[center][h3]Abandoned Subway - Flooded Tunnel[/h3]
Raz’s [@Truthhurts22], Sakura’s [@Zoey Boey], Pach, Luka, Dexio, Sina[/center]

When confronted by the Others, Luka had only a brief window in which he could size them up and take his pick. By now they could sense the psionics’ brains, after all, so time was of the essence. Luckily, it was an easy choice to make. “I’ll take care of the big one,” he notified his teammates as he set his sights on the Exonerator, wishing that he both sounded and felt a lot more confident. The pressure of setting the example for his brand-new team as its leader -which meant demonstrating both combat excellence and tactical awareness for his allies- was a big contributor, but not the only one. Part of the Scarlet Guardians’ effectiveness came from the organization’s shared pool of knowledge, freely accessible through SAS, which stemmed from the limited variety of Others in existence. However, Luka didn’t recognize this particular Other. Right now this didn’t concern him because of the admittedly low chance that his team discovered a new variant, but because it could possess any number of new and terrifying psychic abilities. That made the Exonerator his responsibility to handle.

Luka disappeared in a bluish burst, teleporting closer to the bizarre, baby-faced threat. He popped back into existence just above the water, sending it flying with the pressure of the air he displaced upon arrival, but before a single droplet spattered back down he blinked away again. By teleporting in quick succession, appearing for less than a second at a time, he quickly closed the distance. Before the Exonerator knew it, Luka warped above it, augmenting the strength of his hammerfall with the power of gravity. “Hah!” the grunted, smashing down on what should be the strange monster’s forehead. The material buckled under the hefty bash, and various pieces forcibly dislodged from its frame flew in every direction. With a weird squeal the Other furiously backpedaled, trying to align its lightbulb with Luka, but he wouldn’t allow it that chance. In a blink the pint-sized powerhouse teleported behind the Exonerator for another carapace-cracking wallop, yet again using outside force to amplify the power of his strike, in this case the opposing force of the Other’s backward roll. The result was a satisfyingly brutal bludgeon, and as the Exonerator reeled, trying to get away, Luka pressed his advantage.

He used the centripetal force of his weapon to whirl him around like an olympic hammer thrower, delivering blow after crushing blow, but after a moment he realized he’d gone out of control. Before he could take a potentially disastrous tumble he teleported a short distance away, resetting his momentum, but the Exonerator managed to face him in the open area and finally get off a flash of its bulb. Its vivid yellow flare slammed Luka’s senses like a flashbang, not just burning his eyes but momentarily frying his mind. “Agh!” he cried, unable to stop himself as he dropped his hammer and planted his palms on his eyes, limply falling to his knees in the water as he did. Completely paralyzed, he couldn’t do anything as the Exonerator promptly ran him over, crushing him against the subway tracks beneath the water’s surface.

However, Luka rose again after a brief moment, his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed thinly together. Though dripping wet, he’d suffered no broken bones, and he’d learned an important lesson. “So that’s your game,” he told the Exonerator as it turned around, lifting his hammer from the water. “I won’t make the same mistake again.” He teleported point-blank and struck the Other like a slap to the cheek, knocking it askew. The next second he was above it again, his hammer raised for an overhead smash on the lightbulb. A whirring wail sounded out as the Exonerator wheeled backward, turning sideways to fix its newly-recharged bulb on Luka. “Hmph.” Borrowing Peach’s power through SAS, he materialized a wall to block the light, then hurled his hammer straight through it toward the Other’s lightbulb, guided by Sakura’s telekinesis. The wonderful sound of broken glass rang out as the weak point shattered, its baleful glare extinguished, and as the Exonerator slumped over a different bulb plopped out of its open mouth–the one that meant Luka could finish this with a Brain Crush. He teleported into the air, caught his hammer, and brought it down on the second bulb to finish the Exonerator off for good. “One down,” he muttered, and he quickly bent to collect the spirit.

Meanwhile, his allies were working their way through the other Others. Raz split from the other three, zooming down the tunnel to bash into and then psi-blast an unlucky Rainy Rummy. When the junior psychonaut stopped to showboat, however, he quickly realized that the Other could, in fact, reach him. Sparking with yellow electricity, it aimed its umbrella frame at him, popped it open, and unleashed a lightning bolt his way. Its tottering compatriots followed suit, spreading out in the tunnel’s flooded center section to open fire on Raz in a seven-point thunderstorm assault. Their accuracy, though, was far from perfect, and they could only zap as fast as they could close their threadbare parasols again. Forced to stay on the move and out of the electrocution-prone water, Raz would be getting a lot of mileage out of his acrobatic expertise. He’d dealt a little over half that first Rainy Rummy’s health with his batter-and-barrage, so he could take these things down if given the chance to focus, but whether or not he’d be able to on his own might be another matter.

Fortunately, he wasn’t on his own. Peach joined him as fast as she could, and she heralded her arrival with a one-two punch of explosions from a grenaduck and her rocket launcher to ruin the Rummies’ formation. “Over here!” she yelled at them as she took to the air. A few of the Others took aim at her, but the princess kept herself on the move. Making herself essentially weightless through the power of Levitation, she kicked off the ground, the walls, the ceiling, the tunnel’s support pillars, and the Rummies themselves whenever she got close to launch herself around like an astronaut. Her Scatterboom’s tremendous blasts both dealt a lot of damage and sent her flying in the opposite direction at high speed like this, which Peach quickly learned to use to her advantage. As long as they stayed mobile, Peach with her area-of-effect and Raz with his sharpshooting, the two of them could take these Rummies apart.

At the moment though, Sakura, Dexio, and Sina were all occupied by the Rat Ruts. Sakura subjected the one she’d managed to get in close quarters to a blunt-force beatdown, making solid progress on its shell. This Other was far from helpless in melee range, however. It suddenly started doing donuts, whirling around in a violent circle to try and his Sakura with either its body or its six lateral prongs, and one of which could bash or gouge a weak point if she was unlucky. Another Rat Rut remained farther away and started shooting oil at her, putting Sakura in double the trouble.

The Rat Rut that nearly rolled over the Street Fighter, meanwhile, also tried to do the same for the other two, forcing them to jump to either side. “Cool it!” Sina chided, lifting up her right arm with her left hand clenched around her right bicep. Her Refrigerant Coil came to life, channeling her cryokinesis to unleash a volley of ice blasts from her palm. At the same time, Dexio pounded the Rat Rut’s metal shell from the other side with his cestus. That shell held firm, however, only lightly dented by Dexio’s punches and seemingly unaffected by the ice. Without warning the Other began doing donuts, its six lateral prongs outstretched, and both Scarlet Guardians took painful blows. Dexio staggered, but Sina got knocked clear off her feet, and when she landed beside the track at the water’s edge the impact drove the wind from her lungs. “Uuuugh…” she grunted, fighting for breath as Dexio kept trying to box the Rat Rut. She loosed a couple more ice blasts, but no amount of buildup on its shell seemed to slow the monster down. “This isn’t working,” she growled, dropping her hand. As she did, she felt the water begin to chill around her hand, and looked down to see the water freezing over around her. “Wait a second…”

As Dexio got knocked back again, Sina crouched at the edge of the flooded area and unleashed her Cryokinesis. A wave of ice spread across the calf-deep water, and when he spotted it Dexio caught on. With the plan communicated through Brain Talk, he took off running to bait the Rat Rut onto the ice, at which point its single narrow wheel promptly slipped and toppled its heavy body to the ground. At that point Dexio stopped, planting his hand on the ground. His Seismokinesis spread through the earth, causing it to shake. After only a moment the whole area was vibrating dangerously. “...Crumble!” he growled, and from the ceiling a massive chunk of rock shook loose to fall on and shatter the Rat Rut’s shell. With the Other’s papaya core exposed, Sina needed only to freeze it with an ice shot so her partner could shatter it with ease. “Score one for Dexio…” he crowed.

“And Sina!” his partner finished. With their allies still in danger though, they couldn’t goof around for long. They hurried down the tracks to help the others clean up.