[right]"FUCK!" Dian swore, the word louder than it had any right to be coming from a child. She had the wizard and some idiot who thought he was a cowboy while Mimic got tunnel vision on some [i]boy[/i] with a fiery arm. She was never supposed to be fighting on her own. Mimic was the powerhouse, and Dian was supposed to support. Taking a few steps back and trusting her makeshift bone armour, she looked around to see a pair of real Epic fanboys appear behind them. This was getting worse by the second. "Hey, Boobies!" She called. "We have to run!"[/right]

Spectrum checked. She wasn't floating as she led Dragon out from the bedroom. As much as she wanted to be pinned to the bed by him, she made do with him undressing her in that way. She was still half-considering pushing him back through the portal and dropping her armour when she saw Charlotte suited up as well. "No!" She said, unintentionally hitting the same tone as her mother would. "You are going back inside where it's safe, Charlotte."

Charlotte froze, and dropped her head with a sigh. She had seen this coming. Turning to the older woman, Charlotte removed her helmet, and pursed her lips. Logically, she had no right to ask this of her, but she knew that she had to do this. She could help resolve this crisis, and her actions could help save a life, lives even. To be stopped from doing that while she hid away, safe... it made her sick. "I... I can help." Still, her argument started weakly. She owed Spectrum a lot, and she understood her desire to keep her safe, even if she disagreed.

Spectrum folded her arms, adjusting the pose a moment later when the front of her armour wasn't where she thought it was. "Yes, and the last time you helped we had police everywhere and someone died." A momentary sensation of fear and guilt for bringing up that incident passed through her body, and she only barely managed to stop the armour reacting. Charlotte was just starting to act like a kid again. Spectrum didn't want that ruined.

At that she flinched. It was a good point, but Charlotte wouldn't be dissuaded so easily. The circumstances were different then, different from what they were now.

"That was the lowest moment of my life," she admitted, and once more she sounded decades older than she had any right to, "but then I was never in it to help you. Back then all I could think about was my revenge. This time I have a chance to do things right." She had a chance to make up for it, but her motivations weren't so selfish as that. It was simply, at the moment, she understood, finally, that it was impossible for her to not be a hero - and that understanding meant that if she had the ability to help, then she would use that ability to its fullest extent.

Ignoring the others, Spectrum pulled Charlotte into a hug. She was taller in that armour than she was supposed to be, but she was still short enough that Spectrum could hold her head and shoulders. "I don't want you to get hurt. You shouldn't have to worry about things. You should be back inside playing with the cat and watching movies and having fun while grown ups do the hard things." She let the concern come to the surface of the armour, a sullen, soft red.

"But I can't not worry. I don't think I could let myself," she mumbled. She gently pushed away from the hug, not because she wanted to, but because staying any longer wouls weaken her resolve. "When I think of what's happening out there, the idea that someone could get hurt, maybe worse, and I could have done something to help but didn't stays in my head. And that would make me no different from people like Blacklight, for just standing aside and letting it happen." There was a point where she felt that way. To the victims, the perpetrator and the bystanders were all guilty.

It hurt, a little, when Charlotte pulled away from her. "You must stay safe." Spectrum kept her hands on the girl's shoulders. "If things go bad, you get out first. OK?" Charlotte nodded. There was nothing else that could be said. Her determination renewed, Charlotte slapped her helmet back on and leapt into the fray. Dragon put a hand on her shoulder just after, watching her go. Without exchanging a word, she put her hand over his, squeezed it, and they moved forward.

[right][i]Now[/i] their targets showed up! Dian had had enough. She wasn't any coward, but taking on ten people at once was not her responsibility. That was for Smog or Rend or Tower. She ran over to Mimic, grabbing the other girl's shirt and throwing off a swipe at her new plaything. "We gotta go," she said.

Mimic, for the first time since Vice showed, looked around. "Shit," her chest heaved, not entirely from the exertion of combat, "I can't take them all on."

Dian slapped her. "We gotta go!"

"Through them." Mimic pointed with the Vice Claw at the spandex-clad Epic fans. "They don't have powers."

"The one's floating," Dian pointed out. 

Mimic shrugged, her arm returning to normal as her skin began to flicker unnatural shades. "It's not them. I don't sense any power on them."

"Fine." Dian pouted. "But you're getting me ice cream for letting this situation get this bad."

"Screw you."

"More likely to than you."

Dian ran for the two weirdos in spandex, throwing her hands forward on suddenly stretchy ligaments to grab them both by the uncovered faces. An effort of her power made their skin ripple, then melt through their costumes. As they fell to the ground, making a sound Dian assumed was screaming beneath their fused lips, she pulled back from the woman, nursing a severe burn. She wasn't going to let herself cry, but damn it hurt. "Rend!" She shouted.

Behind her, Mimic blew a kiss at the boy with the flaming arm, then exploded. Ten, twenty, maybe more strobe-flashing copies of her bolted in all directions. Some ran towards the other Epics, throwing punches or jumping kicks. The one that encountered Vice gave him a deep, but brief, kiss. "Finish later, cutie," she murmured, before that copy flashed into nonexistence. The rest all scattered, some up fire escapes, some down alleys, others just running as fast as they could away.[/right]

It had hardly been thirty seconds into the fight before Dragon had two girls tackle him. Spectrum took to the air to avoid another. From there, she could see the chaos. As if the rats had bubbled up from the sewers, the technicolor copies swarmed everyone. She couldn't help Dragon, or Charlotte, from up here, but if she landed, she'd be covered in copies as well. Looking down, she drifted too close to a building, and a copy jumped on her. Spectrum panicked, a wild flailing of her arms smashing into the copy. It exploded in a flash of horrid light that Spectrum could swear she [i]tasted[/i]. She spun in mid-air, crying half from surprise, half from disgust.

Dragon, below, shrugged off one copy and threw her behind him while the other tried to bite his nose off. With his free arm, he grabbed it by the collar and- He coughed and shuddered, his instinctive reaction to shed the explosion leaving him feeling as if roadkill had been wiped on his skin. "Don't-" His stomach heaved as the second one exploded at him. "Charlotte! Don't touch them!" He shouted, unable to see where the girl had gone in the chaos of colour and sensation. "Spec! Stay high!" He didn't know where Spectrum was either, and he didn't know which was worse. He threw out his arms, putting everything he had into a blast of lightning. It cleared a space, but the resultant detonation sent more of that energy into the melee.