Not Your Average Teenager

Ace sat in class, staing at the clock, the teacher was talking but it was all going over his head, why exactly would he, of all people, need to know how electricty works. The clock was ticking down slower and slower the more he watched it. 'This is a huge difference compared to fighting bad guys' ace thought to himself.

The last couple of months had been both extremely boring and extemely interesting. Ace had set up residence in the suburbs just outside of LA, under the name of Max Brokedell, several months ago. After returning from Japan effectively powerless, Ace knew he wouldn't be able to keep up with the super hero scene, at least in the state he was in at the time, so he had a few friends he still had in the CIA whip him up a fake set of ID's and enrolled himself in a highschool, he was, for all intents and purposes, Max Brokedell, regular human teenager. But of course, this wouldn't last long, because, as they say, old habits die hard. Ace soon found himself doing work for the LAPD under the name Mr. X, of course, they didn't indorse him doing the work and they certainly didn't pay him, but they did graciously accept the information and work he did. In the past few months he'd disclosed the location of several crime lords, aprehended 2 arsonists and broke open an underground crime ring, and nobody even knew his name.

"Hey, Max, pssst" Ace was thrown out of his reminicing by Connor, one of Ace's "friends" at the school, Ace didn't really have friends, he was too odd, besides, he was paranoid of people finding out who he really was. Ace pushed his glasses up his face "Yes Connor?" He whispered back, trying not to alert the teacher that they were talking
"Hey, i was wondering- well, er- You see, me and my friends play D&D every Saturday over at my place, and we were wondering if you'd like to join us?" Ace considered this, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a break every now and then, he wasn't a superhero anymore so he wasn't on beck and call every two seconds. "You know what Connor?" Ace responded, still whispering, "I might just take you up on that offer, what's your address again?" Connor told Ace his address and soon enough the session was over, and with that, so was school. Ace was excited about actually doing something normal, but that would have to wait, he had work to do.


It was dark, very dark, the street lights in this area of town didn't work, probably for good reason two, this part of town was absolutely brimming with thugs, goons, cronies, muggers and all other sorts of horrid people, even the bravest people would be afraid to walk it, though Ace wasn't exactly waking it. Ace jumped another rooftop, trenchcoat flowing behind him like a cape. Checking his phone for directions, he led himself across the darkened rooftops, making his way to a warehouse, unlike most wearhouses in this area, this one was not abandoned, this one was clearly alive, with people working and everything, the only problem was it was 12am on a Wednsday morning, and there were armed guards patroling the area around, suspicious, yes.

Ace drew his phone and took a few pictures for evidence, being very careful to turn off the flash, he may be able to take one of these guys but all of them would be a serious challenge. Ace jumped the roof and immediately hid behind the air conditioning unit, there was one guy patroling the roof, "Simple" Ace said to himself, the guard obviously picked up on it,
"Whart was that?" Ace heard the guard say, Ace cursed under his breath and jumped out of the cover of the aircon, he vaulted himself over the top and flew at the guard, fists flying. The guard colapsed after a few hits, he didn't even have time to call for help. Ace took the walkie talkie off of the mans belt and slid it into his own pocket. After a few seconds making sure there was no one else around, he opened the door to the stairwell. Inside the stairwell there was a ladder, funnily enough, leading down to the top floor, which was essentially a bunch of walkways above the factory floor. Luckily enough for Ace the floor was deserted, and he could see everything 'Fantastic' Ace thought to himself, careful not to say it this time. Ace took pictures of the lab, they were manufacturing weapons, tons of them, looked like they were relatively deadly too, Ace immediatly linked this to the abbundance of gangs in this area, they were supplying cheap weapons, Ace took more photos of the place than a paparazi would of naked royalty before he noticed something. There was a small office in the corner of the factory. The office was guarded by two men at the doors, and the windows were darkly tinted, so much so you couldn't see through. Whatever was in there was big enough to see from the outside, and inciminating. Ace needed to get in there, all he needed was a distraction...

As a dark shape flitted from rooftop to rooftop, pale silver eyes followed it. On the ground, a young girl in jeans and a black hoodie followed the shape as best she could. The black hood was pulled over her head and tightened so that the only thing showing was her pale face and silver eyes glinting every now and then when a rare source of light hit them. White tennis shoes pounded the ground as she ran, trying to keep up with the shape. Luckily it stopped every now and then, as if deciding which rooftop it needed to jump to next. Index wasn't sure what it was, but anyone hopping from rooftops at night in a big black coat has to be up to something right?

The fact that it was headed towards a high-crime area was also a clue, though not one that Index caught onto. She had no knowledge of such things, but she did not it was really dark and the shape on the roofs was moving very quickly. She lost it a couple times, but kept managing to catch up. Just as she thought she had lost the shape for good, she noticed one and only one of the buildings had people around it, armed and unfriendly looking people. "Aha! This must be the fiend's hideout!" She thought to herself. The main entrance had two guards, and Index knew if she caused a commotion out here it would definitely hurt her chances of getting inside and interrogating whoever it was in the big black coat. Since she didn't know how else she would get in, she'd just have to get the guards to move somewhere else.

Standing outside the warehouse, two large armed men, suddenly began moving erratically as if they were having a seizure or were elementary school students that had to urinate very badly. Loud cursing was heard as fire ants swarmed up from their boots, biting any skin they found in a panic. As the panicked men ran around, eventually thinking to stop and remove their boots, a small shape wearing a smirk slipped quietly into the front entrance.

She stuck close to the walls as she progressed inside. She was no stealth expert, but how hard could it be? Especially when it seemed like there was no one even around. Still, she knew better than to run across the open floor of the warehouse which was visible from nearly everywhere in the building. She ducked inside a nearby door which lead to a set of stairs leading to the second floor. She emerged quietly, and looked out across the rail. She saw a few guards...and a man in a trenchcoat! Well, more like a boy in a trenchcoat but still Index knew how deceiving appearances could be. She had found her target, and was preparing to sneak over and catch the fiend off guard when she heard a low voice speak softly right behind her.

"You lost girl?"

Index turned around to see two men, both pointing weapons at her. Damn, how did they sneak up on her while she was sneaking? This place must really be a villainous den, even the guards are experts in being sneaky. Since they were such experts in being sneaky, Index did something she was a world-class expert in. She panicked.

"Kyaaaah!" She screamed as bolts of magical lighting flew from her hands and surged through the two guards, bouncing back and forth between them. Their screams were stifled by mouths clenched shut as their muscles tightened uncontrollably, and their trigger fingers locked down as they flew backwards sending a spray of bullets erratically into the air and the walls of the warehouse, barely missing Index. She heard shouts from the other guards, between the lightning and gunfire Index had pretty much destroyed any chance of being sneaky. As more armed men ran towards her she ducked back into the stairwell. She heard bullets hit the heavy door behind her as she ran down the stairs and waited just out of site of anyone who was at the top. Her heart beat quickly as she waited for her pursuers, spells at the ready.

Ace removed his revolver from his pocket, "This should just be labled diversion maker." He said to himself. He took the gun to his face, trying to make careful aim for one  of the windows by the floor on the lower door. He was about to take shot untill he was interrupted by rapid gunfire. Ace quickly snapped his attention to the source, two guards seemed to be  flying backward through the air, guns blazing. Standing infornt of them was what seemed to be the source of the commotion, a silver headed girl, she could have barely been older than himself, if not younger. Ace immediately knew she wasn't a civilian just in the wrong place at the wrong time, though so would most other people if they saw a teenage girl incapacitate two grown armed men. Ace saw his chance, all the guards were rushing in after this girl, Ace could easily get down to the floor, break into the office and see what's in there.Ace looked back to the girl, his old superhero side getting to him 'She'll be able to take vare of herself' thought Ace, he perched himself up and jumped downto the ground floor, rolling as he hit the ground, he set off towards the door, time was of the essence. Ace flipped his gun around his finger and held it by the barrel, he reached the door of the office and brought the hilt of his gun down hard on the knob, smashing it off cleanly. It only took a few seconds for Ace to push open the door, revealing two people, bound to the table by a rope. One was male, the other female they were both in their early twenties, Ace deduced that the couple had probably stumbled apon the warehouse and been taken by the workers in fear that they would tell the authorities about their shady schemes. The two seemed to rear back as ace got near them, "Relax," he said in hushed tones "I'm not here to hurt you" the two seemed to calm down a bit, but they were still too afraid to say anything. Ace started to untie them while telling them the situation "Listen, it's not safe out there right now, what i need you two to do is saty in here, I'l be back for you" Ace freed the young man and started to get to work untieing the woman "However, if i don't come back within 5 minutes, call 911." Ace freed the lady and proceded to leave, before the man piped up, "Be careful of the small man, he's stronger than he looks" Ace flashed a smile back at the man before closing the door.

Ace breathed in deeply, it was good being hands on again, he firgot how much he missed it, Ace then drew his attention to the girl, whatever her reason for being here, she'd helped him out, and now it was time to repay that favour. Ace flipped his gun back into his pocket and made his way up the stairs.

Index scanned her surroundings for a way to defend herself, stopping on an extremely large fire extinguisher on the wall. She lifted the large metal container off the wall with a bit of difficulty, it was quite heavy, just as she heard footsteps fall above her. She hid underneath the stairwell fire extinguisher in her arms like a piece of firewood, as the footsteps got closer to her. Just as the guards emerged from around the corner Index jumped out and threw the fire extinguisher at their heads as hard as she could. She followed up by whipping her right hand forward and throwing a handful of ice spikes a few inches long. They punctured the extinguisher several times over, sending an explosion of it's contents right into the guard's faces, knocking them down backwards. As they fell they pumped rounds out of their weapons in a panic.

"Aaaah!" Index let out a scream as on of the bullets went through her right arm a bit above the elbow. The impact sent her reeling back slightly, and her hood fell off to reveal a head of white hair. One of the began to stir and groan, and Index quickly hopped over and delivered a decisive kick across his head, finishing the job of rendering her unconscious. Feeling the wetness in her jacket sleeve Index quickly removed her jacket, examining her recently acquired wound. A large hole in her arm leaked pale pink blood. "No time to deal with this now, I have to find that fiend in the jacket!" She said as she raised her left hand up to the wound. Small licks of flame flickered on her palm as she focused and cauterized her wound. She let out another scream as the wound burned shut. "Damn that hurt." She said rather pathetically. "But it'll do for now!" She said leaving her jacket, wearing the simple white t-shirt that she had had on underneath. Determined to catch the villain she was after, she got up and headed out of the stairwell.

As Ace made his way up the stairs, the sounds of fighting from upstairs seemed to die down, though Ace could definitely here screams of pain from the girl. Ace pulled himself up the stairs, carefully avoiding the bodies of several goons strewn through-out the stairwell. Whatever this girl was, she was powerful, 'Note to self: Don't get on the bad side of this girl' Ace thought to himself. Ace emerged form the stairwell to see the girl just outside.

Ace looked around, it seemed like the girl had taken care of everyone, "Hey!" Ace called out "Thanks for that, i needed the distraction."
Ace noticed the blood stain on her shirt "Are you okay?" he asked. Ace did another check of the room, no sign of the small man, maybe the man was mistaken, or maybe he wasn't here...

"Are you okay?"

A young voice came from nearby. Index touched a hand close to the hole still present in her arm, the pale skin around it stained slightly pink from her oddly-colored blood. "I'm fine." She said somewhat pathetically as she turned to see the person asking was...the person she'd been pursuing in the first place!

A look of shock was instantly plastered over her face, quickly replaced by one of angry determination. "It's you! I've followed you here to your den of fiends, and taken care of your thug friends easily. Don't underestimate me, this is just a scratch to a super hero like myself." She said, motioning towards the hole in her arm. "No villain can escape the mighty Index! I recommend you surrender and confess now, before I show you my real power!" She raised her left hand, ignoring the pain in her right arm, and ghostly blue flame appeared around it pointed towards the mystery man in the jacket.

Ace was confused, utterly confused "Huh? Den of fiends? Me? I think you've got me all wrong, i'm not leading these guys, i'm here to-" Ace's explanation was rudely cut short by the barrage of bullets flying at the window next to him. The window shattered, sending shards of glass flying and meling with the shraplel of the bullets. Shards of glass lodged themselves in Ace's side, Ace winced in pain as he moved himself behind the cover of a wall. Ace crouched down, picked the bigger shards out of him and drew his gun. From where he crouched, he could see a car had pulled up, no specific markings so it was doubtful that it was a police car, the barrage of bullets was clearly from an automatic weapon, though the way the bullets seemed to stray off target, assuming the target was himself and the female here, it couldn't have been a higher class one, not that it wasn't just as deadly.

Ace turned to the girl, yelling at her over the sound of the gunfire, "Listen, i don't know you and i assume you don't know me, but there are people down there," Ace gestured his gun to where the office was down stairs "who are pretty damn defenseless against this firefight, so i say we protect those people first and do whatever was just happening later, alright?" Ace waited for an answer, though he sure as hell didn't need one.

The black coated fiend was finally caught by the mighty index, but his reaction was a confused one. Index prepared to hear his explanation, as she was now just as confused as he was, but it was cut short by a series of loud noises. The young man was quick to react, quicker than Index for certain. She felt pain across her body as shards of glass flew across her exposed face and arms, and two bullets placed themselves in her right shoulder and abdomen. That was familiar, since she had just experienced moments ago. Index quickly fell below the window, not eager to be shot any more times today. Pale pink blood flowed from her wounds, making her shirt wet. Index barely knew what was happening, but she knew she was angry.

"I hate it when people hurt people especially when they hurt me!" She stood up shakily beside the window on the opposite side of the young boy. She cast a quick glance out the window, and suddenly wind started to pick up around the car crackling with electricity and hurling hail around which somewhat dampened the gunfire. Then, a column of flame engulfed the car and disappeared after only a moment. If Index had the energy to be talkative, she would have claimed she did this to prevent loss of life, but the truth was she didn't think about it until the last second. Engulfed in flame, the assailants fled the burning car before the fire reached the gasoline. Index didn't see any more than that before collapsing back down to the floor, leaning her back against the wall and holding her knees up to her chest. "okay, so, I may have made an error in judgement...not that you're off the hook yet, but considering you're not shooting at me you're pretty much my best friend right now." she said, examining her new wounds. She couldn't get to the people the boy had mentioned in her current state. "Tell you what." She said, through gritted teeth. "Keep anyone else from shooting at me for 2.5, and I'll listen to what you had to say." As she looked down at her pink shirt, which used to be white, her vision began to blur. "...This was my only shirt.." She quietly mumbled to herself in a sad tone.

Ace watched as the car was hurtled around in it's own little whirlwind, before bursting into flames, this girl was clearly more powerful than he was, even when he was supercharged with electricity. 'What have you gotten yourself into now Ace' he thought to himself, not that he really cared, as much as he hated to admit it, he was enjoying himself, he hadn't been in a situation like this in months and boy did he miss it, it was like the whole "being the hero" thing was hard wired into his brain.

Ace watched in awe as the car was engulfed in flame, the thugs running from the burning wreckage, escaping just as the flames reached the gas in the engine, causing a small explosion, turning the car inside out. Ace looked over to the girl again, she looked exhausted, Ace wasn't sure iff that was from the powers or the fact that she seemed to be bleeding everywhere. Ace nodded in conformation of her request of not to get shot, Ace stood up, turned and heard the girl muttering to herself, he couldn't resist having the last word "If we're still alive after this, I'll buy you a new shirt."

Ace practically flew down the stairs, putting together pieces of information in his head. Reaching the bottom floor, Ace burst through the door to the outside, gun drawn and aiming for where the goons would be. They weren't there, Ace felt a shiver shoot up his spine and he ducked and a bullet flew over his head. Curses rung out from behind Ace, though he wasn't really paying attention too them, he was just concentrating on getting this right. Ace bent down low on his knees, then kicked off, flinging himself into the air, dodging another shot while doing so. He leant back in the air, changing his direction. He flipped over the goons and landed, behind them with his gun still drawn. "I don't suppose any of you want to give up now do you?" Ace said, mostly in jest, but to everyones surprise the goon furthest from Ace, the one that fired at him before, dropped the gun he was holding, and ran. The goon closest to Ace obviously saw this as an advantage and took a swing at him, the swing missed his face but managed to connect with his shoulder. Ace was a little jumped by this and hesitated for a split second, but thats all it took for the little man to take the advantage and throw a curved punch to his stomach. The punch picked Ace up, and he flew through the window, with the two not far behind. Ace quickly rolled sidewards, ignoring the glass sticking out of him and aimed for the window, firing 3 shots in the general direction, one of them found their target, ripping through the guards shoulder, but not before he could shoot his own gun, knocking Ace's revolver out of his hand and across the floor. The small man jumped through the window and ran at Ace. "Shit, this is going to hurt" Ace cursed as the man ran at him, fists flying.

Index reflected on the boy's parting words as she sat in her pink blood and shallow breaths. "Still alive huh?" She said in a somewhat melancholic tone. "Hardly fair, since I wasn't alive to start with." She took a few harried breathes and held her hand to her breast. "...but an imitation of life can only play dead." As she spoke a faint white aura surrounded her and the pink blood that had pooled on the ground began to move on it's own, arranging itself into circular symbols. Then it lifted off the ground and headed towards Index's body as if attracted by a magnet, going back into the wounds they had fallen out of. The stains on her shirt even lightened as blood pulled away from the fabric and returned to her, and the wounds instantly closed up behind the entering blood like a door shutting. She then stood up quickly, her energy renewed, and headed out the door to follow the boy vigilante.

At first she wasn't sure where he had gone, but the sounds of combat gave her a location quickly. She hurried towards the sound, hoping the boy was all right. When she arrived the vigilante was in somewhat of a disadvantageous position, with a small man running ferociously at him. She quickly ran and positioned herself between the boy and the charging man, the holes in her shirt revealing only unbroken skin. Point of fact, the holes in her clothing were the only evidence that she had ever been injured. She raised her hand slightly up behind her and it began to glow with a bright flame. "Stop now and surrender fiend, because the fighting ends now!"

Ace winced as the man ran at him, this was not going to end well for him. Ace turned back to the man when he eventually didn't get near him, The girl had gotten inbetween him and the man,she seemed unhindered by the injurys,at least, from Ace's angle, she coudl have been horribly crippled on the other side. Ace breathed out, kinda exhausted, today had not gone as planned, he didn't intend to use the gun today "The gun" Ace said to himself. He scrambbled up, searching for the gun with his eyes. He saw it, just on the floor, beside another window, he ran over to it, picking it up and catching a glance of police cars pulling up outside the window, sirens blaring. "That could be troublesome" Ace said to himself, pulling back the hammer on his gun. What he was doing here wasn't exactly legal, good intentioned or not, the law was going to see that these two ruffians had incapacitated a bunch of guys, not a fantastic outcome. Ace wasn't going to court for helping people and he sure as hell wasn't going to let this girl get caught. Ace walked back towards the man, gun raised.

Tommy didn't deserve this, he ran a successful and profitable business, he didn't as for two brown nosing kids to come in amd mess it all up. Frankly, it was insulting, how did two kids manage to break into his factory, his heavily guarded factory, for making weapons! Of all things. Maybe these two kids were here to find the other two he found snooping around the other day. Tommy was very angry after thinking all these things, angry enough to attempt to use his "enhanced strength" he recived from that nutjob scientist to rip them apart. He jumped at Index, throwing punches at her at a breakneck pace, he was going to snap her in half.

Apparently the man didn't agree with Index. He, in fact, thought that the fighting was not at all ended. He drove this point home by rushing at Index in a most hostile manner. She tried to move herself out of the way of his fist, but his punch was thrown so fast that it still caught her on the shoulder sending the unpleasant sound of bones cracking as it connect. As Index was knocked off her balance another punch landed in her gut. The force of the blow pushed her back and pushed the contents of her lungs, among other organs, out. She fell to her knees clutching her stomach and trying to regain a breath. The man ran forward again hoping to push on with his momentum. Index had recovered enough of her breath to speak one word: "Enough!"

As the man closed in arcs of white electricity jumped from behind her, connecting in front of her to form one bolt of electric energy. The force of the blow sent the man flying backwards, and Index hoped it was enough to keep him down. She looked around for the young boy. "H-" before she could get the words out she found herself choking on blood rising up in her throat. Coughing, she spat some of the pale pink fluid onto the floor before continuing "Hey, jacket guy. Are you okay?"