Zed Chambers and his sister were second-generation Touched. Their powers were inherited. They hadn't actually touched an orb themselves. Instead, they gained altered versions of their mother's powers. Most people didn't know that. But the strange woman who was part of that group of mysterious, powerful Fells who had come out of nowhere and broke into that Touched-Tech vault did. She had realized immediately it, as soon as whatever power she had been using to make people do what she wanted had failed to work on them. They were immune. Which implied that she had enough experience to know how her power worked (or failed to, rather) on people like them. That… was interesting, considering how relatively rare they were.

Honestly, that should have been game, set, and match as soon as they separated her from anyone she could affect. When Lexi used her egg to send the woman clear to the far side of the field, away from everyone except for the two of them once they followed suit, that should have been the end of her ability to be any sort of real threat. She should have been basically helpless.

So just exactly how the hell was this girl still kicking both of their butts so freaking thoroughly?

Oh, it had started out well enough. The three of them popped back into existence far away from the rest of the team, or anyone else who could be taken over by her power. They were even further from the highway than they started out after first being teleported, standing in the middle of an utterly empty field, surrounded by nothing but weeds, grass, dirt, and a few rocks. No one was close enough for her to affect. As she looked around quickly and clearly took stock of her situation, Zed had smiled and stepped that way with a raised hand, his voice light as he told her she could surrender any time. He'd felt a brief sense of triumph, a rush of accomplishment for how well their first real mission out in the field was going, all things considered. Very brief.

It had lasted right up to the point where she punched him in the face. And it wasn't like he wasn't looking at her at the time. He absolutely was. Zed might've been technically new to being an official member of a team like this, to being a public Star-Touched, but he wasn't a complete idiot. He and Lexi had both been trained thoroughly by their mother, and even their father in general self-defense and field awareness. Zed had been looking right at this woman as he approached.

But it didn't help. One second she was just standing there, taking in her new situation, and the next thing he knew, her fist was colliding with his chin. Well, colliding with his mask anyway. Which, fortunately, wasn't actually the simple cloth it appeared to be. The mask was made of an expensive material that looked and felt very light, but was still very protective. They'd been told by the Tech-Touched their mother had bought the masks from that his material would safely dissipate the impact from anything up to small arms fire. But frankly, Zed never wanted to test what 'up to' meant. He had no interest in finding out exactly how much impact he'd be safe from.

All of which was to say, this bitch hit him much harder than he'd ever been hit in this mask. And definitely harder than he'd been eager to test. The fact that he felt it so much, that it was enough to send him reeling backward while seeing stars, was already proof enough that she was a hell of a lot stronger than any normal person would be. Adding in how fast she moved (maybe not quite supernatural speed or anything, but still) and apparently she wasn't actually limited to only using that power that turned people into her brainwashed, obsessed superfans. She had other tricks.

That much was clear from the moment her fist collided with his face. So Zed really didn't need or appreciate the added proof that came as she somehow pivoted around him, caught hold of his arm to yank it a bit further than it probably should have bent considering the pain that shot through it, and used him as a pole to hoist herself up so she could kick Lexi in the stomach.

The next thing Zed knew, the force of this woman pushing off him like that sent him facefirst into the dirt. Thanks to the training their parents had drilled into them for so long, he managed to roll with the impact, one hand snatching an assortment of pebbles from the ground. As he came up to his knees and twisted back that way, that hand lashed out to send the pebbles flying. But not just them. He used his power, creating several energy duplicates of each of those small pebbles. So instead of about twenty of them, the woman was bombarded by sixty over the next couple seconds. It was enough to make her stumble back a step, cursing loudly and creatively the whole time. Apparently she wasn't a very big fan of getting hit in the face with tiny rocks.

Lexi tried to take advantage of that by nailing the woman with an egg, probably to send her up in the air if he knew his sister. But even blinded and distracted by the tiny stones flying into her face, the stranger still managed to anticipate it and sidestepped just in time. Her fist snapped out to backhand the other girl hard enough in her own reinforced mask to knock her onto her back with an audible yelp as the glowing egg flew off harmlessly, soon dissipating with no target to hit.

Resisting the urge to blurt his sister's name, Zed's hand found a pocket on his dark blue coveralls and yanked out what looked like a simple, small handle while scrambling to his feet. A quick press of a button on the side made that handle extend into a baton that was just under two feet long and maybe an inch wide. Not much at all. But as he lunged that way and swung the baton, the boy focused on his power. He didn't just make a single energy duplicate of the weapon, he made five of them. And each of those energy duplicates followed a slightly different angle than the original or any of the others. So while this woman easily evaded the baton he was swinging at her, three of those five others landed hits. The first smacked against her raised wrist, drawing a yelp, while the second hit her shoulder and the third rebounded off the side of her head. None were enough to put her down, but they hurt.

More importantly, they distracted her enough for Zed to slip past the woman and grab Lexi's arm. He got his sister back to her feet and she immediately chucked another egg that way. But again, the woman avoided it. She was distracted from the batons smacking into her, and still at least a little off balance from the pebbles, but the second the egg came toward her, she reacted instantly and threw herself sideways to get out of its way. The fact that it had been coming at her back didn't seem to matter at all. She just knew the egg was coming and avoided it perfectly. If this was a game, Zed would've said she had to be using hacks. What the hell was this?

It had to be another power, no one was that good on their own, not like that. She had to have one of those extra sensory powers that some Touched ended up with. Maybe something to do with knowing where potential people she could try to target with her power were, and what they were doing in that moment or something? He wasn't sure, but he was willing to put good money on it being something to that effect. And whatever it was, the effect was pretty damn annoying.

But not nearly as annoying as being kicked in the chest, which was exactly what that woman did right then. Actually, she kicked both of them in the chest, simultaneously. Suddenly, she was just right there, flinging herself between the siblings while spinning in the air. Her left foot slammed into Lexi's chest, knocking his sister sprawling backward into the dirt. Not even a second later, her spin continued as her other foot planted itself in Zed's chest and knocked him in the opposite direction. The ground came up fast and hard as he slammed down into it before rolling haphazardly with a grunt. Fuuuuck, that was gonna bruise, yup that smarted. Ouch, shit, damn.

No time to assess all those bruises though, because this bitch wasn't content to just stand there and wait for them to recover. She was already practically on top of him even as he finished that little roll from the impact of being kicked into the dirt. She'd landed, recovered, pivoted, and was midway through a lunge already, with a knife in her hand. Zed barely had time to recognize the threat before she was right there. In the last instant before she would've landed on him, he was able to lift one hand to create an energy duplicate of the air just above him. The makeshift sort of forcefield caught the woman as she slammed down into it, her knife glancing off the glowing air right in front of his face. It came down hard enough to send up a few sparks from the impact.

As she laid there, separated from him by that air energy duplicate, the woman stared down at Zed, their eyes meeting through their respective masks. He could've sworn she was smiling at him. And she definitely winked. She'd just tried to stab him in the face and she was laying there on top of his forcefield, just winking and smiling at him. What the hell was wrong with this chick?

Rather than waste time trying to actually figure that out, Zed grabbed two handfuls of dirt, as large as he could manage. With a grunt, he hurled himself into a sideways roll while cancelling his little air-based forcefield. At the same time, his hands flung upwards and back, throwing all the dirt he'd gathered toward her face as she fell through the now-open air to land in the spot where he'd just been. Like with the pebbles and the sticks, he created multiple energy duplicates of every bit of dirt. Suddenly, what had been barely enough dust to fill two hands was a much larger cloud that enveloped the chick and left her almost completely obscured for a moment.

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While she was still extracting herself from that, Zed once again managed to get Lexi back to her feet, grasping her hand to pull her up before both of them spread out to avoid being a single easy target. They exchanged quick glances, both knowing they had to do something to stop the woman. Unfortunately, she wasn't exactly cooperating with the 'be helpless without the use of her main power' thing. Which just meant they were gonna have to be a bit creative about this.

By that point, the stranger had managed to scramble back up and waved the cloud of dust out of her face, sputtering in obvious annoyance. She paused there for just a second, eyes shifting toward Zed first, then over to Lexi as she expertly twirled that knife. It looked like some sort of six inch long hunting blade, sharp and serrated. Actually, given the blade itself was a purplish color and glowed faintly, there was probably something special about it beyond cutting things.

Right, of course there had to be more to it than that. Whoever this woman and her friends were, they were obviously connected. That much was probably clear enough just from the fact that they knew where that confiscated Touched-Tech vault was, but everything else they did made it more and more apparent that this wasn't just some random new gang. They knew too much, they were too confident, too skilled, and definitely too powerful. These people were dangerous.

Besides, something about them was tickling the back of Zed's mind, like he should know more about what was going on, or about who they were, but hadn't quite been able to put it together yet. It was right there on the tip of his tongue, like when he was playing Scrabble with his dad (one of their favorite pastimes, even if Lexi and Mom always accused the two of them of cheating) and knew there was a great word somewhere in his jumbled assortment of letters if he could just stare at them long enough to put them in the right order and make the thing jump out at him.

But at least for now, he couldn't unscramble those letters, couldn't make the real picture become clear. Not with the woman already lunging at him while her hand snapped out to throw the knife right at Lexi. Fortunately, his sister's trouble with hitting the stranger herself didn't extend to her weapons, as it sliced right through one of her eggs before briefly shifting into energy as it went flying sideways to embed itself halfway into a boulder. Which immediately began to disintegrate, so yeah, definitely not an ordinary blade. And definitely not something they wanted to be cut by.

That realization was pretty important a second later, as the woman reached Zed and lashed out with another of those knives. It looked identical to the first, and the woman gave a loud cackle as it came down right into Zed's reflexively raised arm with an audible hiss and sizzle. Her shriek of laughter only cut off a second or two later when she belatedly realized Zed wasn't disintegrating. Mostly because she hadn't actually hit his arm. He'd made an energy duplicate of that part of his own costume, so she saw the raised sleeve and glove without noticing that the rest of him wasn't exactly attached to it anymore. By the time the woman realized what just happened, Zed's foot was already colliding with her stomach with enough force to make her stagger a bit.

That kick should have been enough to distract her from Lexi's approach. But then, it wasn't like this was the first time in the past thirty seconds that she should have been too occupied to notice something and just did anyway. And it was no different this time. No sooner had Lexi taken a quick step toward her and swung her arm out, than the still-staggering woman was already jumping sideways to avoid the… nothing. Lexi didn't actually throw anything, she just made the motion as though she was, doing so convincingly enough to make the woman dodge.

Aaand she was still in midair from that dodge when the egg hit her in the back. The egg that Zed had been holding tucked away, waiting for the right opening. Both of them had realized this stranger would always be ready for Lexi, that she somehow knew every time the girl tried to throw an egg and dropped everything to dodge out of the way. So she'd snuck one to her brother that last time he'd helped her to her feet, while the woman was obscured in dust.

The realization of all of that had to be running through her mind, as a single, blurted, "Fu--" escaped her. Then she was transformed into energy and went flying straight up into the air. By the time she came out of it, Lexi had already flung a second egg into that exact spot. There was no time for the woman to react, or do much of anything other than finish that 'ck' part of her curse before she was transformed into energy again. This time, she was flung back down toward the ground. Lexi took her out of it shortly above the ground, so she turned solid just in time to slam hard enough into the dirt to stun her. And probably leave her with a few bruises.

Before she could recover, Zed was there with a set of stay-down cuffs. He caught one wrist, hooking the cuff around it and latching it in place. By that point, Lexi had come skidding in on one knee to grab the woman's other wrist, and he flipped the other side of the cuffs for her to catch and snap into place on that one. Instantly, they hummed with power as they came to life. And just like that, this freaking woman was finally caught. She wasn't going anywhere now.

Or she shouldn't have been able to. But the twins hadn't counted on one thing: the woman had friends. Or at least allies. The realization of that came as they looked at one another with triumphant gazes just long enough for Lexi's eyes to widen as she saw something behind her brother. She was already calling out a warning while hitting herself and Zed with a pair of eggs that sprang into her hands. They went shooting sideways, just as a literal fucking full-sized car flew right through the air where they had just been crouched. It slammed noisily into the ground fifty or so feet away and went tumbling end over end in a shower of dirt, rocks, and twisted metal. From the look of it, as much as they could tell from what was left of the thing anyway, it had been practically brand new before that collision. Which meant it wasn't just lying around in the field collecting rust, it had been dragged or carried all the way over from the distant road.

As the twins popped back into existence, falling over one another in a tangled heap, they both looked that way in time to see another one of those strangers come strolling through the field. It was the older woman, the one that was probably Asian judging by the accented voice they'd heard earlier. A voice that came again as the woman called out, "I'm in no mood for any more shenanigans, children. Do your families the favor of staying where you are, so you can go back to them in one piece tonight." The threat came casually, as she walked up to the cuffed woman.

"You took your sweet time," that particular stranger complained, shifting as much as the special restraints allowed her to. "Where the hell is Fido, I thought he was supposed to be my backup."

"Dead," came the flat response. "Along with a girl who thought she could play hero to stop us." With that, she reached down, grasped the restraints, and gave a simple squeeze to snap them. The broken cuffs were tossed aside like garbage, and the woman they'd worked so hard to capture was back up again, like nothing had ever happened. It was really annoying. Sure, Mom and Dad had always told them that bad guys like that tended to end up back on the streets before they should, but this was ridiculous.

More importantly, hearing the Asian woman's words made Zed's breath catch. A girl was dead? What girl? Who was--what? His mind raced as he glanced to his sister, both of them trying to figure out what they should do, what they could do. That woman, whoever she was under that mask, was strong enough to casually hurl a car clear across a field like it was nothing. But they couldn't just let her go, they had to try to stop her. Together, the twins rolled away from each other and popped to their feet, Lexi holding one of her eggs at the ready while Zed held a couple fist-sized stones he'd managed to grab. Sure, fine, these women were dangerous, but they couldn't just let them go. Especially if someone was already dead. They had to try to--

There was no one there. The two women had vanished in the time it took Zed and Lexi to scramble to their feet and turn that way. A quick, confused glance around confirmed it. They were alone there in the field.

"What-- where'd they go?" Lexi anxiously demanded, looking back over her shoulder yet again, just in case the pair had somehow managed to move behind them in that time. "What the hell?"

"Probably teleported again," Zed replied, head shaking as he brushed himself off. "They're gone." He gave a soft sigh, conflicting emotions running through the boy. He was glad he and his sister were okay, but he still wanted to know who died. It wasn't any of the Minority, they had all been teleported here. Except Raindrop, but she wasn't even in the city. So who…?

"Let's get back to the others," Lexi finally managed. "The rest of those guys might still be over there."

Zed gave a quick nod. "Yeah, and if we're really lucky, maybe we can still manage to grab one of them and figure out who the hell they are and what they're doing.

"Cuz there's something really weird going on here."

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