[center][h1][color=dodgerblue]Wards: Morning Training[/color][/h1]
[@BCTheEntity][@yoshua171][@solokolos][@Lugubrious][/center]

With the added motivation, the Wards caught new wind. Of course, even the most well trained of runners would have difficulties keeping ahead of a large wolf. The first ones to get caught up in Protean's added exercise was, naturally, Alessa and Ira. Even pulling the tinker along with her, Alessa couldn't match pace with the other Wards running unobstructed. Belting out a great howl, the senior Protectorate hero launched a jump clear over the girls' heads and charged them from the front. If they turned around to head the other way he'd call out, [color=darkgreen]"Wrong way, ladies! That direction doesn't count!"[/color]

After harassing the team's leader and tech wizard, Protean turned his attention on the next two at the front of the pack. His body bubbled and morphed, fur becoming feather and snout becoming beak. Now some odd wolf-falcon hybrid, he took to the air and made a beeline directly to the side of the young heroes. From there he would antagonize them from above, catching some of Evelyn's hair with his claws and whipping a tail in Elliot's face. With that bit of fun done, Protean laughed himself silly, rolling over to the middle of the room. Once again his body morphed, flesh bubbling like some sort of primordial soup. He regained a human face, but kept the falcon wings while his lupine body changed to a leonine frame. He now resembled the legendary [url=http://img06.deviantart.net/39b1/i/2016/238/5/0/sphinx_by_lhuneart-dafduwe.jpg]sphinx[/url] for all onlookers.

[color=darkgreen]"Alright Wards, listen up!"[/color] he called out as they continued their running, now unaccosted. [color=darkgreen]"Here's a series of riddles for you. First one to answer correctly gets to take a break. The last one of you that doesn't get to answer one has to fight me one on one. Sound fun? Here we go! What five letter word is pronounced the same even when you take away four of the letters? What travels anywhere in the world, but never leaves the corner? And last, you have two coins that make thirty cents, and one is not a nickel. What are they?"[/color] He maintains a smug grin, observing the teens as they rush around the room.

[hr][hr]

[center][h1][color=gold]The Jacks: Highway Robbery[/color][/h1]
[@The Wild West][@yoshua171][@BCTheEntity][@Eklispe][/center]

Noble stands still, and listens to Chatterbox speak. It's clear she'd rather pull the trigger on her specialized weapon, but since the villains disarmed themselves it'd be highly immoral to do so. Well, the gaudy man and the little girl disarmed, at any rate. The cyborg merely changed positions. Still, she couldn't hold these two hostage over Arsenal. That was a move that [i]villains[/i] used. Damn, sometimes the more effective tactics weren't applicable. She grit her teeth as Chatterbox stated his case, and her trigger finger relaxed ever so slightly. [color=yellow]"Get your cyborg to stand down. I know he's still around, hiding behind cover."[/color]

By now, the smoke that had erupted from the initial grenades signalling this fight was beginning to fade, and the Jacks could see a few holographic emitters placed strategically around the battlefield. One right where the fake Morales was, one beneath the fake Noble, and a couple others that looked like they hadn't been utilized. The small devices could easily be fit into the palm of your hand and resembled gray disks, about an inch thick. 

[color=yellow]"Marsolis! I heard live ammunition! Tell me the meaning of your actions!"[/color] Her attention remained focused on Sofia and Chatterbox, but she was clearly addressing one of the soldiers.

"Sir!" he responded, "We were attacked with lethal force by that robot arm guy! I was responding appropriately!"

[color=yellow]"Moron!"[/color] she called back. [color=yellow]"He's using rubber ammunition. You escalated first. When we get back, you'll have to answer to Directed Kens."[/color]

The soldier remained silent. Noble continued to stare down her targets, though her breathing had relaxed significantly. [color=yellow]"Your move, villains. How is this going to go down?"[/color]

[hr][hr]

[h2][center]The Minutemen and Others - Denver Skyline[/center][/h2]
[center][@Banana][@The Wild West][@Nattook][@yoshua171][@solokolos][/center]

At the declaration that Jaunt had received a message concerning the bounty of a young girl, one could only imagine how big Furnace's eyes grew beneath his helmet visor. Once again he swung a baton at the mercenary, only this time with actual purpose. For his efforts he hit only air, as Jaunt vanished, only to reappear mere feet away, then vanish again. [color=orange]"Dammit!"[/color] he grunted, kicking the rooftop beneath him. [color=orange]"Listen guys, I'm glad your Minutemen are doing well, and I'm unbe-lieeeevably happy we don't have a new Endbringer crisis on our hands, but I've got to chase down any leads I can to rescue that girl. Until we meet again."[/color]

Furnace took a running jump over the rooftop, his glider unfurling from the personalized armored pack, and he was off on the air, gliding by the wind currents he made from his own heat.

G4M3R waved enthusiastically as Furnace left, then turned to address Outsider's question. "Of course! I'd be happy to give you my card. You you go!" He plucks out a professional business card and holds it out for the helmet-wearing man to grab. "As you can see from Kyoshi," he gestures to the costume-clad woman currently on the phone, "Business is already starting to boom. Even if you didn't catch Sonika, you're more than impressive enough."

Meanwhile, Celia was having an adventure of her own through cyberspace, attempting to interfere with communications of the PRT. Hacking into the initial signal proved significantly more difficult than first believed. In fact, it proved itself to be an incredibly arduous process. Once she was in, however, things went fairly smoothly. Code changed to her whim, and connections began to falter. At least at first. Looking back at the alterations she had made, the coding was repairing itself at inhuman speeds. The alterations were catching up to her own programming, until her influence was completely cut off from all PRT and Protectorate systems, save for a single open line of communication. Attempting to access anything else proved to be completely impossible, no matter how many of her processors she brought online to focus on the task. So what was this single line of communication open? It was some sort of chat system, and she was being pinged directly to her IP.

[color=cyan]TheRe@lD3c0y:[/color] [i]Fascinating. Nobody has cracked my coding so easily. Thank you for pinpointing the weaknesses.[/i]