New Delta Tower

June 3, 9:43 P.M.

I kicked my feet up and relaxed in my chair, though it was really more of a couch that had been cut in half. Completely ignoring the annoyed look on Mark’s face, I grabbed my juice packet and sipped from it. Lemon, nice.

“Listen to me, Lelia! This is important!”

“Yeah, yeah. You know I don’t like to put energy into things unless they require my power. And I’ve been given the leave to do it.”

“Rrrgh-” Clutching at his hair, Mark stalked to the side of the room, then back again. “Listen. We know there aren’t many villains operating out of New Delta, that’s why we have the biggest Array here, and why there aren’t any Hero Errants to back us up. They trust us to run ourselves, to cope. And we do-”

“We do!” I add.

“-but! We’ve been receiving some weird information recently. You know Abacus?”

I took another sip of sour lemon. “The Errant that sees everything as numbers? What about him?”

“Right, he’s got lines to all the Arrays and Errants out there. You can always call on him for help with something if he isn’t busy. Problem is, he called me up. He asked me why there were so many Amps in New Delta. I told him there aren’t. There’s us, Chump Change, Cheshire, maybe one or two others who drift in or out…and he said there were over twenty Amps in New Delta.”

I frowned. “Well, that’s definitely not normal.”

“Exactly! So I want the whole team going out on patrol today. I’m nervous.”

“Ughhhh,” I groaned, “Why? If there were fifteen Amps that were moving as a group, I think we’d notice them. Plus, if they were new Amps, just having received their powers, we’d get reports of them activating their powers. Neither have happened.”

“And? They can’t be secretive about it?”

“Look, if you really wanna force me, I can go. But it’ll waste some of my power reserves.”

“Lelia…you lounge around all day, every day. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about when it comes to your reserves.”

I rolled my eyes, and crumpled the plastic juice packet in my hand, tossing it into a nearby can. “Fine. When do we leave?”

“Now.”

---- ----

The cool night air blew past my hair as I leaped onto the rooftop. I tugged at a tangle in my hair, waiting for my teammates to catch up to me. The black strands caught, then came loose, and I shook my head, letting my naturally long hair fall around my head in clumps. I adjusted my small mask, which sat just above my nose, looking like the top part of a rabbit’s face crossed with a theatre mask. It was obvious, considering my power and the name I chose to go with for my superhero career, but it was at least complementary to my physique.

Mark landed next to me. His power didn’t have anything to do with movement, but he still was the first to arrive. The guy is way too uptight, and really needs to relax a bit. He’s either training, working on the group, or patrolling. I don’t think he even sleeps. He barely glanced my way as he turned to give a hand up to our next teammate.

“Hey, Aiden! He rope you into this too?” I asked.

“Rabbit. Shh! Codenames!” Mark hissed at me.

“Sorry, sorry. Hallow, good to know I’m not alone in my torment.”

Aiden shrugged, grinning. His blond hair was far too short to be affected by the wind, but he still swayed with it, as if he was being moved by the wind. I knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it was deceptive. If I was an enemy, I would have taken him as an easy target, which would be a big mistake.

Not a second later, my best friend on the team blinked into existence next to us, seeming to elongate out of the floor and form into her body. She waved. “Hey guys! I’m excited! It’s been waaaay too long since we all patrolled together!”

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Well, I never said she was my best friend because of her personality.

Mark- er, Loophole, nodded at her. “Right. Ramshackle is following on the ground. Rabbit, you scout ahead, since you’re faster. Slipstream, stick with her, and Hallow and I will follow behind. Come back right away if you see anything.”

I scoffed, then turned to run off, but Loophole grabbed my shoulder. “Hey. No jokes. I have a feeling, something’s up. Be careful, and report back if you see anything, not matter what.”

“Ugh, fine, let’s get moving!” I leaped off the rooftop to the next building, and landed running.

Occasionally, Slipstream would appear next to me, elongating into being, and hold a short sentence or two of conversation.

“Soo, what do you think is going on? With all the new Amps in town?”

I waited until she reappeared. “Good question. I think it’s nothing, probably just a big group moving through to get to Alpha City, or something. That’s where most Amps congregate, anyway.”

“Hmm…maybe~?”

I sighed as she vanished again. She could be frustrating to talk to, but she could also move me when I didn’t want to move, conserving my energy. So, she was awesome, in that sense.

I tucked into a roll as I landed on the next building, then paused. It was going to take a big leap to make it to the next buildings, seeing as we’d reached an alleyway. On a whim, I glanced down, to see if there was maybe a mugging going on that I could stop, get a bit of excitement. I paused, and then quickly crouched down. As soon as Slipstream popped onto the roof, I pulled her down and held a finger to her lips.

“Look!” I pointed down into the alley, and there, a small group of people were surrounding a larger group. Surrounding may have been a strange term, but it was the only one I could think of, seeing how predatory the small group looked. There couldn’t have been more than six of them, but whenever any one of them moved, the whole group of civilians in the center flinched. There were maybe ten, twenty people down there, and yet something scared them enough to keep them hemmed in. The outer group all wore shoddy masks, just enough to protect their identities, nothing fancy.

“Psst, Rabbit,” Slipstream whispered, “Give me your hand, let’s get back to Loophole.”

I shook my head. “And let y’all get all the glory? No way, no how. I’ll deal with this real quick, you get the others.”

“Rabbit, wait-!” But I had already jumped.

Infusing my legs with a bit of my power, the jump launched me much further than it should have, and when I crashed down onto the blond girl in the outer ring of the alley, it was with enough force to knock out a human. She crumpled, and everyone turned to look at me. A boy, no more than two years older than me, clapped his gloved hands together lightly.

“Well, would you look at that. Right on time, too. Though, I heard the Array here was…well, it wasn’t just one person.”

“I’m all that’s needed to take you down,” I smirked, “Speaking of, one down already.” I kicked at the girl I had knocked out…except she was already up, moving away from me. I could have sworn she had fallen over unconscious…

“Now, that’s just rude. Bang, if you would teach her some manners?”

Another boy, not the one who had been talking, who was wearing some sort of half-face mask that covered a vertical part of his face, smirked. Extending his hand towards me, he made his fingers into the shape of a gun. Someone in the crowd of civilians shrieked. I looked around, confused, as the boy pretended to shoot me with his fingers, closing one eye and saying, in a cocky tone, “Bam. Done.”

I paused. Nothing had happened. I chuckled. “Okay, kids. I think it’s time to stop messing around, and-”

“Rabbit!” The panicked scream came from Loophole, who jumped off the roof and landed near me, running at me. I took a step towards him, confused. “What-”

It was the force that shocked me when I felt it. Something ripped through the space where my arm and side were, carving out a huge chunk in the shape of a circle from my flesh. I toppled over, in shock for a second, before I started screaming. More from the shock than anything. What had just happened?

Loophole shook me. “Hey. Hey! You’ve gotta get up, so Slipstream can move you!”

In between gasps for breath, I asked “What about the civvies?”

“We’ll get them, I-”

The boy who had first talked spoke up. “Psst, hey. Not to interrupt your moment, buuuut-“ He gestured to the area, where my team had been easily, viciously dispatched. Hallow lay on the ground, his mouth wide open, seemingly in shock, as a short, black-haired girl cackled, standing next to him, as the shadows next to her seemed to fluctuate oddly. I couldn’t quite make out what was there…my vision was fading fast. Slipstream wasn’t anywhere nearby, and Ramshackle was sitting still, slack-jawed, as a girl in a full white dress sat next to him, a hand on his shoulder.

The boy who had shot me, Bang, walked over and aimed his finger at me and Loophole again. Both of us flinched, though my eyes were blurry, and I really only sensed the threat.

“So.” The first boy said. “I could give the order. Kill you now. I’d say that was a solid victory, we could just sort of…claim this place. But that’s boring. Really, really boring. We’re here to make a statement. See, the public, and the heroes, are always going on about these Arrays. Groups of young heroes, the bright future! And it got me thinking. Why can’t there be that, for villains? So that’s what we’re here to do. Call us Pact…or, the first one, really. The first pact between villains. So we aren’t going to kill you, not because we can’t, or because of some moral code, or even for a sense of pride. It’s so you can be our punching bags. You’ll be our training to be full-fledged villains, instead of the other way around.”

“You’re insane.” Loophole spat.

“Pff, that’s what you’d like to think, how you’ll rationalize it. But really, I just have a different view of the world.” The boy smirked. “Well then, I’d say this was enough witnesses for the sudden and complete defeat of the New Delta Array.” He waved at the civilians. “You’re free to go and spread this information. Ta-ta!”

They scattered. With that, the boy nodded, and leaped up onto a crate, then onto a shingled rooftop. His team followed close behind.

“I’m sure we’ll meet again. After all, we need to improve…be seeing you.”

I blacked out.