Welcome to my first proper AU – superhero style!
This is one of those plot-monster stories that grew wildly out of my control when I allowed it a second to breathe instead of binding it in inch-thick chains and keeping it locked in the worst dungeon of my mind. I do like making things hard for myself, don't I?
(For those waiting for an update for The Dragon Reborn, it's coming, but slowly, as I did something remarkably stupid in the last chapter that I'm having to fix in the new chapter)
Chapter 1 – A Fairly Peaceful Night
In which we meet our heroes
Until that moment, it had been a fairly peaceful night.
That's not to say that it had been a quiet night – Metal City never truly slept, and there were always things going on somewhere, of varying legitimacies. But this was something else entirely.
"SIMBA! That's way too much!" Arrow shrieked as the colossal tornado tore down the street, picking up two cars and flinging them high into the air. "Slow it down!"
"I told you not to call me Simba!" Lion bellowed back, but he did reduce the size of the tornado so that the cars were no longer in danger. High above, Pegasus swept in and grabbed one of them, bringing it safely down to earth with the help of Sentry. A long slide of square, blue-glowing shields formed beneath the other car, guiding it gently back to the street.
"Nice work, Quicksilver!" Pegasus called, swooping back along the street, feet barely skimming over the roofs of the cars. "Lion, block that guy!"
The tornado rippled and split, one half leaping to either end of the road. Their quarry hesitated, caught between walls of wind that began to close in on him.
"Take him down, Arrow!" Quicksilver shouted. "Hurry!"
Arrow was about to do exactly that when the winds picked up again and Lion snarled in irritation. "Hurry!" he snapped. "The wind's getting stronger – I either have to let this blow up to full strength or lose it completely!"
"I can't aim!" Arrow shouted back. "I can't see him. Sentry, can you get a lock on him?"
No. My apologies. The voice sounded in his head and not his ears, courtesy of the group's telekinetic telepath. The wind is too loud.
"Hey, Arrow, I've found you a vantage point. Hold on!"
Arrow barely managed to stop his next arrow from falling to the ground as Pegasus suddenly grabbed him by the hook on the back of his flight harness and dragged him into the air before dumping him on the edge of the balcony of a seventh-floor flat. He staggered as he landed, but kept his feet, automatically turning to where the man they had been trying to capture since he broke into a bank three streets away half an hour ago was standing, petrified. "Thanks, Pegasus!"
From here, aiming was easy, and he didn't have to calculate the drop of the arrow so much. Even as the prospective bank robber reached for where Arrow assumed his gun was held, the shot hit him square in the chest.
The arrow was cushioned and blunted, enough to knock the man down and probably break several of his ribs, but that was what Quicksilver's healing power was for. It certainly had the desired effect, as the man keeled over backwards and lay still.
With a sigh of relief, Lion released the tornadoes, sending them safely back into the normal air currents. Quicksilver scrambled around the end of a large van and ran to where the downed man was, hands already glowing faintly blue. Pegasus darted downwards, unspooling a piece of thin, sturdy rope from his belt.
The police are less than four streets away. Sentry's voice was cool and calm as always as it echoed inside their heads. We should prepare to leave.
"Just a second," Quicksilver murmured. "There! All fixed."
"He'll be fine there," Pegasus said happily as he finished tying the last knot in their captive's bonds. "Let's go home, everyone."
By the time that the police cars rounded the corner, all that was left of the last half-hour's work was a bound and gagged criminal – and a car with a dented roof and an apologetic note on its windscreen.