Issue 1 Downtime

Ben was walking back to the university after doing a bit of Christmas shopping. It was already November after all and he had all of his siblings to think about, plus his friends at school, the staff, his extended family....a lot of people this year.

The sun was just starting to set and Ben hurried down a side street, eager to get back before curfew.

There was a hollow grinding sound from a little ways behind Ben. A small group of people had started following the boy. It was a small group of around ten people or so and each of them was wearing a purple shirt with a white fist on the chest and a white mask over their face.

Just as Ben turned to look and see who was following him, the man swung the back and hit Ben across the head.

"Fuckin' mutie!" the leader said, "Stomp his ass!"

The pack began to descend on Ben, carrying knives, clubs, and other improvised weapons.

"This hardly seems fair." Mallory says as she's walking up the street in her usual business-dress-like attire, high-heels, the works. She looks the least ready for a fight you can possibly be.

Molly was having a rough couple of days. She had never had trouble fitting in before, but here everything was weird and different. And everybody hated her.

Probably because she thought of them as "weird and different" but teenagers aren't the best at self-introspection.

Instead, Molly had done what she always did when she felt bad. She went shopping. She was flying back to the Insitute when people jumping Ben.

"Hey!" Molly says, swooping down, "Leave him alone!"

Alex came walking out of the store a minute after Ben. "Hey, Ben, can we stop at th- what the HELL!?"

Dammit dammit dammit no X-Men to bail you out now... this... isn't going to be good... Even as he thought this, he turned to steel. "Hey! Get off of him, assholes!" he shouted, his voice echoing oddly through his metal body as he ran up to help his friend.

"It certainly isn't fair fellow blond person I should probably know by now," Kevin agreed, arriving from the same direction as Mallory. He put down his groceries.

"And what is all this, then?" said the very large woman, coming from behind Kevin.

Ben bled on the sidewalk heroically! Also, unconsciously.

"See how the rats infest the town," the leader yells out, "Attracted by the blood of one of their own like the vermin they are!"

The group began facing down the approaching mutants, blocking any of them from reaching Ben.

"We are not afraid of you!" The leader shouts again, "We will take our city back!"

"Your city? Nah. Don't think so."

Kevin activated his powers and summoned from the light... a basketball? Yes. Yay for power advancements.

"And Gravis makes a pass!" He threw it at the thugs. It was still hot enough to burn skin.

Alex, showing more guts than tactics, just charged at them. "I don't know where you all bought your crazy pills today, but I think you took too big a dose!"

"They were here first. If you're going to take offense at least pick the right thing." Mallory shakes her head at Kevin's quip and fixes her eyes on one of the thugs carrying a knife. It probably wouldn't take long to find something in his memory to twist and leverage against one of his buddies standing in front of him.

"Look how he's trying to steal your thunder again. 8 inches below the shoulder-blade, 5 o'clock angle, twist it up as it slides into his kidney. You'll show him that you can take those mutie-bastards without his help."

Chaos in the streets!

One of the gang members was hit by the ball of light and screamed, falling to the ground in pain from the attack. Kevin wouldn't have much time to celebrate though, because another one was practically on top of him already, swinging a metal baton while she screamed "Mutie trash!" at him.

Alex charged into a group of three, who came at him all at once trying to force him down to the ground with their superior numbers.

"What a fucking stuck up little bitch," one of the gang members says to Mallory, "I'll tell you what, if you say 'pretty please' and beg for me maybe I'll - AHH OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING PAULIE?"

He continued screaming as he tried to fight off his murderous friend.

"Enough! You...horrid little....assholes!"

Molly grabbed one of the gang members attacking Alex and flew straight up with him.

The ball of light swerved mid-air to continue to harass the attackers as Kevin formed his armor and charged in to pull a bigot off Ben. He did lower the armor's temperature to merely uncomfortably warm, not that they deserved the restraint.

Alex struggled to free himself, frustration building. Ben lying on the ground... these assholes trying to stop him from helping... the complete uselessness of him... with an angry howl he found himself driving a steel fist up into one of the attackers, completely ignoring their attacks- what did these idiots think they were going to do to him? A dark pleasure starting to spread through him as he felt the man's face smashing against his fist.

Anastasiya waded into combat, and singled out the largest of the thugs.

"Come, little man. Let me show you how we settled things in the frozen tundra."

"Ah yes, about that begging for mercy..." Mallory says, walking up to the scuffle while hardening her grip on Paulie's mind, keeping the vocal asshole pinned to the ground. Literally. She kneels down just out of arms reach. "Please do go on with what you were expressing so eloquently."

The punk struggled in Molly's grip while yelling at her, "Let go of me you stupid mutant whore!"

From her vantage point, Molly would be able to spot some sort of orbs floating in air.

The bigot in question yelled something not worth repeating at Kevin, swinging the baseball bat at him in a useless attempt to fight the glowing boy off.

The man's face was not as strong as Alex's fist. There was a sickening cracking sound bone broke against the onslaught. His friend tried to stop Alex, doing his best to grapple with the boy.

"Bitch, I'm going to put you in your place," the large thug said to Ana, right before taking a swing at her.

The man who Paulie had stabbed and was now pinned to the ground sobbed something at Mallory. His blood was starting to spread on the sidewalk.

"Fine," Molly says, doing as the man asked and letting go.

Curious, she flew closer to one of the orbs.

Ana caught the thug's punch in one hand and squeezed, before peforming a freestyle wrestling takedown on the street and holding him there.

"What's this, I couldn't quite make that out." she says, pulling out her phone and dialing the number for the local police department.

Kevin grabbed the aluminum bat and heated his gauntlet.

"Riddle me this, riddle me that, oops I think I'm melting your overcompensation," he said as the metal began to melt.

Alex grabbed the knife that his first victim dropped. It seemed to meld into his body (the metal parts, at least) as he stood up, then he threw his hand out and sent a spray of tiny metal shards at Victim #2 to cover the attack he followed it with.

The guy Molly dropped screamed as he fell, landing painfully onto a car. He twitched briefly and then was still.

As Molly approached the orb, it turned to face her for a moment. It appeared to be some sort of floating camera. It stared at Molly silently for a moment.

Then it let out a powerful electrical shock aimed at Molly.

The thug struggled against Ana, attempting to slam the back of his head into her nose when he found she was too strong for him to escape.

"Please, please don't let me die," the one Mallory had trapped begged. Oddly, Mallory wouldn't be getting a signal on her phone.

As Kevin grabbed the bat and heated it up, the man holding it screamed and dropped it. He stared in horror at his burned hands, "You...you damn freaks!"

Victim #2 stumbled backwards, clutching his face and screaming as the shards blinded him and cut his face to ribbons.

Molly yelled out in pain before falling to the ground.

Ana just tightened her grip on the man's arm.

"I will break, yes?"

Alex connected another punch, then...

He caught sight of the mess he made of the man's face... the man he'd beaten...

What the hell's wrong with me... he thought, staggering.

Mallory reaches out to find the furthest mind she can reach to make them call the police and an ambulance.

"Why should I let you die." she says, glancing up at the floating orbs. She pushes Paulie aside and takes a hold of the knife, carefully pulling it out and pressing her hand against the wound to stem the bleeding.

Things didn't look good for the gang. They were broken, injured, and struggling to get back to their feet.

"Everyone!" The leader of the group shouted, stumbling away from Kevin, "We can't take much more of this! It's time!"

And all of the gang raised a hand in the air and shouted:

"COMBINE!"

Above their fists strange symbols glowed. Then each of them turned to balls of light that converged in the center of the street and slowly began to form into a figure. It flexed its mighty muscles and the light broke away like shards of glass, revealing a giant robot.

I am not kidding.

"When the United Kingdoms need defending from the hordes of mutants and monsters that threaten it," a voice booms from the robot, "The ten children blessed by the power of the Right combine to form....LORD RIGHT!"

Action pose!

And Alex just... stared.

"...What."

And that's when Lord Right threw a car at Alex. Specifically, a turquoise 1964 Chevy Suburban.

"MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!"

"...Does this sort of thing happen often in the West?"

"Bloody hell..." Mallory mumbles, actually falling backwards a bit and sliding away from the giant (racist) robot.

And Alex, naturally, went smush under the truck, with a muffled, metallic "Ow."

"My hair!" Molly says, finally managing to regain consciousness.

The robot apparently didn't register.

"PURIFYING BEAM"

The robot pushed out its chest and a ball of white energy started building up around a glass lens in the center.

"Boy! You are made of metal, are you not?" Anastasiya said, hurrying over to Alex.

"Yes," came a muffled voice from under the smashed suburban. Which... seemed to be shifting oddly on top of him.

"You can survive big blast shot then, yes?"