Still burning Bright

Jason: "I'll take two hamburgers and a.... hmm tough choice. Chocolate milkshake."

Jason was standing in the front of a line for a little hamburger shake on 5th street in the windy city of Chicago. The girl gave him a terrified stare back. And for good reason. Jason was still on fire from his ignition when he started fighting a few small time robbers. The robbers were kinda sprawled out over the street with most of their cloths burned off. But Jason still being on fire wasn't actually the reason the girl was looking up in terror.

From over his shoulders, a large shadow covered the girls face. Jason held up one finger indignantly (though he wouldn't know the word if you told him that)

Jason: "Sorry pal, I'm in line first. I'll be getting my order in."

The large figure simply picked Jason up from behind and held him a few feet off the ground by his collar. It was a very large, very scruffy man with a long blackbeard who was angrily staring at Jason. He spoke with a heavy drawl

Blackbeard: "You the fookin idiot who did this to my men? Can't a guy do a simple robbery without a blundering meta interfering?"

Jason stared back at him blankly for a second before shaking his head.

Jason: "Was that english? I don't think that was english. I'M SORRY NO HABLO ESPANOL."

Jason yelled the last part into the mans face despite being mear inches away from it. The Big guy jerked his head back, surprised by the weird response. He roared back in response

Blackbeard: "Are you messed in the head mate? I'm going to fuckin kill you!"

Jason didn't look fazed in the slightest. Instead he merely puffed up his cheeks before blowing out a large amount of flames at the mans face, setting that wonderful beard aflame. The would be pirate quickly dropped Jason, who landed on his feet. Jason quickly formed a ball of fire in one hand and thrust-ed it into the other man's chest with gusto. The miniature explosion sent the missing a beard Blackbeard flying across the street and through a car and into a wall of a building. Jason watched him for a second, until he was satisfied the man wasn't getting up again. He turned back the cashier at the snack shop.

Jason: "You know what? Make it to go."

Casier: "But... um.. s-sorry, but we ar-re out of chocolate. Is-s strawberry alrgght?

Jason dropped to his knees, defeated by the lack of chocolate. He raised a angry fist to the sky as he cursed the snack god.

Jason:" No, its not alright... who likes strawberry?"

A few minutles later Jason was on his way down the street, no longer covered in flames as the lack of chocolate took the fire out of his soul. The two burgers though would probably help a bit though. For all intents and purposes, Jason looked like a normal 20 something year old. Jeans and a athletic shirt despite the cold bitterness of the wind. On the shirt was a logo with a KN on it.

”no, I don’t think that’s how you fix a toaster.” Colin spoke into the cellphone, eyes narrowing oh so annoyed as he stared out the window of his apartment, brother spouting nonsense from the other end of the cellphone. Honestly, he was still wondering why they didn’t have a toaster that was meta proof, but then again that was perhaps just his siblings lack of foresight when it came to kitchenware. ”Listen, just buy a new toaster and make sure it’s not so…flimsy. We are like rich or whatever.” Colin snapped, frowning softly as his free hand would type in a small code in the container of his Vanguard suit, capsule splitting with an invisible seam and releasing a small burst of mist.

”Yeah, I know. Talk to ya later, try not to burn the house down or anything.” With a roll of his eyes, he clicked the hang up button and looked over his suit for a moment. Still in pristine condition, as if it had just been built, but that was just a credit to the self-repair systems built into it by his father, granted this was perhaps his last real work. Another few strings of code, and the suit itself would open in preparation for him to wear it. Each piece would clamp on smoothly, without any trouble really, and that was something he could appreciate about this lovely bit of hardware.

Within a matter of seconds, the display would bloom across the visor, transmitting all of the good stuff, like police scanner. Afterall, if it made finding the crime easier, he would use it to his advantage. Stepping out onto his own personal balcony, and making sure no one was around, he would let the thrusters silently activate, and within a few moments he was setting sail through the air with unbelievable grace. Despite the suits ability to move at speeds beyond even most cars, he was capable of keeping track of everything happening around him. The mechanical suit would propel him through te air, as the scanner would keep working on finding any sort of crime that required his special touch.

What caught his attention was what looked like a small explosion of fire along one of the streets, small and contained but that could have just been a metahuman causing some trouble. He could not let just anyone cause trouble, regardless of the city they were in, so he would have to check that out. Descending, he would first check the scene as what seemed like a strange white haired male walked in the opposite direction, looking to what looked like a male with a smoldering black beard. The smell of burning hair was minimal through the suit, but he knew that it was likely disgusting.

An analysis would be run over the male, scanning for any signs of life. They were breathing, despite what looked like painful burns across their torso, vanguard sending out a small call for medical attention towards the man before turning his attention to what looked like the guy responsible for it. ”Quite the mess you made back there.” He would state, floating only a few feet behind the metahuman, not appearing by any means threatening.

Jason was walking along, happily munching on his second burger. He was blissfully unaware of the man in the suit floating behind him as eating a burger, breathing, and walking commanded his full attention. It wasn't until the tin man said something that Jason relized he wasn't alone. Looking ove rhis shoulder, mouth full of food he blinked at the floating figure behind him. Now what had the gear head said? Something bout a mess?

Jason: "Isjhfdbwhrerere"

Jason spat out crumbs of food as he tried to talk through a full mouth. He held up one hand before quickly swallowing the rest of the food in his mouth. Once his mouth was no longer full of burger, he tried again

Jason: "I'm sorry? You said something about a mess?"

He looked around quickly before he spotted the burger wrapper of one of his burgers on the ground. Jason slammed his palm into his head.

Jason: "Ohhh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to litter. Here let me get that."

Jason quick picks up the wrapper and stuffs it into one of his pockets to throw away latter. He starts walking away now, still unaware of what the tin head had truly meant.

Jason: "Sorry mr. Litter man! I won't litter again."

He calls out from over his shoulder as he waves at the man

In his head - Wow, this city has everything. Tall buildings, metahumans, aliens, even people who care about littering! Neat

"I don't care." Raikou said, running a hand through his messy mane of brown hair. He was aggravated, to say the least. "The boss may have assigned you to work with me, and you may be my 'partner' in this mission, but I meant what I said. Stay out of my way, or I will kill  you." the boy let out another annoyed sigh as he made his way down the long, unusually packed streets of Chicago. As he walked, seemingly talking to himself, people gave him odd stares, and slowly began to filter themselves away from the boy making death threats to thin air, but, that didn't bother him. He preferred solitude as it was, and none of these people were his intended targets for today. He casually flipped up the hood of the grey hoodie he wore, quickening his pace a bit as he did so. In his mind, he ran through the client one more time, his eidetic memory recovering every fact from the dossier with lightning speed.

Blackbeard, a notorious gangster, albeit with a lame, ripoff of a name, had  a price on his head. A rather large one, at that. Upwords of the eight figure mark, which called the attention of nearly every bounty hunter in the world. Piracy, rape, murder, assault, you name it, and this scum bag had committed it at one point or another in his long career of crime. However, that didn't matter to Raikou. What mattered to Raikou, was the amount of money he would get for electrifying a petty criminal, and how easy that money would be to earn. At least, until his boss had decided to call in another contractor for this job, deeming it 'to important to fail'.

"And I'm telling you," A strong, accented Irish voice rang through the earpiece located in his left earlobe. "I ain't afraid of you metas, you wouldn't be the first one I put a bullet through. Now, just do the damn job, and afterwords, we'll go get Mexican."

From over a mile away, the body of the voice laid on the top of a rooftop, his sniper rifle expertly trained on the head of the young, brown haired lightning manipulator. For a moment, he thought about how easy it would be to just pull the trigger, kill this man, and collect the bounty all for himself. However, that would be unprofessional. Roy, also known as Quick Draw, was known as a lot of things. A smuggler, a vagrant, a scoundrel, alcoholic, loser....lots of things. The one thing he wasn't known as, however, was unprofessional. Taking another drag from his cigarette, he expertly blew the smoke through the side of his mouth, both of his hands trained on the sniper rifle that was fit snug against his shoulder. Moving the scope, he drew a bead on their target.

"Well...the name makes sense.." Quick draw said, raising an eyebrow in mild interest. "Thick beard this guy. Kind of a rats nest though, I bet he could eat for a month off the crumbs I see in there...super gross.."

Letting out another sigh, Raikou rounded the corner, shaking his head in annoyance at his 'teammate'.

"Er...so...we just have to collect the body, right? It doesn't matter if we kill him? Because, some hot head is well..."

Raikou's head snapped up, and he let out another long, drawn out sigh. Of all days, of all people, it had to be him, and it had to be today. Across the street from him, he quickly took note of someone he rather despised. His rival, Ace.

[Posting order: Raikou/QuickDraw, Vanguard, Ace]

Vanguard found himself legitimately confused by the statement the male spewed out, something about litter when in fact he was obviously saying nothing about litter. In fact, he had no idea what the guy was even talking about, until a quick scan about would take catch sight of a small burger wrapper tossed hap hazardly to the ground. It actually took him a second to register what had happened, perhaps he was just not used to such stupidity or it was something else entirely, but regardless it still took him a moment to register the whole thing. ”N…no I don’t mean the litter.” he would said after finally reigning in from the initial shock.

The thrusters would cease, lowing him to the ground softly, metal meeting with concrete and suit allowing him to stand at around a solid 6’0, rather than his usual height. While it was likely the metahuman could not see through his visor, Colin was looking at the male with an almost confused expression. ”I was talking about the guy with the….not beard. The one you kinda burned off.” Not that he had any intentions of arresting him or anything, as vanguard was by no means an officer of the law, and it was probably in self defense, as no man with such a beard could be good.

Probably some sort of edgy anti hero that went about beating people up while wearing leather and whatnot. ”Wait…Litter man? I am not that guy, he is lame and so are his powers.” he knew a Litter Man back in Canada, and anyone who thought that name was cool deserved to have their beard burnt off.

Jason: "Hmhopshhms"


Jason once again had a mouth full of food as Vanguard landed in front of him. This time though, Jason wasn't stopping. He kept on talking as he kept on trying to eat as he rapidly explained what the robbers were doing and why Jason had stopped them. While it was a rather exciting tale of robbers getting faces full of fire, it was hard to understand between the flying crumbs.

But just as Jason was getting to the best part, he looked over Vanguards shoulder and paused. Right there in the middle of the street was.... sparkles. That lightning bastard. Jason put a hand on vanguards face, patting it as he walked around the tin man to face his rival

Ace: "Go home tin man. I won't be responsible if you get burned."

Along Ace's arms, fire broke out before it spread to the rest of his body. He was now coated in intense flames the caused the very air to start smoking as water molecules were evaporated out of it. The very ground began to boil underneath his feet. AS Ace walked into the middle of the street, he walked through a car. Not around it or on it, just straight through it as he melted the frames of the steel. No reason to hold back against this metahuman. Ace did look over to a police cruiser with two stunned cops in it looking back at him.

Ace: "Get everyone out of the area. In fact, clear a couple blocks. This might get a little heated"

The two cops began frantically talking into their walky talkies as people began to abandon the street. Ace stood their looking at Raikou, his fists curled into balls as the fires raged with the intensity of the sun.

"Ohhh, seems the little flamer learned a new trick." Raikou yawned lazily as he watched Ace's rather impressive display of power. As his rival  approached him, sparks began to fly over Raikou's body, before turning into full fledged bolts of lightning that crackled and arced off of him. As the lightning flew away from him, it began to crack at the ground, at the buildings, at nearby civilians, sending holes through all of the aforementioned items. One particular lady was very unlucky, being hit by a full force lightning bolt, literally incinerating her to nothing but a pile of ash in front of her small child. Noticing this, Raikou raised an eyebrow, and got a wicked smile on his face, raising a single hand up to his rival. "Well, Ace, you never could save everyone while I was around."

Crack! With a snap of his fingers, the small child's tears stopped. Everything about the small child stopped, as he exploded into a ball of pure lightning in front of the heroes eyes. A sickly laugh escaped from the throat of Raikou as he watched Ace's reaction. On his skin, blue, vein like shapes began to grow on his skin, and glow with a blue luminescence.

This whole thing seemed to go from slightly annoying, to even more annoying as the male would mumble something out with a mouth full of food while patting his armor. Why he was doing this, one could only hazard to guess, but that side he still found himself annoyed by the fact. His nickname however had changed, from litter man to tin man, which was perhaps just another nail in the coffin really. Not that he would try to kill the guy, but he was managing to annoy him ever so slightly. Something was said about him getting burnt, but he was not too likely to get himself burnt, as his suit was built tough.

He would swivel on his feet, turning to see the flames billowing and spewing out from the metahuman at such temperatures that it caused the ground underneath him to melt, turning to puddles of molten slag. Scanners would begin to go crazy, estimating the sheer temperature and how they were approaching that of the sun. “Warning, temperature levels growing critical.” The suit would say rather monotone to him, showing that this was by no means an ordinary metahuman. His attention was upon what looked like another metahuman, if his assumptions were correct.

A low annoyed growl would work out from his throat as he considered the situation, and knew that this would be going nowhere good. If the other guy was dangerous enough to warrant such a display of power, then likely this portion of the city would not be here for much longer. Activating his thrusters, and moving towards the officers that Ace had spoken to, he would give a simple bit of advice. ”You might want to clear more than just a few blocks. This might get ugly fast.” he warned through a filter, before moving to perhaps aid this metahuman, as the suit was built for just that.

How the stranger spoke to the flame metahuman suggested they were acquainted with one another, meaning that this could perhaps be some manner of personal spat. To show off in return, it seemed that the other would unleash great bolts of lightning, arcing outwards in such a way that they were meant for destruction. Tearing apart buildings, as well as civilians, burning one even to a fine ash. Unforgivable, such a wanton destruction of human lives was not something that vanguard would simply let happen, not while he was around to stop that. It was scum like this that he could not stand, and with the power this suit allowed, he would be able to give them what they deserved.

The final act that sealed his fate was the silencing of a small child’s cry, reducing them to nothing right before his eyes. At this point all thought ceased, and the suit knew what was required. The back plate of his armor would part, and without a second of waste, it would pop out the small, but potent cannon, parts whirring as energy would coalesce within the opening. His back arched forward ever so slightly, and without even a earning, a blinding burst of pure energy would be unleashed. He had been hovering high enough in the air that it was mostly aimed for the electrokinetic.

He would taste the Vanguards wrath.

Ace: "You bastard. YOU... BASTARD"

All ace could do was watch as he reacted to slowly to the lighting bolts. Always too slow, always too careless around other metahumans like Raikou. Ace knew he could take it, but he could never seem to protect the regular humans around him. Some hero he was.

Fury filled him once again as his flames changed colors to white. Ace called this infernos cloak and it only happened when he got mad. Something about being ticked off or being close to death made Ace burn hotter. He raised his arms above his head and brought them down with a yell of rage aimed at Raikou. The little action produced a wave of heat that managed to blast cars back and into the buildings lining the walls.

Ace: "IM GOING TO DO TO YOU WHAT THE SUN DID TO MY HAMSTER WHEN IT GOT STUCK IN ITS BALL IN A BRIGHT CORNER!"

Ace never was one for whitty comebacks or insults. But actions was his speciality. He took a step forward as he brought his body around in a twist to launch a kick at the man. From the twisting side kick, Ace lashed out with a fireball the size of a truck aimed at the man. But when Ace landed back on his feet, he yanked back with his right hand as if pulling some string on a kite. The fireball responded and split into five fire balls that all now careened at Rai from different directions

Fools. That's what these insolent 'heroes' were in Raikou's mind, as he surged the electricity flowing around him into a large, spherical shield around his person.  The iris of his eye had begun to glow a bright, light blue as he channeled the electricity in the very air into life. The first blow, from the man who apparently thought that dressing up in a Master Chief cosplay made him a hero, was much stronger than Raikou had anticipated, smashing into his shield and causing the strong electrical currents to flicker and dim. Had he been some moronic, half demon, with a perpensity for loud explosions and rushing headlong into a fight, the following attack by Ace may have very well ended his life, or, at the very least sent him to the hospital. However, that was not Raikou. He was a cold, calculating genius who felt at home in this particular battleground.

The beauty of large cities, at least to Raikou, was one thing in particular. The one thing every single major city around the world shared, without fault. A massive power grid. He had already begun draining the electrical energy from the buildings, outlets, and major faculties around him when he had first seen Ace, and the power began flowing outwards as the first blast made contact. Houses flickered on and off, cars in the streets came to a crashing halt as their batteries fell lifeless, the very air around him began to crackle and pop as the oxygen in the air proved a poor insulator for the amount of electricity in the air from the glowing man. As the fireball made contact, his shied had sprung back to life, taking the grunt of the blow, and causing a small 'explosion' to take place, causing smoke to appear, and billow away just as quick in the harsh Chicago winds. This wasn't called the windy city for nothing, after all.

"Wheeeeeew" Quick draw whistled out from his roost, watching the scene unfold in front of him. "Damn lightning bug has some moves.." He said, exhaling all  the oxygen in his body. He could hear his heart rate come to a near stop, as his respiration slowed, his body fighting to preserve all the oxygen that remained in his blood during this 'shortage'. His aim steadied, if that was even possible, and he took careful aim at the helmet of the mechanical looking man.

"Halo sucked." he wheezed out, pulling the trigger, sending a sniper rifle impeccably aimed, directly where the man's forehead should be.

“Vanguard cannon fuel cells at 0%” the mechanical voice would speak through his head, temporarily breaking through the haze as the scanners were already at work assessing the damage done by such a potent weapon. A whirr sounded off through the air, as the cannon would retreat back into its compartment. The electrical barrier had taken the brunt of the hit with no issues, leaving him with an almost annoyed expression beneath the helmet, bemoaning that he had used up perhaps one of his only real offensive weapons. His thrusters would sputter slightly, as power distribution would continue as it always did, vanguard watching the pyrokinetic go on a sort of warpath towards the electrokinetic, though it seemed that his suit had already spotted a more deadly threat. “Deadly projectile incoming, preparing defensive measures.”

”Wait…projectile?” A translucent shield would rise out from a node, forming a spherical barrier around his person, followed by something hitting said barrier, cracks spreading out along the field as equilibrium decided to give him the proverbial bird. Something struck his helm, causing the kinetic dampening field to spark up in a flash of bright blue, and Colin to teeter within the air. While he was by no means prepared to deal with the thing, his suit was already calculating the trajectory, angel and all of those important things of the bullet. Within a matter of seconds, the visor would project something and show the way.

”So what now? Am I dealing with the spark bugs friend or something?” Vanguard grumbled rather irritated, as the whole triangulation thing would finish, and then he could move on from there. Thrusters would activate, and hurtle him through the air at impressive speeds, a blur almost to the average human eye, but then again none of those fighting now were human. Well he was, but the whole robot suit thing helped make up for his otherwise lacking body. However, it seemed that within an instant a large amount of power would be drained from the city, lights all being snuffed out within a matter of moments, yet that did not fool his suits advanced sensors. Even in the dark, he had a way to fight.

At his altitude, the wind would howl around him, a frightful cacophony, as the suit would propel him through the air like a frightful missile of sorts. At this point, the suit was just moving him in the direction the shot had come from, scanners looking out for where the stray shot had come from. Until the small scanner would lock onto the target, difficult to see for Colin, but the suit had little problems. Without him even needing to think about it, the two wrist guns would pop out from the suit, prepared to fire.

Not one to waste time, Ace was already racing forward to meet his enemy in combat. Raikou was good and had quick a bit of energy sources nearby, that was for sure. But Ace was ready for it. Sort of. With a dash forward, he came to a slidding halt as he slid his feet across the ground. Asphalt had a melting point of nearly a 1000 degrees, well below Ace's top temperature. He sunk fire through the ground and pushed it forward with a slide of his foot. It was like a wave underneath the ground as pipes busted from the heat and evaporating air seeking a release. It was close to a mini earthquake as Ace could muster, but the real goal was to melt the ground Raikou was standing on. That and send a spark flame down the street from the wave. To help with the distraction, Ace brought a hand up to his mouth to form a small circle. He breathed out quickly as he launched a few smaller fireballs in the air randomly at the direction of Raikou.

Ace need to force the man backwards and keep him on his heels right now as he built up more temperature. His burners cloak was still glowing white, but Ace need even more heat then that for what he had planned. A narrow street like this though would be tricky for Ace as it gave him less space to dodge around. He made sure to stay well away from any exposed metal just to give him a fraction of a second more to react.