[center][h1][b][color=dodgerblue]Wards:[/color] Protean, the Protectorate's Strongest[/b][/h1]
[@Old Amsterdam][@yoshua171][@Gardevoiran][@BCTheEntity][@Lugubrious][/center]

As Messiah gave the order, Collin's eyes reacted in a quick change of indignant rage, to resigned sadness. Tulpa's projection took him out just as planned, and from there Tiger Lily went to work binding him in the words of his own game systems to ensure that he couldn't get away if he woke up early. Once the former Ward came to no doubt he would be in a rather desperate situation. Still, they couldn't worry about that right now. Protean was their new target, one of the senior Protectorate heroes and physically by far the most impressive. It was commonly accepted knowledge around the HQ that only Inkscape could take him in a fight, and only on one of Ink's good days. The man could unleash any combination of animal traits leading to an unpredictable foe, and boasted something akin to a regeneration factor on top of that. Stack on how he was their primary trainer, teaching them most of what they knew, and it would certainly be an uphill battle, damned that the Wards outnumbered him five to one.

The teens took off, Tulpa remaining behind to battle from afar with her powers, guided through the building by Decoy who kept a close eye on everything with the installed surveillance equipment. Protean was in a hurry himself, no doubt reacting to the emergency all hands on deck situation. If they lost him here, there might not be a second chance... But lose him they did not. At the bottom floor in the hall adjacent to the main lobby, just exiting the stairwell was Protean, running with gazelle legs on a largely human torso.

[color=darkgreen]"Good to see you, Wards. Skipping school? There's an emergency situatio-"[/color] He stopped, both mid-sentence and in his tracks. Something felt terribly off about the whole circumstance. His eyes darted to the direction they had just been coming from: the same direction as Collin's room. Noticeably, the man took a massive whiff of the air around him, presumably using the olfactory senses of some animal that wasn't immediately visible in his current form. [color=darkgreen]"I see. Well that is sad, isn't it?"[/color] His human arms began to melt before the Wards' very eyes, transforming into a primordial goo, a protein slop, before reshaping and solidifying into a set of colorful crustacean claws. Similarly, antennae grew out from his forehead.

[color=darkgreen]"I'm guessing I don't get the benefit of the doubt here, so I won't bother to ask you let me pass. But I can't risk holding back on you either. Run away or go down and I won't follow. Stay standing and..."[/color] Just like that Protean had already crossed the majority of the distance between himself and the group. He threw a punch at completely imperceptible speeds with his claw arm, quite literally impossible to see. The air instantly heated up by the sheer friction, and a vacuum was created that pushed against each of the Wards with an impressive force. There could be absolutely no question that if any of them took such a punch directly they would be completely torn apart.

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[center][h1][b][color=red]The Jacks:[/color] Dr. Dean[/b][/h1]
[@yoshua171][@BCTheEntity][@Eklispe][@Old Amsterdam][@Crusader Lord][/center]

Doctor Dean largely ignored the sudden assault on his person from two separate sources, mostly because it didn't mean anything to him. Alloy's electric shock passed right through his translucent form, while Thunderbolt's attempt of brute force was met with equal effect. If the villain had even noticed the assault on his person he certainly did not acknowledge it. Such things were, as it appeared, too far beneath him. However it became clear that he was getting at least somewhat annoyed when the large swathes of people surrounded him, drowning him out with their inane chatter. Thankfully the green clad menace had already armed himself with the solution for this problem. Without a single beat of hesitation he fired the high-tech blaster into the crowd. Instead of a single beam of blast, it projected a large constant stream of rainbow colored light. Every individual the beam struck was silenced in the worst possible way, as the Jacks would witness the innocent civilians ripped apart before their very eyes and turned to dust.

[color=lightseagreen]"That is much better,"[/color] he said, rather calmly considering he had just murdered dozens of people. [color=lightseagreen]"I do so dislike being interrupted. Am I to understand that this is your declination of my offer, then?"[/color] That's when Doctor Dean changed focus as he noticed something new and interesting. The lenses in his armor's mask visibly zeroed in on Whimsy, adjusting and shifting. The lenses even changed color at one point. [color=lightseagreen]"Ah, fascinating! Your power is not dissimilar to my own, separating that I am what this world classifies as a tinker. Reality string vibrational shifting, brought on by... A trigger. Let's see, and by my analysis this trigger would be... The closing of your eyes? A bit inconvenient I would think, but certainly a speedy trigger in the event of an emergency. Little one, I must study your power in greater detail."[/color]

The villain reached for his belt, pulling out what looked to be a metal hilt with nothing else attached. Then a small beam of light emitted from the hilt, giving the appearance of a lightsaber from the film franchise Star Wars, only much smaller. Like a scalpel.