We own the rights to nothing of this story.
Rose Wilson had been in the base for all of four days before their babysitter arrived, and she had already settled rather comfortably, as much as she could be, into a schedule. She awoke before the sun could rise and ran along the beach for several miles before heading into the well-equipped gym where she continued her workout. After that, she headed to one of the rest rooms and spent nearly an hour in the shower until the steam was so thick that she couldn't see her hand a foot in front of her face. Water washed away the sweat and eased the burn in her muscles, but it also helped her relieve all the frustration from her body. All the pain, sorrow, and sins swirled around the drain and trailed into the pipes. Haunting memories temporarily abandoned her, though the ghosts would return later, never truly abandoning her. Once she was cleansed, she headed to the sparse kitchen and had a quick meal. The red kid was usually there when she showed up, and he made something more domestic and homely than her typical bowl of oatmeal or toast and glass of orange juice. Queen B with an Itch rarely deigned to dine with them for any meal, and that was perfectly fine with Rose as far as she was concerned. As the day progressed towards the afternoon, she would take to exploring the areas around her new home. She was questioning for how much longer it would be that, but she was willing to give it a try.
This morning, a once empty room reverberated with literally inhuman snoring, and it gave her pause before she headed out. When she went in for breakfast, she witnessed an emerald Smilodon populator stretching like a common house cat in front of the window, basking in the morning sunlight. As he curled up and seemed to settle into a nap, purring loudly, she studied him with a pointed stare as though there was something she couldn't quite comprehend. At the stove, the devil boy was making an omelet and looking at the massive sabre-tooth cat in a sense of awe and amazement. His gaze flickered towards Rose, and he asked, "Isn't this totally wicked?"
"Yeah, joy. Now we have to purchase a super-sized litterbox," she rolled her eye, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Actually, we're good. You're room worked perfectly for the occasion," the ancient feline growled. Scowling at the massive creature, she opened her mouth to snap out at him, but was interrupted by the cooking youth.
"Hey, either of you want something to eat? I can whip up another omelet for myself. One of you can have this, if you want," he offered.
"No thanks, Eddie. I don't eat processed animals in any stage of development. Did you know human, fish, and several other animal embryos are nearly identical during early stages of their life?" Changeling yawned, his fierce maw opening to a rather terrifying degree.
"I thought you were like Devil Boy or something," Rose scrunched up her face at him.
"Um, it's Kid Devil. And, uh, my real name is Eddie Bloomberg," he volunteered.
"Oh," she said, unable to think of anything else to offer. With a chuckle, the bear-like feline rose to his paws and padded by them, towards the door.
"Try to get that foot out of your mouth by training, Rose. Enjoy your breakfasts."
He left them to the awkward silence, interrupted only by the messy splat of the omelet as Kid Devil flipped it. Rose sucked on her bottom lip, her hands stuffed into her pockets as she rocked back and forth upon her feet. Releasing a breath through her nose, she turned to him and took a few steps forward. Twisting her shoulders for a moment, she finally pulled a hand from her pocket and presented it to him as she said, "When I walked in here four days ago, you introduced yourself to me. I'm going to admit right now, I paid attention to like a tenth of what you actually said. So I'd like to call 'do over.' My name's Rose Wilson or Ravager. Nice to meet you."
His yellow eyes met hers, his eyebrows arched as he transferred his omelet to a plate. Giving a chuckle, he wiped his hands on his pants, turned off the stove, and accepted her proffered hand.
"Eddie Bloomberg. Or Kid Devil. It's nice to meet you."
A warm hand, nearly uncomfortably so, enveloped her own and gave it a short shake before they dropped hands. Eddie grabbed his plate and was rummaging through the drawers for silverware. When he finally found what he was looking for, he turned to her and asked, "You sure that you don't want some? It's really no problem."
Regarding him for a second, she scoffed and shook her head, "You're way too good to be looking like some sort of demon."
His smile turned fake and he gave a short bark of a laugh, "No, I earned this well enough."
Frowning, she debated on whether not to press the statement before deciding that it was not a boundary that she had a right to cross as of yet. Holding up a hand in protest, she shook her head with a smile and went around the island kitchen to the cabinet that was stocked with her oatmeal. They ate in silence, the air thick between them and Rose was thankful for when she finished her breakfast and left to change into the suit meant for handling business. The leather clothes fit tightly to her slender body, highlighting her figure and leaving her arms bare. A pair of katanas were strapped across her back and the belt holding her knives was around her waist. Her attire was meant to allow her to make full use of her natural agility while still affording her some protection. She wore boots that were designed to make as little noise as possible when she moved and had an odd bell-bottom design. Arriving in the spacious room covered with training mats, she found Changeling, cycling through a myriad of animal forms as he twisted between the forest of dummies. They were designed to spin when force was applied, sending their blocky limbs swinging, which the shape shifter weaved under and over. As he noticed her presence, he darted towards the edge and landed in front of her as a wolf. Beginning to revert into his human shape, he said in a snarl, "Open the panel on that right wall there. There should be some practice weapons there so you don't accidentally cut somebody up."
She nodded and strode towards the wall where she pressed on the panel he had gestured towards. There was a mechanical whirring and it opened flat, revealing a cache of rubber weapons of various designs as well as several firearms that could not produce lethal force. Spotting weapons that were close enough imitations to her own, she grabbed them and slid the rubber knives into her belt as she held onto the practice swords. Turning back towards the center of the room, she noticed that faces had been drawn upon them, demonstrating a host of different expressions though not particularly complex in the artistic regard.
"I plan to put googly eyes on them next," Changeling said, smiling as she furrowed her brow at the wooden constructs. She gave no response as Kid Devil strolled in, trading the baggy clothes he greeted the day with for dark leather pants that were armed with numerous studs and spikes and held up by a length of chain wrapped about his slim waist. Surreptitiously, Ravager admired the musculature of his bared chest even if he was a bit lean for her tastes. His yellow eyes shone with excitement and he fidgeted anxiously as he nodded in greeting to the pair already in the room. They waited for several minutes, during which Changeling began stretching out as he kept glancing towards the clock encased in what Ravager suspected to be bulletproof glass. Finally, the dark-haired alien made her entrance, marching over to the group as though she held sovereignty over them. As she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at them as though they were the late ones, the green man clasped his hands together and smiled, "Right. Glad to see we all made it. So, I'm humble enough to admit that I probably can't teach Ravager or Blackfire here a thing when it comes to combat. Kid, you might be a different case, but we'll handle that later. Today, I want to focus on something else. Because being a hero isn't about being a better fighter; it's about saving lives, protecting people from danger, and stopping the mad scientist from turning the innocent citizens into a horde of mindless zombies. Or whatever the scheme-of-the-week is. So-"
He strode past them to the other side of the long room before sharply turning about to face them and called, "-Ravager and KD, you two take a seat for a moment. Blackfire, stop me before I can harm those rather handsomely drawn 'citizens' there. Remember, we're protectors, not executioners. No lethal force."
Blackfire smirked as she rose into the air, purple orbs of plasma surrounding her hands. "This is going to be too easy."
There was a moment of peace before Changeling exploded forward, his body shifting into a lithe feline as he made his first step. Blackfire unleashed a barrage of small starbolts to halt his progress, but the cheetah demonstrated its trademark speed, changing direction to dodge the attacks by adjusting its tail's position. Suddenly, the cheetah was gone and a small hummingbird flitted towards her, darting too fast for her eyes to follow and prompting her to snarl in frustration. Gathering energy, she produced a large bolt that she launched forth but before it made contact, the hummingbird was replaced by a, traditionally, red-tailed hawk that rode the thermal wave of the energy burst above the alien. She glanced up just as a chipmunk dropped from the sky onto her face. Unleashing an infuriated shriek, she made to grab for the emerald mammal only to have it dart into her thick hair. Raking her fingers through the silky darkness, she looked ready to tear it out when a kangaroo seemed to grow out of her back, launching off of her with a force that sent her reeling forward. Landing as a human in front of one of the figures in a crouch, he then changed into a bulky gorilla that grabbed two of the nearest dummies, smashing one into the ground and throwing the other into the crowd. As she turned back towards Changeling, she gave a roar and zoomed towards him, eyes aglow with energy. When she was close enough, he suddenly kicked his legs up, supporting himself on his thick arm. Opposable toes seized under her arms and he used her momentum and his own to drive her into the ground, flipping over and bringing a monstrous fist down right beside her head.
"That's an F," he boomed before he dwindled back into his human form and pressed his mouth close to her ear as he advised, "Don't be late again, okay?"
Jumping off of her, he beamed at his remaining pupils and asked, "All right, who's next?"
Kid Devil was still too awestruck by the spectacle that he had just witnessed, so Ravager took the opportunity. Rolling onto her feet in a single fluid motion, she tightened her grip about the practice swords as she confidently announced, "I'll take you on, green genes."
"Only two folks are allowed to call me 'green genes,' bright eye. And unless you suddenly find yourself Kafka-ed into a near 300 pound cyborg with a disturbing love for meat or an unnecessarily snarky sorceress, you aren't either of them," he chided as he strode towards the other end of the room. Blackfire had, rather shamefacedly Ravager noted with glee, left the area to lean against one of the side walls, several feet away from Kid Devil. Positioning herself in front of the thickest concentration of 'civilians,' Ravager took a steadying breath and stared down her opponent. He grinned at her and abruptly asked, "Did you know that the ankylosaurus is the only known animal that had armored eyelids?"
The tidbit of information was followed by his transformation into the large, saurian equivalent of a tank. With a bellow, he thundered towards her but she did not give an inch. For a second, the image in front of her disappeared and she saw a tail sweeping her legs out from under her. Blinking, she saw the large dinosaur stop short of her several feet before swinging itself about. Drawing a quick breath, she leapt onto the clubbed tail and raced up the dinosaur's back before stabbing down into the behemoth's skull. A rough laugh rumbled from the beast's throat.
"That wouldn't've worked even with your real swords. Were you listening to me at all when I was talking about the armor this ankylosaurus has?"
Suddenly, there was an anaconda slithering about her body, binding her limbs tightly together and not permitting her the slightest movement. Using the small amount of breath that she could, she gritted out, "You can't hurt the civilians while you're holding me."
"That'ssssss true, but if I wassssss a true villain, I'd jusssssss kill you," he hissed. "Alsssssooo, thisssss."
Coiling his upper half as though he was about to strike, he whipped her about as he lashed towards the dummies. With a growl, Ravager threw herself forward and managed to grab the tail of the powerful serpent, pulling him back and away from the wooden crowd. Somehow, the snake managed to express surprise before suddenly it was a tyrannosaurus rex and she was suspended in the air as she refused to release her grip on the tail. Hefting herself up, she readied her swords as she charged towards his head, only for him to lift his haunches and press her into the ceiling. Pinned with only the slightest of movements in her arms, she could barely tap his flank with either of her blades. A tremor ran along the thick, scaly beast in something that sounded like a laugh as he noted, "The t-rex had some of the longest teeth of known carnivorous dinosaurs. They also had incredibly strong arms despite their disproportionate size. Oh, and . . ."
She felt the muscles of the large animal flex and heard a splintering sound followed by the same booming voice, "I'm gonna have to give you a D for that. I was sure I'd get you with the Eunectes murinus, but you managed to surprise me. Good work."
The pressure against her was relieved as his form began to shrink down and he dropped her gently upon the mats. Wincing, he let his tongue loll from his mouth and wiped at it as he yelped, "Splinters! Oh God, why did I bite down?! They're all in my mouth and all over my tongue! The pain, the pain!"
"How the Hell did I lose to you?" she scowled up at him.
"Swear jar."
"Shut it, Eddie. Seriously, how could I lose to some goofball like you?"
Plucking a splinter from his tongue, he glared accusingly at it for a minute before flicking it away triumphantly and then looking towards her with an arched brow. "Ravager, I've got near some eight years on you. All your training, it's never been about protecting others. Right now, I'm just trying to gauge your ability. So relax. You'll get another chance. Kid Devil, you're up."
Grumbling to herself as Blackfire smirked superiorly at her to which she remarked, "Still got a higher grade than you."
Her smile crashed as Kid Devil leapt to his feet, licking his lips nervously as he marched forth. Wiping his palms against his pants, he shifted his weight from foot to foot while Changeling headed towards the opposite end of the room again. He executed a sharp turn about and smiled at the teenage boy before he dropped to all fours as he took on the shape of a tiger. Charging forward, he roared a challenge at Kid Devil, startling him and allowing Changeling to cover more than half the ground between them before the youth could recover. Steadying his stance, Kid Devil opened his mouth to unleash a gout of flame towards his instructor only to watch a small-bodied feline that some would recognize as a caracal bound out of the way. Finding brief purchase upon the wall, he sprang from it and landed directly in front of Kid Devil. He blinked in surprise, unable to react fast enough as the lynx-like animal morphed into a smirking man just before he became a ram that slammed into his chest. Spinning from the blow, he crashed to the ground, which put pressure on his fire organ and unleashed a spurt of flame that lit several of the dummies on fire.
All of them gaped at the flaming figures, Changeling still as a goat, who looked to the boy and noted as tactfully as he could, "Surprisingly, I have no experience with a grade lower than F. Suffice it to say, lighting the civies on fire is a fail. We're gonna need to work on that."
As always, we would like to thank those who posted reviews and encourage them and others to continue reviewing. So, we had a little bit of action this chapter. We're probably going to do one or two more chapters of the team getting to know each other and adjusting to their new lifestyles before they start fighting villains and doing missions. We'll be drawing most of the villains from the comics, and we'll accept input on the rogues' gallery. But we'd also like feedback as we start to introduce them.