Volume I: The Lost Boys

Jodelle is looking a little bit nervous at the guys. Stretching her fingers, letting some black and purple energy flow.
"Right boys. I am not having a good day and I am quite upset. Give me some breathing room." she threatens a little.
"Yeah... you're actually right." Jodelle says and steps away through the portal if it is there and if she can get through as (probably) Vermite's rats start to enter the building.

"Yep it's me. You're all good, but we're getting you to a hospital. Sit back and enjoy the ride."

He stomps his way towards Blacklight's portal. Before going through, he stops to glare at the group that had been encroaching on his friends and gives a low, almost sub-sonic growl.

A final snort, then he and Deon go through the portal.

The surrounding debris shakes slightly. The sound of falling bits of rubble is quickly drowned out by the mass patter of little feet and cacophony of squeaks. It seems that from every possible crevice, a swarm of rats emerges. Soon, they are bustling in all directions, crawling over Dr. Harris and his henchmen’s feet to stagger and confuse them. When they approach the team, they create a circular perimeter around them to leave them unimpeded.

"Time to make our exit everyone!"

Vermite walks out from the shadows without any fear of the rats. In fact, they either move around her or lovingly cling to her costume. Some climb up to her shoulders to survey the surroundings before scurrying off to cause more havoc. When she reaches the others, she rushes them towards the portal.

"We need to grab Deion and go! I’ll keep us covered!"

The general vibe of the Lost Boys, combined with Vermite’s sudden and frantic appearance on scene, only serves to excite Retribution even more. They push through some of the Boys with surprising strength, slam their fist down on a nearby metal cabinet, crumpling it easily (although it was only a dent for her, rather than a sincere attempt to break anything), before jumping back through the portal.

The moment they make their escape, Retribution backs up from the portal and lifts the mask up to expose her mouth, where dried blood from the zombie attack has coagulated. She spits onto the ground to try and get rid of the taste.

Blacklight follows Ogre through the portal but holds it open and waiting for Vermite to be the last one through before she lets it close. Taking a breath she looks around the alley they once more find themselves in. "So this is how the world ends. A well meaning doctor tries to defeat death and makes zombies instead?" It's hard to say just how serious her comment is meant to be. She's been on an emotional rollercoaster and is crashing a little now. "We should hurry which is the closet hospital to here? Elmhurst, Woodhill?"

The entire ordeal looked like a distant dream. Almost being eaten alive by a Zombie. Swarms of squeaking Rats. Aggressive gang members. All were quickly forgotten as soon as the Ogre mentioned something about a hospital "A hospital?!? No. I can't. " Deion panicked. Even a horde of flesh eating Zombies weren't as terrifying as - "Mom would kill me!"

The young boy staggered to his feet, wavering from the effects of the poison and blood loss "Please; I gotta get back home before she grounds me for life!" he pointed at his bandaged shoulder, to prove his point: "See? It's stopped bleeding. I'll sleep it off. Be fine by morning!"

His mother would probably be more worried than angry, but that was just as bad. He didn't want her to lose a night's sleep over him. She was already working hard enough just to support them. "Come on; don't do me like that. If I hurry I can get back before she arrives from work"

Ogre crouches to get a better look at Deon.

"Dude, you can barely stand."

"You've lost a lot of blood and got who knows what in you're system. We really need to get you medical care. You can't just walk this off."

"Maybe they won't keep you overnight and all we have to do is make up an excuse for you to be late."

"Hi mom, studying at Ogre's place. Love you! Be back late!"

That's when Vermite recalls Mr. Sleepy. She removes her backpack to check inside. Sure enough, the little doughboy is sound asleep, stirred only by the fresh light entering the backpack. Fortunately, things didn't have to progress to an actual fight. That would have actually put the cat in harm's way...assuming it wouldn't just sleep through that as well.

In that moment, Vermite gets an idea. Or rather, Enola does. She is the one who pitched the idea of looking for Mr. Sleepy in the first place. That means she can be Deion's alibi: they pulled an all-nighter to and were out looking for the cat together. It's a stretch for sure. She doesn't know Deion's family all too well and she only knows Angelina in passing. She'll have to try to be persuasive enough to not arouse suspicion from Deion, his mother, or the rest of the team.

"Listen Deion, I can come up with an excuse as to your whereabouts this evening. You were looking for this little guy, I presume? Collar around the neck; you skulking through alleyways. It's not hard to piece that mystery together. If you give me your mom's number, I can find a way to give her a good passing reason. But I need you to trust me, and to let my friends take you to the hospital. Okay?"

"This is going to be the end of me" he muttered as he started to accept his fate "She'll never let me out of the house after this"

He wasn't sure if he could just show up at the hospital on his own without his Mom. Who would pay for it all? They could barely afford milk for his cereal in the morning as it was...

"Who are you guys, anyways?" Deion studied the group for the first time. They all looked...familiar "Hey! You're the ones who stopped the Centurion at the Met a couple of weeks back, right? Ogre - " He looked up at the one person he instantly recognized from school, his eyes gleaming with adoration

"You're a Superhero!!"

Ogre huffs. It's nice to be getting some positive attention for once.

"Yeah, well they weren't going to let me on the football team, so what else was I going to do with my spare time?"

"My friends here, all heroes with legit, awesome, powers."

Ogre pauses for a moment, an idea forming in his head.

"Hey you know what? I might know someone who'd want to help you."

He pulls out his phone. His fingers are way to big to work a phone, so he relies on voice activation.

"Call Doc," he says and waits.

"Doctor Ellison? I'm really sorry, but you said for me to call you if it were an emergency... No, I'm alright, but I have a friend... well he's been bitten by something, that's definitely not normal, and I was wondering if you could help him? I can bring him to wherever you need him to go, but we have to let his mom know."

"And you’re Jason’s sister!" he didn’t know Jodelle's name, but he was sure he has seen her before "Does that mean the rest of you also go to our school?"


What were the odds of that?!?

"Does your team have a name? Do you have a secret lair? Can I be your sidekick? What are each of your powers?" Deion kept bombarding them with questions; without stopping to take a breath "How long have you been doing this? Do you know any other superheroes? Do you know the Traveler? I always wanted to meet the Traveler…"

The Ogre had no trouble getting in touch with Dr. Ellison while Deion was interrogating the team; his number was one of the few she would never screen

"Sure" there was just a moment of hesitation before she agreed. She was already starting on dinner, and wasn’t too enthused about dropping everything and driving back to the lab. But if Ogre called, it must have been something serious. Plus, that ‘not normal’ part piqued her interest "I hope he’s not badly hurt? I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes, I’ll tell security to let you through in case you get there first"

The buzz from Shadowhex's phone came in the middle of Deion's spill. A text message from the proprietor of the 'Moonstone Grove':

"I’m done with the inventory for today, in case you still want to drop by. Also managed to get my hands on that copy of Grimorium Umbrarum, but the owner is a bit finicky, so best if we don’t let it out of the store"

Vermite places a hand on Deion’s shoulder to gently stop the whirlwind of questions and calm him down, although they are excellent questions.

We should have a team name, shouldn’t we? Huh.

"Take a breather," she tells him. "The last thing we want is you overexerting yourself before you get some medical attention. Now I’ll make sure Mr. Sleepy gets home safe and that your mom gets a good excuse for your whereabouts."

At that moment, one of the rats pops onto Vermite’s head to give Deion a curious whiff. Being so used to it, Vermite barely registers the little guy.

"And to rapid-fire answer your questions in order: can’t tell you; still working on a name; don’t have a secret lair and couldn’t tell you if we did; get better and then we can talk about ‘sidekick’ stuff; I can talk to rodents and see through their senses; not very long; and no, I don’t know any superheroes outside of the team, including the Traveler."’

Blacklight takes a slightly nervous step backwards at the machinegun of questions, eyes widening a bit at the unintentional outing of one of her teammates. So before he can start making things even more akward by naming more names the shadows begin to creep up around them, aside from Ogre and Deion of course to further help obscure her and their features. Damn, she should have listened to The Shadow when he said never to let them see your costume much less you... Maybe it wouldn't be too late for the rest of them, but she was pretty sure even with the best intentions Deion wouldn't last the week before blurting Jodelle's identity out to someone. Looking around she now wondered and worried how many of them already had figured her out.

The net effect was to make the group look spooky and intimidating, the shadows hastening the cool of night by removing any hint of warmth from the setting sun from reaching the others as they crawled up legs, over arms, down back and even slightly shrouded the gatherings heads and faces.

Shadowhex had been a little on the background. Ogre was doing a great job with Deion, and she wasn't that great with people anyway. But as Deion recognized her (which really wasn't that hard), she had to step in.
"Well... you could also say that Jason is my br... Hold on!"
So as her phone buzzed she picked it up quite relaxed and read the screen, as her eyes got big.

"Oh wow!" she pipes up loudly and excited. "Guys, we just have to get to the Grove in a bit." referring to the new age show where they often hung out.

Slugger laughs that the barrage of questions. She wasn't any different than Deion, and would probably do the exact same thing if she found herself saved by another team of supers. She holds up a hand. "Hey, ease up on outing people. Even we don't know each others' real identities, and that's for our safety. Figure something out? Fine, that's on us, but keep it to yourself." She says it with a smile, to avoid dressing Deion down too much over the slip up, but forgets that he can't even see it with her mask on.

She doesn't answer any of the questions; Vermite had most of that covered. Plus, she didn't want to admit she didn't actually have any...

"Don't let on, but my secret is that I'm actually 'Ogre' at school. I use 'The Ogre' as my hero identity. It helps keep my secret safe."

Ogre chuckles with a deep rumble, obviously enjoying himself. Before he changed he'd been exactly like Deon. He would have been just as excited to meet heroes in the flesh.

"So Deon, ya boy is going to hook you up with the best care in the country. Doctor Ellison said that she'd take of you, but we need to get to the FutureGene tower in Midtown."

"I'm sorry to ask Blacklight, but can you get us there?"

Ogre was hesitant to ask. Blacklight looked she was tired and struggling a bit

Min was flagging a bit, but despite all expectations it seemed like maybe things wouldn't be a complete disaster. Ogre seemed to know a real doctor, so maybe Deion wouldn't be cursed to spawn a zombie apocalypse. It helped that his joke about his own secret identity had her snickering amid the shadows. "Sure, THE OGRE" She said, doing her best to put the capitalization into her speech. "It shouldn't be too hard, at least as long as you don't mind a quick stop along the way to get our bearings."

Then as she felt at least a little better she did a completely unnecessary but theatrical wave of her arm, having the shadows flicker with blacklight as the flowed off of her and the other heros to create a portal against the alley wall. "Mind that first step. Anyone else coming?" This time the question directed towards the rest. "If not we can meet you at the place, with the stuff, you know." She placed the other end of the portal back at the top of the apartment building she regularly used. Assuming that from there 'The Ogre' would be able to point the rest of the way for their trip.