A New Union

The blond sat in silence too as she simply downed more of her drink, now feeling a bit silly at having brought up the topic of home. It seemed like no matter what the topic, it managed to strike a sore spot with one of them. Siren needed to think of something that would liven the mood and quickly. Finally, an idea came to her, "Oh! Do you play any video games or read comics? I actually have a handful back home that I relax with when I got time," It was the first idea that came to her so she rolled with it.

"I remember once being at a yard sale with my Mom and saw a Super NES with Super Mario All Stars for 50 bucks. I practically begged my Mom to buy it for me and when I took it home, I played it whenever I wasn't at school or doing chores. I swear, I only ever beat that darn Special World once..." At realizing she was rambling, she stopped herself, "Oh, uh...sorry about that. When I get hyped about something, I tend to ramble."

Lucy mentally whipped a fictional bead of sweat from her brow as her little slip up went unnoticed. Thankfully Siren was more into the conversation that she hadn’t noticed what Lucy had said or had alluded to. On to the subject at hand, Lucy couldn’t quite say she was found of gaming as much as she was of just drawing as a hobby. But wherever art was involved the young woman was sure to have some interest. Comics were high on Lucy’s list of things she enjoyed. It combined two of her favorite pastimes, reading and drawing, together.

“There’s a comic book store not to far from where I live that I used to stop at when I would do my jogs in the morning. Now that I run at night, I usually get up and head over there around noon.” She took the last few sips of her coffee and lightly placed the empty cup on the table. “It’s easy to get carried away when talking about something that you really enjoy.” she said flashing a smile to the blonde woman, in an attempt to cheer her up.

Lucy glared at her empty cup, part of her really wanted another, especially since her whole sleeping pattern had changed. There was no longer a need for the young woman to get up at the break of dawn now that she did her run at night, and things like this coffee helped keep her up at night. “I’m going to get another one of these, how about you?” Lucy asked as she rose from her seat, wiggling the empty cup back and fourth. As she rose her leg brushed against the bag of bagels she had hung from the back of the chair. The rustling of the plastic made her look down. Upon seeing the bag, Lucy smacked herself in the forehead. “Awe man! I totally forgot I had these, we could have been enjoying them with our drinks the whole time.”

Siren shook her head, "I'm fine, thanks, but feel free to get yourself another one," At realizing they still had the bagels, she had to resist the urge to do another facepalm at their own forgetfulness, "Right...coffee and bagels usually go together like peanut butter and chocolate," She was about to ask what kinds of comics Lucy was into when suddenly she winced at hearing a loud siren in her ears.

She got up and looked out to see several cop cars drive past the front door. Siren mentally cursed to herself at having her evening being interrupted but figured that her job came first. However, she needed an excuse to slip away. "Hey,um, sorry to do this but I just remembered that it's getting kinda late and I'm not too fond of being out past midnight. Here," She laid a ten dollar bill on the table, "For your coffee. Thanks again, and maybe I'll see you around, Lucy."

With a wave, she headed out the door, only to drop into an alleyway and drop her disguise, becoming their alien self once more. With that done, they floated up to the rooftops and followed in pursuit of the cars.

The look of enthusiasm on Lucy’s face quickly faded as a small squad of cop cars tore past the cafe, sirens blaring. Her immediate instinct was to turn to Siren and make up some silly excuse about heading home, just so she could follow those police cars. Before the young woman could even open her mouth, Siren spoke out, exclaiming that it was quite late for them and that they’d be heading home. Lucy let out a small sigh as Siren laid the ten dollar bill on the table and slipped out the front door.

Returning to the table, Lucy slipped the ten in her back pocket, she’d have to give it back to the blonde woman the next time they met up, after all this whole coffee thing was Lucy’s treat to begin with. After retrieving the plastic bag filled with bagels off the back of her chair, Lucy approached the counter of the cafe and ordered one more coffee to go before darting out the door and jogging down the sidewalk in the same direction the cop cars had gone. Lucy chuckled to herself, finding the fact that she was pursuing a bunch of cop cars, quite hysterical.

Perhaps switching to a night time jog was a terrible idea considering everything she tried to avoid had happened. She had a run in with a stranger, though thankfully she hadn’t had any issues with her power. And now, Lucy found herself running head on into danger. Just what was this night coming to?

After a brief jog, the flashing lights from the police cars came into view. She was just a block away from them when she realized they were responding to a robbery in progress at a local bank. Lucy joined the crowd gathered outside, but kept her distance from any one person out of fear of her power going off. She’d remain on standby and assess the situation from here, waiting till it was apparent that her help would be needed.

It didn't take long for the cops and Siren to reach their destination which happened to be a seemingly average-looking bank. However, Siren wasn't ready to drop her guard just yet. There were likely people that could be used as hostages inside and if that were the case then this could get complicated very fast. For now, she squatted on the rooftops and waited for her chance.

Down below, one of the police pulled out a megaphone and spoke into it, "This is the police! We have you surrounded! There's no place for you to run so just come out now with your hands up!" After a few seconds, he turned towards one of his men, "Do we know if there's any civilians inside or if any demands have been made?"

The other officer shook his head, "No on both accounts, sir. We're almost convinced there has to be civilians inside for sure but we haven't received any demands either..."

The man in charge frowned and shook his head, "Stay by the receiver and let me know if you hear anything." His fellow cop nodded and returned to his car. A few seconds later, Siren descended behind him, but for some reason he didn't look that surprised, "Was wondering when you were gonna show up..."

"Nice to see you too, chief," Siren retorted with a roll of her eyes as she leaned against his car, "Pleasantries aside, anything I can help you with?" Despite her lack of discipline, the alien hero was always the kind willing to lend a hand.

"We can handle this one just fine without you," The chief grunted before his speaker suddenly went off, "What the..." He grabbed it, "Hello? Who is this?" After a few seconds, his frown turned into a deep scowl and he held out the receiver, "It's for you..."

Caught a little off-guard, Siren took the speaker and spoke into it, "Hello?"

"Greetings, Siren. A pleasure to make your acquaintance," came a distorted voice on the other end, "We know who you are...or better yet, we know WHAT you are..and you can't run away from it..."

It was the hero's turn to scowl, "Look, I got no idea who you are, but it don't have to go down like this. Just let the hostages go and turn yourselves in. There's no need for this to become a blood bath."

The voice let out a dark chuckle, "That's rich coming from you. You can act as rational as you want...but at the end of the day you're still our property..." Hearing that was enough for her skin to go pale, "Got it figured out yet?...If so, then we'll gladly release these wastes of filth in here...in exchange for you, of course."

Lucy kept her head on a swivel as she looked for anything that might queue her in on what the situation was like inside the bank. Her view wasn’t exactly the best as she tried to orbit on the edge of the crowd. Eventually she got brave enough to push her way past the crowd and to the front where she could get a better view of the police and the perimeter they had established. Lucy’s eyes bounced around until they locked on to a very peculiar site, one she was surprised no one was reacting to.

Over by one of the squad cars sat the police chief and an alien like being. The two seemed to be conversing with one another as if they knew each other. Then amid their conversation the chief got a call which was immediately handed over to the strange alien. Going by the look on the beings face, things were not as they seemed. Lucy took this as her opportunity to slip away from the crowd. She attempted to make her way towards the side of the building but took note of the two burly officers preventing any sort of passage. She’d have to find another way around, and she would.

Slipping around the block, Lucy dipped into the next alley way and made her way up the fire escape. Once on the roof Lucy was faced with the daunting task of leaping from one building to another. The gap between the apartment and the bank was manageable, or at least it looked like it from this angle. Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Lucy did a few stretches and tried to hype herself up for the leap she was about to make.

Kicking off the floor, Lucy would break into a full blown sprint. With a singular push off the ledge of the building, Lucy would propel herself over the alley way and onto the roof of the bank. She took a moment to catch her breath before looking for any sort of access point she could use to enter the bank. She snaked across the roof until she found the roof access door. Reaching up to her hair she retrieved on of her hair pins and began to pick the lock. She let out a small chuckle as she heard the lock disengage. “Thank you random criminal.” she mumbled to herself.

A varying degree of thoughts went through Lucy’s mind as she stealthily made her way down the stairs. *What am I even doing here? I don’t have any immediate powers, I’m only going to make things worse for the police. But it’s my obligation as someone with the means to stop these thugs to do so…* she let out a small groan before opening a door that would lead out to where the tellers would have been.

Siren was silent for several seconds as she processed all this info. Finally, she relented, "Alright, you got yourself a deal...but we make the swap at the same time, got that? No funny business."

"Of course. We'll make the swap in about ten minutes. Be seeing you soon." With that, the speaker went dead.

"You do realize this is a trap, right?" The chief quizzed Siren, obviously having seen situations like this before and regardless of how he felt about metahumans in general, he was still a cop and didn't want to see anyone dead on his watch.

"I 'm aware of that, sir," She handed back the speaker, "But at least this way we can minimize casualties. That, and I got a few questions for those blokes inside." The chief only nodded and made the motion for his fellow cops to back off for the moment.

Once ten minutes was up, Siren started walking towards the building and as she did so, the front doors flew open with a small horde of people rushing out, ignoring the person taking their place in favor of hugging their loved ones who'd been waiting outside. Siren nodded to them and headed inside...
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"Hmph, gullible fool," remarked one of the men in black suits within the bank as he watched through the window, "If there's one thing I know about these hero types is they always got a death wish. The moment you put someone in the line of fire, they'll do whatever you want..."

"Don't get cocky, Zadra. There's a reason this one's alluded us for so long," commented another as he loaded up some sort of large gun. "We give her an inch, she'll tear us all to pieces."

As Lucy made her way through the door, she'd hear and see a man gagged and tied up lying under some sort of desk. Apparently, this group had kept one of the civilians behind as collateral.

As Lucy crept through the back door she overheard several voiced conversing with one another. These voices no doubt belonged to the criminals that here trying to rob the bank. Quite suspiciously they had decided to let all of their hostages go for some reason. As Lucy attempted to creep up closer she could hear the muffled cries of a man. It took her several seconds to find the source of the noise, but soon found a man tied and gagged under one of the teller stands. Approaching the man as quietly as she could, Lucy would reach out to him with one hand and motion for him to remain silent with the other.

Undoing the gag in the mans mouth, Lucy began to question him. “Why did they let the others go but not you? What’s going on here?” she kept her voice extremely low and hoped the man heard her clearly. Hopefully he was smart enough to keep his voice down as well. Lucy was also risking quite a bit being here as it was. She didn’t have any borrowed powers she could call on, nor was she looking forward to obtaining any.

While Lucy waited for the man’s response, she undid his bindings and then peaked out from behind the counter to get a clearer view of what was going on. From the spot where Lucy sat, she had a clear view of the main doors to the bank, and as the last few hostages were funneling out, the young woman could make out what could only be considered as the silhouette of the strange being she had seen chatting it up with the police chief. Still, despite being able to see all of that, she still couldn’t quite make out where the robbers were, which was going to be an issue for sure.

"Close the doors behind you," ordered one of the robbers to Siren whom did as he instructed, "Make sure it's locked up tight. We don't want any unwelcome visitors," Siren did that too, "Good, good. You know, we've traveled a nice way's to find you, little miss experiment..."

Siren froze up at hearing those words, before sighing, "I have no idea what you're talking about..." A blast of what looked like green light streaked by her head and exploded a nearby teller stand.

The man's hand was glowing green as he lowered it, "Lie to us again and I promise you my next shot won't miss," He started walking about as the other robbers began to arm themselves with what looked like arm guards that opened up to reveal green energy blades, "Now, you can either make this very easy on yourself, or very difficult...personally, I'd rather the latter," The robbers began dropping down from the upper floors and landing with catlike grace.

Siren sighed and shook her head, "Let me guess...you're with the space pirates that tried to turn my friend and her people into weapons, aren't you?"

"About time you figured that out," The men hit some some sort of device on their belts and their forms flickered like static before revealing tall humanoid creatures of various unearthly designs such as swollen heads, long tails and tentacles in place of hands. Each of them were armed too, "Now, you're gonna stay right there and let us tear you limb from bloody limb...or else..."

The head alien nodded and two of those who were armed with weapons began making their way over to where Lucy and the hostage were hiding. Said man hissed to her, "I don't know who you are or why you're here but you need to get out of here quickly. Trust me, those things out there aren't human. Run while you still can...there's no need for both of us to die today."

Lucy nearly leapt out from behind the counter as one of the nearby stalls went up in a rain of splinters. Her worry quickly turned into a sinister grin however, as she now had a target to focus on. If she could sneak up to that one individual she might be able to ‘borrow’ his power and use it to help stop these thugs. Then something caught her attention, the thugs and the alien being knew each other. *More friggin aliens?* Lucy thought to herself completely ignoring the warnings that the once tied up man barked. Lucy’s eyes shifted from her target to the approaching goons.

*I wonder if they’ve got anything I could borrow to.* Whether the aliens possessed any powers that Lucy could take advantage of or not, was not the most important thing right now. She had to make herself scarce and fast, but she also had to make sure the man was safe as well. This was going to be a pain in the ass for sure, and the young woman had to improvise if they were to not get caught. Tapping the man on the leg, Lucy motioned for the man to move down a few stalls.

When the space pirates would lean over the counter to retrieve their trump card, they would find only his bindings. Lucy urged and pushed the man along trying to keep him out of sight and out of the alien’s hands. Lucy let out a small sigh of relief as they had narrowly avoided being caught, but now a new problem presented itself. In moving down a few stalls, Lucy and the man were now further from the roof access door. Taking a few breaths to calm her nerves, Lucy looked down to her hand that was slightly shaking. Reaching up with her other hand, Lucy began to slowly remove the glove on her right hand. When the alien’s got close, Lucy would be ready.

The man looked at Lucy like she was crazy, but eventually resigned himself to following her advice. As this went on, Siren found herself surrounded. "Look, I'm in a good mood tonight so why don't you guys call it quits and turn yourselves in?"

"Nice try, but that ain't gonna work," replied one of the alien creatures whom had a cyborg arm and sharp teeth making up most of his face, "After what you did to our buddies before, we're gonna take our time and savor ripping you limb from bloody limb. Besides, it's not like we need a whole lot of you anyhow. Heck, I'm sure the skin off you will fetch a nice price on the market."

Suddenly, the men who had went to the hostage location found only bindings, "HE'S GONE!" That made them stop and turn their heads to where one of the still human robbers held up said bindings, "Someone must've got in from the back and cut him loose!"

The alien's leader growled and whirled on a bemused Siren, "Alright, that does it! Rip her to bloody piec-" He didn't get a chance to finish as Siren's fist met his face, sending him flying into the wall hard enough to leave cracks in it. The other mutated robbers went on the offensive, one lashing out with a bunch of tentacles only for Siren's arm to morph into a blade  and slice them to pieces before grabbing the guy and slamming him face first into the ground.

"Fan out an find that hostage!" called one of the men in charge as they started splitting up and scouring the area, one waltzing right by Lucy with its hands crackling with electricity. If she was gonna do something, now was the time.

As soon as one of the goons called out that the hostage was missing, Lucy knew she’d have to act fast otherwise they’d be found in no time. Despite these thoughts, she motioned for the man to remain still and silent as the armed men began to fan out. While this went on, the strange being and their would be attackers began to go at it as well. The sound of a body being slammed into the tile floor was enough to send chills down Lucy’s spine and thoughts of her encounter with Dressler to swirl around in her mind.

By this point one of the goons and brushed right past Lucy and the former hostage. Not once did he bother to look down or behind him as he foolishly roamed behind the teller stands. Lucy brought her ungloved hand up and behind her, frantically tapping the counter in hopes of finding something she could use to blindside the clueless thug. After a bit of fidgeting Lucy’s hand eventually plopped down on a pen. Her first instinct was to grab the pen and bum rush the goon, but then she remembered she was in a bank and most banks usually tied the pens down in some way. She guided her hand across the pen looking for any indication that it was connected to anything. When she realized it wasn’t, her grip tightened around the pen.

Lucy may not have been sure if she had what it takes to kill another human being, but two other people did, and those two personalities were driving her to do the unthinkable. With a silent leap, Lucy latched onto the back of the human goon that had walked past them. Quickly she stuffed his mouth with the glove she had removed from her right hand, and then covered his mouth so he couldn’t alert the others. In that same instant, Lucy released the pen from her grip and placed her bare hand on the thugs forehead.

In an instant the man’s life flashed before Lucy’s eyes, his knowledge and life experience weaved its way into her brain and her DNA began to morph and change. Electricity began to uncontrollably course through her body and with a loud scream of pain, Lucy unleashed a surge of lighting in all directions. The resulting blast launched the thug into a small desk. Lucy crumbled to the floor, clinching her fists and grinding her teeth as she tried to fight the pain and shock she had just gone through.

Memories of the horrors Alan had witnessed in the space pirates' lab flashed through his and Aurora's shared mind. However, instead of causing them to freeze up, they became even more determined to fight. One of them swung their arm blade at her only for her to catch them by the wrist and deliver a swift kick to the back of their knee, causing them to kneel down in pain.

She grabbed the alien's neck and choke slammed him through a teller stand before whirling him around like a spinning top and hurling them into one of his buddies. Hearing the sound of guns cocking, Siren turned and raced towards the group of crooks that were still human, their gunshots simply bouncing off her skin as she delivered palm strikes to two of them. One of them went to lunge at her with his hand on fire. She grabbed his hand and kicked him hard enough in the chest to shatter several ribs and send him flying.

Ducking behind a teller stand to avoid a rain of laser blasts from those on the balcony, Siren took aim at the chandeliers hanging above them with her telekinesis and caused them to fall, clunking them on the heads and sending them falling to the concrete floor. Hearing a scream she turned and gasped at what she saw, "Lucy...?" Upon seeing several men approaching her downed form with guns, she snarled, "GET AWAY FROM HER!!!"

Morphing both arms into whips, she lashed them out, ensnaring two of the men and pulling them off their feet in her direction. As they flew, her arms morphed back and she delivered a double gut punch to them before making her way over to stand protectively in front of her friend.

Lucy sat in her downed state for several minutes. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, and each of her muscles continued to tense up as her DNA continued to rewrite itself. The young woman struggled to rear her head as she heard the alien’s voice echo out from behind her. Out of the corners of her eyes Lucy saw two thugs approaching her. Before she could react, the being she had seen chatting it up with the police chief, rushed to her aid and quickly dispatched the two criminals.

Lucy staggered to her feet, electricity streaked all around her body. Her steely blue gaze fell to the man she had freed. With as much strength as she could muster, she pointed to the roof access door that she had crept in from. “Now’s your chance! Go through that door. Get out of here!” The man looked up at the young woman with a look of mixed confusion and panic. Surly he had no idea what he was caught up in, or what was going around him, but after a brief moment of hesitation the man bolted from his cover and made his way towards the door.

Lucy turned to the alien and gave her a slight nod of the head. “Good looking out. Thanks.” Lucy then turned to face the rest of the thugs and their alien companions. Holding her hands at about waist height, Lucy caused a surge of electricity to course between them, signifying that she was beginning to get a grip on her newly borrowed power. “Ready when you are.”

The space pirates commander pulled himself free of the indent in the wall and saw Siren standing next to a girl who was wielding lightning. At seeing this, he snarled, "One of your friends, I guess? No matter. One other person won't save you!" The alien waved his arm in their direction and the pair was suddenly surrounded by multiple pirates.

Siren readied herself for a fight, one arm morphing into a giant blade as the other became a large spiked mace, "Bring it." She gave a nod to Lucy before lunging at them, the pirates doing the same. One of them let loose a stream of frigid ice from their mouth so Siren slid underneath it and brought her mace upwards in an uppercut to his jaw sending him flying into the ceiling. She then whirled on her feet and brought a leg up, connecting with another's ribcage, stunning him long enough for her to pound him upside the head with her mace and launch him into a wall.

Suddenly, she found herself being ensnared by a bunch of webbing from a spider-type alien who swung her into a wall before tossing her into the path of a giant boar-faced alien who slammed her into a stand. As the two readied to beat on her again, they were caught off-guard by the smirk Siren flashed them...only for her to open her mouth and let loose a powerful sonic scream that made them roar in agony and clench their noggins . The webbing on her slacked and she was able to yank her blade out and cut herself free.

She then reached out with her telekinesis and rose several bank safes before bashing them over their heads until they were unconscious.

Things were about to get very violent very fast. Lucy could finally feel the control returning to her muscles. The electricity had ceased being a burden on the young girls body. With a nod from the female alien, Lucy turned to the oncoming wave of goons. Lightning arced and cloaked Lucy’s body as she lifted her ungloved hand. An overwhelming surge of aggression overtook her, no doubt a remnant of Dressler’s personality. Her eyes narrowed and a large blast of lightning arced from her hand and struck the nearest alien dropping them instantly.

As the others drew closer, Lucy looked past them to their leader. He was no doubt responsible for this entire affair. She never in a million years thought that she’d be having a brawl with a group of aliens in a bank in the middle of the night, but there was a first for everything. Electricity continued to erratically arc off of Lucy’s body, lashing out at nearby objects and the approaching aliens as Lucy struggled to maintain and control this new borrowed power. As Lucy did her best to dodge the incoming wave of aliens a loud shriek echoed out from behind her. Like their foes, Lucy was caught off guard by the loud scream and quickly covered her ears to protect herself from any real damaged.

The ringing in her hears continued for several seconds afterward. While she was generally unfazed, the goons that had attempted to attack her, were all caught in a daze and slightly stunned. Using this opportunity Lucy quickly dashed up to each of the aliens. Placing her palm on their chests, she would release a small burst of electricity in an attempt to knock them unconscious. After safely incapacitating the group Lucy turned to the female alien who was in the middle of tenderizing a few of the goons via bank vaults. “So uh, what did you do to piss these guys off?” she shouted as her ears still continued to ring from the earlier shout.