Vortex stumbled as the officer pushed him to the squad car, his eyes jerking around for something he could use.

  Be it laziness, corruption, or lack of information, but unlike the heroes who did their best to counter his abilities, the officers were doing no such thing, and he had the potential to escape.

  The problem being his power wouldn’t let him move himself, he could only transport other objects. He just needed an opportunity for him to be able to escape.

  With Lizard incapacitated and Scale being restrained, neither of them are ideal option. Though he could teleport Scale out of the restraints; however, size manipulation wasn’t exactly an ideal ability to be working with for escape.

  Vortex let himself be led to the car, getting in and not putting up a fight. At least he could be thankful to the wastes of space they had brought upstairs because they seemed to be all out of power suppressors.

  Not that it would work on Vortex. One of the unique aspects of his powers is a seeming immunity to them, but who would want to reveal a secret like that if they didn’t have to?

  Though it would be a little bit easier if he were on the bus instead of one of the proper transport vehicles, the bus would give him so many more toys to play with, but this is good enough; he just needed a moment.

  As they began driving, Vortex focused his power on the car before grinning up at the guard sitting across from him.

  “You all enjoy the trip.” Vortex said, flexing his will, transporting the car and everyone in it besides himself as high up in the air as he could.

  The rebound of sending that much weight instantly crashed into him just like the crash into the ground of more or less jumping out of a car going at seventy miles per hour.

  After having stopped the momentum, Vortex pulled himself to his feet, placing an enhancement patch against his wrist to turn to all the other vehicles.

  Even with the power up, he couldn’t move them all, and with Andromeda missing he had no idea what they’re going to do with all the ones threatened into obedience. But move enough of the cars so that he could get away?

  Easy, especially with his power cranked up to eleven.

  With a swipe of his hand, as if destroying a fly, the cars vanished, scattering to the four winds as they’re violently ripped from space and placed somewhere else.

  At that point, Vortex ran using his powers to make his path clear and make it nigh impossible for anyone to follow him.

  They had selected a not too far cabin in case things had gone south, though he hadn’t been expecting things to go this south.

  It’s not as if he imagined he could defeat the phasing man after all. How are you supposed to take down someone you can’t hurt if they use their abilities properly?

  Losing to a speedster of all things wasn’t what Vortex had expected. Speedsters were easy, and yet that slow one was able to defeat them the moment he got out of the trap.

  Before long, disguised by the foliage, Vortex moved through the underbrush, coming to the safe house, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight.

  After making sure all the perimeter traps are still in their place, Vortex takes the planned path, slowly weaving through the traps to make sure not to trigger a single one before arriving at the window.

  Why they decided to have the safe entrance be a window instead of one of the doors of the place is knowledge beyond Vortex, but this place is ridiculous.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Upon hoisting himself through the window, the first thing that catches his attention is the smell of something sweet.

  At least someone is here.

  Vortex makes his way to the basement, whee all the tech should be set up, and he froze upon the sight greeting him.

  Lounging in an office chair, Andromeda is watching cat videos while eating a cupcake nearly drowning in purple frosting.

  “You bitch!” Vortex screamed, having surged forward and pinned Andromeda to the wall, her half-eaten cupcake falling to the floor. “You left us!”

  “I did not! I was never there in the first place! Besides, you got out, and I can’t help the others!” Andromeda denied, though the entirety of her attention was consumed with looking down at her cupcake on the floor.

  “You didn’t say there were four of them!”

  “I only knew there were two of them. I thought either Frostie or thirty-seven would be in the city dealing with the crime stuff and the other would chase us I didn’t think they would stop the crime and have a whole team!” Andromeda said finally turning to Vortex her eyes glowing with rage.

  “Well, what are we supposed to do? The boss is going to kill us!”

  “Don’t worry, I went with something else at the same time, so we didn’t fail, fail, just screwed up.” Andromeda waved off squirming in Vortex’s grip. “Now, Vexy, you will either give me a new cupcake or get off me or I’m going to kill you.”

  Vortex considered for a long moment before acquiescing to the psychotic duplicator’s request. She could actually kill him, and he has no interest in dying.

  Now free, Andromeda cheerfully sat back down and grabbed a new cupcake to begin eating. “The boss does want us to try and get Vertiga out, cause she’s not useless, but for everyone else he doesn’t super mind what we do.”

  “Vertiga, the person you betrayed so we could escape?” Vortex asked just to make sure.

  “She would have done the same. Besides, you should be glad I kept you don’t think I don’t know how you escaped!” Andromeda, giggled waving a finger. “You were bad and used multiple Enhancement in a single day. Just one more and you’ll be crippled. Though that’s not entirely a bad thing.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to get caught because of your fuck-up.”

  “Fair did you see how much Thirty-seven has grown? He could reverse his powers. Frostie’s grown a lot too, probably not too long till she surpasses what the original could do with her powers.” Andromeda said, changing the subject as she pulled up video of the fight.

  “Who was that speedster? He seemed slow but skilled.” Vortex asked, sitting down next to Andromeda.

  She, while mad as a hatter, didn’t seem like she had any interest in killing him today, which is about as good as he can get.

  “Old hat used to be a sidekick for some of the gals in New York. Cannonball, though I think his power is closer to acceleration than super speed, he’s a bit of a slow starter,” Andromeda explained, rewinding and watching the slowmo of the speedster taking down Vortex.

  “Damn, guess it’s good I didn’t lose to a rookie.” Vortex mused, leaning back in his chair.

  “No idea about the ash girl though. Very cool power, definitely a natural though no idea how to turn a human into ash,” Andromeda admitted as she chewed on a fingernail.

  “She didn't notice when I tried to teleport her. Either she's a lot of individual parts or there's a lot of mass beyond my limit.” Vortex admitted.

  “Individual parts she could move them, operated even pretend to be multiple clones earlier in the evening.” Andromeda points out. “Quite rude considering that’s the entire thing about my power, but yeah.”

  “So does this mean there’s an actual super team or did they call in favors?”

  “No idea.”

  “So, is the entire plan for us to just sit around and wait till the boss gives us orders? Maybe we go and see if we can spring Vertiga; is that really it?” Vortex asked, pacing in irritation.

  “Don’t worry about it. Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

  “It’s not December yet.”

  “Well, I can still put on a Santa hat, anyway. Besides it’ll be December soon, and we can give all the good boys and girls their super powers and then they’ll love us and hate the traitors, and it’ll all go perfectly!”

  “Why are you so unconcerned?”

  “Because I’m immortal.” Andromeda mused. “The game is different now that they’re actually being heroes. Though if thirty-seven keeps skulking around, we’re going to have to solve both sides of the game at once.”

  The two are about to continue speaking when a phone begins to chirp.

  “So do you want to be here when I talk to the boss man and potentially get vaporized, or would you like to run off and hide somewhere so that you don’t have to…” Andromeda trailed off, Vortex already having ran away.

  In the other room, Vortex’s phone buzzes; a text has shown up. He’s not sure if the instructions he got were the same as Andromeda’s, but it looks like his chance for revenge might be sooner than imagined.

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