The villainess spoke, but her words were incomprehensible, part of a language that no human knew. Her glowing eyes, purple like amethysts, locked onto Karkat's own red ones.

"Look out!" someone shouted from above, and Karkat found himself being gripped tightly around the waist and yanked from solid ground, his stomach turning wildly. He was deposited on the roof of the school building, and his rescuer turned to face him.

Lady Luck grinned, her mouth full of sharp white fangs.

"Next time a major villain attacks a school for no good reason, you should probably run," she suggested, making eye contact. Her left eye really did have seven pupils, just like they said in the newspaper stories. She crossed her arms, the gold neoprene and Kevlar of her super suit creasing slightly. "Wait here."

Lady Luck flew off, her cerulean wings leaving a trail of blue glitter behind her. She flew figure eights in front of Midnight Star, who watched her impassively.

"K'naa gl'bal flari," Star said, and Lady Luck laughed.

"Glub all fairy yourself!" she hollered back, and tossed eight blue dice through the air. A cerulean sword appeared in her hand and she swung towards Rose, who dodged away backwards—straight into the optic beam of the Psionic, who had come around from behind one of the portables. Karkat watched with wide eyes as the superhumans dueled before him in a stunning display of power.

"Excuse me, but I think you're in quite the wrong place." Karkat jumped. Before he could turn around, he felt cold steel on his jaw.

"Move and you're dead." Karkat whimpered, hearing footsteps behind him, and his attacker revealed himself.

Prankster looked even more threatening in real life than he did in the photographs, the sapphire-blue mask creased over his nose and the massive hammer strapped across his back stunning in their detail. He wore blue embroidered gloves and a sapphire-blue Kevlar costume that perfectly matched his eyes. There was a rainbow bowtie at his collar, and it seemed like an irrelevant and ridiculous accessory in comparison with the rest of Prankster's wardrobe.

"Why the fuck are you attacking a fucking school?" Karkat whispered in bewilderment, his Adam's apple bobbling against Prankster's knife. Prankster smiled an easy smile. He had a major overbite problem.

"Shenanigans," was his only response. "Now, you can surrender easily, or we can fight it out. Your choice," Prankster declared.

"What in the ever-loving ass-scraping fuck are you talking about?" Karkat demanded, feeling the sharp knife blade at his throat and wondering what the fuck was taking those superheroes so fucking long.

"I'm talking about our situation here. You can surrender to us, or we can fight it out. Your choice, but we're not leaving here without you," Prankster said easily. "And don't think those hero friends of yours will help you. Star can occupy them all day."

Just then, someone slammed Prankster over the head firmly with the blunt part of a double-ended trident.

"Take that, you blowhole!" How many superheroes were there here, anyways? Prankster pulled himself up off the ground easily, glaring at the heroine Pisces, who glared right back.

"You shouldn't interfere in things that don't concern you," Prankster said, meeting Pisces' eyes. "Back off before I'm forced to do something that wasn't in my agenda."

"What, like get your glubbing butt kicked?" Pisces shouted in his face, slamming Prankster in the gut with her trident.

Prankster wasn't prepared, and he was knocked over the side of the roof by the impact. Unfortunately, the prongs of the weapon didn't pierce his suit.

"Are you okay?" Pisces asked a very shocked and slightly terrified Karkat. "Sir?" The most that Karkat could manage in the way of a response was a mostly undignified murmur of 'myeh.'

"Hands off the target, Pisces. He's mine," someone deadpanned from elsewhere on the roof. Target? What target? Sassacre High seemed to be turning into a superhuman rendezvous point, and Karkat was stuck in the middle as Clockmaster made his way smoothly towards Pisces, reaching up with a single hand to adjust his sunglasses.

"Get out of here," Pisces menaced, hefting her trident again. Her pink mask creased into an angry frown. "There's nofin for you to take, why are you after a glubbing school?" Clockmaster's face remained impassive.

"Why are you here?" he replied nonchalantly.

"None of your glubbing business."

"Well, then it's none of yours why I'm here too," Clockmaster said smoothly, "just back off from the mortal and we'll be on our way."

"Yeah," declared Prankster. Damn it, Karkat had forgotten that the villain could fly—and apparently Pisces had, too. Before either of them could react, Prankster had taken Pisces' hand to shake. She tried to pull away, but a trigger went off and a stream of acid squirted from Prankster's bowtie straight into Pisces' eyes.

Pisces screamed and reached up to wipe the burning liquid away from her oculars as Karkat backed towards the edge of the roof, not really knowing where he was going but desperate to escape the two villains.

Just then, Psionic slammed into Karkat hard as he took a hit from one of Midnight Rose's tentacles, knocking Karkat forward into Prankster, who fell over, narrowly missing Clockmaster (who flashstepped away).

Psionic extricated himself from the mess, and Karkat did his best to scramble away from all of the heroes. He stumbled over the lip of the roof, and barely managed to regain his balance.

Suddenly, there was once again a sword at his throat. Clockmaster had flashstepped behind Karkat to threaten him. The time-changing supervillain dragged Karkat bodily towards Prankster, who had stood up and was currently deflecting Pisces with well-aimed bursts of wind. For a moment, Karkat wondered how the fuck wind fit in with Prankster's motif, but then he remembered what the hell was happening and proceeded to freak the fuck out.

"Lemme go lemme go lemme fucking go!" he protested, trying to wriggle out of Clockmaster's firm grip, but the sword just moved closer to his jugular and he quickly shut up.

"Stop," an emotionless voice commanded, and Wisp appeared before Karkat and Clockmaster, extending her hand and wrapping the two in a neat bubble of telekinetic power. She detached Clockmaster from Karkat before throwing the villain up against the sharp upper branches of a pine tree.

Karkat's mouth was moving like that of a fish out of water. Why the fuck were there so many heroes here? Did they all just live within five minutes of the school or something? Sassacre High wasn't even in Meteor City, it was on the outskirts. It was a fucking suburb! This made absolutely no sense.

"Fuck off!" Prankster hollered, distracted for a moment. Pisces landed a hit, knocking him over again, but Prankster just rolled back to his feet. Wisp regarded him impassively, her hair floating eerily around her face as she levitated in the air.

Karkat ran for the edge of the building, praying that maybe there would be another superhero there who could help him. He saw no one, only a drop that would break both his legs if he decided to jump.

Clockmaster and Prankster were both at his school and both of them appeared to be targeting him. As Karkat's panic reflex began to be replaced by his mind working, he began to wonder why.

All he knew was that he had to get home—as fast as he possibly could. Midnight Star was still occupying Psionic and Lady Luck, both of whom were hard-pressed to dodge the flailing, disgusting black tentacles.

Just then, two more heroes appeared around a corner of one of the portables: the partner pair of Kitten and Horseman. Unfortunately, neither one had many powers that worked against superpowered opponents, and they joined in the fight against Midnight Star without even noticing the other two villains on the roof. And suddenly Blind Justice was there too. Welp.

Prankster broke away from Pisces, having landed a hit on her with his comically oversized warhammer that laid her out flat. She appeared to be unconscious. He jumped over to help Clockmaster fight Wisp, who quickly became overwhelmed.

It was then that Karkat saw her do something that wasn't on record as a power she possessed. Wisp narrowly missed being beheaded by Clockmaster's katana, and suddenly there were eight of her encircling the two villains. Wait, what? Karkat was a superhero geek and no one had ever heard of any hero doing something like that, or for that matter any villain.

Having been distracted by Wisp's sudden new ability, Karkat failed to notice the fourth villain sneaking up behind him.

"Hi!" she declared excitedly as she snapped her fingers, teleporting both herself and Karkat into an abandoned portable classroom.

Karkat backed towards the door, trying the knob and finding it locked. Go figure.

"My name's Nephrite! And you're the guy that Prankster wants me to catch! Please tell me you're not going to fight me," the new villain bubbled. There was only one response that came to the top of Karkat's mind.

"Isn't that the name of a villain in Sailor Moon?" Karkat had never seen said anime, but he'd heard enough about it on the internet. Nephrite growled, her lips curling to reveal very sharp incisors. Her eyes narrowed and he swore he saw her hackles rise.

"WOOF! NEVER MENTION THAT TO ME! THEY STOLE THAT NAME! IT WAS MINE FIRST! WOOF WOOF WOOF!" She was barking. She was actually barking at him. Karkat pressed himself even further into the corner. Nephrite's wolf ears twitched in agitation.

"Uh…sure…now, please let me go, because I'm fucking terrified and I would really not like to be devoured by a wolf-themed villain with a really stupid name," Karkat whimpered, his voice shaking in a manner that he would later fervently deny. Nephrite pouted, her ears shrinking a little bit.

"But Prankster says I'm not allowed to let you go."

"What does Prankster know? Maybe he, uh…maybe he really wants a different short high school student? I doubt he'd want anything with me, I'm not special or anything. I'm just kind of here," Karkat rambled, forgoing the cuss words for once and swearing inwardly never to leave his knife at home again, ever.

They were then interrupted by a chainsaw breaking a hole in the side of the portable.

"I thought they would be here," Seamstress declared triumphantly to her lazily grinning partner. Capricorn squeezed the bicycle horn he held in his hand, not bothering to respond.

Nine. There were nine fucking heroes here and all four of Meteor City's villains, and they appeared to fucking be fighting over Karkat. What the fuck was going on? Nephrite pouted, her ears drooping some more.

"Party poopers. You guys are so rude!"

"Silence yourself and surrender," commanded Seamstress, still hefting the buzzing chainsaw (at this point, with only one hand). Her eye-catching emerald and scarlet uniform was spotted with white dust from the wall.

"Woof."

"You oughtta motherfuckin do what my bitchtits angry sis here says," Capricorn drawled. "She ain't gonna motherfuckin take any sass."

"Seamstress, I think you're forgetting something," replied Nephrite. Her eyes were trained on the heroine. "We had an agreement. Do you want one of us to cease following that truce?"

"I do not know what you are talking about," said Seamstress smoothly.

"You've forgotten about this," Nephrite announced like she was revealing a game-changing secret. From thin air she produced a strange-looking orb covered in what looked like candy corn, which she waved in front of Seamstress's face before allowing it to vanish once again. Seamstress's cool broke for a moment, and her jaw dropped open before she snapped it shut again.

"That is a dirty move," she replied, choosing her words carefully. In the meantime, Karkat began creeping towards the hole in the wall that had given Seamstress and Capricorn entrance.

To his alarm, the hole opened up fifty feet in the air above the parking lot of the school, suspended by Nephrite's weird space-related abilities. He staggered for a moment, but then a fight broke out between Nephrite and Capricorn. The hero did something that shook the portable, and Karkat lost his balance, falling out of the gaping hole and into midair.

He closed his eyes, bracing for impact. He didn't yet know the sensation of feeling all his bones crunch into dust on the pavement, but he could imagine it. He felt hot tears leaking from the corners of his eyes—some first day of school this was turning out to be. He would die before he finished six hours of state-regulated education.

Firm arms wrapped around him and a voice reassured, "Don't worry! Rufio is here to save you!" Karkat whimpered, turning his head to see that he was now clutched in the super-strong arms of the city's tenth superhero.

"Thanks," he replied weakly.

"No problem! Seriously, it was nothing. You should have seen the size of the lady I saved the other day, I swear she weighed a thousand pounds!" Rufio laughed. Karkat could hear the loud beating of the hero's wings above him.

Rufio deposited Karkat on the ground right outside the building.

"You should probably get in there, they've hidden everybody in the inner hallways. It's kind of stupid, putting them all in the same place, but Kitten and Horseman are watching the building." Karkat nodded mutely, but as soon as Rufio took off again, he turned away from the high school and ran as fast as he could in the direction of his home.

He ran and ran and ran and ran, clutching his side as an agonizing cramp struck him but refusing to stop.

His home came into sight, but someone was standing in the way of his arrival. Someone very familiar.

"Nice try," Prankster complimented, showing off that easy, bucktoothed smile again. "But you made a crucial mistake. See, the wind always tells me where people are. It makes it much easier to pull tricks on them! And when the person I'm looking for is someone like you, things become even simpler."

"What the fuck do you want from me?" Karkat demanded wearily, trying to hide his exhaustion and fear. He couldn't be afraid, he had put up with enough bullshit today and he had pretty much encountered every superhero Meteor City had to offer.

"It's not about what I want. It's about what the feltmen want, and I can't deny them their quarry," Prankster said smoothly, revealing almost nothing. Feltmen? That word itself was total nonsense, and Karkat opened his mouth to say as much but the breath in his mouth seemed to disappear.

That was when Karkat's dad stepped out the front door of his house, spotted Prankster, and chucked a switchblade at the villain. Somehow, miraculously, Jack hit home, and Karkat had never been gladder that his father was so stab-happy. Prankster twisted around and stared blankly at the knife now embedded to the handle in the unprotected shoulder joint of his armor, before hollering in pain and flying away.

"Have fun at school today?" Jack asked grumpily. He was still holding a half-full vodka bottle in his left hand that he had to have been drinking from before he threw the knife. Karkat groaned.

"That's one way to put it," he replied frankly.

Back at the school, the three remaining villains suddenly ceased their attack, melting into nowhere the same way they'd arrived. Lady Luck practically screamed in frustration. As the ten heroes were scouring the school grounds for the vanished villains, they squabbled amongst each other in frustration.

"What the fuck were you thinking, breaking into my fight?" Lady Luck demanded of Wisp, who stared blankly back.

"I did not intrude upon your fight. I merely intervened, after Pisces and Psionic had already done so. I saw no reason to deny you assistance when you obviously needed it."

"You're a fucking idiot!"

Elsewhere, Blind Justice and Horseman were having a similar argument.

"Your methods are inappropriate and far too violent. You must cease," Horseman ordered, earning a sharp-toothed smirk from Blind Justice.

"I uphold the law by all means necessary."

"You severely injure every enemy you capture. I do not wish for you to involve yourself in a fight I could have handled."

"You're an idiot, half of Meteor City's heroes were already there! How couldn't I join the party?" Blind Justice protested. Horseman groaned.

"Your actions are inappropriate for your station. You will cease."

"You'll cease."

"Hey there ewerybody, did I miss anyfin?" From around the building appeared the eleventh superhero of Meteor City in all his purple-caped, hipsterish glory.

"Only a massive boss-level fight," Pisces retorted, having healed herself from Prankster's earlier attack. "You glubbing idiot! What the shell were you fin-king, shoaling up so late?"

"I had to prepare my wwardrobe."

"And quit doing that fin with your voice. Everyone knows it's fake."

"Jeez, Pisces, you're so fuckin strict."

"Oh my cod, Aquathing!" Pisces shouted. The eleventh hero looked offended.

"That is not my super name," he protested. "My super name is Sharkbite!"

"So why did you tell every single passerby you saved for your first whole year as a hero that you were called Aquathing?"

That was a bit of exaggeration in Pisces' statement, and she knew it. See, Aquathing had originally been a villain going by the name of Dualscar, further south in Angel City. Pisces had been on vacation as her alter ego in the city when Dualscar had actually managed a slightly competent attack, and since Angel City didn't have a resident hero she was forced to step in. Through a series of shenanigans (which definitely did NOT involve Pisces' first kiss) she managed to persuade him to use his abilities for good. He hadn't been able to come up with a good hero name, so he'd gone without at first, until people started asking him who he was. He responded with "Aqua…thing?" and it had been adopted by the press, thus sealing his fate.

Currently, Aquathing was looking very offended.

"I did not tell anyone I was called Aqua anyfin. It was only part of a name I wwas considerin and you decided to make it official."

"According to the law, your super name is Aquathing. Deal with it," Blind Justice chipped in, having escaped from her argument with Horseman.

"Go awway. And the name is Sharkbite." Blind Justice bared her teeth at the irritated male hero. That was definitely part of her shift into hero identity; no normal human being had teeth that sharp.

Just then, the bell rang inside the school to signal the start of third period. It distracted all eleven heroes, who began trickling away. It was obvious at that point that the villains were gone.

In the hysteria that was the rest of the now-shortened school day, only one person noticed that Karkat Vantas was conspicuously not present. Sollux Captor spent the rest of the day looking for his new sort-of-friend, and when Karkat never reappeared, he started to worry.


A/N: Yay, superhero swarm time. I know the pace of this bit was a little rushed, I'm sorry. I decided to update earlier than expected, because I'm establishing a schedule for this stuff. I intend for this fic to update on Tuesdays and Fridays, regardless of how much I've actually written. It'll be easier that way, and make for more regular updates-something I haven't been able to promise on my previous fics.

I'm going to say some stuff in this note about my supervillain interpretations of the kids, since I don't like info-dumps in the text. John is barely a villain. He doesn't actually officially steal stuff or hurt people unless his pranks go awry, it's more that he takes obscene amounts of pleasure in rigging traps and snares for innocent passersby. He once invaded a bank in full costume just so that he could rewire the ATMS to spit Monopoly money rather than real cash. But despite his dorky purpose, he is a legit villain and he does engage in regular fights with some of the heroes. His sworn nemesis is Lady Luck. Jade is trying to be evil, and so far she's pulled off a couple heists, but she's just not made to be intimidating. She is technically Clockmaster's sidekick, but she sort of does her own thing. I may reference their histories in the main story, but since this background info is pretty much irrelevant I'm choosing to put it here instead.

In other notes, thank you soooooooo much to my reviewers and followers, you guys are awesome! As always, I really love getting feedback. It gives me new ideas and inspiration to keep going. :)