“I can’t believe they blinded that kid!” Crystal hissed under her breath, eyes glowing, irises a crescent moon shape that vibrated in her anger.

Tyler put a hand on her shoulder and turned her rage down a hair. “Don’t think about it. We need to be cool headed now, or we’re going to get hurt.”

Crystal nodded, but her eyes continued their shifting dance.

“We need to go about this as carefully as possible,” Nicole said, pulling their attention to her. “Otherwise we could endanger the other hostages. Tyler, can you reach your ability all the way inside, or is that too far for you?”

“The windows are tinted so it’ll be hard to get a bead on someone, but I’ll give it a shot.” Eyes going unfocused as he concentrated, Tyler pushed out blindly with his mind towards the bank, missed Amanda completely as she was so blasé at the moment that she didn’t show up on his radar, and ran into-

Tyler’s head rocked back as if he had been slapped, all the blood draining from his face in a rush.

“What, what is it?” Teeny asked fearfully.

“There’s another mental power in there. All I felt was pain, everywhere, pouring into me. It was like an ocean-”

“Did he feel your probe?” Nicole interrupted.

“I think so.”

As if to prove he was correct, the cops started dropping, one by one, screaming, to the pavement. One of them clutched his stomach as if he was about to give birth. It might have been funny if it weren’t so terrifying.

“We have to be quick!” Nicole said forcefully. “Teeny, can you get in there in shadow form and try to take out this pain guy so Tyler can shut the rest of them down?”

Without a word Teeny ran back over to the alleyway, into a shadow, and vanished.

The remaining heroes waited with baited breath as the seconds passed, stretching out, feeling more like years than…the bank lit up for a split second like a miniature sun, causing everyone on the street to shield their eyes and turn away. When they looked back the light had vanished and all was silent.

Nathan turned to Tyler, the fear in his eyes manifesting as little lightning bolts that traveled the length of his eyelashes before fizzing out. “Tell me she’s ok!”

Working with his ability so much with his friends had given Tyler a feel for their mental fingerprints, and he could sense where they were as long as they were fairly close. Tyler hesitantly reached out toward the bank once more, and found her.

“She’s just unconscious,” he sighed in relief, coming back to himself.

Nathan’s face twisted, the fear being replaced in a flash with rage. With a last shred of self-control, he looked over at Nicole and barked “Can we go in now?!”

She nodded. “Let me go first. The slow motion girl can’t hurt me.” Nicole started running towards the front doors, Nathan a half step behind her.

Tyler stayed behind with the cops, as they had agreed upon. He couldn’t help but feel a little like a coward anyway.

Crystal looked distraught, torn between going and staying, afraid of getting hurt but wanting to help. “Oh screw it”, she thought to herself. She threw a weak smile over her shoulder at Tyler, and then ran after her friends. Halfway to the doors she shimmered back into a cat.

Inside all was chaos, and the fight was going against the heroes. Amanda, while she couldn’t hurt Nicole, still had her trapped in her field, effectively neutralizing the most powerful of them with ease. Nathan had faced up with Josh, with two other villains watching, Kashif with his baseball bat in his hands, and Seth with his hands thrust nonchalantly in his pockets, though the tense set of his shoulders betrayed his uncertainty in the situation. Leslie guarded the wide stone cylinder in the middle of the room.

Last but not least, Jake and Raphael were standing in a corner over the laid out body of Teeny, appearing to be arguing over what to do with her. With a feral scream Crystal flew at them, anxiety for Teeny overriding all logic.

They didn’t notice her until she was airborne. Jake put his arms up instinctively to protect his face, so she shredded his arms instead of his eyes with her small but powerful claws. He screamed as the blood began to flow and drip to the floor from both elbows, but the noise died in his throat and suddenly it was her arms that were on fire. Shocked, she dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball, desperate to escape the overwhelming pain. Through the red mist that was blanketing her thoughts she heard the boys shouting.

“Look at my arms, man! Look what that goddamn cat did!”

There was a sound of tearing fabric. “Here, just wrap them up as best you can, we’ll get you to the hospital as soon as we can.”

“When?! IN THE FUCKING BAHAMAS?!”

“Dude, just calm down, you’re going to be fine. These cuts don’t even look that deep, except for the one. Stop being a pussy.”

“Fuck you! I’m going to kill every one of these people!”

A loud slap. “Relax, ok?! Jesus Christ. Worst comes to worst, you and I will get out of here, screw everyone else. We’re wearing masks and no one will be the wiser if we disappear in the middle of this mess.”

“Ok. Ok. But first I’m going to stomp that cat into PULP.”

That sentence sliced through the haze obscuring all rational thought and brought Crystal back to herself in a hurry, and she did the only thing she could think of: she changed back.