Prodigy Patrol: Mind Games

Having done the hero act for a while now, Xiao approached her membership in Prodigy with less overt enthusiasm and a more laid back temperament. Today she was assigned a patrol route and a partner, and deciding to be a bit more efficient, suggested to combine it with a stop by the grocery store to pick up some supplies for the yet to be established base. The day had an overcast above and moderate traffic, and it seemed that the first half of the patrol was uneventful.

Once she made her purchases, Xiao hustled into the inconspicuous Prodigy vehicle as the gray skies overhead began to pour very cold rain on the city. grocery bags were stuffed into the back, and the deluge hit the ground just as Xiao closed the door on the passenger seat, sighing in relief.

She looked at her partner and realized they'd yet to talk on the journey, and found herself in an awkward silence. She fidgeted with her fingers in her seat. "Um... I guess we can go back to base now?"

These patrol's never did much for him to be honest. He initially suggested them when he was in his 11 year old form, having been ever so jovial about getting to know his new teammates. Though now that he had lost his soul he found himself rather... indifferent to his team members. Of course this seven foot asian girl he took an interest to because there was absolutely that this girl wasn't human at all. He had his ways of identifying human and not human, and being seven foot and a "child" was by no means normal. Of course he felt as if he were the pot calling out the kettle as he was far from human as well, and he was a biological anomaly to be sure.

Lucifer was not assigned to one partner, but two in this case. Actually one partner and a personal friend of his, one who knew him as "Zell" his father's name. How much longer was he going to keep THAT lie up? Hopefully not much longer, then again as he was soulless he was enjoying the occasionally banter and intellectual quip at the less-than-genius water boy known as Deluge, or to him better known as Ryan. "Hey Ry, don't forget we have a Seraphim meeting tonight too. They want to give you the Lighthouse. Think you can...oh I don't know...not burn it down?" He asked with a smile as he shot a smirk of mischief to his once-homeless companion before Xiao entered the car.

  "While I can appreciate saving time and gas by combining trips, unless you don't have anything that will melt or spoil within eight minutes then I'd like to finish the last couple streets." Silus, or better known by his codename "Lucifer" said, his voice relatively plain and depicting someone that perhaps sounded a bit sad, and the look to match it. This was just his regular and uncaring face, a face of someone whom had perhaps given up on themselves. Granted, it wasn't the case, but that was a face that he would equate it to if he had seen it.

  "So what made you take up the fight? Standing for what's right over what you want is noble, just and ultimately it's good. But We all got into this somehow... Do you mind me asking how you did?" He inquired as he glanced at her before returning his attentions promptly to the road. If they had perishables it was back to base. If not, then it was the next couple streets first.

Ryan was by no means a veteran to heroic patrols, and in fact this was his first one. Not that it felt like one of those, as he had no costume and they had gone grocery shopping actually, which felt somewhat strange for one who so loved superhero cartoons. Still, that did not keep him from going about enjoying certain adventures like these, even if he felt more like a hazard than a help in the long run. So in the end, he would find himself just looking out the window rather absent mindedly, hazel eyes half lidded as his mind would putter along like it usually did. He was afterall with at least one good friend of his, one that went by the name Zell, or Lucifer when they were out with the superhoic types.

Not that he would have likely gotten the religious undertones mind you, as he knew very little about that to begin with. As far as he was concerned, it was a really cool sounding name. It was a night like any other night for him, rain coming down upon the city in a small drizzle, as his fingertips drummed off of his thighs rhythmically. What would draw him from his stupor was Lucifer’s voice, male blinking a couple of times before turning his attention to him. ”Um yeah….i’m pretty good at not burning stuff down.” He would say, not quite catching the implications of that statement, or the fact it was possibly a joke.

He had come along with Lucifer, but they would have to be picking up someone else, Dragon Girl if he remembered correctly. Making sure that his jacket was zipped all of the way up, Ryan would watch the third of their party step up into the vehicle and take her seat. Something about his friend voice though was catching his attention, perhaps it being that strange tone that was so strange to hear coming from Zell. Typically Ryan would have expected something more upbeat, but it was serious, if not somewhat sad. A question however was asked about what got them into the fight, and that took a little though on his part to conjure up.

Until he remembered it was not directed at him, so he just returned to his thoughts, and loathing the rain.

Xiao reflexively looked at herself in the side mirror as Silus addressed her. It was an inevitable topic, as she fiddled with the GPS that mapped out their route. "Uh... Well, Danny mentioned providing scholarships to members who pitch in. Plus, I ran with a hero group before, so I have some experience which might be helpful to the group." Xiao said, deciding to be honest about her motivation of learning something so she wouldn't have to be a hero around the clock. She looked at the person she spoke to, maintaining eye contact, her deep gray eyes filled with a quiet sadness.

"I want to help, I really do... but sometimes... sometimes I wonder how hard it will get... or if we'll ever really make a difference." Xiao rambled, then fell into a rather awkward silence. She sighed with a tiredness in her voice. She looked at the other young man in the back, and offered him one of the grocery bags. "I got some chips and soda if you need something for the ride."

Further down the road though, the rain was pouring down more heavily, while traffic began to build up. Traffic slowed to a standstill as people began blowing their horns... then it happens.
A flash of lightning falls down onto the road, followed by a peal of thunder. The air is filled with the sound of screeching brakes followed by crashes, and the worst of it was that a fuel truck crashed. Vehicles crashed and started a deadly pile up, and loose electrical wires were flailing wildly all around. Volatile gasoline was pouring on the streets, and though the rain prevented things from catching fire, there was no telling if it would ignite. Further, people were trapped inside their cars now, as the power lines electrified the water pooling around their cars.

Xiao saw the pile up as it unfolded, her face aghast with horror. "We have to help them... I'll take the power lines and take them off the streets." She opened the van and immediately went to action.


Meanwhile, inside a Limousine that was in the middle of the crash...

A woman slowly recovered from the sudden stop, looking at her driver. She was pale skinned, raven haired creature in a form fitting, all white formal dress. "...Ugh... Mister Tide... what's going on..." She looked around and saw her Indian child companion knocked out.

"Atiyah! Atiyah, are you alright child?" she shook her slowly, looking outside, realizing they were in the middle of a car pile up, and electrical wires were whipping about. "Oh dear... help, help! Mister Tide, please call for help!" She said, patting her driver to see if he was still alive.

Silus easily understood the dragon girl when it came to wondering if they made a difference. He had a long drawn out monologue about how they did make a difference, about how every person really did matter regardless of what anyone said. The group especially should be disregarding what people said. Hell, there were morons who hated Prodigy just because they were pretty much kids. Of course you had the hate no matter what you did, or where you went. No matter what you did, you always had your doubt. Be they inspired by others, or be they inspired internally. But doubt was just another opportunity to learn and grow. It was the tribulation of progress. A needed evil.

  "You have doubts? Good. The Chinese have a saying, a proverb rather. It goes: Shēn yílǜ, shēn de zhìhuì; xiǎo yíhuò, xiǎo zhì." Silus said. Knowing languages came with the higher cognition like his. Of course he'd translate it anyway because it was something he wanted Ryan to hear too. "Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, little wisdom. If you doubt we're making a difference you have the potential to come forth from it a wiser person than ever before. If you doubt yourself, you will only grow when you push through it. If you have little doubt then...well..you know where that leads." Silus shrugged before Xiao said something back to Ryan.

  "So Deluge, how about you? How'd you get started?" He asked before his eyebrows furrowed behind his glasses when lightning stuck. The shrieking of tires a crunch of metal, flames and the gushing of gasoline like blood from a severed artery. Silus turned sharply and parked the car before stepping out. The first thing he had to do was "Triage" the situation. What can wait to be dealt with, what needed to be dealt with NOW and what was beyond they ability to be dealt with. Luckily from his highly advanced mind the only thing he put in the last category was the power lines. He wasn't one to protest, he trusted Dragon Girl knew her own abilities. He quickly looked to Ryan.

   "Deluge! Freeze any gasoline that;s coming out of the car, then cover it with more ice so the fire can't get it." Silus ordered, though it was more of an stressed request. Silus then knew he needed to help anyone who was hurt, though he needed to get to them first, and he'd need to do so without Castiel. He quickly began to maneuver about the pile of cars as he sought out people in need of healing.

By no means was Ryan ignoring their conversation, but while watching he rain, his mind had ended up wandering off like it always did. Something about the rain had an effect like that, drawing his mind from the situation and bringing about a form of potent nostalgia. Granted, all one had to do was say his name, and he would snap from the stupor, but otherwise he was lost to the world. The rain was falling down in a torrent, and within an instant the mention of his codename would rip him from his thoughts, turning to the one who had spoken it, Zell if he remembered right. He had asked a similar question as the one to dragon girl, but that required thinking. Ryan frowned softly as he tried to think up why he was doing this, and the reason was something he did not want to recount.

However, before he could answer the question, something drew him from the awkwardness thankfully, in the form of an explosion. Still, that brought along the question of what they would do with the situation given to them, as he had no idea, but Zell had one. Quickly jumping out of the car, he could feel the water touching him, and yet it slid down his clothing as well as flesh without soaking in, as if the water did not want to soil him. An order would be barked above the sound of rain intensifying, and so he would react with all haste, a flurry of frost flying from his hands. Upom connecting with the gasoline, it would begin to spread out, turning the liquid into a strangely colored ice, layers adding to that until the fire could not touch it. In essence he had stopped a dangerous situation, which was good considering that his powers tended to kill  things.

”Got it!”

Lucius was doing something that didn't seem like something he would do, he was hired as a bit of meta human muscle for a transport. But that was just the situation from everyone elses prospective, the real reason he was doing such meat headed of things was much more complicated. The organization that hired him was hiding things, things that he uncovered long before a women named Zafira decided to hire him upon his request for a job. The secrets they had were far beyond their front as a "school for gifted youngsters" they were a meta human research/weaponization agency. The thought of it disgusted Lucius. Yes, thats sort of what he did, but he was using them to further the race as a whole, while they were likely using them for common assassins. He would, at the right time, capture the meta child being transported and bring her into his own little following. As well as any others that he may find at the drop off location, if it was a holding place for superhumans there would likely be droves of them eager to leave, and possibly join him.


A limo waited for him at a private meeting place in LA, they were to transport him to a base of some kind in the Nevada desert. They were afraid the transports details had been disclosed and that it would be attacked, so they hired Lucius for protection. He walked down to the limo and got inside, noticing a very pale women and a child sitting inside. "Hello, I'm your escort" He said to them through the semi robotic voice changer in his mask. The driver started the limo and moved on, driving out of the alleyway meeting place and reforming with traffic. He sat silently in the limo as any body guard would, and the two barely acknowledged him. Everything was going as planned, he would make his move once they arrived at the drop off point.


Then, out of the blue with almost no warning, a truck rammed into the side of the limo only a few feet up from where they sat. Then another vehicle rear ended them, and to top it all off a gas truck was leaking only a few cars away from them in the pile up. The women and Lucius seemed unscathed, but the child was another story. She was possibly unconscious with a gash on her forehead. The women told him to get help and he only responded with action, he grabbed the med serum from his belt and carefully injected it into the girls arm. Her wounds could already be seen as healing "We need to get out of the limo, the gas truck will explode and take us all with it if we don't" Without another word he scooped up the child and blasted the jammed door open with a blast of energy.


This put quite the hiccup in his plan, yet he had the child in his arms and he could easily decommission the women inside the limo so he could get away. He decided to do just that, once he stepped out he tossed a few exploding marbles inside ((int 7 item)) and telepathically gave the command to hector to teleport about 100 feet away before it exploded. Once he was away from the the wreck he saw two familiar faces and one other helping people out of the pending catastrophe.

Xiao was quickly at work to get the power cables off the street, as the gasoline began to ice over. One by one she moved in a blur to move the cables safely off the freeway, enduring the grid's shock to remove the electricity factor. She then flipping the tanker truck back to an upright position. She also pushed it to be parallel to the road, so that the road wouldn't be blocked off at least. She did these things as her teammates dealt with the other dangers in their own way. Thanks to Ryan, there was no danger of gasoline catching fire.

Silus would see most of the people staying in their cars due to the rain, ice and the presence of metahumans, most of them still calling for help. A few unwisely leave their cars, taking their chances. There was one truck containing animals, mostly cats and dogs, headed for a shelter. The limousine didn't particularly stand out until some strange red energy blasted the door open.

And then the explosion rips through the air, ripping the limo apart and smashing the glass of the cars around it. A dozen car alarms immediately went off, as people ducked and took cover. The limousine went up in flames, and Xiao felt that horrible, sinking feeling in her gut that someone was seriously hurt, or worse... but her experience had already prepared her for situations like this. She acted despite the fear in her heart.  

Xiao landed by the limo and her worst fears were confirmed, a woman crawling from the wreckage, barely alive. "Please... my... my daughter... he took my daughter..." The woman named Zafira pointed towards the fleeing Red Tide, who had a 100 foot head start. Xiao's eyes focused in on the target, her senses focused on him.  

"Lucifer! I need serious help here! Third degree burns! Deluge, cover me! we've got a kidnapping!" Xiao called over to Silus, hoping he could do something for her. Then she ran after him, this terrible man who would steal a child while killing her mother. She would catch up, swiftly, her strides smashing into the ground if need be, and stop in front of him. An imposing young lady, she would raise her hand and give him a most stern warning.

"Stop. If you know what's good for you, you will Let her go." she said, just realizing she had walked into a hostage situation she was unprepared for. Still, she stood her ground, and put on a brave face.

Things went to Hell relatively fast. Lucifer's objective nature and triage seemed to be relatively out of order. There were third degree burns on someone? That was quite terrible, but at lead the person would be in little pain at the moment, seeing as third degree burns will destroy the nerve. Lucifer sighed though as he had noted something of relative importance. The flash of red energy that went from a limo. Silus prioritized that area once he saw the flash to be honest. He had naturally assumed it was someone else trying to help. But then he noticed the man taking a child from the car. Then he threw something into the limo. Then...nothing. He was gone. It all happened so slowly that Silus was able to ascertain three things. The first being that this man was armed with technology that he could make. This scared him. The second thing he could ascertain was that this man teleported. No he did not run, he flipping teleported. The final thing he ascertained was that if the man teleported away after throwing marbles in then it was likely those little spheres were explosives or some other element that he did not want to be around.

"DELUGE! HE CAN TELEPORT! FOLLOW HIM WITH YOURS AND ICE-WALL HIM OFF!" Lucifer ordered. This was one of those time he was glad he was able to perceive things beyond a normal Mach speed. Granted he couldn't react worth shit to it and it provided it's own weakness. He would, however, tend to the woman with his glove on hand. "Okay miss. I need you to stay with me. This isn't going to hurt, but it will itch and I need you to NOT SCRATCH. So tell me who you are. Tell me about that little child the man took. Anything you have helps. How do you know this guy?" Lucifer asked. HE was genuinely interested, though if nothing else he wanted to distract the woman as he literally used his glove to produce the paint to slather over her burns. The paint would in fact itch, but the liquid would mesh with the blood, and then nerves would reform. The mystical paint keeping things aseptic as it completely began to heal over her wounds and stimulate the replenishment of blood.

Just when Ryan had thought he had saved the day, something else seemed to have caused even more problems. An explosion ripped through the air, which either meant that his efforts were pointless, or someone was making something else explode. Regardless, that annoyed the male somewhat as his head would whip towards the source of the loud sound, and now another cloud of smoke. All he saw was a man in a mask, and then in a flash they were gone, as if they had teleported, which meant they were likely dealing with some kind of dastardly metahuman criminal. Those guys that blew things up, and killed orphans, or something like that. He was an orphan, so that meant that he would likely try to kill him at some point, and dying was not good as far as he knew. However the teleporter did not go too far off, which meant he could probably follow him with his own brand of teleporting.

He didn’t really even need to think about it extensively, all it took was sinking into a puddle forming around his feet, and within a second or two, he was standing not too far off from the villain himself. Then came the hard part, which was creating the ice wall that would stop Red Tide. The water, and rain would gather about from in front of the escaping metahuman, and with a single motion, rise into a rather imposing wall of ice, granted it did not go quite as intended. The wall itself began to jaggedly spike out, jabbing into some of the buildings that lined the street as it would rise upwards. Not what he was hoping, but it seemed enough to probably stop him, and that was what Lucifer had said, so that was all good.

”Alrighty, gotcha.” Ryan muttered pleased with himself.

Not more then a few seconds had past and Lucius heard yells from where he was previously. Not yells of pain or fear, but more along the lines of commands or a team working together. Lucius wasted little time after surveying the situation, he turned around and started walking at a fast pass with the child in his arms. She was being rather quiet for a kid that just teleported and saw an explosion, odd but Lucius was grateful for her silence. Lucius looked behind him as he walked and saw a very tall women running at full speed at him. Once she got near him she told him to let the girl go. Before he could answer her a large wall of ice formed from the rain and vapor in the air, blocking his escape.


Lucius turned his attention back to the women "This matter is not your concern, and you likely don't have the full story. Regardless, I'm not letting the girl go. Do not force my hand, her blood is far too precious to be spilled" Saying this, Lucius lit his gloved hand with crimson energy and held it in a threatening manner over the girl for a few seconds. He moved his hand away from the girl to face the wall of ice, then fired a blast of energy that seemed like it literary burnt the air as it past though it, moving toward the wall. The ice took the blast surprisingly well, but after a few seconds it collapsed, allowing Lucius passage. He walked backwards through the opening in the ice, holding the girl threatening to basically kill her.

"Let it go" He said to the woman as he did.

The injured woman seemed quite coherent for someone badly burned. She answered Silus's queries with no trouble. "That man was our new chauffer... He came in just today... we were headed home from school... Please, save my daughter! ...oh god... I couldn't have known he was... he was... " She said, staying quite still, though groaning with the pain as the restorative medicine did its almost miraculous work.

The girl in Red Tide's arms was quiet because she was still unconscious despite medication applied to her. Sound asleep. The Tide didn't seem to take Xiao very seriously, as he used his powers to blast through the ice and started walking away.

"I said. LET HER GO." Not intimidated by his display of power at defeating Deluge's ice, Xiao's muscles tensed as she got into form and punched the ground. She delivered such force as to cause the concrete to buckle and crack outward from the point of impact, hoping to make Red Tide trip up and maybe fall. Xiao was also just fast enough to catch the girl if it came to that.

Observing the whole time as he did, he was on his own mission of protecting the guy who had the ability to mitigate his degeneration, he saw it as a golden opportunity to keep him alive, as he witnessed the bos grab the kid and begin to leave using the chaos as cover, he also noticed the heroes trying to help, but following was difficult when you only had sewer grates for viewing spots, but it was when the female made a move that Reaper made his own, she seemed like someone who could do some serious damage, intervention had to occur.

As the ground split apart, smoke rose from the cracks, odd whispers and cries audible through it also as a shady figure in a white mask appeared between Xiao and Red, as this took place he solidified once more and his shotguns appeared in his hands as he pulled the triggers at Xiao saying only one word "Die!"

He then turned incorporeal very quickly to turn to Red and bid at him with a shadowy word trailin off it in the form of "Go!" Which was when he began unloading shots in an attempt to catch her and also divert the attention from Red.

Situations were ever evolving, something Lucifer knew all too well. Unfortunately for him however, he found himself in a unique situation as he had finished his healing of the woman. She was as flawless and scar-less as she was prior to the explosion, however that was. Alas, now he was curious. The first thing he needed to know was who the little girl was, and why this man wanted her so badly. Silus turned towards the action and froze as he watched a bullet take it's trajectory and hit Xiao. One of the curses of fast processing, he had to watch attacks he could do nothing about. Granted, the benefit to this was the fact he took only a second to ascertain the location of the sniper. Then with a puff he was black smoke. Lucifer sighed as he started running towards the rest of the action, sadly he wasn't nearby in order to tell them what he had witnessed.

The fact the masked man had broken through his ice was something, enough to surprise Ryan atleast, but then again he was the type to forget he was by no means the most powerful metahuman around. ”Okay, I did not see that one comin.” The fact that he was lucky enough to avoid destroying everything, and his wall was still destroyed so easily, made Ryan think for a second about trying to beat this guy. Regardless, he would have to save the girl in his hands, so that meant he had no other choice. However, Dragon girls powerful strike to the ground was enough to cause it to buckle and break, Ryan taking a few steps back to avoid being drawn in by the resulting chasm. It seemed like he was almost out of his element at this point, but then again Ryan would not go about complaining. Unleashing a stream of pressurized water, he would attempt to stop the guy from shooting his ally, the girl dragon thing.