The 2076 Koshiki Motors of America Timber Wolf was one of those cars that was made for the racetrack. Built on over a hundred years of the highest end technology in over a dozen fields from material fabrication to suspension to safety systems, it was capable of achieving speeds that handily qualify it among one of the fastest street legal vehicles in the world.

The royal blue Timber Wolf that rolled into the parking lot of a certain Mayfield high school was destined never to taste the speed and stress it was built for. Like the 2025 Scimitar coup that bore the vanity plates ALL4ME before it, it was bound for a different duty; being a very big, very expensive toy for one Lilly Goldenmeyer.

“Everyone is going to be so jealous.” Alice Rankin, Lily’s current right hand girl, a tall, dark, hazel-eyed cheerleader type squealed with excitement from the passenger seat.

“I know, right?” Lily couldn’t resist a malicious smile at all the envy she was about to perpetrate on everyone else in the school. Senior year was just another year in her reign. “It took daddy almost all summer to find one that had everything.”

“I wish my parents would by me a nice car like this.” Callie Krieger, a short haired blond, was unable to keep her gaze from traveling from one installed amenity to another. She didn’t know what most of them were called, but she knew she was loving the massaging seat.

“Well that’s because your parents are poor, honey.” Lily’s mock sympathy dripped from her lips. “But you’re pretty and you’re good on the cheer squad, so you’ll grow out of that.” She and Alice both laughed. After some hesitation, so did the fourth passenger, Kim Wayne, a short brunette that wasn’t exactly Lily’s favorite person in the first place and didn’t feel she was in any position to rock the boat.

Lily was still laughing when she pulled the Timber Wolf into a parking place. A tan, completely unadorned compact pulled in beside her almost instantly.

“Ew.” Lilly grimaced. “That’s just rude, parking that thing next to my baby.” The driver got out of the compact and a predatory gleam came to her eye. “Of course. It’s Kaine. Only someone who'd date Tinkerbell would obviously be that lacking in taste. Girls.” She issued an unspoken order and hit the switch to put the top down.

Warrick looked up from retrieving his book bag from the trunk to see half the cheer squad leering at him and sighed. The day before, he’d been king of the hill, tromping around the Liedecker Institute followed by his personal fan club. Today, not so much.

“What is that?” Lily demanded, sitting up on the headrest of her seat and gesturing at his car.

“A car, Lily.” Warrick shouldered his backpack. “My car. The one I earned working all summer.”

“They have jobs that pay that little?” Callie was more than happy to spread the pain to anyone that wasn’t her. Neither she, nor any of the others noticed the approaching whine or the reaction from those other students in the parking lot.

“My god, it’s so ugly.” Alice said as if even looking at the little compact was causing her pain.

“It gets the job done.” Warrick shrugged and closed the trunk.

“Don’t give me that crap, Kaine.” Lily spat. “Even you can’t be so stupid as to not care about what people are going to think of you. And they will if they see you showing up to school in that junker every day.”

Callie started to say something, but Kim tapped her on the shoulder and pointed up.

“Oh.” Warrick said. “Well that’s good; I wasn’t planning on riding to school in this every day.” He pointed in the direction of the approaching whine. “I was thinking of riding in that.”

Lily turned to see the vehicle lowering itself from the sky, directly into the parking space on the other side of her.

Its body was the sleek make of the American Motor Cars G-9 Justice police custom, but it lacked the lights, and vehicle disablement pod of a Justice. It was also painted cherry red. For a brief moment, Lily was rendered speechless.

“Ohmigod, that is so awesome!” Kim gushed at the sight of it up close.

“Whose do you think it is?” Alice tried to sound nonplussed. “Jonas, maybe?”

“Jonas’s parents wouldn’t spend that much money on a car.” Lily snarled.

“Fliers are expensive. No one but you and him have that much money.” Alice said, “If not one of you, then who?”

“A new kid?” Lily tried.

“We have to get to know this person.” Said Callie. The car touched down and the lift panels receded into the fenders.

“We have to get a ride in it.” Kim added.

The door opened and Tina Carlyle stepped out. The entire parking lot could hear something snap in Lily’s mind. “Son of a bitch!”

“Now you see why I wanted to drive my own car in today?” Warrick greeted his girlfriend with a kiss on the cheek. “It’s more fun this way.”

“Ohmigod, Tink—I mean Tina. Tina. You’d rather be called Tina, right?” Kim stammered, “Where did you get that car from? It's so cool!”

Tink shrugged. “Built it.”

That set Lily off completely. “You built that thing? Out of spare parts?” She looked at her lackeys for support. “That is not a cool car; that is a flying junk heap! She probably didn’t pay a nickel for it!”

The other three glanced at each other. “C-can we ride in it sometime?” Callie asked.

Lily let loose a wordless scream of rage before ordering, “Get out of my car! All of you!”

“Sure, sometime after school.” Tink flashed a huge, fake smile to Lily. “Even you, Lily.”

Warrick and Tink ignored Lily’s renewed tantrum as they headed for the school. “Wow, what a baby.” Tink said. “It’s going to be fun having Lily’s toadies sucking up to me for a couple days before they remember they hate me. I wonder what she’ll do when she sees what Jun won by spending half her museum money on raffle tickets at the Koshiki Superstore opening.”

There was another distant whine and Warrick sat down on the stairs leading into the school, looking to the east. Tink sat down beside him. “I don’t know, but I really wish we had popcorn.”

“We can when we watch it again.” Tink grinned. “Cyn’s with Kareem and Melissa in her Humvee across the street, taping it.”

Across town, Chaos perched on a roof, downing an energy drink he’d bought with him between sweeps with the universal alarm scanner. Laurel had rigged rigged it up for their prelate activities out of parts of old handheld computers and radios.

This was his first solo patrol. While Facsimile and Codex frequently did private runs because they approached patrolling with the same attitude other people approached their jobs with, he’d always shared his exploits with Darkness or took scout duty with the others.

He was getting bored.

Not that he was hoping for calamity and mayhem to occur, but he wasn’t the kind of person who could carry on an inner monologue to keep himself diverted and listening to music was a no-no with the scanner to listen out for. Even a gargoyle to talk to would have been better than flying silently from rooftop to rooftop.

Of course, Mayfield was too modern to have many if any gargoyles loitering around the rooftops in any event.

Snapping the top closed on his drink, he put it back in his hip pouch and lifted off into the air again. Maybe taking in the scenery would keep him from going stir crazy.

No sooner was he sailing over the city than the scanner indicated that an alarm in the city attention. He patched it into his visor.

The heads up display showed him a three dimensional wire frame mock-up of the city immediately around him and was ready to draw more as he moved. The data readout showed that the alarm was an officer in distress call near the Haven Road subway station. The report was tagged as a possibly superhuman.

Chaos grimaced as he cannoned in the direction of the call, leaving a gale in his wake. It figured that his first solo patrol wouldn’t turn up something easy like a bank robbery or a mugging. No, it had to be a full on powers vs. powers battle.

He just hoped he could make a good showing of it and help the officer in trouble.

Officer Carl Brown wasn’t a rookie. He’d been on the force six years, paired with his partner Louie Franco for three. None of his experienced had prepared him for what he was watching unfold at the moment.

The patrol car he and Louie had been in was now a twisted mess of steel. Half the cars on the street had suffered the same fate, as had the facade of the subway station, now bent and shattered.

The perpetrator still hadn’t stopped laughing and mocking the screaming throngs of people trying to escape. If it wasn’t for the power he wielded, he would have looked ridiculous; dressed in a neon yellow biker helmet, white winter jacket, ski pants, gloves and boots.

But when he moved his hands, the metal he pointed at obeyed like it did Alloy. And unlike the Descendant’s own armored prelate, this man was not bending his powers to the good of the city. In fact, he didn’t even seem to be bending it for personal gain either; only for wreaking large scale havoc.

“I told them they’d be sorry if they kicked me out again!” He laughed. “Now they’re sorry and you’re sorry too!” He picked out a random bystander, a middle aged man who was running beside his wife, and gestured. There was a surging sound and part of a ruined car wrapped his arm, pulling him into the air.

“Clancy!” The man’s wife screamed.

“Oh, I don’t want to break up a pair.” Their tormentor laughed, “Here, you can join him!” There was another surging sound and the woman was also lifted into the air. He laughed long and hard at their predicament. “That’s science, bitches! He said it’d give me real power and it did. Check me out!”

“I’d rather knock you out.” Chaos dropped from above like a hawk on a field mouse.

“Too bad, cause you ain’t gonna.” The helmeted criminal gestured and the ground around him erupted with suddenly animated pipes that writhed like silvery tentacles and reached out for Chaos, spraying cold water into the summer heat.

His vertical charge checked, Chaos backpedaled and corkscrewed out of the way of the attacking appendages. Announcing himself hadn’t been smart, no matter how well it seemed to work for Cyn or Warrick.

“Look what we got here.” A sneer was evident in the villain’s tone. “Looks like I only rate a second rate Descendant. Guess I got to prove myself on your ass before I get to fight Darkness or Alloy.”

Chaos raised an eyebrow behind his visor. Darkness he could understand. She was very publicly the leader. But surely it was clear that he outranked Alloy, right? Maybe he should keep an eye on that stupid PrelateWatch website like the kids did.

“What can you even do to me?” the criminal taunted. “I got metal, you got what? Air?”

It was Chaos’s turn to sneer. Two bit baddies never did their homework besides watching them on TV. “Sure. Air.” He said, focusing on the water quickly mixing with the concrete powdered by the sudden eruption of the pipes. “But not just air.”

Increasing the ambient pressure of the slurry of pulverized concrete and then quickly reducing it to nil caused it to explode in a geyser of muck, which Chaos then pushed into his opponent’s face with the wind. He resisted the urge to shout ‘here’s mud in your eye!’

With the rampaging criminal blinded, he launched himself forward for a finishing blow to the bread basket. Except instead of a satisfying ‘whuff’ or air leaving the other man’s lungs, there was a crack and the sound of frying circuitry, followed by the smell of burning rubber.

The criminal screamed painfully inside his helmet and danced back, clawing for the zipper of his jacket. He settled for simply tearing it open. Beneath was a jungle of wires and painted circuits layered on top of a wetsuit. The carefully constructed array was broken, frayed and burning.

Still mewling in pain, the former marauding ne’er-do-well tore off the wetsuit as well, followed by the gloves, which hit the ground with the telltale clank of clothing concealing high end electronics. The helmet was next, revealing a mop of brown hair and a face that couldn’t have been more than twenty.

“Shit, man!” the now shirtless villain said, staring at Chaos. “What? You trying to kill me or something? I’m going to—“

“You’re going to what?” Chaos asked, gesturing to the now inanimate pillar of twisted pipes and the ruined suit. He held up a heavy fist for emphasis.

“I’m- I’m” Was the sputter response.

“You’re going to jail.” Chaos cut him off. “But first, you’re going to tell me what the hell I just broke.”

-- • --

“So, how’s your day been so far?” Tink parked her lunch tray next to Warrick’s on one of the round, cement tables in the small courtyard only seniors were allowed to have their lunch in.

She was glad and a bit surprised that her normally nature-averse boyfriend had opted to eat there. Not that she particularly wanted to eat outside, but because entering the courtyard had been strictly verboten for the past three years.

“Pretty good.” Warrick smiled lazily at her. “All the classes I don’t really care for are out of the way; English, Calc, 20th century History…. Also, even though I got Coach Bevilacqua again for gym, he was out sick. How about you?”

Tink gave him a non-specific shrug. “Not bad, not good. I don’t think I’m going to get along with my Trigonometry teacher at all, and I don’t know what I was thinking, taking Medieval Lit. Class. I know it’s the only college level English class, but just looking at the reading list tells me it’s going to be boring.” She rolled her pizza up lengthwise and took a bite out of it.

“Cheer up.” Said Warrick, “One more class and then we’ve got our AP Chemistry class together, and Theater, and then home.”

“Well, I for one think that senior year is going to be damn sweet.” Cyn said, appearing out of nowhere to set down her tray, laden with four slices of pizza, two helpings of green beans, three pieces of cornbread, and two cartons of milk on the table across from the couple. “Either of you ever have a class with Mrs. Crane?”

They shook their heads.

“I’ve got her for creative writing.” Cyn explained, opening one of the milk cartons all the way up and dipping a piece of cornbread in it. “Our first assignment? Write whatever you want as long as it’s ten pages double spaced so she can see our ‘style’. And that's it. For the whole rest of the week! I can get an A in this class like cake.” She jammed the soaked cornbread into her mouth and took very little time to chew. “And you know what the first unit in gym is this year for my class? Volleyball!”

Tink grinned at her exuberance. “Sounds like everything’s coming up ‘Cyn’ this year.”

“Hell yes! Especially once I edit together Lily’s hissy-fit from this morning and send it to everyone on the school’s email system.” Cyn grinned, already dipping another piece of cornbread. “The whole conserve girl thing is going down.”

“They aren’t doing the conserve thing this year.” Tink pointed out.

“Well it’ll die in spirit.” Cyn shrugged. “You know, the only suck thing about this year is that none of the others are on our lunch period. She flicked her eyes to the window that looked out on the courtyard from the cafeteria. She caught the flash of red hair she was expecting. “Except ‘Lissa.”

Melissa had come back from her visit home in much better spirits and with a better outlook toward training, but she hadn’t made any effort to act any closer to her housemates. That didn’t change at school either; she was eating lunch with Terry’s friends instead of Cyn, Warrick and Tink.

“I can’t stand those guys.” Cyn remarked sourly on the company Melissa had for lunch.

“They're not so bad.” Warrick said, “Terry’s a pretty okay guy, and Scott’s in my History class and he... um...” He petered out, not really knowing anything about them, but feeling the need to defend anyone potentially in the path of Cyn’s jealousy.

“No, no, she’s right to hate them.” Tink said.

Warrick gave her a scandalized look. “Huh? But they’re nerds, like us. Like kinsmen.”

“No, they’re nerds like Angry Ben on PrelateWatch.” Tink corrected. She didn’t need to explain it further.

Angry Ben was an old timer on the PrelateWatch website who had a reputation for two things: First, he hardly ever posted in the main area where people actually talked about prelates, theories about prelates, and other prelate related news, instead he spent most of his time in the off topic forum where people talked about games, movies and other things that interested them. Second, he hated games, movies and other things that interested any of the other members of the forums what he loved was pointing that fact out.

And while Terry managed to at least have something positive to say about movies from before he was born, his friends; Scott, Calvin and Hugh had nothing positive to say about anything ever. Given half a chance, they would expound upon why for hours. This allowed them to get on pretty well with Melissa.

“Okay, I see your point.” Warrick said. “Still, they’re her friends. We’ve got to be nice to them.”

“If you’re going to make me.” Cyn wrinkled her nose. “But I’m not going to go over there to try and make nice.”

“When did I even say anything about that?!”

“You may not have said it, but you were thinking it.” Cyn sniffed.

“So have either of you seen Kareem today?” Tink swiftly changed the subject. “I was wondering how he’s doing; new school and all.”

“I saw him in the hall after gym. Looked like he was doing just fine, if you catch my drift.” She gave a lecherous wink to make sure they did. “He was walking around with this girl I’ve never seen before... I think she’s a psionic.”

Warrick's eyebrows shot up. “You saw her using powers?”

“No, but she’s gray and her eyes are all glowy.” Cyn shrugged.

“And you think she’s a psionic.” Asked Tink.

Cyn snorted. “You never know. I mean you’ve got interfacers, body modders, and God knows what else. As crazy as things have been in the world lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a vampire.”

“In the middle of the day?” Tink queried.

“Do you know any real vampires? Maybe that’s how it works.” Cyn countered. “She could be a blood sucking, day walking uber-vampire from beyond the grave!” She waggled her fingers spookily. As swiftly as she’d started her tirade, she sat back with an impish grin. “But, you know, she could still be pretty cool to hang out with. And if you ask me, Kareem totally deserves to hook up after all the crap he’s been through.”

Both of her lunch mates took a moment to recover from Cyn’s customary mood shifting without a clutch.

“We should give her and chance, but not call her a vampire.” Tink said, “It’s pretty crappy just to act weird at her because of how she looks. And evidently Kareem can see something in her.”

Cyn almost choked on her slice of pizza.

“Speaking of psionics people treated like crap,” Said Warrick, “I talked to Liz’s brother in Calculus. She’s apparently feeling well enough to have visitors. I was thinking of going to see her this weekend.”

“Are you nuts?!” Tink stared at him like she knew the answer already. “After she started that rumor about you? And let’s not forget how Lily says she attacked her and the Descendants.”

“So, do we're believing Lily now?” Cyn asked. “Because she hated Liz more than anyone.”

“And the real attacker was that anti-psionics guy’s assistant, right?” Warrick asked. Before Tink could reply, he added, “And the rumor she started was true as far as she knew. She didn’t know Alloy asked me to help out at that concert.”

Faced with those two points, Tink relented. “Okay, I guess maybe I’m being too hard on her, but Warrick, I was worried about you.”

Warrick smiled at her. “And I appreciate that. But I really think what Liz needs right now is a friend.”

Tink nodded, “I understand, I guess. But she had her chance, alright? I’m going to go with you to make sure she knows it.”

“And I’ll go to watch!” Cyn chimed in.

Chaos fell into a steady glide over the city, his mind ticking away at the problem at hand.

The criminal he cold cocked had been identified from employee records as a maintenance man who had been let go for ‘improperly utilizing public equipment’ with his girlfriend a month earlier. Chaos wondered exactly what the meant, but made a mental note to wear gloves next time he took the subway.

The man had also been cited numerous times for drinking and sleeping on the job and ignoring safety precautions. That didn’t exactly gel with someone capable of building such a complex, if crude battle-suit.

Even with a degree in engineering and on the job experience with magnetics, Chaos couldn’t begin to understand how the device, now on its way to the evidence locker, worked. But the formerly career maintenance man without even a high school diploma insisted that he was the one who built it.

In fact, he seemed deathly afraid of the mere suggestion that he wasn’t.

It all added up to a big boss involved somewhere. Possibly one with more suited up thugs where this one came from. It wasn’t a pretty prospect, even if all the suits just produced lesser knockoffs of Alloy’s power, which really was no threat at all for the Descendants as a team. Multiple suits could mean multiple baddies or baddies commuting to places without any prelates to deal with it. Even police departments with anti-psionic countermeasures depended on metal powered armor and weapons.

He needed to find out who had really built that thing and for that, he needed the suit looked at and not by police techs because they wouldn’t hand over the information to him.

The answer, of course was obvious, but not readily available. The clock on his heads up display said it was one o’clock; about time for Laurel to be teaching her first Earth Science class. A ray of hope entered his mind: Alexis would be on her lunch break.

A quick shifting of winds and he make a perfect landing on the roof of an office building. It only took a second to bring up his phone book application and select the name ‘Agatha’ from the list. One could never be too careful who might get a hold of his visor.

“Hello?” The ring on Alexis’s phone was different for the com in his visor than his other phones. She made certain not to identify herself over it before she knew it was secure.

“Happy first day, hon.” Chaos said in a singsong voice.

“Why thank you, but I really hope you’re calling on this line for a better reason than that.” Alexis chortled.

“Depends.” Chaos said, “You busy?”

“In the car headed for Burger Builders.” She said, “No one can hear you.”

“Good. Have you heard the news at all, sweetheart?”

“I haven’t even had time to think” She sighed, “Some of these kids… they’re a lot more rambunctious here than at the Academy. It seems that goes double for the ones that actually went to the Academy. What’s up?”

“I had a little dance with some schmoe in a high end, but very crude power suit “Chaos explained. “It doesn’t look like he’s the one that built it, no matter what he says. I was hoping you could pass the message on to Laurel? I’d like to see if there’s a way we can track this bad boy down from the parts he used.”

“Laurel’s in class right now, but I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I have a suggestion.”

“I am wide open to suggestions.” Chaos looked down on the city below him.

“The way I see it—and granted, I’m not a genius like Laurel—is that if you really can figure out who the maker is from the parts; the maker knows this. And he’ll want to get his suit back in a hurry.”

It all clicked into place for Chaos. “Of course! And with those suits capable of tearing up metal, he wouldn’t hesitate to go for it the direct route.” He took to the air instantly. “I’ve got to catch up to the police car that took that guy downtown. You’re a genius!”

Alexis laughed, “Always happy to help, sweetie, but you would have come up with it sooner or later. You’re the one that reads all those heist and espionage books after all.”

“Yeah, but this way, I may just get there in time.” With hurricane force, he tore through the sky even as he started a GPS search on his heads up display for the police car. “Got it! Call you once I work this out. Thanks honey, bye!”

He hung up after she’d said her own goodbye. He was coming up on the police car and it wouldn’t do to be on the phone with his girlfriend when he encountered more minions.

Dropping down from his cruising altitude, he had just enough time to see events unfold. A water tower perched on the roof of an apartment complex; began to tilt as its struts warped under the influence of some power. Then it tore open, sending a torrent of water cascading down onto the street the police car had just turned onto!

-- • --

People tend to forget how dangerous water can be. It is, after all, one of the basic requirements for life, a refreshing beverage, and a key component of swimming pools (otherwise they would be standing pools).

But a human being can drown in far less than a cup of water. Water dissolves many deadly chemicals into itself that can cause terrible ailments if ingested. And thanks to the magic of surface tension, a fall from a sufficient height into water is equivalent to a fall from a far height onto a slab of lead.

A similar effect can be achieved by dropping eight thousand gallons of water (say, from a sundered water tower), from an equally great height (such as from the top of a building) all at once.

Knowing this, Chaos reached out to the falling column of water with his power and pressed his will against it, wicking away density. Surface tension began to break down and the rushing wind of the fall combined with the sudden drop in pressure caused water droplets to fly from one another, transforming the fist of falling water into mist that fell like a velvet cloak over the street

Chaos plunged down through the mist, following the GPS signal from the police car.

“Exactly what you said he’d do.” A pretentious sounding male voice said.

“Shut up and give him the ice!” A female voice with a southern accent said. Some sort of device whined as it started spinning up.

Guided by the voices, Chaos parted the mist with a raking talon of wind. The speakers anticipated the move, dodging left and right out of the way, keeping within the cloak of fog. A thin, high pressure spray of blue fluid came from the right and spattered the prelate’s legs and the ground around him.

Another gush of wind revealed a man dressed very much like the one from earlier, except he wore a red backpack with hoses traveling from it to a pair of nozzles on the backs of his hands. The label on the backpack had been covered over with duct tape.

“Nice try, but—“ Chaos tried to step forward, but found he was frozen to the ground. Where the blue spray had landed, the moisture in the air had frozen to solid ice. His costume kept him from feeling the cold, but that was little comfort as he was still held fast. “Son of a bitch.” He muttered.

“You shouldn't talk like that: you're a role model after all.” The ice wielder sent another spray of freezing agent at Chaos, who only just covered his head and face with his cape, which swiftly iced over.

“Wow, I actually did it.” the man said, a hint of reverence in his voice.

There was a surging sound like there was with the other criminal, followed by metal tearing. “Good for you. Let’s get this thing and get out of here before the others show up.” The woman said impatiently. She had no way of knowing that no one else was coming, but Chaos did.

“Hey, Kareem.” Lisa set her books down in their sixth period psychology class.

Kareem gave her his usual gentle smile. “Hello, Lisa. I didn’t know that you were taking this class was well.”

She shrugged, “Kay took it last year and it sounds interesting. Besides, it fills my last science requirement.” A look crossed her face that Kareem usually associated with Cyn and Kay. “So, tell me about this girl Kay saw you with.”

The directness was also something he’d come to expect from those two rather than Lisa. He shifted uncomfortably. “Desiree, yes. We are in English 12 and US Government together. She’s an interesting girl.”

Lisa didn’t know how to take that one. Most people used ‘interesting’ as code for something unpleasant, but in the few weeks she’d known Kareem, she’d come to wonder if he ever used euphemisms at all. “Ah. Well I’d like to meet her then.”

“I’m sure she’d like to meet you too.” He says, “Like me, she’s new, but unlike me, she doesn’t have the luxury of having ready-made friends.” The sympathy in his voice as palpable.

“I can’t imagine that people like Lily are making it any easier, her being a psionic and all.” Lisa nodded, chewing absently on her pen.

Kareem hadn’t met Lily, but between Cyn’s less than glowing description and the girl’s behavior earlier in the morning, he dreaded looking at her astral self. “Luckily she hasn’t had to deal with such things yet. I’ve heard that Lily is too busy right now being unpleasant to her friends to be unpleasant to innocent bystanders.”

“Such a sweet girl.” Lisa shook her head. “And I’ve had to put up with her since middle school when she got kicked out of whatever private school her parents had her in.”

“There is probably a reason she acts like that.” Kareem pointed. He was quickly forced to add a concession. “But that doesn't excuse not restraining it.” His eyes widened. “Speaking of…”

Lisa turned to see Lily stalk into the classroom, her book bag tightly gripped in one hand, a slip of paper held in the other as if it was something out of the sewer. She passed a baleful glare over the whole of the classroom before giving the note to Mrs. Perry, the teacher, who had been manning her desk, waiting for the bell to ring.

“Last minute transfer?” Ms. Perry read aloud. “Okay. You'd think they'd have told you that you were short of requirements before school started.”

“You would think.” Lily muttered as she stomped toward the only available open seat: the one in front of Lisa, who let out a small groan.

Not unlike a she-wolf sizing up her prey, Lily gave Lisa a visual once over. “Oh. You. Still dating that loser and hanging out with that other loser?” Her tongue dripped so much acid that it was a wonder the desk didn’t dissolve as she sat down behind it.

Lisa didn’t rise to the bait, but she wondered if the Digi-book of Reason had anything in it to turn someone into a toad. Then again, Lily’s tongue was already quick enough.

When that tongue failed to hit its mark, Lily added, “You know, sometimes I can’t tell which one it is you’re dating.” She laughed at her own joke and then looked perturbed that none of her usual cronies was in the classroom to join in.

“There was no reason for that.” Kareem said, frowning at her.

“Kareem…” Lisa started, but it was already too late.

“You’re new.” Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Let me give you some advice: I’m not someone you want to get on the wrong side of, okay? I decide who’s cool and who’s not around here.”

“I don’t think I want anyone who would treat my friend, or anyone else for that matter, like that to think I’m cool.” Kareem said in deadpan.

Dangerous light flashed in Lily’s eyes, but her retort was cut off by the bell.

As if some sort of teaching circuit inside her was activated by the chime, Ms. Perry stood up and began her introduction to the class.

Trapped in his ice cocoon, Chaos worked. Outside, the woman was cursing the fog and whatever it was she was referring to as ‘this thing’, which was evidentially meant to help with the fog but wasn’t. The man was nervously noting that he could hear the policeman locked in the car calling for back-up.

Chaos wasn’t listening though. He had to concentrate if he wanted to get out of his predicament.

In the short time since the concept had been explained to him, he’d only tried it once, out by the lake. It worked, but much like applying burning embers to remove leeches, the cure could hurt as bad as the affliction. And that was if he could get it to work again.

In the darkness of his cape, a tiny point of light awoke, glittering on the ice enclosing his trapped legs.

Outside, Jessie Kline, the woman of the pair, felt around desperately in the trunk. As it had been explained to her, sensors in her helmet should have been able to easily detect the circuitry in the other suit and show it visually on-screen.

But she didn’t know what circuitry was supposed to look like and emergency equipment in the trunk was cluttering up her view. She wondered if she could just use her suit to wrap the whole thing up in a ball and roll it home.

“I think I hear sirens.” Her partner was a man named Carter James. She also wondered if she could wrap some metal around his mouth as a gag.

“Shut up, I’m going as fast as I can. Here—“ She surged up the power in her suit and tore one of the rear doors open. “Make yourself useful and get Watkins out of there.”

Behind her, there was a noise; somewhere between a pop and a crack. It as followed by more cracking and a swirl in the mist.

“Goddammit.” She said, whirling. “You should have killed him after you froze him.”

“What was I going to do?” Asked Carter, “Stab him through ice? Besides, how could he have gotten out any—” He crumpled as a fist found his face in the fog.

“A little something I’m thinking of calling the Chaos Nova.” Chaos replied. He pulsed his power and the icy cloud lifted. “I’m not very good at banter, so I think I’ll just start naming my attacks.”

Jessie spared a glance into the trunk. Of course now she could clearly see the remains of Watkins’ suit. Not that it was the priority now. “Name this.” She grabbed part of the ruined trunk and pulled as she fed power into it.

The metal distended and stretched out into a liquid metal whip, which she lashed at Chaos. A blast of wind that carried him back out of reach, saving him as the whip scored a groove into the ground.

“You’re not very good at the banter either.” Chaos noted. “So why don’t we just make this a silent fight.”

“Ice!” Jessie ordered.

Chaos held up a hand as he saw the still reeling Carter raise a nozzle. The blue fluid condensed and built up in the hoes, clogging it with ice until the hose snapped, coating Carter in his own cocoon of ice from the neck down.

“I was right, see? You should have stayed quiet about that.” He looked over to make sure Carter was still breathing. “Your buddy’s going to need some chicken soup.”

Jessie stormed forward, swinging the whip in a flurry of easily anticipated strokes. But with his legs still stinging from blasting the ice off them, Chaos was too slow to avoid one and found himself falling back with a stinging bruise on his chest.

He fell hard. Ice crystals jingled as the impact finally shook them loose from his cape.

Jessie reshaped the whip; causing it to straighten and stiffen into a nastily barbed spear. “I didn’t want to do this.” She said, her breath coming in jagged and irregular bursts. “But we’ve got this power now. We don’t need your kind anymore.”

“Freeze!”

Jessie glanced over her shoulder to see the police officer from the car pointing his service weapon at her. He was using the car’s door as a shield.

Wicked thoughts came to her mind. The suit gave her power over metal and he was threatening her with a metal weapon while hiding behind metal. Oh sure, he might get a shot off first, but everyone knew that the MPD loaded their service weapons so that the first shot was a ‘non-lethal’ electric stun bullet. The suit would protect her from that.

“Hands over your head. Get down, do it now.” The officer said authoritatively.

Jessie grinned and turned, surging up the suit’s power. The sound alerted the officer, who fired.

It was indeed a stunner round. But it delivered a disrupting charge directly into the suit’s circuitry. The surging sound died abruptly. Jessie stared blankly at the gun that was stubbornly refusing to become a pile of slag.

A swift kick to the back of her knee took her down the rest of the way. Chaos leaned his full weight on her to make sure she stated down. “Nice shooting, Officer…” Chaos tried to see the name on his badge.

Stunned by the complement, the policeman hesitated. “Torres.” He finally said, “But you can call me Nick.”

“Nice shooting, Nick.” Chaos gave him a thumbs up as he used the other hand to unzip Jessie’s jacket and disarm her of the dangerous suit. There was a tag still on the inner zipper: Rick’s Outfitters for the Modern Outdoorsman. Below the store’s name was what passed for a slogan; ‘new inventions for the extreme hiker, camper and climber’.

There had been a Rick’s label on the first attacker’s helmet. Chaos passed the cursing Jessie over to Officer Torres and went over to the shivering Carter.

“Before I break you out of there…” He said, gathering moisture from the surface of the ice cage to form another Chaos Nova, “I’ve got a question for you; If I rip off the tape on your backpack, is it going to say ‘Rick’s Outfitters’? The look on Carter’s face said it all.

That was a link. Chaos stepped back and lobbed the tiny Nova against Carter’s ice cocoon, the resultant explosion formed a big enough crack for him to start pulling chunks free. “You two got names?” He asked Carter.

By this time, Carter was so cold he wasn’t thinking straight. “C-carter James. Jess Kline.” He breathed.

“And I’ve already met Roy Watkins.” Chaos was already inputting the names into the database Laurel had compiled of various forms of public records. All three lived in the same building in the Carlton Raimes neighborhood. It wasn't a nice place to live; one of those places the police got called to two or three times a week on a good week.

One of their neighbors was Rick Guadalupe, owner and proprietor of Rick’s Outfitters for the Modern Outdoorsman.

Pay-dirt, thought Chaos. “Hey, Nick, I think I need to you get on the horn and call the cavalry for me.”

-- • --

The final bell of the day rung and the school’s doors almost instantly started disgorging students. Among them were Warrick, Tink, and Juniper.

Juniper bounded down the stairs ahead of the young couple, full of energy from the improv exercises they’d had in theater class. She was beaming. “That was really a lot of fun. I just wish I was funnier. The guys that did the barbershop sketch were really funny, but I don’t think I can be funny on the spur of the moment.” She paused for air and gave the other two a doleful look. “What did you two think?”

“I think AP Fairbanks is trying to save a dime; making me take theater so I'll do the techie work without pay.” Tink said with only a hint of bitterness, “It was fun to watch at least. I really wish I didn’t have to get on stage though.”

Warrick gave her a knowing smile. “I’d have thought you'd have loved being back on stage. After all, you’re best known around school for being an actress, Tinkerbell.” He teased.

Tink’s face reddened. “That was elementary school. Everyone in the class had a part. I am not cut out for that kind of thing.” She gave Warrick a teasing look right back, “But I know someone who it’s just killing inside knowing we’re going to be doing Henry V as the first section play.”

“Oh yeah, that’s Shakespeare, right?” Juniper asked, drawing a blank look from Warrick.

After it wore off, he couldn’t contain himself. “Not just Shakespeare, but the best Shakespeare speech ever goes to the lead: the Saint Crispin’s Day speech. I’d do anything to play that.”

“Maybe Mr. Simmons takes bribes.” Juniper said in all seriousness.

A brief vision of presenting the theater teacher with a large, piratey chest full of gold doubloons courtesy of his powers flashed before Warrick’s eyes. “Nah, I’ll just get it by being good.”

“But you’ve never been a lead before.” Juniper said innocently. They’d reached where she’d parked her bike and she unlocked the rear storage to get her helmet.

Warrick was nonplussed by this. “Yeah, so? William Thompson wasn’t a lead before The Element of Imperfection. Jennifer Kinney wasn’t a lead until Malady Place.”

“Jennifer Kinney doesn’t play the—“Juniper started before seeing the ‘hush’ gesture Tink was making.

“The point is we’ve all got to start somewhere. My dad voiced dozens and dozens of commercials before he got to do any TV work.” Warrick soldiered on.

“And I know you’re going to do great.” Tink encouraged before Juniper could say anything else. “I’ll even help you practice your lines.”

Juniper grinned at them as she buckled her helmet on. “Well, I’m going to go pick Adel up in front of the school. I promised. Meet you guys at the Dungeon?”

“Yeah.” Tink said, “I’m just going to stop by home to change and I’ll meet you all there. Want me to pick you up at Freeland House, Warrick?”

Warrick shook his head. “JC and Kareem are going to ride with me over to the comic shop so I can get this week’s issues and check out Gary’s advanced preview list before we all head to the Dungeon.”

“Okay.” Tink said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Drive safely. See you later.”

There’d been no answer at Rick Guadalupe’s apartment at Carlton Raimes. The police had the whole building staked out just in case. That freed Chaos up for a trek across town to the cramped storefront beneath an aerobics studio that was home to Rick’s Outfitters or the Modern Outdoorsman.

It was in an only slightly better neighborhood than where the proprietor lived, half the places on the block sporting boarded up windows, whether because they were abandoned or because they’d been recently broken into.

Rick’s Outfitters was in better shape than its neighbors. Evidently, he made good enough money to buy security glass and high-end locks. Chaos wondered if the money for those had come from supplying weaponized power suits to his neighbors.

Whatever the truth, Rick didn’t hide his technological prowess. There were gyroscopically stabilized snowboards, a snowsuit with a solar charged heating element and magnetic grip boots on display in the window.

“At least I’m in the right place.” Chaos mused, pulling the door open. He heard sirens a few blocks away. The police would have the place surrounded soon. But he wanted to go in first in case Rick had some more super-powered friends and neighbors.

A bell tinkled as he opened the door. Surprisingly, there was an actual, physical bell hanging from a hook; it stood out like a sore thumb against the high tech sporting goods the shop sold.

“Hello, be right with you.” The voice belonged to a dark skinned, Hispanic man with his hair done up in black dreadlocks. He was hunched over a circuit board, soldering gun in hand, completely oblivious to who was standing in his shop.

“It’s a bit warm to be showing off snowsuits and snowboards.” Chaos commented, moving forward lightly, his cape swaying with each step. He was ready for Rick to bolt.

“True, but winter stuff is easier to work with. It’s thicker, so you have more places to put circuitry and wires. It makes things a little tighter financial-wise in the summer, but that’s not what this is about.”

“Is what happened this morning what it’s about?” Chaos asked sternly.

“Hmm?” Rick looked up from his work and his jaw dropped. “It’s… it’s you! Sweet Jesus, it’s really you! Chaos is in my shop. Whatever you want, sir, it’s on the house; just let people see the logo and we are completely square.”

He carefully turned off the soldering gun and came around the counter, hand extended. “Ricky G, sir, I’m a big fan of the Descendants.”

Chaos deigned to shake, much to Ricky’s obvious disappointment. “Is that why you built battle suits that copied Zero’s and Alloy’s powers?”

“Huh? How’d you hear… well yeah. Not duplicate though, my designs so far are… a paper doll to a full grown man, but I’m trying.”

Rick’s puzzlement and friendly demeanor came as a complete surprise. Chaos had expected evil gloating, not adoring hero worship and humility. What was going on?”

“Those two are just the start. The tech to pull them off is all off the shelf if you know who to order from. I just thought to put it together. I’m actually working on a suit to copy your powers now. It’s just sort of hard going, seeing as no one on any of the sites can agree on what they actually are.”

Well, I am called Chaos, Chaos thought smugly.

“I can show you what I’ve got so far if you’re like.” Rick said hopefully.

That almost had to be a trap. Chaos thought. But that would require a much higher level of sophistication and acting ability in Rick than any of his neighbors had shown. “Sure, why not?” Chaos finally said. His heads up display gave an ETA of one minute on police arrival. He needed to find out the full range of this as soon as possible.

Ricky led him into the small workshop set up between the main room of the shop and the stockroom. It was cramped and stuffy, with bits and pieces of discarded, abandoned or on hiatus experiments littering every surface and even hanging on the walls.

Chaos noticed replicas of Whitecoat’s signature coat, Darkness’s scarf and several renditions of Isp and Osp amid the flotsam.

The current project, only standing out because it was on a counter by itself instead of in a heap elsewhere, was an air compressor that fed into about a dozen hoses and valves. Other tools and various odds and ends sat alongside the machine, waiting, presumably for their owner to close up shop and start work again.

“I decided to just go with the basic everyone can agree on: wind manipulation.” Rick explained, beaming with pride at his creation. “The compressor is the most streamlined I can find, but I think when all is said and done, I’ll need two to provide enough thrust for most of what you do.”

“Rick?” Chaos cut off what he knew would be a long winded treatise on the device. In a different setting, he’d have been more than happy to talk shop, but the police were closing in.

“Yes?”

“Why are you building these suits in the first place?”

Rick looked like he’d been waiting to be asked and his wide eyed pride grew a dozen times over. “The same reason you do what you do; to help out. The city’s been getting more dangerous these days and even though the Descendants do a great job, you guys deserve someone to do something to take the pressure off. I figured that once the trials are done and I’ve worked out all the bugs, I can sell them to the cops—just to pay for more development of course; this workshop is getting too small for my imagination…”

“Trials.” Chaos was finally putting the pieces together. “Where you get your neighbors from Carlton Raimes to test out the equipment for you?”

Again, it seemed like the question hit Rick out of left field. “Why yeah.” He nodded slowly, “But I only gave them out last night, they were supposed to try them on for size and tonight I’d give them a test run in Wagner Park.”

So that was it. The wolves playing the sheep for all his wonderful toys. Chaos felt bad being the one to snuff Rick’s wide eyed optimism. In a better time, certainly a better neighborhood, Rick would have been able to do great things. Instead, he was an accomplice to assault with a deadly weapon, assaulting police officers, damage to public property and probably a slew of others.

He sighed. “You haven’t seen the news, have you?”

Rick shook his head. “No, I open at seven. I’ve been here all day. Why? Did something happen at the apartments?”

That made Chaos feel even worse. Here this man was, worrying over the safety of the people who had perverted his work and would more than likely hang him out to dry at trial. Best to just get it over with quickly. “Rick… this morning your buddy Roy Watkins went postal on the subway station he used to work for. No one killed, but people were hurt. He was using the suit you gave him.”

The look Rick gave him was probably the same a kitten would give if you hit it with a stick. He was visibly shaking.

“After that, Jessica Kline and Carter James tried to take out the cop car Roy was in and destroy the evidence. They weren’t much more careful about innocent bystanders than Roy was.”

“But they said they wanted to help.” Rick managed to squeak.

“A lot of people will say anything if it lets them get something valuable like your inventions, Rick.” Chaos tried to sound understanding.

Though looking like he was on the verge of crying, Rick drew himself up and looked Chaos in the eye. “I want to turn myself in.” He said.

“I know you didn’t mean—what?”

“I-I want to turn myself in. It’s my fault and I need to earn up to it.” Rick was shivering even more than before.

He was going to suggest it anyway, but Chaos hadn’t expected that reaction. In hindsight, maybe it should have been what he expected of someone like Rick. Despite himself, he asked, “Are you sure about that?”

Rick nodded, his eyes telling a totally different story.

Way to stick to your guns, guy, Chaos though. “I’m going to tell you the truth; the cops are already on their way. In fact, they should already be out front.”

For a second, it looked like Rick was either going to bolt or pass out. To his credit, he didn’t. Instead, he let Chaos lead him out of his shop and into the waiting embrace of the MPD.

“It’s really kind of heartwarming in a way.” Alexis said later that evening as she and Ian sat on the patio together. “We really inspired him.”

“Inspired him to make battle suits for his scumbag neighbors.” Ian bitterly slugged back his beer. “The thing that kills me is that I can’t even speak in his favor at trial unless I give up the ghost on who I really am.”

“Well Laurel is hiring him the best defense team money can buy” Alexis assured him, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Poor guy’s going to be terrified in jail.” Ian said. “All I can hope for is that the judge sees what I said about him to the reporters that showed up and decides to go soft.”

Alexis frowned and redoubled her efforts in massaging his neck. He was understandably tense and in desperate need of a subject change. “Just so you know I’m proud of you for not blowing in his door and punching him when you thought he was just another mad scientist.”

That got a laugh at least. “That wouldn’t be good detective work, hon. Besides, now you can’t say I didn’t learn anything on the first day back to school.”

Rick Guadalupe tried to make himself invisible in the holding cell. It was just luck that Carter and Roy were in separate cells, he guessed. His fellow prisoners were more concerned with harassing the guards and demanding rights they more than likely weren’t entitled to than to pick on him. The best he could do was stay in a corner and wait for his public defender.

It didn’t take nearly as long as he’d expected. Less than two hours after he’d been bought in, a man in a smart suit was bought to the cell by a guard.

“Ricardo Guadalupe?” he asked. Rick just nodded, “I’m your lawyer, Ernst Leonard Yowell. I’m pleased to say I’ve managed to get you moved to a private cell pending your competency hearing.”

“Competency?” Rick blinked. He only had a vague understanding of the legal system, but he knew that those hearings were for people trying for an insanity plea. “You think I’m insane?”

“That’s not for me to say, Mr. Guadalupe, that’s for the doctors to say. But the upshot is that if they do think so you’ll spend your sentence at the Solomon Center instead of prison.”

End Issue #34