The heroes ended up taking the vigilantes back to Hero Headquarters.

Firefrost (Jimmy had no idea what had happened to him but his entire left arm was pretty much covered in blood) had been taken into another room to receive medical attention (Etho had been insistent on going with him) and Angel and Imp went to go talk to the other heroes, which left BDubs and Jimmy sat in a random room that was empty apart from a couple of chairs.

BDubs let out a sigh (the dark blonde couldn't quite tell if his roommate was irritated or not). "So please tell me- how on Earth did you get captured by heroes when I left you to sleep?" He said with a wry smile.

Jimmy smiled back nervously. "Well, you see-"

——

The walk to Hero Headquarters was rainy and miserable. By the time he began to near the building where the heroes congregated, his clothes were soaked through and his wings felt ten times heavier than usual because of his drenched feathers.

Jimmy was wondering why on Earth he'd decided to drag himself out in the rain (BDubs could handle any fights, right? He had two other vigilantes with him) as he turned a corner just in time to see Imp practically go flying across the street and hit a wall. Holy moly, that is- what? The golden-eyed man glanced into the alleyway that the hero had been thrown from and winced at the dim purple glow coming from it.

Ahhh, crap. Xelqua. Xelqua was known far and wide as the worst of the villains. As well as having the highest kill count among the villain group (estimated to be in the hundreds, if not thousands) after only three years of villainy, his powers were a lot scarier than the powers of the other villains. He had some sort of freaky telekinesis that he could use to move objects and people around but that wasn't too bad- it was a power that Xelqua shared with his (theorised) brother, Listener.

The scary part was that he could temporarily remove people's powers. People with fireproof skin in the midst of flames suddenly on fire, people who could breathe underwater drowning, people who could fly falling out of the sky- it was terrifying.

Two things made his power slightly less intimidating- the first was that the more powers he removed, the harder it seemed to become to fly, and the second was that the removal of powers was thankfully only temporary (although there were a handful of supposed cases where powers had been completely removed, but those were dismissed as conspiracy theories by most).

Jimmy grimaced. Of course Xelqua's still hanging around. Why wouldn't he be hanging around? He hesitantly made his way towards Imp, who was slumped against the wall and gasping for breath. "Uh... you okay, dude?" The brunette frowned at him.

"I'm- I'm fine, just- winded. Probably. Why are- you here- stupid vigilantes ruin everything." The last part was added in a mutter under the hero's breath.

"Hey, I'm not here to fight, bro, I'm just looking for Tempus." The yellow winged man said hastily, huffing out a laugh as he hesitantly held out a hand to help the man up. Imp slapped his hand away with an irritated mumble, getting to his feet slowly and reaching for his spear, which he had dropped.

"I don't need your help. Now, unless you want to get hurt really badly- you are not trained enough, if you're trained at all, to fight Xelqua- then I suggest you leave." The man with scaly wings added with an irritated huff.

"Uh- how about no?" Jimmy said brightly, loading his crossbow and walking over to the alleyway with only a brief glance back at Imp as the hero let out an annoyed groan and stumbled after him.

"Dude, it's like you're trying to get yourself killed-" Imp broke off, his frown becoming a concerned expression as a purple light lit up the alleyway again, pushing past Jimmy and running forwards. It wasn't easy to see anything in the alleyway from outside of it, but once he entered the alleyway, the whole scene was pretty clear.

Angel was slumped against a wall with a slightly pained expression, blood trickling down his face from a cut on his head. Most noticeably, his wings were... nowhere to be seen? There now just appeared to be two large tears in the back of his shirt that had presumably been cut out for his wings.

Stood over Angel, wielding a sword, was Xelqua.

The villain was a lot scarier in person. A dim purple glow was coming from underneath the mask (with an odd symbol on it) that covered the top half of his face (how he could see, Jimmy didn't know) and his pale lilac hair was just about long enough to be tied up in a small ponytail. He had two sets of large, dark gray wings protruding from his back, and he wore a silvery cloak over his clothes (Jimmy couldn't tell what he was wearing).

Imp let out a furious shout, snatching Jimmy's crossbow off of him and firing it at Xelqua, who recoiled with an irritated hiss as the arrow hit his shoulder. "I thought I got rid of you. I quite literally threw you away." The villain snapped.

Imp said nothing, his gaze flicking to Angel, who was slowly getting to his feet as Xelqua was distracted. The brunette snatched another arrow out of the pouch hanging from Jimmy's belt, shooting again. This time it hit Xelqua's leg and the villain let out a furious shriek. "Alright, that is it-" All four paused as a quiet ringtone sounded from somewhere.

"Oh, this is embarrassing. One moment." The villain muttered, searching the pockets of his robes for a second before producing his phone and answering the call. "Hello?"

There was a small pause as someone on the other side of the phone shouted something. "Oh- calm down, Viridian, it's just a spider." Another pause. "Get Maelstrom to help then!" Another pause. "Oh, fine, I'm on my way. Well, this has been fun, you lot, but I suppose I'll have to kill you another day." Xelqua added with a smile that didn't seem fitting for a terrifying mass murder. "Bye!"

Jimmy glanced away as Imp started shouting curses at Xelqua, who simply flew away. The dark blonde grabbed his crossbow out of the hero's hands, muttering a small, "Thank you very much," as he did so.

Imp glanced back at Angel, who was still leaning against a wall and trying to catch his breath. Small wings had grown from his back, but they weren't quite back to their normal size yet. "You okay?" When Angel nodded, slowly moving away from the wall, the scaly-winged hero spun around to face Jimmy, scowling. "You're coming with us." He snapped.

"What? No I'm not-" Jimmy broke off with a yelp as Imp grabbed the hood of his hoodie. "Hey-"

The hero sighed, dragging the yellow-winged man along as he walked out of the alleyway. Angel followed close behind. "Come on, let's go find Scarlet Reaper, and then we can call it a night." Imp squinted at the sky. "A morning. Whatever."

——

"And, uh- then we found you!" Jimmy finished brightly.

BDubs' only response was a sigh.

Woo update Wowie

I wrote this while very tired so if it's bad I'm blaming that

Sorry it took so long for me to update (like two/three weeks I think) lol

Comments and votes are appreciated :D sorry if there's any errors, I don't proofread lol