Earth

William quietly sat and watched as the man glared at Gwenny and began to slowly reached out for the shadows. Before he could form anything however he realized something, Gwenny was glaring right back! Amused William let his hand rest a bit, still ready for an altercation yet, not ready to be the one who jumped the gun.

After the unnamed man and woman walked off in a hurry Gwenny shot a worried look in Williams direction...

"Yeah i know." Was all he mumbled, a bit irritated at the two mystery people for causing even MORE for him to ponder.

Melodyn arrived home weak and stumbled into her apartment. "I need to pack something, just incase." glancing around she found her suitcase and began to put things important to her inside using clothes to cushion them then she set it by one of her two windows. Turning back to her bed she about jumped out of her skin as a man was sitting on it.

"DAMNIT MARLEN!!!" she shouted and then stopped herself short of going to him when she saw his face. It was dark and clouded, like a man bent on revenge, a man who had lost everything and was no more human than a demon. Marlen was her friend Greg's little brother, and Greg was the one who saved her so long ago, though he was missing now and they had a feeling he was kidnapped.

"What is WRONG with you? He killed her, Mel, and you are now all buddie buddie with him? How COULD you!" he shouted his face becoming angrier. "I have to hurt you now Mel, kill you, don't you see? You consorted with the enemy, of ALL of us. My superiors told me, to make an example of you. It won't be slow Mel, not after you let her die." he said.

Melodyn didn't know what to think. She trembled as she had no way to defend herself now that she had already used her power. She glanced at her phone it seemed so far away now, sitting on her desk. Hearing Marlen snarle in rage she looked back at him just in time to duck from a fireball heading straight for her face. She rolled over to where she placed her suitcase and threw it out of the window. She then attempted to follow it only to have Marlen lunge at her again with another bellow of rage. Ducking again she was able to get mostly away with only his hand on her ankle, he immediately set his hand ablaze, burning her.

Screaming she kicked him, her apartment was ablaze with bright flames and she patted out the ones on her ankle. Standing up she lunged toward her other window using her weight to break the glass and tumble out onto the pavement below form two stories up. Landing with a thud she screamed as pain shot up her arm and along her side. Standing up on adrenaline alone she took off running just as Marlen jumped out after her using his flames to slow his fall. Sirens wailed in the background and the flames in her apartment rose high. She hissed as her toe hit a bottle as she was barefooted. Her only thought was to get away and into public.

Soon she came upon a clothing store across from a Starbucks and dashed into is hiding among the racks of clothes to catch her breath. The shopkeeper approached her. "Excuuse me miss but in our rather well established store, we do not permit shoeless rift-raf...." his statement was cut off as the front doors exploded and Melodyn screamed. Her legs gave out as she looked upon Marlen, completely bathed in flames as dark as his anger. "NOW IS OUR TIME TO MAKE OUR PRESENCE KNOWN!!" he yelled and Melodyn looked past him, unable to do anything. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw Everette talking with a woman. She was scared for him and the woman.

"Please, Marlen, stop this insanity! It's not worth it." she cried desperately.

"Is that what you said? When he killed her? The only one I had left!" he screamed, showing just how insane he had become. He grew a huge fireball and aimed it at Melodyn. "Any last words traitor?" he asked. All she could do was hang her head and cry, Her ribs were bruised, her arm broken, her strength gone. She was defenseless.

The blazing red exit sign cut through the placid dim lights of the library. Snow savored these intimate times, when the patrons had all gone home. It was then she could safely unleash her gift, whether she was watching a video on Indonesia dialect or thumbing through the urban dictionary looking for new slang (not that she needs to do any of that, but she feels like it keeps her fresh). The library was her solace, her life-line and her home.

Tonight there would be no studying, just her usual walk to the best burger joint in towne. She could already taste the guacamole and the sweet potato fries. She wrapped her blue wool coat around her petite waist, topping it with her cashmere scarf and red leather gloves. Snow knew these streets like the books in her library; every storefront, every lamp-post, every dark alley....she had no fear of this town she grew up in. There was a time when her grandmother wanted to send her to finishing school, but her parents feared that her gift would get discovered.

As Snow wandered toward the restaurant, she noticed the medic vehicle and the dissipating crowd of onlookers. She was interested,but had learn that emotion could get her in trouble; so she scanned the onlookers (from a distance) one more time; she observed discomfort, morbid curiosity and disguise. Snow knew she did not want to be a part of this, yet a feisty red-head girl caught her eye. She was glaring at a man who had a sinister look about him. Snow could tell from his stance that he was ready to pounce on her, but the red-head stormed off. “ I guess the showdown is over, I just can't figured out who won.”The music from the bar drifted into the street bringing Snow back to “real life”. She decided she was not needed here and continued on to the restaurant.

Two years ago...

Deanna grinned with a perverse pleasure as she stood on the roof of the Matsukoshi Skyscraper, where the Nemean Eye, a gem of incredible value, was being held for a scientific study on how light that traveled through it was affected in ways it shouldn't be. As she pulled her Zorro-esqe eyemask down, she jumped off the side of the building, her aura forming on her arm. As she passed the floors, she counted down in her head until the 37th floor, where her aura shot out and shattered the glass, anchoring itself in the concrete floor inside for her to climb up with. Alarms started ringing, but she ignored this as she launched herself across the room and deeper into the building. As she ran, her aura molded itself over her entire body, giving the world a red hue as it covered her head. At the turn of a corner, she ducked into a room, where she found the safe holding the Nemean Eye. She dropped to one knee next to the safe and poked the keyhole, letting her aura slither onto her finger and form the key, unlocking the safe. As Deanna stood up with her prize, slipping it into her pocket, she found herself face-to-face with the Matsukoshi security detail, that is, their own private army. As they leveled their guns at her, she dropped a single grenade on the ground. As it detonated, she was left the last one in the room by the men who saw the grenade drop. She formed a shield in front of her, the shrapnel bouncing off of her aura armor, and when the first guard looked in to see what had happened, she let her aura switch to her arm, piercing his shoulder and sending out three spikes, locking into place in his scapula.
"GET OVER HERE!" She screamed, yanking him towards her and knocking him out with an aura-enhanced punch. She then slipped back into fullbody and ran out the door, right past the still shocked security force, and jumped out the window, her aura forming a pair of translucent wings to escape from the building. She landed on another building ten blocks away, and then pulled the gem out of her pocket to look at her prize...

The night before the today of our story...

Deanna Rouge groaned with an intense desire to murder the bureaucrat who invented paperwork. As owner and Editor-in-Chief of The Last Word, tax time was coming up, and she was in no mood to have to deal with the inevitability of the IRS coming after her due to some unknown flub that one of the accountants missed, probably one extra zero in the wrong place. She was always willing to take on the entire city's police force if it boiled down to it, throw in that Variant team the government made too, but the IRS? She had so much to live for! She grumbled again in reluctance, then pressed a finger to the two-way intercom she'd installed in her desk and her secretary's.
"Shirley, how much longer until lunch?" Deanna asked, sounding like she was one pillow away from passing out from boredom.
"Ma'am... You just got in. At 7:00 at night, too." Her sec responded. Deanna had hired the elderly black lady for two reasons. One, Shirley was the only person capable of keeping Deanna in her office during the day, and two, she made the best damn chocolate brioche this side of the Atlantic ocean, and that's talent you keep a lock on. However, all the pastries on the planet couldn't save Deanna from the torture that was taxes. She DID perk up at Shirley's mention of it being nighttime, though.
"Perfect, so it's already time to start shutting things down!" She said, already grabbing her purple leather jacket and almost out the door before Shirley grabbed her by the scruff and dragged her back into her office.
"Two more forms, Deanna, and you ca-" They were already fully completed and in Shirley's hand as Deanna disappeared out the door, already having taken the 42 flights of stairs thanks to her aura catching the railings on the way down as usual. The grin on Deanna's face as she left The Last Word was enough to chill pudding for the required amount of time til tasty goodness. Her big anniversary was coming up, and it was going to be a night to remember for ALL involved...

Tanya yelped as a giant fireball appeared out of nowhere. The hell? She immediately looked around for the source. A deranged-looking man was attacking a bruised and battered woman. In a public coffee shop. With fire. What is wrong with this city!? Without a second thought, Tanya pulled the woman away from the line of fire (literally). Her hand immediately went to her coat, where she kept her loaded gun, which was filled with gene-suppressing tranqs.

"Sir," she said placidly, "I suggest you calm down." Tanya glanced at Everette. Subtly but quickly, she sent a message in code. Damage control. Will attempt negotiation. If failure, attempt knockout. I am armed and prepared to fire. Stand ready.

She eyed the flaming ball of fire with distrust. This is why Variants need to be monitored. People can't be trusted with unchecked power. Some people in the coffee shop began to panic, while a few others took out their phones and began to record it. "Everyone, remain calm. There is no danger." Tanya's voice was firm but soothing. With the hand not on her gun, she pressed a button on her phone; HQ would be alerted, and they would send a clean-up crew to this location.

My God. Back in New Mexico, it was unusual to have a situation once a month. Here, I've witnessed three incidents in one day. The last SADMEN must have been horrible. Hell, had the scout stationed here done anything at all?

Tense as a wire, Tanya waited for the next person to act.

Everette saw his life flash before his eyes, every muscle in his body tensing to a halt as a fire-ball rocketed by, and he even let out a slight whimper, although no one heard, in complete terror. Fire. The one thing he could not do, and that was the exact power that laid across the street ready to fry him black without mercy. Everette, since birth, has always had an unexplainable fear of fire, and he would rely other hunters to handle the common flame-based variants. Yet another tinge of sadness attacked his conscious when he realized he was the only hunter now, been for a while, and he would have to face these now by himself. What is that different than anything else I do.

Barely calmed down, he noticed her code, so he deciphered it through his gut-wrenching fear. Damage control. Will attempt negotiation. If failure, attempt knockout. I am armed and prepared to fire. Stand ready.

He had no problem whatsoever not charging towards that, but he got caught up on the knock-out part. He concluded that either this person never cared enough to learn about him, or she just had not heard of the fabled “Lone Wolf Hunter”. Everette has never once been sent on a “Bag and Tag” mission, although he had been friends with some hunters who would describe them, for every time he was sent in the field it was to make a variant, such as one that they already understood, disappear. To kill. Tear apart. Obliterate. They never cared, but he guessed they forgot to inform her or just assumed that he would be long gone by now and she would never even of met him.

He decided to teach her, so if she failed and he was absolutely forced to ask, he would make a mess killing the torching Variant. That was one Variant that he did not mind getting wiped out. He thought all of the supposed "wiped-out" Variants, and then he remembered. The girl he killed before was supposedly the last of the Terrakenisis Variants, and so once again he was sad over the death, the ending of a life si short. He realized then, that he was sad over the short life of Terrakenisis itself, not the girl, and so he felt somewhat better knowing that he had mercilessly killed a girl. However, it did not fully rid him of the guilt.

Now he waited.

Melodyn looked up at the woman who pulled her away from Marlen. Enraged, Marlen screamed. "AGAIN YOU CONSORT WITH OUR ENEMIES! YOU MUNDANE HUMAN! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DEATH AT ONE OF US WHO YOU HUNT!" he screamed at Tanya and approached her.

Melodyn looked up at Tanya again. "Don't let him get close. That's Marlen Havit. His flames burn so hot that any who get within 2 feet are immediately incinerated unless they are a fire user as well. His brother used to be my friend." she said cradling her broken arm against her chest. She then scooted back to behind Everette.

Deanna really hated it when people made such a fuss in the same area she was. She had just been enjoying her coffee to relax when Mr. Goodnessgracious came waltzing in and slinging his great balls of fire, dragging in the Variant hunters. She recognized Everette and Tanya from previous run-ins, which, thankfully, they'd never been able to match to her normal life, and Melodyn from news reports that her journalists had brought to her to be approved for post. Sighing, she stood up with her bag, walked to the ladies room, and proceeded to pull out her costume and-

"Where the hell is my helmet?" she said to herself, her bag not showing any signs of carr- "F***!" She didn't know why her cursing bleeped out, but at this moment, she was more concerned with the fact that she remembered leaving it at home today due to oversleeping and needed to get to work on time for once. Rolling her eyes, she formed her aura into a blue pair of scissors and ripped her black undershirt to make a Dread Pirate Roberts skullmask, which she immediately put on along with the rest of her outfit, hiding the bag up in the ceiling tiles. Switching back to her red aura, she burst out of the lavatory, made her fullbody armor, and prepped to bullrush the fire user.

"OI!I know they're out of croissants, but you don't need to get so hot under the collar about it!" she shouted, charging at him as he sent a fireball her way out of reflex. As it connected, she felt a light tingling of the heat the flame was producing as it immediately ignited her armor, cloaking it in flames, then immediately pushed through like it was nothing, aiming an uppercut directly as his chin. As she did so, she made sure to keep her mind on the team behind her as well. She was a rogue as far as they knew, and she rathered they stay ignorant of her identity.

To Tanya's relief, Everette didn't seem intent on charging or attacking the flame-Variant. Now, she knew that the man had a reputation for indiscriminately killing every Variant. (Which was something that Tanya found incredibly distasteful. Not only was murder morally bankrupt, it also prevented the government from learning more about Variants in general. Specific cases aside, a live Variant was more useful than a dead one.)

Regardless, she was pretty certain that suddenly murdering people in a coffee shop, of all places, would draw even more attention. She hoped that Everette would choose to incapacitate instead of kill, but she wasn't very hopeful. Tanya blinked when she realized that Everette looked... scared. And had he actually whimpered? Tanya quickly ignored the surge of concern. That could wait until after the conflict.

"AGAIN YOU CONSORT WITH OUR ENEMIES! YOU MUNDANE HUMAN! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DEATH AT ONE OF US WHO YOU HUNT!" Tanya really wanted to roll her eyes, though she barely managed not to. God, could you get anymore melodramatic?

"OI!I know they're out of croissants, but you don't need to get so hot under the collar about it!"

Tanya felt like slamming her face against the wall. Another one? Are you freaking kidding me? Apparently, yet another Variant had appeared out of nowhere. This city is goddamn insane. This particular Variant looked vaguely like a superhero. The strange person was wearing tight-fitting bright blue spandex... and a yellow cape. A cape.

The scout's eyebrows went up when she realized that the wannabe-superhero actually wasn't useless. In fact, she seemed fairly effective. Though the spandex-girl's uniform caught on fire, she sent a punch to the psycho's face. Nice, admitted Tanya grudgingly.

But most importantly, the girl had given her an opening by distracting the opponent. In one smooth move, Tanya fired her gun. The tranquilizer darts in the gun were a work of art. Fireproof, indestructible, and capable of piercing anything, the darts were filled with a gene-suppressant that temporarily dampened or suppressed powers, while at the same time sending a blast of chemicals that would knock out an element.

Just as fluidly as before, Tanya reloaded, prepared to shoot again if needed.

The second she saw the dart hit Fireball, Deanna pushed her aura though the Nemean Eye, turning the entire thing blue as the fire that was licking along it extinguished. She knew the M.O. of the squad, bag and tag, and she was NOT going to let one of those things hit her.
"Hey now, don't point that thing at me unless you want it broken. I'm not doing anything wrong with my Variance{At the moment}, I just wanted to grab something to perk me up during my break, which, speaking of, will be up in five minutes, and I do NOT want to be late again, last time I ended up late I lost brownie privileges for two weeks, and that REALLY sucks when you- Digressing, sorry. Point being, I-" She stopped midsentence as her aura shot out of her shoulder and though the broken window, snagging a passing semi while another tendril grabbing the macchiato the teenager behind the counter had just finished making for herself. Reeling in both, she zipped out of the store and onto the truck while using the expectation of finishing her sentence to take them off guard, laughing as she rode away from the ruckus with a relatively free drink. Taking a victory sip, she saw a kid staring at her on the sidewalk, jaw dropped at the NON-caped crusader(Seriously, who in their fashion-straight mind gets a scarf and a cape mixed up?). Smiling, she waved and made a little V gesture with her index and middle fingers, seeing the kid grin as she rode off.

Tanya listened as the superhero wannabe rambled about misusing powers. While it was true that she technically hadn't done anything wrong yet, spandex-girl was skirting dangerously close. Tanya paused. Wait... hadn't there been a—

Her train of thought abruptly derailed. She blinked. What? Had spandex-girl just... jumped out the window? That's not suspicious at all. Nope. Not even a little bit. And... had Everette just followed her? Great. Just great. Tanya stifled a sigh and glanced at the now comatose pyromaniac. Well, that problem was solved.

"Sorry about that, folks!" she said brightly. "The special effects just went out of hand a little. We were recording for a TV show. The producers wanted the reactions of the bystanders to be genuine. Our lawyers should be around soon with the release forms. Thank you for your cooperation!"

Now, she just had to wait for the clean-up crew. They'd be be here soon. Actually, they were already here. Out of the corner of her eye, Tanya noticed that everyone's cellphones had lost their signal. Ah. Good. The crew had already jammed connections. Once the man had been taken down, they'd come in.

The only thing that Tanya was worried about was the Central's reaction. For the oddest reason, Tanya really didn't think they'd be happy.

Everette watched the scene play out in front of him, and he let out an annoyed grunt when Melodyn crawled by him. For the love of any God, why was she here!?! Honestly, he had just sent her home to be safe, and now the idiot has found yet another way to mess up what he was doing. I could kill her. Everette froze. He could kill her; his connection to her seemed all but gone. He must only have the connection at some points, or maybe he just got over it. He never, however, got over instinct, so he came to realize the true reason. She could change powers, and as long as she did not use his powers, he could be free from his connection to her.

He watched the truck that was going to carry the other girl away, but he knew it would do her no good. Everette wafted her as she went by, automatically memorizing the scent, and decided that she would die before Shilo the Waitress. His reflexes were still uncanningly sharp, so it did not take him long to decide what to do, except this time there was no one able to stop. He rushed over to a taxi with blurring speed, opening and ripping off the car door, and then he flung the car door as hard as he could, which was pretty hard. He had missed the target, the girl, but he decided that it was okay when he hit the wheel of the truck, causing it to fall of its axil. The truck swerved and ran head on into a nearby shop, going through the glass wall in a cloud of smoke and broken glass, and although he did not see what had happened to the girl, he smelled her and knew she was hurt at the least.

He only glanced over to the trio he left behind: a scout with no doubt a stack of paper-work for him that weighed a literal ton, a man who could catch on fire, and girl who seemed to know just how to mess his objective up. He gladly chased after the bus, and when he noticed the child bystander, he gave an awkward smile as if to say Hey kid, I am actually the good guy! No matter what happened, the Crew was on its way, and nothing survived the crew. Not him trying to avoid paper-work, not a girl that can lie, and not a wanna-be super heroine.

As he approached the gaping hole, hoping Melodyn would not follow, he smelled the girl, and prepared himself for the fight, tensing every muscle like loading a gun ready to fire. This, killing, was something he was meant to do since birth, and he knew that was his destiny. No one was ever asked what their destiny was, it is forced upon them, and his destiny was a lonely one filled with blood, a pointless existence that its only purpose was to end other existences. Again, he felt his burden grow heavy with the thought of his only purpose, and again he had to decide what he would do. He had no philosophy holding him there to endlessly serve his cause, but yet he still did. Did he love his country? No. Did he love his people. the variants? No. Did he love himself? No. Did he even love? No. There was no point in continuing the pursuit.

Yet he still was going to, so he prepared to kill or die.

As the puppy neared her scent, it was overtaken by the overpowering stench of perfumes, an entire shop's worth smashed in by the truck he'd just destroyed. Any attempts he COULD have made finding her would easily make his nose feel like it was burning off and be a fruitless endeavor to boot. Meanwhile on the rooftop of the building three blocks down, Deanna, who had gotten off long before the truck had crashed, sipped her drink and wondered why anyone would consider keeping an emotionally unstable idiot like Everette on duty, he was clearly more destructive than those he was sent to kill and every bit as remorseless, as his lack of care for bystanders showed. If only he wasn't so bloodthirsty, Deanna could have used a murderer like him for her plans, but she'd watched too many cartoons to know that the dumb muscle types were best kept as inconveniences for the heroes, any higher up in the plans and they usually were the ones to ruin them. Keeping her laughter in her head rather than risking giving away her position, she took off again, her scent disappearing in the wind as she went from rooftop to rooftop.

Returning to her office via the outside of the building, she popped in through the opened window she had left out of and grabbed her spare change of clothes out of one of the drawers in her desk, getting stopped halfway through by Shirley entering the office.
"Deanna, did you think you could just leave in the middle of the day? Mm-mm, not on MY watch. You're gonna sit yo' little editor butt down and EDIT."

Melodyn relaxed as Marlen fell unconscious. She kept her broken arm cradled to her and her breaths were drawn out and heavy from her bruised ribs. She looked up at Tanya. "I-i need to go to the hospital, a-and get my things, w-will you help me please? I don't have anyone and the rest of my apartment is in flames." she said. Bruises were forming all over her from the entire encounter.

She looked to where Everette had gone, she didn't know what to make of him, or more importantly, of why she ran into him again. He seemed such an odd character, like a ruthless killing machine that could also be gentle. Turning her gaze to Marlen, she shivered, knowing there would be more who would try to attack her. Especially now that they knew she got Marlen captured. All these thoughts ran through her head and she found herself looking up at Tanya again.

"Who are you? How do you factor in?" she whispered thinking outloud. She had a feeling all this person was, was a human, but why would she have a gun right off hand. Especially one with tranq darts.