Earth

No one stepped up to take the blame. Vincent only smacked with his mouth in disapproval of their way to deal with the situation, he was not in the mood to be calmed down. He was not in the mood to play this little game with these people either. He just wanted to head away from this, home if he had one, and forget about it all. Perhaps all he needed was to sleep, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't able to frown much more than he already was. The deep wrinkles on his forehead made him look more like a old man than someone his age.

When the funny looking one tried to shake his pistol like he shook the others hands Vincent simply withdrew his gun from the man’s hand like he would have done with his own hand as well. No one was allowed to touch his pistols, to dirty them with their stains. So as the introduction continued Vincent simply just growled lowly to himself as he tried to clean the gun against his leather jacket, something that was much harder than he thought it would be.

But there was one idea he liked, something that captured his attention. The mentioning of shooting the guards outside of the door instead of the others, it was the purple man that had mentioned it first. But soon the strange looking one, the one calling himself Sketch, Stench, something like that - Vincent didn't care the slightest, asked who wanted to take them down. But there was no point in talking anymore, Vincent had never been a man that enjoyed that. He did things. And thought about the consequences afterwards.

So as soon as the man mentioned it he simply took the few steps towards the door without preparing the other ones and slammed his foot against it, discretion was not something he dealt with. Of course the loud smash of the door suddenly opening made the two guards react. The first one turning his face towards the commotion but was just able to glimpse at the white character before he fell to the ground as one shoot was fired, hitting him right between the eyes.

The second one didn't have much more time react, he was just about grasp against his own weapons when the white figure smashed the other gun towards his nose as he made the way out of the storage open for the others. Not because he was going to leave the second man alive, he had no intention to keep anyone alive, he never did. He enjoyed killing them, but he enjoyed toying with them as well. Which was why he smashed his face with the gun first before pressing it up under the man’s chin before pulling the trigger again. The sounds of the shoots could be heard echoing after it was done. Because no, Vincent didn't use silencers on his guns.

The loud shot of Vincents pistol echoed through the large open corridor that stood outside the broom closet the group still resided in. The intended target, a man clad in a tight blue jump suit with a skin tight mask, had his face erupt into a mini geyser of blood as his body fell backwards like a limp sack of potatoes.

"I Fucking told yo-" The second man adorned in the same costume began yelling before Vincent smacked him across the face with the but of his gun, a sick bone cracking snap sounding out before being followed up by a gunshot beneath the chin. The body count was rising.

By this time the rest of the complex had woken up, two more guards standing directly at a set of stairs directly adjacent to the closet door being the most immediate threats. In seconds the pair had leveled both of their right arms in Vincents direction, their hands holding strange contraptions that resembled a two pronged electric wall plug in:and the way the metal prongs were starting to glow bright blue and crackle with energy it was pretty obvious something bad was about to happen.

For a moment it felt like all the air was sucked out of the broom closet and then within the span of a second four large blue arcs of electrical energy filled the air, arching out from the gunlike contraptions the two henchmen were already charging up yet again.

Vincent took the entirety of the blast-four baseball sized holes riddling his chest as he flew off his feet at an extremely odd angle: apparently he was hit with enough force that it sent him ragdolling towards the left of the hallway. The smell of freshly burnt flesh still filled the air on his decent to the floor. You could even hear him sizzling.

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Amidst all the commotion and Vincents attention grabbing entrance a black and white blur had been able to slingshot out of the door unnoticed to the henchmen still focusing on Vincent-Stretch had made it out of the closet and was hiding in the large metal rafters. From here he could get a good view of the entire hallway-it was mostly a completely sterile looking environment; the walls, floor, and ceiling all consisting of the same metallic gray material.

His birds eye view quickly showed him that the hallway, which ran about the length of a football field, currently had four henchmen all armed with the same deadly looking guns. There were the two men charging up for a second round of shots at Vincent-this pair stood right at the top of a large stone staircase that lead downwards. Then there were two more entering from the right side of the hallway, the pair emerging from two large sliding metal doors; these two didn't have their weapons charged but held them at the ready, clearly confused as to what the commotion was. The way one of them held two fingers to his covered ear made Stretch pretty sure they were in communication with someone: which wasn't good. Even worse before the sliding doors were able to close shut Stretch was able to make out two more suited figures approaching: soon there would be six henchman in all in the hallway.

Closing his eyes behind his black visor Stretch did his best to focus, to link his mind up with the rest of the group like Mr. E said they were now able to. He didn't bother with words, no, in the heat of the moment all of this information was mentally projected as images: the information coming into his comrades minds as if in a split second they two had seen everything his eyes had.

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Mania's mirth was at a bit of a low ebb. For one thing, their employer had made clear his intent to kill them the moment they slipped up and/or outlived their usefulness, something which even she, space case though she might have been, grasped fairly clearly. For another, the fluffy white-haired man was apparently really grumpy about something, and so decided the best way to take out that hostility would be to refuse to shake hands with anybody and be all cold and aloof and stuff. Oh, and to brutally murder the two guards outside the door, which seemed pretty twisted to her. Like, there just wasn't any point to it, so why bother? It's not like they could have put up a good fight. Anyway, adding further annoyance to the situation, the Hamburglar also seemed adamant on refusing the wonderful name she'd given him. She'd given a childlike pout and refused to shake his hand at that, like a much more adorable imitation of the aforementioned Vincent. Mania completely failed to realize the hypocrisy of this course of action.

So consequently, Mania was getting a little stir crazy. She was thinking about things way too much, and if there was one thing that she hated, it was actually having to contemplate her actions. Fortunately, all that seemed to be changing, since as she rushed out after Vincent - stepping gingerly over a pair of fresh bodies in the process - four men with some sort of zappy laser-y cannon thing - as her mind helpfully categorized their weapons - opened fire, nearly hitting her and completely shredding the antisocial man. Mania gave a sharp cry of surprise, darting to the side at the last second and barely avoiding the incoming shower of lightning.

She may have been controlled by her impulses most of the time, but she wasn't stupid. For example, she knew that, right now, there was probably a powerful supervillain somewhere in this base ready and waiting to fry their ragtag band of intruders, and that it would probably have been best if they didn't attract his attention. But, as her mind helpfully told her, she didn't need to worry about any of that anymore, since thanks to Vincent's entrance, they already knew she was there! Which meant... all she had to do was... A massive grin spread across her face at this realization, and her shields sparked to life with a snap and a hiss in a flurry of seven-colored light that whirled around her.

The men on top of the stairs looked to be charging their weapons for another round. Mania eyed them with some slight surprise. She'd heard a lot about Blue Tesla, but those guns of theirs, while decently powerful, seemed really inefficient. I mean, what kind of self-respecting mad scientist would arm his entire guard force with a weapon that could only be fired once every ten seconds or so, and then not give them any sort of body armor to allow them to stand up to any attacks that were launched at them in the interrim? Forget supers. This base could be taken by a sufficiently large force of people armed with automatic firearms, a fact that, thanks to reading her thoughts, the others would soon realize as well.

Mania sighed. He must have been really desperate to keep with his lightning theme. Uncle Dan would never have made such an obvious oversight, She thought, remembering the time she'd spent working as an assistant in the laboratory of Dantalian, Dastardly Doctor of Dangerous and Dreadful Disciplines. His security measures might have been a bit excessive, even by supervillain standards, but they'd almost never failed. Compared to having to brave those any time she wanted to come home after a job, a few guys with guns that shot lightning was nothing.

Still, if nothing else, they would be capable of putting up at least some fight, and that was all she asked for. As the two on the stairs almost finished charging their weapons for another round, Mania braced herself against her forcefield, leaping forward as though she'd jumped horizontally off a vertical trampoline. Blurring across the hall, she sped between the two men at the foot of the stairs, launching straight up them and at their allies at the top. She giggled to herself, raising her hands as they were momentarily surrounded by a flicker of rainbow colored light. Planting her feet on the top step, she skidded to a stop right between them, raising a hand in front of both of them. Instinctively they drew back, trying to retrain their weapons on her, only for her to grab them by the barrels, her shield instantly coming into contact with their electrical field as it tried to jump down from the coils and into her arms. In a flash of light, both the shield and the energy charged into their weapons dissipated. Mania's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She'd expected her shields to dissipate the energy charged into the weapons, but she hadn't expected them to fall in the process. Just two of these things had enough power to shred her defenses completely? She made a mental note to try to always be the one to shoot first, not wanting to have to stand up to something that powerful if she could help it.

Oh, right, but there were still the two guys trying to wrest their guns from her grasp. Mania grinned cheerfully, letting go of both and raising her hands in front of her. They eyed her in confusion, seeming to interpret her gesture as one of surrender. Retraining their guns on her, one of them raised a hand to his ear, seeming to be saying something. Whatever it was, he never finished. The power that had been building in Mania's hands discharged instantly, heralded only by one word.

"BOOM!"

The resulting rainbow-colored explosion was like fireworks, crackling, snapping, sparking and hissing as it scattered outward into the throne room and backward down the stairs, shredding them in the process. The two men were sent flying backwards, saved from being charred to the bone only by their surprisingly heat resistant suits. Even so, the sheer force of the blast was enough to hurl them a good several meters across the room, knocking them against both the floor and each other as they were sent hurtling back. By the time they came to a stop near the foot of the throne on the far side of the room - much to the surprise and confusion of the two guards standing watch there - they were completely motionless.

That had been fun. Mania glanced back, grinning from ear to ear, as she looked to see what the others had been doing during this time. To her surprise, though, she found herself realizing the positions of several more guards she couldn't have possibly seen, located at various points throughout the hall. On the one hand, she wanted to go back and help the others with the oncoming swarm of henchmen, but on the other, she had somewhat bigger problems now. After all, if she knew her supervillains, the most likely place to find the owner of this little establishment would be either here in the throne room, or at the very least, somewhere very close by. She highly doubted that he'd just conveniently "happen" to be gone, considering Mr. E hadn't mentioned anything of the sort, and seemed to be making a point of giving them the most difficult "test" he possibly could. Mania had been working with supervillains long enough to know that if your boss didn't specifically tell you something, it meant that he probably didn't want you to realize that that something wasn't true. So sure, you might assume that the crazy powerful lightning master mad scientist wasn't home, which was why Mr. E had sent them there now. But, on the other hand, that pretty much definitely wasn't true. So, considering that her own entrance had exceeded even Vincent's in sheer flashiness, she had a feeling she'd be face to face with the master of the house soon enough. She supposed that meant that it fell to her to keep him occupied while the others recovered from the situation they'd gotten themselves into.

So, she stepped into the throne room, glancing around curiously at her surroundings before turning to the two guards at the foot of the throne and waving cheerfully. "Hi!" She said, giving a big, friendly smile as her shields flickered back to life.

- Underground Compound

Although he was glad to have things under way, Grav remained surprised at how fast things went from sneaky to explosive, as if someone turned a literal tension dial from two to eleven. It appeared as though his suggestion to the white one hadn't fallen on deaf ears after all, although the manner in which he carried it out did little to quell the apprehension Grav had towards him. The striped one had introduced himself however, grasping Wilson's hand awkwardly out of no where, resulting in a hasty smile from him out of politeness.

Needless to say, Stretch immediately reacted to the rather brutal attack, slingshotting himself out of the closet in a blur. Followed by the manic girl, zipping her way through sets of henchmen. Unfortunately Grav found himself standing motionless in the closet, stunned into paralysis by the quickly unfolding events. His hesitation dawned on him rather quickly, noticing how odd it was for him to be standing by while his makeshift compatriots began to fight their way to the prize they were here for.

"Okay... uh... what do I do?" The words shot through Grav's head, his reluctant and defeated personality preventing him from acting. At times like this he would have preferred for his other nature to overwhelm him, at least then he would be able to carry out the operation.

"No, I... I have to do this" he mumbled, "My future criminal standing depends on it".

With a new and uncharacteristic motivation overcoming him, Grav steadied himself, his eyes focused on the task at hand. Taking a step back. Tightening his muscles. Running one had through his short mess of dark blonde hair, stretching the other at his side.

Shooting from the back of the closet, Grav was now lighter than average, able to bound completely over where Mr White was being assaulted by a barrage of lightening. With his body tightened up and his feet pointing forward, Grav cleared the two who now began to recharge. Falling lightly behind, he wasted no time, swinging his leg across the floor swiftly. Suddenly the air was heavier and with a shift of gravity his leg gained a considerable amount of density, colliding with one of the henchman's poor calves.

Quickly shifting gravity to the same point was something he didn't have fully mastered but had slowly been experimenting with in the last few months, coming in very useful for high activity situations. As the henchman unknowingly fell to the side, his leg no doubt fractured by the sudden force of Grav's moving appendage, he was soon thrown across the room regardless, as he and his team mates found themselves at the mercy of the Gir's unusual, and colourful, burning power.

Grav took no time to observe the display, as much as he wanted to, taking a breath and again vaulting across the hallway towards the new set of guards that had been highlighted by the thoughts of stretch and the Girl. Wincing and containing his surprise as he rocketed through an incredible show of multicoloured light, Grav neared the group of freshly approaching henchman.

In a flash, he had collided with one of them, taking him off of his feet as he regained his original weight. Finally, impressing even himself, as Grav and the guard spun to the ground, he let loose a smoke grenade from his vest that flew over the guards and exploded into a white cloud in front of them, obscuring their vision.

He and the lone guard slowed and hit against the hallway wall, with Grav placing his hand against his captive's chest, forcing his clothes to weigh as if they were made of iron. As the guard squirmed against the floor he was now effectively glued to, Grav finally came back to reality and took note of what had just occurred.

"Phew"