Absolute Zero

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--- (link: "Jump to Chapter")[Jump to Chapter [[1|Page 3]] | [[2|Page 9]] | [[3|Page 14]] | [[4|Page 19]] | [[5|Page 24]] | [[6|Page 29]] | [[7|Page 34]] | [[8|Page 39]] | [[9|Page 44]] | [[10|Page 49]] | [[11|Page 54]] | [[12|Page 59]] | [[13|Page 64]] | [[14|Page 69]] | [[15|Page 74]] | [[16|Page 79]] | [[17|Page 84]] | [[18|Page 89]] | [[19|Page 94]] | [[20|Page 99]] | [[21|Page 104]] | [[22|Page 109]] | [[23|Page 114]] | [[24|Page 119]] | [[25|Page 124]] ] Absolute Zero © 2012-(current-date:) Jon "the Red" Farrar (link:"https://jontheredrc.itch.io/")[(open-url: "https://jontheredrc.itch.io/")] <a href='https://ko-fi.com/F1F2YFAE' target='_blank'><img height='36' style='border:0px;height:36px;' src='https://az743702.vo.msecnd.net/cdn/kofi2.png?v=2' border='0' alt='Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com' /></a>

<center> ## ABSOLUTE ZERO ### by Jon Farrar ## [[Begin|Page 1]]</center>

<center> Page 1 </center> “Look, Bob,” Nicole reasoned as she crossed her arms, “we both know why I’m here and what you have to say about it. Can we just cut to the chase or what?” Soon, her feet were up on the desk before her. “You should address me as ‘Principal Burton’,” the desk’s owner sighed, “and you definitely should refrain from putting your feet up on my desk.” “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just move things along.” Nicole paused to wipe a spot of blood from her right knuckle. “I mean, I beat up Cindy Callahan in the girls’ bathroom, and you’re not going to accept her talking smack as an acceptable reason to put her in her place.” Bob removed his glasses. “Nicole, you put her in the hospital.” “I gave her plenty of fair warning…I told her that if she didn’t shut up about how she’s one of the rich girls and I’m not, I was going to tear her spine out. She’s lucky her boyfriend came by to save her before I could figure out how.” “And now he’s in the hospital too.” Nicole took a moment to stare at her fists in admiration. “Yeah, he took a little longer, but I brought him down eventually. If he’s going to take her side even after she threw all that class trash around…that’s just what he gets.” Bob slowly shook his head. “What about Jimmy Sadler? Why did you hit him?” Nicole shrugged. “He was in the way,” she explained. “You’ve seen me operate before, so I know you know how it goes…I always end up making an example out of one of them, just to get it to stop…” Nicole’s sentence was briefly dropped in favor of brushing a lock of brown hair out of her eyes. “…and then I make an example out of two or three more, just to make myself feel better.” “Nicole, if you’re being harassed by the ‘rich girls’ here, you should bring it up with an adult,” Bob rebuked. Nicole laughed at the suggestion. “Not only does nothing happen, but even if it did, it wouldn’t be very satisfying. Maybe, if all the adults in my life weren’t idiots, they’d get something done.” “Well, in that case, let me be the first adult to accomplish something. Nicole Ellery, you’re suspended from River City High School for the rest of the week. I don’t want to see you anywhere near school property until Monday.” “Hey, whatever.” Nicole rose to her feet, her arms still crossed. “It’s pretty hot and stuffy in this office anyway. So can I just leave now, or what?” “If you know what assignments your teachers are expecting over the next few days, I suppose you can move right along. The sooner you leave, the better.” Nicole raised her eyebrow, briefly pondering the possibility that her principal was afraid of her. She quickly dropped this train of thought in favor of evacuating the school as soon as possible. “Good riddance. It’ll be nice to take a break from the people around here.” [[Next|Page 2]]

<center> Page 2 </center> Much to Nicole’s chagrin, the situation at home was not much of an improvement. “I can’t believe they grounded me,” she growled into her homework assignment. “Probably just because they didn’t want to hear it.” She could still hear bits and pieces of her parents’ sentences as they carried on the argument she had started; the thin walls of the trailer did little to block the ruckus they raised. It was nearly impossible to focus on her homework, but if there was something else for her to do, she didn’t know about it. “Unconfirmed reports of Crosses have been found as far back as the Venomous Age,” Nicole read aloud in a desperate bid to drown out the bickering taking place just one room away, “when the world was blanketed in the radioactive fallout of a biological weapon; the descriptions given of so-called ‘Abnormals’ occasionally match the modern human-animal hybrids to which the word ‘Cross’ refers to…” Nicole let out a loud groan and slammed her hands on the pages of the textbook, her tolerance for its drab writing style having run out before the end of the first sentence. “This book sucks!” she cried. “Why do I even have to learn about this, anyway? Pretty much all the Crosses live in Cross Town…that, and the fact that they’re a cross between a human and an animal…that’s why they’re called Crosses!” Nicole slammed the book shut. “I know this crap already…! Besides, hardly any of these people hang out here in River City.” Nicole’s head turned to the window as her train of thought took a sudden turn. “Dammit, why’s it so hot in here?” Nicole looked down to see that her hand had left a sweaty mark on the cover of the textbook. Disgusted, she shook her head and moved to the window to open it. The window refused to move, however; Nicole’s strength did little against the years of rust that had accumulated along the edges. She barely restrained herself from punching right through the glass, choosing instead to grab her textbook and throw it against the floor. Her throw was lubricated by the immense amounts of sweat, turning her hands into a veritable waterslide for the book. Nicole barely had time to contemplate the reason behind her problems with the heat before a sudden exhaustion took hold of her, sending her collapsing to her knees. “Why…am I so…hot?” she asked herself in her final moments of consciousness, before finally landing face-first on her own textbook with a thud. [[Previous|Page 1]] | [[Next|Page 3]]

<center> Page 3 </center> ## Chapter 1 “I’ve heard of the cold shoulder, but this is ridiculous…!” “Marcus! What a thing to say, when our own daughter is…oh, Nicole, how did this happen to you?” Her parents’ voices continued to bicker, sounding so distant all the while. Nicole wanted to break up their argument, but the oppressive heat all around her seemed to sap all will from her. She couldn’t even open her eyes to see why her father was cracking jokes about the cold, or move her lips to ask such a question. In her state, all she could do was lay there, in some bizarre state that made her wish she could be in a coma instead. However, the dark turn her parents’ bickering had taken snapped her out of her self-pity in a hurry. “…just stop?” her father’s voice asked, deep yet gentle. “You mean pull the plug on our own daughter?” her mother’s shrill voice asked. “We can’t keep this up, and we both know it…we can’t afford to keep the heat so high in her room.” “But the doctor said it would help…!” “The doctor…might have been wrong. Maybe there’s nothing we can do.” “But Marcus…this could just take some time…what if she needs a whole year…?” “Then she’ll be dead by August, when we can’t come up with the money to keep this room heated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There’s no way we can pay the heating oil company that much…” Nicole heard her mother sobbing, though it gradually faded as though she were somehow going even farther away. If she could only explain to them that she felt hot, then perhaps their argument wouldn’t even need to occur. However, the intense heat seemed to hold her there, stunned, like the sweatiest bout of sleep paralysis she had ever had. “I’m sorry, Nicole,” her father’s voice suddenly mumbled, “but…” His sentence was left unfinished, but Nicole could guess his heavy-hearted decision all too easily. To her, it felt like the right thing to do, but just in case, she allowed herself to rest, since even the minor eavesdropping she had partaken of was an exhausting endeavor in her condition. [[Previous|Page 2]] | [[Next|Page 4]]

<center> Page 4 </center> Nicole awakened after an amount of time she dared not guess. Her nerves felt totally shot in both a figurative and literal sense; not only was she nervous about what had happened, but her sense of touch also seemed to be completely failing her. Even as she threw aside her covers and rose to her feet, she couldn’t feel the fabric of the blankets against her fingers or the thick red carpet under her feet. She quickly decided that her mirror should be the first thing she consulted, just to make sure that her limbs were even still there. By the light of the moon, Nicole navigated her cluttered floor and made her way to the large rectangular mirror mounted on her wall. What met her eyes in the mirror was a vaguely familiar form, in shape if not in hue. Nicole gasped as her brilliant blue eyes stared back at her from the mirror, partially obscured by the wavy brown hair that came down around her shoulders. All of that seemed to be normal, but the skin around those eyes was anything but; her skin had taken on a ghastly pallor, an unusually pale hue that seemed to be threatening to turn invisible should its usual color fade to white any more than it already had. However, her remaining tests seemed to succeed just fine; she made a conscious effort to wave her skinny arms in front of her face, and the Nicole in the mirror did exactly as she had willed. “Everything still works fine,” she muttered to herself, proving that even her voice was fully functional. “I don’t think I’m dead…” “Marcus, is it cold in here?” Nicole’s mother asked from the other side of the wall. Nicole’s eyes instinctively yanked themselves toward the door; from that perspective, her mother’s voice had come from the parents’ room to Nicole’s right, and the thermostat protruded from the wall dead ahead. Nicole certainly didn’t feel cold; she didn’t feel anything, but she severely doubted that heat was going to do her any good after what she had been through before. The reply she heard from her father only confused her more. “…now that you mention it, yeah,” he mumbled. “Weird.” “I’m going to go turn up the heat, alright, honey?” Nicole’s dad seemed suddenly panicked. “No, I’ll get it.” [[Previous|Page 3]] | [[Next|Page 5]]

<center> Page 5 </center> As she heard her father make the trek from his bedroom to the thermostat, Nicole did the only thing she could think to do. With a gasp, she ran to the thermostat herself, making it just in time to catch her father’s hand by the wrist before it could crank up the heat. “Don’t, Dad,” she pleaded. Her father’s only reply was to scream and sprint back to his room. “What’s the matter with you, honey?” Nicole’s mother asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost…!” “I think I did, Suzanne,” he replied, still breathing heavily. Soon, Nicole saw her mother stride confidently out of the bedroom, and in about the same amount of time, Suzanne seemed to see Nicole. An ear-piercing shriek confirmed the visual contact, and both parents were hiding in their bedroom in the blink of an eye. “W-w-why is she a ghost?” “I don’t know, honey! I didn’t even think that she could even be a ghost…” “Does this mean Nicole is dead? Does this mean she’s angry at us? What did we do?” Before long, Nicole was fed up with her parents’ sniveling, and opened the door to their room, where they huddled together on the floor behind the bed. “I’m not dead,” she growled at them, despite not being sure of that fact herself. “A ghost wouldn’t be able to open a door, would it?” “I’ve never seen a ghost,” her mother admitted, “so I wouldn’t know.” “What if you’re a zombie?” her father blurted, nearly causing himself to scream in the process. “Your hand…it was so cold!” “Marcus, she is not a zombie!” Suzanne walked over and held her hands together in front of her chest. “Besides, I doubt she’s that cold. It’s just the building being cold playing tricks on your—“ As Suzanne gestured wildly during her ranting, one of her hands happened to brush against Nicole’s arm, causing the woman to shriek in surprise. “That is not the building!” [[Previous|Page 4]] | [[Next|Page 6]]

<center> Page 6 </center> “Am I really that cold?” Nicole wondered aloud. She briefly reached to touch her own arm, but she quickly remembered her own numbness and ceased the futile exercise. “I can’t feel a thing.” “Yes, Nicole…you’re absolutely freezing! In fact…look! Around your feet!” Nobody had noticed it up to that point, but a white dust had gathered in a small circle around Nicole’s feet. “That’s snow, isn’t it?” Nicole ran her fingers through the white dust, collecting enough of it in her hands to form a small ball. “…this is snow, alright. It sticks together like snow, anyway; I can’t feel how cold it is for myself.” “You’re that cold,” Nicole’s father muttered, mostly for his own sake. “Yeah, Dad, I kinda guessed that. So…what, can I even do homework like this? I have a report on the history of Crosses due, don’t I?” Nicole’s mother slowly shook her head, finally daring to approach her daughter. “Nicole, it’s been a month,” she stated solemnly. “It’s June. Don’t you remember?” Nicole scratched her head. “Um…I remember starting to write my report, but I was too hot to focus. After that…um…yeah, it’s kind of a blur.” Nicole’s mother raised a hand, clearly torn between comforting her daughter and not freezing. “We turned on the heat in your room, but you were still cold…so we wrapped you up in some heavy blankets. After a while, you just sort of…stopped moving. We asked the doctor about it, and he said to keep the heat applied, but you didn’t show any signs of moving.” “I did hear you and Dad talking sometimes…but it was a lot of work to focus on you. I was too hot to do anything. I couldn’t even move.” Nicole sighed. “I heard you give up on me, Dad.” “That was a week ago,” Marcus spat. “Like that’s the point…!” Nicole roared. She shrieked as a sudden weight filled her hand, her fingers instinctively gripping the foreign object. She looked down at her hands to find a club made entirely of ice in her pale knuckles, just waiting to be cracked over someone’s head. “Funny…I was just hoping for something I could smack you upside the head with.” [[Previous|Page 5]] | [[Next|Page 7]]

<center> Page 7 </center> Nicole was surprised and scared by the appearance of this club, but such feelings were quickly lost in the animosity she held toward her father. Her anger tended to drown out every other emotion or thought when it spiked, and confronting her father on the issue of euthanizing her made her angrier than she'd ever been. “Nicole Marie Ellery!” her mother screeched. “How dare you even think of hitting your own father with that…that ice thing! Where did you get that, anyway?” Nicole released the angriest shrug she’d ever performed. “Mom, I don’t know! I was just thinking about hitting Dad over the head with something, and…I guess I must have conjured this thing up by accident! It’s not like I know what’s going on any better than you do, you know? Don’t yell at me like I know what I’m doing!” Suzanne threw her hands skyward in anger. “I don’t know what you expected, Nicole…I’m a little emotional over the fact that my only daughter is some sort of human popsicle! And don’t you think about hitting your father…I bet he turned down the heat when I left the room, and that’s why you’re even awake right now!” “Because my own dad tried to kill me…yeah, real nice thought to wake up to!” Nicole stared down at her hands this time, marveling as a glittery white wind flowed around her knuckles to materialize the icy weapons she had been wishing for. “Brass knuckles,” she muttered to herself in satisfaction. “Well, I guess…ice knuckles…but…whatever, they’ll do.” “Nicole, what are you doing now?” her father asked, taking a defensive position on the far side of the room. “Getting the hang of…whatever you call being able to make stuff out of ice like that!” Nicole absentmindedly tossed her icy club over her shoulder, wincing as it shattered against the wall behind her. Undeterred by her own lack of focus, she continued to defend her situation against her parents. “If I’m going to be able to do stuff like that, I should at least figure out how, so I don’t hurt someone by accident, right?” “And hurting someone on purpose is better?” her mother accused, attempting to wrench the frigid weapons from Nicole’s grasp. [[Previous|Page 6]] | [[Next|Page 8]]

<center> Page 8 </center> “Mom, I didn’t say I was going to use any of this stuff,” Nicole clarified, keeping her mind well away from making any weapons that might ward her mother off. “Why are you always on my case like this? You know what you are? You’re a real thorn in—oh crap.” Before Nicole could warn her mother of the thought that had just entered her head, Suzanne’s palms were stabbed by a series of short spikes that had grown from Nicole’s cold version of brass knuckles. Everyone present fell into a panic, screaming at the blood, the ice, and each other, to the point where they had trouble forming actual words. The emergence of Nicole’s glacial gift had effectively reduced her and her parents into loudly bellowing nonsense at one another, to the point where only the rising of the sun reminded anyone present of what time it was; even this was ignored, however, as all three people present seemed to have plenty of energy to dedicate to the shouting match. ## End of Chapter 1 [[Previous|Page 7]] | [[Next|Page 9]]

<center> Page 9 </center> ## Chapter 2 Even after three days, the situation hadn’t improved at all. Nicole’s bizarre frigidity still baffled her and her parents, and it was all too common for fights to start over the situation; things only got worse during the times when Nicole would accidentally conjure an icy weapon in her hands. It was hard to control her powers, especially since a single violent thought was enough to trigger them, and her parents’ tendency to freak out only served to clash with her irritability more often. On the fourth day, Suzanne seemed to have found a solution to the problem thanks to an advertisement during the evening news. Nicole was quarantined to eat dinner by herself, and waiting for her parents to finish eating always left her hungry, so she almost didn’t notice the advertisement through her own ravenous eating. The message of the commercial caught her interest soon enough, however. “Is your son or daughter currently exhibiting strange behaviors?” a mustachioed man in a suit asked the viewers at home, including Nicole’s mother. “Have they suddenly developed supernatural powers you can’t seem to understand?” “Yes,” Suzanne shrieked at the TV. “Exactly!” Nicole had inherited most of this woman’s appearance, though the mother’s flowing brown locks had long been completely gray. Other than that, many of her features seemed to have been copy-pasted from mother to daughter; the narrow nose, blue eyes, even the height of the two women sat at the identical benchmark of six feet and two inches. Unfortunately for the both of them, it had seemed like anger problems were hereditary as well. “This may be the result of an improperly-handled chemical, and you and your family may be entitled to join a class-action lawsuit currently underway. For more details, simply call 1-800-279-5861. That number again is 1-800-279-5861.” Nicole watched on from the kitchen as the commercial interlaced its message with pictures of oil tankers and children levitating or spewing fire from their hands. She could tell from a glance that the so-called powers on display were actually just badly-done video editing to make ordinary toddlers appear to be super-powered freaks. Nonetheless, her mother was sold on the idea, and was soon running out to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall. “1-800-279-5861,” she mumbled to herself as she jabbed her long, bony index finger into each button. As Nicole continued eating in morbid silence, she listened to her mother’s end of the phone conversation. “Yes, that’s right…we don’t know what’s happened to her. It’s my daughter, Nicole. Nicole Ellery. We live on Main Street on the outskirts of River City…huh, so that truck from the commercial did pass down these streets. Our…our address? Alright…we’re at 357 Main Street. What? You’re coming over now to discuss the case? No, I don’t mind…it’s all just so sudden…!” [[Previous|Page 8]] | [[Next|Page 10]]

<center> Page 10 </center> Nicole couldn’t bear to listen to the rest of her mother’s phone call, and waited until she heard the phone being hung up to explain why. “Did you just sell me out?” she snapped, whirling around in her seat the instant her mother was done with the phone. “Nicole, it’s not that,” Suzanne began. “This is the first step to getting your father and I some help with this problem!” “Sure, and now this ice stuff is nothing but one big problem for you. Well, gee, I guess I’m real sorry for inconveniencing you like this.” Nicole’s sarcasm didn’t last long, however. “How do you think I feel, Mom? I spent a month in bed, suffering, and when I wake up, I’m so cold that it’s literally snowing around me! I think I’m the one that has it worse…don’t you?” “Just stop being such a drama queen, will you? This lawsuit thing, it will get us some money back, at least…maybe we’ll even get free care for you!” Before Nicole could accuse her mother of anything else, there was a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” Marcus announced. He was a frail-looking man that even managed to be shorter than his own daughter, and his short blond hair did nothing to rectify the situation; in fact, it was cut in that same embarrassing bowl fashion that a little boy might end up with if his mother was too intent on saving money to go to the barber’s. Therefore, when he feebly summoned Nicole with a whimper, his fear barely managed to surprise her. What did shock her, on the other hand, was the pair of soldiers standing in the doorway, dressed in identical dark red uniforms. Their helmets were semi-spheres that menaced with a small black spike on top, and the machine guns in their hands were even more menacing. “Nicole Ellery?” one of the soldiers barked. “You’re coming with us.” [[Previous|Page 9]] | [[Next|Page 11]]

<center> Page 11 </center> Who are you?” she asked, her body already telling her what was about to happen next. “Your worst enemy, if you keep resisting,” the other soldier replied as the two of them took aim with their machine guns. Marcus shrieked and fled, and Nicole listened angrily as his footsteps carried him into his bedroom. “Do not resist us, Nicole Ellery.” Nicole was not about to take such an order, however, and she let the soldiers know this by freezing the water in the air around her hands, granting her the same cold club she had made when she first realized her powers. She swung it in an arc in front of her, knocking aside one of the soldiers’ guns. The other soldier only had enough time to firmly grasp his own weapon before Nicole’s club continued on to smash against it; the club shattered from the impact, but the jarring of the gun combined with stray ice shards from the club stabbing his hands caused the soldier to release his grip nonetheless. In the same motion, Nicole spun herself around and coated her fist with a layer of ice just in time to deliver a fierce turn punch, sending one of the soldiers doubling back. A baseball slide sent her between the legs of the other soldier, and before anyone knew what was happening, Nicole had taken off, sprinting toward the inviting beacon of River City’s bright lights. [[Previous|Page 10]] | [[Next|Page 12]]

<center> Page 12 </center> After what felt like hours, Nicole finally stopped to catch her breath. For all the people she had freaked out during her sprint through the city, none of them seemed to be in league with the soldiers that had shown up on her doorstep. Her feet had carried her into an unfamiliar part of town, and now that she could focus on where she was, it was soon clear why. “This place is a dump,” she said as she surveyed the broken windows and dimly-lit alleyways of the River City ghetto. A seedy-looking character in a trenchcoat leaned against a streetlight, hands in his pockets. Nicole didn’t dare watch him long enough to confirm her suspicion that he was there to deal drugs, but the choice was quickly taken out of her hands. As she stood in the shadows of an abandoned high-rise apartment complex, a bizarre force suddenly clamped over her mouth, preventing her from screaming as it dragged her backwards through the alleyway. “Let go of me!” she cried, the invisible gag heavily distorting and hushing her screams. No matter how much she struggled in this strange grip, she could tell that she couldn’t possibly break free. About halfway through the alleyway, however, the force stopped tugging her backwards, instead content to hold her in place. “Ye’re a live one, Sheila,” a disembodied voice remarked, unnervingly close to her ear. “My name’s not Sheila,” Nicole corrected the voice, the restraint on her mouth having been lifted. “But who the hell are you?” “Crikey, can’t ye just calm down for a second? I’m just like ye, an’ if ye’ll gimme a chance to explain, ye’ll see we aren’t much different. Can I get ye to ‘old still long enough to watch one simple thing?” “I doubt it…!” Even as she refused, she froze the air around her hands to give herself a thick layer of ice, finding it far simpler to conjure than the club she had been swinging around. “You’re just one of them!” “One of…” The voice began clicking its tongue in pity, assuming it even had a tongue. “…ye mean the soldier-types? Red uniforms, big guns? Yer parents called the ‘otline, didn’t they? 1-800-279-5861?” Despite the more cordial tone the voice had taken, Nicole refused to let down her guard. “How do you know all this?” she asked. “My parents called the ‘otline too. Name’s Steven. Now, I’m gonna let ye go, an’ if ye wanna run outta this alleyway an’ get caught by the soldiers, go ‘ave at it. If ye wanna learn more about yerself an’ the fellas chasing ye, I suggest ye turn around.” Nicole felt the presence that had been holding her in place subside in an instant, and instinctively took a couple steps ahead. Indecision rooted her there, however, unable to turn around and unable to leave the entire experience behind her. After a few minutes of thought, she shook her head. “I’ll hear you out, I guess,” she resigned as she spun around on her heels. “Good choice, Sheila.” [[Previous|Page 11]] | [[Next|Page 13]]

<center> Page 13 </center> Nicole watched the scene before her in confusion, entirely unsure what she was supposed to be seeing. The alleyway she had been dragged into was illuminated by a single light, its dim beam directly focused on the ground in front of the door it stood guard over. Before her very eyes, a boy appearing to be about her age stepped into the light, and his spiky jet-black hair was soon shining under the light. He dressed simply, in a black t-shirt and black jeans, and his overall build suggested the presence of powerful muscles despite his lean limbs. “I told ye I’m Steven,” he continued, his voice obviously the same as the disembodied one Nicole had heard before, “but I didn’t catch your name. Just that it isn’t Sheila.” “Nicole,” she replied. She trusted Steven enough to offer him a handshake, but he shook his head. “Ye’ll have to come into the light for that…ye see, I noticed ye have a thing for the cold, so ye might understand when I say that I don’t quite ‘ave the ‘ang of my powers either.” Nicole had already formulated a guess as to his powers, but found herself unable to resist confirming her guess. “What’s your power?” she asked, striding toward the light despite her uncertainty. “Why, I blend into the shadows, of course.” To prove his point, Steven jammed one of his hands outside the cone of light he stood under, only for it to disappear almost immediately. “As long as there’s no light directly on me, I can go invisible…an’ as of now, I will. If I can control it, ‘ow to do something like that ‘asn’t occurred to me.” Steven’s hand reappeared under the light as he opened the door that was there, leading into the abandoned high-rise. “Come ‘ave a chat with my friends, if ye like.” “Alright, but just give me a reason, and…” In lieu of finishing her sentence with words, Nicole smashed her arctic fists to against a nearby trash can. “You got that?” “I’m sure ye won’t ‘ave to do a thing like that…especially after such a fair warning.” Steven chuckled to himself and entered the door, running up a flight of creaky stairs in the process. ## End of Chapter 2 [[Previous|Page 12]] | [[Next|Page 14]]

<center> Page 14 </center> ## Chapter 3 Nicole hadn’t expected Steven to move with such speed, and it was all she could do just to match her new acquaintance’s pace. After six floors of stairs, he suddenly veered into a narrow hallway. As Nicole caught her breath, Steven explained why the two of them just ran up six flights of stairs in a dusty old building filled with cobwebs and faded white wallpaper. “You’re not the only one that ran away from those soldiers, Nicole,” Steven said as he wrenched open a door to his left. Nicole followed him into a cramped apartment currently inhabited by three squatters sitting around a table, all of them teenagers. “This ‘ere’s Nicole,” Steven announced, appearing and disappearing in time with the room’s flickering light. “Just found ‘er running from the soldiers.” The squatters looked up from their table, which Nicole could now see was laid out with a variety of food from the local fast food chain, Merv’s Burger Joint. One girl, with short blond hair standing on end, was the first to tear her attention away from the food. She was dressed in a pink tank top, blue jean shorts, and had a body type that made such clothing even less modest than it would have been on a body with less curves. “Yo, I’m Sam,” she greeted as her hazel eyes scanned Nicole, her voice tough and tomboyish. Her slightly chubby face twisted into a frown as the light flickered overhead. “Ugh, damn bulb…” Without warning, Sam had carried her chair under the light and unscrewed the light bulb, and as she stood on the chair, Nicole’s eyebrow raised in confusion at the sight of the yellow rubber rain boots on Sam’s feet. Soon, Sam’s entire body began to crackle and glow with electricity as she recharged the light bulb then and there, to Nicole’s surprise. When Sam returned the light bulb to its place in the ceiling, the light was brighter than ever before, and the flickering had ceased. “I didn’t know that was possible,” Nicole muttered. “My powers…?” “No, charging a light bulb like that.” Nicole felt rather desensitized to the various powers on display at this point; her capacity to be surprised had been sapped by the discovery of her own powers, and what little wonder that remained had been snatched away by Steven’s entrance. Sam chuckled. “You got spunk, Nicole. You’re alright.” Nicole flashed her new friend a toothy grin. “Thanks. You don’t seem so bad yourself.” [[Previous|Page 13]] | [[Next|Page 15]]

<center> Page 15 </center> The boy at the table rose to his feet, his skin dark and his limbs long. A pair of green eyes shone out through a mess of black hair that fell haphazardly around his face. “De name is Keno,” he introduced himself. “Pleasure meetin’ you, mon.” “Hey Keno,” Nicole replied. She thought about offering a handshake, but it was only now that she remembered how cold to the touch she was. Before she could even ask her next question, Keno seemed ready to answer it. “Me power? It be mind-readin’. I t’ink it’s awful…I hear thoughts all de time…” Nicole cringed. “And I thought I had it rough. Hearing everyone’s thoughts, all the time, with no way to block any of it out…that’s gotta suck.” “You don’t know de half of it, Nicole. Half de time, people don’t t’ink full thoughts, but even dose fragments…dey make it so I can barely hear me’self t’inkin’, or anyone talkin’.” Keno shook his head. “I t’ink I need an aspirin.” “On it,” the last of the squatters blurted. As she rose to her feet, Nicole found herself suddenly reexamining her own definition of the word “skinny”, because this new acquaintance was quite possibly the thinnest girl she’d ever seen. She had short red hair atop a face full of freckles, and her green eyes were narrowed into a look of smug bliss. Before Nicole could ask her for her name or power, she bolted into a nearby bathroom so fast that Nicole could have easily missed the entire trip had she blinked just once. “That’s Sonya,” Steven explained as Nicole’s eyes stayed transfixed on the girl, carelessly tossing bottles from the medicine cabinet over the bathroom sink. “She runs an’ jumps…an’ that’s about it, really.” Sonya nodded in satisfaction as she snatched one particular medicine bottle, and ran back into the room just as fast as she had left. “Hey, no! I super run and jump. Big difference. Duh. Super-strength in the legs. Good stuff.” Her beanpole of a body suddenly swiveled in Nicole’s direction, and a gap-toothed grin spread across her face. “Nicole, huh? Cool stuff. Glad to meet you! You’ll fit in real well here. You’re hiding out with us, right?” [[Previous|Page 14]] | [[Next|Page 16]]

<center> Page 16 </center> “Live here?” Nicole stammered. She hadn’t thought about where she would go with those soldiers on her tail, but she still somehow expected the answer to be something other than “a dilapidated apartment”. Either way, she certainly didn’t want to see her parents. “Of course I’ll stay…if that’s alright with you guys. Anything's better than living with my parents, right?” Sonya gave her reply in between massive handfuls of fries and a giggling fit. “Of course it’s fine! We don’t turn anyone down. We know how you feel! We’re in the same situation. Where are you from?” Nicole hesitated; she had told girls of her background before, and it had mostly brought scorn and laughter down upon her. Then again, these strangers had never seen Nicole at school, nor had she seen them, so she couldn’t shake the possibility of them being upperclassmen; they might be mature enough to hear the truth. “Hey, it’s alright, mon,” Keno piped up. “Your mind’s a mess, but I t’ink I heard enough. Why would anyone tease a t’ing like you just because you live in a trailer park?” Nicole covered her temples with her hands. “Dude,” she muttered, “this mind-reading stuff is getting kinda creepy.” “Sorry, Nicole, but you were wiggin’ out…your t’oughts was screamin’ out above everyone else’s idle chatter.” Keno shrugged. “You know I can’t help but hear it.” “A trailer park?” Steven mused. “That wouldn’t ‘elp much…a thing like you in a place like that…” “Of course my parents had no idea what to do with me!” Nicole screamed. “Just look at me! I was supposed to go to college…I was supposed to get the entire family out of this rut…but now look where I am! I’m in some condemned piece of shit building hiding from…I don’t even know who they are!” Before she knew it, Nicole was sobbing hysterically and running into the apartment across from the gang’s dinner party. With a great scream, she slammed the door of the apartment and threw her back against it, slowly sliding into a sitting position as she cried into her hands. [[Previous|Page 15]] | [[Next|Page 17]]

<center> Page 17 </center> After a few minutes of unabated sobbing, Nicole heard a knock at the door. “C’mon,” a low female voice begged from the hallway. “Get outta there.” “I don’t wanna, Sam,” Nicole whined, staring at her own hands as an icy wind blew snow around them. “I just…want a minute alone.” “You’ve had, like, five minutes alone. Can I at least come in?” Nicole silently peeled herself away from the apartment door and quietly opened it, being sure to slam it shut once more when Sam finally came inside. “I don’t have it much better, you know…you know how I first found out about my powers?” Nicole wiped a tear from her cheek. “How…?” “I gave my mom a hug…and accidentally electrocuted her to death.” Sam rolled her eyes. “And even that’s not so bad…my boyfriend came down with his own powers, but he only tried to use them once.” The two girls slowly sank against the peeling wallpaper of the apartment room. “I got about half of him into a bucket," Sam continued, "before I realized it was because he had teleported…and his molecules came back together all wrong on the other side.” Nicole recoiled in shock. “What happened to him?” “Well, he was actually trying to teleport to the classroom next to mine, but…come on, the Earth spins so fast that he’s lucky to have still been in the school at all. So anyway, he teleports in, and…” Sam’s hand suddenly jumped to cover her mouth. “…you don’t wanna know how that went," she gasped into her hand. "I’m gonna throw up just thinking about it. One minute, he was late for class, and the next…” Sam made good on her promise, suddenly wrenching forward to release a short stream of vomit. “…yeah, he kinda looked like that.” Sam had a finger pointed at the puddle of vomit before her. “But redder.” Nicole very nearly ended up vomiting herself, but somehow kept her composure. “Gross,” she mused. Sam shook her head. “Ya think?” [[Previous|Page 16]] | [[Next|Page 18]]

<center> Page 18 </center> Then, in the face of Nicole’s expectations, she began to laugh at her own obvious comment, and at Sam’s equally obtuse comeback. Her laughter proved contagious, and Sam was soon having a good chuckle herself. As their laughter abated, the two of them rose to their feet and turned to face one another. “Thanks, Sam,” Nicole gushed. Her arms came up to give Sam a hug, but between Sam’s story and her own freezing body temperature, she quickly decided against it. “No prob.” The two of them exited the apartment, only to come face-to-face with the other squatters. “She’s fine now,” Sam announced to them. “Good,” Sonya chirped, her voice quick and cheerful. “Now then…hungry? Come on, Nicole! Have some food! We got Merv’s!” Nicole nodded, and the squatters led her to a seat of her own at the table, where a spare burger and half a carton of fries awaited her. “You should eat. Eat a lot! I eat a lot. Look at me! All those calories…whoosh! Gone in a flash when I start using my powers!” Nicole heaved a sigh of relief. “So you’re not anorexic, then,” she muttered. Sonya let out a loud laugh. “Anorexia? I don’t have time for that! We have to keep moving! Keep fighting! Keep eating!” Nicole rolled her eyes. “You say you burn all your energy on your superpowered legs, but you talk faster than anyone I’ve ever seen before, too.” As everyone around her laughed, Nicole jammed a few fries in her mouth. They were a bit cold, and saltier than she had expected, but something about them still felt warm and satisfying to her. “Mm…more love went into these fries than into the supper I ate back home,” she gasped into a burger. “A gift, mon,” Keno explained, trying to sound grandiose. “To our new friend.” Keno’s warm words earned a round of applause from the other squatters. “You guys sure are nice,” Nicole observed, close to crying once again. “And we just met…” “Your folks might ‘ave abandoned you,” Steven growled, “but we won’t. We know ‘ow it feels.” As Nicole continued to eat and socialize with her new friends, she gradually felt the temperature rising. Despite her concerns over her condition and the fact that it should only be getting colder at this hour, she continued to eat and be happy. Halfway through the hamburger, Keno rose from his seat and strutted to the window. With a grunt, he heaved through the massive deposits of rust holding the window shut; Nicole was not the mind reader of the group, so she couldn’t tell if he had done such a thing just to appease her. His sudden onset of shock and panic, however, was unmistakable in its intention. “Fire!” he shouted to the gang. ##End of Chapter 3 [[Previous|Page 17]] | [[Next|Page 19]]

<center> Page 19 </center> ## Chapter 4 Nicole and the rest of the squatters leapt to their feet. “Fire?” Sonya gasped at Keno’s report. “We can’t stay! Gotta move! Come on!” “We ‘ave to stick together!” Steven yelled to what had quickly become an empty doorway. “Crikey, she always…” Steven sighed into his hands. “…well, you ‘eard ‘er, everyone. Let’s move!” Before they could rush to catch up with Sonya, however, she had already reentered the room, her eyes wide with fear. “We can’t go that way! Too much fire!” She began to rapidly pace the hallway, mumbling possible escape plans to herself all the while. “…why don’t we just take the fire escape, then?” Sam quipped. “That’s what it’s there for, ain’t it?” Nicole shrugged and made her way to the window first, and sure enough, a mass of metal along the side of the building provided easy access to the alleyway. She heard the others traverse the fire escape behind her as she focused on making her way down, but at the second story, all she found was another reason to worry. “It’s those soldiers!” she said, as six of them began to circle around the bottom of the fire escape. “Did ye lead them here?” Steven’s voice wondered aloud, though his physical form had since disappeared into the shadow of the alleyway. “No!” A thick layer of ice formed over Nicole’s knuckles, ready to punch Steven’s lights out for such an accusation. To prove her point and give the ice on her knuckles a use, she flung herself over the guard rail of the fire escape before she could convince herself how crazy it was. The soldier beneath her stared up, mouth agape, as she put her fist down and let that hit the poor sap first. Ice shards radiated outward from the point of impact, a frozen ripple in a pool of violence. The soldiers had been far too surprised by such a maneuver to do anything, but once the ice settled, they readied enormous riot shields to prepare themselves for what came next. [[Previous|Page 18]] | [[Next|Page 20]]

<center> Page 20 </center> Sonya was the first to reach the ground beside Nicole, and she swiftly entered a fighting stance Nicole had never seen before; her left leg was lifted slightly, and her fists were in front of her face as Nicole had expected, but Sonya’s knuckles were pointed skyward. “We’re surrounded!” the lanky girl noted. “We have to fight! Break through!” With a fierce yell, she leapt toward one of the remaining soldiers, knocking a flying knee attack against his shield. She continued to hammer away at the shield with elbow and knee strikes, but her preferred move seemed to be a kick intended more for pushing her victim backwards than for actually hurting him. One of these kicks in particular suddenly caused the soldier to lose his balance and fall on his back, leaving him vulnerable to Sonya’ s more powerful attacks. Steven briefly appeared in the moonlight behind the soldier, his smug grin seeming to take the credit for the soldier’s fall. Meanwhile, Sam and Keno had made their way to the ground as well. “Stand back,” Sam warned, and Nicole and Keno took that as their cue to duck into the hole in the human wall that Sonya had opened up with her strong and slender legs. Sam began to glow, and sparks of electricity began to erupt all over her body. Her powers scared the crowd of soldiers away from drawing in close themselves, afraid to feel Sam’s lightning arc from her to them in an attempt to reach the ground. As Nicole and Keno approached Sonya and Steven, however, more soldiers appeared before them, armed with smaller riot shields and truncheons. “No guns?” Keno observed. His eyes locked onto Nicole just as the soldiers began to charge toward Sonya and Steven. “What’choo waitin’ for, Nicole? Go and fight…!” “Gladly,” Nicole snarled. She was wearing her pent-up aggression on her sleeve, as well as on her fists in the form of a shining layer of ice, and she certainly didn’t need to be told twice to jump into the fray. With all the things that had happened to her in the past few days, she was more than happy to let off some steam in a little brawl. She had already been prone to starting fistfights at school before this mess began, and these soldiers deserved her wrath far more than any girl at school. [[Previous|Page 19]] | [[Next|Page 21]]

<center> Page 21 </center> Before she could enter the fray in earnest, however, Sonya’s voice threw her for a loop. “Executioner’s Axe!” the girl shouted, her foot raised above her head. Nicole winced as the foot dropped down onto the nearest soldier’s shoulder, accompanied by a sickening crack. Not content with this victory, Sonya allowed the momentum of her kick to bring her into a frontflip, only to twist around in midair to repeat the same kick, and repeat the same cracking sound as her foot landed on the soldier’s other shoulder, causing him to crumple in a heap on the ground. A second frontflip was followed by the same maneuver, but this time she allowed her foot to strike the pavement as she set her sights on a new target. Chunks of concrete flew up from the point of impact, and barely had time to fall back down before she was on to her next victim. “What the hell was that?” Nicole shrieked to Steven, busy with his own battle. “Oh, we do that all the time,” he replied as he shoved his fist into a soldier’s gut. “Spices things up, it does. If you’re going to fight, might as well yell out something cool for your best attacks, right?” Nicole shrugged and turned her focus back to the task at hand. She railed a fist against the nearest soldier’s riot shield, and as the ice sprayed out from the point of impact, her other fist rocketed through the shimmering spray and caught the solider right in his unprotected liver. As he doubled over in pain, Nicole conjured a baton of her own out of ice and swung it with both hands against the soldier’s temple. “Hey, this is actually kind of fun,” she mused as the soldier spun in place and fell to the ground on his stomach. “Not everyone ‘ere loves to fight…that’s why we made a game out of it with yelling out cool things during attacks!” Steven leapt in place, his legs twisting oddly but eventually kicking out fiercely to both his left and right, catching one incoming enemy in the leg and the other in the shield. “The coolest move with the best battle cry gets a large fry…!” [[Previous|Page 20]] | [[Next|Page 22]]

<center> Page 22 </center> Nicole turned around to check on Sam, and saw her still radiating arcs of lighting to anything that dared be too close and too conductive. Trash cans, discarded window frames, and more were caught up in Sam’s deadly storm, putting on a magnificent light show that intimidated at least half the soldiers present into staying out of the fight. The sound of feet shuffling behind her caused Nicole to freeze up a fistful of pain and swing it around in a fierce turn punch. The attack landed square on the spine of the soldier she had knocked down before, and this attack seemed to be the one that convinced him to stay down. Nicole cracked her knuckles and shook some leftover ice chunks loose from her arms, her eyes quickly picking out a new target. One soldier thought he was going to catch Steven unawares with a back attack, but Nicole quickly turned this strategy against him with a move she had picked up from her parents having watched so many professional wrestling shows. She brought her hands above her head and interlocked her fingers, allowing a huge chunk of ice to form around them. “Hey Sonya!” she called out as she brought the hammer down on the unsuspecting soldier’s head, knocking him unconscious instantly. As the ice erupted outward from the impact in all directions, Nicole crossed her arms in a triumphant pose. “Forget axes…looks like hammers are where it’s at!” Nicole knew deep down that the wrestling shows called her attack a “double axe handle”, but this was a time for action, not semantics. “Holy crap!” Sonya bellowed, her face lighting up with a sinister idea. “Do that again!” A nearby soldier raised his truncheon over his head in order to strike down Sonya, so Nicole picked him as her next target. She repeated her previous preparation, bringing her arms over her head and forming a great icy bludgeon around them. “Here's the hammer!” she shouted as she brought her attack down on the soldier’s arm. As Nicole swung her arms down, she gasped as Sonya’s knee came up to meet them, and both attacks caught the soldier’s arm in a devastating pincer attack. “Anvil Strike!” Sonya shrieked in glee as the soldier dropped his bludgeon and screamed in pain. The two girls looked down upon the soldier as he collapsed to the ground, then up to each other. “That was awesome," their gazes seemed to shout to one another in unison. [[Previous|Page 21]] | [[Next|Page 23]]

<center> Page 23 </center> Keno had stayed very quiet during the entire ordeal, so Nicole turned to see what he was up to. To her relief, it seemed to be the same thing everyone else was up to: using their powers to fend off their assailants and look cool at the same time. Keno gracefully danced around the attacks of two soldiers attacking him at once, an evasiveness Nicole mentally chalked up to the boy’s telepathy. Focusing on two trains of thought at once seemed extremely stressful to Nicole, so it only seemed right to her to dash in and bowl one of the soldiers over with a frigid right cross. “T’anks,” Keno muttered before launching a counteroffensive against the other soldier attacking him. Once again, Nicole assumed his telepathy was what allowed him to throw feints with such startling effectiveness; the mind games that Keno’s fake punches caused seemed deadlier than his actual strikes in Nicole’s eyes. A chuckle slipped from Steven’s lips, and Nicole turned just in time to see him standing in a streetlight, low to the ground as if about to pounce with his eyes on the sky. Nicole turned to see what had him so happy, and quickly guessed that it was the cloud that was about to hide the moon from view. “It’s been fun,” he muttered. “Shadow Dance!” Nicole watched in awe as he disappeared from sight, only for one of the nearby soldiers to wrench and contort from the impact of a flurry of invisible attacks. Occasionally, Steven would reappear under the nearby streetlight, but this seemed to be primarily for show, as his every appearance was accompanied by a flashy roundhouse kick. Steven’s final appearance under the streetlight had him cackling madly as he gently shoved his victim with one hand; the soldier had been beaten so badly by Steven’s illusory assault that he seemed eager to take any chance he could get to fall to the ground, defeated. “Finished already, are we?” Steven taunted. It took a moment for Nicole to notice that they were indeed finished; all of the soldiers still standing were still held back by Sam’s deadly arc radius. Not even that lasted long; Steven stuck his fingers between his lips and produced a high-pitched whistling, apparently Sam’s cue to glow even brighter than ever before. Suddenly, the range of danger she projected dramatically increased, catching the remaining soldiers off-guard with bursts of high voltage, sending them flying backwards from the impact. The squatters used this as their opportunity to flee the scene of the fight, their spirits high from their resounding victory over the enigmatic army. ## End of Chapter 4 [[Previous|Page 22]] | [[Next|Page 24]]

<center> Page 24 </center> ## Chapter 5 The gang’s good mood lasted well into the waterfront district of the city. “Good job, everyone!” Steven congratulated his fellow ruffians. “’opefully, that’ll teach ‘em to think twice before they mess with us!” “That’s nice,” Sonya mumbled. “Hurry up! Let’s get to the judging! Who had the best attack?” “Always in a rush, eh, Sonya?” Steven chuckled, stopping to lean against a railing overlooking the bay. The water was an enormous bowl of inky soup in the darkness of the night, with a single reflection of the full moon floating upon it. “S’pose there’s no trouble in skippin’ ahead a bit. So, who wins it this time?” “Your Shadow Dance thing was neat,” Nicole noted. “It was alright,” Sonya blurted rudely. “We were better! Hammer and Anvil!” “Ya can’t vote for yourself,” Sam reminded her teammate, absentmindedly kicking pebbles under the railing and over the edge. “Even though I totally agree that what you two did was wicked awesome.” “We’ve never had a combination attack like dat,” Keno observed. “I don’t know what de rules are dere. If it makes it easier, most of us are already t’inkin’ Hammer an’ Anvil.” Nicole couldn’t help but feel a bit weird whenever Keno said something about his mind-reading powers; the boy couldn’t help it, but her mind was something she always thought of as the most private of place, with the contents of her mind being for her eyes only. “Even if what Sonya and I did wins, who gets the reward?” Nicole wondered. Keno shrugged. “Don’t matter…I t’ink you two won. We’ll worry ‘bout de reward when de time comes.” “Which reminds me…how did you guys come up with this weird game in the first place? I mean, making rumbles with those soldiers into a sport…” “Steven thought it up,” Sam explained. “He was the only one doing any fighting until he came up with that rule…Sonya taught herself muay thai just to keep herself fed.” “I love fun things!” Sonya exclaimed. “And I love eating!” Sam shook her head. “I don’t think fighting is fun. It just ain’t…” “That’s because you don’t know how! Otherwise, it’s just a test of skill! Your power versus theirs! Bam!” Sonya attacked the air with a roundhouse kick for emphasis. “I never knew how much fun it could be…!” [[Previous|Page 23]] | [[Next|Page 25]]

<center> Page 25 </center> “I’m not buyin’ it.” Sam said with a shrug. “I ain’t sure how much better we are than them.” “Sam, they’re trying to kill us," Sonya replied. We’re just knocking them out cold! That’s different, isn’t it?” “Just knocking them out cold?” Nicole parroted. “Sonya, I’m pretty sure we wrecked that one guy’s arm…” Sonya waved a hand in front of her, swatting Nicole’s concerns into the dust. “Broken bones get better. He’ll be fine! Eventually.” “Sonya’s right,” Steven’s voice agreed, its owner having disappeared into the shadows of the night. “We only do enough ‘arm to make ‘em leave us alone. It ain’t our fault that we’re like this, but they ‘unt us down like animals. If we don’t fight back, we die.” “Besides,” Nicole admitted, “I really needed a good fight to calm me down. I’ve got…anger issues.” “That didn’t look like your first fight, Nicole.” Steven reappeared beneath a beam of moonlight, his eyes narrowed mischievously. “Ye get into fights right often, don’t ye?” Nicole nodded. “A lot of girls give me shit back at school just for who I am…I always end up making an example out of one of them, just to get it to stop.” With a slight blush forming within her cheeks, she added, “And then I make an example out of two or three more, just to make myself feel better.” “They deserve it,” Sonya blithely confirmed. “They sound mean. I’d hit them.” To prove her point, Sonya began practicing her moves on an imaginary opponent. “Sounds rough,” Steven acquiesced, “but not as rough as we’ll ‘ave it if we don’t get some sleep soon. We would’ve ‘ad a good sleep in the apartment there, but now that it’s burnt down—“ Sonya stopped her shadowboxing long enough to interrupt Steven. “Those soldiers…they did it! They deserved what we gave ‘em!” “—as I was sayin’…we’ll ‘ave to sleep under the pier tonight. Should be nice an’ dry under there.” “But it’ll be dirty, won’t it?” Nicole blurted. Steven chuckled. “A little, but would ye rather ‘ave a rest on the sidewalk?” “Good point. Under the pier it is.” [[Previous|Page 24]] | [[Next|Page 26]]

<center> Page 26 </center> Despite Steven’s infallible logic, sleeping on the beach was not an easy task for Nicole. Her sense of touch was still left numb by her own cold air, but she still somehow failed to make herself comfortable. In frustration, she abandoned the group to sit out on top of the pier, only to find that she was not alone. “Can’t sleep either?” Keno asked, his bare feet dangling above the water. Nicole shook her head. “It’s been a long day,” she observed, staring at the stars’ reflections on the water. “I mean, I ran away from home, met you guys, and then there was that sweet fight…I’m too exhausted to sleep, if that makes any sense.” Keno shrugged. “An’ dere’s much on your mind. Den again…dat’s how de nighttime always sounds to me. Remember all de t’ings I told you ‘bout mind-readin’? De incomplete t’oughts, de flurry of activity from all over de place? It’s all worse when dey’re asleep. While de body recharges, de mind discharges.” Nicole shook her head and sat down next to Keno. “I bet. Well, if it’s any consolation, my mind is keeping the both of us awake, not just you.” A hollow laugh forced its way out of Nicole’s lungs. “How long have you guys been doing this? Living on the streets like this, I mean.” “A few months.” Keno briefly rubbed his temples in pain before continuing. “De powers…dere were rumors of dis sort of t’ing happenin’ for a long time now, but a lot more cases have been appearin’ over de past week or so—you, for example.” Nicole nodded. “My parents watched that fighting tournament that happened here awhile back…I saw it all on TV over their shoulders. One of the fighters jumped off the walls, and now that I think about it, I bet Sonya could do the same thing.” “She already has. You t’ought her axe kicks from tonight were scary?” Keno chuckled. “Wait ‘till you see one after she jumps off de wall…” [[Previous|Page 25]] [[Next|Page 27]]

<center> Page 27 </center> Nicole shared in Keno’s laughter. “You’ve all been out here for a few months?” “Not quite,” Keno admitted as he slid slightly closer to Nicole. “Steven’s been out here for two years now…which is weird ‘cause he only got his powers a year and a half ago.” “Has he ever told you why that is?” Nicole asked, subconsciously edging away from Keno’s advance. “Or…has he ever thought about it and you read his mind?” Keno scoffed and turned his head skyward. “I t’ought you didn’t like my mind-readin’.” “It’s pretty weird shit, Keno, but I’m just curious.” “An’ I’m not even dat.” Keno shook his head. “I hear it all, even dough I don’t want to.” Nicole sighed and slapped a hand against her face. “Jeez, Keno, I’m sorry, alright? Don’t act like I’m good enough with words.” Keno nodded. “After hearin’ you talk, I t’ink I understand why you stick to fightin’.” After a brief pause, he sighed and added, “An’ I don’t know dat much ‘bout Steven. He treats us all well, so I don’t worry. I showed up second—Steven found Sam first, an’ Sonya came after me. Sam don’t know anyt’ing ‘bout Steven.” Nicole shivered. “Dude. My mind. Keep out.” “Sorry. It don’t sound much different, you know…you t’inkin’ somet’in’ and sayin’ it sound almost de same. Your t’oughts sound like…everyone’s voice sounds a certain way, but everyone t’inks dey sound different. Your t’oughts sound just like you talkin’, but in de voice you t’ink you have.” “Hm, yeah, I never thought about it that way…though I bet you could tell.” [[Previous|Page 26]] | [[Next|Page 28]]

<center> Page 28 </center> Both vagrants had a good laugh before Nicole thought to ask, “You know, how does it work? Your mind-reading power, I mean. Like, my powers are pretty simple…I’m pretty cold, but then I start thinking about ice and boom, there’s ice. I…wouldn't know the science behind it.” Nicole shrugged. “I guess it’s not that simple after all…but it must be way different to read minds. Like, the whole world must be way different to you.” Keno gripped his head. “It’s hard to explain, but it sure is noisy.” Nicole stared down at her own hands. “It’s hard to explain, but it sure is cold. Yeah, I get what you’re getting at. You can’t explain things any better than I can.” “More or less.” Keno rose to his feet. “Bein’ near you helps my head a bit…must be de cold. I’m off to bed now.” Nicole sighed and stood up as well. “I think I better get some sleep too. Thanks, Keno.” Keno spun around, a confused look on his face. “T’anks for what?” he muttered. Nicole rolled her eyes. “For hanging out with me tonight, dummy. Maybe I can actually get some sleep in with these questions off of my mind.” “You better,” Keno warned her as he leapt off of the pier and onto the beach. “Tomorrow we have to find a new home.” Nicole had been following Keno back down, but she found herself stopping just before the edge of the pier when Keno’s warning reached her. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “Those soldiers finding the hideout…that was my fault, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean to lead them there, but…they followed me, didn’t they? They found your new home and burned it to the ground because they saw me go in there…it’s all my fault.” Keno shrugged. “I heard nothin’ in de soldiers’ t’oughts ‘bout followin’ you to de hideout. How would dey know you would find us, anyway? We’re de ones dat have de superpowers…dey can’t see de future like dat.” Nicole giggled as she leapt down to the beach after Keno. “Good point. Goodnight, Keno.” The talk with Keno proved to be just the thing Nicole needed; sleep came to her much more easily than before. With her primary concerns having been alleviated, there were fewer thoughts left to buzz around in her head to keep herself awake, let alone Keno. As she laid there in the sand, she caught herself starting to worry about where the gang could possibly settle down next, but she quickly shooed the thought from her head. She convinced herself that she’d worry about it tomorrow. A series of waves gently rolling in from the bay finally lulled her into a restful sleep. ## End of Chapter 5 [[Previous|Page 27]] [[Next|Page 29]]

<center> Page 29 </center> ## Chapter 6 A sudden explosion sent Nicole shooting into a sitting position, demolishing any chance she had of getting a full night’s sleep. The rest of the team was already on their feet, peeking their heads up past the beach to the road behind them. Their weary eyes were met with the sight of a car engulfed in fire, with one of the persistent soldiers hanging out of the windshield and cloaked in glass shards and blood. Cries of agony emanated forth from the wreckage, and Nicole could only wonder who was responsible for such a scene. Her question was quickly answered as a black car came racing down the street toward the scene of the crime. This car caught the attention of a bespectacled young man in a black trenchcoat and matching fedora, and as the car came speeding his way, he thrust his fist out toward the incoming vehicle. Suddenly, his fist released a strange appendage, purple and whip-like, which swiftly cracked against the hood of the car and disabled it. Before the car’s occupants could escape, a few more cracks of the odd purple whips caused the car to meet the same fate as the one that had awaked Nicole so quickly. She gasped and ducked as debris flew outward from the blast, spraying the beach with bits of concrete and scrap metal. The whole time, however, she kept her eye on the stranger as he used his trenchcoat to shield himself from the explosion; despite her expectations, such a defense worked perfectly for the odd wanderer. “We seen him before,” Keno explained to Nicole, presumably having raided her thoughts. “We don’t know him, an’ we try to keep our distance.” “I can see why,” Nicole muttered as the mysterious young man wrapped his purple tendrils around a soldier’s neck and threw him skyward. She turned away from the scene just before he hit the ground, but the sickening splat she heard told her all the details she had hoped to remain ignorant of. “What do we do?” [[Previous|Page 28]] | [[Next|Page 30]]

<center> Page 30 </center> “Lay low,” Sonya answered bluntly. “Hide. He’s bad.” To prove Sonya’s point, the stranger’s tendrils wrapped around a soldier’s gun and impaled him on it. “Point taken," Nicole said, her eyes still not leaving him. "I didn’t think it was possible to feel bad for those guys…” “Told you. We’re different. We don’t kill.” “So…what, we’re just going to stay here and watch this?” “What, you wanna make a break for it?” Steven growled. “An’ get caught by ‘im? Not a chance. I don’t wanna end up like those poor bastards.” Unfortunately for Nicole, making a break for it was exactly her plan. With her idea vetoed so swiftly, she had no choice but to stay and bear witness to the carnage playing out on the street in front of her. To her relief, only two more cars of soldiers were dispatched to the scene, leaving the stranger with only two waves of soldiers to dispatch in his brutal manner. Nicole had watched plenty of violent movies and TV shows over her parents’ shoulders, but witnessing such brutalities in person was another thing entirely. Nicole had no remorse when it came to caving a soldier’s face in with her fists; therapeutic properties aside, she believed that they deserved every punch she threw. To maim and kill them in such brutal ways, however, was something that left a bad taste in her mouth. There was no way Nicole could ever excuse tearing a man’s arms off of his body, flinging him into the air, leaving him for dead in the middle of a burning wreck of a car. This was not a scene Nicole ever wanted to see, much less cause. [[Previous|Page 29]] | [[Next|Page 31]]

<center> Page 31 </center> Despite the vagrants’ plan to find a new place to call home, the unexpected appearance of the violent stranger in the trenchcoat was more than enough to dampen their spirits. “Who the hell was that?” Nicole muttered as the five of them sat on the beach. Steven shrugged. “Ye know about as much as we do,” he admitted. “’cept ‘is name. I ‘eard ‘im once…’e was standin’ on a pile of victims, askin’ who else wanted to rumble with ‘Cold-Blooded Cody’.” “Whoever he was, he freaks me out…!” Niocle’s sitting position was the least relaxed out of the five squatters; her knees were pressed against her chest, and her arms were wrapped around her legs to keep it that way. Sam sighed. “Dude, of course you’re freakin’ out,” she reasoned, running a hand through her hair. “You’ve been out here for less than a day. That’s faster than I moved. I’m surprised you didn’t blow your own brains out or whatever.” “Well, yeah, but—” “Beatin’ up dem soldiers made you real happy last night,” Keno interrupted. “Don’t need to read minds to see dat.” “Well, duh…I like beating people up!” Nicole rolled her eyes. “The more of them I hurt, the less I hurt.” “That’s one thing I’ll never get about ya,” Sam groaned. “For someone so nice, you sure do like hitting things a lot.” It wasn’t a very good change of subject, but Nicole was glad to be talking about an interest of hers instead of her own anxieties. “It’s hard to stay mad when you can punch what’s making you mad,” she mused as one of her knuckles crashed into the sand of the beach. “Like, it might not be much, but…it’s something I can do about the people in my life that suck. It beats feeling powerless.” “Well, sure, but there has to be a better way to go about doing that, dig?” Nicole laughed and leapt to her feet, using her fists to push herself upward. “When you find something that’s more direct, more therapeutic, and more likely to solve my problems, you let me know.” [[Previous|Page 30]] | [[Next|Page 32]]

<center> Page 32 </center> Sam let out a brief snort of laughter as she followed Nicole into a standing position. “Nicole, you sure are bipolar," she gasped. "Freakin’ out one minute and laughin’ the next…” Nicole shrugged. “It’s not that…it’s just that I’ve got this fantastic idea!” she said, as she slammed her fists together. A devilish grin blanketed her face as she imagined it. “We need a place to stay, right?” “’course,” Steven muttered. “The old ‘ideout burned down.” “And I’m super-pissed at my parents for getting me into this mess…” “…so we fight?” Sonya assumed, already attacking the air in front of her in anticipation. “Sounds like fun! Do your parents fight?” Nicole had never seen her parents get physically violent before; her father had always been too cowardly, and her mother was a bigger fan of verbal attacks. She didn’t want to dampen Sonya’s spirits, but she also didn’t want to lie. “They watched the same TV shows I did,” Nicole answered, hoping to escape her moral quandary through technicalities. “Pro wrestling, the C.L.A.S.H., kung fu flicks…” “Great! We’ll watch them too!” Steven groaned and sprinted his way in front of the excited young pugilists. “Come on, girls,” he scolded them. “Like we can get away with two counts of aggravated assault.” Steven tapped an index finger against Nicole’s forehead, jabbing through her bangs. “Think a little, would ye?” Nicole shook her head. “Look, Steven,” she told him, “I don’t think. I’m not good at it. I’m much better at hitting things than thinking about them.” “So leave the thinkin’ to me.” Steven’s gaze fell to the beach behind him, heavy with the weight of impending decisions. [[Previous|Page 31]] | [[Next|Page 33]]

<center> Page 33 </center> “Well, how ‘bout it?” Sam asked impatiently, hands on her hips. “Got any ideas, then, Steven?” Steven shrugged, briefly disappearing under the shadow of a cloud in the sky. “We can’t just ‘ave a rest in the same old neighbor’ood…they’ll find us again. We need to find a safe ‘aven somewhere else.” “Da soldiers?” a gruff female voice growled from behind the squatters. Nicole spun around on her heels, but only the water of the river bay rotated into view to greet her. “Who’s there?” she demanded, glaciers already forming across her fists. “Come on, let’s go! Right here, right now!” “Cool it, yo.” The female voice laughed at her own joke as the water of the bay began to ripple and writhe. Nicole stepped back and assumed a fighting stance as the water sculpted itself into the form of a slim, buxom female, her transparent body shimmering with the light of the sun. “Y’all’s gotta get away from them soldiers, yeah? Don’t lie, I see ya doin’ crazy ice tricks,” the female voice continued, clearly emanating from the liquefied lady. Nicole looked down at her ice-covered hands as Keno spoke up for the group. “An’ I suppose you know a safe place to rest?” he interrogated. Nicole watched his face furrow in concentration, and sighed a displeased sigh. “…hm, so you do. Dat’s a relief.” “He reads minds,” Nicole explained. “You get used to it…okay, you actually don't, it's always weird. But you come to, I dunno, accept it>” The lady in the water giggled. “That so? Well. Guess ya know I ain’t lyin’. So, I’ll take ya there, but ya gotta do somethin’ for me, dig?” “What do we do?” Sam asked, clearly disappointed at the fact that the watery young woman wasn’t looking for a fight. “Need someone to get beat up?” “Naw, nothin’ like that. I just want a big ol’ bottle. I’m stuck in the water, but I wanna go up on land sometimes, ya know?” “You’re lady-shaped,” Sam observed. “Just…walk.” “No can do…I can’t really hold a shape if there ain’t enough water to work with. I’d collapse into a puddle ‘bout halfway up the beach.” “So we get to ‘ave a place to stay if we find somethin’ to carry you in?” Steven summarized. “Seems fair to me. Everyone else on board?” A hesitant murmur of agreement rose from the other squatters. “Alright, then…err, you ‘ave a name, don’t you?” “’course. It’s Claire.” ## End of Chapter 6 [[Previous|Page 32]] | [[Next|Page 34]]

<center> Page 34 </center> ## Chapter 7 “We been walkin’ for hours,” Keno complained, his shoulders slumping. “I t’ought your mind said we’d be dere by now.” Nicole was inclined to agree; the walk had given her far too much time to think. Sam had been speaking to her less and less ever since the brawl with the soldiers in the alleyway, and even though that fight was from last night, Nicole still suspected that there was a problem and wondered what it was. She briefly contemplated asking Keno to use his powers, but quickly decided against it; she resigned to try to remember to ask Sam if anything was the matter. In the meantime, she had a bone to pick with Claire. “Hey!” she shouted, holding a glass bottle in front of her. It had once contained a vagrant’s liquor, but was now filled with the water that was Claire’s essence. “Yeah, you in there! Claire!” Nicole shook the bottle by its neck, sloshing the water within. “Are we there yet?” “Pro’lly,” Claire gurgled. “It ain’t easy seein’ through the label on this here bottle. I ain’t got room to form up, ya know?” “Oh, wait, never mind!” Nicole gasped and pointed as a group of buildings rose from the horizon, like an uppercut of stone and steel rising skyward. “This is the place you were talking about, right? Cross Town?” “’course it’s Cross Town,” Steven chirped, his voice heavy with mockery. “What do they ‘ave you learn in school these days?” Nicole nearly threw the bottle containing Claire to the ground, stopping herself at the last second. It wasn’t often that she could control her anger, but Steven’s reaction was only a minor infraction; the sight of a soldier could have probably caused her to dash the bottle upon the rocks. “Hey, I was in a coma…thing when we went over Cross Town history in school.” Steven groaned. “’course you were. Right, then…Cross Town. Lots of Crosses from all over come ‘ere, since it’s where their kind made a stand.” “They’re the animal people, right?” Nicole wondered aloud. “They went through the same thing we’re dealing with…” [[Previous|Page 33]] | [[Next|Page 35]]

<center> Page 35 </center> “An’ that’s why we’re goin’ there,” Claire bubbled from inside her glass trappings. “If anyone can help us, it’s someone here, yeah?” Steven nodded. “An’ the soldiers,” he added, “they seem to ‘ave set up shop in River City. If we ‘ide there, we get found, but if we ‘ide in Cross Town…it’d be ‘arder for them to find us.” “Then ya go plug up a bathtub or somethin’, an’ I’m all set too. I’ll try workin’ on my surface tension some…ya know, so I don’t need to be carried around in this stank-ass bottle.” “Is that what this is about?” Nicole accused, peering through the glass at the unsettling goo of Claire’s essence floating in the water; the bottle was mostly filled with ordinary water from the bay, and the fleshy and malleable sphere within was all that was left of Claire. Nicole remembered how slick and squishy Claire’s core had been in her hands, and a shiver traveled down her spine. “You just wanted a lift to…where are we headed, anyway?” “Some old hotel downtown,” Claire replied, unfazed by Nicole’s outburst. “It just went outta business. I dunno how come, but we got plenty of time…ain’t no one gonna buy the place, ya know?” Nicole shrugged. “It’ll give us a place to lay low. I’m getting tired from all the things we’ve been doing out here…and I’ve only been on the streets for a day!” “…a break would be nice,” Sam muttered, miles away from the conversation. The girl’s distraction reminded Nicole of her own concerns. “You alright, Sam?” Sam didn’t even bother to turn her head toward Nicole. “Yeah.” “You don’t sound alright…” Nicole shrugged. “…eh. Just forget it.”0 Nicole was certainly willing to drop the subject when the vagrants finally wandered into Cross Town. She had heard the name on the news when she was younger, but the excitement that the media had reported had long since left the place. What met her eyes instead was an ordinary-looking suburban area, somewhat similar in appearance to the area around the trailer park she hailed from. Even so, she found herself taking in and admiring the surroundings; what mattered to her was not the issue of the grass being greener on the other side, but the simple fact that she was enjoying the sight. [[Previous|Page 34]] | [[Next|Page 36]]

<center> Page 36 </center> Before long, however, her eyes were attracted to the tall buildings looming close by, and the familiar scent of the inner city unmasked itself and floated through her nostrils. “This is Cross Town?” she finally muttered. “It’s kinda cool. Kinda different from what I’m used to.” “It’s a nice place,” Claire gushed. “It’s not nearly as hectic as the city, especially after what happened came and went.” Nicole scratched her head. “What happened?” “Real crazy shit went down. So there were these guys, right? Cross Town Asylum? They tortured the animal-people that were runnin’ around up in here, talkin’ ‘bout science or whatever. This one girl escaped and ended up throwin’ the whole town for a loop not once, but twice…y’all’s tellin’ me ya never saw any of it on the news?” Nicole shook her head, her eyes firmly fixated on her feet. “Way to make me feel like an idiot. It ain’t my fault my parents don’t watch the news. We watched that fighting tournament instead. So why are these people animals, again?” “Crosses,” Steven groaned. “Crikey, Nicole, you’re such an ‘andful…we can’t take you anywhere.” Nicole’s gaze darted toward Steven, her eyes narrowing into thin slits venting pure aggression. “What are you complaining about?” “They like bein’ called ‘Crosses’, not ‘animals’.” Steven sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “An’ no one’s sure why these people ‘ave animal features. Could be somethin’ like why we ‘ave superpowers, could be something completely different. No one knows the ‘alf of it.” Nicole rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” “You’re awfully grumpy,” Sam observed. “She’s tired,” Keno explained. “All dis mo—“ Upon meeting Nicole’s unamused glance, Keno dropped his sentence unceremoniously. “Sorry.” Nicole was in no mood to have the privacy of her mind violated, but at least Keno was quick to notice. “Pretty much,” she admitted. “All of this walking, all of this running away…just because of something I can’t help? Screw that.” Nicole’s fists grew heavy with the weight of an excessive amount of ice. “This isn’t how I solve problems.” “Nicole…” She felt Sam’s hand on her shoulder, and quickly shrugged it off. “Look, let’s just do…whatever. I’m not even sure why we’re here.” “Ain’t it ‘cause I told y’all it was a place to live?” Claire boiled. “Why don’t we just talk more there?” [[Previous|Page 35]] | [[Next|Page 37]]

<center> Page 37 </center> “This is the place?” Nicole growled in disbelief. Claire’s directions had led the wanderers directly to a filthy alleyway in the worst part of Cross Town, and Cross Town’s worst somehow managed to be far less appealing than even River City’s worst. Everything from the concrete under Nicole’s feet to the mattress and trash cans along the walls forming the alley seemed to be covered in disgusting filth and grime. River City’s projects were much more overt in their undesirable environments, whereas Nicole felt a deep dread just from the sight of the Cross Town ghetto. Perhaps it was the more pleasant residential area that the group had seen when they first entered the town that made Nicole hate this sight so much in comparison, but it caused great annoyance to Nicole nonetheless. “Claire, what’d you lead us into?” she groaned. “A quieter place to talk,” Keno reported. “All dese people were starin’ at us. Claire picked dis spot ‘cause it’s relevant to what she’s been sayin.” “…you weren’t lyin’,” Claire admitted. “This mind-readin’s kinda weird. Can I finish the story or what?” Keno shrugged. “I can’t help de mind-readin’.” “When I knew you didn’t know all this important crap,” Claire continued, “I thought it’d be cool to bring you around here. There’s a part of the story of Cross Town I didn’t share with ya before.” “The stuff from the news?” Steven asked, his voice disembodied by virtue of his ability to disappear into the shadows. “Yeah. I told y’all about a girl, right? Escaped from that Asylum place torturin’ Crosses? She weren’t alone. She had help on the outside…a homeless fella, just like all of y’all, but way cooler.” “…what’s that got to do with us?” Nicole asked. “Not much,” Claire confessed. “Just that y’all are gonna help me find a souvenir.” [[Previous|Page 36]] | [[Next|Page 38]]

<center> Page 38 </center> Nicole handed the bottle holding Claire to Sam, in order to put her hands on her hips. “A what?” “Well, that homeless guy’s kinda my hero, so—“ “So you want something creepy for your shrine,” Steven interrupted. “That’s not it at all!” Claire shouted, her bottle wiggling slightly in Sam’s hand. “I just…need a little somethin’-somethin’. I mean, this guy, he basically saved the entire town twice…” “Ha, everyone’s always singin’ my praises,” a male voice lower than Steven’s muttered from behind the group. Nicole spun herself around, only to face a scar-covered man as he cracked his gritty knuckles. A smirk spread from behind the messy black hair hanging in his face, and his dim blue eyes were narrowed to complete the mischievous look. He wore a loose-fitting green sweatshirt and black denim jeans, and he was quickly approaching the runaways with his fists raised in preparation for a fight. “The hell brings y’all to my alleyway, anyway?" he asked. "Tryin’ to steal a little somethin’-somethin’? That what I heard?” “And who are you supposed to be?” Nicole screamed in the stranger’s face, icy winds already swirling around her fists. The messy-haired man reeled back from Nicole, only to throw his head skyward and laugh uproariously. “Shit, y’all ain’t from around here. If ya lived here, ya wouldn’t be talkin’ like that to the one an’ only Grizz, now, would ya?” ## End of Chapter 7 [[Previous|Page 37]] | [[Next|Page 39]]

<center> Page 40 </center> Nicole looked down at her fists as her icy powers created a solid glazing of frost over them. “I won’t say ‘no’ if you try to start something. You wanna go a round or not?” “I ain’t got nothin’ against y’all…but yeah, I’m kinda bored. We can take things up a notch if ya really wanna. Just two conditions.” Nicole sighed and crossed her arms. “And those would be…?” Grizz shook his head. “One, all your friends back off. It’s just you an’ me, got it?” “Lucky,” Sonya grumbled. “Of course,” Nicole sneered as she shoved a lock of hair from in front of her eyes. “They won’t interrupt.” “An’ number two,” Grizz continued, “is that it’s just fists. I see ya got this weird ice shit goin’ on…if ya don’t use it, I won’t use my knife. That cool, or are ya gonna make me kill a kid?” Nicole sighed and smashed her fists against a nearby wall, spraying shards of ice around her. “Hand to hand…just the way I like it.” Grizz let out a brief chuckle before launching straight into the fray. Before Nicole was ready, a sucker punch streaked across her face, taking a spray of her spittle through the air in its arc. As her head swiveled against the momentum imparted into it by Grizz’s fist, her own hand swung up as well, catching Grizz square in the stomach. Grizz doubled over very slightly and briefly, but it was enough for Nicole to land a right hook against the side of Grizz’s head. Nicole watched in admiration as Grizz winced for a surprisingly small amount of time. “Ha, you ain’t bad,” he acquiesced. “Ya punch like a girl, though.” “And you take punches like a girl, so it balances out,” Nicole shot back without missing a beat as she threw a one-two punch combination against Grizz’s guard. [[Previous|Page 39]] | [[Next|Page 41]]

<center> Page 39 </center> ## Chapter 8 “I’m amazed y’all ain’t heard nothin’ ‘bout me,” Grizz continued, walking in slow circles around the superpowered squatters like a stalking predator. “Kinda relieved, actually. Bein’ a hero ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” “I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it,” Nicole growled, the aggression still in her voice. “I’m gonna be honest…all I can really think about right now is why you keep walking in circles like that. What are you looking for, a fight?” “Nicole, you can’t be serious!” Sam protested. “You don’t know this man, and your first instinct is to punch his lights out?” “Seems fine to me!” Sonya rebuked. “It’s all in good fun.” “Crikey,” Steven groaned, “none of ye know Grizz? ‘e’s the man Claire told us about! The one who ‘elped make the city safe for Crosses…? ‘e’s brought ‘ole armies to their knees for the sake of ‘is girl!” Grizz ceased his circling and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Shit, finally, someone that did their homework,” he remarked, hands in his sweatshirt pockets. “But enough about me. What the hell are you kids doin’ on my turf?” With a coarse laugh, he added, “Other than lookin’ for somethin' of mine to steal.” “We’re runnin’,” Claire answered before anyone could tell her not to. “Kinda got this martial law thing goin’ down in River City.” Grizz leapt back in shock, with his hands raised in front of him in preparation for a fight. Nicole was particularly interested in the large knife in Grizz’s right hand, which was far too big to fit in his pocket. Before she could ask where it had come from, Grizz had his own questions to posit. “A’ight, where’s that voice comin’ from, an’ why’s it tryin’ so damn hard to sound like me?” “It’s only Claire,” Nicole spat, her hands also raised and ready for a fight. Grizz raised an eyebrow, a fact barely visible through the copious amounts of hair covering his head. “You that anxious for an ass-whoopin’? Just look at ya…” [[Previous|Page 38]] | [[Next|Page 40]]

<center> Page 41 </center> As the two circled each other, searching for an opening in the other’s guard, their banter continued. “You’re pretty pale, kid. Somethin’ up with ya?” “It came with the ice powers.” “So where’d that come from, anyway? Did ya just…wake up one mornin’ spewin’ ice outta your hands or whatever?” “Something like that. I don’t know why ice, or why me…” “Don’t I know the feelin’. My girl Alyce, she’s got fox ears and a tail. It’s been years and we ain’t found out why.” As Grizz uttered this last sentence, his fighting stance faltered slightly in order to accommodate a shrug, giving Nicole the opening she was searching for. With a dashing punch, she wrested the momentum of the fight into her custody, and followed up with a series of quick hits with her right hand. When Grizz moved to defend himself from Nicole’s strikes, she grasped her hands together and smashed against his arms with a pair of hammer-blow attacks. Grizz recoiled from the impacts, giving Nicole the chance she needed to recover from her wild swings. “You done flailin’ against me like that?” Grizz teased, shrugging provocatively. “Maybe ya'd put some weight behind it if I dressed like your mom or somethin'?” Nicole simply let out a guttural yell and threw a haymaker at Grizz. “Pretty sure you'd just die if you did that,” she responded as Grizz dodged the attack. She opened her mouth for a second sentence, but her words were crammed down her throat by a quick jab from Grizz. It sent Nicole reeling, but she quickly formulated a plan in her head. She twisted her body along with the force of Grizz’s jab, putting her entire body into a fierce turn punch that smashed into Grizz’s sternum. “North Wind!” Nicole shouted as Grizz fell away from her extended fist. “…North what?” Grizz gasped, clutching his chest. “The hell…you talkin’ ‘bout?” Nicole scratched her head; Grizz had been the first person who had questioned naming her attacks aloud. “…um…I’m not really sure either.” Before Nicole could explain herself further, Grizz’s fist crashed into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. In a flash, the back of her head was hammered down upon, and her consciousness quickly failed her. [[Previous|Page 40]] | [[Next|Page 42]]

<center> Page 42 </center> Nicole’s eyes snapped open to reveal a wooden room, the walls and ceiling coated in yellow paint that presumably used to be white. Several faces were looking over her—Steven, Sam, Sonya, Keno, and Grizz were all watching her closely, and they heaved a collective sigh of relief as Nicole’s eyes opened. “What happened?” she asked. “Where are we?” “This is the hotel Claire was telling us about,” Sam explained. “We went out and found it while you were busy punching a celebrity.” “Yeah, an’ I kinda overdid it,” Grizz admitted, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “I couldn’t resist, though; ya just left such a big openin’ with all that damn talkin’ ya did.” “There’s a lesson to be ‘ad ‘ere,” Steven mumbled. Grizz nodded. “Yeah…don’t talk so damn much when ya fight.” Nicole shook her head and rose to a sitting position, revealing the unfurnished room around her and the dusty plank floor surrounding the bed she was in. “Yeah,” she agreed through a giggle, “I had this coming.” Sonya and Keno stepped aside as Nicole swung her feet over the side of the bed and rose to her feet. “Grizz, right? Thanks for that fight. I feel so much better now.” Grizz waved off Nicole’s gratitude. “Ha, I needed it too. Ya put up a damn good fight, kid.” “Yeah, but you’re so much better! I can see how you saved this place…” “So why don’t ya save your place, kid? Just friggin’ go for it. I heard ‘bout what’s goin’ down in River City; some kind of hit squad lookin’ for super-kids like y’all? That’s some real shit, man. You gonna go a round with the fella behind it all, or what?” Nicole sighed heavily and stared down at her fists. “Those soldiers sure as shit won’t listen to reason. Just fists.” “Happens,” Grizz mused. “Good luck with creamin’ all them soldier fellas.” “Wait, that’s it?” Sonya blurted. “Just ‘good luck’? You won’t help? You like fights, right?” Grizz shook his head and quickly made his way to the door. “Eh, I had my fun. I got family to get back to, see? That’s what ya gotta fight for…just fightin’ without some kinda cause don’t work out too well, an’ most of you kids must have some parents or somethin’, yeah? Go fix your damn town an’ get back together with ‘em.” Before Nicole could even begin to respond to Grizz's advice, he had already dashed out of the room. In the short time he had been around, the stranger had imparted a surprisingly valuable bit of advice unto her. Not about fighting with purpose; that part had sounded useless to her. On the other hand, not once had she thought of punching the head honcho commanding the soldiers. Up until now, she had been content to simply fight the soldiers as they came to her, and it had never dawned on her to fight through them to attack their commander. A sadistic grin spread across Nicole’s face as she realized how much better she liked this new plan. [[Previous|Page 41]] | [[Next|Page 43]]

<center> Page 43 </center> “…you know,” she muttered nonchalantly after a few minutes of silence, “that guy’s got a point. Those soldiers would stop chasing us pretty fast if we were to beat their boss to a pulp.” “Who’s their boss?” Sonya asked, her left leg curled up in front of her in a stance that Nicole assumed had something to do with muay thai. “Must be tough, whoever they are! It sounds fun! Come on! Let’s go!” “’old on,” Steven groaned, clearly unhappy with the girls’ impatience. “Where do ye ‘ope to find this boss?” Steven crossed his arms and nodded smugly when Nicole failed to provide an answer. “And I wager ye don’t ‘ave a plan to figure out where the boss is.” Nicole shrugged. “I was just gonna beat people up until I figured it out,” she admitted. Steven shook his head slowly. “’ow was that gonna ‘elp any?” “It would have been fun,” Sonya mumbled. “You’re no fun, Steven.” Steven simply sighed in response, so Nicole took it upon herself to move things along a little. “I’m going back to River City,” she announced. “I can’t stay here and hide. Hiding’s not my style; fighting is. Fighting’s gonna take me through this situation somehow.” Nicole made it all the way to the alleyway outside before she remembered an important detail. She walked back to her expectant-looking friends and asked, “So is anyone coming with me or not?” “Cross Town’s my home,” Claire’s voice emanated from a bucket of water in the corner of the room. “I ain’t leavin’ so soon.” Nicole shrugged; she had sort of expected that Claire was trying to get to the hotel for her own reasons the entire time. “I didn’t feel like carrying a bottle of girl around anymore. Sonya, you comin’?” “Of course!” Sonya replied instantly. “It’s going to be so much fun!” “I won’t be able to tell ye to slow down,” Steven caved, his shoulders drooping. “It’s like a dog yankin’ its owner around on its leash. All I can do is try to keep up with ye. Keno, these girls will ‘ave everyone in a wheelchair before they remember to ask them anything, so maybe ye wanna come along and read a few minds?” “Might as well,” Keno replied with a shrug. “I’m gonna hear what everyone’s t’inkin’ no matter what.” When all eyes fell expectantly upon Sam, she took a couple steps back and stared at her shoes. “I’m not coming,” she finally mumbled. ## End of Chapter 8 [[Previous|Page 42]] | [[Next|Page 44]]

<center> Page 44 </center> ## Chapter 9 “Sam, you can’t just stay here,” Nicole growled. “Quit screwin’ around and get ready to head out.” Sam slowly shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said, staring back at Nicole. “I’ve already seen too much violence, too much blood…I don’t have to deal with any of that in Cross Town.” “She got a point,” Claire sloshed. “There ain’t much need for her to fight when she can just crash here with me an’ live in peace, is there?” Sam’s rationale was one that Nicole simply couldn’t fathom. To her, it seemed as if this was an opportunity for revenge, an opportunity that Sam was squandering; such waste was not something Nicole could stand to see. Nicole didn’t want to let her anger explode on Sam since she seemed like she could be a good friend, but her hands were already icing over and balling into fists; it was too late to dial herself back now. “So what, you’re just gonna sit here and do nothing?” she screamed, her face right in front of Sam’s. “You’re gonna leave all of us behind just so you can keep your hands from getting dirty or whatever? The hell with you!” Sam took a step back, her face drenched in fearful sweat. “N-n-Nico—” “No! I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t wanna hear anything from someone that’s just gonna let those soldier guys get away with the crap they’ve put us through. If someone bullies you, you have to bully back…but better! If these guys are going to kidnap and kill us just for having these powers, then I’m going to hospitalize every single one of them.” “What kinda plan is that?” Steven piped up. Nicole whipped her entire body around to face the acting leader of the group. “It gets things done, doesn’t it? I’ll have crippled whoever’s behind all this by process of elimination, and then I’m comin’ back for Sam for being such a damn coward!” “You’re not t’inkin’ clearly,” Keno observed. Nicole shook her head, getting her thoughts back in order. “You’re right, Keno,” she told the mind-reader with a nod. Her attention soon turned back to Sam, and with a mighty glacier wrapped around her fist, she gave Sam a blow to the stomach that sent her sprawling across the mistreated wooden floor. “I could deal with Sam now, and then go after the soldiers. Good idea.” Steven and Keno grabbed Nicole’s arms in an attempt to subdue her, but Nicole shrugged them off. “Calm down, boys, I just needed that one punch," she said. "Oh, and Claire? Don’t encourage her to be a coward, or else I’ll be comin’ to hurt you. Well, as soon as I figure out how.” [[Previous|Page 43]] | [[Next|Page 45]]

<center> Page 45 </center> “Nicole, why are you so obsessed with fighting?” Sam gasped, still sprawled out on the floor. “What is it going to solve?” “It’s gonna solve how pissed off I am. The only reason it’s gonna solve the soldiers-versus-superpowers thing is ‘cause Steven is gonna piece together a plan from all the bones I’m gonna break. He seems pretty good at that.” Steven shrugged. “That was kinda my plan,” he admitted. “No sense tryin’ to ‘old you back, so I may as well plan around you instead.” “But what if that Cody guy comes back?” Sam asked, having resigned herself to sitting on the floor. Nicole smashed her fists together, sending a spray of ice shards around her. “I’ll put him in the hospital too,” she growled. Sam let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re hopeless! You can’t just…no! Violence isn’t going to solve everything!” “Solving everything is Steven’s job. I just want revenge.” Sam shook her head. “No, that’s even worse! Ugh, Nicole, you’re just a bully!” “And you’re a coward.” Nicole turned her back to Sam. “Look, Sam, this is just one of those times where you have to fight. If we can’t reason with these guys, there ain’t much left to do but rough ‘em up a little. They won’t listen to anything but themselves screaming in pain over how Sonya and I just broke his arm.” “Fine, then you guys can handle it…but I’m in Cross Town now. It’s not my problem anymore. I don’t want to go back to River City…I don’t want to have to keep fighting just to get by.” “And I don’t want to run and hide just because of those soldier guys.” Nicole shook her head and glanced out the window. “I used to be like you, Sam. That was before I stopped being a wuss.” Nicole’s gaze returned to Sam, her eyes burning with rage. “These things never stop unless you stop them yourself!" she continued. :I’d tell the teachers about girls at school bullying me for being from a trailer park, but that never solved anything! No matter what I did or where I went, they found me and kept going on about it…things didn’t get any better until I made them better!” “This isn’t the way to make things better!” Sam retorted. “Ugh, just forget it,” Nicole groaned. “I don’t have time for this. I’m leaving right now, and I don’t care who follows me.” [[Previous|Page 44]] | [[Next|Page 46]]

<center> Page 46 </center> “Ye might’ve been a bit ‘ard on Sam back there,” Steven mused, staring out over the water where the gang had first met Claire. “This again?” Nicole growled. “I thought I told you…I’m done talking about her. She’s dead to me.” Steven gestured wildly at Nicole, his hands periodically disappearing in the shadow of the pier. “Ain’t that a bit ‘arsh? She’s been a big ‘elp to all of us, even you.” Nicole countered Steven’s gestures with one of her own, a curling and wild swing of her arm across her chest. “She’s no help to us now! Forget about her.” “This is boring!” Sonya suddenly shouted, leaping to her feet. She had been quiet the entire time, a choice Nicole attributed to the fact that she was much better at fighting than talking. “Let’s find the soldier boss or whatever! Then we can fight him!” “Somehow, I’m agreein’ wit’ her,” Keno admitted, leaning against one of the wooden pillars holding up the pier. “Dis talkin’ isn’t getting’ t’rough Nicole’s head. Dere’s no point in discussin’ it more.” “Majority rules, Steven,” Nicole said, smirking all the while. “I hope you’ve been thinking of ways to get us closer to their boss, because all I’ve been thinking about is fighting.” Steven shrugged and glanced desperately at Keno. “Well, looks like we’re the brains ‘ere in this operation,” he sighed. “Both of ‘em.” “Well, yeah…” Nicole continued calling for action, not realizing that Steven had insulted her and Sonya. “…so it’s your job to figure out which faces we have to liquefy to get what we want! So do you have any ideas, or do I have to just go out there and start causing trouble until the soldiers come to take me away?” Nicole’s threat sent Steven into a pose of deep thought. “…that might be what we ‘ave to do, actually.” [[Previous|Page 45]] | [[Next|Page 47]]

<center> Page 47 </center> “Hey, wait, what?” Nicole said, taking a step away from Steven, slightly concerned by what he had said. “You wouldn’t let me get captured, would you?” “Nicole, ye can’t really be this dumb after thinkin’ of such a good plan, can ye?” he groaned. Nicole shrugged. “Clearly, I am this dumb, because…uh, what are you getting at?” “But you just…” Steven let out an exasperated sigh. “…OK, look, ye got more skill in a straight fight than any one of us, an’ yer ice powers are as flashy as any of us get. So ‘ere’s ‘ow it works: ye cause a scene with yer powers, an’ the soldiers are gonna come runnin’.” “Alright, sure…” Nicole still didn’t know where Steven was going with this, but he sounded like he did, and whatever he had thought up was far more than Nicole had ever bothered.to plan. “Then there’s an army comin’ down on me. Why’s that good?” “’cause the rest of us are gonna capture a bloke or two from the back of their ranks,” Steven explained. “Most of ‘em are gonna crack down on ye, so ‘ow are they gonna notice one fella disappear from the back of the line? Between the three of us, we should be able to loosen ‘is lips or ‘is mind enough to find out what ‘e knows.” [[Previous|Page 46]] | [[Next|Page 48]]

<center> Page 48 </center> “I get it!” Nicole exclaimed. “I lure them in and keep them busy while you get all the information!” “Of course ye get it…I just told ye.” Steven shook his head, making no effort to mask his opinion on Nicole’s mental capacity. “Hey, I already told you, thinking is your job. Speaking of which…where are we doing this? Who am I roughing up to get the soldiers down on us?” “Why’s it matter?” Sonya blurted. “Anywhere would do. As long as the soldiers notice…” “Finally, someone else does the explainin’,” Steven gasped in relief. “Ye’re a bit bent up over the Sam business, Nicole, so I ought to leave it to ye. Got any particular people or places ye wanna go after?” “Tons,” Nicole snarled sadistically. “But I can only pick one…ugh, I thought I told you! Thinking isn’t supposed to be my job!” “Crikey…look, Nicole, just think of the first person that causes ye so much grief an’ anger, an’ we’ll pay ‘em a visit.” “Sam?” “Besides Sam!” Steven’s face was buried deep within his hands at this point. “Um…Mom and Dad!” Steven blasted an excited gasp skyward. “Finally! Let’s just go to that trailer park ye complain about so much, before ye give me an aneurysm.” ## End of Chapter 9 [[Previous|Page 47]] | [[Next|Page 49]]

<center> Page 49 </center> ## Chapter 10 “What a dump,” Sonya blurted as Nicole walked up the rusted stairs of her parents’ home. “Sonya!” Steven scolded. “’aven’t ye ‘eard ‘ow sensitive she is about this?” “It kind of is a dump,” Nicole admitted. “I know. You don’t have to sugar-coat that. Let’s just get this going. Are you guys ready?” Keno flashed Nicole a thumbs-up. “We’ve got you covered, mon,” he assured her. “Just do your t’ing; we’ll do ours.” Nicole nodded. “Alright. Go time.” As the rest of the gang took cover behind the trailer, Nicole took a deep breath and cracked her knuckles. When they had all disappeared from view, she raised a fist in front of her face and watched the icy winds swirling around it. A mighty glacier slowly formed around her arm, and a grin slowly spread across her face at an equivalent speed. When she was satisfied with her frigid battering ram, she slammed it against the door, causing a spray of ice to radiate from the impact point as the door fell inward. “Anyone home?” she hollered as she continued to swing icy fists around the house. Oddly, however, her parents were nowhere to be found. “Come on, you have to—“ Nicole’s sentence stopped abruptly as she turned the corner into the living room to find a trio of soldiers waiting for her, their guns all trained on her head. “Found you,” one of the soldiers growled. “We knew you’d be back eventually. You didn’t strike us as the type that could survive the streets.” “Strike you? Good idea.” Nicole raised her fists to defend herself, but the soldiers were quick to hoist their weapons at her. This really wasn't the time to test out blocking bullets with her ice. “Cowards…” Her fists lowered, but despite being pointed toward the floor, they were still accumulating plenty of ice and cold air. “We have orders to take you in, or eliminate you if you fail to comply. The choice is yours, Ellery.” [[Previous|Page 48]] | [[Next|Page 50]]

<center> Page 50 </center> “Just out of curiosity, what’d you guys do with my parents? I came here to beat them up, not you guys. Can’t I at least wail on them for a minute for setting me up like this?” “Let’s just say that we were ordered to give them the same choice we’ve given you.” The de facto leader of the three-man squad leaned in close to Nicole’s scowling face. “These men are awfully impatient…I recommend that you make your decision sooner rather than later.” Neither option seemed particularly appealing to Nicole, but she seemed to lack any say in the matter. “You’re just taking me to your base? Fine with me.” Despite her powers having dulled her nerves, she could feel the intense cold her hand was exuding; in fact, she was surprised that the soldiers didn’t seem to feel it. It was either that, or they did notice, but Nicole was too angry to realize it. She certainly had plenty of anger to go around. Steven had put her up as bait, she had fallen for it, she’d never be in the situation in the first place were it not for her parents, the soldiers had the gall to order her around, Sam’s electric powers could easily hold them at bay had she not decided to stay with Claire— “Hey, stop that!” the soldier suddenly barked, cocking his shotgun menacingly. “This is your last warning!” Nicole hadn’t even noticed what she was doing to draw the soldier’s ire, not until she looked up from the floor to see a huge layer of frost creeping all over the floor, over the furniture, and even up the walls. As she gazed upon the walls of ice, so did the soldiers; this quickly gave Nicole an idea. In the blink of an eye, she drove her fist into the floor, sending a ripple of destruction through the ice. Shards of ice leapt from the floor, hiding Nicole behind a cloud of mirrors; meanwhile, the shock of the impact shattered the icy walls, causing ice chunks to dig into the surprised soldiers’ eyes. “Diamond Dread Dust!” Nicole shouted as the effectiveness of her attack dawned on her. With the ice-filled air covering her retreat, she made her way back outside, giving herself more room to maneuver. She would have pressed the attack immediately, but she wanted all the space she could have to get even with the soldiers. [[Previous|Page 49]] | [[Next|Page 51]]

<center> Page 51 </center> What she hadn’t counted on was the intervention of her friends. “Is there a fight?” Sonya asked, her eyes glinting with anticipation. Nicole nodded. “Three soldiers were waiting for me. They took over my house…and they might have done something to my parents.” Sonya shrugged and assumed her usual fighting pose. “Do we need them? Steven, can we fight them?” “Keno, did ye read anything?” Steven asked from somewhere within the shadows. “Did they think anything ‘andy?” “I’ll tell you in a minute, mon,” Keno replied. “Dese soldiers plan on runnin’ out here an’ shootin’ de whole place up!” “Then we don’t have much choice but to—“ Steven’s one-liner was swiftly interrupted by a large purple tendril lashing through the air. All eyes followed the tendril to their source, a familiar figure clad in an enormous trenchcoat. “Cody!” Sonya gasped. “The soldiers,” Cody barked. “Where are they?” Before anyone could answer him, the soldiers poured forth from the door, their guns already blazing. The soldiers had no time to take aim at the squatters, for Cody had already lifted the talkative soldier of the group into the air with his odd projections. Without any words or emotions, Cody twisted and shook the soldier about, using the defenseless puppet as a human shield. The other soldiers tried to open fire in futility, each of their bullets slamming into their ally. Nicole could only bear silent witness to the brutal pragmatism Cody exhibited, since it was the only thing keeping her alive at the moment. As the soldiers paused to reload their rifles, Cody whipped his human shield through the air at them, knocking them off of their feet and leaving them open to Cody’s retaliatory assault. Nicole quickly averted her eyes, content to let her imagination and the tormented screams of the soldiers tell the story for her. When the cacophony of combat subsided, Nicole finally turned to face her doorstep, only to find three corpses; one was riddled with bullet holes, one had his skull crushed to a bloody pulp, and the third was horribly contorted due to a multitude of broken bones. “Ugh!” she blurted. “Dude, was that necessary?” Nicole’s query put a screeching halt to Cody’s dramatic exit. “Hm?” he grunted, turning his head toward her. [[Previous|Page 50]] | [[Next|Page 52]]

<center> Page 52 </center> “I said…was all that necessary?" Nicole said, clenching her fists. "Did you really have to smash a guy’s head in and leave such a huge mess on my front door? These aren’t pumpkins, dude, they’re people!” This assertion caused Cody to wrench his head toward Nicole, his eyes devoid of mercy. “You would give them the very compassion they fail to show our kind?" he asked. "Why?” Nicole shrugged. “Hey, I want to make ‘em feel it just as much as you do, but…ain’t this a little extreme?” “What’re ye plannin’ to ‘ave accomplished by doin’ this?” Steven asked, gesturing toward the three mutilated corpses. “Accomplish…?” Cody growled. “I’ll have accomplished my revenge. I need nothing else.” “But these guys keep coming!” Sonya whined. “Even I can’t keep fighting!” Cody shook his head. “So I take it you plan to stop me? You, who speak of accomplishments…what purpose does it serve to stand in my way?” “Well, I think it’s the other way ‘round right now,” Nicole mused. “We were gonna use those soldiers to find out where they’re from…something like that. Steven, tell him.” “Nah, ye got it,” Steven pointed out. “Ain’t much more to it than that…we ‘ave to find their ‘eadquarters so we can bring down their leader.” [[Previous|Page 51]] | [[Next|Page 53]]

<center> Page 53 </center> Nicole nodded and pointed at Steven. “Yeah. That. Even I’m smart enough to know that we’re not gonna learn anything from these guys…not anymore. You blew it, Cody!” “And what would you have me do?” Cody snarled, his tentacles bursting from his arms menacingly. “Listen to Steven. That’s what I do, anyway…he’s the smart one.” “Is he…?” A wicked smile spread across Cody’s face, and he thrust his arm straight ahead, his strange purple tendril lashing straight toward Steven. However, before it could reach its intended target, a dark-skinned hand lunged forth to intersect it. “Not so fast!” Keno’s voice cautioned, even as the tendril speared directly through his hand. Keno’s face twisted and shrank in extreme pain, but he still kept his composure otherwise. “Dat…de tentacle…it’s…pure energy.” “Of course,” Cody confirmed. “It’s more of a short beam of force than anything. Now do you see the futility of your struggle? You obviously cannot stand in my way.” The energy tendril wrenched and wriggled within the wound, ripping open the hole in Keno’s hand even more. “Why do you resist?” “How many times do I have to tell you?” Nicole groaned as she thrust an icy fist into Cody’s undefended side. As he fell to the ground, she added, “Steven’s the one that does the thinking. Ask him.” “Ugh…you!” Cody’s energy tentacle ripped itself from Keno’s hand, and with a guttural cry, he sent it shooting straight for Nicole’s head. ## End of Chapter 10 [[Previous|Page 52]] | [[Next|Page 54]]

<center> Page 54 </center> ## Chapter 11 “You’ll have to be faster than that,” Nicole advised as she quickly leaned under Cody’s tendril, throwing a punch aimed at his nose. Cody grunted and sprang into a sudden backflip, landing on his feet a safe distance away. “Don’t underestimate me!” he shouted. “None can match my might!” Nicole shrugged. “Whatever, guy.” Her shoulders sagged under the weight of the ice wrapping around her fists. “Come at me, and we’ll see about that.” Cody’s response was to scream and dash straight toward Nicole. Such an attack proved futile against her, however; she rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding his attack. In retaliation, she was able to land a frigid punch in his side before he could turn around. Nicole leapt away from Cody, but too late to entirely dodge his next attack. She screamed in pain as an energy tendril swung down across her face. The feeling was unlike anything she had ever felt before; her face buckled under the force of the impact, and a small burning sensation coursed through the impact, but from what she saw of the tendril, it had also buckled under the impact as if it were as solid as her own arm. “What is that stuff?” she growled, rubbing a cold hand against her face. “I dunno!” Sonya shouted from the sidelines, clearly itching to join the fight. “What’s it matter? It hurts, right? Don’t get hit!” “Good point.” [[Previous|Page 53]] | [[Next|Page 55]]

<center> Page 55 </center> Nicole shook her head and leapt back into the action, launching a dashing punch that shattered ice against Cody’s guard. In a moment of quick thinking, she threw a few body blows below the arms Cody had raised in defense, but when she went to throw a third punch at his head, he grabbed her hand; Nicole screamed and quickly broke Cody’s grip before his energy tendril could do any lasting damage to her. “How?” Cody muttered to himself. “Her hand should have…” He let out a growl as he lunged at her with both tendrils, his eyes bright with a murderous gleam. By this point, Nicole had managed to regenerate the thick blocks of ice wrapped around her hands; she watched Cody’s approach and instinctively moved her hands in the way. To her surprise, the tactic actually worked, and the tendrils diffracted uselessly within the confines of the ice. Everyone present was surprised by the event, and the light show taking place within the ice Nicole had sculpted. “Wow…” Keno muttered, his jaw slack at the sight. “Impossible!” Cody spun his whole body around, putting everything he had into the next thrust of his tendrils, only for history to repeat itself. “But how?” Nicole shrugged. “Something to do with science?” she wondered aloud. “If I was any good at science, I’d tell you, but…” Unable to explain the energy’s diffraction within the ice, Nicole settled for punching Cody in the face. Before her fist could make a solid impact, however, Cody grabbed hold of her wrist and wrenched her arm around. Before long, her arm was caught in a hammerlock, leaving her in front of Cody and at his mercy. “You impudent little wench!” he snarled as he pushed Nicole’s lower arm toward her shoulder blades. “She’s not a wench!” Sonya blurted as she forced herself into the fight with a spinning kick. Even Sonya’s legs were unable to shake Cody’s grip, however, and her entrance only served to alert Cody; he soon made a conscious effort to keep Nicole between Sonya and himself. “Nicole is awesome! Well, not right now. Losing to you? She’s usually better. I mean, you’re you.” “You take me for a weakling?” “You’re hiding behind her. That seems weak to me!” Sonya struck a muay thai fighting pose. “You and me, weakling! How about it?” [[Previous|Page 54]] | [[Next|Page 56]]

<center> Page 56 </center> Cody growled and threw Nicole into the dirt, his energy tendrils hissing in anticipation. “You’ll soon know your place…!” With a flick of his wrist, one of the purple appendages wrapped itself around Sonya’s leg, creating a burning shackle of energy. Before he could take his attack any farther, however, Sonya leaned back and flipped onto her hands, snapping Cody’s laser lasso in half as her feet swung back toward the ground. “Can’t you just leave?" Sonya said as she landed. "Because you can’t win…!” Sonya pirouetted gracefully on the tiptoes of one foot, bringing the other one around at head level in a spin kick. Cody laughed as her leg sailed cleanly past his head. “What sort of kick was that?” “That wasn’t a kick.” Nicole had used the phrase before, but this was the first blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment she had truly seen; she had seen Sonya holding her leg in the air, and she saw the lower portion of the same leg wrapped around Cody’s neck, but how one state had led to the other was lost in the space of a single blink. After another pirouette, Sonya suddenly brought her other leg crashing into the ground, taking Cody down with it. “Now…stop trying to kill us,” Sonya added. She'd taken the fall on her knee, leaving Cody’s head pointed at her other leg. “Why should I?” Cody choked through his restricted windpipe. “I won’t let go, then. I’ll choke you to death.” “Sonya!” Steven gasped, clearly fed up with standing around and watching the violence that had unfolded. “I have to kill him…or else he kills us!” Cody’s attempts to struggle free were subdued by a few savage stomps to the neck. “I’d have no need to kill you if you didn’t insist on blocking my path!” Cody explained, his eyes popping out of his skull a bit. [[Previous|Page 55]] | [[Next|Page 57]]

<center> Page 57 </center> “Wait!” Steven hollered, his face considerably brighter. “I got an idea! Sonya, ease up a bit so that Cody ‘ere can live to ‘ear the ‘ole plan, will ye?” Sonya wordlessly rose to her feet a bit, affording Cody a little breathing room. Steven took a knee in front of her, and began to speak to the trenchcoat-clad young man. “Now, fella," he continued, "the way I see it, ye either put that rage ye ‘ave so much of to good use, or ye refuse to cooperate with us…but I ‘ave to tell ye that if ye take the second option, these two girls are likely gonna kill ye.” Cody groaned and struggled, clearly unsatisfied with his current position, but nonetheless resigned himself to Steven’s ultimatum. “I will hear what you have to say; that is all I can promise at this time.” “Right-o.” Steven rose to his feet, keeping an eye on Cody all the while. “If ye’ll excuse me ‘ere, Cody, I wanna take the chance to make sure a certain someone’s been payin’ attention.” His glare suddenly flicked over to Nicole, still sprawled out in the dust where Cody had left her. “Now, Nicole, remember why we were ‘ere?” “We were gonna wreck my parents’ house,” Nicole replied with a shrug. Steven sighed and slowly shook his head. “But why? We ‘ad a reason other than therapy.” “Um…well…something about…we’re mad at Cody for killing the soldiers…” Nicole shot to her feet and snapped her fingers. “…oh! Because the soldiers that came to stop me…we were gonna use them to find out where they’re all coming from!” [[Previous|Page 56]] | [[Next|Page 58]]

<center> Page 58 </center> Steven unleashed an enormous sigh of relief. “For a minute there, I didn’t think ye knew. So Cody, that’s the plan ye junked. Ye wanna ‘elp us try again, or do ye wanna die?” “…your plan is to let me kill these scoundrels?” Cody summarized. “How could I refuse?” “I knew ye’d be glad to be of service.” Steven rose to his feet and grinned. “Sonya, let ‘im go. Nicole, keep an eye on him.” “But Steven…!” Sonya argued. “Cody kills people! I thought you hated that!” “’ate Cody? More than these soldiers?” Steven shook his head. “We’ve been stuck fightin’ this fight for too long…I think we need some ‘elp.” “So we want Cody to help us take down the soldiers?” Nicole gasped. “But Sonya and I took him on pretty easily!” “Crikey…” Steven buried his face in his hands. “Nicole, don’t ye know how ‘elpful it’d be to ‘ave an ally or two…or all of ‘em.” “Once we find out where de soldiers come from,” Keno surmised, “we won’t be de only ones itchin’ for a little revenge, ya?” “Oh, that’s the plan?” Nicole shouted. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? You know that you’re the one that does the planning…I do all the punching. So what are we gonna do to get this information, exactly?” ## End of Chapter 11 [[Previous|Page 57]] | [[Next|Page 59]]

<center> Page 59 </center> ## Chapter 12 “Can we really trust Cody?” Nicole muttered, leaning against a streetlight. The sun wasn’t going to set for another few hours, but the streetlight was still on, for reasons Nicole would never care enough to understand. “Isn’t he, like, really dangerous or something?” “Not to us,” Keno disputed. “Cody hates de soldiers more than us…even more dan you for shamin’ him, Sonya.” “Quiet,” Steven ordered. “They must be comin’ for ‘im. Can ye ‘ear any cars comin’?” “Over the sound of the carnage?” Nicole wasn’t about to look at Cody’s antics; the twisting metal and bloodcurdling screams were enough to dissuade her from so much as a curious peek. “I wish.” “OK, OK, positions, everyone.” Steven waved everyone into their hiding spots; his was by far the simplest, since all he had to do was step under a nearby red-and-white awning and let his powers do the rest. Sonya and Keno took to the alleyway behind them; Sonya used her legs to take a giant leap onto a nearby fire escape, while Keno crouched behind a dumpster. Nicole had some work to do before she could take up her hiding spot, however. “Alright,” she muttered to herself as she rubbed her hands together over a tall bucket; Steven had found an empty bucket of drywall gypsum an hour earlier, and had filled it with water as part of his plan. “Just gotta pour this over the streets and…” With a short grunt, she lifted the bucket by its handle, waddling over to the road to pour its contents across the street. “Like that?” she shouted over her shoulder, looking for Steven’s approval. When a thumbs-up briefly appeared from under the awning, Nicole nodded to the obscured Steven and turned her attention back to the water. She cracked her knuckles and placed her hand just above the water, freezing the mess she had made into a dangerous slick of black ice. She ran her finger across the ice to confirm her handiwork; it was smooth and slippery, just as Steven had requested. With a satisfied nod, she dashed into the alleyway and took cover behind a trash can on the opposite side of the alleyway as Keno’s dumpster. [[Previous|Page 58]] | [[Next|Page 60]]

<center> Page 60 </center> After what felt like hours to Nicole’s impatient mind, a black car finally came screaming down the street, moving far too quickly for the road conditions Nicole had created; she gasped in accomplished delight as the car quickly lost control, coming to a violent stop against a power pole. Sparks careened down on the hood of the car from the transformer as the occupants of the rear seats rolled out of the doors and away from the wreckage. The soldiers barely had time to rescue their weapons from the crashed car before Nicole and the gang were upon them/ Steven appeared from the shadows to grab one soldier in a full nelson, and Sonya used her superpowered legs to perform a series of acrobatic leaps that ended with a flying kick straight to the other soldier’s chest. “Heavy Arrow!” she shouted as the soldier was crushed between her foot and the pavement. Meanwhile, the other soldier managed to break Steven’s full nelson and counter with a shoulder throw, sending Steven crashing onto the sidewalk. Keno’s premonition allowed him to guess the soldier’s next act, which in turn allowed him to run up and grab the soldier’s rifle first. He couldn’t fire the gun, however, because of range issues; the soldier tangled Keno up in melee combat, preventing him from readying and firing the rifle. The front passenger door of the car burst open, nearly catching Steven in the leg, as a third soldier burst out of the car, having finally disengaged himself from the wreckage. With Sonya and Keno tied up with their respective foes, it fell to Steven and Nicole to fight side-by-side against this third soldier who stood at least a foot taller than Nicole. A quick glance at the car made Nicole doubt that the driver was going to be able to walk, much less join the battle; with this in mind, she was able to turn her undivided attention to the foe before her. With a quick shout, she planted an icy fist right in the soldier’s stomach, but to her surprise, her attack met some sort of thick armor. She withdrew her fist with a pained yelp as the soldier threw her to the ground. Halfway through his ensuing laugh, however, Steven made his move, darting into the shadows of the nearby buildings. Still laughing, the soldier suddenly shot out his arm, eliciting a disembodied grunt. “Reckon your tricks ain’t gonna work too well on me,” he growled. [[Previous|Page 59]] | [[Next|Page 61]]

<center> Page 61 </center> Steven rolled out of the shadows and took a stand next to Nicole. “Must be those goggles ‘e’s got on,” he mused as he pointed at the soldier’s face. “I’d wager ‘e can see me with those, even in the shadows! Are they infrared?” The soldier scoffed. “Ain’t you a smart one…shame it ain’t gonna git ya outta this here mess.” Suddenly, a loud crack rang through the air like a gunshot, and Sonya’s leg was where the soldier’s head used to be. “That always works,” she observed as the soldier sprawled out on the ground in front of her. She attempted to drop a mighty heel into the soldier’s sternum, but his quick reflexes left only the pavement to break and erupt around her foot. Soon, he was back on his feet, rolling his shoulders. “Y’all are fast, an’ y’all are strong.” The soldier let out a quick grunt as his hands shot behind his back, quickly reappearing into view with a massive shotgun in hand. “But let’s see y’all outspeed an’ outmuscle the KS-23M.” The gang’s hands were tied; there was no way they would be able to move a muscle without the soldier opening fire. Keno took this as his cue to leap into the fray, and in turn, the soldier took that as his cue to open fire. Keno’s powers gave him the edge, however; as the soldier bucked back from the gun’s recoil, Keno easily guessed where he would shoot, and easily moved out of the way. “Outmusclin’s overrated!” Keno taunted as he suddenly fell to a prone position in order to dodge an incoming blast. The soldier pumped a new round into the chamber and fired again; Keno simply rolled away from the blast. “Dere!” “What?” Nicole asked. Keno was looking incredibly smug, but he was also rolling along the ground to dodge a shotgun blast; she was wondering why he looked so confident. “He’s reloading, Nicole!” “Then it’s my turn!” [[Previous|Page 60]] | [[Next|Page 62]]

<center> Page 61 </center> Nicole dashed up to the soldier as he jammed bullets into his gun and began to throw a few frosty punches, but this accomplished little except for disrupting the soldier’s reloading process. “Dat ain’t what I…” Keno said, before he trailed off and sighed. He leapt to his feet, quickly moving to wrench the shotgun out of the soldier’s grip. Sonya gasped in epiphany and delivered a step kick to the soldier’s shoulder, giving Keno the edge he needed to claim the gun for himself. “De gun’s got a few shells in it…so maybe dat’s enough to make you talk.” “Who sent you?” Steven asked from the shadows. “Boy, I ain’t tellin’ ya nothin’ ‘bout nothin’!” the soldier replied indignantly. “I got my orders…!” Steven’s face emerged from the shade of the awning, plastered by an enormous smirk. “Sure ye don’t wanna spill the beans, mate? Keno ‘ere is ready to put yer own shells into yer chest…so I suggest ye talk.” “Try it; it won’t git ya nowhere! It certainly ain’t gonna git me talkin’! I ain’t gonna tell y’all who my boss is!” The two boys locked eyes with each other, and after Keno gave a satisfied nod, Steven turned back to face the armored soldier. “Well, mate, ye ever hear of this little thing the ‘uman mind does? Ever try to not think of somethin’? Like, I tell ye not to think of somethin’—bananas, for example—an’ that just makes ye think of bananas more. Well, ‘ow’re ye doin’ at not thinkin’ about yer employer?” “He’s doin’ a terrible job,” Keno replied, his eyes closed in concentration. “Though now…there’s a lot of bananas in his mind too.” [[Previous|Page 61]] | [[Next|Page 63]]

<center> Page 63 </center> “So, ye got ‘is information, then?” Steven asked, patting Keno's shoulder. Keno nodded. “I’ll explain de situation later," he said. "Right now, we gotta deal wit’ dis guy.” “What?” the soldier gasped, leaping to his feet. “You’re bluffin’! Y’all don’t know a damn thing.” Sonya shrugged. “So let’s deal with this guy!” Her leg lifted in preparation for a mighty strike. “Right, Keno?” Nicole watched enviously as Keno fired the shotgun point-blank at the soldier’s chest while Sonya delivered a push kick to his back. The simultaneous impacts knocked the wind out of the soldier’s lungs in the blink of an eye. As he fell to his knees, Nicole could no longer hold herself back. She threw a frozen haymaker right at the soldier’s forehead, and was a bit surprised to see Steven add a spin kick to the mix. Steven’s kick landed first, wrenching the soldier’s head forward; his head snapped backward at astonishing speed when it met Nicole’s fist. As he fell to the ground, Nicole dusted off her fists and muttered, “I think we got him.” Steven nodded and turned to Keno. “So Keno, what’d ye find out?” he asked. “Lee,” Keno whispered. “He’s from de Lee Corportation.” Steven shook his head. “No, no…the Lee Corporation’s already the biggest company…they practically control the city as it is!” Keno shrugged. “Dat’s what I heard him t’ink.” "'e's a powerful enemy to make, Lee." Steven looked up to the sky and let out a ragged sigh. "There's a lotta rumors 'bout 'im bein' a dangerous criminal. But 'is company is definitely the biggest in the whole city. If that fella's mind was right, then I dunno." Steven looked to the skyline of the city; the tall buildings loomed over the group. The Lee Corporation building stood tallest of all, a middle finger rising to the group from the knuckles of the skyscrapers it dwarfed. ## End of Chapter 12 [[Previous|Page 62]] | [[Next|Page 64]]

<center> Page 64 </center> ## Chapter 13 “Alright, Steven,” Nicole growled, pacing across the downed soldier’s body. “The Lee Corporation is kind of a big deal…how do we get our hands on the guy responsible for all this?" “Make a plan!” Sonya blurted. “I wanna end this!” Nicole nodded. “These soldiers aren’t doing too much differently.” As she spoke her next sentence, she kicked the unconscious soldier in the ribs. “Even this guy…for all his talk, his extra equipment just meant that we had to team up on him. I think I’m ready for something new.” “Ye think we’d just sneak into their building like spies?” Steven replied. “I might be able to do that, but none of us want me to be the only one that finds ‘is way inside. Not to mention, for all the fightin’ all of ye ‘ave done, I don’t think ye can force yer way in.” “Then let’s just get more people to force their way in with us,” Nicole blurted with a shrug. “But people…they need more than Keno’s word, ye know. Sure, ‘e read a mind, but…the solider ‘ere might not’ve been thinkin’ clearly. We need real proof.” “Proof…like what?” Sonya asked as she threw elbow attacks into empty air, a clear sign that she was still ready for a fight. “Another soldier? Read his mind?” Steven shook his head. “Ain’t ye listenin’? We need proof that ain’t just Keno readin’ minds. That’s the only thing a lot of people trust. Eyewitnessin’, pictures, somethin’ like that.” [[Previous|Page 63]] | [[Next|Page 65]]

<center> Page 65 </center> “So what?” Nicole mumbled. “We just go take a picture of some soldiers filing into the Lee building, and then we’ve got all the proof we need to raise an army?” “I can handle that by myself.” Steven chuckled briefly. “’sides, I’m most suited to the waitin’ game. I’ll meet ye at Merv’s Burger Joint when I’m done.” Before anyone could double-check the specifics of the plan, simple as it may have been, Steven had already disappeared into the shadows. “Does he have a camera?” Sonya asked, scratching her head. “If de t’oughts he was t’inkin’ was any indication,” Keno replied, “de t’oughts ‘bout stealin’ a camera would suggest ‘no’.” Nicole threw her hands skyward. “More importantly, what do we do now?” she said, her fists heavy with ice. “We’ve got nothing to do but wait for Steven?” A right hook crashed into a nearby wall, spraying a glittering array of ice shards all over the sidewalk. “That’s dumb. Can’t we go mop up the rest of the soldiers with Cody?” Keno’s eyes suddenly locked on to Nicole. “Cody! I forgot about him. We should tell him de plan is done!” “And help him mop up a little, I hope.” With a crack of her knuckles, Nicole was soon leading Sonya and Keno toward the chaos Cody had been stirring up. [[Previous|Page 64]] | [[Next|Page 66]]

<center> Page 66 </center> Nicole couldn’t help but stare wide-eyed at the carnage Cody had caused. “Looks like he had some issues to work out, too,” she mumbled as she brought her own fists into view. “Yeah, but where’d he go?” Sonya wondered aloud. “…now that you mention it, it’s just a bunch of twisted metal around here, isn’t it? Burning cars, buildings smashed in…but no Cody…or any soldiers.” “Right! I was wondering.” Sonya rubbed her chin in contemplation, a rare sight. “What happened? Wasn’t there a fight?” Nicole’s mind began to formulate some possibilities, but her train of thought was quickly derailed by the sight of a human body plummeting from the sky. Blood jettisoned out in all directions as the body slammed into the pavement. Keno and Sonya instinctively turned away from the impact, and Nicole was tempted to do the same, but curiosity overwhelmed her, driving her to investigate. She ran to the fallen body’s side and winced as she placed her hands within the pooling blood in order to flip the corpse over. “Cody!” she shrieked as she stumbled away from the casualty in shock. Nicole’s eyes averted themselves from the sight, choosing instead to focus on her peers. Sonya’s eyes had risen to confirm Nicole’s shriek, but Keno had turned away even more, his hands clasped against his temples. Soon, though, he whirled around on his knees to face Nicole. “Get away from dere!” he shouted. “Dey threw Cody from de rooftops!” “Keno, what are you—“ Nicole was swiftly interrupted by a distinct stinging feeling in her back. [[Previous|Page 65]] | [[Next|Page 67]]

<center> Page 67 </center> Nicole fell to her knees and rolled onto her back, watching helplessly as soldiers rappelled down from atop the buildings around her. As her strength rapidly faded, she dug around underneath her to reveal the source of the stinging sensation. It was a dart of some sort, one that Nicole guessed had been doused in some sort of tranquilizer. Such darts had made appearances in plenty of shows she’d watched on TV, and now she silently cursed herself for falling victim to such a trick. The scene was swarming with soldiers before long, and as Nicole struggled to keep her eyes on Keno and Sonya, she could feel herself being lifted off the ground. She judged from the rough handling alone that she was in the clutches of the soldiers, and found herself unable to call out for help. It was all she could do to stay conscious enough to watch her peers struggle against the incoming onslaught. A thick line of soldiers stood between Nicole and her friends, and yet Sonya still tried her best to break through, one kick at a time. Even as Nicole’s hearing failed her, she could hear Keno barking out orders to help Sonya dodge incoming sleep darts. Despite the action sounding as if it were underwater, a soldier carrying Nicole was loud enough to be heard fairly clearly. “We’ve got one of them!” he announced to his troops. “We can come back for the others later.” Nicole watched Keno wince, just as she herself had done when she was struck with the dart; he had been so busy coordinating Sonya’s movements that he had neglected to watch out for his own sake. [[Previous|Page 66]] | [[Next|Page 68]]

<center> Page 68 </center> Sonya quickly noticed Keno’s turmoil as well, and performed a mighty leaping knee attack to break out of a circle of soldiers to come to his aid. Scooping him up in her powerful arms, she used her even stronger legs to leap and dash away from the carnage in irregular bursts, to flummox the aim of the tranquilizing sniper. It was only after she had nearly disappeared from view around a corner that Nicole saw the four darts hanging out of her legs. Nicole’s view darkened significantly as she began to roll across a cramped metallic floor. Her confusion was palpable until she heard the unmistakable roar of an engine; she had been thrown into a van, and she could only guess what was in store for her wherever she was headed. Her consciousness fled her almost completely at this point, with only the occasional sentence floating through the void to her awareness. “…finally got the girl that knocked out Johnson’s squad a few days ago…” “…friends managed to slip away…” “…least we got this one…” “…am I supposed to do with a bloody girl in a coma…” “…with us, as a bargaining chip…” “…promise not to hurt Nicole…” “…her up there and tell me when she…” ## End of Chapter 13 [[Previous|Page 67]] | [[Next|Page 69]]

<center> Page 69 </center> ## Chapter 14 “So, this is the infamous Nicole Marie Ellery,” a deep voice said, rousing the teenage girl into consciousness. Instead of trying to sort the words she had heard during her unwelcome reverie, she tried her hardest to focus on the man that was currently talking to her. “Age seventeen," the voice continued, "born and raised in River City—a trailer park, to be specific—and currently enrolled in River City High School, parents informed the organization of the emergence of your ice powers…” As the voice droned on, Nicole strained to observe her surroundings. Even before her eyes were focused, she was struggling to rise to her feet, but in vain. From the raw feeling overwhelming her wrists and ankles, she deduced that she had been tied into a sitting position. Soon after this deduction, her eyes finally relayed the sight of the plain and decaying room around her, and the clean-shaved blond man that was presumably responsible for the situation she was currently in. “…friend of yours was the one who indicted the organization as the leader of the task forces hunting the super-powered children,” he finished, his deep voice trembling slightly to portray a hint of anger. “So you’re with the Lee Corporation?” Nicole sneered, the air temperature around her fists already dropping rapidly. “You could say that.” With a snap of his fingers, the blond man summoned a pair of soldiers into the room, who stood behind him obediently. The mere sight of their uniforms was enough to send Nicole into a frenzy, though the pair of guns pointed right at her mellowed her out slightly. “People are dying out there…! What’s with you? It’s practically a war zone out there because of you!” “Because of me?” The blond man threw a right hook across Nicole’s face. “I only did what I was told! ‘Round up the empowered children’—those were my orders! Now, after the little news story you helped orchestrate, I was fired!” [[Previous|Page 68]] | [[Next|Page 70]]

<center> Page 70 </center> Nicole watched as her captor toyed with a combat knife plucked from a holster on his boot, her eyes narrowing with rage. “It’d help if you weren’t so stupid,” she suggested, thick venom dripping from her words, and thick snow falling from her hands. Her sarcasm was rewarded with the tip of the blond man’s knife; she winced slightly as she felt it jab into her sternum, but quickly regained her composure. “The usual, then. I'm a patient man...you'll tell me what I need to know about your powers, you'll give yourself to Lee willingly…but I like to count how many days it takes.” The knife pressed into Nicole again, this time drawing blood as it moved through her shirt. “Don't let the tally go too long, girl," he said, his face so close to hers. "The fives are the worst part.” As he played with the knife against her body, Nicole could feel him getting just a little too careless. The knife gouged just a little too deeply; as he drew blood, his knife moved just a little too close to the ropes. The muscle Nicole had built through years of beating up girls at her high school was enough to influence the knife to cut into the ropes. This weakened them enough for her to break them apart, giving her enough range of motion to lunge at the blond man and tackle him the moment he turned his back. “You're supposed to be sedated!” he shouted as she overtook him. They were now both on the floor face-down, her body atop his; the chair was still tied to her legs, but the man’s arms were pinned underneath the combined weight of their bodies. Before he could cry for help, she spun around on his back and cupped a hand over his mouth. “Now who’s the helpless one?” she growled as her ice-generating powers ran wild. [[Previous|Page 69]] | [[Next|Page 71]]

<center> Page 71 </center> In her angered state, she could not control the wintry havoc she was wreaking on the room; even if she could stop herself from producing such lethally low temperatures centered on the blond man’s head and chest, however, she was unsure if she would. Nicole’s body continued to generate cold air for several minutes, until even she noticed the oppressive chill hanging over the room. Exhausted by her rage-fueled attack, she rolled off of the body of her now-motionless victim and stared at the icicles hanging from the ceiling. Nicole gave herself a few minutes to lie on her back in silence, comforted by the pervasive frigidity of the room. Thoughts began to push at her mind, looking for a way in, as her captor continued to lay still in the cold room. Like with any unwelcome thought, she decided to bury it in action. She simply hoped that she wouldn't be thinking too hard about possibly killing someone next time she had the chance to stop and think. After her moment of rest, Nicole took the blond man’s knife from his cold hands, and used it to remove the binds from her legs. She slowly rose to her feet. She gathered up scraps of rope and did her best to bind the soldier's wrists together behind his back. It would delay him quite a bit, Nicole told herself. With nothing else in her way, Nicole pressed an ear against the door, listening for the blond man’s comrades. After a few seconds of mental preparation, she threw the door open in one swift movement and burst into the next room, her shoulders sagging under the weight of the ice wrapped around her hands. [[Previous|Page 70]] | [[Next|Page 72]]

<center> Page 72 </center> To her surprise, however, the scene she had burst into was one of a battle already concluded; the two soldiers had already been incapacitated. The only clue to the nature of the victor was in the familiar disembodied voice that soon greeted her. “…the bloody ‘ell ‘appened to ye?” the voice asked, heavy with concern. “The same thing that happened in here, Steven,” Nicole replied, in no mood to speak of what happened in the room behind her. “I won a fight. How’d you find me?” Steven became visible in a lonely streak of light pouring in from a nearby window. “Ye can thank Keno for that.” “Is he outside?” When Steven nodded, Nicole felt a strange urge to cross her fingers overwhelm her. “Who else is there?” “Sonya and ‘eather.” A brief pause ensued as Nicole stared at Steven in confusion. “…oh, blimey, ye ain’t met ‘eather yet. Come on, ye might wanna ‘ave a talk with ‘er, especially after…whatever the ‘ell all this is.” Nicole waved off Steven’s request to elaborate as he led her into the summer air of the city, her eyes searing slightly in the light of the morning sun. In fact, her eyes were so unaccustomed to such brightness that she nearly missed the River City Police Department squad car parked before her. “Crap!” she blurted. “Was this a setup?” “Where did you get a crazy idea like that?” a curly blond-haired woman asked from the driver’s seat of the cop car. Despite the beginnings of wrinkles stretching across her face, she did her best to sound youthful. Nicole was embarrassed of the answer; her face burned a little as her gaze fell to her feet. “Television.” The woman in the squad car couldn’t help but laugh. “Relax, Nicole," she said, leaning on the steering wheel of her police car. "Your pals told me everything. I was tempted to arrest your friend Steven here for being an accessory to the murders that that Cody guy committed…but judging by the things you’ve discovered, the Lee Corporation is a much bigger problem.” [[Previous|Page 71]] | [[Next|Page 73]]

<center> Page 73 </center> Nicole shook her head. “But…how did you even find us?" she asked. "How did you know to help us in particular?” The police officer gave a small shrug. “Grizz told me all about you guys,” she said. “Remember, Nicole?” Sonya blurted from the back seat of the squad car. “The guy from Cross Town? You fought him in that alleyway! He was really impressed!” “I worked with him awhile back,” the blond woman elaborated, “when his girlfriend was kidnapped and hauled here to River City. She told me everything Grizz had said about you guys…and it doesn’t take long to find such flashy characters.” “Wait,” Nicole muttered, “how long have I been out of it?” “A couple weeks,” Steven replied. “Ye didn’t seem quite right when the soldiers tried to use ye as a bargaining chip…” Steven went on to regale Nicole with a tale that she had indeed been in no condition to notice for herself; the soldiers had exchanged her life for the pictures Steven had taken that connected the Lee Corporation with the soldiers that had been hunting super-powered children. From there, the corporation had undergone a massive campaign to repair their damaged reputation, starting with firing the overseer of the soldiers’ operations. “It weren’t enough to keep people from ‘avin’ a protest outside the buildin’," he finished. "Come to think of it, that protest is still ‘appenin’ right now.” “Nicole, we should take you down to see it,” the blond-haired woman suggested. “Oh, and…I suppose I should introduce myself. Officer Heather Storm, RCPD.” Nicole took Heather’s hand for a vigorous handshake. “Nicole Ellery…” She wanted to end her sentence with some sort of title just as Heather had, but couldn’t think of anything that she belonged to or any titles she could lay claim to. “…I punch things.” ## End of Chapter 14 [[Previous|Page 72]] | [[Next|Page 74]]

<center> Page 74 </center> ## Chapter 15 “So in all your talking,” Nicole shouted to Heather as she drove the gang down the street in her squad car, “did you guys come up with a plan or what?” “Of course,” Steven confirmed, turning to peer past the passenger seat he was sitting in. “Ye might like ‘ow simple it is.” “Publicizing the Lee Corporation’s involvement was a wonderful idea,” Heather began, “but that’s just a few photos and some…what, psychic evidence? I’m sorry, but reading some guy’s mind isn’t exactly grounds for a warrant.” “Oh, to search the place for yourself?” Nicole asked. “I think I get what’s happening here…you want us to break in there because you can’t?” “Actually, based on what your friends have told me…your parents have gone missing, and Lee is the prime suspect. I’ve got a warrant to search the premises for your parents…but I’m the kind of girl that would’ve done things backwards if it weren’t for the warrant. I would’ve been happy to break in there first, and then find a reason to be there.” “Yeah, but that’s against the law…I bet they’d let Lee walk if you did that.” Heather let out a loud sigh. “It’s the worst, isn’t it? All I want to see is the fulfillment of justice, but all this damn red tape always ends up in the way. You kids are lucky…I bet that if you were to barge in there yourselves and take justice into your own hands, even if that meant killing Mr. Lee, you’d be hailed as heroes. I’d be off the force in a heartbeat, and possibly on Death Row, but if one of you kids killed Lee…well, let’s just say that Grizz did something like that once, and look at how he’s treated now.” Nicole shrugged. “So the plan’s for us to go in there and kick some ass, right?” she growled. “Is that what I’m getting out of this?” A smile spread across her face as she cracked her knuckles. “I’m glad the plan hasn’t changed much, even after all the time I’ve been out of it.” [[Previous|Page 73]] | [[Next|Page 75]]

<center> Page 75 </center> Soon, the conversation moved on to the topic of specific strategies, a topic which bored Nicole immensely. Her attention eventually drifted right out the window, where she had expected to see a full-blown war breaking out. With the news of the Lee Corporation’s involvement making its rounds, she had hoped that her peers would take to the streets and begin a massive conflict, but Steven’s tidings of a peaceful protest were confirmed by the odd silence that dominated the streets for the most part. It was vaguely discomforting to see the streets so empty; for reasons probably connected to the protest, the usual bustling metropolis of River City was replaced with an oppressive degree of emptiness. Nicole found herself wondering if the streets were cleared in favor of the protest, or if people were avoiding the scene out of fear of being attacked by people like her. She was hoping to find some answers waiting for her when Heather’s squad car arrived at the Lee Corporation building, but the size of the group gathered in front of the building didn’t answer her questions as conclusively as she would have liked. Yes, there were more than enough people present to make a point, but River City was home to far more people. Most of the rabble that had been roused were teenagers, though a few concerned adults made their dutiful appearances in order to speak on behalf of the children. Many of the teenagers present were outwardly empowered; just as it was hard for Nicole to hide her pale skin and the snow that usually blew around it, there were teens in the crowd that crackled with energy or bore obvious physical mutations. One boy in particular caught Nicole’s eyes, a messy-haired boy quite literally stretched out across a wheelchair. It was obvious that his powers of stretching did not entail some sort of power to un-stretch himself, and his limbs were left in a completely unusable state as a result. As Heather’s squad car approached the crowd, some of the people present turned to face it; one of the people standing next to the wheelchair-bound boy held a sign that read, “WHY ARE YOU AFRAID OF US?” Nicole rolled her eyes. “Well, if you’re not actually going to do anything, they’re not going to be afraid,” she muttered into her hands. “Sorry, mate,” Steven said, “but not everyone punches all their problems.” [[Previous|Page 74]] | [[Next|Page 76]]

<center> Page 76 </center> The crowd wasn’t particularly loud in their protests, yet when Nicole turned her head to look at Steven, she saw Keno sitting against the door, cradling his head as if Heather had driven the gang to a rock concert. Nicole took the opportunity to drive her point home even harder. “It would be a lot simpler if we did just go up there and punch that Lee guy," she said, already jutting a thumb at Keno. "Besides, I think Keno would appreciate that approach a little more…I mean, look at how well he’s handling this crowd.” “What, the mind-reading thing?” Heather guessed, her intuition rewarded by a quartet of nodding heads. “There’s gotta be something we can do about that.” As she guided the car to a halt with one hand, her other hand burrowed into her pockets; eventually, she found a small bottle and tossed it over her shoulder into the back seat. “Ibuprofen. Reading all those minds must do a real number on your head.” As Nicole watched Keno dutifully dose up, a remarkable feat given that he had nothing to drink, she briefly flashed back to the day they first met. She wondered why Keno didn’t carry pills on him at all times if the headaches were truly as bad as he made them out to be. There was no time to ponder such things, however; Heather had already exited the squad car, and all of Nicole’s friends were beginning to follow suit. Nicole leapt out of the car and onto her feet, and only then did the true scope of the protest hit her. Her new view warranted a new appreciation for the veritable sea of people that had gathered to express their issues with the Lee Corporation. “There’s a lot of people here,” she muttered in shock, the best she could do to vocalize her amazement. “Keno!” a voice from within the crowd suddenly began to shout. To her surprise, it sounded as if someone had taken the voice of Keno himself and dropped it half an octave. [[Previous|Page 75]] | [[Next|Page 77]]

<center> Page 77 </center> “Keno!” the voice shouted again, noticeably louder this time. Before long, the source of the voice made itself apparent as a tall and dark-skinned young man skirted his way around the edge of the crowd. Keno was quick to notice the man as well. “Brudda!” he hollered back energetically, already dashing toward the man; soon, the two brothers were sharing a manly embrace. “Everyone, dis is Jassu.” After what felt like five minutes, Keno dutifully peeled himself away from the embrace in order to complete his introductory duties. “Jassu,: he said, "dis is Nicole…Steven…Sonya…Headda.” Keno nodded to each person as he said their name, their cue to send a gesture of greeting Jassu’s way. When that matter was solved, Keno and Jassu began to talk among themselves, a conversation Nicole would have listened to were she not distracted by how much Jassu looked exactly like a bigger, taller version of Keno. “Jassu, I t’ought you were at dat…monastery?” “I was. I came back when I heard of this ‘powers’ business from Mother and Father. Why did you leave them? They worry about you.” “I had to find somet’in’, like you did.” “And what was it that you have found?” “Dese people…dese friends. I t’ought dat I wanted a reason for my mind-readin’ powers, but instead…all I found was a use for ‘em. Why or how I read minds…dese t’ings don’t matter as much as I t’ought dey would. What matters is how I use my powers.” “A valuable lesson, to be sure. The way you speak implies that you have some other use yet for your powers to go through with.” “I gotta help my friends handle dis…Lee Corporation t’ing.” “Yeah, can we get on with that?” Nicole blurted. [[Previous|Page 76]] | [[Next|Page 78]]

<center> Page 78 </center> When five pairs of eyes turned to Nicole with a glare that questioned why she would be so willing to interrupt a family moment, she added, “Sorry, but we’ve really gotta do something.” “Nicole’s right!” Sonya agreed quickly. “Let’s do this!” Keno turned to Steven with a vaguely desperate look in his eyes, but Steven broke eye contact. “Security is likely distracted by the protest,” he rationalized. “I was thinkin’, mate—“ “I know,” Keno interrupted. “’course I know what you was t’inkin’. Much as I’d like to spend more time wid my brudda…you and me, sneakin’ into the buildin’ while Sonya and Nicole take a more direct approach.” “…an’ Heather an’ the protesters, capturing the bulk of security’s attention with their diplomatic approach. With them tryin’ so hard to please Officer Storm an’ a crowd full of super-powered protesters…” Steven nodded. “Right then," he said, nodding with satisfaction at whatever he'd planned. Keno had already mentioned Nicole's role, and she knew just enough to know what a "direct approach" meant. With her job explained, she was barely listening to everything else. "If everyone’s ready, it’s high time we got on with it.” Nicole’s attention was severed by a drop of rain colliding with her nose. “It sure is,” she confirmed. “If we don’t do something soon, this rain is bound to drive everyone away from the scene of the protest.” She turned to Sonya and added, “Come on, let’s go do this!” ## End of Chapter 15 [[Previous|Page 77]] | [[Next|Page 79]]

<center> Page 79 </center> ## Chapter 16 “Well, that was fast,” Sonya mused as she stared upward into the clouds; they had been content to merely drizzle just five minutes ago, but now they could not hold back the full force of the downpour they carried. As the rain spilled out over the two girls, Nicole did her best to stay focused on the plan she had been briefed on. “Sonya, we’ve got to figure out how we’re gonna break into this place,” she growled. “I doubt the protest is going to last much longer with all this rain, and besides, I’d rather not freeze myself solid.” Nicole never would have considered the possibility of such a thing happening, were it not occurring right then and there; she could feel the precipitation slowly hardening all over her body. “So what do you think, Sonya?" she asked. "Through the parking garage? Maybe we can crash right through a window on the ground floor…?” “Not the windows! Aren’t they unbreakable?” Nicole rolled her eyes. “You mean…plate glass? That’s no big deal!” To prove her point, Nicole shrouded her fist in subzero temperatures and threw it at the glass separating the Lee Corporation building from the torrent of rain and anger outside. To her amazement, the glass didn’t budge an inch. “Maybe it is.” Sonya nodded down a road to the side of the building, leading to a hole in the ground. “Parking garage…?” “Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s our best bet. Seems a little sneakier, though…I was looking forward to getting into a fight as soon as possible.” Sonya shook her head. “That’s not the plan! We have to sneak! As much as possible!” [[Previous|Page 78]] | [[Next|Page 80]]

<center> Page 80 </center> Nicole tapped a finger against her temple. “The way I see it, they’ve seen us already,” she surmised. “You guys said that the soldiers knew who took the pictures…and the guy that ran off with me seemed to know plenty about me…” “Nicole, about that…” Sonya took Nicole by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “What happened?” she shouted. “Your shirt…it’s got a rip in it! And a bloodstain! What’d they do? Are you okay? Nicole?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” Nicole struggled to break Sonya’s grip on her shoulders, but to no avail. “Seriously, we need to get this over with. We can talk about this later.” Nicole started to crane her neck away from Sonya in an effort to break eye contact, but Sonya did her best to move her own neck to keep the pressure on Nicole. “We can…but you won’t!" Sonya snapped. Normally, Nicole felt very comfortable around Sonya, but she suddenly felt far too close. "I know how things go!" Sonya added. "I’m hyper, not dumb.” In one of Nicole’s many rapid head movements, she caught a glimpse of moisture welling up in the corners of Sonya’s eyes, which could have been rain or tears. “You’re dodging something. I’ve seen this happen.” Nicole nodded and gently laid her hands upon Sonya’s. “This really isn’t the time," she said. "Look at it this way: you know how I usually get really mad at people, and punching things makes me feel better?” Sonya nodded silently. “Well, it helps me punch harder. Let me work it out like I usually do…if we live through this, I can tell you then.” “Promise?” Nicole nodded and collapsed against Sonya, prompting the two to share an embrace. “I’ll be fine for now.” [[Previous|Page 79]] | [[Next|Page 81]]

<center> Page 81 </center> A low roar suddenly filled the air as a pair of lights pierced the rainy scene to illuminate Nicole and Sonya from behind. The two girls turned simultaneously, only to see a massive semi-truck barreling down the street toward them. “A truck!” Sonya gasped. “It’s speeding up!” “Damn!” Nicole said, already turning to sprint in the opposite direction. Sonya quickly fell in line behind her, joining in her hasty escape. After a few seconds, the girls simultaneously chanced a glance over their shoulders, and simultaneously became disheartened to find that the truck was closer than it had been when they first spotted it. “Gotta go faster!” Nicole heard the splashing of Sonya’s feet against the pavement accelerate just before a pair of hands began to shove into her back. “Move it, Nicole!” Sonya kept moving faster and faster, much to Nicole’s chagrin. Sonya’s legs were her power, and there was no way that Nicole would be able to move her own legs with as much speed or power. “Sonya, stop that! I can’t—“ Nicole’s protests were interrupted mid-sentence when her legs failed at matching Sonya’s pace; she gasped as she felt one of her legs catch on the other, and time seemed to slow down as she began to fall toward the pavement. Instinctively, her hands shot out in front of her to break her fall; at the same time, she could feel her ice powers getting carried away, and her hands began to coat themselves in a frosty white wind. [[Previous|Page 80]] | [[Next|Page 82]]

<center> Page 82 </center> As her hands fell onto the rain-slicked asphalt, she felt the moisture flash-freeze around her hands, and the combined slickness of the ice and rain caused her hands to shoot out in front of her. Nicole was skidding painfully across the pavement, the momentum of her sprint and Sonya’s urging carrying her through what would undoubtedly become a nasty case of road rash if she could manage to live through this crisis. Before long, she was surprised by a sudden sense of relief; she was still hurtling forward, but the painful scraping sensation had vanished. Nicole was tempted to chalk the relief up to numbness until Sonya spoke up. “Freezing the ground? Good idea!” Nicole’s relief was shattered as she felt Sonya’s wet shoes shove their way into her back. “Sonya, what are you—“ “Hold still!” Sonya urged as she flicked a foot into the pavement, kicking Nicole along the ground like a skateboard. “Keep freezing!” Nicole briefly considered defying Sonya’s somewhat sadistic strategy, but she could feel the road beneath her vibrating under the nearby wheels of the truck, and she could see through the night and the downpour thanks to the truck’s own headlights. She quickly decided that she had no time to come up with a plan of her own, and that it would be better to let Sonya call the shots this time. She was not above voicing the occasional concern, however. “Sonya! I’m gonna crash into the sidewalk!” “You wanna turn?” Sonya guessed. “Alright, then! Lean with me!” Nicole felt Sonya’s weight shift to her right, and the glacial girl quickly caught on to Sonya’s prior instructions. Her left side lifted off of the ground slightly as she committed her muscles to jamming her right hip and shoulder into the frost-glazed street. [[Previous|Page 81]] | [[Next|Page 83]]

<center> Page 83 </center> To her relief, the sidewalk began to scroll into the darkness to the left of the truck’s headlights, where it faded from sight in order to make way for the road ahead. Sonya’s super-powered legs continued to kick Nicole along the road as she froze the ground in front of her, sliding along the newly-formed ice on her stomach as the truck growled in anticipation behind her. A sudden sensation on her toes aroused her concern. “Sonya, it’s gaining on us…!” Nicole shouted in a panic. After a moment of silence, Sonya shared her answer. “Then let’s go left!” The two girls leaned in tandem, sending them careening through a four-way intersection; Nicole heard screeching tires and twisting metal behind her as the truck took its left turn. “It’s farther back!” Sonya confirmed from atop Nicole’s back as she kicked at the road some more to gain more speed. Being flung along the streets at such high speeds face-first was beginning to take its toll on Nicole. Now that every raindrop was beginning to feel like a small fist against her forehead, she was coming to appreciate why cars had windshields. She was also beginning to resent the fact that she could feel every slight imperfection and particulate in the road against her stomach as she slid over it, but now was not the time to complain. “Sonya,” she shouted, “we have to keep turning!” “Well, duh! We’re smaller! We turn better!” Sonya began to slalom her way through the streets on Nicole’s back, weaving left and right on the momentum of Sonya’s super-powered legs. As the distance between Nicole and the truck expanded, it let out a bone-rattling shout from its horn, a cry of anger from a bloodthirsty machine. Nicole was confident that the truck would be unable to capitalize on the threat that the horn represented, at least until the unmistakable sound of gunfire began to erupt from behind her. ## End of Chapter 16 [[Previous|Page 82]] | [[Next|Page 84]]

<center> Page 84 </center> ## Chapter 17 “Sonya!” Nicole shouted as bullets detonated miniature explosions of water and debris around her. “What are we gonna do about those guns?” “I dunno!” Sonya replied, yelling to be heard over the guns and truck of the people following them. “Just let me think! Until then, keep turning!” Nicole was happy to leave the decisions up to Sonya; her mind was occupied by the task of being Sonya’s subzero skateboard, and by the pain it was starting to cause her. She had closed her eyes about half a mile ago, in order to shield her eyes from the rain and particulates she was colliding with at about fifty miles per hour. She was able to come up with one suggestion, however. “You have super-powered legs, don’t you? Can’t you…kick the truck or whatever?” “But Nicole, the truck’s huge!” Sonya’s leaning subtly instructed Nicole to hang a quick left turn, followed immediately by a right. “I couldn’t possibly…!” As Sonya signaled for another left turn, Nicole felt something wrong in the way Sonya’s feet were situated upon her back. “You’re right, though! We have to do something!” “And fast…I think your feet are freezing in place on my back!” A brief wiggling of Sonya’s feet seemed to confirm Nicole’s diagnosis. “Yeah, but that’s good!” “How is that good?” Nicole shouted, the last word straining to escape her mouth alongside a surprised gasp as a bullet landed mere inches from her head. “I can do this!” Sonya answered as she coiled her legs. Suddenly, the ground seemed to fall away from Nicole, only to harshly return to its usual spot. “Want to explain to me what you just did?” “Hopped through an alley!” Nicole could hear a smug sense of satisfaction in Sonya’s voice. “Where the truck can’t follow!” Nicole opened her eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of the alleyway as the duo reemerged onto the road. “Does that mean I can stand up?” “When I figure out how to stop, sure!” [[Previous|Page 83]] | [[Next|Page 85]]

<center> Page 85 </center> Instead of actually figuring out how to stop, however, Sonya brought Nicole skidding all the way back to the Lee Corporation building. When the skyscraper was within a couple blocks, Sonya reached out and grabbed a light pole in order to expend the last of Nicole’s momentum on a series of tight circles. “I thought we were going to do that sooner,” Nicole complained as Sonya broke the ice holding the girls together with a powerful backflip. As Nicole rose to her feet, a quick assessment of the situation revealed slight damage to her clothes and a lot of irritated skin, but nothing that required immediate care. “Steven and Keno are probably way ahead of us now," Nicole griped, "not to mention the crowd is probably—“ Nicole’s conjecture was proven wrong before she could even say it aloud; if anything, the throng of protesters had grown since the appearance of the truck, outweighing the stubbornness of the rain. “What are they still doing here?” she asked. Merely approaching the crowd was enough to answer her question. Before she knew it, swarms of people had gathered around Nicole and Sonya, the crowd buzzing with far too much activity to actually hear what any of them had to say. Sonya seemed to be in her element, judging by the fact that she was actually conversing with and responding to the din that surrounded her. “It was nothing!” she bragged. “It was fast, but we were faster!” Nicole scratched the back of her head. “You can actually understand all this?” “A few of them!” Only when Sonya turned to face Nicole did she realize that the previous statement was intended for someone else. “Of course, Nicole! They’re all amazed!” “Amazed…? By what?” “The truck! They saw…!” The sound of a familiar horn crashed over the crowd, stunning them into silence. “I think they’re about to see again…!” [[Previous|Page 84]] | [[Next|Page 86]]

<center> Page 86 </center> True to Nicole’s suspicions, the truck had guessed that she would return to the Lee Corporation building, and was on its way to settle unfinished business. “They really want a piece of us, don’t they, Sonya?” Sonya was too busy with crowd control to answer Nicole’s question. “Everyone clear out!” she ordered. Murmurs of protest could be heard here and there, but Sonya was quick to dispute them. “Just go! It’ll be fine!” Eventually, the crowd dispersed with varying degrees of reluctance. “How is this gonna be fine?” Nicole asked when she thought they were all out of earshot. “I have a plan! Hurry; freeze the ground!” “Another ice slick?” Nicole shrugged and took a knee, but her concentration was quickly interrupted by the eruption of machine gun fire. “We don’t have time to do that!” she blurted as she fell backwards from shock. Sonya moved in quickly to help Nicole to her feet. “Then we move!” With Nicole still in her grip, Sonya executed a quick roll to the side, urging Nicole into running behind her. “Follow me! They can’t turn well! Not in this weather!” Nicole looked up from her feet in time to see that she and Sonya were indeed moving perpendicular to the truck’s current heading, as well as a strange sight around the truck’s tires. “Sonya…?” Sonya shouted her reply over her shoulder as the two girls continued to dash through the rain. “Yeah?” Nicole grabbed onto Sonya’s arm to pull her to a stop, but was catapulted face-first into the asphalt. She briefly scolded herself for not remembering how the bodysurfing escapade began before continuing her previous train of thought. “Look at the water around the tires.” By the time Sonya was looking, the situation had only amplified; the truck appeared to be driving on top of the water, ushered along by a strong current. “Is it just me," Nicole said, "or is the truck getting pulled toward the building…?” [[Previous|Page 85]] | [[Next|Page 87]]

<center> Page 87 </center> “Hydroplaning!” Sonya answered bluntly. “They drove too fast! That’s why we ran this way! They can’t stop or brake!” “Yeah, but doesn’t…” Nicole shrugged and consigned herself to watch as the truck careened into the Lee building, her jaw dropping as the ensuing explosion simultaneously hurled and illuminated glass and other debris into the rain; it was the most beautiful car crash she had ever seen. “I think that’s our way in,” she mumbled, still in shock. Sonya nodded and sprinted into the building, using a series of powerful roundhouse kicks to shove some of the truck’s remains out of her path. Nicole was hot on her heels, and the two girls were soon inside the elevator without incident. “This is probably why Steven didn’t want to go in with us,” she mused as Sonya pressed a series of buttons to order the elevator to ascend to the top floor. “We made a hell of an entrance.” “It was the only way!” Sonya elaborated. “It got us through security!” Nicole began to wring her hair clear of moisture when the elevator let out a quick ring. Her eyes darted above the sliding doors, only to see that the elevator had stopped on the thirtieth story. “This isn’t the to—“ Her sentence ended abruptly as the doors glided away from one another to reveal a small squad of soldiers, eagerly awaiting an escape from the stairwell. Her reflexes were quick to fling a frigid fist into the closest sternum before leaning out of the soldiers’ line of sight. She stared across the elevator as Sonya frantically mashed a button to close the elevator doors. “Nicole!” she shouted. “Stop them! They won’t let this door close!” Before she could lift a finger, however, a flash of lightning twisted through the corridor, incapacitating all of the soldiers on the spot. “Naw, it’s good,” a vaguely familiar voice confirmed. “We got ‘em.” Nicole could barely hazard a guess before a girl wandered into the elevator, her blond hair completely soaked. “Sam…?” [[Previous|Page 86]] | [[Next|Page 88]]

<center> Page 88 </center> “Yeah," Sam said, smiling at Nicole and Sonya. "You’re welcome.” As the doors slid closed and the elevator resumed its upward journey, Nicole found herself struggle to find the right words to say. “You, um…can control your powers now, huh?” Sam shrugged. “Sort of.” Her left hand swung down to her hip, knocking into a large plastic bottle fastened there. “Don’t be rude; the least you could do is say hi.” “Yeah, well, this ain’t easy,” yet another blast from the past bubbled from within the bottle. “You brought Claire too?” Sonya gasped. “Hi Claire! Hi Sam!” The bottle on Sam’s hip wiggled with emphasis. “No duh she brought me! Don’t let her fool ya; she can’t control her powers no better’n when you met her! I’m the one in control here!” Sam nodded in confirmation, her entire body aglow from the electricity crackling around her in a watery shell. “Claire’s containing all the electricity I’m generating with her surface tension or something,” she elaborated. “But don’t let her fool you, either; she can’t control her powers any better.” “Hey, I almost had the walkin’ thing down, but we didn’t have nothin' for time, see? We came as soon as we could.” Nicole shook her head. “It’s not like you to come running into a fight,” she growled, still unsure of how to feel about the return of a deserter. “Well, Grizz came by,” Sam explained, “and he told me that something was about to start here. If you guys lost, who would stop these Lee fellas from coming to Cross Town, or Metro City, or wherever I went to next? Naw, the way he saw it, I’d have to keep running forever if I wanted to be sure I’d be OK.” Nicole nodded. “So you’re in on this?” “Well, I did electrocute those guys back there.” Sam rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m in. Where’s everyone else?” “Steven and Keno are sneaking in!” Sonya shouted in reply. “Heather is too, I guess!” Sam shook her head slightly. “Who…?” “Oh, right, you don’t know. Nicole, help me explain!” ## End of Chapter 17 [[Previous|Page 87]] | [[Next|Page 89]]

<center> Page 89 </center> ## Chapter 18 A quick ring announced the elevator’s arrival at the top floor, prompting the girls to ready themselves for combat. Even before the doors opened, however, Nicole could hear a fight that had started without her. Incensed, she could barely restrain herself from shoving the elevator doors open in lieu of waiting for them to open on their own accord. The doors eventually opened themselves to reveal a hallway clogged with the bodies of downed soldiers, and Steven and Keno kneeling at the far end of the hall. “See, dat’s dem,” Keno informed Steven with the aid of hand gestures. “Told you I could hear dem t’inkin’ for awhile now.” “Crikey!” Steven blurted when he turned to face the girls. “Keno told me ye’d be back, Sam, but I wasn’t sure I believed ‘im!” “Believe it,” Sam rebuked. “Even Claire decided to tag along. So, we got a lead on where the Lee guy is or whatever?” Steven nodded as he moved to meet the rest of his posse halfway down the hallway. “Keno ‘andled that little detail already, with ‘is mind-readin’. Mr. Lee, ‘e likes to ‘ang tight in an area above us that can’t be accessed by foot. They ‘ave to fly ‘im in and out.” “Um, Steven,” Nicole mumbled, “none of us can fly.” Steven merely responded by pointing down a different hallway and out a window, drawing Nicole’s attention to a helicopter hovering right there. “Sure we can…!” The group followed Steven’s lead to the window, only to see Heather hanging out the side of the police helicopter awaiting them. [[Previous|Page 88]] | [[Next|Page 90]]

<center> Page 90 </center> Steven nodded to the police officer in the helicopter before picking up a nearby chair and proceeding to wail on the window. Before long, the entire panel of plate glass popped loose from its place and was swiftly yanked downward by gravity along with the rain. “Ye got room for five more in there?” he shouted to Heather over the roar of the helicopter blades, which was a lot louder than it had been when the glass was in its place. “It might be a little tight,” Heather warned Steven as she grabbed his hand and hoisted him into the helicopter, “but I think we can manage.” One by one, the other vagrants were lifted into the chopper as well; Nicole was glad it was so crowded, because she felt very uneasy in the aircraft otherwise. As the group rose into the sky, Heather took the opportunity to give her two cents. “That mind-reading stuff must be the real deal," she continued, nodding at Keno. "a little research back at the precinct confirmed Mr. Lee’s little rooftop hideaway. Immediately after the place was built and all the inspections or whatever happened, Lee brought in a new team of professionals to seal off the top floor any way they could; reprogramming the elevator, destroying the top of the stairwell and sealing it off…you name it, they did it." "Lee likes his private time a little too much, by the looks of it,” Heather added, saying it slowly as the helicopter pitched forward slightly underneath them. Heather just sort of steadied herself a bit, but Nicole's flight anxiety renewed itself. “I think we’re about to land. If it were me, I would’ve left the moment you guys threw a truck at this place, but no one’s used the rooftop heliport, so it’s more likely that Lee’s chosen to barricade himse—“ A worrisome cacophony of gunfire and twisting metal drowned out the rest of Heather’s sentence. “The tail’s been hit by anti-aircraft fire!” the pilot shouted from his seat in the cockpit. “I can’t keep this thing in the air…we’re going down!” After warning his passengers, the pilot proceeded to reiterate the situation to police headquarters via radio. “I knew I hated this thing for a reason!” Nicole screamed. “What do we do now?” Steven threw open the bay door and recoiled at the sight below. “I don’t see any big guns,” he reported, “but then again, we are ‘angin’ quite a few stories over the ‘elipad. We gotta break that fall somehow if we’re gonna jump for it.” “Yeah, except there aren’t enough parachutes for everyone,” Heather confirmed. [[Previous|Page 89]] | [[Next|Page 91]]

<center> Page 91 </center> A collective scream issued from the helicopter as it began to spiral downward through the sky, soon to join the plate glass and the rain in a one-way trip to the ground. “Maybe we just need a different way to break the fall, then.” Steven’s gaze leapt all over the helicopter before finally settling on Sam. “So, ye brought Claire with ye, then?” “I’m here,” Claire gurgled from her bottle. “What good am I gonna be?” “Lots, if ye can use the rain to cushion our falls with water!” A brief silence ensued, or it would have, were it not for the alert klaxons warning everyone aboard the helicopter of their obvious predicament. “…oh, I’m with ya. OK, I feel ya now. Sam, open this damn bottle up an' lemme do my thing.” Sam nodded and released Claire’s fleshy core from the bottle, holding it aloft in her hands. “This is gross.” “You always say that.” Claire quickly set to work, bending the rain around her in order to cast a tendril into the side of the building. “Hurry up!” Nicole shouted. “We’re falling pretty fast!” A quick glimpse of the helicopter pilot claiming a parachute and abandoning the wreck-to-be only amplified her anxiety. “Hey, have I ever rushed you? Shut up and lemme work here.” The vagrants watched breathlessly as the aquatic tether grew thicker and thicker as it caught the falling rain. “Ya might have to start swimmin’ now, guys.” Sonya nodded and shoved her way out of the helicopter, leaping recklessly into Claire’s handiwork. Despite the water being barely as thick around as Sonya herself, she managed to keep herself afloat in the cylindrical causeway connected to the skyscraper. “Hey, this is fun!” she shouted over her shoulder. “You guys gotta try this!” Heather shrugged. “It’s that or the helicopter,” she assured herself as she followed Sonya’s example. [[Previous|Page 90]] | [[Next|Page 92]]

<center> Page 92 </center> “You guys really have nothin' for patience, ya know?” Claire boiled as she filled the rest of the helicopter with rainwater, enveloping everyone within. “There, try swimmin’ now.” As the group obeyed her instructions, Claire propelled herself through the water behind them, bunching up the water as she went. Nicole repeatedly told herself not to look down, so much so that she failed to notice that everyone else had stopped swimming. “Looks like everyone’s here,” Claire continued. Nicole risked looking down long enough to notice that Claire was holding a small pool’s worth of water just off the side of the roof. As everyone else treaded water, the levitating pool collected rainwater, causing it to rise until everyone within could simply hoist themselves onto the roof of the Lee building. Her work complete, Claire let the water fall from the side of the roof in favor of forming an egg-shaped shell around Sam. “So wait,” Nicole gasped, “you can do all that, but you’re having trouble walking around in a human shape?” As Claire oozed back into her bottle via a curved stream of water, she replied, “I ain’t no good with details, is the thing. Did ya even notice how hard it was to hold the shape I was in when we first met? I was kinda strugglin’ to hold everything in the shape of a girl. You look at some lady drippin’ away, and it’s weird, but if a big tube’s drippin’ some…I bet y’all didn’t even notice that happenin’. You in particular, Nicole, you was pretty scared…!” Nicole could already feel the heat begin to form in her cheeks, and the chill begin to form around her fists. “Was not!” Claire scoffed as best a fleshy ball submerged in water possibly could. “Yeah, I saw you doggy-paddlin’! Think I heard ya whisperin’ ‘don’t look down’, too.” “Look, I suck at swimming, alright?” Nicole shook herself free of moisture to keep it from freezing around her. “Can we just get this over with before I punch you too?” “Let’s,” a deep voice intoned from the center of the rooftop. “Your persistence is admirable.” [[Previous|Page 91]] | [[Next|Page 93]]

<center> Page 93 </center> “You’re Mr. Lee!” Heather said, barely able to hold Nicole back from her goal of punching the man’s lights out immediately. “Do you have any idea how many things I could arrest you for right now?” “Of course.” The man took a bow, apparently unfettered by the rain and hostility filling the air around him. “Mister David Lee, at your service.” As he rose from his bow, Mr. Lee added, “Don’t think I didn’t notice your arrival.” “I’d be kind of offended if you didn’t,” Nicole growled, still flailing and pulling in a desperate attempt to break free from Heather’s grip. “I’m sure.” Mr. Lee shook his head. “How different do you think you are?” “I’m not in charge of thinking. I just do all the punching.” “So you probably never considered the fact that you’ve hunted and killed my people, which—if I’m not mistaken; feel free to tell me otherwise—is precisely why you’re angry at me.” The accumulation of Nicole’s rage was only matched in speed by the accumulation of ice around her fists. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m just pissed off by the whole thing, and tossing you around is going to make me feel a lot better.” A lucky swing of her arm released her from Heather’s restraining grip, and she took that as her chance to strike. With a bloodthirsty scream, Nicole launched herself fist-first at the man that had caused so many hardships for her. She gasped as her fist slammed into something that felt oddly metallic; only when her rage subsided slightly could she see that a strange black-haired young man had slipped in between her and her target, clad in a strange and angular sand-colored armor. “Late again,” Mr. Lee muttered as he turned to walk away. “No matter. I leave them in your hands.” “Acknowledged,” the black-haired man replied. “Lethal force?” “…no. We might have a use for them yet.” With that, Mr. Lee evacuated the helipad, with his companion blocking off any attempts to follow. As everyone else prepared for a fight, Heather only stood still and gawked at the new challenger. “That can’t be,” she gasped. “J, is that you?” “Wait, that is J!” Nicole confirmed. “From the fighting tournament I saw on TV way back when…but what’s he doing here helping Mr. Lee?” ## End of Chapter 18 [[Previous|Page 92]] | [[Next|Page 94]]

<center> Page 94 </center> ## Chapter 19 “So Lee’s got ‘imself ‘is own tournament fighter,” Steven balked as he approached the center of the helipad, his form flickering into visibility under the floodlights pointed at the landing site. “That supposed to scare me any? I still ‘ave to put a stop to everything ‘e does.” A quick uppercut from J silenced Steven’s speech. Before Nicole knew it, he was face down on the helipad, shaking his head in amazement. “Keno, why didn’t ye warn me ‘e was gonna do that?” he asked. “…now that you mention it,” Keno muttered, trailing off mid-sentence. Nicole shook her head, turning away from Keno in favor of the fight erupting in the center of the helipad. Steven was back on his feet, ready to launch a counterstrike despite a lack of shadows in which to take cover. It was Nicole’s first real opportunity to survey Steven’s fighting style without his powers getting in the way. It was a gorgeous flow of dashes and kicks that she had never seen the likes of before. Her benefactor was quick on his feet, and even quicker in battering his target with them. Blow after blow fell onto J’s body, nearly matching the tempo of the rain itself. When J would move to counterattack, Steven was equally fast to move out of the way, often using his superior agility to place himself behind his opponent. Nicole could tell at a glance that this was a fight to be worried about, however. Despite Steven’s unrelenting barrage of attacks, J seemed relatively unfazed. Before she could even hazard a guess as to why, Keno suddenly decided to finish his sentence from before. “…I can’t hear de man t’inkin’!” “What does that even mean?” Nicole asked, her voice taking a sharp edge in time with J scoring a lucky body blow. “I don’t know…it’s never happened before.” [[Previous|Page 93]] | [[Next|Page 95]]

<center> Page 95 </center> “Never happen—ugh, just forget it,” Nicole said, shaking her head. She turned to Heather, startling the cop slightly. “You know the guy, don’t you? Why can’t Keno read his mind?” Heather shrugged. “Oh, I just heard of this mind-reading business today, and you expect me to know why it wouldn’t be working?” “You’ve gotta know something!” Nicole stomped a foot into the helipad to emphasize her anger. “And what’s with this guy, anyway? Guy’s got arms of steel or something…he blocked my punch, and holy crap did it hurt!” “Steel…?” Heather shook her head and let out a piercing shout. “Steven, get away from there! He’s not—“ “Way ahead of ye, Sheila!” Steven interrupted with a shout of his own as a series of quick dashes brought him back to the group. “’e feels wrong under my kicks…’e just doesn’t ‘ave the same give that a soldier’s face does.” When all eyes fell upon Heather, hers fell downward. “That’s because he’s a machine.” “But he’s clearly a guy,” Nicole spat. “Not entirely. You say you watched the tournament on TV…” Heather turned away from the group, her shoulders rising and falling under the influence of a sigh. “…first you don’t recognize me, and then you don’t remember how the tournament ended? Kids these days…” The postponement of the fight only served to let Nicole’s anger accumulate up to the bursting point. “Can you just get to the point? I’ve been waiting a long time for this. So that’s J; he was some amnesiac guy in the tournament, and he even beat some big serial killer guy. I remember all that.” “What about the final match turning into a warzone? Or did they not put that part on TV?” [[Previous|Page 94]] | [[Next|Page 96]]

<center> Page 96 </center> Nicole put a hand against her temple, a gesture of deep thought. “…oh yeah!" she said, snapping her fingers. :There was just some news bulletin about how the place exploded. Why, was that…not an accident?” Heather shook her head. “J’s opponent turned out to be some kind of…manlike machine. I guess he was out hunting for someone to try an improved design with.” “So that was Lee’s fault too?” Nicole’s shoulders were sagging under the weight of both her anger and the ice on her fists. “All the more reason to ruin his day, right? We just have to get through J first.” With that, Nicole jumped into the fray, barely intercepting her titanium target before he could perform a dash attack on the group. “Crikey!” Steven blurted behind her. “That’s why ‘e wants us alive!” “Why’s that?” Sonya asked, nearly drowned out by the sound of Nicole’s ice shattering against J. “Tell me! I want to help Nicole…but I’m curious, too!” “Mr. Lee must want to make one of these machine people out of some superpowered Sheila! If this guy’s so good, imagine if ‘e was in control of you instead…!” Sonya shook her head. “Then no one could win! I’m the best!” Before Sonya’s claim could be disputed, she shot into the air and twisted her body around over Nicole’s head. “Killer Bee!” Sonya’s twisting finally settled in attack formation, dropping a massive kick into J’s chest and bowling him over. [[Previous|Page 95]] | [[Next|Page 97]]

<center> Page 97 </center> She attempted to follow up her flying kick with a heel drop, but J rolled away from the attack and returned to his feet. He quickly crossed his arms in front of his chest in order to block a third kick, and interrupted her fourth kick with a knee strike. Sonya was briefly knocked off-balance, but she returned to action in a hurry with a pair of spinning kicks, one from the left and one from the right. As J buckled under the superhuman force of Sonya’s legs, Nicole snapped her fingers. “I sure wish there was room for more than one of us to go at him at once,” she mused as she performed a few leg stretches. “Hey, yeah, I want a piece of the action too,” Claire foamed. “In fact…hey Sam, wanna slip me a little juice?” Sam nodded and did as she was told, filling the water within Claire’s power with a powerful shock. “I still ain’t used to that.” The group watched as a thunderous snake of water slithered away from Sam, moving around the duel between Sonya and J. As Sonya continued to batter the humanoid, Claire’s hazardous water pooled behind him, and a powerful push kick toppled him into the trap. Light and sound crackled all around J as his circuitry reacted poorly to the immersion in electrocuted waters, prompting Sonya to step back and shield her eyes from the spectacle. After at least fifteen seconds, the crackling and convulsions ceased. “Did we get him?” Sonya wondered, staring at the mechanical man lying on the helipad before her. The rest of the group stood to the side, asking themselves the same question. Their question was answered in short order. “Acceptable risk factor exceeded,” J reported as he rose to his feet in a jerky and unnatural fashion. “Nonlethal directive overridden.” True to his word, J’s arm began to rotate, locking his human-shaped hand inside of his arm in favor of brandishing a massive arm-mounted gun. [[Previous|Page 96]] | [[Next|Page 98]]

<center> Page 98 </center> “Crikey!” Steven shouted, springing away from the group and toward Sonya. His shoulder collided with hers just in time to knock her out of an incoming stream of bullets, which ripped into his chest instead of hers. Like raindrops striking a puddle, beads of blood splashed out of the impact of each bullet, leaving a fine crimson mist in the wake of Steven’s path through the air. At the end of the mist, Steven’s body crumpled unceremoniously under the floodlights, his defeat lit for all to see. “Damn…!” Heather growled, her hand leaping to and from her hip in the blink of an eye. As she took aim with her pistol, she added, “I didn’t want to have to do this to you, but…” Heather proceeded to interrupt J’s target practice with bullets of her own, knocking him just off-balance enough to keep him from drawing a bead on either Steven or Sonya. When J turned his attention and his gun to the group, Claire was quick to pull as much water as she could in his way, forming a thick wall that shimmered under the floodlights of the helipad. “Nicole, help me out!” she frothed. “Right!” Nicole affirmed. She set out to work in a hurry, quickly turning the barrier of water into an icy fortification thick enough to trivialize even J’s cannon. All she could do from there was watch as Heather popped in and out of cover to take potshots at J, keeping his attention away from the two vagrants caught in the open. She winced as the ice she had created cracked under his suppressing fire, her anger quickly threatening to override her own survival instincts. “Nicole,” Keno tried to assure her, but the rest of his sentence was quickly lost in an uncontrollable haze that was equal parts livid and frigid. ## End of Chapter 19 [[Previous|Page 97]] | [[Next|Page 99]]

<center> Page 99 </center> ## Chapter 20 Before long, Nicole began to feel hands upon her, grasping whatever part of her they could reach in an effort to keep her behind cover. Their grip was quickly broken, however, and before anything could be done about it, Nicole was standing in the open, roaring into the sky with rage. A vortex of cold air swirled around her, flash-freezing the raindrops falling around her. Combined with the floodlights surrounding the helipad, the air around her had become a glistening white cloud. She could hear voices questioning her sanity and complaining about the cold, but they sounded distant and unidentifiable to her. She had no room in her mind for the concerns of her colleagues. Only a pure and all-consuming rage remained to drive her thoughts, and those thoughts were driving her straight toward the one who had shot Steven. She could feel herself moving forward fist-first, and in turn could feel the massive amount of ice hanging from her hand, but she could neither see nor feel her legs through the snowstorm churning around her. All that existed in her world at the moment was the blizzard surrounding her, the fist in front of her, and the prey she was rapidly closing in on. Nicole could feel the occasional vibration shake her fist, but none managed to cause any damage. The vibrations could have been caused by J’s bullets or the clouds’ raindrops; it certainly made no difference to her. Eventually, she felt her fist run into the unmistakably hard body of her target, and in turn, a strange choking sensation took hold over her. Words had never been this difficult for her to form, but she had never been this angry in her entire life. “I’ve had enough of your crap,” she snarled, her fist still outstretched. [[Previous|Page 98]] | [[Next|Page 100]]

<center> Page 100 </center> Nicole quickly gave up on words, instead choosing to punctuate her next move with a bloodthirsty scream. As her shriek filled the air, the snowstorm that had trailed her approach tumbled past her and around J, obscuring him entirely from sight. Nicole felt her powers spiraling out of control, just as they had earlier in the day, but her memory of the man who had cut her quickly fell away from her consciousness in order to make room for her feelings toward J, of the Lee Corporation, of life as a girl with ice powers in general. All of her anger toward anything she had ever been angry at began to melt together, coalescing into a single emotion that brought her powers to a level of intensity well beyond her control. She could feel cold air rush around her toward her target, the soothing chill chipping away at her anger bit by bit. After several minutes, her vision gradually returned to her, revealing a massive crystal of ice where J had once stood. The surface of the ice was far too rough and marred to know for sure, but she assumed that she had encased J in this glacier during her rage-fueled attack. She stared down at her hands as they continued to blast cold air at the crystal, only to notice blood caking her right knuckle; she briefly wondered if the blood had been drawn by J or by the sheer cold of her attack, but she quickly decided that it didn’t matter. What mattered to her was the fact that she was able to vent her anger so completely, to the point where it took her a minute to remember what had caused her to snap in the first place. With a gasp, she ran to address Sonya, who was kneeling on the helipad next to Steven’s body. “Are you OK?” she barely managed to ask, her vocal cords still loath to cooperate with her. [[Previous|Page 99]] | [[Next|Page 101]]

<center> Page 101 </center> Sonya’s reply took the form of a series of grunts and squirms, and only when she rectified the situation did Nicole realize the reason for her effort; her legs had been held onto the helipad by a thick layer of ice. Vapor trails accompanied the raindrops, that were so much warmer in comparison. “I’m fine,” Sonya replied somewhat weakly. “It’s cold. What did you do?” Nicole shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the ice crystal, its spikes and cracks completely obscuring the machine caught within. “What about Steven?” Sonya gave her reply as she began to crack the ice around Steven with her feet. “He needs a doctor. He’s alive, but…” “Maybe all dis ice will help keep him from bleedin’!” Keno shouted from behind the block of ice that had been formed as cover. “But maybe you should let us out of dis ice so we can see!” Nicole giggled to herself and accompanied Sonya over to the group as the redhead used her foot as a pickaxe to hack through the ice. One by one, the group was broken free from the ice sheet, all of them expressing varying amounts of shock at what Nicole had done. “Dat was incredible!” Keno gasped, summarizing the group’s opinion. “What do you call that move?” Sam asked with a hand on her hip. “You guys still do that, yeah?” “What do I call it?” Nicole parroted. “I wasn’t thinking about that…or anything else.” “I’m damn lucky Sam was holdin’ on tight,” Claire swished. “Even with her body heat, I was sure as hell I was gonna freeze up. That’s as cold as you’ve ever been, Nicole!” Sonya nodded. “Steven might be frozen!” she squealed. “Like, that cryogenic stuff! That, or he’s about to shatter!” The levity of the situation was swiftly undercut by Keno collapsing onto all fours. “What’s dis?” he growled. “Dese t’oughts…someone grab Headda!” All eyes turned to Heather as she slowly drew her gun and aimed it at the vulnerable form of Steven. [[Previous|Page 100]] | [[Next|Page 102]]

<center> Page 102 </center> Sonya’s reflexes were the first to react, bowling Heather over with a knee strike before she could open fire. As the gun slid along the ice, Heather struggled to extricate herself from Sonya’s leg lock. “What’s with you?” she grunted, straining to keep the trained police officer under control. Keno placed his hands against the sides of his head. “I don’t know. Dere was somet’in’ like dis…Mr. Lee had somet’in’ like dis happenin’, but I wasn’t sure because he was too far away…” Keno feebly lifted a finger toward an unassuming corner of the roof. “…it’s comin’ from dere somewhere.” “From?” Sonya shook her head. “I don’t get it.” “Didn’t I tell you before? Mind-readin’s just like hearin’; de sounds have to come from somewhere.” Keno proceeded to walk ahead of the group, following the source of the malicious thoughts he had picked up on. Before long, he had led everyone to the edge of the roof, into a small structure sheathed by glass. The harsh exterior gave way to an ornately decorated skybox overlooking the entirety of River City, or it would were it not for the downpour that obscured the view. “De t’inkin’s comin’ from in here.” “Oh, but of course,” a familiar deep voice intoned. Behind a desk at the far end of the room, a chair swiveled to reveal Mr. Lee. “I was not about to stand in the rain needlessly. Now then, I suppose you would like to get to business.” Nicole shook her head. “Well, of course the dark thoughts or whatever are coming from Mr. Lee! We have to—“ “Dey’re not,” Keno said as he pointed to the desk. Nicole shrugged and punched a hole in the table, sending wood and ice spraying toward the group; the punch also sent a person rolling toward Mr. Lee. He was a beady-eyed young man with short black hair that did nothing to hide his large forehead. “Not what I expected, but…yes, de t’inkin’s comin’ from him.” Mr. Lee shook his head. “Looks like you’ve found me,” he sighed. “So you tracked me and my mind control, did you? Impressive.” [[Previous|Page 101]] | [[Next|Page 103]]

<center> Page 103 </center> Before the explanations could continue, Sonya burst into the room. “What’d you guys do?” she asked. “Heather’s better! She’s leaving with Steven!” “Dis kid’s been sendin’ t’oughts to Mr. Lee and Headda,” Keno replied. “What, like mind control?” Nicole asked. “So this kid’s the problem? That’s all I need to hear.” Before anyone could react, Nicole grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and slammed him through the glass of the skybox, hanging him precariously over dozens of stories’ worth of falling. “Why’d you do it, asshole?” she asked, shaking the lanky kid over the deadly drop to the streets below. The boy shook his head rapidly in protest. “It wasn’t all my fault!” he screamed. “Mr. Lee, he set up the accident himself…he was trying to figure out how the Crosses came to be, so he caused some truck to crash here in River City! It’s all in his computer! I can get you into it, but—“ “But what?” Nicole shook the boy over the abyss below him, a gesture of threatening. “After all you’ve put me through, I know you couldn’t possibly take me in a fight.” “No, don’t kill me! That…that was the plan. I’ll tell you everything; just spare me, please!” Nicole responded to the boy’s proposition by throwing him over her shoulder like an empty soda can. “Fine. Sonya, Keno…you guys handle him, because right now I just want to uppercut him right through a window.” ## End of Chapter 20 [[Previous|Page 102]] | [[Next|Page 104]]

<center> Page 104 </center> ## Chapter 21 Nicole crossed her arms in front of her chest and watched scornfully as Sonya and Keno entertained the mind-controlling boy’s wishes. She shook her head as they allowed him to steer Mr. Lee into opening his computer and putting his most incriminating files on display, and barely listened to him as he prattled on about himself and his intentions. “I can’t control the minds of other people with superpowers,” the boy explained through Mr. Lee as he furiously toiled away over a keyboard. “And since all the other people with superpowers that I’ve seen have turned out to be teenagers, I mostly have adults to work with.” “Heather should see this,” Sonya noted from her position near the boy, ready to beat him into submission if he tried anything funny. Nicole silently wished Sonya would go pull Heather over, so she could be the one ready to beat the mind-control kid. “Here, Steven was right! It says right there…” Sonya jabbed a finger against the computer monitor. Keno leaned in and read the sentence she had pointed to. “Hm…so de plan was to save time and money by makin’ us into robots instead of puttin’ weapons into a normal person,” he summarized. “But why are you here? Dese are your peers dyin’ out dere…” Sonya nodded. “How’d you like it? If you had to fight…?” “I just wanted to know,” the boy responded via his human puppet. “Mr. Lee was the only person doing anything about this epidemic of powers other than outright fearing it—“ “Alright, two things real quick,” Nicole interrupted. “First off, that kind of makes sense, since the first thing my parents did was scream at each other about how they thought I was some kind of ghost or something…but how the hell does that translate into hunting down people just like you?” Nicole shook her head. “Second…that thing you do where you make Mr. Lee say your words is really creepy.” Mr. Lee shrugged against his will. “I can’t use my own mind when I’m manipulating someone else’s.” [[Previous|Page 103]] | [[Next|Page 105]]

<center> Page 105 </center> Nicole’s hands balled into fists so quickly and tightly that her knuckles cracked just from the clenching. “That’s the question you answer first?" Nicole asked, feeling the pull of the scowl on her face. "Really?” Nicole chanced a glance into Sonya’s eyes, and saw the plea reflected within. Sonya wanted to hear what the mind-controlling boy had to say, and Nicole’s wishes would directly interfere with that desire. With a reluctant sigh, Nicole relaxed herself, allowing her fists to unclench. “You’re lucky, kid," she snapped. "I should punch a hole in you just out of principle for Steven…but my friends seem to be willing to let you spill the beans.” The boy forced Mr. Lee to give a pleased nod in Nicole’s general direction. “Thank you!” “Didn’t you just hear me? I just told you that you’d be dead if my friends weren’t here…you should thank them.” Nicole emphasized her explicit disgust by banging her fist into the floor, surrounding herself in a brilliant spray of ice. Sonya shook her head. “Don’t mind her!” she urged the boy. “She’s just mad! And all you did was hunt and kill kids just like you!” Nicole could hear the passive-aggressive tone of Sonya’s sentence, which did wonders in calming her down. Sometimes she felt alone in her rage, but for a moment, Sonya had shown that she was feeling it too. If Sonya could restrain herself, Nicole told herself, then she might be able to manage for a few more minutes. “So tell me, guy," Nicole said, eager to find a distraction. "How do we keep this information for ourselves? I don’t really get computers, but can’t Mr. Lee just get rid of this stuff before Heather can see it?” “Nicole, allow me,” Keno replied. With a wide grin spread across his face, he hoisted a camera in his hands. As he fumbled with the camera, he explained his plan. “Dis is Steven’s camera, de one he used to take pictures of de Lee Corporation.” “We traded it away,” Sonya explained while staring right at Nicole, well before she could ask how it made its way into Mr. Lee’s office. “They would’ve hurt you if we didn’t.” [[Previous|Page 104]] | [[Next|Page 106]]

<center> Page 106 </center> Unabated by Sonya’s exposition, Keno continued to vocally walk through his process as he did it. “If we take de memory card out of it, and put it in de computer, we can just save de important t’ings onto dis card.” Nicole’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “But that’s for pictures, right?” she asked. Keno shook his head as he triumphantly removed the card from Mr. Lee’s computer, apparently having already finished his work. “It holds whatever you tell it to. It’s just dat de camera won’t know what to do about de text. All we have to do is get dis card to de police.” “So we’re done with this other guy, right?” Before anyone could answer Nicole, she resumed her prior plan of holding the mind-controlling young man over a massive fall. “I know that Mr. Lee’s not exactly innocent, but this guy…I’m really pissed at him.” Keno gasped. “Nicole, what are you—“ “Look,” Nicole interjected, “unless you’ve got one good reason why I shouldn’t, I’m spiking this guy dozens of stories into the ground.” Sam, who had been extremely quiet the entire time, took this as her chance to speak up. “We should turn him in to the police,” she reasoned. “They’ll know what to do about him.” Nicole scoffed. “Yeah…they’ll do whatever he says because he’s got that mind control stuff going for him.” When her friends’ jaws dropped, Nicole understood why. “Yeah, I actually did the thinking for once. Not bad, huh? The way I see it, the police and their jail, they’re run by adults…adults he’ll just force to do what he wants with his powers. The last thing I want is to let this kid screw me over a year or two from now.” Nicole had given her case, but before any of her colleagues could weigh in on the issue, she had already released her grip on the boy’s shirt. Were it not for his fearful screaming, the rooftop office would have fallen silent, and even that came to pass before long. [[Previous|Page 105]] | [[Next|Page 107]]

<center> Page 107 </center> “Nicole,” Sam finally managed to gasp, “you just…” “I know what I just did,” Nicole snapped, dusting her hands off on her shirt. “I saved everyone a lot of time, and I made sure I wouldn’t end up this pissed off a year from now.” When nobody in the room bothered to make a sound, the void was soon filled by a medical helicopter landing on the helipad outside. “That must be Steven’s ride…maybe they’ll let me out of this place.” Sonya stepped in front of Nicole, but much to the latter’s surprise, it wasn’t an attempt to get in the way. “You’re right, Nicole,” the energetic redhead admitted. “You’ve done plenty! You look tired.” Nicole nodded. “I am tired…that huge freezing thing I did back there really took it out of me. It’s kind of a relief that that kid was so easy to deal with. Wait…did anyone even catch his name?” Before anyone could inform Nicole of the name of the young man she had killed, everyone in the room was surprised to hear Mr. Lee come back to his senses. “What are you kids doing here?” he demanded in a manner of speaking far different than the theatrics that he had been forced into via mind control. “How did you get into my computer? And where is J?” Nicole jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “See all the ice back there? Yeah, that’s where your precious robot is. Anyway, I’ve got a helicopter to catch, so I’ll just go now.” Mr. Lee rubbed a hand against his temple. “How in the world did that happen?” Nicole began to whistle in an attempt to put up a sarcastic façade of innocence, but Mr. Lee’s next sentence disappointed her. “I’m sure he can generate more than enough heat…” Mr. Lee began to drum his fingers against the sleeved arm of his suit, producing a bewildering clicking sound. Whatever the enigmatic businessman had up his sleeve, it certainly did the trick. Before long, the icy prison that Nicole had formed around J was shattered, leaving the cyborg standing in a pile of ice with massive amounts of steam billowing from his shoulders and lower back. [[Previous|Page 106]] | [[Next|Page 108]]

<center> Page 108 </center> Nicole’s gaze leapt back and forth between the opponents before her, but before she could make a decision, Mr. Lee had made his way to the far corner of the skybox. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch.” Much to everyone’s surprise, Mr. Lee leaned backwards and out of the window Nicole had broken. The vagrants ran up to the window to observe the man’s plan, and they soon had their answer. A sudden streak of motion intercepted Mr. Lee’s plummet, leaving behind a telltale streak of steam. “It was J!” Sonya blurted. “Lee’s getting away!” Claire responded with a few blasts of water formed from the falling rain, but they couldn’t travel through the air fast enough to reach their target. Before anyone could become too disheartened, Sonya nodded to the medical chopper and added, “But so can we!” As if on cue, Heather approached the group from outside. “Your friend Steven is in the chopper and ready to go. What about you guys…and Mr. Lee?” “He got away,” Sam mumbled. “I think we’re ready to leave.” Heather looked upon the scene, filled with debris from the broken desk and window, and shrugged. “It looks like I missed a big party…and like Mr. Lee got away.” “But we got dis!” Keno shouted as he held the camera’s memory card aloft. “It has a lot of files from de man’s computer…it should be everyt’ing you were lookin’ for, everyt’ing you need to arrest him.” Heather nodded and tucked the memory chip safely away inside of her shirt, her bosom guarding the electronic equipment from damage. Nicole only had a brief moment to envy the utility of the older woman’s bust before a loud impact against the helipad shook the floor under her feet. A cloud of steam wrapped itself around the center of the impact, somewhat concealing the form of J within. “I am a Lee Corporation android, model J-X01,” the machine asserted, “and you are suspected of stealing data from a Lee Corporation computer. Surrender or die. This is your first and only warning.” ## End of Chapter 21 [[Previous|Page 107]] | [[Next|Page 109]]

<center> Page 109 </center> ## Chapter 22 Nicole stepped ahead of the group, ready to talk back to the android standing between her and the medical chopper she was going to use to leave. “Look, guy,” she hissed. “We’ve had a long day, and we’re really not in the mood to let you get in the way. How about—“ “I was not instructed to negotiate,” J interrupted. “I was ordered to subjugate you by any means necessary.” “Well, subjugate this, prick!” Nicole shoved a frozen fist into the mechanical man’s stomach, and was dismayed to see that it had not done any visible damage. With a growl, she added, “If you really want your data or whatever, then I’m the one you want. That chopper is just trying to take some people that are hurt to the hospital…you’re gonna let them go, aren’t you?” J shook his head. “Mercy is not in my orders either.” Nicole responded by cracking her knuckles. “Fine. I think I can stop you.” When her friends’ eyes turned to her, she explained her plan. “Whoever wants to leave, get on the chopper. Everyone else gets to stay here and fight.” “Fight?” Sonya repeated. “I’d love to!” Keno sighed. “I’m guessin’ I won’t be much help in dis fight,” he mumbled. “I’ll get outta de way.” “I should probably be trying to locate Mr. Lee,” Heather explained. “Don’t hurt J too much, OK? There must be something left of him in there…and I promised someone I’d find him.” When Nicole’s eyes fell expectantly upon Sam, it instigated a reflexive wince. “Sorry,” she choked. “We did what I came here for…” “This broad sometimes…!” Claire frothed from the bottle on Sam’s hip. “If ya ain’t gonna stick around, at least hand me over to Nicole, will ya?” [[Previous|Page 108]] | [[Next|Page 110]]

<center> Page 110 </center> “So this is the plan, huh?” Nicole asked as she fastened the bottle to her own pants. “Works for me. We’ll just have to—“ “Nicole,” Sam sobbed. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m just…I’m not a fighter. I bet you hate me…but before you hate me too much…I didn’t plan on abandoning everyone, either.” Before anyone could react, she shoved her way through the bulk of the group and intercepted J as he attempted to leap into the fray. “Everyone, stand back!” Sam’s friends barely had time to obey her command before she let her electrical powers loose as she grappled with J, emitting a series of sparks and bolts that illuminated the helipad even more than the floodlights. Nicole looked at the frozen puddle around her feet and shook her head, replying to Sam under her breath. “No, I think I get it.” As her gaze rose to meet the others, her voice abruptly switched to a commanding tone that rung out over the crackling of Sam’s electricity. “Whoever’s leaving, get to the chopper, now!” Keno and Heather made their way to the medical helicopter, and Sam was quick to join them, shoving aside the android as the excess voltage still coursed through his body. As the helicopter pulled itself into the sky, a wide smile crossed Sonya’s face. “So you can plan after all!” she shouted. “Steven would be so proud!” “Whatever.” Nicole shrugged and marveled at her hands as Claire formed cones of water around them, pointing outward. When her ice powers caused her lower arms to harden into enormous spikes of ice, it was her turn to smile. “I don’t care about any of that…right now, I just want to beat the crap out of this guy.” Sonya nodded. “Another good plan!” [[Previous|Page 109]] | [[Next|Page 111]]

<center> Page 111 </center> A massive burst of steam issued from J’s joints as he leapt to his feet, his gun-arm aimed at the helicopter. A wild burst of fire ensued, his bullets succeeding at little more than hitting the raindrops as they fell. Before he could score a hit on the helicopter, Sonya nearly took his head off with a step kick, prompting him to reconsider his priorities. This reconsideration didn’t take long, and soon he was aiming for Sonya. As J busied himself with subduing Sonya, Nicole let out a low growl. “I can’t believe he’s ignoring me,” she whispered to herself. Unable to cope with being left out of the fight, she thrust her right arm forward, lodging the icicle surrounding it into J’s shoulder blade. Nicole’s mind briefly wandered to the question of whether or not a robot would have shoulder blades. Her musings, brief as they were, were enough to convince her to plunge the other icy spike into his upper back. She leapt back as massive gouts of steam poured over the spikes, quickly forcing them to melt. J turned to face Nicole, the impalements having barely fazed him, but if anything, Nicole was happy to have more time to take out her leftover aggression on him. As she dodged a few melee attacks, she taunted, “I could’ve been in that tournament, if this is really the best you can do!” Sonya heard the trash talk and decided to chime in as she slammed a knee into the back of J’s head. “You mean if they held it now?” Nicole froze more water as Claire manipulated it into the shape of a baseball bat, only to smash the relatively detailed weapon into pieces with a mighty swing. “No; I could’ve won when I was youn—“ The end of Nicole’s sentence was muffled by J’s hand clasping around her head; his metallic fingers briefly dug into her cheeks and forehead before he effortlessly flung her over his shoulder with a jerk of his arm. Sonya attempted to reply with another knee strike, but J caught her leg and whipped her over his head, slamming her face-first into the helipad. [[Previous|Page 110]] | [[Next|Page 112]]

<center> Page 112 </center> Nicole slowly rose to her feet, the exertions of the day having taken their toll on her. “Damn,” she grunted. “Why couldn’t Sam have stayed?” “She was really tired!” Sonya replied as she coiled herself up on her shoulders and sprang to her feet. “Her powers are…” Sonya’s sentence was broken in half by a swing of J’s fist, albeit a swing that Sonya evaded. “…they’re exhausting!” Sonya’s legs thrashed against J’s arms as he blocked a pair of quick kicks, causing no ill effect to either fighter. Nicole shook off her own fatigue, choosing to finish the battle at hand before asserting that she was every bit as tired as Sam, if not more so. “Claire!” “’sup?” Claire sloshed, ready for action. “You know that thing you did when you covered Sam’s body in water?” “What, ya wanna make me do that? Fine, let’s do it!” Nicole smirked as she felt the chilly rainwater envelop her, and was pleasantly surprised by how soothing it felt against her skin. The soothing effect amplified as Nicole unleashed her ice powers, enveloping herself in a frigid shell that did wonders for the bruises and scrapes that adorned her body. “Ha, awesome!” Nicole attempted to take a step, but was somewhat thrown off by the extra weight wrapped around her feet. The fact that it was ice quickly gave her an idea, and she soon resorted to skating toward J. As the distance to her target rapidly closed, she turned slightly, intending to slam into the android with her shoulder. Claire seemed to catch on to Nicole’s gambit quickly, and had soon conjured three watery spikes along the length of Nicole’s upper arm. The spikes froze over just in time for them to slam into J, with Nicole’s weight behind them. [[Previous|Page 111]] | [[Next|Page 113]]

<center> Page 113 </center> Nicole and J were both sent tumbling along the helipad, propelled by the girl’s momentum. Between her mental preparation for an impact and the ice enveloping her, she found it easy to turn her tumble into a roll that left her on her feet. The excess velocity from the attack and roll immediately went into another skating session. J barely had time to return to his feet before Nicole launched herself at him, fist-first. As he collapsed, she continued to skid in the same direction, even as she turned around to keep her eyes on him. Near the edge of the helipad, she slammed a hand against the tarmac and came to a stop. All the while, she felt like her face had to stretch itself out just to accommodate the enormous grin she was sporting. Sonya watched, her mouth agape, as Nicole swung her arms around and popped her shoulders. In the process, some of the ice coating her flaked away, reflecting and refracting the beams of the floodlights behind her. “Hey, this isn’t very hard,” Nicole sneered, running her hands through her hair. “Shut up an’ finish the guy off!” Claire swished. “Don’t ya remember what Grizz told ya?” “Sort of. It’s been awhile.” Nicole shrugged and began to pump her legs, sliding her feet along the tarmac once more. As she picked up speed, J struggled to his knees and pointed his arm at her. She couldn’t stop herself or turn away from the blast of steam that issued from his bent elbow. The ice that provided such an enhancement to her fighting abilities began to melt and soften, completely ruining her mode of transportation. As Nicole stumbled and tried to regain her footing, J lunged forward with his arm outstretched, knocking her onto her back. She felt the wind flee from her lungs as she slammed against the helipad, sending her into a brief dizzy spell. Before J could capitalize on Nicole’s vulnerability, Sonya swooped in and sent the android sprawling with a push kick to his back. J began to roll across the helipad to dodge Sonya’s downward attacks, while Nicole simply remained on her back, staring into the rain falling around her. “C’mon, what’s your problem?” Claire frothed. “Get back up!” As much as she tried, however, Nicole couldn’t find the energy to peel herself from the helipad. The events of the day had been taking a cumulative toll on her body, and now that she had been flattened by J’s metallic clothesline attack, her muscles were exhibiting an alarming tendency to remain at rest. “Claire, it’s been a long day,” she gasped. “I’m so tired…” ## End of Cahpter 22 [[Previous|Page 112]] | [[Next|Page 114]]

<center> Page 114 </center> ## Chapter 23 “Tired?” Claire boiled. “Like hell!” Nicole watched as the rain began to bend around her, only to eventually feel the moisture pool up around her. To her surprise, a column of water propelled her skyward and tilted her forward, all but forcing her to her feet. “You don’t get a break ‘till that robot guy’s done with, ya know!” “I know,” Nicole gasped as she slowly raised her hands back into her usual fighting pose. “Just…get ready to do that to him. I’ve got another idea.” “Where are all these ideas comin’ from, ya crazy broad?” Nicole shrugged. “Well, I guess hurting people is just something I’m good at.” Nicole marveled at her right hand as water began to surge and ripple around it, held in place by Claire’s powers. With a nod to no one in particular, Nicole resolved her course, and charged at J with such posture that her watery arm threatened to drag along the helipad. As she ran, she could feel Claire working her magic, trying her best to gather rainwater around the rapidly-moving extremity. As Nicole approached her target, she saw Sonya take the pressure off of herself with a push kick, giving Nicole the perfect opening. With a sudden shout, she let loose with her freezing powers just as she planted her rising fist into J’s back. Claire took the chance to whip the water gathered on and around Nicole’s hand into a furious geyser, lifting J skyward. Another scream from Nicole signaled a sudden onset of freezing, turning the geyser into an enormous pillar of ice. Sonya gasped as J continued to ascend, and began to crouch. When J’s ascent began to slow, Sonya’s superhuman legs suddenly uncoiled, sending her into an impressive series of jumps between the frigid plateau and the support structure holding up a nearby floodlight. A burst of steam signaled an attempt by J to slow his descent, but it did nothing to deter Sonya from slamming down on his stomach with a massive axe kick, dragging him through the air on the end of her heel. Nicole watched in awe as Sonya’s attack shattered the ice pillar with J’s body, creating a symphony of grinding and shattering sounds that echoed throughout the city. Nicole was surprised when J landed atop the helipad and broke Sonya’s fall, because she was sure that the two of them were going to smash right through the roof of the Lee Corporation building and into the room below. Sonya looked up from her handiwork, smiling at Nicole in a way few would associate with an outburst of violence. “That was cool, huh?” she asked with a giddy edge to her voice. Nicole couldn’t help but giggle at Sonya’s happiness. “Yeah, that was pretty awesome," she said, smiling over at Sonya. "I…I don’t even know what I’d call that one. It doesn’t matter, because I don’t even think the guys would believe that it happened.” Sonya shook her head. “Too good to be true? That’s what they’d say!” [[Previous|Page 113]] | [[Next|Page 115]]

<center> Page 115 </center> The two girls shared a hearty laugh before Claire impatiently interrupted their celebration. “Stop talkin’ and finish this guy off already!” she ordered from within her bottle. Before either of them could comply, J was already back on his feet; the only evidence of Sonya’s crushing axe kick was a small crack on his chest, venting a small amount of steam. “Time to reassess the situation,” he growled to himself. “This fight is going nowhere.” That was the only explanation the girls heard before J drowned himself out with the sound of rockets in his back and feet. Clouds of steam billowed around him as he rose skyward and turned away from the trio, before hurtling into the night of the city. “Damn!” Nicole grunted, upset by the possibility of having to give chase. “Where’s he going?” Sonya traced the contrails of J’s rockets with her finger, mentally calculating his path. “That’s where the medevac went!” she gasped, her hand curling rapidly into a fist. “What if he’s chasing Steven?” “Then we gotta chase him,” Claire effervesced. “Even Nicole could’ve figured that one out!” “Yeah, yeah,” Nicole snapped, cracking her knuckles. “I was afraid you’d say that.” “Well, we can’t let that robot guy go after Steven and the others. They got the computer data thing that’ll stop this nonsense, don’t they?” Nicole nodded, even though she doubted Claire could even see it in her watery state. “I know what we have to do, but how? He’s flying above the city, and we’re—” “Oh, I know, I know!” Sonya interrupted. “You and Claire can help!” “So you’ve got it all figured out, huh?” Nicole leaned to the side slightly, putting a hand on her hip in the process. “Good; I was tired of planning. So what is it you want us to do?” [[Previous|Page 114]] | [[Next|Page 116]]

<center> Page 116 </center> “This is your plan?” Claire boiled as she formed the rainwater into a thin wafer high above the streets. “Damn, this is crazy!” “I’m with her,” Nicole agreed, freezing the water into a thin and icy road all the while. It was much easier to skate along the surface she was creating than it was on the helipad or the streets; she and Claire were making it a point to keep the glacial path as smooth a ribbon of ice as possible. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” “Seriously, girls?” Sonya taunted as she skated along behind Nicole, visibly shivering from Nicole’s frigidity. “You’ve done weirder stuff! Come on, I know you have!” “Like what?” Sonya replied by suddenly planting her feet into Nicole’s back, causing Nicole to fall into an irritatingly familiar position. “Ow! Sonya, what are you doing?” “Speeding up!” Sonya started to push Nicole along with kicks of her foot, just as she had done on the streets. “We have to! J’s too fast!” “We were gaining on him just fine, weren’t we?” Nicole rolled her eyes as she stepped up her game, working even harder in order to freeze the ice fast enough to keep up with Sonya’s pace. “We can see his trails now, so—“ “He can see us now!” Sonya interrupted. “Here come some rockets!” Nicole didn’t need Sonya to announce J’s attack; even against the bright backdrop of River City, the warheads’ flaming exhaust stood out as a grim shock. [[Previous|Page 115]] | [[Next|Page 117]]

<center> Page 117 </center> Sonya leaned to the left, prompting Nicole to do the same; Claire, having been briefed on the nonverbal system back at the helipad, began to curve the watery wafer to accommodate the group’s new trajectory. Nicole gasped as a rocket streaked by, inches away from slamming directly into her chin. She felt less like a coward when the rocket’s explosion and the ensuing shattering of ice caused a similar reaction in Sonya. Enough of the ice remained to support the weight of the trio and a continuation of the trail, possibly because of Claire’s decision to tether the icy ribbon to a nearby building for support. Sonya’s feet briefly left Nicole’s back for a second as she leapt in order to dodge another rocket, leaving it to spiral uselessly into the night. Sonya leaned to the right, prompting the frosty slide to cross the street so far below just in time for a missile salvo to streak by to the left. Nicole briefly considered the short delay between J launching the missiles and their impact against a building, her brain quickly figuring out the implications. “We’re gaining on him!” she said. “But what’re we even gonna do when we reach him?” Claire frothed. “We did nothin' when we had him at the Lee building.” “We just need the data!” Sonya answered. “If we save that, we win! And Steven will be fine!” “So what you’re tellin’ me here is, we just gotta distract him?” “That’s the idea! Is that OK?” [[Previous|Page 116]] | [[Next|Page 118]]

<center> Page 118 </center> As the trio rapidly swerved left and right to avoid two more projectiles, Claire continued to air her misgivings. “Alright, so we just gotta stop him. How? Ya kicked him right through a big piece of ice an’ barely dented him!” “I’ll handle that!" Sonya replied from her perch atop Nicole's back. "You just stay close! And you, Nicole…ready to catch?” Before Nicole could even guess what she was supposed to catch, Sonya’s feet left her back once again as a missile approached. When Sonya failed to return to her spot, Nicole chanced a glance behind her, only to see Sonya standing on the missile, gently leaning her legs to control the dumb-fire rocket’s path through the inky murk of the night sky. Sonya let the missile rise above the buildings before turning it around with her body weight. Nicole’s heart skipped a beat as she watched Sonya’s red hair flutter behind her, her path intersecting a moonbeam that had shoved the clouds aside. A strange mix of concern and admiration washed over her, distracting her from freezing duty long enough for her to fall through the path Claire had yanked into place. “Idiot!” Claire roiled as she altered her plan, creating a wall of water behind Nicole. As Nicole froze the water provided to her, the curve in the wall turned into a launcher that sent her skidding on her feet across a cold catwalk that was set lower than the path they had been following before. Nicole used the velocity as an excuse to revert to her preferred method of transportation; she felt much better skating across the ice with quick shuffles of her feet than being used as a human snowboard. Claire gradually bent the path upward to return it to its former elevation, but not before Nicole caught glimpses of people in the streets as they stared upward to gawk at the scene above them. ## End of Chapter 23 [[Previous|Page 117]] | [[Next|Page 119]]

<center> Page 119 </center> ## Chapter 24 Nicole was close enough to J at this point to hear the rockets that propelled him through the air, and she could barely spot the medical helicopter carrying Steven and her other friends beyond him. Sonya had caught up with her ice trail, and followed alongside her atop one of the android’s own missiles. “Hey Sonya!” Nicole shouted over the roar of the rockets and the distant sound of helicopter blades. “What do I do now?” “You keep him busy!” Sonya replied. “Then I’ll blast him! Get away then!” “Makes sense. Claire!” “’sup now?” Claire splashed. “I’m gettin’ ya all the water ya need, ain’t I?” “Sort of. I want that sweet ice armor you gave me back at the helipad.” Nicole paused to perform a quick baseball slide, sending her skidding under an incoming missile. “Can you do that and hold up the water path at the same time?” “No way! I ain’t no superhero…you really think I could pull that off?” Nicole shook her head. “Then stop with the path and give me the armor…now!” As she shouted the last word of her sentence, she leapt off of her icy path in time to avoid yet another missile, curling herself into a tight ball as she surrendered herself to the whims of gravity. She could feel Claire bend rainwater around her as she flipped through the air, straightening herself out upright as the water began to coalesce into various spikes and other decorations. Finally, as she watched the rain below her begin to form a hanging sheet of water, she began to flash-freeze the water around her once more, causing her to land on the now-frozen sheet that Claire had prepared for her. Nicole swung her arms as she skated along the polar path. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see the enormous arm-mounted spikes that Claire had prepared for her. She briefly yearned for a mirror so she could see how cool she looked in the spiny ice armor, but she soon remembered that she had a decent substitute. “Sonya!” she yelled. “How do I look?” “Beautiful!” Sonya answered. “And real tough!” [[Previous|Page 118]] | [[Next|Page 120]]

<center> Page 120 </center> Nicole nodded in approval as she quickly closed the gap between herself and J. Before he could switch to a weapon more suited to close-quarters combat than a missile launcher, Nicole bashed him with a straight punch that further stressed the dent Sonya had left in his chest. J responded by angling the rockets in his feet toward Nicole. This propelled him away from her way before the fire could harm her, but the resulting contrails obscured her peripheral vision. Nicole relaxed her pace in the ensuing disorientation, but quickly found that she could guide her path via the contrails, and redoubled her efforts to catch up to J and deliver another attack. As Nicole drew close, J decided that the best way to evade her assault was to ascend to a higher altitude. To complement his plan, he fired a missile into Nicole’s trajectory, hoping to lead her out and have her collide with the missile. His plan assumed that she would continue to move forward at the same pace, however, and made no allowances for her split-second decision to modify Sonya’s idea. With a quick gasp, she jumped against the missile, tilting it to a sufficient degree that she could perform a second jump. At the apex of her jump, she interlocked her fingers and swung her arms like a hammer, lodging the spines lining her arms into J’s armor. She could feel the machine slow down as he struggled to pry her loose from his powered exoskeleton, to no avail. She'd managed to lodge her icicles in J in such a way as to keep him from melting or breaking the ice. Nicole’s feet swung around in the air beneath her as she tried to stave off J’s attempts to dislodge her. “Look,” she pleaded, stealing a glance at Sonya approaching from behind, “can’t you just give up? I already dealt with the jerks that were making me so angry, and now I just want to go to bed. Just…go hang out with Mr. Lee or whatever, and leave us alone!” “I am not permitted to negotiate,” J said in his usual monotone. Nicole chuckled. “Didn’t think so.” [[Previous|Page 119]] | [[Next|Page 121]]

<center> Page 121 </center> With a pump of her legs, she shifted her weight and spun herself around so that J was between her and Sonya. She curled herself into a ball behind his body, held in place by the ice spikes covering her. Meanwhile, Sonya leapt away from the missile just as it slammed into J’s armor and detonated on impact. Once the blast wave had passed, and the majority of the danger the explosion presented had passed, Nicole used a quick flip to gather some momentum, which she used to throw J to the ground. Unfortunately for her, this left her falling helplessly as well. She was so focused on the fall that she failed to notice Sonya plunging alongside her. “Oh, Nicole, you made it!” the giddy ginger exclaimed as she steered her plummet in closer. “I thought you were blown up!” “Like I’d let that happen,” Nicole replied at the top of her lungs. “What about him, though? There’s no way he can put up with any more, right?” “I think we got him! Claire, break our fall, please?” “On it,” Claire sloshed. Nicole watched as a liquid tendril snaked forth from the bottle on her hip, a tendril that dragged the rainwater on the asphalt into an enormous cylinder. “Jeez, where’d you guys be without me?” “Dead,” Nicole replied flatly. “Two or three times over. We really do owe you one.” “Naw, we’re even. The water in River City is gross as hell…I was gettin’ mad sick from stayin’ there, an’ I probably would’ve been stuck there forever if y’all didn’t gimme a lift.” “Fine, then we’re e—“ The rest of Nicole’s sentence was lost when she hit the water. The impact alone was enough to knock the breath out of her, and the fact that it was quickly replaced with water only made things worse. As Nicole struggled to break her head out of the water, she could feel it hardening around her, her powers triggering in a fit of panic. [[Previous|Page 120]] | [[Next|Page 122]]

<center> Page 122 </center> “Damn, you’re bad at this,” Claire’s voice rang out perfectly through the water, undistorted by the usual physics of the medium. A chunk of the water slid away from the rest and spilled into the street, as if sliced diagonally with an enormous, unseen blade. As Nicole gasped and greedily took in the oxygen present in the River City skyline, Claire added, “Now we just gotta get you to ground level.” The water gradually drained from around Nicole and Sonya, causing them to descend into the city along with the surface of the liquid cylinder. When they finally reached the ground, all three of them gasped simultaneously at the sight of J standing in the middle of the road, surrounded by a small crater. “I have undergone excessive damage,” he reported to no one in particular, despite the damage in question being obvious at a glance. His armor was warped and punctured to the point where it likely offered no protection whatsoever. His joints were occasionally illuminated by sparks that even shone through the geysers of steam that usually accompanied his movements. Even the simple act of standing gave away his condition; the tall and broad-shouldered posture he had favored before had degenerated into a messy slump, and he gripped his right shoulder as if the arm was going to fall out of its socket. “Chances of success are falling rapidly," he continued. "I need repairs.” With what seemed to be the last of the strength in his legs, he leapt into the air, remaining airborne with the help of the rocket engines in his back and feet. Despite the occasional wobble, he was still able to beat a hasty retreat by flying out of the girls’ reach. It didn’t stop Sonya from trying, but even with her jumping prowess and long legs, she failed to land a hit. [[Previous|Page 121]] | [[Next|Page 123]]

<center> Page 123 </center> Sonya was visibly aggravated by J's departure, but Nicole heaved a sigh of relief. “Glad he’s gone,” she growled as she fell to her knees. “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve kept that up.” “Now everyone’s safe!” Sonya cheered, somehow remaining as energetic as ever. “Steven and Keno…Heather and her data, too!” “So…there’s no way that Lee guy can catch up with us now?” Sonya responded to Nicole’s query with a nod. “No more of those mercenary soldier guys or whatever?” A second nod ensued. “I can finally get some rest?” When Sonya nodded a third time, Nicole let herself fall backwards onto the pavement. “Sonya?” she asked as she stared at the few stars that were visible. Sonya ran to Nicole’s side, kneeling next to her in the rain. “What’s up, Nicole? You can’t sleep here!” “Where do I sleep, though? I mean, my parents are just…gone. Knowing that someone snuck in there and snatched Mom and Dad…it’s gonna be weird, sleeping in there alone.” Sonya responded by lifting Nicole off of the asphalt and into a warm embrace. Despite her usual aversion to heat, Nicole enjoyed the feeling. “You don’t have to sleep alone! I’ll come with you if you want!” A single tear of happiness shoved its way out of Nicole’s eye, and she was grateful that Sonya’s head was next to hers in a way that would make seeing the tear impossible. “Of course I want you to come over. I…I…” Nicole grew frustrated with the knot her throat had tied itself into, ultimately resigning to its misgivings about handling such a difficult sentence. “I’d like that.” ## End of Chapter 24 [[Previous|Page 122]] | [[Next|Page 124]]

<center> Page 124 </center> ## Chapter 25 Nicole snapped awake to the sound of the trailer’s front door slamming shut. “Huh what huh?” she muttered as she jumped to her feet, her fists already saturating themselves with ice. The small hallway that connected the bedrooms to the bulk of the house was quickly left behind her, and she burst into the hybrid living and dining room. She did all this only to find Sonya standing next to a pair of adults, chatting with them even as Nicole stumbled into the room. “It’s no place for her to live!” Sonya exclaimed, somehow unaware of Nicole’s clumsy entry. “Maybe she can live with us…?” “Where’s she gonna sleep?” the male adult wondered aloud, stroking a healthy beard long enough to support his whole hand. He was an enormous man, almost as muscular as he was hairy. “We got two bedrooms, and that’s it.” “She can stay in my room! She’ll get a sleeping bag…or just be in my bed!” The female adult shook her head. “Absolutely not!” she screeched, her voice and body structure both vaguely reminiscent of a bat. Nicole caught herself thinking that the woman was just a couple wings away from being an outright Cross. “You know you’re not allowed to have girls in your room.” “Mom, please, it’s not like that!” Sonya rolled her eyes. “Nicole doesn’t like girls! Not like I do, at least! If I went and tried that…she’d stop me with her fists!” “Well…as long as she doesn’t break anything when she does it. I saw the news, Sonya, I know what you girls were up to. I don’t even know which one of you would win if—“ “Me, obviously,” Nicole blurted, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “Oh, yeah…I’m Nicole. Are you guys Sonya’s…?” The realization made her grateful for Sonya’s advice the night before. Pneumonia aside, she would have been slightly ashamed to wear wet and worn-out clothes in front of Sonya’s parents. [[Previous|Page 123]] | [[Next|Page 125]]

<center> Page 125 </center> The man nodded. “Yeah, I’m her dad,” he replied. “Hey, you like guys, right?” Before Nicole could answer, Sonya’s mother elbowed the giant furball of a man. “Henry, honestly!” she growled. “I’m sorry, Nicole, my husband can be a bit of a handful sometimes. I just…I feel so bad. When my daughter changed the way she did…I had no idea things would end up like this. Thank you for being by her side…it's just disgusting how there weren't any cops there." “Well, there was one,” Nicole corrected her. “I bet she’s still working on finding the guy that caused all this.” “Oh, right, that reminds me!” Sonya gasped, digging through her pockets for a piece of paper. As she handed it to Nicole, she explained its origin. “Heather visited us…but you were asleep then! She wanted to say this!” Nicole shrugged and unfolded the note. “Nicole, thank you for your help with the Lee Corporation,” she read aloud, slowing a bit to sound out "corporation". “I know you’re not one for heroics, but you and your friends made my job a lot easier. Grizz wanted me to congratulate you on his behalf after he saw you on the news. His girlfriend really likes your style! Mr. Lee and J are still at large, but don’t you worry! I’ll handle that. You deserve a rest. Enjoy your time with Sonya, and say hello to Steven and Keno for me!” Nicole lowered the note, staring confusedly at Sonya. “’Say hello to Steven and Keno’?” she repeated. “They’re not with you?” Sonya shook her head. “Steven’s in the hospital…and Keno’s with his brother!” she explained. “You know, the monastery…?” “Oh, right, that. Did she forget about Sam and Claire?” Even Nicole had to show her appreciation for Sam’s role in last night’s events. “The girl with the rubber boots?” Sonya’s mother asked. “We already drove her to Cross Town.” Sam had reclaimed the bottle containing Claire last night, so both of those questions were answered in one fell swoop. [[Previous|Page 124]] | [[Next|Page 126]]

<center> Page 126 </center> One issue still remained heavily on Nicole’s mind, however. “Alright, that’s neat," she said, dismissing the current conversation topic. Hey, um, Sonya’s folks, do you mind if I talk with Sonya for a second?” “We’ll be in the car,” Sonya’s father replied, indirectly affirming her request. “You two come outside when you’re ready to go.” Once the door closed behind Sonya’s parents, Nicole asked her only remaining question. “Sonya,” she growled, “did someone tell you that I didn’t like girls?” “I made Keno tell me!” Sonya admitted. “I’m so sorry, Nicole! I know you hate when he—“ Nicole intercepted the remainder of Sonya’s sentence with a quick kiss on the lips. “Keno can be wrong sometimes too, you know.” Nicole could tell from Sonya’s blank stare that the kiss had confused her. “Guys, girls, it doesn't matter to me, but with legs like yours…wait, what did he tell you, exactly?” Sonya’s gaze fell to her feet. “You thought about Steven…and never about me.” Nicole sighed indignantly. “I do think about you…Keno probably didn’t pick up on it, is all. Besides, it seemed weird to me that he was the leader even though you’re cooler than he is.” Sonya shrugged. “He was there first! No one knows why!” “You should have asked Keno about that instead,” Nicole suggested with a giggle. “I mean, I was going to tell you sooner, because you’re just so strong…especially after I saw you riding that missile, I realized that you’re just so cool and pretty and…well, I wasn’t gonna mention it right in the middle of a fight.” Nicole jokingly smashed an icy fist into the wall. “And I wasn’t gonna take ‘no’ for an answer!” “Neither was I!” Sonya agreed. “If you said no…” Sonya did her best to swing a fake axe kick, but ended up smashing her heel through an end table nonetheless. “Um…sorry.” [[Previous|Page 125]] | [[Next|Page 127]]

<center> Page 127 </center> Nicole couldn’t help but laugh at Sonya’s antics. “You’re kinda cute when you’re being all shy like that," she said, taking Sonya's hand and pulling her away from the mess she'd just made. "Then again, maybe I’m not used to it.” “I should be shy more…?” Sonya asked, looking into Nicole's eyes. Nicole shook her head. “I like you when you’re loud, too, don’t worry. Your parents, are they gonna be OK with us sparring?” “If that’s not innuendo…” Sonya giggled. “…yeah, they know you like to fight! They’re OK with that, mostly! Just don’t fight kids back at school!” Nicole scratched the back of her head. “I can’t make any promises, but if I’m not too angry, then I think I can manage…and I don’t think I’ll be too angry. I mean, being at your place is gonna be great!” With a nod, Nicole added, “Go tell your parents I’m just about ready. I’ll just get my bags from my room and bring them right out, alright?” Sonya nodded and bolted through the front door in a hurry, eager to get Nicole to her new lodgings. For once, Nicole felt just as eager and energetic as her comrade-in-arms. With Mr. Lee evading arrest, the people primarily responsible for the soldiers dead by her hand, and even a new home life, she had plenty to be thankful for. The new home was a bittersweet victory, however. Despite their frequent fighting, they were still her parents, and they were the ones that had to disappear in order to make room for Sonya’s parents. It was a sacrifice that she almost regretted, but Heather was right; Nicole never felt like much of a hero. “You win some, you lose some,” she muttered to herself as she shoved the front door open. [[Previous|Page 126]] | [[Next|Page 128]]

<center> Page 128 </center> Nicole turned sideways in order to accommodate the bags she'd packed. Her possessions swayed slightly as she sidestepped out of the trailer she'd called home for so long. As she stepped outside, a ray of sunlight filtered through her wavy brown hair. The sheer brightness in comparison to the inside of the house made it difficult for her eyes to adjust to the daylight, as it flooded River City in an effort to erase the evidence of the rain-slicked battle. “Hurry up, Nicole!” Sonya yelled from the back seat of a silver car, the sort of vehicle that was common on the streets. “We’re going to Merv’s!” Nicole eagerly threw her bags into the trunk and took her seat next to Sonya. She and Sonya had won the best attack the first day they met, and likely won it several times over again on the roof of the Lee Corporation building. It was about time, she thought to herself, that she collect her prizes. All the better that Sonya's parents were dispensing the prize, then, after they promised she could order anything off the menu. Even through the excitement, though, Nicole still found it in her to take one last, wistful look at the trailer park in which she had spent her entire life. Nicole's mind was a mess of doubts. She had no idea if she could really coexist with people as nice as Sonya’s family, and couldn’t imagine herself adjusting to a less violent and angry lifestyle. As she pondered the ramifications of ice powers in regard to such concerns, her train of thought was promptly wrecked by Sonya’s hand wrapping around hers, but that suited her fine. She quickly decided that she’d worry about those things later. As much as she tried, she couldn’t fool herself into believing that she’d be able to remember to come back to her doubts after an order of a large number six. ## The End