As if a prophet had spoke it into being the moment those words leave my mouth, attacks shoot out of the water treatment facility right at our position.

  “Scatter!” Travis barks, zipping away.

  I charge towards the attack, pushing myself off the roof and going phased as I fly through the first few attacks.

  To my horror, I realize that something is pushing against my senses. I can’t see nearly what I would normally see in the facility. They have something that is blocking me, be that a person or tech.

  Touching down on the ground, I go solid, charging forward while weaving between the attacks, hoping that they don’t target me?

  I’m not actually sure about that. Most of my friends are way easier to hurt than I am.

  “So, is the plan go in and kick some ass or do we have another plan?” Amelia asks as I giant ice crystal flies overhead, unfortunately being broken up by the concentrated attacks by the facility before it can break open the door.

  “We’ll fight, but the goal is to search for Andromeda.” I decide as I take a sharp turn to bring me around.

  Even if I can’t see inside, it’s still probably safer for me to go in through the side of the building and cause chaos that way.

  “Do you want us to make you space so that you can hunt her down?” Travis asks his form pausing as he speaks before he blurs off once again.

  I’m tempted. I don’t want to let my failures from last time be how I finish this, but I refuse to let that kind of thought rule my thinking. We failed to complete everything as a duo earlier.

  “We’ll search together as a team. It might slow us down to keep each other close, but it’ll be safer.”

  “Fractal Cannon, I need you to stand back.” Cass commands, standing just a few feet away from the large reinforced doors we’re trying to break through.

  The next thing I know, I can tell the door's blown open, the only difference now being that Cass has her hands outstretched as if she’s sent out an energy blast.

  Now that the entrance for the other three is in the clear, I slip through the wall, pushing off to race through.

  “There’s the phaser, stop him!” someone barks as multiple people turn on me.

  I know my plan was to come in from the side and cause chaos that way, but I didn’t think the brand of chaos I was going to go with was just showing up and they would decide I was a threat and all turn on me.

  “Jump!” Amelia says in a whisper.

  Trusting her implicitly, I jump, twisting through the air and phasing through one projectile before going solid and slamming a knee into one criminal.

  The flash of blue reflecting off of every shiny surface is enough to tell me what happened, and I turn my boots immutable as I land, the ice crunching beneath me as I surge forward, taking down another.

  “This is why I have shoe spikes.” Travis complains as he runs by me; the clicking of the spikes digging into the ice grating at the speed he’s running.

  “Alright, alright, alright. You all can surrender and let us past, those of you with frozen toes, or you can try and stop me,” Amelia calls out, giant spear in hand, as she gestures to the area of frozen wonderland she’s made so far.

  The plan seems to work brilliantly till a pyrokinetic shows up.

  As the room heats up, melting all of Amelia’s ice, I can’t decide if I should take down the fire user or let her try and deal with it.

  The answer is neither as Cass rips the pyrokinetic out of the air, slamming them into the ground. “We’re not here to fight remember we’re trying to find Andromeda and stop the lab!”

  Remembering what my job is, I pour over the information flowing into my mind. It seems like the walls themselves are what are resisting my detection, making it hard for me to see past it.

  “I can’t find her!” I call. “Something’s blocking me.”

  “Then we’ll go together! Stairs are towards the left corner!” Travis relays.

  As a unit, we take down the supers that are too close, and for the ones pelting us with blasts from far away, I try to ignore them.

  They’ll need to be dealt with eventually, but I need to focus.

  Amelia freezes several pillars into existence, and I push off the one behind me, sail through a second and drop down on the trapped acid spitter like a meteor, taking him down in a single blow.

  I catch some type of stealth type trying to sneak up on Amelia blade raised in their arms but right before I tackle them to the ground they vanish from my grip and I’m sent stumbling at the same time as Travis seems to roll not too far away.

  The two of us share a glance, which I hope is apologetic, before I move to get someone else.

  I’m not sure how he saw the invisible person, but him being so fast I can’t realistically track him makes things difficult.

  As if the very air is pressing down on us, I look up to see a man in goggles thrusting his hands downwards, Cass despite her best efforts unable to get a tendril of ash up there.

  Phasing most of my body to free me from the restraints, I run back to one of the ice pillars, climbing it quickly before pushing off as hard as I can.

  I realize unfortunately quickly that I’m not going to make it. Thankfully, so did someone else.

  A plate of ice materializes just beneath one of my feet, and I push off once more into the waiting arms of another ice platform before I’m finally able to grab the aerokinetic out of the air.

  Either he isn’t used to flying with two people or watching a phaser run up the air via ice platforms and grab him was too surprising to focus.

  Either way, the two of us plummet to the ground as I grapple him, the aerokinetic flailing.

  The pile of snow is pretty much the best landing I’ve had, and I quickly disentangle the aerokinetic from myself after I make sure he’s actually out.

  “I’m running out of the knockout stuff Miracle made anyone else?”

  “I didn’t have any to start with,” Amelia adds ever so helpfully.

  “Out.” Travis confirms.

  “Also out, but I was out of it before we got here.” Cass admits once more back in her lumbering golem form as she smashes her way through a prismatic barrier.

  “Well, we’ll just have to keep beating them the old-fashioned way.” I shrug.

  As we fight through the floor, I realize that if this is going to be a common occurrence; I need to practice working with other people.

  Comboing with Amelia is easy. I’ve known her for ages. It doesn’t even take effort to figure out her plan and adapt to it, same way for her I’m sure.

  But Travis and I in particular keep getting in each other's way or going for the same target.

  There’s no way to fix this right now, but there has to be a way to mitigate the problem at least for today.

  “Cannonball.” I say, hoping he’ll stop long enough to hear me. “Do you want to be on team support or finisher duty?”

  Travis laughs in my ear before answering, zipping away from the team to take out someone who had been sneaking up on us.

  “Alright, we’re switching things up. Cannonball will be on support and running interference on those trying to sneak up on us or even repositioning team members if they’re in danger. Fractal, I need you to keep icing people and slowing them down so we can keep moving forward. Smoulder, care to lead the charge with me?”

  Amelia complains briefly about her job but still makes use of her power, freezing the ground and giving me barriers to use my powers with.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Cass seems to expand, forming a golem made of smouldering ash as she charges forward, barrel stuffing anyone who gets in our way while I play clean up.

  I’m not exactly sure what ?the exact amount of force needed to knock someone out but leaving a trail of bodies of people doubled over in pain is better than me accidentally breaking bones or killing someone.

  The team breaches through into the next room, and I still can’t extend my perception any farther than the room I’m in at least not while I’m fighting.

  Though if they could have done this the whole time to stop my perception, why didn’t they do it earlier when we were just arriving?

  Did they not notice?

  Either way, the strain of pushing my awareness out and not getting anything out of it is irritating me greatly, so I pull it back to just cover about thirty feet in any direction and call it a day.

  Hopefully far enough nobody can sneak up on us but not so much so that I’m strained.

  Travis and I try to deal with the people chasing us.

  Multiple doors and hallways, though.

  I’m not super familiar with how a water treatment plant, even an abandoned one, is supposed to look like, but I’m pretty sure this one has been changed.

  Everything is too new and far too convoluted.

  Once again, I’m irritated that whatever is running through the walls is stopping me from seeing past them.

  It has to be an active component, though, because otherwise I would never have been able to see into this place.

  “I’m not going to say that this place is asking for us to split up with all of these always and directions, but I am saying if we were like six people, we could all go in a different direction and still not have enough.” Amelia says lobbing an ice crystal down a hallway that explodes when it comes into contact with something.

  “Any luck on which way to go, Mask?” Cass asks, turning to me for guidance, which is quite nice of her, but I haven’t a clue.

  Running my hands along the wall, I try to figure out if there’s something I can do that would make it stop, but I don’t have any ideas except the simplest one.

  “I still can’t see anything.” I admit somberly, “But I’m going to try something.”

  My left fist raised, it turns an abyssal black as Amelia chuckles behind me at something. Not going to think about it right now.

  My fist slams into the wall, burying itself all the way up to my elbow, and even still I can tell there’s more wall behind my fist, meaning I didn’t punch through it.

  Focusing my attention, I still can’t feel anything; it’s as if the world doesn’t exist past this wall.

  Gritting my teeth, I pour power out from my eyes, permeating the wall and spreading out like spiderwebs looking for something.

  “Mask?” Travis asks, sounding concerned.

  I can’t respond, my focus entirely devoted to pouring more and more power around me.

  I only feel the rebound when I try to activate my power on something more than I can handle; this isn’t that I’m just spreading it out, permeating everything around me.

  When I find nothing in this wall, my power goes further, spreading into the ceiling above and the floor below, and I find it.

  Something beneath us is real. Or immutable. Just like my ability beneath me, it feels like there’s something pushing energy out in an absolute torrent, causing this entire room to be unable to be perceived from the outside or let people look outside of it.

  My hand free from the wall, I fall to a knee, gasping for breath as the energy sustaining my abilities vanishes for a second.

  “Okay, so now that you’ve finished your magical evil overlord impression, could you tell me what that was?” Amelia asks, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Floor. Beneath us. Something's stopping me.” I gasp.

  Travis moves to the center of the room. “About here?”

  I nod, using both Amelia and the wall for support.

  “Alright, so we just bust down there, and you can see more?” Cass asks, ash gathering around her fist compressing rapidly.

  “Hopefully?”

  “Alright, door buster supreme, where is the safest place for all of us to stand while you explodify the floor?” Amelia asks, pulling Travis close to her and myself even closer.

  “Just around me should be fine. I also want to be protected from the backlash.” Cass pipes out.

  With nothing better to do, the four of us huddle up around thick walls of ice, a small opening for Cass to blast the floor out of.

  “Before I do this, could you tell how deep it was down there or no?” Cass asks, the ash swirling around her hand beginning to glow with heat.

  “Not a clue.” I admit feeling bad about the lack of information that I could provide.

  “Then I’m just going to go with the same force I attacked the door with.”

  The three of us not attacking watch Cass as she readies herself before her fist slams down.

  Either ?thirty feet isn’t enough for more or there are more of those boxes blocking out my vision, but it’s relieving that it’s tech.

  If we can find and break it or even just an off switch, I’ll be back to full capacity.

  “Everyone grab on!” Amelia says, pulling everyone into a giant hug as ice forms around us rapidly.

  It’s at that moment that I realize we’re falling.

  “Sorry!” Cass shrieks as we fall through the floor.

  Between our various levels of endurance and the ice shell Amelia made, nobody seems injured, but I am at least a little shaky as I stand up trying to figure out where we are.

  Pushing the ice shell off of us, I can see absolutely nothing as we’re in pitch darkness, but we’re in a large expanse. Full of absolutely nothing from what I can tell so far.

  “I think you may have used a bit too much power.” Amelia jokes, craning her neck up. “Or right under that floor they had a massive empty tank.”

  “I counted multiple floors that we fell through, but I don’t know if Cass broke them or if the collective weight of everything is what crushed them.” Travis says, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Where are we?” Cass asks her own luminescence, the only source of light available.

  “Giant metal tank maybe it held water at one point?” I suggest as I let my senses roll out trying to find something of use.

  Still nothing, though.

  “Hey Miracle, now that I’m not doing the punchy punchy, do you have some smart-people words to help me figure out what’s going on?” Amelia asks.

  We all quiet down, hoping that our genius can explain what’s going on, but we get no response even after a minute of waiting.

  “What are the odds we can communicate with each other easily but he’s not able to reach us?” Amelia asks quietly.

  “Probably about the same that Mask wouldn’t be able to feel anything with his powers because of some random tech?” Travis says.

  “Smoulder, do you see anything we can use to escape?” I ask, deciding to change the subject away from Asher.

  Best-case scenario, he’s being blocked, and one of the redundancies is how we’re communicating right now.

  Middling scenario is that he’s dealing with something and can’t come to the phone at the moment.

  As for the worst-case scenario, I’m sure that it’s not going to happen, so I don’t need to take a moment to figure out what it is.

  “Uh, maybe there’s a hatch not too far from here, though it’s a bit up the wall.” She says, the lights reaching towards the hatch in question.

  Taking a glance at it, I can firmly say that it’s not a little bit up the wall; it’s almost entirely up there, but that might be moot; it’s the only exit I’m seeing around us.

  “Do you think it’s one that has stuff flow into here or flow out?” Travis muses.

  “Well, I think the grate we’ve warped with our crash is what they would use to have stuff flow out, but that’s just me,” Amelia says, gesturing to the floor beneath us. “Also, that’s really high up for it to be used to flow out of here; the place would have to be nearly full for it to be usable.”

  “Then we should figure out a way to get up there and follow that.”

  “Why do you sound so confident about that?” I ask, finally able to knock the cobwebs out of my head and focus.

  “If I was going to cause mass chaos and had a formula to trigger super powers contaminating the water supply seems the easiest.” Travis explains.

  “I really don’t like the implications of what you’re suggesting, but just so I make sure I’m not being a dumbass. Are you saying they aim to burn it all down instead of, I don’t know, run away and hide?” Amelia asks, rage lacing her words.

  “I don’t think it’s burning it all down. Not if they just want to test it quickly. If they can’t use the lab, just dropping it makes some sense?” I offer.

  “Well, with all of those depressing and probably correct guesses, does anyone have an idea on how to get up there for your three?” Cass asks, a tendril of ash wrapped around the hatch.

  Walking over to the wall, I push a hand through it to feel along the other side, but there’s nothing I can really latch onto.

  “Well, if you can carry one of the boys, I can carry the other.” Amelia offers.

  Travis moves over to Cass, leaving Amelia to be my taxi.

  As the other two flow up the side of the wall, Cass’s ash dragging them up, Amelia and I walk up a stairway made of ice that she makes spiraling around at a steep angle so that we can reach the hatch easily.

  This place isn’t restrictive in my senses but I don’t bother pushing out too far as I just look up at the hole we crashed through where I can make out figures blocking out the light at irregular intervals.

  “They’re preparing something.” I warn, gesturing above us. “Not sure what yet, but there are people gathering up there.”

  “Once we get the hatch open, we can send an attack to knock them down?” Travis offers. “It’ll take out several of their guys at once, meaning any other opposition will be outmaneuvered. Not like they can heal their way out of the hole; they’d need fliers.”

  Once everyone's given assent to the idea, it’s decided Amelia will be in charge of that attack.

  The rest of us have very minimal range capabilities.

  Though mostly Amelia wanted to.

  All grouped around the hatch, Travis and I try to use our augmented strength to pry it open only to discover the thing has been more or less rusted shut.

  The other side is clear at least, so even if I open it there won’t be a rush of water or anything.

  “I’ll start opening it.”

  Methodically, I phase parts of the hatch, removing them and letting the metal clang far below, and eventually the barrier to the next area is opened up.

  The violet mist trailing along the tunnel is slightly more concerning.

  “I thought you said it was clear?” Travis asks, not sounding upset, though that probably would change if any of us were not wearing masks that filtered out most things or people like Cass who don’t have lungs.

  “I can’t sense color!” I defend.

  At that point, Amelia sends a giant icicle at the ceiling, and almost immediately people fall out of the even larger hole.

  Though some of them might be more flying and attacking.

  Pushing the others behind me, I go immutable, taking a blow to the head as the others mobilize.

  “Ack, it’s raining men!” Amelia says, blasting ice out behind us as we try to take the access hatch. “This is way less fun than that song always made it sound like!”

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