[b]BEACHWOOD PLACE MALL, JUNE 22, 2018, THE SECOND DAY OF SUMMER, 9:00 AM, EDT[/b]

A woman, with only one natural arm, the other robotic, garnered much sympathy from the crowd as she passed by strangers on her way to her destination. Entering the store, she felt silly- Rose Smith was not one to indulge in frivolities. However, she had just received a check, so she felt she could spend a bit of money on the fancier things. It would be a shock to her boyfriend when she showed him what she bought, and that look of dopey surprise on such a serious person's face made her laugh more than anything else.

The Phoenix, her vigilante alter-ego, had been called into the city to aid in their time of need; Rose Smith and her boyfriend, the well renowned Victor Knight, had moved into the city already, establishing themselves in a rather nice home. The luxurious life was new to Rose, as was the freedom it gave her. It was hard, but she was gradually adjusting to life back in the states- though three years had passed, she was still affected by her time as a Marine, and still wore beneath her shirt a kevlar vest.

[b]9:10 AM, EDT[/b]

"It's okay. Shhh, you'll be alright."

Rose Smith cradled the head of an elderly woman in her arms, calming her as she shivered in fear. Around her, people were screaming in fear- men and women, young and old, from all walks of life. The woman's gaze hardened as it traveled from person to person, concerned with the well-being of each one. Surrounded by the men in the black shirts, Rose set the elderly woman down against a wall, moving a potted plant to hide her from view. Her eyes glanced down at the woman, and a small smile broke out on her pretty face, a spark of determination appearing in her eyes. 

She grabbed a shopping bag she had dropped to take care of the woman, the label of a lingerie boutique on the front of it, and looked up at the sky roof in the ceiling, through which one could see the sunlight rising. Angelic wings sprouting from her back, ripping through the back of her kevlar vest and shirt, Rose gave one flap of them, to take off into the air. Soaring upwards, as if a bullet, she shot towards one of the small sections of the window in the ceiling, and escaped. The shards of glass fell onto an out-of-order escalator.

[b]9:16 AM, EDT[/b]

A figure, reminiscent of the Valkyrie of ancient Norse mythology, emerged from that same spot, hovering above the chaos. Her face was masked, hidden by a steel helmet, as she descended upon the crowd, wings brandished in fury. Seeing no options for diplomacy, the Phoenix began to fight. Plummeting towards one of the boys in black, she threw a fist into his face, knocking the boy backwards, into a shop window, incapacitating him. He seemed to show no emotional reaction to being hurt.

Two jumped onto the Phoenix, but she fended them off with a swipe of her wings, throwing them against the wall. Each hurtled to the ground with force, as six turned their attention towards this new armored arrival. Two swung a bench at her, while the other four simply came at her with their bare fists. She grasped the bench, and pushed it into the two holding it, knocking them backwards. Swinging it around in a circle, spinning on the heels of her feet, she hit each of the other four, and they hit the ground. Despite the speed at which Phoenix took out the men, she was unable to match their duplication speed, or the rate at which they recovered from injury.

She noticed, though, that none of them seemed to have independent thought- rather, they were codependent, working together as a cohesive unit. Some one of them, though, must be the original. As she fought off the incoming boys, the Phoenix began to deduce a plan. The original Uprising must be the one who has all of the plans in his head. He is the only one capable of independent thought, and with that, he is the only one who might have a normal, human reaction to being temporarily incapacitated. She guessed that by taking out the original, he would be unable to uphold the strength to maintain his duplicates. Therefore, rather than continuing to fend off the monstrous horde of identical fighters, she took off, up into the air once more, and began to examine them from above, trying to locate the original.