(Alright everyone this chapter will have a German character in it. He is a DC character, so I did not make him. His name is William Von Hammer. Now as I am not German, myself I asked the help of a friend, who is to translate certain phrases from English, into German. In the event she is unavailable I will use certain websites. That being said, I will write the accent in the same as the other characters, I'm not going to have him say "Ja" all the time, and replace the first letter of every word with a V. )
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The hardest part about being a leader, was the responsibility that came with the job. Thomas accepted this, and felt personally responsible for every member of his team. A healthy, and happy team was one that would perform well, and be far less likely to make mistakes when they were on the field.
As a result of this, Thomas learned that he needed to make not only plans, but plans within plans. This is what had lead to his decision in hiring a Private Investigator. It was a man who specialized in the ridiculous.
Thomas did not trust how easily Professor Strange had went down, and he wanted to know what was really going on. Currently he was waiting, for a call back, and as he did so Thomas was content to sit down, and read for the time being.
As far as the team was concerned, they had been allowed to relax today, provided that no missions came up. Many of them were more than happy to take advantage of that opportunity, and unwind.
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Leeann, and Tay had decided to spend some of their time off playing video games together. It turned out that they enjoyed many of the same games, so picking one out was not a difficult task for them. The game they had chosen was a futuristic, first person shooter type of game.
"Wait..how'd you get the armor?" Tay asked her, about her game character. "The magical of world of cheat codes." Leeann said back to him, causing Tay to purse his lips slightly.
The game started up on the first level. "Stay behind me!" Leeann said loudly, as Tay's character ran in front of hers. "What? No way! I'm going for the high score!" Tay said to her, as his character scouted ahead.
"You have a pistol. A pistol with only six rounds before reloading." She said to him. "Yeah, I know. I'm great with pistols in these games for some reason. I can't explain it, but I get a head shot a good 95 percent of the time." Tay said to her, as he focused on the screen.
When the enemies came, Leeann threw a grenade, took cover, and then laid into the aliens with machine gun fire, and a few well placed, rifle shots to the heads.
Tay meanwhile ran straight at them with his pistol, and actually managed to get off several head shots, while avoiding enemy fire. "I'm reloading!" Leeann let Tay know even though she still had half a clip left.
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Emerald had spent most of the morning, hacking into encrypted police files. Thomas said that although he wanted to take Strange down to get him out of their hair, he wanted to know if any officials had contact with the Professor, in which case they may have been on his side, without even knowing it.
A few of the officers, had prior to the arrest, known Strange, but it never said if they knew him as a personal psychiatrist or not. Despite this, Emerald still took down their information, for future reference. After this was done, Emerald felt like hitting the gym, for a work out.
The gym area, had virtually every piece of equipment there was, in which to work out with. It also came equipped with multiple air-conditions. Emerald pressed down on the silver colored, lever of the wooden door, and inside he saw Kate on a treadmill.
"Oh, uh...if you want I can come back later?" Emerald half said, and half asked her. He was aware that some people enjoyed their privacy while exercising.
"Oh, no it's fine, go right ahead." Kate said to him, as she slowed down to a walk. Emerald gave a brief nod, and went over to the weight bench. He set at 350 lbs, and then got into position. As he lifted the bar, he decided a chat would not hurt.
"So, I was wondering." He began to say, as he did a rep. "What made you take up this life?" Emerald asked his, healer, teammate.
"I wanted to help." That was Kate's response to him, and he took it in, as he did a few more repetitions.
"Heh, I guess I just enjoy making fools of those who prey on others." He said to her. "I even remember the first time,...I really got into the wise cracking."
Emerald paused for a moment, as he lifted the weights once more. "Now don't get me wrong here, I understand things such as eating from depression, genetic obesity, gland problems, and all of that. When I was fighting this one guy though, very early in my career, he was a heavy man, and so I just started making fat joke, after fat joke at him. It wasn't because he was heavy, it was because he was a dick, that was trying to steal money from a family, and he even threatened their daughter, she was like four. If he had been a good person, as in non criminal, then I wouldn't have made those jokes at him." Emerald explained to Kate, though he was more or less just rambling, and did not actually know how much she was listening to or not.
"By the way, is it just me or does Strange's beard, look like he chopped off a Squirrel's tail and glued it to his face?" He asked her.
Kate thought for a moment, she then titled her head slightly, and let out a small amount of laughter. "Ah, now that I've got a mental image, it kind of does." She replied to him.
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As it was nearing lunch time, at least for her, Alicia had decided to make herself a sandwich. As she entered the kitchen area, she found M staring at, or perhaps he was glaring at a jar of peanut butter. A jar of peanut butter with the entire top half of it ripped off.
"I was only trying to open it." M said to her, causing Alicia to give him an incredulous look.
"Does this happen often?" She asked him after a moment of silence, and then seeing him nod. "You ever think you're using too much pressure then?" She asked him.
M for a moment gave her a look that said, 'I know' to her. Alicia got to work on her own lunch, but still spoke with the red haired boy as she did so.
"You know the problem is your terrified of yourself. That's never a good thing, especially for people...like us." Alicia said to M.
"See this fear, whatever reason you have it, it means that you don't have any real control over your powers, because you fear using them, and as a result, you can't tell the difference between how much force to punch someone with, and how much force to open a jar of peanut butter with."
Alicia paused for a moment, as she cut her sandwich.
"Here's the thing though, eventually you're going to run into someone who is more powerful than you, and wants to kill you. In the event of that happening, I seriously hope, you overcome whatever mental block you have, because in the field it's a liability." She explained to him.
Having made her sandwich, and feeling that she at least tried to help the redhead, Alicia left the kitchen, to go and enjoy her meal in peace.
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"And this a game, that humans enjoy?" Morgan asked as she held the ball in front of her chest. "We..well not all, b..but a lot of us do." Shade said to the Atlantean.
"Its, pre...pretty popular, as a pa...past time, since it's simple." He explained to her.
"So this game is basically, I have to bounce the ball, I can't just run with it, and the goal is to shoot it through the net? And whoever does this the most times is the winner?" She asked Shade.
Morgan was actually quite delighted to learn new things about Earth, so this was a nice experience for her. "Ba...basically." Shade said in reply to her.
"Then let's play." Morgan said to him, as she began to dribble the ball. Since Shade had more experience in the game, he decided to go ahead, and take it easy on her.
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It had been a long morning for William. He had faithfully searched every area that his client had given to him, and he came up with a lot of interesting finds. Finds that he was certain Thomas would be interested in hearing about.
He wiped dirt from his jacket, and flicked a bug from his hair, and then gave the hero a call.
"Hello, it's William."
"I have found everything I could possibly find, and I,
Ich glaube, ich habe entdeckt Gold!...My apologies, I became excited. I found something, really interesting." William said in a much more deadpan tone.
"Ah yes, meeting, meeting of course. Will it be just you or the entire team?" William waited for the Thomas to respond on the other end.
"Hmm a public location? What about the East-Prairie Mall?" He asked. "Alright, then I'll meet you in the food court." William then hung up the phone, and headed for their meeting location.
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Thomas called all of the team members into the living room, to explain to them what they would be doing. "Alright I just got word back from our hired P.I."
He told the group before himself. "Like the vegetable pea? Or does he pee in his eyes?" Emerald asked making a joke out of the shortening of the name.
Thomas briefly gave him a "seriously?" look, before moving on. "We're going to the East-Prairie Mall. I will be meeting William personally. The rest of you will be in the area, on patrol in the event that anything goes down. I'd prefer that we come in a little at a time, we don't want to arouse suspicion, or give old guards a heart attack, when 10 teenagers, an age group with a bad repetition, unfortunately, all decide to walk into a single place together." Thomas epxlained to them.
The others briefly gave a few nods, and "Okay's" showing that they were fine with his choice. and rules on the matter.
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William sat down, waiting for Thomas to arrive, it had been five minuets, thus far. Then he saw him, the brown haired young man approached the table, as William stood up, in order to be polite, and shake hands with him.
"Ah, it's nice to see you, I wasn't sure how long I'd be waiting." William said to the young man.
"Well I'm here now, so what'd you find out?" Thomas asked of the detective.
William gave a broad smile, like a child whose pockets were filled with candy. "Well first your hunch about a power source in the old hospital was correct, only it was not a singular source, such a generator. At least not entirely."
Willaim reached into his coat pocket, and produced, a small vial which the very bottom of appeared to be covered in gray dust.
"I found a power source, but that in there, is a small piece of what kept the building running. Nanomachines, that small amount of dust right there, carries, potentially millions of them." William said to Thomas, who now seemed more amazed at the small vial.
"Do they have other functions?" Thomas asked the blonde haired man.
"Incredibly they don't. They have no artificial intelligence, or any such thing, or even thinking capability based upon my tests. They simply collect energy, and release it, accordingly in order to provide power." William told him.
"The only weird thing, I noticed was the potential to cause mutations, based on an energy signature they gave off, though being microscopic in size, it's unlikely that they would be able to do so." Thomas was quick to reply to that one.
"Not unless, someone utilized a mass production unit of them to achieve it...damn" Thomas was suddenly hit with a new thought. "So, um what else did you find?" Thomas asked as he wanted to learn what he could, before leaving.
"Ah yes, I also did some blood testing, very interesting stuff. You see the samples I took did not match any know blood types in existence, either human or animal." Willaim said to Thomas with a light grin on his face.
This knowledge only served to worry to Thomas, who now realized that their first mission was potentially something bigger than all of them.