Collab w/@Finetales

The stage was set. This was their first real test as heroes. Nobody calls the capes in Liberty City 'deputies' except for the newspapers and reporters. They were superheroes and it was time to go be 'super.' The one called Interference darted the opposite direction of the behemoth Stampede, who had already got his tech into position and run outside to help the others. To his surprise there was now an angelic looking woman in the sky, and Painkiller and King Bee were in a brawl for some reason. Stampede's mystical based powers might give him a slight advantage, but nobody knew anything going into combat with this red chaos energy manipulating mad woman.

Her attention was now on the angelic woman in the sky, with the two mind controlled heroes fighting a short distance from her. Stampede, aka Marco Kane, tried assessing the situation. Like an idiot he yelled that she was under arrest which had her attention now on him. Her finger gun dealt real damage as she fired several chaos bolts of red energy at the hero that damaged the ground and outside walls of the office building.

"You just gonna hover, hot-wings, or are you gonna help save the people in the building?" he yelled out to the alien Queen.

”Where have you been hiding?” She asked a little frantically. She ran along her stepping stones, getting higher and higher into the air. ”You remember me, right?! The park! Come down! We can talk!”

Kate rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately I do," she replied, moving farther away at the same pace the woman got closer to her with her stepping stones. "But I'm not exactly in the mood for-" At that moment she was interrupted by a behemoth of a hero making a loud entrance. Kate rolled her eyes even harder when said hero told the chaos woman she was under arrest. "Oh yeah, that'll definitely work," she muttered sarcastically.

"You just gonna hover, hot-wings, or are you gonna help save the people in the building?"

Kate turned to the imposing hero accosting her. "You have an entire ACADEMY full of supers in there and you need my help?? Pah! she scoffed dismissively. "Useless..." she muttered under her breath. Still, she had shown up here to do a job, and was never one to turn down a fight, so she set her manifested battle staff alight with flame and dove at the chaos woman with speed, just as she had done in the park.
While everything was going on Painkiller managed to touch King Bee long enough to 'heal' the effects of the emotional manipulation. King then grew back to regular size and put the healing man into a submission hold where his hand was touching his own body, thus depleting the effects of the mind control.

Meanwhile the Son of Liberty and Spellbound were headed for the roof to get their tech set up. Supercop was gathering the civilian employees in the office building to a safe room type of bunker beneath the academy.

"Once I get mine set up on the far side, I'm jumping down to help the others. You been practicing spells the last few weeks?" Liberty Son asked his brother in arms as they ran up the stairs.

@Stern Algorithm @Crimson Flame @BunniesOfDoom

Eli’s boots thudded on the rooftop, just a second behind Judah’s. The sun blazed down, and the red light reflecting off nearby skyscrapers made everything feel as if it might melt. “I’ve been practicing…” he said between breaths, setting down the tech unit. “Not this kind of thing, but enough.”

He knelt beside the device, drawing a sigil in the air that shimmered violet before forming a faint shield around it. “There. That should keep it from exploding if someone decides to throw a fireball.” His voice trembled a bit, but his hands stayed steady.

Then he paused. A strange buzz crawled down his spine, like static moving through his magic circuits. He looked toward the chaos in the distance, eyes wide. “Do you feel that? Something’s wrong. Her magic… it’s not normal. It’s bending things.” He stood up slowly, sparks flying from his fingertips. “Whatever this is, I think I can help. But I might need backup.”

Too much was going on. Eris was starting to feel overwhelmed. Her angel had arrived! Wonderful. But now there were more heroes showing up! Not so good. She hadn’t expected to fight in this manner. She was planning on keeping herself underground for as long as possible, surfacing only to taunt and enrage before going back underground. Her angel coming, however. That changed everything. So now she stood there high in the air, on her manifestations of her chaotic energy, trying to get the angel to come down like a love sick teenager.

The heroes were yelling at each other and Eris crossed an arm over her chest before resting her elbow on that hand. She rested her head in that palm, just listening as the two bickered at each other. ”Oh go right ahead. Bicker away. It wasn’t like we were doing anything at all.” She said as she looked between the two people.

When the woman dove at her, Eris had to restrain herself from throwing her arms out and accepting the attack like a hug. She had to remember that she was currently smack dab in the middle of hero central with more heroes on the way. She grit her teeth and allowed her stepping stone to dissolve from under her feet, plummeting her down towards the ground. Another one appeared not long after, stopping her drop. She bent her knees to help kill the momentum and make sure she wasn’t going to hurt herself before she snapped her head up to the angel again.

”Nice try! But you can’t get me with the same thing twice.” She cackled once before kissing the air and waving at Queen. She took off in a sprint along her stepping stones, more materializing in front of her while the ones behind dissolved. She laughed like a mad woman, looking down at the scene below. She could see more heroes now. Some seemed to be setting up some kind of tech devices on the roof of the building. She frowned at the sight. They were setting up something and if she had to guess. It wouldn’t be anything helpful to her.

She needed to get back underground or she was going to get trapped. She took a sharp left, running towards the roof. If she could just get something between her and the heroes then maybe she could scramble away. Her best chance was to put as many walls between her and them as possible.

She activated her power, targeting it on a specific spot of the roof within her range, just between the two heroes. As she came down, that spot grew, rippling under the sun. She dove off her stepping stone like an olympic diver, heading straight for the spot. ”Coming through!” She cried out as zipped past the two heroes. In the last second before she dove through the roof, her hand shot out and grabbed the kid’s cape and tried to pull him through with her.

She found a floor pretty quickly and rolled as she landed. She sprang back up quickly, shutting off the power so the roof solidified again. She was in some kind of conference or office room with a large table in the center and multiple chairs scattered throughout. They were pushed around haphazardly as if in a rush, possibly emptied out when she began the attack on the building. She spotted two large windows that let the sun in and two doors on either side of the room. Her eyes flashed to the spot she came in through, her distinct solidified ripples now carved into the ceiling tiles and workings. She smiled.

One moment, Eli had been focused on the device, shielding it with his magic. Then next… “Hey-WAIT-!” he yelped as something grabbed his cape and yanked. He tumbled off the rooftop, and for a moment, the world turned red.

He hit the ground harder than he meant to, rolling instinctively like they’d practiced in hand-to-hand, but the wind still got knocked from his lungs. He landed in what looked like a conference room, chairs knocked over, papers fluttering. His heart pounded as he scrambled up, his eyes went wide. The roof above him shimmered with unstable magic that definitely wasn’t his.

“What the hell…” he mumbled as he shakily got himself up. His instincts screamed danger

Then he saw her. That woman, the source of the chaos magic. She had been smiling as if this were some sort of cosmic joke. “Y-y-you—” Eli’s voice cracked. He scrambled to his feet. His hands glowed with blue magic. “Y-y-you can’t just drag people through walls! That’s- That’s kidnapping!”

She was powerful. Clearly way more experienced, and way more chaotic than anything he had practiced against. “…What do you want?” he asked, trying to sound braver than he felt. “Dragging a kid into an office meeting room isn’t exactly peak villain strategy…” He tried to sound confident, and heroic, but it was his first encounter with a villian, and his feet were ready to run.

Dr. Eileen Fang

@Omega Man @Crimson Flame @BunniesOfDoom @Finetales

Making sure she was in a relatively safe location with no cameras looking at her, Eileen placed the device down on the ground, still attempting to scan its insides. She occasionally glanced over at the fight happening in the sky before noticing that the attacker dived into the building. 'Was that in the direction of Son of Liberty and Spellbound?' Eileen thought to herself, hoping they could hold their own. Eileen rolled up the sleeve of the labcoat she always wore, took out her makeup kit, and started using her eyeliner to frantically scribble down notes and schematics, as much information as she could glean from this device, so that she wouldn't have to try to recall everything from memory later if she ever tried to replicate it. To think that the government had the technology to just shut off a super's powers. Stealing this technology seemed like a golden opportunity, but she didn't want to leave her allies hanging for too long. Although Eileen was unsure how much help she could provide; without her tools, pinpoint attacks against fast moving targets was almost impossible. Waves liked traveling in all directions and dissipated at range, making Eileen's attacks short and tend towards the indiscriminate without sufficient focus, focus which her tools provided, but which were banned from the training facility due to their ability to record everything they see and hear. The only boon that such a prohibition provided was that the camera density at this location was thankfully low, allowing her the opportunity to scan this device away from prying eyes. Well, if this facility was destroyed, then it was Supercop's own damn fault.

Queen of Gold

One moment Kate was diving towards the chaos-bringer as she had done in the park before. The next moment she found herself approaching the wall of the Academy at great speed. She did the alien superhero with angel wings equivalent of slamming on the brakes, using her enormous wings to slow down hard. Yet the wall still approached, and in the split second she had she sent a great plume of fire from her staff forward to give her some reverse thrust. It worked, and she catapulted herself back into the air from whence she came.

She looked down to see the wall intact but sporting a new coat of charred, black paint. It seemed this chaos woman was more competent at combat than she had thought...or at least, competent at running away from it. As the chaos woman blew a kiss at her, Kate snarled and was about to take off after her when the villain grabbed a young hero and dragged him down through the roof.

"Oh no you don't," she muttered, and dove back down to the Academy. She aimed at the open front entrance, and flew into the building pointing towards where the villain had entered the roof. Unfortunately for the Academy, not all the doors in between Kate and Eris were open, and Kate tore her way through them with flames and speed, hardly slowing down and leaving the doors a mangled, charred mess behind her.

It took very little time for Kate to reach about where she thought the kidnapper and kidnappee would be. She alighted in an intersection of two hallways, and in a moment heard a young voice that she assumed was the young hero. Kate manifested a large warhammer, set it ablaze, and knocked the door down in one heavy strike. Sure enough, inside the room were the chaos-bringer and a terrified-looking young hero.

"Kidnapping children now, are we?" Kate said as she stormed into the room. "I should have known you'd stoop so low," she continued, resentment dripping in her voice. She recalled her manifested warhammer, standing now with her fists and armor only. "Why don't you come annoy me instead?" she said, with a sudden tone shift to a suggestive voice, in an effort to goad the strange woman into forgetting about the kid. At this point it was quite clear to Kate that this strange woman had a thing for her, so it was time to use it to her advantage. She'd gladly fight the woman alone once again, but she also hoped the young hero would take the opportunity to help.

@Crimson Flame @BunniesOfDoom

Supercop was getting worried. The devices weren't all in place and he was beginning to think he'd have to leave the civilians underground and go back up top. What he didn't know was that the facility's attacker was already within it's walls.

"C'mon, guys. What in the hell is taking so long?" he muttered under his breath looking at the control to activate the power dampening field on his robotic gauntlet.

Meanwhile, outside the remaining heroes were left with confusion. One minute the angelic heroine was going after the chaotic woman in red in the air, before the attacker liquified the roof momentarily while also abducting the kid with the hero permit. Judah had JUST leapt to the ground from the roof thinking Spellbound would be right behind him. It was obvious where the action was headed, with the angel like hero crashing and burning through the academy office building to find the villain. Painkiller worked to get Pitbull out of the ground along with King Bee while Stampede was just dumbfounded as to what exactly was going on.

"Supercop had us setting up devices to dampen superhuman powers. When those are activated only heroes using tech like me and King Bee won't be effected." Liberty Son stated to the group as Pitbull dusted himself off with a growl.

"That ain't stopping ME, junior." Pitbull stated, ready to go.

"Me either." Stampede replied.

"If Supercop's got a power draining device about to activate, I'm going to stick around outside in case anybody needs emergency care. I can't mend bones and punctured organs if I'm powerless." Painkiller stated.

"Understandable. King, you ready to rock?" the Son of Liberty asked the shrinking and flying superhero.

Before the black and yellow clad hero could respond, Pitbull got tired of strategizing and talking. With a "BARK BARK!" he ran through the front entrance like DMX was already playing in the background.

"Damnit, there goes going in with any sort of plan. There's a stairwell on each side of the building. I'll follow Pitbull on the east side, you two go up on the west. Remember when the device gets activated, powers might get drained. Hopefully it doesn't screw with tech too..." Judah said on the spot as the three men entered the academy.

Down below the Academy, Supercop and the civilian employees waited in the bunker. It was a super simple bunker. There were seating areas, a few pillows, fewer blankets, and a glorified port-o-potty type of room off to one side. There was an area to look at security camera feed but Supercop was having trouble because several cameras had been damaged.

"Three of the devices have been placed, where'd the girl in white run off to with the fourth?" Supercop asked himself.

Eris watched the boy as he scrambled to his feet. When his eyes finally fell on her, she tucked her hands behind her back and grinned broadly at him, madness just hinted in the corner of her lips. ”Oh yes. It’s me.” She laughed lightly under her breath as she took a step towards him. Her magic flared behind her, red tendrils dancing behind her like tentacles of crimson.

When he told her she couldn’t pull people through walls, she paused, her brows coming down in confusion. That was kidnapping? She laughed. One hand rose to her forehead as she released a loud belly laugh at his statement. ”Oh honey.” She said with a chuckle as she brought a finger to her eyes, rubbing away the tears that had formed when she laughed. ”I kill people. Do you think kidnapping is going to slow me down? Emphasis on the kid part. You’re what, 15? Are you sure you want to be here? Everyone wants to be a hero until people start dying.” She took another step towards him, her hand glowing with her red chaotic energy.

As he questioned her some more, questioning why she would drag a kid into an office meeting room. She gave a small shrug. ”I’m not the one who has the gift for planning. I tend to just wing it.” She brought a hand up suddenly, throwing a small ball of chaotic energy at him. After the ball left her hand, the door to the room came crashing down. Eris whirled on her heels, her crimson eyes locking on Queen in the threshold.

Her heart fluttered at the sight. There she was, her glorious angel, in all her rageful beauty. She felt a smile cross her face. One that faded and fell when she made a comment on how low she would sink. A scoff crossed her face. ”Me?! Stoop low? I’m not the one recruiting children to fight a war! Do you think they taught him how to grieve? Is writing a will at the end of the classes?” She felt anger bubble in her chest. She was sick of people taking advantage of those who didn’t know better, this boy being one of them. Unfortunately, he was just going to have to be a casualty of the constant war between supers and villains.

When her tone shifted, Eris froze. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her side as her eyes scanned the woman’s face. Was she being serious? Something inside told her she couldn’t trust this woman but it was her fiery angel. She slowly took a tiny step towards Queen. Her eyes scanned the woman quickly. She knew that the hero had an ability to manifest weapons in her hands, so she took her time to approach her. One step at a time. ”You-you want me to spend time with you? What’s the catch?” She was up to something. She was distracting her from something.

Eli froze as the chaos orb barreled toward him.

“¡Escudo!” he shouted on instinct, snapping up a blue barrier mid-air. It caught the energy blast, but the force sent him skidding backward into an overturned chair with a THUMP. “Ok… rude…” He muttered as he got back up. “By the way, I’m 17…” He said as if that made any sort of difference

Before he could come up with some sort of retort, cast a spell, or do anything really. A golden, angel winged woman with a warhammer barged in and… Was she flirting? Did he end up a third wheel in some supernatural rom-com? Not what he expected when he decided to be a superhero, but he supposed he should be used to weird stuff...

Then the chaos woman mocked him. Called him a casualty. Something about that set Eli off. “Look, I know I don’t have control yet! I know I’m scared, and I know this magic barely listens to me…”

He grasped his pendant for a second, closed his eyes, and then whispered. “Relámpago.” A sudden bolt of lightning crashed down from the flickering lights overhead. It was loud, bright, and imprecise. Striking the ground where Eris and Queen were. “But I am not a casualty,” he said, quieter now. “I’m Spellbound. And I’m still here.”

@BunniesOfDoom@Finetales

Queen of Gold

Kate ignored Eris' retort to her chastisement, and continued to ignore the young hero getting sent into a chair. They were merely distractions to her.

Kate let a smirk creep across her face as the strange woman froze and struggled to comprehend what Kate had just done. Not only had the villain taken the bait, but she was being very cautious. Kate had to admit that she wanted to take credit for discovering this villain's weakness so quickly, but in truth Eris had served it up on a silver platter.

"I'm the catch, am I not?" she said, choosing her tone and cadence carefully in order to goad the strange woman further. She took a single step towards Eris, her body language broadcasting both dominance and invitation. "Is that not enough?"

Just then the young hero decided to take action...but not in the way Kate was hoping. His clearly barely-controlled lightning attack struck right in front of Kate, eliciting little more than a blink from her but focusing her ire on him. "By the gods, boy!" she exclaimed, taken out of her seductive reverie. "Whose side are you on?"

@BunniesOfDoom @Crimson Flame

Abigail “Abby” Blavatsky

A few feet away, on top of a hill, sat a figure on a lawn chair with a portable table beside them. On the table was a plastic container holding a peanut butter sandwich, a bottle of wine, and a wine glass. The figure had brought a high-powered telescope so they could see the academy. Abby had been watching the academy for the past couple of weeks. Mostly doing recon on the heroes, wanting to learn as much as she could about them. And part of her “research” involved digging into the hero’s past.

Some of the information she found was quite interesting. Learning about the life of the angelic hero she had encountered before. Thinking she could use the woman's personal life to her advantage.

The other subject of interest for her was the hero named Spellbound. The thought of magic being a thing in this world was quite exciting. If she could kidnap this boy and forcefully make him teach her magic, she would be very powerful. In the back of her mind, she was coming up with a plan to kidnap the hero. Thinking it would be easy to break him, judging from her observations.

Abby poured herself a glass of wine while opening up the container of food. Peanut butter sandwiches were her favourite food as a child. Eating this almost daily, the scientist wondered why she was so skinny despite eating so much of it. Peering through the microscope, she enjoyed watching the heroes struggle to fight the chaos magician. Feeling particularly thrilled that the gold-themed hero was doing poorly trying to help her comrades. “You need to work harder if you don’t want your friends to die.”

She had a big smile on her face. She paused watching to take a sip of her wine. The heroes were running around like headless chickens, trying to bring down the crazed girl. She thought how amusing it was that so many heroes were struggling to take down one villain, and looked back into the telescope to continue watching the show. Finding joy as the battle was now taking place in the sky, with the heroes trying to maneuver and attack accordingly in the air. But felt annoyed as the fight continued inside. Her view was obscured by the depth of their position inside the building. At the very least, she hoped that both the golden hero and the chao user were suffering. Moving her head away from the telescope to enjoy her sandwich and wine, and savouring their suffering.

After finishing her lunch and the glass of wine, she started packing up her things into her car. Driving off to find the spell caster’s family so they could have a little “chat.”

Dr. Eileen Fang

@Omega Man @Crimson Flame @BunniesOfDoom @Finetales @Eviledd1984

Eileen looked over the notes she had scrawled into her sleeve. This would have to do. She'd wasted enough time as it was; any longer and she'd rouse suspicion, and she didn't need Supercop breathing down her neck. Turning the device on, Eileen took a step back and made sure her powers still worked. She could still hear the couple arguing in their apartment five blocks away and see the UV light coming down from the sun overhead. Good. She examined how the device operated from afar. Was it emitting a sound? Or was it sending out electromagnetic waves? If it was either of these things, she could potentially replicate it herself. Most likely though, it was psionic in nature and not something she had the ability to reproduce using her powers alone.

Eileen considered joining the fight, but it wouldn't make sense to put herself at risk and become a liability, further hampering the other heroes' efforts. She had to test what the device would do to her if she stepped into its range. Walking forward in front of the emitter, Eileen felt the effects immediately. At first, she thought that she had been rendered blind and deaf, only to realize that she could still see and hear within normal human parameters. But to have so much of her sight and hearing disabled, to lose infrared, ultraviolet, infrasound, and ultrasound was momentarily debilitating. So, this was how normal people saw and heard the world; how limited. The sensation hit like a wave of nausea and nostalgia all at once, since it reminded Eileen that, as a child, this was how she used to perceive the world as well before her powers manifested. How easily she had forgotten. Still, this answered her question, if she tried to fight, she would be less than helpful in this condition.

Stumbling out of the device's range, Eileen felt her supersenses flooding back in and it was like getting flash banged. Such a powerful, wonderful device; Eileen couldn't wait to try to make one herself. But she could try to help from out here. What they needed sorely was a way to coordinate. "THE DEVICE HAS BEEN SET UP," Eileen bellowed in a voice loud enough to penetrate the whole building, "I CAN HEAR ALL OF YOU. SPEAK IF YOU WISH TO CONVEY ANYTHING TO THE OTHER HEROES." She then did a quick broad-spectrum scan of the building. "TARGET IS IN THE OFFICES ON THE TOP FLOOR. SHE HAS A HOSTAGE. ANGELIC HERO APPEARS TO BE ATTEMPTING TO NEGOTIATE." Sure, it looked and sounded like flirting, but you had to act a little crazy to deal with crazy, Eileen could tell. She'd seen the news of this mysterious hero, and in Eileen's opinion, she had gotten an unwarranted negative reputation. There wasn't much Eileen could do from this distance, but she could at least try to prevent infighting.

Eileen sent a sonic pulse through the ground to get a sense of who wasn't in the building yet and sensed something unusual. People stuck in the ground. Those that had been completely buried were already dead, but Pitbull was only half submerged and being rescued. "An interesting power," Eileen thought to herself. Eileen sat down on the pavement and placed her palms on the ground. Sound waves traveled better through solid matter, and the best part, thanks to a concept known as total internal reflection, the waves won't affect anything above ground. If the chaos woman tried to escape through the earth, Eileen would have something waiting for her.

Collab w/@Crimson Flame and @BunniesOfDoom

The devices were activated. A pulse had been emitted within the walls of the building. And for everyone with internal superhuman abilities came a stirring of the senses and a bit of confusion. The Son of Liberty's powers all came from technology, so he wasn't affected by the field. Stampede's abilities came from a mystic artifact, same as Spellbound. They were both unaffected. And King Bee's powers also came from tech. The Queen of Gold was secretly an alien, so the devices were unable to do to her what they had done to the humans in the building with powers. The chaos bringer and Pitbull were really the only superhumans the power dampeners even touched! At the slightest hint of dizziness Pitbull ran through a wall and knocked himself unconscious, urinating on himself afterwards.

Eris wasn't sure what to think about the situation she found herself in. On one hand, she finally had the angel's attention and she was actively flirting with her. One the other hand, the magic user just blasted lightning between the two of them. She could hear footsteps making their way through the halls and nearby stairwell and her heart jumped a beat. She needed to get out of this mess before things spiraled out of her control.

"Spellbound, you ok brother?" Liberty Son asked as he and King Bee came through the room entrance behind the larger armored Stampede.

“Uh… yeah!” Eli said quickly even though his voice cracked. “Totally fine… Well, maybe not totally fine. I’m in a room with a chaos sorceress, and I may have interrupted some kind of hero-villain flirty thing? But… uh… magic still works! So that’s good.” He grinned nervously. “So, what’s the plan? Tell me it’s not ‘hit her until she falls down.’”

The chaos-bringer's power flared below her feet, the floor of the room liquifying as she began to step into it. Then the world went haywire. As the device pulsed through the building, she felt like her body was being ripped into two. The liquified floor fell away, leaving a gaping hole as it splashed down on the floor below. Eris' hands snapped to her head, clenching it tightly as she screamed. She stepped back, wobbled on the edge of the hole then fell through to the floor below.

"Nothing's ever easy in Liberty City..." Liberty Son thought to himself as he tried to get his wits about him. "Stampede, you wanna make that hole a little bigger?" he then said out loud.

Stampede took a short jog and cannonballed through the hole, making it easier for everyone to get through. He eyeballed the young girl in red, who was now a few feet away, from under the rim of his mystical helmet.

"You're not getting away that easy." the larger brute of a hero stated.

Kate was getting interrupted a lot today. First the young spellcaster shot a lightning bolt right in front of her face as she was trying to seduce the chaos-bringer... (Wait, trying to seduce? It was all part of the plan though! Right...?) And now before she could continue admonishing the magic boy, three more heroes finally entered the room. "Ugh, finally," she said with a disappointed tone, rolling her eyes at them. "Your response time could be measured on a calendar."

Before Kate could get more annoyed at the heroes for showing up and interrupting her tactical flirting, or for taking so long to show up and interrupt her tactical flirting, some kind of pulse went through the building. Kate noticed straight away that while she felt no effect and it seemed a few others didn't either, the chaos woman was reacting rather poorly to the device. Kate watched the villain scream, clutch her head, and then melt through the floor and crash into the floor below. The enormous brute of a hero crashed through the hole next, and Kate followed.

The chaos woman was in bad shape. She had clearly hit herself on something on the way down, and was bleeding from her ears and a few other places. She was still screaming and clutching her head, and looked like she might physically explode from the pain at any moment. But Kate also noticed something...different about the villain. Her eyes were no longer glowing red and she seemed to be a different person somehow. The chaos seemed just...gone. Instead there was only pain, and fear. What had they just done to her?

Kate didn't dwell on those thoughts however, as her opponent clearly needed to be put out of her misery for the time being. There was no honor in letting a defeated enemy remain in agony. The big brute of a hero stood by and did nothing, instead giving a basic quip, and Kate shot him a look of disgust. She walked up to the chaos woman, said "thank me later", and gave her a brutal backhand slap that knocked her out cold.

Kate didn't move from her position above the now-unconscious villain, as she addressed the heroes as they came down through the hole. Her voice was scathing. "So that's how you 'heroes' do battle? Take eons to show up, don't do any actual fighting, wait for some tech device to incapacitate the villain, and then just let her writhe in agony?" She scoffed. "That device and I did all the work! The rest of you might as well have stayed in bed this morning!" She bent down to pick up the limp villain and stood back up. The villain's blood dripped from many sources, getting all over Kate and her battle armor and yet not elliciting even a glance or a fidget from her. "Please tell me someone is at least competent enough to lead me to some quarters she can be held in," she said, her voice softer but still laced with disappointment.

@BunniesOfDoom @Crimson Flame @Omega Man

The angel woman had mercy on the enemy in red. All of that trouble, and one dead hero smothered to death in the earth itself, just to go out with a backhand. After the winged heroine had grown noticeably aggravated with the other heroes, Supercop came in with a few armored LCPD officers.

"You guys did good work. That device worked as well as we could've hoped. All of the staff was safe down in the bunker and the only casualty was Fire Fist..." Supercop began saying looking around at the damage.

"What the hell... happened?" Pitbull growled picking himself up and out of the side of an office wall.

"We'll take her from here, ma'am." an armored LCPD officer said to the Queen in Gold as he put restraints on the hands and ankles of the KO'ed enemy.

"She'll get charged with murder, but chances are she won't pass the psyche examination to go to superhuman prison. Her ride arrived with the LCPD." Supercop continued as two more officers entered the room.

"You need us to stick around, Supercop?" Liberty Son asked basically for everyone who survived the experience. King Bee dusted off his yellow jacket. Stampede cleared his throat. And Pitbull finally smelled the urine in his pants.

"You're all deputies except for Bird Girl here. I have a few questions I'd like to ask you, but it doesn't have to be today." Supercop said towards the alien Queen, "The city might need any one of you. So get out there and get after it." he said to the rest of the group.

On the way out of the building the group passed more LCPD officers. Once the group got their wits about them outside they saw Painkiller was talking with EMS workers. They failed to resuscitate Fire Fist once he was out of the ground and his body was under a sheet still. There were reporters trying to get close and before the group split apart Stampede spoke up.

"So does anybody wanna exchange numbers?" he asked.

"I'm actually trying to put a team together..." Liberty Son commented before King Bee chimed in.

"Yeah I'm too old for that super-team bull****." Bee stated flying off with the help of his bee themed jetpack.

"I can contribute some time each week if you guys need a healer on hand..." Painkiller said coming into the group after finishing up with the EMS workers.

Dr. Eileen Fang

@Omega Man @Crimson Flame @Finetales

Hearing that the fight had ended, Eleen picked up the device and returned to the building to rendezvous with the others. At Supercop's praise, Eileen shook her head. "Good work? We were caught with our pants down. It took all of this to take down a single villain, and it was mostly thanks to this outsider, no offense." Eileen nodded at Kate. "We even lost Fire Fist. That crazy woman made a mockery of this institution. What did she want, anyways? Just to kill fledgling heroes?" It didn't make sense. It was like poking a beehive, sure you'll kill a few bees, but you will get stung, and in the end, was it worth it? "I'm sorry Supercop," Eileen continued, "None of this is your fault, but I guess it's safe to say that I'm a bit shaken. We were lucky this device even worked on her. I thought for sure her powers were magical in nature."

"That said, there's no turning back now. This city is dangerous and has our number. I agree that teaming up gives us the best chance, not only at survival but at making a real difference," She turned to follow Liberty Son out of the building and headed to the trunk of her car, exchanging the joke mask she was wearing for classes with her real mask. Returning to Liberty Son and Spellbound, she directed a locust-shaped drone to fly into each of their hands. The device folded into a compact, prism shape. "Sure, we can exchange numbers, but keep those drones handy. They also work as communication devices but have better signal and are practically unhackable, though I suppose that hasn't been fully tested. It won't record anything without permission, but can be woken up by tapping it or saying the word 'Omniac'. You get one too." Eileen sends another drone to Painkiller, then looks at the angelic figure.

"I haven't had the chance to thank you yet, so thank you for supporting Spellbound against the attacker." She took care not to say 'help' or 'save' knowing Spellbound's complex of being seen as younger and inexperienced. But they were all inexperienced, and today proved that. "You had some harsh words for us back there, and deservedly so. I am not thrilled by our performance and we could really benefit from having someone who knows what they're doing showing us the ropes." Eileen remembered seeing news articles of the 'queen in gold', only she had been painted as some sort of villain. Fortunately, Eileen had dismissed all that as sensationalist drivel, but clearly this hero could stand to have some better PR and seemed a fish out of water in her own right, though Eileen was unable to put her finger on why.

As a few cops came in, including one dressed more like another superhero than a police officer, Kate's mood only soured further. When Supercop spoke as if everything was hunky-dory, and referred to the dead hero as if he was just another inventory item to be signed off on, Kate was visibly bristling with anger, focused squarely on the Big Pig.

Fortunately, someone else spoke before she had a chance to fly off the chain. And to Kate's relief, it was someone who appeared to have a functioning brain! She was clearly a scientist of some sort, and countered Supercop's nonchalance about the situation with a far more accurate outlook (at least to Kate) on what had gone down.

"I haven't had the chance to thank you yet, so thank you for supporting Spellbound against the attacker." [...]
"You had some harsh words for us back there, and deservedly so. I am not thrilled by our performance and we could really benefit from having someone who knows what they're doing showing us the ropes."

Upon being addressed (and her work finally acknowledged) by the scientist lady, Kate's mood improved considerably. She was still upset, and rightfully so...but being distracted from Supercop and the others was a good thing.

"I like you. You see the truth," Kate replied, in a clear change of demeanor from how she had addressed anyone else in the building. "And you're not the leader here? What a shame." Kate sighed, in both disappointment and digression. She continued, her voice taking on a more measured and even regal quality than before.

"I am not a teacher. I'm used to working with trained, lifelong warriors. But, since you clearly cannot teach yourselves..." Kate sighed, and spent a few moments pondering. "I could try. But I would not be kind," she said, allowing a brief, slight grin.

After another moment she continued. "And, if you ever need my help," she said, emphasizing the "you" in a way that made it very clear that offer was not extended to the rest of the room, "You shall have it."

Kate finally turned to the rest of the room, contempt returning to her face. "The rest of you..." she said, shaking her head instead of finishing her sentence.

She turned to leave, and as she walked out of the door she called back, "I'm in town. Find me if you need me, or cause enough ruckus to get on the news. I like the news."

With that, she sprouted her great wings, broke into a sprint, and was gone.

@Stern Algorithm

One week later....

The heroes had met at the apartment complex in Bayside that Judah and his uncle had inherited after his mother died. The elevator on the east side of the U shaped building had a secret basement floor under the parking garage on the lower level. After the door closed, Judah pressed a number into the floor buttons; Two, Eight, One, Four. The emergency light clicked on and the small group was on their way to the HQ. It opened to a small underground hallway that lead across the street to the secret HQ Lady Liberty had begun constructing underneath the lots she purchased the year before.

"I know it's a lot asking everyone to just wear ballcaps, sunglasses, and hoodies, but I get that y'all are just keeping yourselves safe." Judah commented as he slipped his mask on and pulled his camo green hoodie down. "Me and my uncle are looking into building another entrance, maybe coming in from the bay..."

"I don't mind not wearing any kind of disguise to make us look less suspicious. My eyes only glow green when I want them to." Painkiller commented lighting his eyes up in the darkened hallway.

The group finally came to another doorway. The same code was punched in as before, just a different type of terminal. The door slid open to reveal what Judah's uncle dubbed the "Freedom Fortress". It was clearly the HQ work-in-progress of Lady Liberty, who had memorabilia adorning the walls of the cave-like area as well as newspaper clippings. A large Statue of Liberty bust was carved into one of the walls with a head around the size of one of the heroes. There were American flags on each side of the giant computer monitors and station, a speedboat type of transportation vehicle that wasn't quite finished, as well as a duplicate of Lady Liberty's costume on a mannequin under glass. There was a handful of weapons confiscated from criminals such as the skull Helmet of the Unliving that once belonged to Doctor Death, the remains from a head of a Nazi robo-human, the water blaster of the Liquidator, as well as one of the winged jetpacks of the Silverwing terrorist group.

"My Uncle Sam calls it the Freedom Fortress. I never realized how much my mom did for the city or the world until I saw some of these newspaper clippings on the walls. Interference... if you wanna take a look at some of the tech I don't know a lot about what I'm looking at. I figured out the password to unlock her computers but I don't know what to do with them once I get them going. I'm not the best with smart phones so this is all foreign land to me..." Judah explained walking by some of the flashier pieces in the HQ. There was a small lounge area, what looked like a personal gym off in a corner of the cave, and the door suddenly sliding open again for a late arrival.

Was it Stampede, the Queen of Gold, or someone else?

Across town school was letting out for the day. Everything was sunshine and rainbows after an afternoon rain shower until the twisted brute that was once called Kid Cosmo (of the Amazings!) showed up out of nowhere causing chaos. Just outside of a government office building no less, the orange skinned four-armed behemoth started throwing cars and just generally being a monster to be feared. Everyone else might have feared the twisted alien hero, except for the hero that answered the call.

It had been a week, a whole week locked inside the cell, her hands bound in shackles that rose almost to her elbows with multiple connection points between the two. The machines around her dinged and chimed from time to time. She hadn’t slept except for the times when the doctors deemed it necessary and drugged her. She was terrified that if she closed her eyes, she would open them to carnage.

When Kersey woke in the hospital just after the fight, strapped to a bed and surrounded by multiple heroes, she had panicked and they sedated her. When she woke again, she was in some kind of cell in the back of a truck, being taken somewhere. Eris had really done it now. She knew it was probably only a matter of time before they had captured her and locked her away. Now that she was, she wished only to be let free. Every day was a struggle to stay in control. The doctors could tell she wasn’t mentally well but the personality difference between her and the villain who had attacked the compound were so dramatic, they weren’t sure they even had the right person at first. After a few days of verifying and digging into her identity, they discovered her name and history. When they found out her adoptive parents had gone missing when she was younger, they put two and two together. She was to be held in the special jail until they could dig up enough evidence on her to lock her away for the rest of her life. It wouldn’t be hard. Eris didn’t exactly hide her destruction.

She was sitting in her cell, staring down at the floor in a delusional state. It had been three days since the doctors had last forced her to sleep with sedation and she was finding it hard to not hallucinate. She could see Eris, physically see her leaning against the wall in the corner of the cell. "You’re weak.” The Eris hallucination said to her while glaring. "A foolish child unwilling to let me get us out of here.”

"Shut up.” Kersey whispered, shaking her head lightly. ”You’re not real. I’m hallucinating.

"You know I’m real.” Eris said as she pushed off the wall and walked towards the shackled girl. ”You’re afraid. A coward. A little chicken shit. I could get us out of here, easily. I could free us with just a snap of my fingers but you fight me. Every hour of every day we struggle with each other for control until the doctors come and sedate us. Again! Do you enjoy the pain? The headaches? Let. Me. Out.” Eris growled into her ear.

"You’re not real! None of this is real. I’m delusional. Hallucinating from lack of sleep. Soon the doctor will come in and he’ll sedate me again and I’ll sleep for twelve hours.” She slowly rocked in place, shaking her head as she tried to ignore Eris next to her. She would have brought her hands to her ears but she couldn’t reach both of them with the shackles on.

"I’ll kill them. Every single one of them. I’ll sink them so far into the ground, they’ll hear the screams of hell itself. And I’ll kill you too. Make sure you can never take back control from me. Ever. Again. It’s only a matter of time, Kersey. You can’t hold out like this for much longer.” She hissed. Eris began to circle Kersey, picking at her, prodding her with sharp fingers.

Kersey flinched from Eris’s prodding and poking. She knew that it was only a hallucination but man did it hurt. It felt like needles pricking her skin over and over again. "Leave me alone.” She said quietly.

“Let me out.” Eris replied, now physically smacking Kersey on the back of the head and across her face. Kersey flinched from the strikes, visible red marks forming on her cheeks where Eris’s hand has slapped her.

"Leave me alone!” She said louder. She heard a door open at the front of the room and could hear people talking as they walked in.

“Kersey,” one of the doctors said as he walked up to the cell and peered in at her. “Kersey, who are you talking to? There's no one there.”

Kersey didn't answer him. She just shook her head, closing her eyes as Eris growled at the doctors. “They're all going to die when I finally get control, Kersey. Look at their faces. Remember them. They'll die like the rest and it'll only be you who remembers them. So remember their faces.”

Kersey continued to flinch as Eris resumed her violent barrage on her. The doctors watched her quietly as red marks continued to form along her skin. They spoke to each other quietly as one took down notes, like she was some science experiment. Why weren’t they coming in and sedating her? Why were they just letting this happen to her?

One of the machines next to her cell began to beep in alarm and the doctors looked at it before looking at her. “Kersey, you need to try and calm down. Your heart rate is beginning to spike. You know what happens when that happens.”

"Look how they don’t help you. They just watch as you suffer. Look at them, Kersey. They are just as evil as our parents.”

The machines next to her cell began to alarm with a high pitched ring. The doctors began to move now. One went to the side of the room where a station was located. They opened a fridge and grabbed out a jar of medication. “Kersey, your heart rate is rising too much. We’re going to sedate you now. When you wake up, we’ll get you something to eat. Okay? Don’t worry, Kersey. We’ll get this under control.”

"They only decided to help after you showed signs of being a danger to them. Look how they scramble to get you back under their conrol.” Kersey watched the doctors with sleepless eyes. She couldn’t help the rage that boiled in her chest. Eris was right. They were willing to sit there and evaluate her instead of help. Doctors and heroes were all the same. They didn’t care about them. They only wanted weapons that they could use. Her eyes slowly fluttered closed.

As the doctor typed in the code to open the cell door, her heart rate started to settle down. “Seems she’s starting to calm down. Still sedate her, just in case.” The head doctor said to the one in the cell. The woman took a few steps towards Kersey but froze when the shackled woman began to laugh.

"The world was whole because it shattered. When it shattered, then we knew what it was.” When she opened her eyes, they were a blazing crimson. The doctor in her cell gasped in surprise before she turned to run towards the cell door. The other doctors promptly shut her in the cell with Eris, securing the door with a loud click. The woman stared at them in horror as the metal shackles on Eris’s arms began to melt away. “You believed you could contain us. Contain me. How naive and foolish you all were.” She stood up, her magic flaring behind her like thrashing tails as she looked at the doctor locked in the cell with her. The alarm of the building sounded as she took a menacing step forward. "Tell me doctor, do you bleed?”

Queen of Gold

A week after the battle at the Academy, and Kate was still not feeling better about the hero situation. She had been invited to some new HQ the heroes had put together, but she only knew that because of the voicemails and texts that she'd left unanswered. She would be happy to work with the scientist lady, but she hadn't yet made peace with the idea of working with the others. They had been horrifically underprepared for a single villain, and while Kate knew of the chaos-bringer's power better than they did, she considered the villain to be a fairly small-time threat. What if a bona-fide supervillain with machinations of world domination showed up? As far as Kate could tell, they'd have no chance. And Kate, with them as backup, probably wouldn't either.

This was the dilemma that continued to tumble round her brain. Laying on her couch watching the news absent-mindedly as she often did, Kate continued to encounter more mental knots in her situation.

"If they're no match for even one local villain, they've no chance against something truly dangerous," Kate spoke aloud, talking to herself in the comfort of her swanky apartment. "So, what's the use? But, on the other hand..." Kate stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter, where a bottle of malbec and a wine glass were dutifully waiting for her. As she poured herself a glass, she continued musing. "A truly dangerous threat would also be my responsibility, and not having any good warriors is no way to go into battle."

"So...it stands to reason that if this city is to survive, someone needs to turn these fools into real heroes." Kate sighed as she sat back down on the couch, glass in hand. "I just don't think it should be me. But who else do they have?"

Kate's thoughts turned to the chaos-bringer. She was in custody now, so she would be out of the picture for awhile.

Suddenly a pathway in her brain connected...violently.

"In custody...at that facility the cops mentioned..."

"...those same cops who were entirely useless fighting her..."

"...uh oh."

In minutes Kate was out the door, on the street, and on the subway. One typical Liberty City C-train ride later, and she was walking up to the entrance of the facility where the chaos-bringer was held. At least the cops had had the presence of mind to tell her where her flirty foe was being held.

She walked up to the security gate in her usual non-heroine attire, which in Kate-speak meant chic socialite fashionista. The guard asked for her ID and she gave it to him.



Kate raced through the hallways, listening to the commotion and hearing staff yell locations to get closer to her target. She ran towards the direction others were running from.

She rounded a corner and saw the scene in front of her. A doctor locked in a cell with the chaos-bringer, with other doctors watching fearfully from the outside. "COWARDS!" she exclaimed. "You would sacrifice one of your own so easily?!" Kate manifested a greatsword, set it alight with flames, and cut down the door to the cell in seconds. "Go!" she yelled at the horrified doctor, and then stood in the doorway once the doctor had escaped.

"So," she said to Eris, instantly changing her tone to be relaxed, almost casual.

"Did you miss me?"

@BunniesOfDoom