“You should see this.” Edward said gruffly gesturing to the television in the downstairs commons as Ian entered, still tugging at the visor of his Chaos costume. The Enforcer had offered his assistance in dealing with the cybernetic canines and Laurel and Alexis had grudgingly agreed before heading off to get suited up.

“Okay, first rule if we’re going to work together, matchstick;” Ian glared, “You don’t tell me or any of us what to do. You aren’t the leader here.”

“Who is the leader?” Edward asked, not really caring, but hoping to avoid unnecessary arguments about chain of command.

Ian shrugged. “We haven’t discussed that, actually.” He folded his arms, “But it’s not you.”

“Good.” The older man stated, “Now that we’ve had this enlightening conversation, just look at the damn TV, greenhorn. Unless picking fights with me is more important than your kids there.”

Shooting Edward a murderous glare, Ian turned his attention to the TV. On it, the news provider was replaying the altercation between Shine and Facsimile, followed by Wolf’s transformation and the start of his chase with Zero. The whole thing set Ian’s teeth on edge.

“I know them.” Edward said, trying to remain stoic. “Latonya Haynes and Trent Kinsey – they’re two of the agents whose promotions I opposed.” His iron features melted into a glower of anger and concern. “It appears I was right.”

Ian was transfixed by the images he saw as a creeping horror brought itself to the forefront of his mind. As much as Alexis had appointed herself protector and surrogate maternal figure to the teens, Ian had also developed a fondness for having them underfoot, even considering himself a kind of mentor for LSI in particular. Now, the Academy had come to bring it all crashing down. He verbalized it in the most simple, straightforward of terms. “Shit.”

“Shit what?” Alexis came down the stairs, adjusting the scarf of her costume. “Did they land?”

“Worse.” Edward beat Ian to the punch even as images of War-torn plowing through a police car flickered on the TV screen. “You were right and now your worst fears are confirmed.” He gestured at the television. “The Enforcers have sent a squad to take the children; no doubt on orders from Project Tome.”

Alexis froze in shock. Every muscle tensed, as her fight or flight reflex tried to deal immediately with the external threat. “No…” She murmured, shaking her head. “No, we need more time. They need more time. It’s only been a week…”

She would have stumbled off the staircase if a hand hadn’t caught her shoulder.

“Laurel, they’ve—“the raven haired woman began.

“I know, Alexis.” Laurel said in calm tones. “I know. I just found the alert on my computer.”

“What are we going to do?” Alexis demanded of her friend.

Laurel helped her friend down the stairs and looked over to Ian and Edward. “What we planned to do when this eventuality came up. Fight.” She let her eyes rest on the Enforcer. “That’s what we’re going to do. All three of us. What about you, Prometheus, it’s time to pick a side. Are you with us, or do you get the hell out of my house?”

A look of stern determination set in on the older man’s features. “You can’t trust me. I’m one of ‘them’, after all.” He gestured at Ian. “As I’m constantly reminded, I’ve personally caused great pain and strife to you people. Even when I come in peace, I’m assured in no uncertain terms that I’m not welcome.” He let his words sink in. “However, I can’t let that keep me from putting down this mockery of everything I’ve been a part of in the last two decades. I’ll fight with you—If you’ll have me.”

Ian started to say something derogatory, but Alexis interrupted. “Ian, no. Please, not now.” Her eyes were shimmering with tears as she walked over to him and embraced him. “Save it for the bad guys.”

He returned the hug, then pulled back looking into her eyes. “Let’s get to them then.” He started for the door which led to the kitchen and the driveway beyond, but she pulled him toward the front door.

“No.” She said, quickly. “Flying will be faster.” Already, her black heat was engulfing her.

“We’ll meet up with you as soon as we can.” Laurel assured them as she hefted a duffel bag from the landing and came down into the commons. “Come on, Prometheus. We’ll have to hurry if we’re going to get to the high school and on the trail of these guys before it’s too late to make a difference.”

Edward gave an incredulous snort. “High school? Why are we going there?”

“Because.” Laurel said, heading toward the kitchen door. “With these guys combined with those cybernetic dogs my astral monitoring is detecting; I’m betting we’ll need reinforcements.”

Facsimile practically (and literally, to some extent) melted against Alloy’s side as she clung to his armor while the pair swung via tentacle several stories above the city. They were following Zero’s impromptu luge course and Wolf’s trail of destruction on its direct course through back alleys. So far, they hadn’t caught up, which meant, judging by the speed at which the tentacles carried the pair, that Zero was packing speed neither had ever seen in action.

“Question.” Facsimile piped up after some minutes of silent swinging.

“Shoot.” Alloy encouraged.

“Back there, you said that calling their dog-things ‘inugami’ made them sick and twisted…” She said, pensively. It was a dumb question and totally not germane to the situation at hand, but she felt a compulsion to make conversation and didn’t want to discuss who these people might be and why they were after them. “Why is that?”

“It’s pretty graphic.” Alloy warned.

“I can make a functioning eyeball appear on the palm of my hand.” Facsimile help up her hand, as if to threaten doing so.

“Point taken.” The armored prelate nodded. “I first read the word in a Japanese comic my aunt gave me and after a little research, it turns out to be real folklore.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

“I guess, though now they’re real.” He shrugged. “Anyway, an inugami is like a super-ghost that does whatever its master tells it to do. But to make one—“he blanched inside his helmet, “You’ve got to raise a dog for ten years. Then you’ve got to bury it up to its neck with food just out of its reach so it can smell it, but can’t eat. Then, just before it dies—“He stopped abruptly. “You get the picture, the poor thing dies hating you and since all it wanted to do before that was eat, it turns into a slave ghost in exchange for the food offering.”

Facsimile’s features contorted with disgust. “I ask again – what is wrong with these people?!”

“I’m impressed you know that legend,” a rasping voice called. “Both looked up to see Shine leaping at them from the top of a billboard. “But you left out my favorite part!” She slammed into them with jarring force that caused the tentacles to lose their grip and the trio to fall.

Ignoring her own impending demise; vis-à-vis the sudden stop that characteristically accompanies a long fall, Shine raised her claws to tear into the gorget that protected Alloy’s neck. “When the dog is near the end of its life,” She said, as if quoting, “begging for the morsel of food that it is sure its ‘loving’ owner will grant it—you saw its head off with a bamboo saw. The pain and the betrayal is what transforms—“

“That is it!” Facsimile screamed in feral rage, also heedless of the deadly drop. “You people are sick!” With that, she extruded her wings and launched herself at the white, scaled woman. The pair sailed on golden wings over the roof of an apartment building and roughly onto the platform of the local elevated train tracks.

Meanwhile, the tentacles, being the only ones aside from Alloy that remembered that their friend and organic mode of transportation was still in mid-peril, did the best they could to save him. Forming fearsome rows of saw teeth along their extended forms, they tore into the concrete flanks of the buildings flashing past them.

Twin clouds of sparks and cement dust raised plumes on either side of the street the two apartment complexes faced as Isp and Osp fought to slow Alloy’s descent. For his part, the young prelate focused below him and forced a street lamp to melt into a thin metal awning over the street. Only by their combined efforts was Alloy spared a painful fate.

“Whoa, it’s Alloy!” someone said. The exclamation was followed by murmurs of surprise from passerby who had just seen his descent.

Alloy looked around to see a crowd starting to form. “Uh, sorry folks. No time for interviews and autographs.” He asked the tentacles to swing him toward where Facsimile had fallen. Torn between his desperate desire to help his friend, and their desperate desire to bask in the public’s adoration, Isp and Osp reluctantly lashed out to swing Alloy over the heads of the onlookers and down the street toward the L platform.

It didn’t take long for him to find Facsimile. She and Shine were locked in another fruitless exchange of attacks before startled commuters who were trying to make their way to lunch. Their need to board the departing vehicle was preempted by the two super powered femme fatales slashing and flurrying on the platform.

“I’m coming, Fax!” He shouted, the tentacles launching him the rest of the distance toward the platform.

“No, you’re not.” Alloy felt something loop around his legs and pull. As he fell short of his mark, he saw a long, ceramic chain binding his feet and holding the other end of it, he found Manriki. The chain wielder and his powered armor wearing ally were standing atop the departing train.

Momentum being what it was, Alloy felt him self suddenly hurtling through space on the end of the chain. At the lowest part of his descent, just before the chain pulled taunt and the train started dragging him behind it, he had to lurch violently to the side to avoid colliding with a woman in red and black who was in the process of paying her cabbie.

For their part, Isp and Osp realized that trying to anchor to the street would be very bad for Alloy and so, they opted for climbing the chain instead. Moving like snakes, they scaled the ceramic weapon, pulling Alloy up with them. With a final tug, they deposited him on the top of the moving train. Too late, they realized their miscalculation – their plan had just landed them and Alloy directly in the middle of two dangerous villains.

Reaching down, Alloy formed a sword out of the roof of the train. He was breathing hard from all the close calls he’d had in the last few minutes, but he only had one thing to ask. “How the hell did you guys get ahead of us?”

Furious swipes from fists and wings wafted past Shine as if they were light breezes. Atop the elevated platform, she could feel the sun’s radiation ramping up her reaction time to even more super human levels and with it, her confidence.

This fight wasn’t really necessary. She only needed to get a tissue sample from her opponent and she probably had more than enough under her claws for that. But the golden prelate had pushed her buttons one too many times and the time had come for her to pay for it.

Letting herself fall backward before another fusillade of blows, Shine rolled back onto her shoulders, her palms pressed flat against the ground. Facsimile grinned as she pressed her attack, oblivious to Shine’s own sneer. The white scaled woman drew her knees up to her chin, then kicked upward, using her shoulders as leverage. Facsimile was sent flying.

Before her enemy even hit the ground, Shine had kipped up into a crouch. Her hand tapped the receiver in her ear. “Now.” She ordered.

Almost immediately, a loud whine approached, bringing with it a stiff, warm breeze. Those few civilians too slow, or too engrossed in watching the battle to evacuate the platform looked up to see the air ripple and change.

Where there had been clear air, glowing lines of orange appeared, tracing in air the shape of a hovering military style transport. It dipped low over the train track, turning the gaping maw its cargo area to the platform as the orange faded to dull grey metal. Launch stood in the center of the maw, flanked by two huge cargo containers shot through with ventilation holes.

“Sorry, little heroine.” Shine said, “But like you said; a fight between you and me could take a while. Your healing is a real bitch to deal with, tactically speaking – stabbing, shooting and good, old fashion pummeling means even less to you than it does to War-torn.” As she spoke, Launch pulled the locks out of the seals that held the containers closed. Their faces rolled upward to reveal a pair of evil, green glares. “But I’m willing to bet that you can’t regenerate from being ripped to shreds.”

Heeding a sharp hand signal from Shine, the two inugami threw themselves from the hovering transport. Their snarling jaws exposed metal lined teeth as they flew at their target.

“Globo de la fuerza!” The first beast hit the sphere of force and slid right over its slick curve, colliding with the platform’s guard rail, which tore free and allowed it to plummet four stories to the ground below. The second’s orihalcite claws tore through the magical protection before it even knew it was there. It only lost a little speed as if clamped its powerful jaws down on Facsimile’s wing.

Regardless of how superficial the injury was for someone with her power set, the shearing of her wing hurt as keenly as if someone had torn one of her arms out of its socket. Even as her body closed the wound, Facsimile screamed her agony and fell to her knees. Fighting being knocked out from shock, she saw a woman in red robes with a black cape charging up the last few stairs to gain the platform. Between the loss of her limb and the surprise appearance by the magic user Laurel had told her about, she didn’t notice that the monster that had taken her wing was coming for the rest of her.

Occult saw the monstrous hound drop the severed appendage and reel, charging back at the dizzied prelate. It was too close for another globe of force. She had to take more direct measures. She only hoped that the new trick she had concocted actually worked.

She shook a bauble out of her sleeve and into her hand. It was only about three inches long, carved of ivory. Bits of adhesive still clung to it from where she’d peeled the cheap broach pin’s backing from the tiny, ivory ankh her aunt had given her as a souvenir from a trip to Africa.

She needed no words for this one, just some rapid visualization. As her mind’s eye drew the picture, shadows leapt up around the ankh, cocooning it in a black miasma that grew and contorted in her hand. When the shape she wanted was gained, the miasma faded to reveal pale ivory. Occult stepped forward and swung the staff she now held in her hand, its ankh shaped head cutting a vicious downward strike toward the oncoming monster.

Her voice rang out loudly moments before contact. “Fuerza de veinte toneladas!” The head of the staff seemed to drop faster crashing down upon the green eyed monster’s champron and smashing its head to the deck.

Breathing hard, the magic user took a bit too long surveying her handiwork; time Shine took to deliver a backhanded blow to the jaw.

-- • --

“Hello, Occult.” Shine said, delivering a palm heel strike to the newcomer’s ribs. “I was wondering when the other heroes would arrive. Especially you, actually. I’ve watched the videos of your fight with the inugami in Wagner Park.” She accompanied the words with quick, disorienting punches. “And frankly, I’ve got to ask – what the hell are you?”

Occult didn’t need to answer because Shine suddenly found herself occupied with keeping the thorny vine that wrapped itself around her neck from throttling her. “Like I said,” Facsimile panted, breathing through her pain as she re-assimilated her remaining wing, “You just can’t dodge what you can’t see. That’s your weakness.”

“It’s over.” The spellcaster said, managing to give the impression of a glare from within the shadows of her hood. “Your dogs lost, you’ve lost, and in a second, your partner in the transport is going to lose too.”

Shine cackled with the precious breaths she managed to force past Facsimile’s vine garrote. “You think a crack on the head is going to keep an inugami down?” She sneered as she looked over Occult’s shoulder. “Even funnier, you think a little fall will kill one?”

Senses Occult didn’t fully comprehend kicked in and she suddenly detected a malevolent presence behind her. She turned to see the massive, grey hound clinging impossibly to one of the platform’s massive vertical beams. Apparently, there was more to these new inugami than just a change in aesthetic.

She locked eyes with the beast just in time to witness it leap from its perch at her, claws extended. It was only a feint. The second she turned to deal with the inugami, Shine reared up, using Facsimile’s grip on her neck as leverage, and kicked the spellcaster squarely in the back. Occult went down, but thankfully, the momentum sent her rolling beneath the lacerating claws of the inugami.

Coming out of her roll, she had time enough to see Shine tuck, roll and throw Facsimile off her, slamming the prelate into the side of a vending machine situated on the platform. The inugami that had leapt at her turned to finish the job, while the one whose skull she’d hoped she’d caved in stood shakily.

“Everything looks in hand here.” Launch said from the transport. “I’m going hunting. Ciao, Shine.” He leapt from the transport and sprinted a short distance up the track before blasting off with such a force that he shattered sections of the rail.

The villainess paid no attention to his hasty exit. Stretching the kinks out of her muscles, she stood up, delivering a hand signal to the inugami that told them to hold back. The transfigured canines let loose with low, rippling growls as they returned to her side.

Shine gave a feral grin to Facsimile as the golden heroine regained her feet and shifted her arm into a more natural shape than the strangling vine. The two would be white hats had ended up hemmed in on two sides by a four story drop to the pavement.

“Now, as much as I’d love to keep up our fight, Fax, I’m on a tight schedule. So you get to play with the doggies, while Occult and I get acquainted.” She gave the hooded woman a pointed look. “Any last nonsense Spanish phrases?”

Occult wavered on her feet. The blow she took to the jaw still had her unsteady. She glanced over at Facsimile, who also looked shaky. Even to her unfamiliar eyes, she could tell that shapeshifting wasn’t coming easily to her anymore. Behind her, the railing torn free by the passage of the first inugami creaked in the grip of gravity, reminding her how high up she was.

“I’m done.” Occult muttered, letting her staff melt back into its true form before dropping it into the pouch at her side. “I can’t beat you. I don’t even know any offensive spells.” She confessed.

“What?!” Facsimile glared at the robed woman. “That’s it? I thought you were charging in here to back me up, not to totally puss out!” Her vision was going blurry around the edges and hunger rippled through every cell of her body.

“Pipe down, ‘chica’” Shine mocked. “The girl’s laying down some wisdom. Maybe you can learn from her.”

“I don’t care what this chick says.” Facsimile snarled, putting up her fists. “I’m not going down without a fight, baldy.”

“And you wonder why I’m siccing the dogs on you.” Shine glared.

Occult’s hand grasped Facsimile’s shoulder. “I didn’t say I was giving up. I said I was done.” A tight lipped smirk appeared below the concealing shades of her hood. “By which I meant I was done being trapped. Come on, we’re going to get some distance.”

Before Facsimile could struggle free of her grasp, Occult stepped off the platform and into empty space.

Strictly speaking, Alloy, Isp and Osp had Manriki and War-torn out numbered three to two. In reality, however, neither man was in any way aware that the blur of metal attached to Alloy’s upper arms were actual, sapient beings and full participants in the fight. If they had, they might have directed some of their blows at them rather than focusing everything they had on their lone, humanoid target.

Manriki had three chains in the air, bobbing and lashing furiously only to have them struck down before they could find their mark. War-torn’s ponderous sweeps of the fist were having similar trouble connecting as Alloy dodged, ducked and scrambled out of the way of blows that could easily do permanent damage.

Forced on the defensive from the start of the battle, the metal controller hadn’t even swung his sword, instead planting it in the roof of the speeding public transit to keep himself from sliding off and kissing the track at sixty miles per hour. He just hoped the blade wasn’t threatening any of the screaming passengers below their battle.

“Just give up, kid.” War-torn drawled between punches. “You’re getting tired. Sooner or later, you’re going to slip and either I paste you to the top of this car, or Manriki puts a chain through your empty skull.”

Alloy didn’t reply. He was tired. Despite being in the best shape of his life as a result of being dragged around the city on foot by his zealous best friend, that shape still wasn’t what health experts would call ‘good’. He’d never needed to be physical; the tentacles could lift a truck and could reach across a room; all he’d needed to do was get them there. Now, he was badly out of breath trying to dodge the meaty fists that sought to end him.

As it was wont to do, his mind wandered. War-torn’s only contribution to the fight had been his strength. But that pretty clearly came from the powered armor frame he wore. All of the other Redeemers were psionics though and it seemed unlikely that War-torn would be the odd man out. The frame style armor was the clue. He watched another slug aimed for his face go by and a plan formed. At the speed of thought, he relayed it to Isp and Osp.

“It’s not going to be that easy, big man.” He finally breathed. “I am tired, but I know I’m going to win.” With a smile of smug confidence that War-torn couldn’t see because of his helmet, he pulled his sword out of the roof and leveled it. “Because the good guys always win.”

Before War-torn could retort, the young prelate span, still standing directly in the path of the oncoming fist. The sword came up to catch the chains Manriki commanded, letting momentum wrap them along its length. At the same instant, War-torn’s fist connected with solidity that made him feel like he’d just punched a missile silo.

The tentacles had caught his fist and hurled it violently backward. Resin molded plastic squealed and metal screamed as War-torn punched a fist into the train to keep from falling off. The panic from the passengers below surged again.

“You just made your last mistake, hero.” Manriki said darkly. He had already released control of the ceramic chains now hopelessly wrapped around the sword. With a flick of his wrist, the orihalcite chain bounded out toward Alloy. The razor spike at the leading edge of the weapon drew a burst of sparks along the young prelate’s ribs.

Wincing under his armor, Alloy dropped his sword, allowing it to meld once more with the train, pinning the trapped chains there. He felt warm blood leaking out of the shallow wound the chain had managed to cut. Luckily, Manriki wasted valuable seconds disconnecting the mired chains from his costume. Behind him, War-torn struggled to regain his footing as the tentacles rained hammer blows down upon him.

The orihalcite chain darted out once more, this time biting though Alloy’s armor to open a gash across his calf. The pain made him take a knee. Sensing his pain, Isp reversed direction, intercepting the chain’s next strike before it dug into Alloy’s shoulder.

The victory was short lived, however as War-torn rolled under Osp’s pummeling and raised his fists to drive them down onto his armored foe.

“He’s going to kill him!” Alexis, now Darkness cried. She had just pulled even to the train with her arms threaded through Ian’s and was following the aerial police cruisers that were trying to keep up with the train. Apparently, no one had managed to override the transit system’s computerized conductor, which meant it wouldn’t stop until it reached City Central.

“No, he’s not.” Ian said. In his Chaos persona, his voice was cool with anger at what was happening. “Can you get ahead of them?”

“Yeah, but what good is that…”

“Get ahead of them and drop me.” Chaos instructed.

“What? Ia—Chaos, are you nuts? It’s a five story fall to the tracks alone and the train’s doing sixty. You’ll be killed!””

“I wouldn’t ask you to do it if that were the case.” He said, watching Alloy roll out of the way of War-torn’s overhead smash. “Trust me on this, its part physics, part powers. Besides, you need your hands free to do those heat bolts.”

Darkness made a distressed noise and gripped him closer. He was nearly weightless with the aide of the black heat. She could keep the fall from killing him even if his powers couldn’t. But the train was a different case. But she trusted him and he was right; they were both useless as they were. She didn’t say anything as she accelerated past the aerial patrol units.

City Central was looming toward them, a cluster of ominous looking government and public buildings that formed the city’s heart. Alloy only had enough time to notice before he tucked and rolled to his left, avoiding both the deadly chain and the crushing fist that were heading his way. Isp anchored him just before he tumbled off the side.

“Nowhere else to run to.” War-torn declared as he and Manriki closed ranks, cutting off any escape that didn’t involve plummeting to a gruesome end. “Our orders are to capture you. We don’t have any interest in seeing you go spla—“He was interrupted by a flurry of black specks that fell upon him and Manriki. Where the specks landed, searing pain followed.

Manriki cursed and looked toward the head of the train where the source of the attack would be. What he saw had him diving to the deck with an oath. A roar of wind washed over him, carrying at its heart a figure in a red and black body suit. But Manriki hadn’t been the target. A solid fist of congealed air struck War-torn in the hollow of his stomach, followed immediately by a flying tackle from the newcomer.

The big man left his feet long enough for three cars to rocket by under him before falling to all fours and digging his armored fingers into the roof. He managed to stop his slide with only inches to spare. A gulp sounded in his throat as he noted the track paying out at frightening speeds behind the last car. His attacker had landed a few yards away amid twin whirlwinds that seemed to emanate from his fists. A soft pallet of congealed air dropped him softly to the roof.

“You.” War-torn spat. “One of the unknown prelates command warned us about.”

“The name’s Chaos, meat bag.” His assailant said, mouth turning up into a sneer beneath his visored face. “Pleased to meet you. Or beat you, as the case may be. I think I heard something about giving up before I knocked the wind out of you?”

Manriki glared at Chaos’s back, then at Alloy, who had managed to position himself toward the front of the train in the confusion. “Damn.” The Redeemer growled. “Even odds. The other way’s more fun…”

Alloy’s metal sense made him aware of the overpass approaching his back at sixty miles per hour. It was high enough that there wasn’t any threat of fracturing his skull, but it did give him an idea. “That’s what you think. The odds were never even.” He had time to see Manriki’s look of confusion before Isp and Osp enacted the plan.

Looping around his torso once to cushion the coming blow, they speared outward just as the support struts of the overpass flashed by. The buildings on either side were too far for even their malleable forms to reach, but the overpass was well within reach. As they pulled taunt, flexing to reduce the sudden loss of momentum, Alloy rolled back, pressing his full weight onto them so as to bring both feet up.

Simple physics took care of the rest. Alloy had slowed considerably, but Manriki was still moving forward at sixty miles an hour. Two metal encased feet planted themselves in his torso. If not for the ceramic chains wrapped around him, which shattered on impact, all his ribs would have been broken instead of the one that now decided to take a guided tour of his chest cavity.

The fact that he was unattached to the roof was a blessing and a curse. He rolled with the blow, but found that he was now also moving slower than the speeding train. The drag of the air combined with the forceful blow he’d just taken to the chest put him into a painful roll down the length of the train.

Chaos leapt over him and gave War-torn a wry wave as Manriki plowed into him, knocking both off the back of the train and onto tracks below. War-torn’s giant frame tore a hole in the track bed as the pair plummeted to earth, crashing down on the front steps of the city library.

Almost as quickly as they had caught the overpass, the tentacles let go, returning Alloy to his feet, not far from where Chaos was standing. “Holy crap am I glad to see you!” The younger man shouted.

“Don’t be glad yet.” Chaos said. “The big guy’s definitely not out for the count and the other guy landed on top. We need to get to them before they hurt anyone.” He pointed. “Swing us down!”

Alloy nodded and gave a sharp salute as Isp wrapped his mentor’s shoulders. “Yes sir.”

High above, Darkness heaved a sigh of relief as she saw the two Redeemers go flying. “Thank God.” She said aloud.

“You’re welcome.” Someone laughed. Before she could turn around, rapid fire bursts from Launch’s pulse guns slammed into her. If not for the ballistic cloth that made up her costume, she would have been done for. “Though, I really had nothing to do with it.”

Darkness snarled as she called up her black heat. “Two of your guys had already lost.” She let loose with a beam of black heat that Launch only barely avoided. “Whatever you and the Academy have up your sleeve, it’s not going to work.”

“I wouldn’t say that too soon.” The flying villain laughed. “When I left, it looked like Shine and the inu-doggies had golden girl and the lady in the bathrobe over a barrel. So I’d say two for two ain’t bad. Especially if I bring you down and make it two for three.”

The color drained from her face. Cyn and Occult had lost? What would those bastards do…? She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t afford to think about that now. After this purple and green psychopath was put down, then she could deal with what his friends had wrought. “You monster!” She screamed.

Her words we drowned out by a roar as blinding blue lightning split the sky between her and Launch.

Both combatants looked up to see black death trimmed with gold de-cloaking above. Sky Tyrant glared down at them. “Three for two is pretty good. But I just think I’ll settle for two for one.” His voice was heavy and malicious through his speakers as he leveled the Tesla Arc. “One for business…” He looked at Launch, then shifted his gaze toward Darkness. “And one for pleasure.”

-- • --

Facsimile screamed a string of obscenities as Occult dragged her off the L platform to certain death. She was shouting and cursing so hard, she didn’t hear the spellcaster speak, nor did she see the smooth piece of glass produced from her hip pouch.

She did, however, notice when a shimmering red screen of pentagonal planes of force halted her fall. Their surfaces only provided the basic hints of friction, giving the impression of a bed of river stones, but they held fast.

“Muevo esta pared.” Occult gently moved the glass downward and the horizontal wall obeyed her, sliding toward the ground like an elevator. ‘Like’ being the key phrase; no elevator that moved at the speed reached by the magical platform would ever pass safety standards. They hit bottom with a jarring thud; enough to throw both women to the ground.

“Sorry.” Occult helped Facsimile get to her feet. “I’ve never done that before and—“

“Wait, you didn’t know it would work?!” Came the hissed reply. “Are you crazy? We could have gone splat and I don’t think I’ve got enough in me to heal up from that and I bet you don’t heal at all!”

The magic user wasn’t listening; she sensed movement up above and turned to meet the green gazes of both inugami. They were running down the side of the platform.

Facsimile followed her gaze. “I am not seeing this.” She said to herself, even as she stumbled backward beside Occult. “All the crazy shit I can do… that the people I know can do… I wasn’t ready for dogs running on walls.” She was transfixed by the shear surreal quality of what was occurring before her. In truth, it was all she could do, seeing as her body was now officially running on empty.

Squealing tires broke her out of her trance. Her head snapped around to see a very familiar silver SUV skidding toward her along the sidewalk. Before it stopped, the passenger door flew open. The man that leapt out could have been her grandfather with the minor addition of a coif of red hair and the subtraction of some fifty pounds of muscle and broad shoulders. A moment later, she amended; her grandfather’s arms never burst into flame either.

Powers fully charged, Prometheus swept his arms before him. Twin jets of flame snaked out to form a curtain of fire between the young heroines and the rampaging monsters that had just dropped to the ground.

The barrier made the beasts draw up short, giving him time to glare up to the platform where Shine stood. “Whatever operation this was supposed to be, Shine, it’s over.” He roared.

A sadistic grin split Shine’s face. “Oh look, they dug up the fossil. No, it’s not over, Prometheus. This is only the beginning. The Redeemers are the new face of the Academy and you’re just the old doddering dinosaur they play for a chump.”

“We don’t have time for ‘old school, new school routine.” A new voice said. The driver of the SUV wore a sleek jumpsuit with glowing goggles. “Facsimile, Occult, get in the car now! We need to get to City Central!”

The rear door was pushed open by a figure wearing a white gi accompanied by a face concealing headscarf of the same color and a red sash tied around the waist.

The inugami didn’t give them time. Prometheus’s flame screen was dying quickly without his attentions and they quickly surged through.

“Go!” Facsimile practically threw Occult to the side and stepped forward. A claw of slim bone jutted out from the back of either wrist, making her wince as her body started to consume itself to comply with her wishes. If this had to be her last stand, she’d go down in a pool of the monsters’ blood.

Their prey presented to them, both hounds bounded forward with renewed tenacity. They didn’t even notice the pillar of flame rushing to intercept them. It caught the creature nearest the car in the side, burning away fur and blistering skin. The force of the blast slammed it into its kin, sending both of them rolling down the sidewalk.

“The lady said get in the car!” Prometheus barked with all the authority of a drill instructor. Facsimile and Occult wasted no time in complying.

Before the door was shut, the SUV was already moving.

“Who are you?” Facsimile demanded of Prometheus even as the driver thrust a duffel bag into her arms. She glanced over at the woman in the white gi, taking note of a stray strand of red hair peaking out of the hastily arranged headscarf. “Oh dear god, no… You’re—“

“Hope, apparently.” Came the reply.

“Uh, mister fire guy didn’t toast the dogs…” Occult was staring out the back window. The two inugami, one covered in horribly blistered skin were tearing after the SUV with a mile eating gait.

“And Shine’s still loose.” Facsimile said bitterly. Her curiosity got the best of her and she unzipped the duffel bag to unveil the most welcome sight she’d ever seen. Laurel had apparently emptied the entire contents of the kitchen cupboard into it. With a bestial snarl, she tore open a box of crackers and began cramming them into her mouth.

“Shine will come to us. For all of her many faults, she’s not one to leave a job undone.” Prometheus noted.

“Yeah, and you are…” Facsimile managed in the time it took her to crack open a box of cereal. Her hand was absorbing the needed nutrients almost as fast as she could shovel it into her mouth. Part of her considered eating the cardboard too.

“Seriously, they’re keeping pace with us.” Occult said, warily watching the pursuing inugami. “These definitely aren’t the ones like we fought before, L, They can run up walls, they don’t do the howling thing—they’re even armored differently.”

“It’s Codex now.” The driver said, taking one hand off the wheel to unclip a black, cigar shaped device from her utility belt. With her thumb, she held down the lone switch on the bauble, watching it flash red, then green. Still holding the cylinder, she pressed the power button on the sunroof, allowing in a gust of wind.

“Prometheus is the name of the Enforcer that beat up I… uh, Chaos?” Facsimile asked the entire car and got a nod from Hope. “Chaos, right.” She continued, “He’s the big-bad of the whole thing, so Shine’s just being all nutball calling you that, right?”

Codex depressed the switch on the device one more time and threw it out the sunroof.

“No, that’s me.” Prometheus said flatly, ignoring the shocked stare Facsimile was giving him over the handful of toaster pastries she was consuming and the sense of a shocked stare he got from Occult.

The tiny projectile Codex tossed clattered to the pavement and rolled to a stop a few yards ahead of the galloping inugami. The green light blinked twice, then turned white as a tone impossible for the human ear to perceive exploded from its micro-speakers. The rampaging beasts let out twin shrieks of pain and terror as their senses were assaulted. Their flat out run came to a staggering halt as they collapsed, blood gushing from their ears.

Codex let out a relieved breath as she watched the scene play out in the rear view. She hadn’t been certain the sonic grenade would work on the new type of monstrous hound.

Prometheus nodded in the direction of the fallen monstrosities. “But I’m not the ‘big-bad’ of this little war Shine and her cronies are carrying out. I’m here to stop them.”

Something was wrong. Wolf could feel it on the most basic level; Zero wasn’t trying to hide or even out distance him – she was leading him somewhere. But the base instincts of the beast within him wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t give up the hunt.

His proctors at the Academy had sent him through a battery of tests when Prometheus brought him in. Every manner of diagnostic short of killing and dissecting him had been used to unravel the mystery of why he gained the instincts of an animal when he transformed.

Type I metamorphs like himself; those capable of shapeshifting into a single other form (and occasionally, the transitive forms in between), often tried to mimic the second form, but their behaviors were only human approximations of animal thoughts and motivations. The Academy had discovered that Trent Kinsey, as his body transitioned from that of a human to that of a creature resembling a bizarrely marked, oversized timber wolf, actually experienced drastic shifts in his thought patterns, as if some new persona emerged.

The new persona was The Wolf. It was the one that send him loping across the plaza after the prelate Zero. It was the one that thought about how hot her blood would feel on his claws, how sweet her riven flesh would be.

But it was Trent Kinsey who stopped short when the cloaked heroine suddenly wheeled around to face him. He finally noticed where she had led him. The proud face of the Westinghall building looked down on them and the droves of tourists and locals that fled the part wolf/part man that had charged into their midst.

Zero had led him to Westinghall Plaza and was now balancing on the balls of her feet on the edge of the large fountain that stood there.

The inhibitor indicators ticked upward a few bars. Wolf growled. “You must think I’m just as stupid as the others if you think I’m going to leap at you and land in the fountain for you to freeze me.”

“You followed me all the way here…” Zero didn’t say it was an insult. She was genuinely surprised that he wasn’t that stupid.

Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “No matter what you think, or what our erstwhile handler thinks, I’m both intelligent and resourceful. The others may think you all are just a test, but I know the truth. I’ve read your file.” He sneered, baring his gruesome fangs. “Is Zero supposed to be an homage to your father? Or some pale imitation, Miss ‘Taylor’?”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Zero’s easy going voice suddenly hardened. Her ‘sunshine’ was gone. The part of her she never let her friends and housemates see was surfacing. Carefully, she started to skirt around the edge of the fountain.

“Oh, I know everything. They’ve got a bio-map of you, remember? They know things about you that you don’t even know.”

“Is that a fact?” Behind her back, water vapor hovering over the fountain became a set of frozen knives between her fingers. “Did you know…?” She launched the daggers into Wolf’s neck where they embedded just above the inhibitor. “That I took marksmanship classes at the Academy?”

Wolf winced a bit from the pain, but still sneered. “As much as I knew that trick wouldn’t do me any real harm.” He started to stalk around the fountain, following Zero. “What I want to know is why you didn’t just seal me up like you did the inugami last week. I’m betting that it’s because you’re trying to play the good hero and good heroes don’t kill people. Am I right?”

Zero nodded.

“And while being put on ice,” He motioned to the fountain, “Wouldn’t kill me, the frozen air you put around the inugami certainly would.” He chortled at her shock. “That’s right, I knew that part too. There’s not enough ‘water vapor’ in the world to let you make an ice cube that big out of thin air.”

“You really do know a lot.” A bit of the normal, light hearted Juniper slipped out of Zero’s mouth. The cold exterior she’d put up for Wolf returned quickly. “But there is something I know you don’t know. And you really should have figured it out.”

“What’s that?” growled Wolf. His inner demon was getting tired of the game.

“I am the good hero.” She said, coldly. “You said it yourself; I want to be the kind of prelate people idolize, that will be an example to them. Alloy and Facsimile have really rubbed off on me these past few months. They’re right; it’s the highest thing we can aspire to; using our powers to do the right thing. Just like my parents.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Wolf demanded.

“Because, you know I won’t kill you. Why would I throw ice daggers into your neck then?”

Wolf’s clawed hand came up to grab the daggers, but his overactive metabolism had made his body temperature hot enough to quickly turn them into puddles of water that had soaked into his fur – and seeped into the seams of his inhibitor’s housing. He roared a curse, but it was too late.

The air around him grew intensely cold. The water in the inhibitor’s seams expanded, cracking them open. Sparks flew as the casing was forced apart, pulling wiring with it. “You bitch! You bitch!” He roared as The Wolf surged into command. His bones caught fire as his body reconfigured itself once more.

Gone was any semblance of resemblance to a werewolf. With no inhibitors, Wolf achieved his full second form. Four feet high at the shoulder, his fur was black, interspersed with dark brown, angular markings. Great spines of bone erupted along his spinal ridge and at the major joints of his legs. A pair of brutal, sickle-like tusks framed his lower jaw. Fury burned in his black eyes as his jaws parted for a deep, angry roar.

Denied his prey for far too long, The Wolf wasted no time in lunging for her.

Zero had been waiting for that moment. The air over her forearms solidified into a pair of wide, rectangular shields, which she pressed forward into the attack. One lodged into the beast’s mouth, spreading cold and pain in its wake. The other came up to swat a massive paw away with much the same result.

The force of the impact sent Zero flying backward over the wide rim of the fountain. Her feet found purchase on a shifting layer of coins as she skidded backward from the slavering horror before her.

The air around Westinghall Plaza became positively frigid. The forecast had called for a thirty percent chance of rain. Now the heavens sent a scattering of flurries over the block.

Manriki groaned and tried to get the world to stop spinning as he sat up on the steps of City Central Library. War-torn wasn’t far away, already on his feet and looking around for trouble. Launch raced overhead, locked in a three-way dogfight with the prelate he knew as Void-storm and a newcomer in black powered armor.

A murmur caught his attention. Not far from him, three twenty-somethings; one male, two female, all wearing Dayspring College paraphernalia, were staring at him, dumbstruck.

“I should’ve known college kids would be too dumb to run.” Manriki hissed. He didn’t know where the prelates were, but he felt fairly certain they wouldn’t leave himself and War-torn alone for long. He lashed out with his last three ceramic chains, which wrapped instantly around the young peoples’ necks. “Hello hostages.”

“That right there? That’s not going to happen.” A metal boot planted itself in Manriki’s back at the same time a metallic tentacle speared out to shatter the ceramic chains. The chain wielder fell hard against the handrail leading up the stairs. His swinging attack complete, Alloy let Isp and Osp whip out to lash Manriki’s hands to the rail. He turned to the would be hostages. “You guys need to get out of here.”

The Redeemer snarled wordlessly as Isp and Osp moved their ‘heads’ to have a look at their captive. Something registered in his head. The tentacles weren’t like his chains. They moved and acted on their own accord. Alloy’s words on the train came back to him: That’s what you think. The odds were never even. Suddenly, he understood.

The orihalcite chain still at his waist sprang into action at his telepathic bidding. The bladed edge didn’t aim for Alloy – the tentacles would certainly block it. No, it moved in a swift line perpendicular to the prelate and the Redeemer.

Sparks exploded to the eerie sound of screaming metal. Alloy clutched his head and screamed as something echoed in his mind.

Manriki grinned spitefully as he shrugged out of the two inert aluminum coils that had once held him. “Now the odds are even.” He snarled.

-- • --

Even from ten stories up and two blocks away, Darkness heard Alloy’s pained shout. But she was in no position to go to his aide. Another cascade of blue energy belched forth from the Tesla Arc as she took cover behind a gargoyle. The stone cracked under the assault, but didn’t crumble, giving her a moment to breath.

That moment wasn’t very long. Pulse shots shattered the windows above her, sending a deadly hail down upon her that forced her to fly back out into the open. Even with Sky Tyrant hunting both of them, Launch was taking every opportunity to harass her. She heard him laughing somewhere above her.

“You’re not taking this seriously are you, Redeemer?” Sky Tyrant demanded. His answer came in the form of a series of pulse blasts that bounced harmlessly off his armor. With a low growl, the man in the aerial tank extended his right arm. Rosy light danced as a bulky contraption resembling a black lacquered shoebox with half a glass globe pressed into the top unfolded to attach to the presented appendage. A pair of tines, similar to those of an oversized tuning fork breached the forward facing end of the device. “Let’s see how serious you take this.”

The air vibrated between the weapon’s tines before rushing out in an undulating wave that was barely visible to the naked eye.

Launch bolted upward as the wave plowed into the side of the building behind him. Cement turned to dust. Glass turned to an almost beautiful shower of glitter that caught the sunlight. The wave rolled up the side of the building, tracing a line of horrifying destruction as Sky Tyrant trained his weapon upward to follow the fleeing form of Launch.

Darkness couldn’t have cared less about Launch’s fate, but there were people in those buildings the hitman in powered armor was firing on and she couldn’t imagine what that weapon was capable of doing to flesh and bone. Plus, for the first time since the fight started, Sky Tyrant’s attention was off of her.

Lighting on the ledge of what she would later realize was City Hall, she brought her hands together, gathering the black heat before her and launched a beam of it as thick as her arm into her foe’s back.

Forewarned of the attack by his sensor array, Sky Tyrant shut off the Wave Generator, allowing it to disappear. He didn’t know where his armor and weapons went when he willed them away, he only knew they stopped weighing him down. So relieved of extra mass, he flew straight up, allowing the beam of black heat to pass him by, diffusing into the clouds of dust left behind by the Wave Generator’s fire.

“I’ll deal with that little bastard later.” Sky Tyrant said, turning to face Darkness. “He’s just a flea anyway. But you – you and your little cadre, Life Savers, Inc… I want some answers. Who was that backward talking witch you were fighting back in September?”

“I could tell you that without you shooting me.” Darkness said. “She really was a witch – or something like one. She called herself Morganna.”

“Was? Where is she now?!”

“Dead. You hit her with an exploding truck, remember? You almost killed me too.”

“No.” The black and gold warrior intoned. “She’s not dead because if she were dead, it would all be over. I’ve been through hell—lost everything! And it’ll all be fixed once she dies.”

“What are you even talking about? What does she have to do with you anyway?”

A roar built up in Sky Tyrant’s throat. Pinkish sparks leapt from him as all the extra armor Gear Callahan had installed shifted into being, increasing his already imposing stature greatly. The Wave Generator emerged, already charging up. “She did this to me!” He leveled both the Tesla Arc and the Wave Generator at her. “Now tell me where she is, or half the city will be breathing a vapor made of your cells.”

The shot never came. A sudden weight pressed down on Sky Tyrant’s right arm. “As much as I think that was a really, really choice line, I can’t let you do that.” Launch had landed precariously on the bulky armor of the flying tank’s arm. “My orders are to capture her or kill her. My fun. Not yours.” With that, he blasted off.

The concussive blast smashed the Wave Generator to bits and catapulted Sky Tyrant sideways to smash through the windows of another building.

Launch glared smugly at the broken window and sniffed before turning back to Darkness. “I always take my personal enjoyment…” he blinked. She was gone. “…seriously. God damn it.”

Alloy couldn’t put one thought together with the next. The ringing in his head simply wouldn’t die down. He remembered Manriki being bound to the hand rail, followed by the orihalcite chain moving like a drunken snake. Then he remembered objects: two ribbons of aluminum that eight months ago had been an aged waste basket left behind by the previous owners of Freeland House. Just objects.

He also remembered a night well over a year ago to his reckoning and twice that when the lost time in stasis was counted. There had been bullets; lead moving in the air, too fast for his metal sense to lock on to. A lucky shot followed by the ringing and another object that had once been a piece of a car…

The fact that he was unaware of his surroundings was a mercy. Manriki was toying with him, hitting him with blows of the chain over and over again with just enough timing to not let him fall.

Chaos only managed a single step toward him when a long shadow fell over him. “I owe you for the cheap shot on the train.” The voice of an angry giant rumbled.

A change of air pressure told him to duck, saving his head from an untimely separation from his body. “You should have actually connected with your free hit then.” Chaos whirled and planted a fist in War-torn’s gut, following it up with a cheap shot to the groin.

All students at the Academy were required to have one year of martial arts training as part of their conditions of graduation. The idea was to instill discipline in young people gifted with sometimes overwhelming power. Alexis had learned bojutsu. Laurel had learned aikido (and later, Jeet Kune Do, Zui Quan, Tai Sheng Pek Kwar, MCMAP, and Kampfringen). Ian had taken a boxing class, which was spectacularly useless in a fight to the death, so he felt justified in the low blow.

At least he would have if War-torn had shown any sign that indicated he even felt the attack. Instead, the big man seized him by the neck and hoisted him up into the air. “If that’s all you can do to me without your girlfriend throwing you, I didn’t even need to take it. Hold still and I’ll only knock you out for capture.”

Chaos, gripping the giant’s wrist futilely, wasn’t listening. “Hey…” he said, almost wistfully. “The ALN-1000 Loader Frame. I designed this armor.”

“What?” War-torn blinked. He expected more ‘heroic’ bluster, not random trivia.

“Your armor frame. I designed it. It was one of their first ones I did right out of the Academy.” Chaos remarked. “You know, it’s not really for military applications. It’s for dock workers. It’s worthless for the military because it doesn’t have any protection.”

“I don’t care, I heal quick and I’m tough.” War-torn retorted.

“Not what I meant, jumbo. I meant that covering up rotator servos and locking down access panels is just wasted expense for civvie jobs.” Chaos held up a sparking bit of circuit. “See?” He said as War-torn felt the strength in the hand holding the prelate off the ground ebb. Chaos dropped to the ground and rolled under the big man. “That was the power relay for your actuators.”

A mist began to roll out of the nearby storm drains. With density greatly reduced, water flash boiled into a cloying mist the came up to War-torn’s waist. Warily, he turned a slow circle, searching the mist for his foe.

“And this…” Something slammed hard into his back. “It the power relay to the extremities.”

War-torn stopped moving. He didn’t intend to, but at the moment, every joint in his armor locked up.

Becoming invisible by manipulating the way her black heat interacted with light was one of those little tricks Darkness had learned in the Academy that, while conceptually cool, was utterly useless. Many people wish they had such a power, but they generally fail to note a physical flaw in perfect invisibility: to be invisible, an object must neither absorb nor reflect light; and vision in human beings is based on the retina absorbing incoming photons. So with her black heat bending light around her, she was blind.

“Come on!” Launch shouted. “Where the hell are you?!” He flew within a few feet of her, coming to rest at the feet of another of City Hall’s decorative gargoyles, using the stone beast to cover his back from an assault from the rear.

“Right here.” It wasn’t Darkness who spoke. Rising into the sunlight, Sky Tyrant looked dangerous even with one, human arm exposed; red and inflamed, for all to see. The pauldrons over his shoulders swung upward on a hinge near his neck, revealing a pair of hollow indentations that began to flare with orange energy.

“I was hoping you’d stay down for a while.” Launch glared.

“I was going to say the same thing to you.” Spheres of flaming energy formed in the indentations and hurtled forward like drunken fireflies. Launch grinned as he could already tell they were going to miss.

The plasma balls smashed into the gargoyle’s base, pulverizing stone. The flying Redeemer didn’t have time to even look to see what had happened. The stone ornament collapsed down onto him, pinning him in its granite claws.

Laughing inwardly at Launch’s pathetic attempts to wriggle away, Sky Tyrant turned directly toward Darkness. “Now, Void-storm, we were in the middle of something. You might as well drop the cloak; it doesn’t stop my sensors from finding…”

He looked off to the north, cutting his speech short. “Damn it all. Military.” He snapped his attention quickly back to her. “Another time.” He said brusquely before initiating his own cloaking device.

Darkness didn’t try to find him. She had to get back to help the others.

Manriki sent his orihalcite chain out once more to wrap Alloy’s neck in a single loop. The prelate’s weight, seeking gravity, fell back against it, drawing both ends taunt in Manriki’s hands. “It always comes down to this.” Manriki mused. “No matter what their powers, no matter what amazing things they can do, all those special little rogues end up with my chain around their neck. I wonder how much pressure the armor on your neck can withstand.”

The screeching of tires distracted him for a second. Two blocks away, a silver SUV had come to a stop at the police cordon on City Central. A female figure, covered head to toe was standing next to another female in a white karate uniform and yet another in red robes with a cape of some kind, arguing with the police. Right behind them was…

“Prometheus. Son of a bitch.” Manriki moaned. He turned back to Alloy. “Looks like we won’t get to find out about that armor.”

“Let him go!” someone screamed. A burst of gold vaulted out of the SUV’s sunroof and took wing, streaking right at him. “Or I’m going to make my own chain out of your spine!” Facsimile streaked at him in a blur of gold.

Another figure fell from the sky toward him as well, this one an ink blot shaped vaguely like a woman. A black cloud roiled and twisted around her.

The wind kicked up and he knew that the man who had downed War-torn was gunning for him as well.

He had lost. There was no way all three would fail to bring him down. The best solution was to cut his losses, raise his hands and give up. The best solution; but the chicken-shit solution nonetheless, he decided. “Might as well go out a man.” He muttered. With deft movements, he flipped the bladed ends of the chain in his hands, pointing them at Alloy’s face, then hauled hard, causing the prelate to stumble drunkenly toward his own death.

The next few moments stretched on into infinity. Alloy’s mind finally resolved itself. They were only objects in space; not bodies, not the inert forms of dead things. They were just ribbons animated by life force. They had not been Isp and Osp. Isp and Osp were…

His eyes opened. Manriki made a surprised sound as he saw not frightened eyes, seeing the end, but orbs of pure silver. There was a sound like the beat of a giant’s heart. The hand rails on the library steps melted, cars on the street below twisted violently; their windows exploding in showers of safety glass. Manriki felt the chain twitch in his grasp just before it liquefied.

Darkness let loose a beam of black heat as big around as her waist. Chaos released a pulse of air that could roll a car. Facsimile grew claws and prepared to collide with the chain wielder. None of them hit him.

Twin lashes formed of orihalcite took Manriki in the chest, lifting him in the air and launching him backward through the glass doors of the library. He slid across the marble lobby floor and came to rest one too gently against the reception desk.

Writhing with anger, but reveling in the strength of the new metal bodies they’d awakened in, Isp and Osp cracked the air like whips, daring Manriki’s unconscious form to get back up. Alloy smiled at their antics even as he sat down heavily on the stairs. Golden arms wrapped around him accompanied by panicked jabbering that was coming too fast for him to understand.

Leaning against Facsimile, watching the others; including a woman in a white gi he didn’t recognize, running toward him, he wondered why they were so worried. His armor had protected him from all but a few shallow cuts. But whatever he had just done to affect the orihalcite had just made him so tired…

Before Hope could get to him and start administering her healing touch, a pair of black troop transports roared over the tops of the City Central buildings, descending to a height of five stories before deploying repelling lines.

“Attention, psionic outlaws known as the Redeemers.” A voice familiar to Chaos and Darkness spoke over the lead craft’s speakers. “This is General Lewis Armstrong Pratt of the United States Marine Corps Superhuman Intervention Division. Trent Kinsey, codename: Wolf is already in our custody. Surrender now or…”

Pratt glanced back at Zero who was sitting between two marines in powered armor. “I’ll be damned. I really shouldn’t have picked you and Wolf up first—we missed all the action.”

He turned on the speakers again after directing the ships to land. “It seems it’s all well in hand. I assume we have Life Savers, Inc to thank for this, Darkness?” Pratt addressed Alexis with her former Academy nickname to maintain her anonymity.

Darkness looked over her friends, the kids she’d come to care for over the past year, and the unlikely allies they had found in Occult and Prometheus (the latter of whom was standing over a cursing War-torn with a look of grim satisfaction on his face). Zero jumped from the transport as soon as it was low enough and ran to her, throwing her arms around her. Darkness ruffled the girl’s hair through her hood and gave a smile up to the general from whom she had learned the proper name for herself and her loved ones. “No.” She shouted back, “We’re the Descendants.”

End Issue #12