Depravity 1.1:

Lung leaped from the sidewalk to the second floor of a building on the far side of the street. He didn't make it all the way to the roof, but he came to a point maybe three quarters of the way up. I wasn't sure just how Lung kept from falling, but I could only guess that he just buried his fingertips into the building's exterior.

This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening. I kept thinking that until I was interrupted by scraping and crunching as he ascended

I looked around frantically for an exit but I whipped around too fast to focus on an exit. And before I could find one, Lung's hands, still on fire, showed up gripping on the roof.

I'm fucked, I'm fucked, I'm fucked!

I thought about running towards him and making it quick. But then I thought of my dad and how he reacted when my mom died and I decided to run. I went for the fire escape but I couldn't make it before a fireball hit my back.

I covered my head with my hands and brought my knees to my chest as the hot air and flame rushed over me. My costume seemed to take the brunt of it, but it was still hot enough I had to bite my lip to stop myself from making a sound.

"You. you are the girl attacking us, correct?" he spoke in his heavily accented voice, his talking interrupted by his panting for breath, "Move. Give me something to aim for."

Him saying that calmed me down. It meant he wasn't going to attack me right away. I held my breath and stayed as still as possible. What could I do? When he talked I instinctively put my hand on my pepper spray, but I was running the risk that he would lash out and bake me alive before I could move. If I moved first, he would hear me and I would get knocked around by another blast of flame, probably before I could get to my feet. He suddenly moved, flames wreathing his hands, and I screwed my eyes shut.

He blasted me with flames, The heat was so intense, I had to keep biting my lip to avoid screaming. Hard enough to the point where it started to bleed.

"Start moving," he said "I'm not staying here forever" He fired more flames at me. The pain was intense, I started to feel a sharp pain on my lip from biting it so I traded biting on my lip to biting on my fingers and removed my mask to do so but made a fatal mistake.

I took my mask off "Finally," Lung said "something to aim at."

I quickly tried to put my mask back on before he lit me up but then something happened.

Lung was firing streams of flame, but instead of aiming for me, he aimed for the edge of the roof of the adjacent building, a three-story apartment. I looked to see what he was aiming at, but couldn't make anything out in the gloom or in the brief second of light Lung's flames afforded.

All of a sudden. a massive shape landed atop Lung with an impact I could swear people heard at the other end of the street. The size of a van, the 'massive thing' looked like an animal, resembling a cross between a lizard and a tiger, with a bunch of muscle and bone where it ought to have skin, scales, or fur. Lung was now on his knees, holding one of the beast's sizable claws away from his face with his own clawed striked the creature on the snout and made it rear back. It took a few short steps back in reaction, and then rhino-charged him off the edge of the roof. They hit the street with an audible crash

I stood, shaking like a leaf. I was so unsteady on my feet, from the mixed relief and fear, that I almost fell over again as two more impacts shook the roof. Two more creatures had arrived on the rooftop. These two each had a pair of riders. I watched as the people slid off the backs of the animals. There were three guys, and a fourth I identified as male-only because of the height. The tall one approached me, while the others hurried to the edge of the roof to watch Lung and the creature duke it out.

"See man I told you," one of them said. " the mittens were a good step"

"Wasn't because of the mittens ch-AHEM! ERM! Dogman. It was because of the bug girl."

Bug girl...were they talking about me?

One of them walked toward me. He was a tall man wearing some white spandex with a sash and what I think was a red codpiece. But it was hard to tell in the dark.

"Hey." he said, " You saved us a lot of trouble, we had a feeling someone would come here before us, what's your name?"

"um..." I responded "I don't have one"

"What does that mean?" Dogman questioned, "I mean we all have names i mean you're born with your father and your mother and they give you a name-"

The man in the black mask interrupted "Dogman he doesn't-"

"How can you NOT have a name? I mean-

"Dogman! I think he means he doesn't have a supervillain name."

Supervillain? Wait did they think-

"Well bug." The man in the codpiece interrupted my train of thought "I'm the golden god, the one in the black mask is dark brute, and the one in the doggy mask is dogman. Of course more official sources call him hellhound."

"You forgot me." the man in the skintight suit said.

"Well you have only been a part of the gang for a year! Go on, introduce yourself."

"My name's tattletale"

I tried to muster a response "umm...hi?"

"Heh, you're not quite the conversationalist are you?" the golden god said, which to me seemed like such an arrogant codename. Or maybe it was a tribute to scion. I wasn't quite sure.

"Wow the dogs are shredding him right now!" Dogman said "what did she do to him?

"Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings. Fire ant and spider bites." the short man said. "Man, you really did a number on him huh girly?"

They waited for a response.

"i ..well...ummmm….."

The man in the codpiece spoke, "what's your problem?"

"She's just shy," the short man answered. "Might be best to get out of here. The cops will be coming soon."

"Gotcha, hey bug you really helped us out. You know, if you ever need some help, well, call us."

"How the hell is she gonna call us? what, are we gonna exchange phone numbers?" the man named Dark Brute said.

"Just shut up brute. Hey Dogman, call off your dogs. It's time to go!"

Dogman whistled and the dogs came. The supervillains got on the dogs but before they rode off the short one in the black skintight suit said something to me.

"And if we ever need help we'll find you."

And with that they rode off into the night. And when they did, I could've cried. The people Lung was going to kill were clearly The Gang, which means the people I have gone to great lengths saving, were bad guys. Not only that, but they had mistaken me for one…