Angela flipped on the lights at Infinite Seven HQ for the first time in several days. Her vampiric eyes could see every detail even in the dim ambient light from the computer and emergency lighting, so she'd figured better not to waste the power. The HQ was officially "off the grid" for the summer, and there was a finite amount of power in the capacitors.
But now, the power at Langley was back on. Resident Assistants had moved back in, and today, with general move-in starting, there would be enough power being used to the capacitors to begin syphoning and storing power again.
It had been a long and boring summer. With Emily and the rest of the team gone, Angela had been alone a large part of the time. It had been difficult for her not to fall into old habits; in fact, she'd failed once or twice, fed off someone in a dark alley or the back of a club. The power she felt after feeding was invigorating, but it came with a price. Every time she did it, she felt a little less like herself and a little more like the darkness.
Of the entire team, she'd only seen Rick in the last three months, and only a couple of times. He was busy with a new friend, a short, curly haired young woman who claimed some sort of mastery over nature. Angela had seen them practicing a couple of times. The young woman was...impressive. Rick's skills as The Adept had grown as well. Since he'd been exposed to the energies of the Professor Sampson's Nightmare Engine, he'd been able to produce blasts of direct magical power, and now he seemed to be gaining other abilities as well, drawing on spells from tomes he and his friend Sydney had gathered from all over the country during the summer.
Angela was glad the others would be getting back soon; she was not only lonely, she was bored. There had been little need for super heroes over the summer; it was as if the villains had drawn a truce – "Oh, your heroes are out of town? Well never mind, then." But last week, Angela had had her first really challenging encounter of the summer. A group of people hopped up on Nex had started a brawl after a losing Chicago baseball game. Angela had never had to deal with Nexers; Nex use had been pretty much eradicated before she became...what she was. But now, it seemed to be back with a vengence, and these people were rough! The couldn't be controled by her mental abilities, meaning she had to fight them. She was strong, unnaturally fast, and armed with powerful claws. But a pumped up Nexer was stronger, and almost as fast. Angela's battle against four of them had ended in her defeating two and retreating until the cops arrived.
She didn't have to wait long. A few minutes after she turned on the lights, the 52" main computer monitor popped on for the first time in months. The image took a few seconds to de-pixelize. Angela went over to the console and pressed the key to answer the call.
"Hey, Caz," she said casually. The young man in the video was Caz Greenbaum, AKA Cazmonster, though his hair had been cut much shorter than the thick mop she was used to. He seemed ever so slightly older; her vampire eyes could see the passage of time much more acurately than humans.
"ANGELA!" Caz screamed excitedly.
Well, Angela reflected, he hasn't changed THAT much.
"Welcome back! Are you in the triple yet?"
"Moving my stuff up now," he said. "Rick's already here. You guys hang out this summer?" he asked.
"Um, no, not much. I'll head up if it's all clear..." she suggested.
"Yeah, parents just left. Come on up!"
Angela walked to the rear of the HQ, to the special elevator they had built leading to the triple on floor seven. The elevator only had two stops: the HQ and the 7 triple. She rode up quickly and walked out of the back of the closet into the room. The instant she did, Caz grabbed her up in a powerful hug that, she had to confess, felt good. She'd been alone a little to much, with Emily gone.
Rick looked over at Angela curiously. "Hello," he said, putting books down in a disorganized pile on his bookshelf.
"Hey, Rick," she said, breaking free of Caz' grip and standing straight in the center of the room, hand on her chin as if inspecting the place. "Lots of potential here. I hope you boys are planning on being a little more...avant gard than last semester."
Caz looked at her with his infamous cocked eyebrow. "Um, it's a dorm room. We can't do glass walls around a toilet or anything."
Angela pretended not to hear the remark. "So Rick, where's your friend, Sydney?"
Rick looked startled, but then remembered she'd seen Sydney once or twice. The fact was that Angela had been secretly watching their magic practice many times.
"She's at the apartment. She's going to be moving in later," Rick said, leafing through a tome that looked to be at least four hundred years old.
"In here?" Angela asked, surprised.
"Into Langely, yes. Floor four. And there's something else..." Rick hesitated. "I was going to wait and talk to everyone at once, but this seems like a good time to bring it up. I'm planning on asking the team to accept Sydney as a member."
"She's got powers?" Caz asked, surprised.
"She's a druid," Angela answered to the side. "She can throw rocks around and grow plants and stuff."
Rick looked startled. "You've been WATCHING us?"
Angela shrugged. "Seemed a good idea to make sure you weren't getting involved in something over your head. I didn't know anything about this girl."
"We didn't know anything about YOU, when you joined. Emily said you were okay, and that was good enough!" Rick snapped, pointing his finger accusingly at Angela.
"What the HELL?" said Steven Chen as he marched up to the door. "You guys realize you can hear this argument all the way in the stairwell?"
Rick changed his focus to Steven. "Hey, Chen. Welcome back. We were just discussing..."
"I know what you were discussing! Like I said, you can hear it all the way in the stairwell. Better keep this sort of thing to the headquarters." Steven's Hong Kong accent had gotten much thicker with his absence for three months.
"Hey, where's Aaron?" Steven asked at length. "I got his D&D books I borrowed."
Caz said "I haven't heard from him. It's kind of odd, he said he'd be in first thing."
Rick pulled out his cell phone to call Aaron. His forehead wrinkled with concern. "Aaron's cell is disconnected."
Chen uttered an explitave.
"This is not a good sign," Caz said. Even Angela seemed uneasy. The argument between Angela and Rick came to an abrupt halt as the group began to worry about their friend. In this line of business, one was vulnerable to attacks from unexpected quarters, especially when one's true identity was known, as Dragonfly's was.
"Let's continue this discussion downstairs," Rick suggested. Two at a time, they went down the elevator and into the HQ. Steven Chen dusted some cobwebs off his seat before sitting down. Rick joined Angela at the computer console. Caz leaned on the edge of the table.
After thirty minutes, they were no closer to knowing Aaron's wereabouts than when they started. That's when Rick said "Snap! Sydney was coming over! We were going to meet in my room and then head down here." Opening a portal back to the room, Rick opened the door into the hallway to find Sydney walking, or rather stalking, angrily back down the hall.
"Hey, Syd!" he called out.
"Hey, Syd?" the short, dark haired young woman asked. "That's the best you've got? You leave me standing in the hall for fifteen minutes and all I get is 'Hey Syd'?"
"Sydney, come in. We've got some issues downstairs." Rick explained on the elevator ride into the HQ that Dragonfly had not arrived and could not be contacted.
"What's the big deal?" she asked. "He probably just got a new phone, and he's running late. You guys need to relax."
"I don't know..." Rick said uneasily as they walked toward the meeting table.
"Caz, Steven, this is Sydney. You've met Angela."
"Yes, I have," Sydney said. She was polite enough to Angela, but Sydney could tell there was something just not right about her, and Angela could tell that she could tell.
"So, Sydney, this is Cazmonster," who shifted into his heroic form to demonstrate, "and Palisade" who also possessed the gift of quick transformation, and shifted into his costume as well.
Sydney nodded. "Nice to re-meet you!" She, of course, could to no such thing.
"Guys, I really think you should consider letting Sydney join us provisionally. She's got some very useful..."
Rick was shushed by Cazmonster. "I'm getting readings on police band. Something's going on up top, right outside Langley!"
"Looks like you'll get a chance to demonstrate quicker than we'd planned," Rick said to Sydney. "Shall we?"
Sydney pulled a blue-gray robe, complete with full hood, from a bag she was holding. A mask finished up the costume, should the hood fall away in battle. "Let's go!" she said, putting on the robe as they exited through the new rear exit to the parking lot across from Langley.
As soon as they got out, Palisade became airborne; Sydney pulled a loose rock from the ground and used it to levitate herself, effectively flying as well. Rick and Cazmonster sprinted toward the street. There, five beings in red and gold armor floated in the air. It was obvious two of them had just ripped off a large section of wall. They were shouting something over internal megaphones. Something in Chinese.
"Oh, hell!" Palisade mumbled.
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