John, Autumn Sky Junkyard. Present day

John was going to kill Donald. That reckless idiot doesn’t seem to understand exactly what he just did. Blowing a hole in the roof of his shack? It was a rickety piece of crap anyway. Arresting a murderer, fine whatever. From what Freya had told him on the phone earlier if any other Detective had been assigned that case the prick would’ve been caught in a day. These things didn’t piss John off. What did was that stupid idiot declared his intentions to the media, then immediately destroyed a drug lab and funded repairs from the neighborhood he destroyed with drug money.

That idiot had just painted a target on Steel Sentinel's back, and everyone in the gang he just pissed off was going to be gunning for him. Then that idiot spent the next 30 minutes flying around in the sky before landing in the junkyard. Now everyone knew where to find him.

“You idiot!” John yelled as Donald landed

“What?” Donald asked, bewildered.

“Don’t what me you stupid reckless moron!” John exclaimed. “You stole drug money from a gang in bed with the Mexican cartels! It would be one thing to keep it, but you very publicly gifted it to the people whose houses you destroyed!”

“Why is that a bad thing?” Donald asked.

“Why is it a bad thing? I tell you why! The cartels and gangs are going to want that money back! So they are going to take it by force from those people!”

“John!” Alice said. “Calm down! Yelling won’t help things!”

John took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Right sorry,” he apologized. “But with the amount of noise Donald just made it’s best if we get out of here. As I said earlier, some very dangerous and very angry people are gunning for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if they followed him here.”

“Okay, just one problem,” Donald said.

“What?” Alice asked.

“I’m stuck in the suit,” Donald said. “I didn’t put a release inside. If one of you could turn and then pull the handle on the back I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Why not just fly somewhere else in the suit to throw these guys off your trail?” John asked.

“Because the suit just ran out of fuel and is almost out of power,” Donald said. “So I would appreciate it if one of you would open me up sooner rather than later.”

“I got it,” Alice said walking over to Donald.

John watched as Alice turn the handle on the back, then pulled. Instead of the suit opening up, the handle began to separate into two pieces. John watched as the handle stretched like chewing gum, then with a snap, the handle in Alice’s hand separated from the other handle on the suit. John’s jaw dropped. Alice tried to pull the handle again, but only made another duplicate of it.

“Um… What the hell?” Alice said as John stared at her in complete utter confusion.

“I don’t like the sound of that. What happened?” Donald asked.

“The, uh, the uh” Alice said, stumbling over her words. “The handle just duplicated itself.”

“What?” Donald said.

John, regaining his composure walked over to the handle on Donald's back and pulled. With a hiss, the suit opened up allowing Donald to awkwardly step out.

“The handle didn’t duplicate itself,” John murmured. “You duplicated it.”

“I what?” Alice said. “No, that’s not possible.”

“None of us except you remember what happened last night. The next day Donald is suddenly super smart and makes a suit so advanced it puts the covert military tech to shame,” John explained. “It’s not a stretch to believe that Donald wasn’t the only one changed.”

“But we're talking about making an exact copy of something in seconds, from nothing! Not super intelligence! That’s not possible!” Alice said. “Plus I don’t see you being affected.”

“What if I was and I just haven't figured it out yet?” John said.

“Then what about Freya? She hasn’t shown any signs of having superpowers,” Alice said.

“Actually, I’m not sure if that’s true...” Donald said.

“What do you mean by ‘I’m not sure if that’s true’ ?” John asked.

Freya, Autumn Sky General Hospital parking lot

Freya pulled out of the parking spot her parents had parked her car in and began driving towards her house. She had spent the last day and a half in the hospital being smothered by her parents. Sure she was shot, but it was only a graze. It was so minor that she was already walking as if nothing had happened. After a very long conversation with them, Freya managed to get the keys to her car so she could leave. Legally she couldn’t drive without an adult in the car, but as long as she followed the rules of the road no one would notice.

It was times like this she felt conflicted about her parents. For whatever reason, they seemed to hate Donald but love her. She had no doubt in her mind that if she and Donald had switched places neither of them would have shown up at the hospital to visit him.

Did she hate her parents? No, but she wasn’t sure she loved them as a good daughter should. The duplicity she saw in them on a daily basis made it difficult for her to even be around them, let alone love them. But you can’t choose family. For better or worse, they were still her parents. At least she had friends to help her out.

“Oh crap!” Freya exclaimed. “I forgot to apologize to Dexter!”

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Pulling over to the side of the road, Freya pulled out her phone. Without even touching the screen the phone had turned itself on and unlocked. Freya frowned and turned her phone off. It then immediately turned itself on again.

“Did I download a virus off that free anime website Dexter showed me?” She wondered.

Just as she was about to test it again, her phone began to ring. On the screen was a ridiculous picture of John dressed up as Rambo for Halloween. He was imitating the poster for Rambo 2 and for the picture he somehow got his hands on a real RPG to pose with. How he got it she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

“Hello John,” Freya said.

“Hey, so I’ve got a weird question,” John said.

“What's up?” Freya asked.

“Has strange thing been happening around you recently?” John asked.

“Other than me nearly being run over by a truck? I guess. I think my phone has a virus because it keeps turning on all by itself,” Freya said. “Why do you ask?”

“It's probably best if we talk about this in person,” John said cryptically. “Can you meet me at my place?”

“Sure, be there in a few,” Freya said.

“Alright, see you soon!” John said as he hung up the phone.

“I have a feeling he just did something very stupid,” Freya said, pulling back onto the road and began driving towards John’s house.

Freya had been there once or twice, but never for very long. He lived with two other people who he didn’t really like. At first, he said living with them wasn’t so bad, but when they started dating they apparently became the bane of John’s existence. On multiple occasions, he told her, Donald, Dexter, and Alice about the many, many, MANY times he came home and found them together on the couch with nothing but a blanket covering them.

She often question why John would put such vivid imagery in her head until she remembered that misery loves company and he wanted them to suffer along with him. He was a jerk like that every now and then. After a few minutes of driving, Freya arrived at John’s house without any problems and was instantly confused at what she saw. In John’s driveway was his truck, but the driver's side door had been ripped off, then folded in half, and crammed into the back seat.

“What the fffffff…” Freya said as parked next to the destroyed truck. Now that she was closer, Freya could see that not only was the door broken, but the steering wheel had been crushed and the seatbelt had been ripped out of the wall.

Freya got out of her car and walked towards the front door of John’s house. As Freya approached, she noticed that the door wasn’t actually closed, just leaning up against the frame. Not only that but it was also broken in half and held together by grey duct tape that did a poor job to hide the large crack that threatened to crumble away and let the door fall apart again at any moment.

“John?” Freya called out. “Are you home?”

“Oh good! John said. “You’re here! Just let yourself in.”

Freya carefully pulled away the door and carefully leaned it back on the frame once she was inside. John’s house was a good size for three people. The door opened up to a short hallway with a closet on the right-hand wall. The hallway lead straight into the living room that was connected to the kitchen. John was lying down on the floor not moving a muscle while Donald and Alice watched a TV show and waved to her as she entered the living room. On the coffee table was a dismantled set of armor that looked just like the one the Steel Sentinel wore.

“Wait a minute, is the Steel Sentinel here?” Freya thought.

“Why is there a suit of armor on the coffee table?” Freya asked.

“Well, that's a bit of a long story,” Alice said as she pulled a metal mask in half, making an exact copy of it.

Alice then went on to explain the events from the previous day up to the point they discovered she could duplicate things.

“So what happened after you discovered your power?” Freya asked Alice.

“John called you and asked you to meet us here,” Alice said. “He then went to go get his car so we could haul Donald's suit of power armor here but accidentally ripped off his door and crushed his steering wheel.”

“How do you accidentally rip off a door?” Freya asked.

“I’m not sure,” John admitted. “But my body isn’t responding to me correctly. The force I used to use to just lightly touch something is strong enough to bend metal. That's why I’m on the floor not moving, so I stop destroying stuff on accident.”

“So Donald is a supergenius, Alice can duplicate things she touches, and you are suddenly super strong. So what can I do?” Freya asked.

“I will explain, but would you mind turning off the TV? I accidentally broke the remote,” John asked.

“Sure,” Freya said, the TV turning off at the exact same time. “What the…”

“Aha! I was right!” John exclaimed. “You owe men 20 bucks Don!”

Donald grumbled and pulled out his wallet and placed a 20 on John's chest. “Try not to rip it in half before you can spend it bud,” Donald said with a grumble.

“What? What is going on?” Freya asked, confused.

“John guessed that you could control technology with your mind,” Donald explained. “I thought you just controlled electricity. So I bet him 20 bucks he was wrong.”

“Wait, why did you think I could control technology?” Freya asked.

“I’ve heard of a superpower/magic thing called Technomancy. I suspected you had it when you told me you’re phone kept turning on and unlocking itself whenever you thought about using it,” John explained. “I also guessed that because I thought it would have good synergy with the rest of our powers.”

“Why would techno-whatever have good synergy?’ Freya asked. “It doesn’t seem like it fits with the others at all.”

“It’s called technomancy,” John corrected. “And think about it. With super smarts, someone can make anything you want. With super strength, the weight limitations common with technology are significantly reduced. Duplication allows for multiple exact copies of your invention to be made, and technomancy allows you to control everything you make with your mind.”

“What gave you the idea that our powers needed to synergize?” Freya asked.

“Last night, I had a very strange dream,” Alice explained. “The details aren't too important, but it told me that none of you would remember what happened at Chaplins and it was right. It said that you guys wouldn’t remember because our powers were meant for one person, not four.”

“A dream told you all of this? And you’re taking it as fact?” Freya asked.

“The strange dream that told me that none of you remember last night, and it was true! Then I woke up and discover Donald can create suits of power armor, John can fold a car door in half with his bare hands, you can turn a TV on and off with your mind, and I can duplicate things. If common sense, and comic books, have taught me anything is that these things are related!” Alice exclaimed.

“Wait, Dexter was with us last night! He might have powers too,” Freya said.

“Maybe, but he remembers what happened last night,” Donald said. “The rest of us don’t.”

“I remember,” Alice pointed out.

“Yeah, just barely,” Donald pointed out. “Dexter appears to remember everything perfectly. Not to mention Alice said that the dream person said that only 4 people got powers.”

“Freya might be onto something. Dexter could have powers, “John said. “Alice said the powers we got were meant for 1 person instead of 4. Not that only 4 people got powers.”

“We could just call him and ask,” Freya suggested. Suddenly, the phone in her pocket began to vibrate as it called Dexter. “Goddamit, learning to control this is going to be annoying.”

“Hello?” Dexter said, answering the call.

“Hey Dex,” Freya said, slightly panicked. She was not prepared to call him so soon.

“What's up?” he asked.

“Has anything strange been happening around you recently?” Freya asked.

“Apart from the usual, no not -” BANG! A sudden explosion rang out on Dexter's end, cutting him off.

“What was that?”Freya asked.

“I’m playing with fireworks,” Dexter said, suspiciously fast.

“Why are you playing with fireworks?” Freya asked.

“Because I found a bunch of old ones in my garage and I decided to set them off,” Dexter said.

“Why?” Freya asked.

“Why not?-” BANG! “Uh oh.”

“What just happened?” Freya asked.

“I’m going to have to call you back…”

“Dex! What the hell are you doing?”

“Byeeeeeeeeeee-” Dexter said as he hung up.

“That idiot is going to get himself killed,” Freya said. “Where the hell is he?”

Suddenly, Freya's phone changed to the map app. The screen flickered green for a second before placing a dot in the heart of the old industrial district with Dexter's phone number labeled above.

“So, what's the verdict?” John asked.

“I’m not sure, for some reason he said he was playing with fireworks,” Freya said. “Then I thought about where he could be and suddenly my map app opened and now there's a dot labeled with his phone number in the old industrial district.”

“So Dexters in the O.I.D.? Why is he there?” Donald asked.

“O.I.D.?” Alice asked.

“That’s what my map has the old industrial district labeled as. If I’m going to be a vigilante I’m going to go there often so I needed to find another word for it,” Donald explained. “While the slums are ground zero for the black market, the O.I.D. is ground zero for the production of most of its products. So I think I’m going to be hitting that area instead of the Slums to avoid damaging the property of innocent people.”

“So why is Dexter there?” Freya wondered.

“No clue, but whatever it is it can’t be good,” John said. “He’s not an idiot, either something happened that made him dumb enough to wander into gang territory, or…”

“Or what?” Freya asked.

“Or he’s there against his will," John said. "And if he is, those assholes better be prepared to get their faces kicked in."