Prodigy Patrol: Mind Games

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.

From what he could see, there were two meta humans in the area. However, Lucius had a feeling more were in the vicinity. These heroic types were getting to be quite a problem, they would need to be dealt with soon, but today was not the day. As Lucius slowly retreated a shock wave shot through the ground, causing him to lose his balance. He managed to slide on his knees rather then fall and risk capture, he could recover from a kneeling position much easier then a total face plant. As this was all happening Hector was taking pictures as well as recording their voice's and matching them with their known abilities. That would come in handy later, but right now the only thing on Lucius' mind was getting the girl back to base.

A stream of pressurized water hit him while he was still in a kneeling position, the pain was surprising high for just water causing Lucius to let out a groan of pain while he shielded the girl from the attack. Not long after the stream hit it was cut off by the activation of Lucius' personal shield generator, it barely held but managed to stay up until the attack ceased. This brought to Lucius' attention the male not to far from him which he instinctively sent a blast of energy back at before he got up.

Lucius was in a state of pain but managed to push himself up as fast as he could, then turned to the woman. "You should run while you still can. I don't understand you, you are hindering evolution itself when you should be using your capabilities to help it along. If you will not let me leave, then you will die" Less then a second after he said this he telepathically gave the command to activate his modified EMP generator at its highest setting. Lucius rigged it to send out very potent sonic waves on this setting that would surely cause the women some problems. The sonic waves were sent out with a high pitched chalk board sound, which Lucius himself was protected from because of his mask. He coupled this with a blast of energy harsh enough to corrode titanium into nothing in an instant. He hoped it would slow her down long enough to escape.

Very briefly during the sonic weapon firing, the girl in his arms awoke and tugged lightly on him.

From Red Tide's point of view, his attack towards Deluge vaporized the hydrokinetic where he stood, nothing remaining but a smoking crater. His sonic weapon caused the attacking Xiao to seize up and keel over, slumping to the ground. The girl in his arms would only then awake. Red Tide would think himself victorious and free to leave.

Such was the glamer cast over his eyes by the child though.

The other heroes would be in on the powerful illusion, Deluge seeing himself being "vaporized" while he was momentarily invisible. Xiao didn't skip a beat as she saw an image of herself falling to the ground.

His sonic weapon was formidable, but to the half dragon who'd been the subject of such attacks, it served a mild hindrance at best, and sowed a hateful suspicion at worst. Concealed by the girl's powerful illusion, The Dragon Girl was accelerating towards Red Tide, whose fist was going to connect with Red Tide's face, and his energy barrier was likely the only thing keeping him in one piece.

"DRAGON PUNCH!" Xiao shouted, lashing out with mountain crushing force.

[color:3807=7a00ff]It's just an illusion. Silus thought to himself as he began to look about. He quickly maneuvered himself past the cars and over to the large ass ice-wall. He ran up next to Deluge and dropped to the ground. "Full force ice wall behind him now!" He quickly ordered. His plan was to crush Red Tide between a rock and a hard place, leaving him nowhere to go. He himself dropped down and drug his fingers across the pavement, drawing a gun before materializing it and holding the gun up at reaper, pulling the trigger. Silus looked to Deluge and smiled.

"Hey Ry. Wanna be the hero who saves the day?" Silus asked him with a smirk before looking back towards
Reaper's location and then to Red Tide.

The order was clear enough, he needed to cut off his means of escape with all of the power that he had at his disposal, so Ryan would have to try avoiding any sort of mess ups. Narrowing his eyes, he would attempt to draw upon all of his power, feeling the cold sensation running through his body from within his core and out to the very tips of his fingers.  The cold sensation would persist as the rain would follow his command, as well as any water that was available, including that of the sewer that was running underneath the streets. Cracks would form along the street behind where Red Tide stood, water spurting out from it, before hardening into oddly colored ice, forming a wall that would rise high into the air.

However trying to use his power it its fullest was not the greatest idea, as the ice would begin to jut outwards, dangerous to anyone unfortunate enough to be near them. The very concrete of the street not destroyed would begin to freeze, becoming frigid and slippery, making running difficult, though that was an unintended side effect. ”The hero? Well…yeah I do.” He answered with a nod, rain continuing around them but at an increased rate. How that would happen though was what he was questioning.

The ice boy was instantly vaporized by his attack, that was not exactly what Lucius expected but maybe he just didn't know his full strength. The women cowered on the ground in front of him due to his sonic device, it seemed he was free to walk. But something didn't feel right, it felt like he was almost flouting, like a dream. Any other person would have likely found themselves completely fooled by whatever this was, but Lucius knew when his mind was being invaded.  "This isn't real" He whispered to himself in his mind.

His revelation was proved true when his shield was struck out of seemingly nowhere with enough force to deactivate and shatter it. Lucius was knocked off his feet and out of the illusion, he managed to roll with the fall and slide on to his hands and knees. The shield slowed the strike down but dragon girls fist still hit his arm with incredible force, without the barrier he would have been pulverized. He shrugged off the pain in his arm and got to his feet "Illusions, nice try, that won't work again" Right after he said this to the woman another wall of ice formed aggressively behind him, this time bigger and visibly stronger. Looks like ice boy didn't get vaporized after all, petty tricksters.

He wouldn't try to get past the wall, it looked much stronger then the other one and it would take a large concentrated blast that would take time to perform to break. Looks like he was going through the dragon lady instead. "No more games" He said before unleashing a blast from one of his hands while the other held the child. The blast was wide and would be difficult to evade, but knowing superhumans the women probably could. After he sent out the blast he again hovered his energy charged hand over the girl "I'm not sure if you understand the situation your in, let me go, or she dies" As he said this he was consulting Hector telepathically. "Hector, i need the teleporter power level" he ordered  "92% sir, port ready in 30 seconds"

Xiao was not that quick, but she didn't need to avoid attacks much either. To drive the point home, once the red energy cleared, Xiao stood there slightly scorched, the upper half of her outfit mostly destroyed save for her nanofiber swimsuit. Her forearms were swollen red from the heat, while her hair was a mess.
Xiao looked at Red Tide, anger in her expression as she performed an unfliching walk towards him. "...You really don't know when to quit, do you?" She growled.

She was poised to launch herself once again into a high speed attack, a serious pain train with no breaks. Xiao was only forced to stand her ground once Red threatened his hostage. But, the girl Red Tide was supposed to be holding suddenly materialized in front of Dragon Girl.

"Please, enough. No more fighting." She said, looking up at the dragon girl. Xiao was perplexed. She blinked, and realized there were two girls now.
"How... how did you do that?" Xiao asked. Was this some kind of trick? She could smell the human child in front of her, but there was no scent on the one Red Tide was holding. Teleportation combined with illusions.

"I can do lots of things." She smiled. "This is a bad man. He took me from my mommy." She then pointed at Red Tide, holding the illusion child.

Assured of the child's safety, Dragon Girl faced Red Tide. "You've got no leverage here. Give up now, or I'll punch you in the gut before you can blink." Xiao threatened with her fists, not to mention Tide was surrounded by very sharp ice.

Silus just sort of stood there, waiting to see everything that happened. He looked to this little girl and his eyes furrowed at her, looking with a twitching eye. This was not your typical illusion. This was border-lining reality manipulation, and if that were the case this thing was more problems than any of them were qualified to deal with. Silus wouldn't call his dad on it either, because Zell would kill the kid, or worse even. No...No Silus couldn't involve the Archon Energy in this, it would turn his own daddy into a monster. Silus shuddered as he shook himself back to reality for the moment. It wasn't reality manipulation...at least it wasn't proven yet. So far it was just illusions and teleportation. The rain was going to be their ally in this.

"Tag him with a small piece of ice. Then try and feel all the water nearby. If he was able to port himself once he's gonna do it again. You'll follow him and I'll be there soon. Got it?" Silus whispered as he looked to the girl. He didn't trust this girl any more than he trusted the guy who kidnapped her. Call it a Fae's intuition. He quickly reached down his shirt and covered his "tattoo" on his left shoulder, and in an instant there was an indigo glow, a beacon sent out to a specific individual that would arrive soon.

He needed to tag the metahuman with ice, something that Ryan would have not too much of a problem with, as the rain pouring down was enough of a cover for him to do just that. It was not an attack really, one of the many droplets falling down upon Red Tide would rapidly freeze, becoming an ice fragment under Ryan’s control, fluttering downwards and attaching itself to his clothing, silent and unnoticed amongst the torrent that was falling down. In fact it was almost too easy, but then again it was perhaps one of his greatest strengths within this weather. ”Alright, tagged him.” Ryan said only loud enough for Silus to hear him, then trying for the whole feeling through all of the water within the area, closing his eyes and trying to feel for anything being touched by the water.

However, if he ported after the guy, Ryan wondered how he would be able to stop the male with his current control, well without killing both him and the girl.

Lucius watched as his energy cleared and the woman somehow survived it, meta humans truly were something to marvel at. "Quitting is not in my nature, so no. That was a mere taste of my power, if you want to continue be my guest" He said as he felt the illusions try to take another hold on his mind. He briefly saw two girls, one in his arms and one in front of him. He shook his head quickly, not allowing himself to fall pray to such things again. The girl in his arms faded away and he saw the world as it truly was once again. He heard as the girl lied to the woman for reasons he did not understand.

"You and i both know she was not your mother, all i wanted was to perform a few tests then i would have brought you back to your real parents. There is no need to lie, i will not hurt you. However it seems I'm having trouble convincing these....heros of that. I will be on my way, but expect to see me later. I'll be tracking you and your friends" After saying this to dragon girl Lucius gave the command to Hector to activate his teleporter. Looking through a very small hole in a building that was about 80 feet away, he teleported through it and into the structure in a flash of blue light. His pursuers shouldn't be able to know where he went, but in the event that they found him he had a few other escape methods. "Get the car down here and notify Daniel i need him asap" He ordered his AI as he quietly burned a hole in the ground with his energy, attempting to get down into the subway system/sewers.

((OCC: The car and a few of my minions with arrive in 2 rounds if this thread continues that long))

Regardless of whether what was true or not, Xiao made a call to side with the girl right now, considering believing the kidnapper was out of the window. Dragon Girl lost sight of the kidnapper as he escaped, but her priority was the safety of the hostage and her mother.

Now that the threat was gone and things calmed down, Xiao realized that Atiyah had a most intense stare, and she did not break eye contact as she led her to Zafira, Atiyah's "mother", or so she says. "Please, I want to go home..." She said, something in her calm voice somehow discouraging Xiao from pursuit. Xiao didn't really want to chase either.

Atiyah also gave that creepy little girl stare to Silus and Ryan, something about the girl looking deeply into their hearts, like an unwelcome guest inside the home. She then stopped once she came face to face with Zafira, who by this time had recovered thanks to Silus's medical technology. Atiyah paused and stayed a distance, while Zafira moved forward to embrace the child affectionately. "Oh Child, I was so worried..." She then turned to the heroes, at least the ones who stayed.  

"I... I can't thank you all enough for saving me and Atiyah. I thought I was going to die." She said, grateful. "I'll wait for an ambulance to take us to a hospital or home." Emergency services would only be arriving a few minutes later to help people get back on their feet. Aside from Red Tide's attack, no one else was worse for wear. Seeing the heroes rescue a little girl from a kidnapping also got a round of applause from the common folk. It was a small victory for Prodigy, a victory for metahumans. None of the normal bystanders seemed even aware that the girl they rescued that immense illusiory powers.

- - - -

Once far away from the commotion, the Ambulance that was supposed to take the two ladies to the hospital made a detour towards the more affluent financial districts of the city. The driver's eyes veiled with a powerful illusion, he unwittingly did Zafira's bidding, as did the psionic child Atiyah. Atiyah looked at her handler with a sad face, but Zafira was stern and cold, holding a remote control in hand.

"Please. His mind cannot take more." She pleaded with sad eyes, looking out the window, recognizing that they were now near their destination.
Zafira sat with one leg over the other, showing no emotional reaction to the child's request. She was communicating with other people on her phone, frustrated at the costly delay that the fool Red Tide had caused them.

One text message came up. "I'm here now."

"Very well. We can leave here, and you may return whence you came." She acquiesced to Atiyah's request, and the girl put him into a psi-induced healing sleep, activating his body's full power to heal itself from enduring Atiyah's psi illusion. The paramedic laid back into the driver seat, window open, and the two leave.
They walk down the street towards a black BMW, a short Asian man in a white Chinese kung fu suit emerging from the driver's seat. He went up to Zafira, and bowed to her.

"Lady Zafira, My apologies. We were not aware of mister Tide's ulterior motives." Then he opened the door for Zafira, letting his new passengers in. Zafira remained cool and calm as she took her seat. Then she fumed.

"Mr. Wu... He cost us a day of travel!" Zafira snapped angrily, as the car slowly merged with traffic on the street. "Now we have to arrange a new transport out of town! We should have waited for our own people after all. The hired help cost us more in the long run! I swear if I find him... I'll... I'll..." Her psychotic episode spiralling out of control, Zafira needed to see herself in the tint to realize she was acting out. She calmed down, and fixed her hair.

"Don't worry, we'll stay at Park Towers until we do. Edgar is on his way as well." Mr. Wu said, stopping at a red light.

"Good... good. I can't wait to get out of this dump." Zafira said. She turned towards the child next to her, who broke out into tears and whining.

"I want to see my family! At least let me talk to them! Why are you so mean...I want to go home..." She said, throwing a tantrum. Zafira ignored it, and reassured her with a pat on the shoulder.

"Do not worry, Atiyah. The Institute will be your new family soon. And you won't miss your poor, good for nothing parents. Ever. You'll be rich, powerful, influential... and you'll have make many new friends like yourself."