Chapter 3 Overwatch

Henry aimed his gun wild and fired several shots, the bullets destroyed several products in the supermarket. "SHOW YOURSELF!" he screamed, all he wanted was to talk to the young girl. It was late, closing time and she was the only one left in the Tesco's; he forgot he even had the gun with him. He just wished for once that someone didn't say no to him, he had always been told by friends that he was a great catch, that a girl would be lucky to have him, well he was forty-three now and for once that was going to be true whether the girl liked it or not. He was certain he had heard footsteps, he just had to deal with this intruder and the girl would be all his, he looked at her bound and gagged form lying on the floor, she could not scream and tears welled in her eyes which themselves were full of fear.

Everything went black; the lights had gone out suddenly; not even the exit sign light was on. Henry fired more shots in to the blackness but heard nothing. He strained his eyes but was not rewarded for his efforts. The girl now was making even more muffled noises in a desperate plea for salvation. This was it, he had to cut his losses and leave; he just could not risk being apprehended. She had seen his face as well; she had to be silenced. He felt her body until he found her head and raised his gun to fire. It was then that his trigger finger was met with thin air, his gun was gone. Something large and solid collided with his face and he felt some teeth dislodge themselves from his face before the floor greeted him. He lashed out wildly but was blinded by the lights coming back on. He saw the girl untied and ungagged at the other corner of the small supermarket. Another girl was consoling her, this girl was dressed in a purple leotard with white fluffy boots, long white gloves and a white Venetian mask with gold designs that covered the top half of her face; her brown hair was tied in a ponytail. "It's okay," said the girl "you're safe now" she placed her hand on the terrified girl who Relaxed at her touch.

"What are you?" asked Henry, scared and confused at what he had just seen. The girl looked at him with pure contempt "I'm a superhero!" she stated proudly "and you are a sick, perverted man!" she made to strike him but was stopped by a boy appearing from behind an isle who said "come-on Kitten it's over, don't need to add to the violence." This boy was dressed in a black bulletproof vest over a bare torso on which he had spray-painted a white A. he wore black leather trousers with metal spikes with dark green, steel capped boots and dark green climbing gloves. His face was covered by a white, full-face gas mask to complete the frightening look. Kitten as he apparently had called her hesitated but lowered her arm "you're right Android, he's not worth it." "Oh what the hell!" said Henry "Kitten? Android? Those are the worst superhero names I've ever heard! And what are you kids doing out this late anyway? Don't you have school in the morning" he said mockingly.

Henry felt a sharp slap on the back of his forehead another two kids walked out "for the record" said the girl of the two new kids "those are great names and secondly… we were here waiting for you, Android here is the one who turned off the lights, by thinking! And I'm the one who took the gun out of your hand." This girl was wearing a yellow costume with a blue cape and blue gloves. She had tied a blue cloth with eyeholes Zorro-style to cover her face; a pocket watch hung as a necklace around her neck. The girl then seemed to disappear and reappear a few feet to the left "I can stop time and my name is Ms Anytime" she said proudly "but only for a few seconds" murmured Android to himself. The boy who had come out with Ms Anytime now stepped forward holding a brick; he was dressed in full biker clothes with a V for Vendetta mask on and a black fedora. He forcefully pinned Henry's arms behind his back and held out the brick, which he phased through Henry's wrists as temporary handcuffs. This boy dragged Henry to his feet and said, "I'm Walkman sir and you are under arrest, the police will be here in five minutes" and with that he struck Henry on the head, knocking him unconscious.

Walkman turned to Kitten and the others "good work guys" he said "but Josie, you can't lose control like that, if Alisan hadn't stopped you… we're supposed to be superheroes, not killers" he tried to sound sympathetic instead of scolding. Josie removed her mask "I know I know but it just gets under my skin, how can people do these things?" she said frustrated. Alisan removed his gas mask "It doesn't make sense" he said "but then again it's not supposed to." Ms Anytime looked at them with outrage "are you guys idiots? The cameras will see your faces!" she scream-whispered

"Relax Amy" said Alisan "I took out the cameras when I turned the lights off." Amy gave a sigh of exasperation, but removed her mask and let her wavy, brown hair fall down "then let's get out of here before the police come."

They left the man tied up in the supermarket, walked out through the back door and changed into the civilian clothes they had abandoned when they suited up. As Josie put her jeans back on over the leotard, her mind drifted back to the day they had started 'dressing up.'

It had been two weeks ago, a few days after she had heard about a group of mystery kids saving London from some rampaging thugs. She had received an anonymous letter telling her that it was very important that she go to the following address at 10 pm. She was about to throw the letter away but when she saw her flatmates Tiffany and Helen with identical letters she became intrigued. At nine pm after they had eaten, Josie and her flatmates had left their flat and went to the location on their letters. They arrived with five minute to spare at Hyde Park, next to the statue of the large Greek hero. They waited for a minute until they saw the edge of the statue's plinth open and an obscured figure beckoning them in the tunnel. They followed uneasily.

They walked in a dimly lit tunnel for a few minutes, following closely behind the dark figure but never uttering a word out of amazement. The tunnel opened up to a large cave that was brightly lit with fluorescent lights. There were people working on constructions inside the cave; people that Josie recognized! Romeo stood at the far end, holding a large pickaxe in each hand and was steadily widening the cave, which was already 20 meters wide easily. Following behind him was Bea who would melt the rocky wall into a flat surface with a laser wave she emitted from two fingers. Ammar, Claudia and Freddie were busy installing a floor. Ammar held large stone slabs in several cables attached to his arms that he used like tentacles, he would lay them down, as Freddie and Claudia would place mortar; they progressed quite quickly. Alisan and Monique were busy assembling various pieces of technical equipment and connecting it to cables in the rock clearly belonging to the main power-grid of the area.

The person who had led the three girls into the cave pulled her hood down and turned around, revealing herself to be Ellie "hey guys" she said kindly, "glad you could make it, you're the last ones so if you could just stand over there with the others we can begin." Josie saw a small crowd of people huddled in a corner on the already finished section of the floor. Adrian Blake, a drama teacher at their school was at the head of the group. In the crowd Josie saw Bo, Jason, Floww and soon realized that the entire year 12 of her school was down here (which was less than 40 people). Adrian saw her and beckoned her over with a wave of a muscly arm where she, Tiffany and Helen joined the rest of their year. It was then that Adrian began to speak.

"Hello everybody, you all will probably be wondering why I have brought you here, this Wednesday night. I only ask a small amount of you're time to explain everything." He took a deep breath "As you know about two days ago, the whole of Arts Educational was hit by a storm during a fire drill… a storm that gave everyone powers. Today Greg asked me to remove the powers of the entire degree student's and the year 13s; tomorrow he intends to make me remove the rest of the school's powers. As you might have heard I was given the ability to remove other abilities. Now I called you here to give you and only you a choice. The younger years will have their powers taken regardless because I do not believe they are responsible enough to use them. But you can choose to either willingly give up you powers, or I can secretly leave you out when I do it and you keep your powers. If you wish to keep your powers, you will do so under my terms. The terms are: number 1 you never use you're powers to aid in breaking any laws. Number 2 you never use your powers for personal gain and for that matter, in public or at school. Number 3 you agree to use your powers to aid this project I am planning, hence the construction of this secret headquarters."

"You see, what I'm planning is something called Project Hero, this project is to forge you all into people who can use these new abilities to aid in a crisis and to police others who intent to use their powers for evil deeds. The people you see working on the construction have already had experience with using their powers, they were the ones who stopped those four thugs we heard about on the news." A murmur spread across the crowd as everyone discussed this new piece of information. "Silence please!" said Adrian loudly enough to cease the chatter, "now as I was saying… they will act as team leaders for the rest of you, you will be deployed in groups to deal with situations that require the added support. Alice here has been given the ability to sense the future; she will deploy you on missions and of course names and costumes will be required. If you do not accept these terms please raise your hand now."

A few people hesitated for a moment but no one raised their hand. Adrian beamed and said "good, now onto some more specifics, Arthur I understand you have communication powers of a sort, is that correct?" Arthur nodded "yes sir, I can speak to anyone regardless of distance just by concentrating on them, this isn't limited by numbers either, I'm basically a human chat room." Adrian smiled again and said "in that case I might ask you to take on a less frontline role and remain in base as communications officer, is that okay with you?" Arthur nodded again; he seemed relieved at not having to be on the front. Adrian turned to Floww who was tying her hair in a ponytail, "Floww, remind me again what your power is?" Floww stopped in mid-tie and looked at him "well sir… it's sort of hard to describe, I mean it's like… I see someone and I automatically know what to do to care for that person. It can be medical, psychiatric, emotional… anything" she finished matter-of-factly. "well then" said Adrian "how would you like to be the team medic, you still would be called out for missions but you would also have a duty here tending to those who are injured." Floww seemed a bit annoyed at having less action time but not wanting to risk losing her powers she agreed. "Well then, I conclude tonight with this last statement, you are all on your way to something big and I'm looking forward to this. Oh and as a side note, you must have costumes that protect your identity, our resident expert on superheroes" Adrian gestured to Romeo "has given everyone so far a very good name and designed superb costumes, he will assist you with that. Now off with you all, you have school tomorrow."

That had been two weeks ago and tonight had been Josie's first mission. "Well" she thought "I'd say tonight was a success." She parted ways with her teammates and went home, her mind racing with the thrill of what had just happened, and the excitement over the unknown future.