by him. The result was an unmistakable ‘Shnk’ as the pipe tore through the right wing followed by a deafening roar of pain. Refusing to give up his advantage though, Mike put his weight into the gore soaked pole and pulled down as he tried to use the last of his momentum to slide under creature’s arm and widen the ideally devastating tear. And while the pipe expanded the cut it eventually slid out rather than tear all the way through like Mike wanted, while he wasn’t about to stop and check, that would hopefully keep the damned thing grounded for a while. Finally willing to call it enough, Mike rolled out of the way of a stomp before trying to plan his exit. But in the spilt second it took him to get back on his feet the bat had made its own move.

Mike had hoped that the combination of pain and sound would keep it distorted and confused, but whether it was smarter than it looked or just pissed off beyond measure, it had managed to keep track of its attacker. As mike dodged past one stray kick, he failed to notice the more carefully aimed talons of the second one until a moment before impact. Panicked, tired but persistent as ever, Mike made one last ditch effort to avoid the encroaching claws. By stabbing what remained of his makeshift pole into creature exposed foot he hoped to veer the attack off course or better yet, cancel it out all together. Instead, as the pole scratched its foot, the creature twisted its leg, tearing the pole in two but also pointing the sharpened talons away from Mike. What happened next was an unavoidable freight train of pain as the creature’s heel slammed into the Mike’s unprotected chest, sending him hurtling away, eventually stopping two bounces and nearly 10 meters away.

“Where the HELL are all the heroes?!” He called out behind gritted teeth as he tried to pick himself up. But as a sudden shot of pain rang out across his chest, he gave way and collapsed to his knees. Whatever the outcome was going to be, he was out of the fight. “I’m, just going to sit here... For two… Maybe, yeah lets go with 5 minutes. But. Yeah. Go team.” he muttered to himself as he struggled with his evident concussion. But While he wasn’t sure, he could’ve sworn he saw the so-called vigilante on the phone during the attack, ‘probably calling a camera crew to try and watch his next big fight’ he figured as he tossed the now useless piece of rebar away.

[Absolon-7]

Casimir winced from the sudden scolding Kirisvala gave him as he finally reached her. He wanted to look at the ground in shame but past experiences with his girlfriend where he had received a similar tongue lashing taught him otherwise. He forced himself to look intently in her eyes in order to understand her position. As he listened he could increasingly pick out an Australian accent in her speech which he thought was quite endearing but more importantly he learned of her alien nature.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have..." Apologized Casimir, his voice softly trailing off in a growing shame.

Her well-meaning anger still building, Kirisvala picked up the giant's electrified hand with her claws completely unaffected by the surging electricity that was slowly beginning to dissipate while she explained how it didn't really affect her. Hearing the convict mutter something, Casimir watched in awe as Kirisvala picked up the convict with a single arm in order to apparently intimidate the inmate into silence. After egging the convict a bit more, she let out a deafening roar in what Casimir presumed to be some kind of victory cheer. Goddamn she's amazing... now that I think about it I should have let her help me more, solemnly thought Casimir his expression loosening up in understanding.

Suddenly a blood curdling roar echoed throughout the air. He joined Kirisvala in frantically looking around to find the source and as his vision focused he spotted a man-sized bat swooping through the air dropping Mars to the ground. He took a step back in surprise but he wasn't offered the opportunity to regain his composure as Kirisvala picked him up and made him ride piggy-back while offering some warning about grabbing her horns. The potent force of her speeding in Mars's direction made Casimir firmly fold his arms around her clavicle and his legs around her waist. They swiftly made their way to where Mars was previously fallen but was now slowly hovering down to the floor. As Kirisvala offered her hand to help up Mars, Casimir turned his head to look at the bat monster swooping over the area while he still held onto her back fighting back the tendrils of unconsciousness.

It was that moment when the dragon dude flew after the man-bat and chased it back to where the majority of the volunteers where. Casimir's face glowered when he saw the magician guy have his turn with fighting the man-bat. Then he followed up by blowing into some horn thing that caused the man-bat to crash into the ground but what was weird a slight ringing sound sort of what you hear out of a TV sometimes. Regardless, it looked like whatever he did made the man-bat crash into the ground thrashing around in pain. Afterwards some guy he didn't recognize attacked the downed bat with a piece of pipe in hand and proceeded to be a bit too brutal for his liking. Ultimately he got knocked out by the man-bat which was now grounded but still a danger.

Deciding on a gamble that could possibly reveal his identity, Casimir used some his last willpower to scan the area for any insects that could be useful. He managed to identify some modestly-sized wasp nest tucked away in a nearby tree stump and while Casimir would have preferred a much larger one it would have to do. He ordered them to harass and bite the man-bat so it wouldn't be able to focus on anyone but not to actually sting it since Casimir kind of pitied it. When the small swarm reached the monster, Casimir decided to gently let himself off Kirisvala's back and stand next to her and Mars. To his expectation, the swarm was doing what it exactly was supposed to do since the man-bat was now swinging his arms around his head to swat them away opening himself to attack. The question was for how long?

"Any idea on what to do next, Mars?" Asked Casimir crossing his arms in contemplation. Casimir would have rushed and beat him up himself but he felt like he was going to pass out at any second. He also didn't want to be on Kirisvala's bad side again so he decided to just watch what would happen next.

[Tomia]

Mars
Mars flailed as he fell, though suddenly he realized he was moving slower and slower until he was barely moving at all. Then he dropped to the ground from a few inches in the air, very confused about what had happened. As far as he knew, no one in their group was able to do that, yet clearly someone stopped his fall. Just as Mars hit the ground, he saw Kirisvala approach him. "Uh, I'm alright thanks." He said, pausing a bit when she offered her claw. After a moment, he politely grabbed the dull side of her claw, before using his other hand to push himself up. He didn't want to be rude and reject her gesture, but Mars imagined that putting any serious weight on those claws was not a good idea. "Is Casimir okay? I hope that fight wasn't too much for you two." He asked with concern. Just then Casimir got off of Kiris' back and spoke to Mars, asking him what their plan was. "I'm not sure Casimir, but you should rest. You've done all you can to help". He told him. Mars watched as the others took on the man bat, realizing he didn't really have much to offer at this point.

Roy
Meanwhile Roy was very revealed when Mars floated harmlessly to the ground, but he saw Yoshi passing out nearby and knew she had some how saved him, clearly hurting herself in the process. Roy was about to make his way over to her to ensure her safety, but someone else got there first and seemed to be taking care of the situation. He decided he'd find a way to thank her later.

He turned his attention back to the fight where other people were taking on the man bat. The dragon guy who seemed to be friends with Mars was using fire breath to force the man bat towards the ground, while there was a swarm of insects giving the creature problems. However the creature suddenly shrieked in pain and the insects scattered as well and Roy realized someone had activated some kind of super sonic blast. This was his chance to take out the monster, and apparently someone else figured that out as well. They charged at the man bat with what seemed like a rebar pipe and slashed at the monster's limbs. He seemed to be making progress until he was kicked in the chest and sent backwards. Roy knew he had to finish this now. People were getting hurt, and he didn't know how long it would take for Naja to get there.

Roy took a deep breath and absorbed the darkness around him, he felt his senses heighten and his muscles loosen and relax. Then he charged, with a aggressive speed towards the man bat, dropping his staff to the side he dipped and dodged every wave of the creature's claws, slamming his fist into the wounded creatures face and then moving away just as quickly. As he repeated this process and wore the creature down, he suddenly lost focus and his legs were swiped out from under him. He grunted as he hit the ground. With his concentration breaking, he lost control of the darkness and it faded from his body. The man bat raised it's uninjured foot, intent on stomping Roy, but when it stomped down it was suddenly hit with a blast of ice and was frozen in place. The convict tumbled over, unbalanced by the attack and fell to it's side, shrieking in panic. Roy looked up and saw Frost Bite, who gave him on a glance as she charged toward the fallen beast. Roy got to his feet as well and grabbed his staff, intent on helping to finish this fight. The two of them as if in competition with each other raised their weapons, one a metals staff, and the other a stick like object made entirely of ice. They slammed them down in unison onto the beasts head, smashing it hard into the ground with a audible bang. With that the mutated man bat finally fell still, knocked unconscious by the repetitive blows.

Roy looked up at Frost Bite and gave a curt, if not approving, nod of recognition. He was about to feel glad that this was all over when he saw a streaking light in the sky heading towards the island. When it seemed like it was going to crash on top of them it suddenly stopped and hovering over them was woman, her hands radiating with energy. This woman was everything but ordinary, from her glowing hands, to her black and yellow spandex costume and most of all her reptilian appearance. Those familiar with super heroes would know her as Naja, famous solo hero and former founding member of the Justice Queens. She had a reputation for being kind and merciful, but her current expression was no indicator of that. Roy paled a bit, he really doubted this would go well.

"Someone. Explain. Now."

[Anxiety Cafe]

On Wonder Island

Nathan leaned on the ground, his knees bent and his arm supporting him. His other arm was holding his bruised side, which seemed to move with every breath. He had already used the man's energy to heal as much as he could, but the aftereffects of the fight were still affecting his body. Nathan's muscles were fatigued, his brain foggy, and his vision unfocused. A large explosion disoriented him even more, as he unsuccessfully tried to stand up to see where it came from. Dropping back to the ground, and yelling at himself for it, Nathan lost the battle with his drooping eyelids, convincing himself that he'd just be resting up for a second.

He came to on the ground, his head in a puddle of drool. Embarrassed and worried that someone might have seen, he quickly jumped up, wiping the spit from his cheek. Nathan's eyes bulged at the bat-man creature on the ground far from him, although he shouldn't have been surprised considering the events that had transpired. He had awoken, however, just in time to watch in wonder as a bird...no, a plane...no, a superhero jumped down from the sky, faster than the eye could see, hovering over the group of students and incapacitated prisoners. She seemed reptilian, although most clearly of a different sort than the two students Nathan had seen participating in the fight.

Her back was to Nathan, her black and yellow spandex suit something out of comic books. Her hands glowed, but they seemed even brighter in the relative darkness of the area.

"Someone," she said calmly, although her tone indicated she was holding back quite a bit of anger. "Explain. Now."

So it was a test!, Nathan thought. Wary about being shoved into the spotlight, but also wanting to show he had been one of the first to engage the prisoners, he slowly inched towards the others, who were all cowering in front of the fearsome woman.

---

College Area, San Diego

Violet really, really loved her outfit. It was rather new actually, given to her by one of her wealthier fans. She was almost giddy at the thought. She had fans! She admired the costume while passing by a glass window. It wasn't spandex, and, as such, didn't have "superhero" look, but it was much more functional. It was little more than pants, a shirt, and shoes. The shirt was comfortable enough, although a little stiff and heavy considering the bulletproof vest sewed into it. The pants were the kind soldiers wear, and, for shoes, she had combat boots. She also had a utility belt, filled with various versions of her signature metal ball bearings. In one pocket, trackers, which could stick to her enemies. In another, the metal was connecting by a string, to tie up her opponents. She also included her normal, original ball bearings, which she preferred the most. To Violet, the outfit was worth a fortune, but her fan had thought nothing of it, giving it to her anonymously. She would've much rather gotten the things herself, but, as much as she tried, she could not. Their only source of income was her brother's job. He often reminded her of it, imploring her to give up, or at least lessen the number of outings she made as a superhero, to bring them a little extra income. She had been lucky enough to get into the nearby San Diego State University, but the tuition was really straining their financial assets. They also had rent and all of their other bills to pay. Going out as a superhero, potentially getting injured, would only cause more stress and would only push them out of their apartment and onto the streets.

She couldn't do that to her brother. He had had quite a nice life before she came along; the apartment was tiny for the two of them, but perfect for just one person, especially considering how low the price was. Now, he had an extra mouth to feed, and most of what their parents were able to give to them had gone up to her tuition. Still, there was an undeniable thrill in going out every night, being a "professional" superhero. People knew her, looked up to her. She wasn't going to let them down.

Besides, sometimes her brother snuck her things from work. The transition had been hard for them at first, still was at times. But they had gotten used to each other, and some things, like a sibling bond, could not be broken. He worked in the military sector of the city, mostly naval stuff. He never really explained, and she never really questioned him, although she suspected the government had more going on there. Still, he had given her a number of bulletproof vests, binoculars, and night vision goggles over the years. He had stopped doing it recently, and she was glad for it. She did love the gadgets he brought, and they were always especially useful, but she didn't want him risking their only income source.

Violet swore as her boots scratched on the sidewalk below, wishing she could fly like most other superheroes out there. Once again she wished for a more professional outfit. She had been visited by many a super team, wanting her to join, but she was always reluctant. None were close enough to San Diego for her to continue her studies, and she didn't want to leave her brother, as much as he urged her to go.

If only there were a super team based near here, she thought, sighing audibly, before remembering where she was. She had been tracking down one of her "arch-enemies", as her fans called him. He was a telekinetic, which also meant flying. She cursed silently as she heard his all too familiar whoosh overhead.

"Well, well, well, it's..." he started, pausing and lording her lack of an alias over her. "You."

Laughing at some private joke only he could understand, the Flyer, as he called himself, lowered himself onto the ground. He was your classic supervillain; stealing from banks, people, homes, cars, wherever he could find anything valuable. His abilities, however, were major. His telekinesis was extremely extensive. He could unlock cars and start motors by simply visualizing the insides of such things and manipulating them as he saw fit. His abilities were also much more powerful than hers, although his, stupidity always put her over the top.

He finished chuckling, looking over her new outfit and giving it a derisive snort. Biting back a comment about his ridiculous clothes (the ski mask and black outfit that made him look like nothing more than the common criminal), she reached into one pocket of her belt and threw out one string of ball bearings, repelling the end two. They went on either side of him, pulling him towards the nearest wall and keeping him there. Before he could respond, overpowering her as he pushed the string away, she knocked him out cold and called the proper authorities to bring him in. She sighed at how easy it was. Oh, how she yearned to join a super team based in San Diego, to face more serious villains.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

The sensation of running was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. With the effort he was making, he should not have been going any faster than usual, and yet parked cars, buildings, and entire blocks blurred together on the edges of his vision, the wind buffeting his face and body harder than it ever had before. With no more of his energy put into it than any other time, Icarus was moving much faster than what would be ordinarily possible for him, something that amazed him. "First the ball of lightning and now this? What's going on?" He wondered as he sought to put a little more distance between himself and whatever was going on at the prison. Indeed, the substance from before had formed into a sphere and hovered next to his palm even as he ran, and though he almost wanted to shake it off and continue with his life as usual, his curiosity was greater: he needed to know what it was.

After running a while longer, Icarus finally stopped, abruptly halting his movement and leaning against a wall. Much to his surprise, it only took him a moment to recover his breath, despite all the distance that he had covered. Still unable to make sense of anything, the young man brought up the lightning sphere to analyze it, vainly hoping to discover something. The alley he was in was dark and all but abandoned, making the glow of the sphere even more noticeable than before. Despite this, he was unable to find out anything at all simply by staring at it, so he soon desisted and, on a whim, closed his eyes, opting instead to focus on his other senses. As there was no one else around, barely any sound could be heard beyond his own breathing and the faint crackling of the sphere. The most obvious sensation that reached him was a tingle in his hands, undoubtedly due to the sphere's proximity, but soon, he also felt that something else that he couldn't explain entirely, that pull that he felt towards various points around him. Once again, the most evident point of attraction was directly above his palm, but there were various others, nearly eclipsed by the sphere, but still there, including two that seemed to be approaching.

Naturally, Icarus was a tad too immersed in his exploration of these new sensations to truly pay attention to the fact that something seemed to be headed his way, let alone mind his other senses, and it was due to this that he found himself shocked when a voice tore through the prevalent silence of that dark alley.

"Hey, kid! What's that you've got there?"

The voice was rough and unpleasant, and Icarus narrowed his eyes and hid the sphere behind himself with one hand as he turned to face the newcomers, having a hunch that their intentions were anything but friendly. Of course, despite his efforts to conceal the ball of thunder, it was still easy to see the glow it emitted, which prompted the speaker and his sole companion to continue approaching. The first of the two men, the one that had spoken, was tall and muscular and had brass knuckles on his hands, while the other, shorter and leaner, carried a baseball bat. "Clearly not friends." The young man thought as he watched them walk. Ordinarily, he would have simply run away, as he doubted he could fend them off, and even if he could, it was simpler to just stay out of trouble, but this time, there was something inside of him telling him that today was not a day to run away.

"What, you don't want to show us? Come on, we'll take good care of it, we promise!" The second man stated, malice evident in his voice. Icarus' only response was a hostile stare, though, which led the two to quickly lose their temper.

"Listen, kid." The first man spoke as he stood face to face with Icarus. "That thing you've got there looked valuable, but even if it's not, I don't like that attitude you've got. So just hand it over and go home or I'll have to get rough with you. I'll give you five seconds."

And with that ultimatum, the thug waited patiently... for three seconds. Then, without warning, he thrust his fist forward and upward, towards the young man's chin, aiming to knock him down swiftly and make him regret his foolish bravado. With great force, the strike displaced the air where Icarus' head had been before he dodged the uppercut with speed that was blinding for both him and the man with the knuckle dusters. Amazed by this, the young man nonetheless knew that now was not the time to think, but to act. Suddenly, the tingling sensation that the sphere gave him spread through his entire hand, forming a glove of sorts. Instinctively, Icarus knew what to do.

Before the thug even had the chance to register that the teen had moved out of the way, a fist clad in thunder smashed into his temple with enough force to send him hurtling towards the wall and crash into it rather loudly. In the end, he was out cold before he even hit the ground, and his companion looked on in utter confusion, having watched how the first man was knocked out by a kid in a matter of seconds.

"What the heck?! You one of those freaks?" The thug asked as he took a step back, matched by the teen taking a step towards him. This threatening gesture angered the man, who raised his baseball bat. "Don't get cocky just because you had a lucky shot!" He shouted as he made an overhead swing at Icarus; however, far from simply taking the hit, he slammed his armored fist into the bat, causing it to break. Before the thug could so much as squeak, Icarus lunged forward, ready to finish off the man.

---

"Well, that's that." The young man spoke in his native language as he stood up and dusted himself off, taking a deep breath. After a single brief glance at his handiwork, he turned away and began walking, far more relaxed than he'd felt in a very long time after finally having a chance to take his anger out on something. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he decided to head home already, feeling that he wouldn't achieve anything by dallying outside any longer, not to mention that he would be able to better ponder the events of that day and figure out what was going on when he got there. But first, he had to get rid of the weapon he used, and so, looking at his armored hand, he shook it. The coating of that strange substance that seemed to be thunder solidified simply vanished, dissipating into the air.

And with that, the young man began the trek back home, frowning as he noticed a few specks of blood on his jacket. "...That won't come out easily."

[United Kingdom of Poland]

It was strange, using her powers. Wendy could still use most of her sense, but they were dull and distant. Her world dissolved into nothing but code as she fought to keep her assailant from overriding his cybernetics and finishing her off. The blow delivered by mike to the back of the man's head barely registered to her as little more than a slight tremor, a mere glitch in the system.

“Umm, Wendy.” He finally said between ragged breaths “You can drop him now.” As he talked he tried to straighten up and make sure his schoolmate was okay. They didn’t really have classes together but, at least to Mike, someone like Wendy tended to stand out. Foster kid, introverted sure but still a tad mysterious and about a dozen times smarter than him and was evidently the type of person to 1v1 someone around twice her weight. “Gotta say” Mike finally said, as he began to get his breathing under control “I was not expecting to see you here.” Looking behind her he noticed the flattened patch of ground and started to piece two and two together. “You okay?” He asked with more than a hint of concern. “Some pro super arrived, Shadow… something… I think. Either way, can you walk? He’s cleared the area around the dancefloor and I think a few students are waiting this out over there.”

Wendy loosened the mental grip on the man's arm as Mike's words reached her, her vision returning just in time to watch his unconscious body slump to the ground. Looking at her rescuer, she was happy to see a vaguely familiar face. "Thanks." She weakly replied, rubbing her bruised side. "I'll be alright to walk."

Before she could ask who her rescuer was though, on of the inmates mutated into something out a horrible B-grade horror movie, only to be soundly defeated by the others. Wendy couldn't do much to help, that thing, whatever it was, didn't have any electronics or cybernetics on it that she could hijack. And while she could sense that several of her new frinds did, she'd never invade their privacy like that unless it was life or death.

Fortunately though, a couple of new superhero's came to help the group finish the job. Their appearance unsettled Wendy a little, the girl having spent most of her childhood on the run from heroes like them. And they both looked very cross.

"Someone should answer her." She said as sheepishly as she could.

[Charmera]

"Someone. Explain. Now."

At this point, seeing that none of the humans were willing to explain, Cassandra took it upon herself to tell Naja what had happened. She stepped out next to Roy.

"The party was disturbed by a sudden earthquake and a flash of light. I responded with defensive protocols and most of the students began evacuating themselves from the building. Roy then spotted several men in orange suits and asked me to stay behind with the remaining individuals to keep them safe. Unfortunately the students did not listen to my safety instructions and instead decided to follow Roy. The sixteen orange suited men then instigated a battle with the students, Roy and myself."

"Roy and I defeated three unpowered inmates, while the group of students fought a Pyrokinetic, an electrokinetic, two telekinetics, a enhanced human, a teleporter, A cybernetic and various unpowered or unknown powered inmates." She reported, filling through her memory banks of the battle. "Afterwards a previously unpowered inmate transformed into a large anthropomorphic bat."

"Minor injuries on our side. No fatalities or casualties." Remarked Cassandra. Then she paused.

"I apologize if I am overstepping, but I also feel the need to comment on our performance." She added. "Roy's leadership, though it was needlessly reckless to go after the inmates on his own, was sound during the fight. Each of the students performed surprisingly well during the battle, showing skill with their powers and... some capability to work together. We were fortunate, extremely so considering the high probabilities of less favorable outcomes, that these students helped us."

[Segral]

Carter Graystone
"Nice leadership, huh?"

Carter, after pulling off his little stunt with Nathan, which had actually worked, to his surprise. He then decided to step back and watch the fireworks. Red and Nathan finish off Kong over there, another one bites the dust from some Jell-O, Krisvala and Casmir fight, Mike beat up a guy with a pipe and the rest they say, was history.

But then, he watched in a mix of horror and fascination as Red was blasted back a land mine to tumble on some grass. Where Carter spotted, along with Red's crispy body, Roy....talking with a girl. "Bloody hell, this was getting ridiculous! This was not the time for flirting with chicks, Roy! We've got a battle, in case it didn't penetrate that thick skull of yours!" he thought to himself, his insides boiling with rage.

But then the party got stopped by THAT FLYING BAT-MAN-CREATURE-WHATEVER-THE-HELL-IT-WAS! After a brief period of perilous flight involving the dramatic fall of Mars, Wyatt becoming Dragon-Man, and Amir, Roy, and some Frosty-Person finishing it off. This was better than Inception.

Suddenly, a glowing shooting-star flew down before slowing and revealing to be a reptilian woman. Carter took a couple massive leaps and dived into the crowd surrounding the woman. She kinda gave this aura of intense fierceness, like that thing on RuPaul's Drag Race, and she looked pretty goddamn serious. He quietly listened as Cass stepped forward and gave the report on the battle. But, Carter became flooded with anger at her next sentences. Roy? Sound leadership? SOUND LEADERSHIP? Then, Carter stepped forward and gave an angry look at Cass.

"Roy's sound leadership, huh? Yeah, I agree, it was pretty sound up to the point where Roy went off and abandoned us to go flirt with a girl, AGAIN! If Roy had been helping us in that time he spent flirting with that girl, we may have been finished with this shitstorm by now!" Carter then took a deep breath to steady himself, and spoke in a much calmer tone. "Roy...if you're gonna be our leader, you're going to have to stick with us 100% of the time. Then we're not really a team, are we?"

[Absolon-7]

Casimir gave a tired sigh after hearing Mars's response. He understood that the guy was probably at his limit so he really shouldn't pressure him for an answer. All that was left to do was to watch Roy and what looked to be the vigilante Frostbite finish off the man-bat in a quite pleasing fashion. There wasn't any time for celebration as a super-powered women suddenly flew up to the group hovering above them.

"Someone. Explain. Now." She ordered in what was clearly a tone meant to hide an immense deal of anger.

His face flashed an intense scowl before being immediately hidden away by a calmer expression. Casimir had resented professional superheros as far has he could remember. How could he not? No superhero ever bothered to come to his town to get rid of the KP Soneras. Even after all the assaults, theft, and other acts Casimir was too squeamish to recollect, no one ever saw them as anything other than a minor nuisance far too small to require a superhero's intervention in some isolated small coastal town. After letting the anger surge through him Casimir breathed in deeply to calm his nerves.

Patiently, he waited to see what would happen. He heard some sheepish looking girl pleading to the group for someone to answer. Almost on cue, the maid looking girl stepped forward and quite matter-of-factly explained the situation to the superwoman. Although, Casimir didn't really like how she attributed it Roy's leadership considering he ran off by himself. What Casimir really didn't like was some blonde kid mistakenly raving on about Roy flirting with a girl and spouting some stuff about them being a team. At this point Casimir stepped forward to face the guy and proceeded to lecture the guy.

"Excuse me, but do you honestly think Roy was out flirting! Do you not see all the blood on her! She's clearly a student rescued by Roy. And knock it off with that team stuff. Half of us don't even know each other, or well... not yet maybe." Satisfied with the curt response he gave, Casimir turned to face the floating woman. In a tense but still respectful voice, Casimir proceeded to further explain the situation.

"Now Miss, please forgive this guy's outburst but I do have to point out one thing. Most of us came here because Mars brought us together in order to stop these criminals from doing any harm. It was his call to arms that drove us to stop these scum from hurting our classmates. Because of that, most of us are here because we each made the choice to stand up to the convicts."

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

---

---

---

Kirisvala smiled as Mars thanked her for her gesture and then used her claw to support himself and stand up. When he asked her if the battle had been too much for them, she scratched the back of her head awkwardly (and very gently). "It... could have gone better, but at least we did what we had to do and nobody died. That's good enough right?" She said with the sort of uncomfortable smile you offer when you feel like you messed something up. However, both Mars and Casimir's attention soon turned back to the giant bat creature that had nearly killed the former, and so, she too looked in its direction. Much to her surprise, while the beast caused considerable damage to a few of the teenagers, it was in the end taken down rather swiftly by the guy in the dark costume and a girl clad in purple.

Being the cheerful girl she was, Kiris was about to clap and cheer, but then the glowing reptilian superheroine suddenly descended from the sky and looked at the group rather angrily. Luckily, the alien girl was awed enough by her appearance that she didn't even register the angry stare, averting her some panic that she might've gone through otherwise. What she did notice was that the heroine demanded an explanation of what had transpired in the past... "How long has it been?" She wondered for a moment, before deciding it wasn't important. Either way, the odd girl in the human servant outfit quickly explained the situation... more or less. She was slightly miffed that her participation was glossed over, but she understood that not everyone had the chance to watch the others' fights, being busy with their own. She herself didn't see much of the action that transpired while she was helping Casimir with the electrokinetic.

What did catch her attention was when the success was attributed to Roy's leadership. She didn't really know who Roy was, but her opinion was that the one who had acted like a leader was Mars, since he had been the one to organize them and make sure that each inmate met their match. Though, she also didn't like how much some other people started bashing on this Roy person. The blond kid in particular seemed fairly aggressive, but soon Casimir decided to speak in Roy's defense, and said some other things she agreed with, and one that she didn't.

"Yeah, it was Mars who told us what to do! And I think that made all the difference. Everyone did a really good job after splittin' up due to his instructions! He seems like a good leader to me." The alien spoke eagerly, casting a smile in the boy's general direction before continuing. "And In fact, I think that we made a pretty good team fighting those orange people. We might not know each other--I hadn't seen any of you in my life!--but we fought side by side already. Isn't that a lot?" She said, practically beaming at the group.

Then, she abruptly stopped, a confused expression taking over instead. "Oh, also, who is Roy?"

---

---

It was only after she was done treating Austin that Alexis finally made her way back to the group, certain that her patients were alright enough to wake up on their own once they got a little bit of rest, or potentially earlier, so long as nothing else happened, and since the bat beast had been taken care of already, she doubted anything else would happen. Coming up behind the group that was facing the superheroine (and Nathan, who was a little bit behind her), the blonde girl spoke up.

"Good job on taking care of the inmates everyone! It wasn't the party we expected, but it was an adventure, right?" She said with a satisfied grin. Adventure was what she had been craving, so she considered the night a success, unlike nearly the entirety of the student body of Thomsen High. "If anyone's hurt I got a little something that can help with that, it's not Hope's magic but it should do the trick." The girl stated, referencing the French member of the United Champions.

It was only then that she finally took notice of the reptilian, glowing, spandex-clad woman that hovered in front of the group; whether this was due to simple, natural cluelessness or a self-induced error in her perception was anyone's guess. "Oh, you're Naja right? Nice! I didn't expect to see one of the big name heroes coming all the way to San Diego! You're a little late to the party though." The blonde girl said casually.

[The Republic of Atria]

Thankfully someone managed to capitalize on Wyatt's forcing the manbat to the ground. The powered prisoner didn't last too much longer after that, which he was all to thankful for. Mostly because he had to land and that wasn't something he was very good at. In theory it was easy, all he had to do was find a nice openish area to expand his wings and slowly glide to the ground. The hard part was slowing down, because he didn't realize how much speed he picked up while trying to chase the manbat. He realized he was coming in too fast when he got close to the ground and instinctively threw his legs out to land, only to tumble over and land on his rear in the middle of the group. Thankfully it didn't hurt, but the fact that his body was jittering from adrenaline meant that the pain would probably kick in not too far from now.

He tried his best to avoid conflict. Too many risks involved, not just to himself, but his kind as a whole. On top of the secret he tried to keep hidden since he was a child was now exposed and he was probably going to have to spend a lot of time explaining everything.

Then came two heroes who quickly mopped up the escaped convicts and the female one, Naja, if he memory served him right, and the other one, Frostbite who was the one who helped with the manbat. The latter was an ex-Justice Queen, everyone he knew that had met her spoke volumes of how nice she was. However, she didn't seem to be showing much of that kindness at the moment. He was tempted to explain, but the maid looking girl spoke up first and explained the situation. "She pretty much covered it."

He just had to find a way to explain that there was an entire other race living on the planet and not freak everyone out.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

As soon as Batface got grounded, the students started to gang in him. I wasn't able to hold him down for long, so I was glad the others went to finish him up quickly. I had stopped chanelling my will through the airhorn and put it inside my rucksack when Frostbite and Nightshade started their assault. If the joint force of those two couldn't put him down, then I'm not sure who could. Well maybe the rebar guy if he was in a better condition. Or whoever was that swarmed Batface with those insect.

Anyway, Nighty and Frosty beat the hell outta Batface and ended the fight. Hooray! But before we could pass drink around and reward ourselves, a freaking shooting star shot down from the sky and landed right in front of us.

The shooting star hovered in front of us, clad in spandex and covered with scale, and asked us what had happened in a stern voice. At this point I was beginning to think that it might not be a shooting star, which Alexis clarified when she called her Naja. Which means she is one of the big league heroes. Which means we were in a problem.

I didn't really get what the problem were. All we did was trying to fend off the dangerous inmates. The girl in butler outfit explained everything, and then two boys argued about Roy and team and then some girls with horn went on talking how we're all a team and how Mars lead us, which was followed by Alexis asking questions to the Heroine...

Point is everybody was talking too fast for me to comprehend, and I think Naja also failed to understand us properly. She still looked mad, and the way Carter bickering about Roy might look bad for us . We didn't need some older people in spandex lecturing us, heroine or not so I added some extra narrative.

"Ma'am," I said in most polite tone I could manage, "I know it might look like we're recklessly running ourselves to a problem. But for your information, there were escaped inmates in the island, some of them with superpowers. There others students here that are, less able than us or were frightened by the earthquake. We fought those inmates not to show off our power or because we were bored and decided that being idiot is fun. The responsible action might be called for help or wait for heroes like you to come for our rescue. But if you can see our friends Batface here," I pointed at Batface that was lying on the ground with gore and bruises, "waiting for help might be too long for us. Yes, we might hurt ourselves by fighting them, but should we waited for you, it was not beyond the scope of possibility that we might have worse casualties. I hope you may forgive us for our act, considering the circumstances."

[Segral]

Carter Graystone
"Now what?"

Carter immediately regretted his outburst. Casimir was right. What was all this "team" shit he was pulling? They were high schoolers, not superhero organizations. This was nothing more than a scuffle, and Carter was getting all worked up over nothing. And he embarrassed himself on top of everything else. Way. to. go. Burning with shame, he ducked back into the crowd and watched as the discussion and deliberations continued. That's when he decided to try talking without making an ass of himself.

"You know, the real question is not how many inmates there were or who was the ringmaster. The point is, knowing what we know now after this brawl, now what do we do?"