BUST your WINDOW!?

[Brendan Nathaniel Frost]

Brendan had been running. He didn’t know how long. He didn’t know how far he had traveled. But all he knew is that he was getting tired. He had been trying to get away from these Meta-Hunters for what seemed like months or even possibly a year or two. His clothes were worn out. The souls of his shoes were worn and falling apart. His hair was a mess, and his eyes were slightly blood shot. He had dried blood on parts of his clothes. Mostly his own. He had pulled off every trick in the book trying to escape these goons but no matter what happened they always seemed to catch up. He had broken every bone in his body at least once now, and still no matter what risk he took to get away they seemed to be able to catch up in literally seconds. Was he getting sloppy? Who really knew?

But back to the moment at hand. His blood was pumping; Brendan could feel it pressing against his veins. The rush of adrenaline was surging from head to toe, but his body was cooling him down even at that very moment. His feet hit each stair with a clack as he was racing up the staircase of some sort of abandoned building. Really one of his worst decisions yet. In the end though he couldn’t really go anywhere else. If he went to the cops he’d be turned over to them. If he went to the hospital they’d prolly want to dissect him. Who else could he even turn to, his own father had killed him once before, and he was sure the rest of his family wouldn’t have been very helpful either.

Suddenly below him he heard the sound of the door to the base of the stair well open with a loud bang. They were here. With that one sound he moved onward and with a speed faster than the previous pace. He made his way to the top floor. It was an eight floored building. His breathe was harsh, panting, and deep. He just wanted to sleep right now, but he knew he couldn’t even let his eyes close. His next step was to barricade the door. Finding any piece of furniture he could he tried blocking the door so they couldn’t get in. but sadly all he could find was an empty bookshelf. And by the time he had finished blocking the door he could hear them coming down the hall. They would be here soon. What was he going to do? He needed to find an escape route.

Taking quick glances around the room he only saw a set of windows. He was trapped. He wouldn’t be able to get out of this. And by the time he had finished processing his scenarios he heard a large bang. A shot gun had blasted a hole in the door. “Shit” he spoke under his breath as they began to break down the barrier he had set into place. He wouldn’t go down though. Brendan would fight until they let him go. And as he stood in the room he closed his eyes and took several calming breathes waiting for them to enter the room. Each loud bang caused him to jump slightly and try calming down more.

Finally the door was open and a group of five men in black Kevlar suites were staring him down guns pointed at his head. “Hello boys… I was beginning to worry you’d lost me…” The men said nothing, their eyes covered by helmets. They looked like a couple of SWAT members. Their dark presence was causing Brendan’s heart to race. He didn’t like this. That is of course until he thought of something. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? It was perfect. He wasn’t trapped, he was perfectly open. He began to rock slightly on his heels; the Hunters were quick to cock their guns. “DON’T MOVE META!” shouted what seemed to be their leader. “Oh come on boys don’t be so stiff… after all I think it’s time I go” and with that he ran towards the window. The sound of shattering glass and wind rushed around him as he fell towards the ground. The eight story drop coming towards him faster and faster. And then it all went dark as he hit the pavement. The cold ground was comforting. Thing is he didn’t even feel it. And within a few seconds he began to raise himself off the ground. His foot was twisted backwards and his arm was popped off the socket were a little unnerving, but he as quick to put them back into place, he could feel the cuts and bruises healing. Some days maybe his power really was a blessing.

[Romy Tabea Brannen]

"Do you think we'll ever get to, you know, beat someone up? Like, really get up in their faces and get into a fight? I could be studying right now, ja? I have three papers due in the next two weeks, and I am very far behind on my work."

Romy Brannen hated the cold. Despite having an ushanka tied firmly around her head and her ears folded down against her neck to prevent her body warmth from seeping past the thick fur lining them, she was shivering and her teeth chattering. "We should just go home. Nothing is happening tonight," she said, rubbing her arms through her thick wool peacoat. Trinity must have been used to all the complaints regarding the freezing weather, even though it was barely even cool enough for snow to stick to the pavement. Her toes were numb, and she was sure her nose was a little runny. But she knew that she had come out here for a reason, and she wouldn't give up on it, regardless of how much she may whine or moan about the less-than-ideal climate. This was the reason that she was living in the old mill with Trinity, after all.

Just a little more, she thought. A few more of these old buildings, and then another seven hours of reading and coffee before class in the morning. A low whine escaped her throat as she trudged on, feet dragging noticeably. If it weren't for the concealer she wore daily, the dark rings beneath her eyes would pop shockingly against her clear, pale skin. Still, she was doing a good thing. She lost her mother so that she might try her hand at making the world a better place. Tikkun olam.

"DON'T MOVE, META!" The words echoed through the silent night piercingly. Romy immediately turned to Trinity, pulling her hands out of her armpits where they were warming and flexed her long fingers, readying herself to manipulate the earth. "I guess complaining does get something accomplished," she murmured. The time for joking ended when behind them, a loud shattering overwhelmed the atmosphere. She heard someone shriek in surprise a street or two over--the night was silent in the way that only winter could be, letting even the lightest disturbances carry. This was like the apocalypse approaching. Romy turned her eerily pale gray eyes to the sky, where shards of glass still rained down, and saw something much bigger and more solid come tumbling down after them. The bigger thing made a much . . . thicker sound as it crashed to the ground.

"Was zum Teufel!" she cried, bringing her hands to cover her mouth. She counted the windows between the exit the body--that's what she now knew it was, as the metallic tang of blood floated her way on the still air--had taken and the ground. Eight stories, it had fallen. She knew she mustn't approach, that it would do no good to see the broken corpse splayed out on the concrete, with bones and blood and entrails leaking through the skin, but someone up there had shouted at the person laying only twenty feet from her, and had pushed them through the window and to their death. She had to do something . . .

Her whole body froze in horror and revulsion when the corpse began to stand. She didn't need moonlight with her increased night vision to see just how mangled the body was as it got up, but that it was . . . repairing itself before her very eyes. She began her approach cautiously, fighting back the nausea that everything in her being compelled her to give into. She beat it back and made it closer to the former corpse. A man, she saw, and young. Only about her own age, perhaps a little younger, but looking far worse for wear. "A-are you okay?" Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak, though normally it had a raspy quality. "Are you alive?"

[Trinity Daniels]

"Do you think we'll ever get to, you know, beat someone up? Like, really get up in their faces and get into a fight?"

Trinity allowed a small smile to rest on her lips at her friend's question. She responded with a simple, "You never know." Knowing full well that the question was closer to rhetorical than not. She had become used to her foxy friend's complaints on nights like this and didn't begrudge her them. It was cold, it was boring. But wasn't that better? The boring, not the cold. Boring meant they had nothing to do, sure, but it also meant nothing was wrong that needed their attention. The whole vigilante thing could be seen as much as a lose lose as a win win. If they were bored, then the city was safe, but they were useless. If they were busy it meant they were useful and even necessary, but it also meant that there were problems and crimes and horrible things happening that needed to be stopped. It was a complicated existence, Trinity was finding, but one that she was committed to, wholly.

" I could be studying right now, ja? I have three papers due in the next two weeks, and I am very far behind on my work."

She nodded at Romy's mention of schoolwork. Trinity, herself, had a paper due in a day's time or so, but she wasn't too worried, it was a straightforward essay on enzymes and technical biological matters. All facts, no deep thought. Simple matters of memorization and sentence constructing. She had time and she looked at this as a nice break from being cramped in her room anyhow. The cold air was crisp in her lungs and the exercise was good for her. She supposed beating up on bad guys would be good exercise too, but she did hope they wouldn't have to tonight.

"We should just go home. Nothing is happening tonight."

Trinity didn't worry about the sentiment.
"Just another hour, maybe. If you want I ca-"

"DON'T MOVE, META!"

Every muscle in Trinity's body tensed as she heard the far off words. She looked around wildly, unable to tell where it was coming from. Romy's gaze was up, so Trinity followed it and her heart stoppedbeating, jumped into her throat and threatened to burst there at the sight that met her.

It was a body. A person's body. A person's body plummeting straight for the ground. She honestly couldn't' stop the sudden short scream that peeled from her lungs as the body hit the pavement violently. Everything was moving in some sort of sickening slow motion as she watched his limbs mangle, his bones break, his life leave him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, some bit of her conciousness categorized the various injuries his body was sustaining but there was a loud, shreiking part of her conciousness that just poured over everything else saying that none of it mattered because that man was dead. She'd seen deadbodies before. Worked with cadavers in class. But there was the distinct possibility that she had just witnessed the ending of a life. She kept the possibility that he was dead before he was hurled from wherever he'd been hurled from in her mind as a rational point to hold on to.

Trinity's lungs remembered that they had a job to do and her muscles soon followed. She rushed to the side of the lifeless body in what she knew would be a completely useless attempt to tend to him. It? What the hell do you refer to a dead body as?! She tried desperately to regulate her breathing as she moved towards the...body. Of course, this newly remembered breathing thing was all taken back far too soon. She watched in abstract horror mixed with confusion and wonder as the lifeless bodymoved. It picked itself up and adjusted itself. No. He. He was alive now! HE WAS ALIVE! HOW THE HELL WAS HE ALIVE. Trinity's forensics oriented brain categorized each injury she'd seen him sustain systematically adjust itself. She heard a whimper escape her lips and forced it to form into words. Words that felt completely nonsensical coming from her mouth.


"Are you... ... ... ...Okay?" She asked weakly, eyes wide, heart pounding, muscles strained against themselves to the point of shaking.