Jogging down the street, past the university, Coquette glanced sidelong at her companion for a moment before putting on a sudden burst of speed and sprinting away from him. "Think you can catch me?" she called over her shoulder, jumping and spinning in midair to blow him a kiss. As she rotated back around, she caught a quick glimpse of Fin's eyes widening in surprise; as the last thing she saw before losing sight of him, he threw himself forward, chasing after her down the streets of La Paz, pumping his arms as he propelled himself faster. Coquette's eyes lit up with the exhilaration of the chase, and she pirouetted to turn down the next street, jumping and grabbing onto the streetlight on the corner to swing around it as Fin ran past her, his gloved hand just barely missing her hip. "Gotta do better than that!" she teased, batting him away with her mask.

Fin growled, his lip quirking up in a grin, and skidded to a stop in the middle of the street, one hand planted on the pavement and his eyes narrowed at her in concentration. "When I get my hands on you…"

"Oh, yeah?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him and jumping into a flip just as he dove at her legs, sailing over his head. He rolled to his feet and spun around, one hand on the sidewalk for balance as she landed, her arms folded. She gave him a knowing look. "And what would you do if you got your hands on me?"

He smirked, his eyes flashing. "Should I… show you?" Without warning, he barreled forward and threw himself through the air at her chest. Coquette's eyes widened, and she spun to her left, away from his reaching arm. His snorkel sprang into his hand, however, and he threw it out, hooking it around her arm and pulling her back toward him.

"Wha–" Coquette let out a yelp, her foot catching on the seam between two sidewalk sections and knocking her leg out wide. Flailing around, she threw her arms back in a desperate attempt to regain her balance, but the snorkel around her arm pinned her arm in place, dragging her forward and off-balance. Finally, her arms went forward, trying to brace herself on the ground, and she slammed into the concrete, just barely avoiding smacking her face. A jock of pain traveled up her arms. Her hands felt numb. There was a hand on her shoulder, a shadow blocking the light.

"G–Gen?" Fin gasped. The shadow vanished, and suddenly Fin knelt beside her. "Oh, my gosh! Gen! I–I didn't mean to–"

Coquette sniffled, scrambling backward away from him a few steps before freezing and forcing herself to breath. Fin held a hand out, and she paused, blinking away the tears that had sprang to her eyes. Moving with Fin as he shifted to a sitting position, she leaned back against the streetlight, trying to relax. Her hands tingled, the pins-and-needles sensation running up and down her hands as far as her elbows and back down to her fingertips. She rolled over to sit next to him, and he hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. Coquette flinched, a hitch in her breath. The hand immediately disappeared. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I just – I got so caught up in the competition that I didn't even think about what could happen."

She frowned, breathing slowly in and out as the pain shifted. "It's – I guess it's as much on me as on you," she admitted, opening her eyes and looking down at her hands. Her miraculous suit remained unbroken, of course, the sheer gloves still in place, but now the pins-and-needles had been replaced with a throbbing pain in her palms. And now she could also feel the ache in her knees from the hard landing she'd taken – not the worst fall she'd ever had, but the worst in the last several months, at least. She shook her head, chuckling humorlessly. "Well, I guess now we know what'll happen if you get your hands on me," she joked.

Next to her, he frowned, his shoulders slumped. "I really didn't want to hurt you," he apologized again. He flushed. "I hope you don't think I would ever–"

"Hm?" She cocked her head at him in confusion that almost immediately shifted into realization. "No – of course not!" she assured him quickly. "I know you'd never try to hurt me. But still. I think I'm done with this for tonight – I'm definitely going to be sore in the morning."

He grinned, wagging his eyebrows. "I know you'll be sore!"

She gave him a deadpan look. "Ha, ha." With a groan, she started to stand up. Quickly, Fin sprang to his feet and held out his hand, pulling her up and placing a hand on her back for stability. When he left it there for an extra minute, she gave him a look, and he withdrew it, folding his arms. She shook her head, sighing heavily. "Some mission, huh?"

He shrugged, looking up and down the street before focusing his attention back on her. "Lupa said to give it time," he reminded her. "We can't expect to find this mysterious… whatever right away."

"That's the thing," she retorted. "It's been three days! How much longer are we going to be here before we actually find something? Even just a clue that this mystery… whatever it is even exists?"

He chuckled. "I can think of worse things to do than spend my days running around a foreign country with you…" he told her. She could feel heat in her ears. He let out a breath, his own ears a light shade of red, and cleared his throat. "So, let's go over it again. There was a rumor of mysterious sightings in Bolivia."

"La Paz, to be precise," Coquette confirmed, nodding. "The rumors weren't specific about who or what it was, just that it was unusual."

"Where were the sightings?"

"That's the thing," she replied, shrugging helplessly. "They were everywhere – sometimes, supposedly, all at the same time."

"What, mass hysteria?" Fin scoffed. "If that's all it is that got us here…"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Of course, mass hysterias don't have to just be mass hysterias," she pointed out. "Remember the story the Somalian group told?"

He shuddered. "No… but I also really didn't need that image back in my head. Thanks for that, by the way."

She gave him a look. "You think you hate that image…" He grimaced. She let out a breath, glancing away from him up and down the streets in all four directions from their intersection. "But regardless, we need to track this thing down, even if it was just a mass hysteria. I want to get home, but I would rather find out we wasted our time wandering around the city and searching for nothing, than find out we dismissed as a hoax something that turned out to be real. If people got hurt…"

He winced. "Yeah… I agree. But," he added, himself studying the intersection carefully and turning his gaze to the rooftops around them, "We don't have too many clues to follow up on at the moment. Are we going to just wander the streets for another few nights?"

Coquette frowned, folding her arms. "Yeah, you're right," she admitted. "This isn't really helping. We need something more of where to look. Think we should go back to those rumors?"

"Couldn't hurt." Shrugging, Fin pulled out the screen in the angle of his snorkel and tapped a few buttons. Placing her hand on his arm, Coquette leaned over his shoulder to read the information as he pulled it up and scrolled through it. The minutes dragged along as they stood under the streetlight, until finally Fin let out a groan. "There's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it!" he complained. "This one is the figure of a ghostly soldier; that one thinks they heard chains rattling. This one is convinced there's a Chupacabra; those say it sounded like wind rustling the treetops when there weren't any trees around. Old, young, men, women, tourists, locals… the rumors are coming from anyone and everyone, and they don't seem to have anything in common except the fact that it's strange! How are we supposed to do anything with that?"

Coquette hummed pensively. "That is strange," she agreed, pursing her lips.

"Huh." Fin furrowed his brows, his lips pursed. "Do you think it might almost be… too strange?"

Dubiously, she quirked an eyebrow at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," he began, "you would think there would be something similar between all the rumors, right? If they're all from the same event."

"Yes…"

"So if there isn't…"

She blinked. "Are you suggesting that they were manufactured? Just to get us here? But why?" Her eyes widened. "What if it's–"

"I hoped you would get my message," a loud, booming voice called from the rooftop of the building across the street from their corner.

Coquette froze, her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach. At the same moment, Fin spun to face the threat, extending his snorkel to its full length. Grabbing Coquette's mask from her limp hand and flicking the handle out, he crossed the two weapons in front of his chest, placing himself between Coquette and the threat. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded, his eyes narrowed. "What the hell do you want?"

A large, tanned man wearing a wide-brimmed hat jumped down off the roof and started across the street toward them. Fin tensed, his grip on the two weapons tightening and his eyes shifting back and forth between the man and the buildings behind him. As the approached, the man held his hands up in front of his face. "Peace," he told them. "I mean you no harm. I come as a friend."

Fin scoffed humorlessly. "You have a strange way of showing it," he retorted. "What message are you talking about?"

"The strange rumors," he replied, raising an eyebrow. "You heard that strange things were happening in and around La Paz, because I spread those rumors."

Shaking her head, Coquette roused herself, glancing behind her down the streets to their left and right before scanning the rooftops above them. Her gaze returned to the man, her eyes narrowed.. "You started those rumors, just to get us here?" she demanded, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Why?"

"I wished for a meeting with this South American superhero team," the man explained, raising an eyebrow.

Fin gritted his teeth. "You keep speaking words, but I still haven't heard an explanation for what the hell we're doing here," he growled. "Are you going to try to kill us?" He brandished the snorkel and mask. "Because you'll only accomplish anything like that over my dead body!"

"Wait, 'kill you'?" The man stopped, his brows furrowed in confusion, his voice full of bewilderment. "Why on earth would I want to hurt you?"

Coquette blinked. "Aren't you with the Dark Acolytes?"

"The who?"

"You'd better start explaining yourself, or I'm going to lose my temper," Fin told him, his voice laced with anger.

The man sighed. "This was not how I wished to begin this conversation, or this relationship."

Coquette stared at him. "What kind of relationship do you think we have?"

"The kind where we team up to help each other out," he replied, raising an eyebrow at her expectantly. "That is what you wish for, no?"

Fin cocked his head, finally relaxing his shoulders and straightening up. "We do normally look for friends and allies," he allowed, nodding suspiciously. "But usually, people don't introduce themselves to us by means of rumors – and especially not by jumping out at us in the middle of the night!"

The man sighed. "I apologize if my methods were a little… circuitous," he replied, giving them an apologetic grimace. "I was unsure how else to contact you; you do not have a phone number or email address – at least, not that I have found."

Coquette quirked an eyebrow at him. "Most of the time, people just get mentioned in the news, and we find them from there," she explained. "Generally, we come to you."

"Well, you are here now…"

Fin's eyes narrowed. "We are. So, why are we here?"

"Exactly what I said: I need a meeting with the South American superheroes. I need your help."

"With what?"

"With protecting and saving my people."

"Who are you?" wondered Coquette.

"You may call me 'The Aymara'."

"Are you a hero?"

"To my people, I am."