ic World Tour: In a Detroit Minute (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"You think you're the first tech-controller I've ever fought, you snot-nosed punk?" snorted Protector. "I've put gods in the hospital in this suit!" He raised his arms and fired a blistering volley of shells at Citizen, the high-velocity armor-piercing rounds the same the army used in miniguns designed to kill armored vehicles. The bullets proceeded to go right through the electronic teenager and out the other side, blasting away the brickwork of the jail behind him but doing absolutely no damage to the electromagnetic teenager himself.

"I told you," said the Tronik teen irritably. "Your technology sucks!"

Across the way, Rustbelt was facing off against Ghost Girl, summoning two massive fists of concrete that slammed together through her body again and again, doing absolutely no damage to the cheerful Canadian. "A spectre, just like the spectre of commerce and industry! I'll crush you like I crushed Edsel Ford's face!" So far, though, he wasn't having a lot of luck with that proposition

Meanwhile, a gloating Black Goat laughed and clapped at Papercut's 'transformation'. "Hah, I knew he'd be on the right side!" Floating over till she was almost close to touch, the mad cultist winked at Koshiro: up close, Koshiro could see the smoke clouds that drifted off her hair and the twitchy-mad-crazy look in her eye. "I have a present for you, and it's one I know your people liiike!" Gloating, she raised her hands and yelled "IA! IA! YOG-SOTOTOH ATTEND ME! THE BLACK GOAT WOULD GIVE HER CARESSES!" And then she gestured and a long black spiked tentacle, wet and oily, came dripping from a hole in the air and cracked towards Corbin like a whip as it displaced some of the cranes around him. "Time to see what you're made of!" The tentacle cracked against Corbin's armor, lightly scoring the flaming shield without doing any damage.

[Gizmo]

"No, Koshiro!" Kimber cried in distress even as she more or less ignored Rustbelt's ineffective attempts to hurt her. "Stay good! Stay good!" The last syllable was muffled somewhat by the stone fist that sailed right through her masked and hooded face, enough so that she turned to her attacker with a miffed expression. "Is part of the name 'Ghost Girl' confusing you, or what?" she inquired testily, floating through the animated concrete to float right in front of the supposed city spirit.

Her appearance rippled once again, but this time the change was accompanied by a soft, inner glow that was at once terrible to behold and too beautiful to tear one's gaze away. She still appeared as herself, but merged with the iconography of Rustbelt's own appearance, a manifestation of the metropolis itself. This vision however was glimmering and pristine, new monorail lines and gleaming towers, slate grey of well maintained machinery and the promise of a fresh start for those willing to work and honest day. Lifting hands glistening with the black of fresh tarmac, she placed them on Rustbelt's cheeks and whispered in a singsong voice that echoed from so very far away, "Shh... Quiet now. Rest now."

[Avenger Assembled]

Rustbelt didn't look entirely happy to have Ghost Girl there soothing him, but he did stop attacking her to stare at her in incomprehension. Across the way, Blitzen showed no such regard for Kimber's beauty. "Hey, you flying refugee from a Chinese lantern show!" He smashed his fists together and suddenly was running right up the wall after Cobalt Templar, impossibly fast and agile for such a huge man. "I'm going to beat you so bad, your girlfriend will need to feed you through a straw!" The words were surprising enough for Blitzen to catch Cobalt Templar off-guard, even through the sheet of paper cranes surrounding him, but the big man's punch whiffed by inches, caroming off the weakened places in Corbin's armor without quite penetrating. He was doing all right so far, but all it would take is one lucky punch to bring him down!

[KnightDisciple]

Taunts flew through the air almost as thickly as paper cranes, but Cobalt Templar remained focused, if not entirely calm (his team was being attacked, that was never calming). At the pronouncement that Young Freedom was just a bunch of kids...he smirked. He couldn't help but think in Sage's direction.

-Eve, let's show these punks who they're really messing with.-

First the insane wizard lady sent spiky tentacles at him. All they did was scrabble uselessly against his armor for a moment before he swatted them away, cranes still fluttering about him. The slime seemed to slide off his protective clothing, some of it drying and crumbling away.

Then Blitzen attacked, his blow skipping off his chest armor where the tentacles had struck before glancing against his helmet. A slight dent appeared as his head went to one side. But it was soon apparent the glowing Templar hadn't been truly hurt; his gaze slowly returned to Blitzen. There was a small line of blood at one corner of his mouth; his left hand reached up and wiped it away, flicking the liquid into the air. His face slowly split in a positively predatory grin.

"Man, you don't even know who you're messing with. I've fought worse than you before lunch. You're not grownups. You're practice."

Suddenly, his right hand drew back for a devastating punch as energy gathered around it; his left hand grasped at Blitzen just long enough that the big man couldn't easily evade his attack. The cranes suddenly dove all around Blitzen, distracting him in this crucial moment, giving Cobalt Templar just the opening he needed. With a wordless roar, he sent his fist rocketing forward encased in an over-large hand construct that seemed to have two wings growing from it, a tail of bright blue fire behind it. The paper bird suddenly swirled around them both. An explosion of energy sent the constructs whirling through the air, still intact but well clear of the two titans battling in the air. As the flare of energy passed and the false birds scattered, it was clear Cobalt Templar had landed a heavy blow.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Urggh..." Pounded to the ground by Cobalt Templar's fearsome blow, the speedy giant staggered to his feet, lightning crackling from his hands and eyes as he fought to steady himself. "You little-When I get my hands on you, I'll wring your scrawny neck!" Sure enough, Blitzen was one of the few men big enough to actually say something like that to Corbin and have it make sense. But on the other hand, as battered as he was, with blood leaking down into his eyes from his smashed forehead, it was hard to tell if he could even see the blue-clad teenager!

Across the way, Firehawk glared down at the teenager who had dared lay hands on him, or try to, anyway. "Aaagh, euggh, what are YOU? Some sort of horrible science experiment? What, did they pull you out of Lake St. Clair and feed you on a diet of ugly and hideous? Here, you want to pluck Firehawk's wings? Here, have all of me you can handle!" And then he pointed at Wraith and distinctly Indira began to feel her body heating up, organic metal burning as she was cooked from the inside!

[Avenger Assembled]

Can't fry it, can't hurt it...plan C! "Actually, maybe your technology's not that bad," taunted Citizen, getting up close and personal with the surprised Protector as his team was hammered around him. "Maybe I'll take it for myself!" And with that, Sharl grabbed Protector by the head and shoved his own face through the suit's headpiece. He had time to grin at the now _very_ surprised man inside the suit before he stepped all the way in, locking his electronic body into the suit's systems as a blue glow shone from Protector's armor. Cutting out the suit's speakers, he declared in a synthesized voice that was a merger of his own and Protector's, "Nice ride."

[April]

Eve gave Protector a glance noting the blending of Citizen's and the armored villain's voices, and decided that Sharl had things well in hand there, at least for the moment so she turned her attention to Firehawk.

She took off at a sprint, moving with surprising speed for one so small, and in one easy motion vaulted onto the roof of a parked car. Ethereal wings of ribbon-like fire tinted crimson and violet flared from her shoulders for a brief moment as she launched herself at the airborne villain, not as an attack but a distraction.

The telepath's trajectory had her heading straight for Blitzen when she landed. The big bruiser assaulting Cobalt Templar, quick though he was, wasn't able to react in time to Eve's attack. The telepath leveled a vicious slash across the giant's spine, the blade fuzzing a bit at its point of contact.

[Fox]

Wraith doubled in on herself as her insides burned, literally wrapping in on her own body as the metal she was made of heated up far hotter than was good for her. Still, it would take more than that to remove the alien from the fight, or the fight from the alien; she (figuratively, being mouthless) bit back the pain and straightened up just in time to see Sage fly past Firehawk...and more importantly, see Firehawk see Sage fly past Firehawk.

That was all the opening she needed. Wraith reared back, her entire body arching as her feet gripped the ground and both clubbed hands came together into a single, massive hammer head that got whipped relatively slowly but unerringly through the air and down toward the villain's head.

[Avenger Assembled]

Blitzen dropped like a rock as Sage's psi-knife overloaded his brain, sending the giant tumbling to Earth as if he were a tree whose limbs had been cut. He seemed to shrink as he fell, landing at Eve's feet as a muscular but definitely normal-sized man who was twitching and drooling from the sheer power of her mental assault. Over the other way, Firehawk was taking a beating of his own, Wraith's giant hammer bouncing him off the pavement and back into the air before he managed to fly away from the rampaging alien with the giant metal hammer! He staggered and spat curses in French and Spanish, taking a royal beating at the hands of the alien girl. "Agh! Protector, are you all right!?" But Protector wasn't answering, that suit was still hovering silently in mid-air, its eyes glowing with Sharl's borrowed energy.

[Electra]

As the battle waged on, Koshiro tossed down the bit of paper he'd been working with, letting it unfold into a paper airplane six feet long, with a wingspan almost as wide, He leapt aboard as it took off into the sky, riding it like a surfboard, and raised his hands to summon the swarm of paper cranes. As they swirled around him in a miniature blizzard, he locked eyes with Black Goat. "You seem like a nice girl and all," he said, "but a smart man once told me to never stick it in the crazy." He lowered his arms, sending the cranes at her in one whirling, flapping wave.

[Avenger Assembled]

Papercut's cranes paffed harmlessly through Black Goat's body; for a moment, he thought he'd missed entirely until he realized that the truth was even freakier. The girl's body was made of some kind of weird ectoplasm, visible in green puffs behind her where his shots had hit, and shooting her had been like shooting a cloud. "I'll STICK IT IN YOU!" yelled Black Goat in retaliation, whipping that long suckered tentacle around in a mad fury that missed the nimble Papercut by a mile. She screamed a curse so foul the air around her actually turned black like a Detroit summer before from down below she was interrupted by a shout from Rustbelt, "Blitzen's down, Firehawk's gettin' hammered, and something just crawled up inside Protector! I'm gettin' myself outta here!" And with that, a swirling vortex opened in the pavement, revealing a black concrete wall on the other side. "Time to outsource myself!" And with that, Rustbelt dived right through the hole.

Crazy though she was, Black Goat wasn't a fool. "This isn't over!" she yelled at Papercut before diving inside the hole herself, taking advantage of her ability to fly to get there fast. Nearby, only Firehawk was still in the fight, Protector dead silent inside his armor as it vibrated and twitched like an overclocked machine. There was still no sign of Sharl, just his voice from inside the suit.

"And stay down!"

[Gizmo]

Moments after Rustbelt disappeared into the floor, Ghost Girl's image shifted disconcertingly once until she was once again her regular blue, cloak clad self, floating lighting in the air. "Hmph. I don't think he was a real spirit at all," she opined with a light sniff before sweeping forward toward the last standing 'Champion'. "Brain freeze!" she proclaimed with a surprising amount of cheer as she slid one of her ethereal hands directly into Firehawk's forehead and fished about a bit, setting the villain's teeth chattering.

[Avenger Assembled]

His teeth chattering from the cold, Firehawk put his hands up, wrists together in the gesture of a man who'd been handcuffed before. "Merde, merde, I quit!" He landed, letting the heroes take the last member of the Champions of Crime on his feet and at the scene into custody. And no wonder: with Blitzen down, Protector disabled, and himself taking a savage beating now that he was so badly outnumbered, the nascent Young Freedom had given a savage defeat to the premerie Detroit supercriminals. Not in a bad day's work! For his own part, Citizen had quite a time getting Protector to surrender even without control of his armor, but finally taking the helmet off and letting the guards (who had now piled out of the jail) put guns in the man's face proved a fine and stern message: cursing, the middle-aged mobster took off his armor, shouting an occasional epithet at the heroes as he was taken into custody by the very same people who'd been keeping his target locked up. "You stupid punk! I should have known I couldn't trust a..." A racial epithet was cut off by a guard smacking him on the side of the head.

As the team took in their victory, Koshiro could see his mother and sisters standing in the doorway of the jail, eying him uncertainly in the aftermath of his very first super-battle.

[Electra]

Koshiro landed his paper plane, which unfolded and collapsed the moment he touched the ground. Flying had been a rush, but now that the fight was over, he didn't know exactly what he was supposed to do with himself. He kind of hoped people hadn't bought the thing about him joining up with the Champions, but since nobody was handcuffing him, he guessed he was probably okay. He stuck his hands and his pockets and slouched as he watched the criminals getting led away, shooting occasional uncertain glances towards his mom when he thought no one was looking.

[KnightDisciple]

As the guards swarmed around Firehawk, Protector, and Blitzen, Cobalt Templar blazed away from the fight with nary a word, ducking back through the same side entrance he'd used. The hall was still abandoned, so he had no trouble changing back to civilian clothes in it. So it wasn't hard to navigate his way back such that he was standing just behind Koshiro's family.

Oh, the family would almost assuredly make the connection. But the villains likely wouldn't, and neither would the staff on-site, and that's what mattered to him.

"Looks like everything turned out okay. Glad everyone's safe."

He though toward Sage.

-Please remind the others I try to keep a secret identity, and would prefer no connections be made between identities. If need be, we can cover for whoever needs it.-

[Fox]

Wraith backed down as villains surrendered; it wasn't as exciting as a real finish to the battle, but she had to accept - reluctantly - that it was better than risking anybody getting hurt as their opponents got increasingly desperate. What a rush, though - a real supervillain battle!

She pulled back into herself, the massive hammer she'd bounced Firehawk off the pavement with splitting back into two hands, and those hands' arms pulling back into her body until they were a more reasonable length. As Corbin reappeared - out of costume - she sighed a little. She'd had the distraction of the fight to cover her changing into her true form; she didn't really have that luxury for changing back, and two people reappearing out of nowhere wouldn't be so subtle.

So, she tried to look as inconspicuous as a tall, metal, three-eyed alien could on the streets of Detroit.

[Gizmo]

Having already been technically in disguise before the chaos had erupted, Ghost Girl had no particular concerns about her secret identity, such as it was, but the jig seemed to be up so far as posing as a chaperone figure went. Instead, the translucent masked and hooded young woman floated over to bob next to Wraith, at eye level with the gleaming alien in defiance of gravity and common sense. "So, that means we win, right? So rad!" she gushed to her inhumman friend, clapping her immaterial hands together and grinning cheerfully. "If this is a field trip, imagine what the classes must be like!"

[April]

Eve's psychic blade unraveled into mist and faded away as she cast an appraising look over the Detroit street and noting with satisfaction that the authorities had the villains well in hand. She flashed a small, tired grin in the direction of Kimber and Indira. Her expression sobered up as she took in the sight of the McMillan family. Now, on to more pressing concerns.

The telepath saw the looks exchanged between the newest student and his family. -We don't have to leave right away,- Eve thought to Koshiro. -This is not the right place for a proper goodbye. Nor were they the right circumstances.-

[Electra]

Koshiro blinked and looked around, startled by the sudden voice in his head. He grimaced at his new colleagues, not quite sure which of the girls was digging into his head, but walked over to the building where his mom and family were standing. "They're gonna make sure you get a cab home," he told Kameyo, shoving his hands into his pockets. "They'll pay for it, the school's like loaded. You shouldn't try and take the bus this late, buncha delinquents on it." A half-smile twisted his lips, just for a second. "Anyway, I gotta go. I'll come back up and visit soon as they let me. Take care, okay?"

Miserably uncomfortable, desperate to avoid the tears he could see his mom about to shed, Koshiro turned and loped back to Corbin. "When's that cab coming?" he demanded, squaring his shoulders and raising his chin as he faced off with the big guy. "They gotta get home, and I'm ready to blow this joint."

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin was unfazed by Koshiro's brusque inquiry. He pulled out his phone and checked a call record.

"They should be here in...4 minutes, if they stick to their promise. One of those "we'll be there, or you pay half" sort of deals. We'll make sure they get home fine. Pretty sure we'll be able to work something out with the Headmaster for visits. Even if I have to fly you here myself to "keep you in line" or whatever."

He actually made airquotes with that one, which let Koshiro get a good look at the shining blue ring on his right hand. Corbin then crossed his arms with a smile.

"You did good out there, Koshiro. Glad to have you on the team."

[Avenger Assembled]

Eventually Citizen was able to get himself out of the armor, leaving Protector to be arrested without his suit, and rejoin the team with some congratulations for everyone. On the flight home from Detroit, Citizen sat at his laptop, writing a letter home. And that didn't mean Freedom City. He'd already written up a piece for Miss Americana telling her about his school trip, though he planned to talk to her in person about his Claremont classmates and the people he'd be working with besides her this year. This was a letter home to Tronik.

Mother, Father, Sister,

Things are going well here in the other world. I've made friends and I will soon be in school. I wish I could tell you more abot this place, and I will in future letters, but there's so much I can't put into words. An ocean of blue sky over my head, flat and tiny cities, forests full of savage alien monsters. And friends, who are very strange, and who I don't think I understand, but who I know I can trust with my life. I miss you every day, but I know what I'm doing here is right. Our world is changing, changing faster than any of us could imagine. We need heroes. And there's no better place to learn.

Your loyal son,

Sharl