Chapter 30 - The Heroes

Jacob looked satisfied with his job. He was fairly confident he had trapped Pyromancer until he could figure out what to do with him. His fire had dissipated as soon as the roof of the subway had caved on him, leaving a lingering heat and stuffiness to the air around. He turned smiling at his team, but something was wrong. He wasn't sure if Rose just wasn't powered down, or if she was gone.

"Sentinel, your comms working?" he asked Adrian.

"Yeah. Nova, where's Rose?" He got no response for a moment, then Nova came on the comms. She explained that all of their vision and audio but his were fried. She was trying to figure out where she was, but none of them said anything. She explained that Mal was on her way already. She had left as soon as their comms went out. Jacob was worried because she had no costume, only her mask, which was designed looking kind of like an Atlantean helmet.

Jacob glanced over his shoulder at the pile of rubble that now held Pyromancer. He closed his eyes and sighed, realizing what must have happened. "Sentinel, I think I know where Miss Direction is," he said, pointing to the subway, "She's in there, with Pyromancer. Luckily, she's Miss Direction." He might not have noticed her, but there was little chance that would continue to be the case. They needed to get her out, but they had no way of telling where in the tunnel she was. They tried everything. Adrian blasted the rubble with his cannon, even tried to melt it with fire. Cat tried blasting it with her power, but it didn't budge. Jacob felt like they were about to break through when Adrian decided to be the bearer of bad news.

"Nova's telling us to back out now, Miss Direction or not," he said through his armor, "A Renegade team has been deployed to investigate. It's Genissa's squad." Jacob understood what that meant. If they were found, they wouldn't be handled kindly.

"Wait, did Mal take an earpiece with her?" Jacob asked, a plan formulating in his head. Adrian asked Nova. She hadn't taken one. It would complicate things, he realized. He couldn't explain his plan before she got here. He looked at the wall of rubble, scanning for any weak points that would be able to take down a large enough section for Rose to crawl out of. He thought he found two, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't see the other side of the rubble. "Sentinel, you need to distract Clark and her team long enough for Mal to get here and help. Cat, you can go with him," he ordered. Cat gave him a look that he couldn't quite read, but he took to be concern. They headed off to intercept Frostbite and her goons.

Mal showed up a minute later. Jacob found himself wishing he hadn't had to ask Adrian and Cat to distract the Renegades. He led Mal to one of the two points he had found and explained his plan. She would put the rock through essentially a miniature hurricane. If he was right, it would wear down the rock enough on the points on which it was touching another piece of the ceiling. She focused all her effort on the water that she now had swirling around the piece of rubble. The stone seemed to do nothing at first, but suddenly after another minute or two of the intense whirlwind the rubble tumbled down. Behind it, they found only another wall of rubble. Jacob gave this wall a quick look and found few weaknesses that wouldn't take several minutes at Mal's current effort, not accounting for the fact that she would be getting tired soon. He was about to bring her to the second weak point, but something interrupted him. A large metal man slammed in the wall of rubble as if he was thrown into it. Adrian had just been tossed by Gargoyle, a prodigy with increased strength and the ability to turn his skin to stone. Frostbite's team had arrived.

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Cat had tried to hold her own once she didn't have The Sentinel backing her up. She was able to easily deal with any tremors that one of them, which Adrian had identified as Aftershock, was able to create. Stingray, who had a barbed, poisoned tail, was probably her greatest worry. She was able to blast him away whenever he came too close, but she was also focusing on shattering any ice that appeared as well as cancelling the tremors. She was glad that Adrian was dealing with Gargoyle, as he wasn't exactly someone she could deal with. The multitasking of fighting the three others at once however was taking its toll on her. She was breathing hard, while Genissa hadn't broken a sweat. Then again, she probably couldn't. She found herself finding a beat to the fight that moved with her music, which she had in the ear that Pyromancer hadn't fried.

In all the chaos, she didn't see that she was backing up to the subway. They were considered the criminals here, even though they had just captured Pyromancer. Granted, they had trapped one of their own team with him. It was lucky it hadn't been any of the others. Rose was able to keep his focus away from her. He wouldn't even know she was there. She found herself in sight of the subway, and noticed The Sentinel and The Archer facing off with Gargoyle. Mal was working her way through the second weak point, but there was a chance that this wouldn't reveal a weak point in the wall.

Finally, the toll of facing off with all three of them caused her to slip up. A freezing wind went right through her defenses. The ground beneath Cat froze over, but she was unaffected. She was able to vibrate the air around her, keeping the vapor in it from freezing. The ice coating the ground, however, caused her to slip and fall. She scrambled away as Aftershocks tremors hit. She was back against the rubble wall, Mal right next to her. The Watchers fought hard, holding Frostbite and her team at bay. Cat stood in front of Mal's miniature storm that was wearing away at the rock. Suddenly, as Genissa froze the air again and again with her icy powers, an idea came into her head. This time, when Clark fired a blast, instead of blocking it, Cat stepped to the side. The freezing blast hit the water, which turned almost instantly to ice. Of course, the water was surrounding the stone, and when water freezes, it expands. Just as she expected, the stone cracked to pieces, and the ice slipped away from the wall. With the new hole, the section of the wall tumbled outwards. A small hole in the wall was visible, and a figure appeared in the fading light. Pyromancer.

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Mal backed away as a stream of flame melted away at the edges of the hole. Soon, the hole was large enough for him to climb through. The flames flickered away, and they watched as Pyromancer in his skull mask climbed out of the trap. Moments before he stepped out of the hole, he was pushed forward, sprawling him out on the ground. Rose emerged for the tunnel, though no one saw that she did. Mal realized that her identity as Trident was currently at risk, as her costume wasn't finished yet. She felt the need to creep away from this fight, but Rose staggered away from the hole. Obviously, her power was taking its toll on her. She had once heard Jacob describe a prodigy power as a kind of muscle. As you use it, it gets tired, and the more tired it is, the harder it is to use. Rose must have been using her power at its highest level for the entire time she was inside the subway. It might have turned out that Jacob was wrong, but she didn't want to take that chance. After all, he didn't write Renegades, though he did know quite a bit about it. Mal tried her best to cover Rose as she crept away from the battle field, but with Rose blasting her power, Mal kept forgetting who she was attempting to protect and just fighting. During one of these moments, Mal happened to glance down and notice she was still in her casual clothes.

Her hoodie and jeans weren't exactly the best when it came to disguising who she was. Jacob and Adrian were now working to keep Genissa and her team at bay, while Mal helped Cat as they faced off with Pyromancer once again. Mal almost went into autopilot as she fought, her mind wandering back to the days leading up to their many adventures. She remembered normal days back when she thought that wizards were fantasy and superheroes belonged in an imaginary world. Of course, when one is fighting a person who nearly killed one of your friends and should be dead, but now has the power to create and control fire, you tend to try to stay focused. Mal snapped back into the moment when she felt the heat of Ryan's flames surging towards her. She raised her wall of water, filling the air with steam. In the chaos of the moment, Mal slipped back away from the rubble and past Frostbite's team. She found herself running down the streets of Gatlon city, aiming to get back to their home, which they now called the Watchtower. She burst through the door, planning to find some way to contact the rest of her team. She sat down at the nearest computer, then realized that she wasn't at her own desk. She was at Nova's, which meant she wasn't there. She was gone.

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Rose crept away as sweat rolled down her face. She felt as if she was carrying a massive weight on her shoulders. She struggled down to the sidewalk after Mal, who began running. Rose reached out to try to stop her, but she was gone. She struggled down the street when she noticed a figure stalking its way down the other side of the street. Rose felt she would be safe to power down now that she was away from the rest of the group. The hooded figure turned and looked at her from across the empty street. Rose watched as they approached and pulled off a glove from their hand. She looked up into the figure's face under the hood, only to met with a daunting mask. She felt cold fingers on her neck as she lost consciousness, leaving her with the image of the mask printed on her eyelids.

Nightmare dragged her away into a nearby alley before continuing to her original goal. She approached her old home, knowing that by now they were engaging with both the Renegades and Pyromancer. The new kid was a little wild and hard to control, but he was a good asset. At least until he managed to blow a hole in the side of her house. She understood why he had done it, facing The Sentinel and all, but it was still her house. His past was still a mystery to her, and why a fire prodigy had a burn, she didn't know. She thought he was immune to flames, but perhaps not. She wasn't all that worried about him interfering as she approached, but more about Genissa getting in her way. She watched for a moment as The Archer and The Sentinel faced off with the cold hearted woman and her team. She crept in the shadows as the battle continued before her. Finally she caught Stingray from behind him and he went down, she reached Aftershock only a moment later. Genissa turned as the tremors stopped, and Nova dove out of the way as she was assaulted with blasts of ice.

Fortunately, Frostbite had forgotten she was fighting a battle in the first place. In her rush to take out Nightmare, The archer put an arrow in her back. It injected a sedative, bringing Genissa to her knees. She slumped over as the chemical spread through her system. Gargoyle practically roared as his squad leader toppled. He charged the two Watchers, but Nightmare reached him in the confusion. Though she had once beaten him, she didn't need to put as much effort in now that she could use all of her powers. She caught him on his bare skin before he could fully cover himself with stone. He went down as well, leaving only Pyromancer, Nightmare, and the Watchers standing. Nightmare caught Pyromancer's eye in the middle of his fight, but she wasn't sure what it meant for them.

Nova wanted to take the support and take down The Sentinel now, but when she met Cat's gaze and Jacob's stare she hesitated. She remembered something Cat had mentioned when they first met, right after the trials. "I didn't join to be a Renegade. I joined to do the right thing," she had said. Nova had thought about it for sometime, thinking about how they had joined the Watchers. She still believed that Ace was fighting for what was right, but Pyromancer... He wasn't. The Sentinel was clearly ready to face them both, but Nova made the first move. She pulled her stun gun from her holster and fired. The round shot past him and hit Pyromancer right in the chest. A look of shock spread across his face as electricity coursed through his system. Moments later the round deactivated, and he collapsed to the ground. The Sentinel was still about to attack, but Jacob held out his hand to hold him back. She backed away and disappeared into the shadows, racing for the Watchtower, despite the pain in her leg.

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