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[b][h3][color=39b54a]FENOM-MAN[/color], [color=crimson]PAYBACK[/color], [color=#636363]BLACKSTAR[/color][/h3]INTERSTATE 10, SOUTHERN CLAREMONT[/b]
Cowritten with [@cosmiccowgirl], [@Pragia12][/center]
The sun was setting through the smog of downtown, but the evening traffic was not stopping anything it seemed. Perhaps it was the sound of gunfire heralding the rapidly moving SUV, but even LA commuters knew it was best to make way. Fenomaman thought it looked cool how all the little cars moved, kind of like ants down there scrambling out of the way of the coming chaos. Through his superhuman eyes, he could even see a human-shaped ant, that was somehow bigger. 

If only he could understand perspective, but Blackstar was moving quickly through the sky, carrying the smaller mean lady with red hair. He had offered to take her, but she got really mad and yelled at him about hurting her ears. How could flying hurt your ears? But he was a superhero, and superheroes didn’t make people mad, even mean people if they weren’t also bad!

“They are making a lot of banging noises.” Fenom said simply over the earpiece. Because of his inexperience with the device, his microphone was kept open.

Myla, hanging off of Payback as they flew along the road’s length, was less than happy. She’d snagged a pair of goggles from some desk or another - yeah, whoever had been wearing them last had the tiniest head ever - and her hair was flapping about more or less uncontrollably. She could hear the gun shots in the distance, over her own labored breathing from the movement. There were a lot of them. Man, flying really did suck. Of course, Fenom had decided to point the bullets out too, in his own ‘interesting’ way, as they were moving up to the chase itself.

Yeah, lethal force. It wasn’t all that great, honestly. She’d rather avoid killing someone.

Goddamn they were moving fast. She basically had to yell it, considering how fast they were going. [color=crimson]”Bet! You! He! Can! Stop! It!”[/color]

Blackstar, currently carrying the redheaded Phoenix hero bridal style due to the high speeds they were going, just managed to catch the shouted comment. The rain had let up for a bit, lucky for them, and she could see the Phenomaman knock-up guy flying ahead. He could go a lot faster than she could, probably, even though she wasn’t slow by any means.

Come to think of it – Payback had a point. Blackstar knew she could stop that speeding Chevy too – either by using her own body to pit maneuver the vehicle, which she knew from experience would hurt a lot, or by throwing some of her dark energy blades and puncturing the tires. [i]Or incapacitating the driver.[/i] But she couldn’t do either of those things with Payback in her arms.

[color=gray][b]”I’ll bet he can!”[/b][/color] she exclaimed in return, though it might’ve been a little muffled to Payback between the wind and the lower half of her mask that Blackstar had put on again due to the rain. 

Speaking into the comms, specifically to Fenomaman, she questioned, [color=gray][b]”Hey, Fenom – you think you can get ahead of that Chevy and stop it?”[/b][/color] A pause, then she added as an afterthought, [color=gray][b]”Uh – you’re bulletproof, right?”[/b][/color]

There was a long pause as the Caped Clone considered the question. Considered might be a strong word, because with a rumble of a sonic boom and a streak of red, Fenom flew towards the ground. One could only guess that a nod could not carry over the comms. He landed with surprising deftness, only accidentally taking out a rear-view mirror instead of multiple vehicles like that one time. 

The cars parting before him did not seem to matter, nor was the accelerating black van. The crack of automatic gunfire seemed to break across his chest, leaving only holes in his costume. He would push away the cars next to him, damaging their other mirrors against the barriers. Presenting a profile to the car, hand outstretched as he yelled “Stop!” to the rapidly approaching vehicle.

The SUV had no sense of orderliness or intention of stopping, and when a large but stoppable force meets an immovable object, things tend to get ugly. The front of the vehicle crumples around Fenom, his body disappearing and then reappearing on the other side of the car being cleaved in half-it seems at least one of them was carproof. He looked down at his hand confusedly, then turned to look at the bisected ruins of the evildoer’s transport.

[color=crimson]”Well, goddamn,”[/color] Myla chuckled, watching the carnage unfold as the two pieces of van skidded to a halt. Yeah, that was one way to stop some idiots, and she was almost surprised to not see anything red among all the pieces here and there. Blackstar set her down maybe a dozen, two dozen feet from the two halves, right there between them.

They didn’t seem to be very great with the whole stop. Anyone who had their seatbelt on seemed to just be dazed by the sudden stop, anyone who hadn’t seemed to be unconscious at best. Whichever they were, though, they weren’t shooting right off. Yeah, that was good. [i]What shmucks[/i], she thought, raising up both hands. Little pieces of metal shuffled at first, dragging across the ground before they flew back half that distance to her - the real things she wanted stuck for a good few heartbeats, loosely held as they were. On the plus side, it wasn’t anything especially heavy. A few heartbeats, and the submachine guns dragged out from the rubble, along with a Nokia and whatever else was light enough to be carried. [i]What fucking shmucks[/i]. Hands down, with all that.

She looked over to Fenom. He seemed…yeah, confused at the stop, even through the now-cloudy googles Myla was wearing. Throw a thumbs-up at that, considering it all. The herculean man returned it with an awkward smile.

Yeah, splitting the vehicle in half hadn’t been what Blackstar had expected Fenomaman to do, but it seemed to have stopped the bad guys like they needed. With Payback safely on the ground, Blackstar lifted into the air again, glancing around to make sure the other traffic in the area was getting out of the way. 

A glance down showed her Payback was currently drawing some of the weapons – among other things – out of the wreckage left of the suburban. The crooks still inside seemed stunned, at least for the time being. 

[i]Easy enough[/i], Blackstar thought to herself, inwardly letting out a small sigh of relief. She’d been nervous when James informed them lethal force had been authorized. Of course she’d known that would be a possibility with SDN, that she might have to make a decision like that when given the go-ahead – but what if it wasn’t different than before? What if killing someone because they were endangering others felt the same as killing someone because she couldn’t risk them being alive?

Looked like that wouldn’t be a question she’d have to answer then. They could probably just start rounding up the crooks while they were disoriented and weaponless–


One of them moved. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, one of the thugs was alert and twisting around, reaching for something in his jacket.

It wasn’t even a decision. Without thinking she’d manifested one of her energy blades and thrown it down with vehemence – and the next second the guy was screaming as the little handgun he’d pulled free clattered to the ground. Along with his hand.

[i]Oops.[/i] That might’ve been overkill. Blackstar blinked, the fierce glow from her eyes dimming swiftly as she let herself drop back down to the ground, looking from the now one-handed man to Payback, who she could’ve sworn he’d been about to point that gun towards.

Might as well make the most of it… Manifesting another blade that stayed on her hand, she gestured sharply around to the other criminals, at least any that were aware enough to pay attention. She was now concerned some of them might be faking. [color=gray][b]”Unless somebody else wants to lose an appendage,”[/b][/color] she threatened, voice raised just enough to sound imposing. [color=gray][b]”I’d keep my hands to myself if I were you. Got it?”[/b][/color]

Satisfied, she looked back to Payback and Fenom. [color=gray][b]”Everybody good?”[/b][/color] she asked her companions, over the sound of the guy screaming. He should count himself lucky he wasn’t bleeding out – her blades were made of energy, so they acted like lightsabers. That stump would’ve been immediately cauterized. 

Fenom would spit out what was assumedly a piece of radiator, but who could be sure. “Phenomenal.” he offers her with a small grin, looking to the now-disarmed evildoers. The big lug’s eyes lingered on them for a long time, almost uncomfortably so. He remembered the last time he had gotten into a fight on a highway, when he had first come up from the old lab. Meta-man stood up to stop him from looking for friends on a highway, and brought him into SDN. He was missing now, Sparky had told him he was on vacation, hopefully he was having a good time.

The superman would walk over to each criminal, slugging across their face to put them under… he definitely didn’t know how hard he was supposed to punch, but he seemed to be measured. [i]Subject shall be able to subdue and apprehend subjects alive, sufficient shock to incapacitate without fatal internal damages. New test subjects are always difficult to secure.[/i] Fenom was wearing a goofy smile the whole time as he began to gather them over his shoulder like two-by-fours in a construction site. “Where should these go?”

[color=crimson]”Well,”[/color] Myla started to reply before pausing. Yeah, take a breath for just a second. It was weird, getting someone to point a gun right at you like that. It wasn’t really something she’d ever get used to - she’d never quite tested if she would be alright against bullets, nor did she ever really want to. But the jury was in general out for a solid ‘no’ for being bulletproof, and in any case she’d grown up with a sense that guns, when pointed, generally weren’t ever great. Yeah. Just a little breath.

Alright, breath done. Bringing her wrist up, though, she started to type out a small message on her Timex, talking as she did. [color=crimson]”Can just put em in a pile and wait for the cops.”[/color] Satisfied with it all, she pressed enter and a text-to-speech voice was heard in most ears.

[color=crimson]”Got em. One hurt. Cops OK.”[/color]