Chapter 3: Talon

"Psh. Yeah right…like you really need to be more scared of us than you are them."

He remarked, jerking his thumb in the direction of the tavern's occupants still paralyzed in fear.

The scream of approaching sirens slowly drew nearer.

"Ebon, we've gotta go."

The first stranger said, crossing his arms indignantly over his chest.

The second stranger nodded and replied,

"See you at HQ."

He gently took hold of Theresa's arm and stared her in the eyes.

Theresa instantly shivered as she felt herself shifting, almost as if she was becoming a part of the shadow itself. A mass of swirling black and purple spun in front of her eyes, and she squeezed them tightly shut to block out the dizzying nausea.

"You can open your eyes now, it's not like we're going to kill you."

Theresa opened one eye and looked around for the speaker.

The boy from earlier stood before her, a small smirk twitching at the edges of his mouth.

"Who…who are you?"

She stammered, crawling backwards in fear until she was pressed against the wall.

"F-Stop."

The stranger replied coolly, leaning casually against the wall across from her.

"F-Stop?"

Theresa echoed questioningly.

F-Stop pursed his lips and exhaled heavily.

"Yeah. F-Stop. But, ever since the Big Bang a few days ago,"

He began explaining while eyeing her,

"I've been known around here as Hotstreak."

He finished, holding up a hand that burst into flames as if on cue.

Hotstreak cocked his head at her.

"Who're you, anyway?"

"Theresa."

She answered hesitantly.

"No, I mean your gang name."

"Gang name?"

She looked down for a moment and found herself staring at her hands…at her claws.

She looked back up.

"Talon. I'm Talon."

"Heh."

"Welcome to the gang, Talon."

The shadowy figure emerged from the wall behind Theresa and reached down a hand to help her up off the floor.

Talon woke the next morning on a sofa, covered with a light ragged blanket of sorts.

She stretched and yawned, her eyes opening as she looked around.

Several other people were occupying the room she was in, which appeared to be an abandoned public building of sorts.

"Rise and shine, bird-girl."

Another unfamiliar male voice remarked from behind the sofa.

Talon sat up to see who it was that spoke.

Another boy, this one with purple hair and a wide grin, eyed her while tossing a hacky-sack from one hand to the other.

"Nice to finally see you're not dead."

He commented jokingly before turning his full attention back to the tossing of the hacky-sack.

"Hey, rise 'n shine, sleeping birdie."

Hotstreak remarked from where he was sitting at a table, playing poker with another unfamiliar face.

The stranger playing the game with Hotstreak silently nodded in Talon's direction, intent on keeping his poker face.

Ebon rose out of a swirling black and purple puddle from the floor, sitting on a chair across from the sofa Talon sat on.

"That's Shiv."

He explained, jerking his head in the purple-haired boy's direction.

Turning his gaze in the other unfamiliar boy's direction, he finished,

"And that's Rubberband Man."

Talon nodded and stood up from the sofa, wincing as she felt her shoulder.

Luckily, it had just been grazed by the bullet, but it would still take a few days to heal—at least.

"Feh. This is so boring."

Shiv complained after a few more minutes of tossing the hacky-sack around.

"Yeah…let's to steal something from somewhere."

Hotstreak agreed, throwing down his deck of poker cards as he apparently lost the match to Rubberband Man.

Ebon turned his gaze to Talon.

"You up for a run around Dakota, or not?"

"Um…okay. Sure."

Talon slowly replied, glancing over at the others, who were ready to spring out of the hideout at Ebon's signal.

The dark leader narrowed his eyes and sank back into the pool of purple and black from whence he had come.

Talon followed Hotstreak's steps, shadowing as close behind him and Shiv as she possibly could.

Shiv glanced back at her over his shoulder at her.

"Getting a big clingy, aren't we?"

He remarked with a snicker.

Talon slowed her pace and allowed some distance to gather between her and the two boys before taking stride again and continuing to shadow them.

The three of them made their way down the dark streets of downtown Dakota, Shiv and Hotstreak joking with each other and almost completely ignoring Talon except for an occasional glance in her direction.

She shuffled along behind them, somewhat nervous.

What was it they were heading off to do?

She found out minutes later when they stopped in front of Dakota's mall. Ebon was already there, hidden in the shadow of a van.

He stepped forward.

"It's a free-for-all. Steal what cash you can and get out. We'll meet back at HQ."

He commanded before sliding back into the shadows and appearing again inside the glass doors of a Hot Topic.

Hotstreak and Shiv high-fived each other before each of them took off toward the entrance.

Talon shifted nervously before jogging at an easy pace after them. The two boys split their directions when they entered the shopping mall. Talon watched in fascination Shiv's hands morphed into foot-long blades that he slashed back and forth a few times before darting to the cash registers and slashing at them as well. Dollar bills flew in every direction, Shiv gleefully jumping about with a huge grin on his face to gather it up with his hands that had morphed again, this time into what looked to be a net.

A bouncing sound was heard from behind Talon, and she turned to see a large purple bouncing ball with a silver stripe in the center

Talon blinked.

Eyes and a face emerged from the bouncing ball as it shifted into its human form: Rubberband Man.

He stretched like a slinky over to another section of cash registers and started catching all the floating money.

"Hey, Talon, come over here!"

Hotstreak called to her, his body completely engulfed in flame.

Talon sprinted to Hotstreak's side, wondering what he wanted her there for.

He pointed to a section of ATMs that were aligned side-by-side against the wall.

"Use your scream thing…or whatever it is that you do. Crack 'em open."

Talon nodded obediently and turned to face the ATMs.

She opened her mouth and screamed, but nothing came out—it sounded just like a normal teenage girl's cry for help.

Hotstreak cocked an eyebrow, his arms folded across his chest impatiently.

Talon tried again, but with the same results.

"Look, do you have to like…get pissed off at someone or something like that?"

Hotstreak suggested, still impatient.

Alex's image suddenly entered Talon's mind, and her eyes flashed in rage.

The shriek emitted from her lips a third time, this time sending out the expected purple hypersonic sound waves.

One by one as Talon directed her voice at them, the ATMs burst open, sending torrents of green bills to jet out of them.

Hotstreak grinned and began to gather them up in a large duffel bag, tossing another one in Talon's direction.

Talon caught the duffel bag and frantically began catching the money as it fell, stuffing it rapidly into the bag as fast as possible.

The teenage boy looked over at her.

"Be right back, keep going."

"…Okay…"

Talon murmured in reply, not looking to see where Hotstreak was going as he rushed away from the ATMs.

She suddenly heard frantic screams ringing throughout that section of the mall as the sound of several small multiple explosions joined them.

She turned around to see what it was, and found that he was shooting fireballs at all the register telephones, destroying them so that the civilians that had been shopping inside the mall wouldn't be able to call the police on the gang.

Apparently, it didn't work.

Sirens screamed from outside the mall as armed policemen soon filed out of their patrol cars and surrounded the entrance, trembling in fear as they held their handguns out in front of them.

"Rubber boy! Get the chick out!"

Shiv yelled as his left hand morphed into a grappling hook that he shot out at the ceiling before pulling himself up on it and crawling out of the scene through an air vent.

Rubberband Man's arm stretched from the spot where he was gathering jewelry from a Kay Jeweler's and grabbed Talon by the waist, causing her to drop the duffel bag of cash as she was snapped back to him by the elastic force.

"Hang on."

He commanded, his other arm stretching to grab the duffel bag that she'd dropped.

After stuffing the duffel bag with the jewelry he'd gotten, he grasped Talon with a firmer grip and stretched out his entire body like a slinky again, moving in a somewhat slither-like motion as the two of them ricocheted over to the exit, which the police officers hadn't thought to surround.