So much for an easy first job.

Demise had run this playbook before: A quiet heist conducted while the city's heroes were busy elsewhere. Pacify the local civilians, collect whatever item had attracted her attention, and leave quickly and quietly. A clean first job. She'd learned from her previous mistake. Experience had sanded down the rough edges of her procedure until even a heroic response didn't phase her. She'd dismissed Thundriana in less than 3 minutes when she attempted to stop her in Eagleton. She'd put the Pale Strider in the hospital for trying to keep her from snatching the Rabanastre Diamond. Heroes were goofy, sanctimonious, predictable. Barely even worth her time.

She'd assumed the same of the fierce looking Black man in the red and white armor who'd accosted her in the R&D facility of the Meritron Building. He was tall, muscular, and as cocky as the rest. Demise remembered yawning before dropping the stellar engine she'd stolen into the starry abyss of her coat. She'd barely felt anything at all when she'd cast her favorite spell and hurled toward him. Malus Meteora sent her flying through the air and to take her target down with meteoric force. Despite her knees on his shoulders and the solar powered superhero's warm face between her thick thighs, Demise had barely felt anything at all. Heatstroke, as he'd introduced himself, was uncommonly attractive, but she remained unconvinced that he was uncommonly smart or strong. Defeating him, embarrassing him, would be like going through the motions, and she wouldn't feel anything at all doing so. It was all so mundane.

“Listen up,” She said as she called the room to order. She stood at the head of the table, graphs and pictures displayed on the large screen behind her. “We're real and we proved it. We're not some one-off rebellion. We're the Renegades, and the Maji will have to deal with us globally now. That means clashes with the Astral League, the Starseekers, and whoever else they find.” Nedra explained, sitting backwards in her chair at the head of the table. She ran a hand through her dense braids and smiled at the group of agents and majes assembled in the room. Her dark red leather jacket commanded almost as much attention as her confidence did.

“It also means running PR missions for non-Maji aligned countries.” Max said, British accent on full display. “You can run an operation, but civilians need to see us run a campaign.” With his dirty blonde curly undercut and trimmed goatee, Max Winters looked ready for a photoshoot or a battlefield. Like Nedra, he'd also shown up in his typical outfit. Unlike her leather jacket, holsters, and gear just casual enough to blend into a crowd, Max's purple and black bodysuit was designed for absorbing impacts and minimal wind resistance while flying through the air.

“What they need is stability.” Across the table from him, Donojan Oerbas scowled. His wavy silver tresses hung down his brown face in an asymmetric cut designed to obscure his eye patch. “Wars aren't won on the battlefield. They're won in the hearts and minds of the populaces and soldiers involved. Ask me how I know.”

The question was facetious; everyone in the room knew the well publicized story of the crown prince of the nation of Oerbas ascending to the throne 12 months prior amidst rumors of scandal and betrayal only to be ousted after a long bloody civil war led by his wife. Less public was his recent association with a group reviled as terrorists or hailed as liberators, depending on who was talking.

Heatstroke checked the information on his phone one more time before he landed on the ground: a lone metahuman, hostile, no known accomplices, involved in a robbery. Several reports of injuries and property damage, but no fatalities. By all accounts it was the exact kind of situation he excelled at solving quickly and simply. He'd run in there, let his or his squad's reputation precede him, and then, if he was lucky, get to fight a little besides. The thought spread a smile across his brown face as he leapt through the air. The superhero gripped the high collar of his chestpiece with both gloved hands as the ground raced up towards him. Heatstroke grunted with the impact of his boots along the concrete, taking a few running steps to gather himself like a plane landing on the tarmac. He'd gotten more accurate with his massive leaps across town, but timing his solar powers to soften the landing was often more trouble than it solved. Instead he skidded across the asphalt, trying not to warm it beneath him with each step.

It wasn't hard to distinguish which building had been hit: the block had only one building whose facade looked like some giant beast had taken a bite out of its second floor. Debris littered the floor outside the building, and he considered whether to use the front door or enter via the hole that someone else had already made. The latter made more sense, and glass crunched beneath his laced boots as he looked around.

Written as a commission for a client who wanted fanfiction of 3 of his favorite characters

Cosmo Imai looked around his gym and sighed. It was true that their humble gym attracted a murderer's row of fighters and martial artists looking to improve themselves. But they'd spent so much time fighting, sweating, learning together that Cosmo knew their habits and styles nearly as well as his own.

He could scarcely imagine a situation where training and fighting weren't his favorite pastimes, but he could no longer deny to himself that he'd grown bored and this had grown stale.

He sipped from his water bottle and scanned the gym again, forcing a smile and a generic compliment to his latest training partner to hide his growing discontent. He made a note to reach out to some of the more eclectic fighter' s he'd met through his travels and see if any of them were still local.

The athletic 20 year old yearned for the sense of danger and uncertainty that had endeared him to fighting in the first place. His blonde ponytail bounced as he shook his head and subsumed the feeling beneath the simple joy of grappling. The dissatisfaction endured, but he couldn't defeat it by pouting and wishing anymore than he could become the world's best martial artist overnight. Results required effort.

January, the Year Everything Happened

“Hey Simone, are you here to talk shit or are you here to spar?” Natalie Turner asked, standing in what had formerly been a very focused fighting stance. Her blue mouthguard, still shiny with spittle, now clutched in the palm of her hand as she narrowed her brown eyes at her partner.

“Both, ideally.” Simone Williams grinned. There was no tension in her 5'10 frame, just brown eyes full of mischief and laughter creasing her face. She shrugged, baggy tee obscuring the athletic body beneath, palms of her red MMA gloves up towards the ceiling of the gym.

“Come on. I've got class in an hour and we still gotta catch the bus back to campus.” Natalie complained. “Waste your own time; some of us are trying to go pro.” She slid her mouthguard back in and waved on the other college freshman: Nat was done talking even if her friend wasn't.

Early March, The Year Before Everything Happened

====================================== “You're fucking kidding me. I mean she's kidding right?” Sofia Gomez groaned. She stood there on the stage, wearing gym shorts and a sports bra. She'd comfortably made weight for her third professional MMA bout only to watch her opponent shed nearly all her clothing to barely make it under the 136 lb limit on the second attempt. Worse yet, the tall black woman had maintained a starry eyed, goofball expression throughout the proceedings as if she were simply happy to be there.

Sofia wondered if she'd looked that starstruck ahead of her professional debut. She doubted it; back then all she'd thought about was just beating the other girl by any means possible. As a final indignity, when they turned toward each other for the weigh in and matchup photos, her opponent had met Sofia's serious, 'fists raised' pose with a broad smile and a goofy pose more suited for a cartoon than a fighter. Sofia clenched her jaw: this girl must be fucking with her. She might not take Sofia serious yet, but once the cage door closed, this goofy teen would realize just how serious she was.

Unlike Sofia’s first two opponents, tonight's victim came with a little buzz of her own: amateur boxing, kickboxing, and MMA experience, and a famous mother. Her opponent's mother might be “The Assassin” but Sofia wasn't fighting Yolanda Freeman. She was fighting the daughter, an apparently starstruck college freshman. Sofia and her team didn't need tape to expect a technically proficient striker and only needed their eyes to recognize a girl in over her head. She ran her hands through her brown tresses and grimaced. Mauling a famous person's daughter might be just what she needed to finally earn the attention she deserved

The following is an excerpt from a larger story I'm working on; it's seen only rough edits for readability and represents an acceptable 1st draft. I already know which wide swaths of this chapter need to change. But in the meantime, enjoy magic, powers, teamwork, witty dialogue, and a tense battle.

Staff Sergeant Tiffany Couch had never been so happy to watch a man plummet from the sky. It was a curious thing to even consider. But as the wiry man fell towards the earth, his dirty blonde hair tousled by the wind, she couldn't shake the unmistakable feeling that their situation would improve dramatically once he hit the ground. The Army veteran hunkered down behind an uprooted tree and watched.

The man turned over in midair, righting himself right before he hit the tree line. A translucent purple haze covered his body, slowing his descent until his feet grazed the mossy carpet of the frosty Colorado forest. Sergeant Couch sprinted at him, trusting her squad to keep the attention of the monster they'd attracted.

“Glad to have you, Major,” she said, her voice low and tense. “Did Joint Command fill you in on the situa-”

“Jeez, you look like shit.” The new arrival interrupted her, looking past her and into the dense woodland behind her. “MC2 mentioned an 'unidentified hostile mage.' Something about 'hard light.' I'll figure it out as I go.” He shrugged.

“That's not just 'some mage.' That's Verdict, the religious terrorist.” She explained. “He's one of those Manifestations,”