Moonlighting Hero Work

[Captain Untouchable]

Magic brick-throwing powers? Fantastic.

Untouchable hardly flinched as the first cuboid projectile hurtled towards him. His alias wasn't just purely for cool value - it worked as a description of his abilities as well. Focussing his mind, he used his powers to brush the brick aside, pushing it off course and sending it careering into the wall behind him.

Magnet Boy on the other hand wasn't blessed with such telepathic abilities; reaching out with his mind he pushed Mr Muscles' handbag upwards, just managing to shield his accidental sidekick from the hit. He heaved a sigh of relief, and felt a small pang of satisfaction at their opponent's reaction to being thwarted, and to watching his precious money spill across the somewhat damp and dank ground.

Dropping into a crouch, Untouchable prepared himself for the next salvo, retrieving his retractable grapple-Kama from his belt. Flicking the heads loose, he sent the hefty metal weights rocketing towards the incoming bricks with his mind, taking a few moments to push the shattered fragments safely clear of everyone. A small smile quirked under his mask. Untouchable 2, super-powered bank robber 0.

[Flux]

Felix's defense, as aided by Untouchable, was perfect. He hadn't quite realized that he'd been helped though; it hadn't occurred to him that Untouchable's powers weren't physical in nature. He dropped the bag as cash flew everywhere, and drew a sturdy trash can lid to his arm to serve as a shield. He held it before him and charged at the Boulder, protected from nose to sternum by the metal.

[Boulder]

The Boulder wasn't sure what was going on. He had never missed before, but it was becoming painfully obvious that he wouldn't hit either of the men before him. One of the, probably the goofy looking red and black one, was a mutant with telepathic abilities seeing has he just picked up that garbage can lid and brought it to him. Time to push the envelope and try something different.

As Flux charged at him, The Boulder all but destroyed the wall behind him pulling bricks from it all at once. As they fell, The Boulder used his power to rejoin them together into a solid wall. The wall was about 6 feet high by 6 feet wide. It slammed onto the ground in front of The Boulder, and with a front mule kick, The Boulder launched it at the charging mutant. Maybe they could stop the individual bricks, but let's see how they do against a wall.

While the wall advanced, The Boulder wiped mouth with his right hand. It came away with some blood on it. The Boulder's nose was bleeding a little. One of them HIT ME?!? But how? I didn't see it happen, or feel it either! If one of them can attack my insides....I had better think about getting out of here before something bad happens to me....and I can always get more money...

[Flux]

Felix crashed against the wall and stumbled back, regaining his footing and magnetizing himself to the fire escape. From his high vantage point, he could see Boulder had been bloodied, but when did that happen? Moreover, how did he launch bricks? That'd explain the sudden attack from behind; he hadn't seen the projectile he'd defended himself from.

"Wait, you're a mutant!" The statement was more an exclamation that accusation, and Felix found himself suddenly not wanting to fight so much anymore. A mundane bank robber is one thing, but a mutant one? It was still wrong, but Felix didn't feel so strongly about the wrongness of it.

[Captain Untouchable]

Unfortunately, Magnet Boy's sudden realisation that Brick Man was a mutant didn't help their situation any, and Untouchable was too busy dodging and kicking bricks clear of his general area to actually hear it. More intreguing was the sudden formation of a wall in the middle of their battlefield.

Grabbing at one of the knives concealed within his costume, he launched it like a rocket towards Brick Man, hoping to lodge it in one of his annoyingly beefy arms. Annoyingly, it managed to glance against one of the stray bricks that were busy flying through the air, and given that Untouchable's powers were only short-range and mono-directional, he could do nothing to divert the course of the knife as it tumbled towards Brick Man's face. Luckily, it only managed to nick the side of his nose before hitting the remnants of the original wall and tumbling to the ground.

Untouchable looked up, eyes settling on Magnet Boy standing dumbly in front of a wall, doing precisely squat. "What are you doing?" he yelled. "Quit standing there - the man is throwing bricks at us!"

[Boulder]

Realizing he had them stalled for a moment, The Boulder noticed the purse with the money tossed off to the side. Stomping the ground, The Boulder heaved the ground underneath Untouchable and Flux to knock them off their feet for a minute. With another stomp, he shot up a little spike that hooked the handles of the purse, quickly drug it over to him, and while the heroes were occupied by his wall, turned tail and ran down the ally.

Looking into the purse, The Boulder was dismayed at how little money there was in there still. But, feeling the pain in his nose where a near fatal head wound could have been from the knife thrown at him, not to mention that one of them may be messing with his head and making him bleed from his inside out of his nose, The Boulder figured it was time to cut his losses and make a run for it.

Glancing over his shoulder, The Boulder checked to see if the Halloween Heroes were following him.

[Flux]

Felix, or rather, Flux, would not be outdone by either his sidekick or this criminal. He yanked his garbage lid and the fallen throwing knife to him, leaping off the fire escape by repelling himself from it.

As he arced through the air, he led his shot with the dagger and threw it to anticipate the Boulder's path. With luck, he'd hit the man in the leg and slow him just enough to follow up with the lid.

[Captain Untouchable]

Untouchable scanned the ground around him, searching for something non-lethal to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, the only thing there seemed to be an abundance of was...

Bricks?

Placing his toes on the edge of one of the brick fragments, he rolled his foot backwards, slipped it under, and kicked a reasonably sized lump into the air. As it sailed up towards shoulder height he swung out with his arms, miming a baseball shot, focussing his powers on accelerating his makeshift projectile as swiftly as possible to some part of Brick Man's body: preferably his head.

The brick tumbled through the air, provided with spin by the unusual manner in which it had become airborne. The path arched beautifully, sweeping through the air with the grace of a malformed cricket ball. Unfortunately, the shot was slightly low, and slightly wide, but no matter; kicking another brick into the air, he went for strike two.

[Boulder]

Boulder ducked and weaved a little, trying to avoid the bricks being tossed at him by Untouchable. I'm not used to being on the receiving end of tossed bricks...almost ironic...GAH!!

"GAH!" Boulder yelped and almost lost his grip on his loot bag as the knife thrown by Felix gashed the side of his leg. Boulder must have zigged when he should have zagged. His pace slowed a little, but Boulder kept on running. Tearing down random bricks as he ran, Boulder shot them backwards blindly, not really caring if they hit or not, and for good measure, with a thrust upward of his arms, Boulder shot a wall of rock up behind him hoping that it would keep further projectiles away from him, and as he thought about it, the wall just might slow them down a little too.

[Flux]

He missed his swing with the trash can lid, landing in time to face the first hail of bricks. He held it up as a shield, and took a few hits on his legs. He ran after the Boulder, tossing the lid to the ground and repelling himself off it to leap over the high wall. Flux landed and rolled on the opposite side, coming up a little wobbly, and ran flat-out after the burglar.

[Captain Untouchable]

Untouchable crouched on his hips as Brick Man began to run, the level of concentration required to constantly bat aside the barrage of bricks beginning to take its toll. As the thief began to set off at a run, he felt almost relieved: a break was exactly what he needed right now.

Then he noticed Magnet Boy tearing off after him. A sprint through the city was the last thing he wanted, and while their muscle-bound quarry hardly looked capable of a particularly high top speed, the rain of bricks in his wake made for an unwanted complication.

Eyes scanning his surroundings, his gaze settled upon the fire escape leading towards the rooftops. With effort, he lept upwards, pushing the ground away to gain a little height. His fingers wrapped around the rim of the steel escape route; his muscles strained as he haulled himself up and raced up the stairway. Below him, he could see Magnet Boy and Brick Man disappearing into the distance, but that didn't concern him as he made it onto the - relatively - hazard free rooftops.

A smile broke onto his lips. "Lets see one of your bricks hit me now," he muttered, before throwing himself forward and sprinting off in pursuit.

[Boulder]

Boulder's pace continued to slow as a fiery sensation spread from the wound on his leg. Panting, he tried to keep up the pace as Flux bore down on him, closing the gap. Suddenly, his leg cramped and Boulder went tumbling down into a pile of garbage bags and cardboard boxes that was left out in the ally way. Rolling over, Boulder ripped and launched a handful of bricks at Flux to try and buy himself some more time while he tried to get back up. Looking down the ally, Boulder was glad that for whatever reason, the other guy was not chasing him too.

[Flux]

Felix slid underneath the bricks and leapt forward, hooking a right-handed punch at the Boulder. "Come on, Stone Cold, stay a while! I'm stunned at your apparent cowardice."

[Captain Untouchable]

Untouchable grunted. He had managed to get ahead of the chase now, but had run out of viable rooftops to run across. A narrow street bisected the alley, and the building on the far side was several stories higher than the one he currently stood on. Several curse words drifted through his mind as he retrieved his Kama again, blasted them towards the building opposite, snagged them on the fire escape, and with a mighty pull hurled himself back into the fray.

Landing around the corner, waiting in ambush along the path he hoped Brick Man would follow, he stood ready with his Kama in hand, eyes already focussed on the patch of brickwork opposite that he planned to send his weapons careering towards, extending their retractable cords like a trip wire.

Unfortunately, his ears managed to pick up another apparent comedy reference to popular culture from Magnet Boy. More curses escaped his lips, as he leapt to his feet and threw himself around the corner. "You're surrounded!" he shouted, positioning himself behind the brick-bowling maniac, arms and weapons held wide ready to block the path if needed. "Might as well give it up."

[Boulder]

"Cowardice?!? You say that, but I don't have brain melting powers like one of you seem to!"

Then it dawned on Boulder that his headache was gone and his nose had stopped bleeding. Is it the ninja one with those kind of powers, or is it just me?

Boulder held his leg, which was un-cramped now, and waited as Flux slowly edged forward, apparently encouraged by the arrival of his ninja friend. When he got close enough, Boulder sprang forward and caught Flux square in the jaw with an uppercut, making the hero stagger backwards.

"Just because I'm surrounded does not mean I need to give up Mr. ninja."

With Flux staggered, and probably with his head swimming, Boulder focused on Untouchable. "Well, I couldn't hit both of you, but I hit this one, so you must be the one making me unable to hit you guys....well....stop this."

Boulder raised both arms as he faced Untouchable. The walls of the buildings on either side of him began to shake as a new tendril of blood trailed down his nose and dripped off his lip. HAH! No brain melting powers. Just me using my abilities more than I'm used to. Thrusting his hands downward, the walls toppled over, dropping a ton or two of bricks onto Untouchable.

The tendril of blood dripping from Boulder's nose burst out in a gush accompanied by a massive headache. Boulder grabbed his head, unable to see from pain, and dropped back into the bags of garbage he had just stood from and immediately passed out from the pain of using his abilities so much.

[Flux]

Felix was seeing stars. The Boulder's uppercut was far stronger than the boy had counted on, and he leaned against the wall as Boulder dropped the walls on the Captain. Felix shook his head to clear it, and found it only worsened his headache. He stumbled forward as Boulder fell backwards.

"Hey, Hayabusa! Are you alright under there?" He started to dig out the Captain, wishing the bricks contained more metal so he could do it faster. He kept an alert eye on Boulder, just in case he was playing possum.

[Captain Untouchable]

Honestly: who throws a shoe?

As Untouchable lay, face down on the pavement, the weight of the brick wall that had ironically just run into him, he had to wonder why that particular pearly of Austin Powers wisdom had chosen this moment to float through his mind. He didn't even like those movies. Besides, he had more important things to be worrying about.

Straining in concentration, he forced as much of his mental strength into maintaining the force field that was pushing back the mound of bricks, holding it away from crushing contact with his chest. He grit his teeth, and placed his palms flat on the ground, and clambered up to his knees, straining through the most difficult press-up he'd had to endure since Fatty McCain had decided to sit on him during gym class.

Summoning up the last of his strength, he thrust upwards with his mind, throwing the bricks above him - and, much to his later amusement, Magnet Boy - in all directions. Clambering free of his short-lived masonry tomb, he staggered with exhaution, only just catching himself before he dropped back to his knees again. Catching Flux's eye - or at least, where he assumed the annoying brat kept his eyes underneath that mask - he flashed a mournful hidden smile under his mask. "I think I need to lie down now," he muttered vaguely, and promptly did.

[Boulder]

Boulder twitched a little on the ground as his eyes rolled back into his head. The warm blood dripping from his nose went unnoticed and unimpeded, but now that Boulder was not using his powers and was sufficiently knocked out, the bleeding had slowed down to a slow dripping.

[Flux]

"Kay-OH!" Felix stated proudly, posturing grandly as the Captain joined Boulder in unconciousness. "Flux wins." He stopped grandstanding and rubbed his masked chin as he considered his next move. Two mutants out. One a bad mutant, the other a good mutant. Boulder's civvies would get him in less trouble at a hospital than the Captain's costume, and so Felix made his decision.

He raised a hand to Boulder, magnetizing all the man's metal to his palm. He separated out enough change to use a payphone, then tossed the rest of it onto the big mutant's chest. He called an ambulance and went back for the Captain.

Captain was heavier than Felix had expected, and with some work he managed to get his black-clad ally up on his shoulders in a fireman's carry. With the help of magnetism Felix leapt to a roof overhead, waiting to be certain nobody messed with Boulder as the ambulance came to take him away. He was a mutant, after all; no way Felix was gonna let some mundane thugs rob him. Once that was done, Felix set out to find a safe place to drop Untouchable.

The ESU campus was nearby, and the student center was open late. He snuck the Captain inside and found a deserted room to leave him in. Felix locked it from the inside, again to see that nobody bothered his Brother, then headed home. "Yeah, I pretty much rule," he said to nobody in particular, landing on his roof and crawling in through his window. "The hero life is sweet."