Plus Ultra! (closed)

[Apollo Wilde]

Thugs, she could handle. Armed robberies, stick ups, gang activity - she was fine, perfect, really, with those - a duck in water.

A burning building - and of course, it wasn’t just ANY building, but a school, no doubt - full of shrieking children was a bit out of her wheelhouse.

And by a “bit,” that meant a lot.

She stood in front of the inferno, once a three story, modest school, surrounded by towering trees, and sucked in a deep breath. Rather than easing her fears, it filled her lungs with heat and her mouth full of the taste of ash.

Come on, Moonrise, you can do this!

Okay.

Okay.

She clenched her hands into fists, the feeling of her fingers bleeding heat through her gloves. She could do this. And her form, right now, would have to be appropriate. She didn’t know how long it’d take to get all of the kids out, and she didn’t want to chance it on a transformation that wouldn’t last.

Behind her, the sounds of sirens were blaring in her ears - they were getting closer; that was good. And, naturally, she wasn’t the only hero on the scene: there was Bison Max; he was the one that knocked down the door, and had gotten the first round of kids out. Mercury Heel was doing surveillance in the sky, directing Bison Max where to go next. Between the two of them, the real pros, it seemed like most of the work was done. She’d initially thought that she’d gotten there a bit too late, but then, like something tugging at her gut, like she couldn’t walk away. Leaping from behind the police line, waving her hand in apology, she’d dashed towards the school, towards the massive bulk of Bison Max.

Out of breath, covered in ash, Bison Max told her: “There’s a little girl stuck under a desk; I can’t get to her,” he was breathless, not panicked, but not reserved, either. The look of a man that knew his limits, but also knew not to give up. “She’s on the third floor; Mercury Heel saw her. Stairs won’t hold my weight. You’ve got this, right, rookie?”

She felt her cheeks grow warm, and she’d nodded, determined then. She had to show that she, too, was a hero - even if she was green, even if she was scared.

Plunging into the fire now, adrenaline surging through her veins, she dashed up stairs that licked orange tongues at her feet, past windows that were colored by billowing smoke. The stairs creaked ominously under each foot fall; she couldn’t imagine someone of Bison’s extraordinary size trying to fit up the narrow staircase, even if it wasn’t on fire.

“Can you hear me?”

No sound, but for the crackling of the wood, the snarl of the flames.

“It’s okay! It’ll be okay! I’m Moonrise; I’m a rookie hero!” she called out again, straining her hearing, begging to pick up something, anything, other than the sound of the fire. “Can you say anything?”

There! Faint; but she could hear it. Rushing in the direction of a classroom, the shouting grew louder. As she burst into the room, she could see the small form of a little girl, curled up under a desk, her hands over her head. Moonrise knelt next to the desk, holding her arms open.

“Come on, sweetheart, come on out; I gotcha. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

The little girl, pulling her arms away from her head, looked at Moonrise with big eyes full of tears, and launched herself into the heroine’s open arms. With a small smile, Moonrise cradled the girl close to her chest, and whispered into the crown of the girl’s shining black hair:

“That’s right; no more tears! Moonrise is here!” Muffled, Moonrise could make out the smallest giggle from the little girl. Cradling the back of the girl’s head against her shoulder, a giant crash behind her made Moonrise whirl around. Falling debris had effectively blocked the door - and the only other way out was the window. She swallowed hard, and did her best to calm her breathing. She could transform, into something with wings, maybe, but the strain would be immense - require more willpower that she wasn’t sure that she could summon.

It’d be hard, but she could do it.

“Okay, I’m going to need you to hold on real tight, okay? No matter what happens, no matter how scary it gets, don’t let go.”

The little girl, pulling away from Moonrise’s chest, looked up at her, and nodded.

“There’s a good girl,” Moonrise gave her a gentle smile. “It’ll be fun. Promise. On the count of three….One…”

She took a few steps back, took a deep breath.

“Two…” She started running now, relieved that the soles of her boots were still offering traction. It wouldn’t be enough to just jump out the window; she had to make it clear of anything below her, and protect the girl.

“Three..!” Exploding in a hail of thin glass, Moonrise leapt out of the window, pulling the girl’s head closer to her chest. Without shouting the incantation, she could feel her body transforming, the light, the warmth that issued from deep within her taking her body, her clothing, to pieces. Tingling in her back, before more warmth exploded from between her shoulder blades. Enormous white wings unfurled from her back, shedding feathers in a cloud of white, sending pinpricks of pink and silver light dancing into the sparks from the flames. Keeping the little girl close to her, it felt like an eternity before Moonrise’s booted feet touched the ground. Settled, Moonrise let her wings settle against her back, though her forehead was covered in sweat from the strain of keeping her will strong enough for them to continue to exist - and so that her transformation didn’t just dissolve in front of the crowds.

Kneeling, she set the little girl down, feathers trailing from her body. “See, what did I tell you…? You’re safe now.”

The girl, slowly letting go of Moonrise, looked around, then back up to the woman, with eyes wide.

“You’re an angel!” the little girl blurted, causing Moonrise to blush. Made sense; an angel, big white wings and all, was the first thing she thought of.

“No, just a hero,” Moonrise said, shrugging lightly - with that same small smile. Hoping that the transformation held, and, well, that someone would be able to put out the fire.

 

[BewareTheDream]

“Cheese and crackers, I look awesome!” Machine Head said to himself.

Standing on the sidewalk outside of an office building, he admired his reflection on a large pane of one-way glass. The focus of his admiration was his super suit, which was brand spankin’ new. After many weeks of obsessive tweaking and redesigning, he finally finished it last night. This was the first time he saw himself wearing it in the daylight.

“I really outdid myself, this time.” The suit was mostly silver and black, with small pieces of blue-tinted plexiglass strategically placed along his arms and legs for maximum cool. Whenever his Quirk activated, little fingers of electricity coursed up and down the suit and made the plexiglass glow bright blue, which really enhanced the ‘robot bad-ass’ look he had tried to go for ever since he was a Hero-in-training, but didn’t feel he achieved until now.

Just for kicks and giggles, Machine Head activated his Quirk, momentarily merging with his suit. A multitude of thin, blue sparks tickled their way along his arms, between his legs, and up his torso. Behind the black-tinted visor of his helmet, he grinned.

“Aww, buddy! That’s the shit!” Turning around, he checked out the reflection of his ass to make sure his costume didn’t make it look flat or weird or something.
The street was full of people, many of whom stared at him as they passed by. Machine Head didn’t mind at all, for getting gawked at was part and parcel of being a Hero. In fact, he enjoyed the attention. There was probably some white collar bozo on the other side of the one-way glass, too, staring at him from their desk. Machine Head chuckled at the possibility and tested out some heroic poses for the viewing pleasure of anyone watching.

A mother and her child were among the people who passed by. Gently pulling on the little boy’s hand, the mother steered him away from the posing Hero.

“What’s that man doing, Mommy?” the boy asked, pointing.

Before she could respond, Machine Head whipped his head around and proudly announced, “I’m making sure my super suit is in working order, little man! For a Hero should never rush into danger unprepared! Ha HAAAA!” Fists on his hips, he bellowed out his laughter and tried to do his best All Might impression. The speakers in his helmet made his laughter and his words sound synthesized.

The boy was not impressed. “You’re stupid,” he stated, matter-of-factly, right before his mom yanked him away.

“No, you’re stupid!” Machine Head called out after the child while angrily jabbing a finger in his direction. Scowling a scowl that no one saw due to his black-tinted visor, he stood there and sulked for a while. “Dumb kid. He wouldn’t know ‘cool’ if it bit him in his stupid face.”

The sound of approaching sirens caught his attention. Looking down the street, he saw a fire truck round the corner and then head in his direction. A second one turned the corner moments later. Cars attempted to move to the side of the road to let the two trucks pass, but there was so much traffic that the firefighters were still slowed down. The driver of the lead truck honked his horn, steadily, as if that would make the cars ahead of him hurry up any better than the sirens.

Finally, some action! Time to test this bad boy out!

Machine Head backed up to the curb before aiming his left arm high up at the office building. Because he was still merged with his suit, it only took a thought to fire the grapple gun built into his gauntlet. A loud hiss punctuated the launch of a small, metal rod which pulled an impossibly long line of thin, carbon fiber cord behind it. Retractable hooks popped out of the rod moments before it embedded itself into the side of the building, causing cosmetic damage that no Hero - least of all Machine Head - would pay for.

With another thought, he made his gauntlet reel the cord back in, super fast, and whisk him up into the air. In a matter of seconds, he got reeled up to the side of the building, his feet planted against the stone right outside of a wide window. Unlike the windows at street level, this one wasn’t coated in privacy tint, so Machine Head was able to look through it and see an office full of curious workers popping their heads up from their cubicles. He gave the onlookers a wave before casting his gaze down the street, toward the fire trucks.

The trucks were now a couple blocks away, and their traffic problem hadn’t ended. The cars ahead of them were taking too long to pull over and make way. To make matters worse, just ahead of them was an intersection blocked by a bus that was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on a one-way-street. Using the telescopic vision of his helmet, Machine Head saw that the bus driver was frantically trying to figure out how to get out of the firefighters’ way, but unless the cars ahead of her moved, there was nothing she could do.

“Looks like a job for me!” Machine Head announced to no one. Aiming his right arm at a building across the street, he fired off another grappling hook, then reeled himself away. Alternating between his left and right grapple, he swung ahead of the fire trucks before descending toward the roof of the bus. The landing wasn’t nearly as smooth as he intended, though - his feet slipped, and he fell, hard, to his knees, banging them against the metal surface.

“Ow! Fuck me sideways!” While his grapple cord got reeled back into his suit, Machine Head rubbed at his knees.

Even with the kevlar padding, that really hurt! I need more practice with the grapple launchers.

Realizing he probably didn’t look heroic rubbing his knee like a kid who fell on the playground, he sucked up the pain and squatted on the edge of the bus roof. He thought he must’ve looked menacing in that pose, like one of the gargoyles at the top of one of the buildings nearby. A moment later, the lead fire truck stopped beside the bus. The driver blared the horn a couple of times before sticking his head out the window.

“Who the hell are you?!” the firefighter shouted at him.

“I’m Machine Head,” he replied, hoping his robot voice sounded bad-ass.

“Like the heavy metal band?” the firefighter asked.

“What? No. Shut up! I’m a Hero, jerk-ass! I’m here to help.” Machine Head stood, mainly because his knee hurt even more when he squatted, and partly because he wanted to try a different pose. Back straight, chin up, and left fist raised to chest level, he stood there silently while the firefighters and others nearby stared up at him.

Yeah, buddy! I must really look like a Hero, now.

The firefighter behind the wheel didn’t seem to agree, however. “Unless you can get this goddamn bus outta the way, I don’t see how you can help.”

Machine Head felt a pang of annoyance at the guy’s doubt and tone, but he tried to keep his cool. “Trust me, I can help in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.” Glancing over his shoulder, he saw thick, black smoke rising over the buildings only a few blocks away. He realized that if not for the stalled traffic, the fire truck would’ve been where it was supposed to be by now.

He turned back to the driver. “What’s on fire?”

“Bill Finger Elementary School.”

Children in danger meant the stakes had been raised. “In order for me to help you, I need to commandeer your vehicle. Step out of it. Now.”

The firefighter stared at him blankly for a second or two before scoffing. “You’re joking.” He glanced at the others in the cab, and together they shared some laughter and incredulity.

Machine Head didn’t have time for this shit. Nobody did. “There’s a school on fire; this is no time for jokes.” Now knowing that the firefighters wouldn’t willingly give up their truck, the Hero decided to speed things up and force the heroes - with a lower-case ‘h’ - out.

Blue electricity burst to life all around Machine Head’s body, and the blue glass of his costume glowed bright. He crouched down and then leaped directly at the front of the truck.

“Machine Merge!”

Instead of crashing against the engine, the robot-looking Hero phased into it. To those who had an unobstructed view of him, it appeared as though he dove into the front of it like a swimmer dives into a pool. Multiple firefighters stuck their head out of the windows or stepped out to check on him, but he was nowhere to be seen. All that was left were sparks that danced along the truck’s grill and bumper.

“STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE, NOW.” The booming voice came from the fire truck’s loudspeakers. Startled and confused, the firefighters could only stand there, until the truck began to shake side-to-side, almost like a wet dog shaking water off its fur.

“I SAID GET OUT!”

The shaking made the firefighters scramble out. Once they were on the street, the fire engine began to convulse, twist, and shift. Metal crunched and scraped against itself. Strained grunts were issued from the speakers. Slowly, impossibly, two huge arms and two huge legs emerged from the truck’s body, like a turtle’s legs pushing out from its shell. It did a push-up off of the asphalt and then got to its feet. As it stood, a wide face formed on its undercarriage, in between the front wheels, which turned inward before transforming into two big, weird eyes. The wheel-eyes opened and blinked. Now standing over 30 feet tall, the firetruck-man looked around at all the people who gasped, gawked, or took video with their smartphones.

The firetruck-man’s loudspeakers squealed with feedback for a moment, loud enough to make the nearest onlookers flinch.

“CITIZENS!” the firetruck-man announced, his voice booming over the crowd . “TAKE ALL THE PICTURES YOU WANT! AND WHEN YOU POST THIS ON YOUTUBE, INSTAGRAM, WHATSAPP, OR WHATEVER, MAKE SURE YOU GET MY NAME RIGHT…

“I...AM...MACHINE HEAD!!!” Flexing both of his heavy, metal arms, Machine Head struck a classic Hulk Hogan pose and held it for several seconds. All around him, raised phones recorded his image and words.

“OKAY, THEN.” He dropped the pose, then stretched out his legs by doing a handful of squats. “THERE ARE CHILDREN THAT NEED SAVING.” He thrust a finger in the direction of the smoke. “MACHINE HEAD IS ON THE CASE!

“FIRE TRUCK LEAP!” Joints creaking, Machine Head squatted down one last time before launching himself into the air. He leaped over the bus and came crashing down on the other side. The ground shook and some of the people close by fell to their butts. Machine Head started to break into a run, but he stumbled and nearly fell onto his broad, metal face. Thankfully, he managed to regain his footing before he embarrassed himself in front of all these people.

Boy howdy, this body is clumsy! That’s okay, though; I don’t need to go far.

He rushed forward again, only this time in a jog. Soon he discovered that not only was his fire truck body unwieldy, but there were also a lot of cars to avoid stepping on. Where traffic was at its thickest, he had to stop jogging and tip-toe around the cars like a parent trying to navigate a floor covered in his kid’s Legos.

“STAY IN YOUR VEHICLES!” he commanded when he nearly squished some people who were silly enough to exit their cars when a giant truck-man was trying to tip-toe past. “STAY OUTTA MY WAY, UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET PANCAKED!” With a thought, he switched on his howling sirens and flashing red lights, which made his approach even more obvious.

After the first few, clumsy minutes, Machine Head got a better feel for running in his new body and was able to race toward the school, faster. When he got there, his attention was immediately grabbed by the inferno. All three stories of the elementary school were in flames. If his skin and nose weren’t phased with the fire truck, he surely would’ve felt the intense heat and smelled the smoke. In his present form, he sensed none of it, and so he was able to approach with impunity.

He barely noticed the crowd and the police line he had to jump over, just like he barely noticed the other Heroes who got there before him. There was only one thing on his mind - the job that a fire truck-man was made to do.

“FIRE HOSES, GO!” Like snakes under the spell of a snake charmer, the many hoses attached to his body wriggled out in multiple directions. One of them reached for a fire hydrant, knocked the metal seal off the nozzle with a single swipe, and then plugged itself in before too much water got wasted.

Machine Head could feel the cold water rushing through his hoses as he extended the ladder tower attached to his back. Now locked and loaded, he pointed every nozzle at the burning building.

“MAXIMUM SPRAY!” he screamed. All at once, every hose began to blast the fire with heavy, continual streams. Most of them were aimed at the fires on the first and second story. The hose at the top of his ladder tower sprayed water onto the third story from above. At that moment, Machine Head thought of himself as a multi-armed gunslinger, except instead of guns, he had fire hoses. He had so much fun he didn’t realize he was laughing maniacally.

Because he could withstand intense heat in his current form, he was able to get up close and personal with the fire, something that flesh-and-bone firefighters could not do. He was also able to spray the fire from multiple angles at once. No team of Quirk-less firefighters could hope to put out a fire as quickly and efficiently as a fire truck-man. So by the time the other fire truck that was stuck in traffic arrived, the fire was mostly under control.

Less than a half-hour later, the fire was completely due to the combined efforts of Machine Head and the firefighters. The elementary school was left standing, although it would likely be many months before it could be repaired and safe to occupy once again. EMTs treated the little students, who, thankfully, were all accounted for. Frantic parents searched for their children, and burst into tears when they found them. Reporters tried to get closer, but the police wouldn’t let anyone past their line beside parents or city officials.

Still inhabiting a fire truck, Machine Head watched this scene unfold. There were two things he felt at that moment: 1) Pride for a job well done, and 2) a growing strain. The strain was caused by his transformation. He normally didn’t Machine Merge with anything bigger than a Honda Civic, and the fire truck was one of the biggest machines he had ever inhabited and successfully controlled. He was amazed that he was able to maintain the merge with something this big for this long.

Machine Merge fatigue started to hit him while he was putting out the fire. The rush and excitement of Hero work helped him to ignore the fatigue, but now that the threat was gone, exhaustion came crashing down upon him.

Groaning, he lurched forward and began to shake uncontrollably. He clutched at his midsection as though he were experiencing severe stomach cramps.

“Ow ow ow ow ow!” As carefully as he could, he lowered himself to the ground, face-down. That was the last thing he was able to control before the fire engine really began to reject him. The giant arms and legs began to recede into the shaking body. The face between the front tires disappeared. He no longer felt a deep connection with all the man-made parts around him. With one last convulsion, Machine Head’s actual body got expelled from the front of the cab and rolled on the concrete.

“Bleeuuuugh.” That was all Machine Head was able to say after he settled into a spread-eagle position. It felt as though he had just run a marathon. Staring up at the cloudy sky, he hoped he didn't lose control of his bowels like some runners do.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Are you all right…?”

At first, her voice sounded like distant chiming, a gentle counterpoint to the bells above. It was hard to see her face, backlit like this. And were those wings, dampened by the firehoses? Droplets of water caught among the snowy feathers looked like beads of rainbow light, scattering across the pavement as she stretched them out behind her.

With the sunlight filtering through those wings, her face became clear. Long loops of silver hair pooled around a heart shaped face. Long bangs, dripping water, plastered to her forehead, nearly obscuring thick silver brows. Pale, thick white eyelashes framed eyes that, true to her hero’s name, were like the moonrise at dusk – pale violet at the top of her iris, melting into a deep midnight blue at the bottom. Her pupils were not black – but rather, pale white, with flecks of gray, looking like full moons suspended in space. Full lips, painted a glittering pink, parted into a smile as she looked at him, revealing even, white teeth. At her throat sparkled a deep purple choker, a crescent moon in sapphire at the side of her neck.

She shifted to kneel above him now, her wings fluttering, sending rainbow drops flying. She was soaked clear through to the bone, the cream chemise of her “angel” transformation now translucent and clinging to her body. With the motion, her breasts bounced enticingly, free from the hindrance of a bra. Dark nipples seemed to peek at him between her crossed arms, the dip of her navel, the hint of deep silver fur neatly trimmed between her legs as she crouched further.

She held out a hand to him, each slender finger marked with a thin silver ring. “Do you need help?”

 

[BewareTheDream]

One look at Moonrise was all it took to render Machine Head empty-headed. Even though she wasn’t in the best lighting at that moment, he still saw more than enough to know that whoever she was, whatever she was, she was supernaturally beautiful.

Greaty googly moogly! She’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen...

Convinced that he was really looking at an angel, he lay there motionless, wordless, and dumbfounded. Because the visor that covered his entire face was opaque on the outside, Moonrise couldn’t see the stupid look he wore. Lucky him.

For seconds that felt like they stretched on forever, he stared at her face or her wings. After she crouched, he got a better look at her eyes, her brows, and her lashes. They were each uniquely beautiful, just like the rest of her.

Speaking of ‘the rest of her’, his gaze wandered down her throat. Machine Head felt a sudden urge to nibble on her neck - a thought that shocked him and made him blink, rapidly. His eyes kept wandering down, past her choker, to the thin white garment that she wore…

Jimminy Christmas, I can see EVERYTHING!

Finally, Machine Head realized that the angel was soaked from the tips of her snowy wings to the bottom of her feet. He figured that she must’ve been caught in his Maximum Spray. Her chemise - which probably didn’t leave much to the imagination under normal circumstances - had become see-through, so he got a big, heapin’ eyeful of, well, everything. Heavy breasts with dark nipples that looked as though they were playing peek-a-boo with him. The enticing contours of her abdomen. The hint of her silver bush. All of her yummy-looking skin, glistening in the sunlight. It was all too much!

On the outside, he may have appeared to be dead, but the inside of his brain and his body were going wild. He was shocked into paralysis by sensory overload. And if not for the stiffness of his kevlar and carbon fiber suit, his erection would’ve been painfully obvious. (It was beginning to feel painful, but it wasn’t visually obvious.)
It took a while, but eventually Machine Head was able to move. He reached for her outstretched hand, the sunlight glittering off the rings on each of her fingers. He also regained the ability to speak.

“Angel...boobies…”

Machine Head would instantly regret those first words to Moonrise once he realized what he said.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“E…Excuse me?!”

And the spell was broken. She wrenched her hand back, jumping to her feet, with a healthy bounce of those breasts. The movement of her chest was enough to bring her attention down to herself, and her cheeks turned a bright scarlet, dark red against the smooth brown of her skin.

“Kyah!” she squeaked, quickly slapping her hands over her chest. She leapt back a few feet, her wings fluttering open to cushion her descent.

The motion of her wings was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Long coils of violet smoke began to ease off of her body, tugged away from her by the mild breeze. Her eyes went wide with panic, and she began to look, frantically, for something, anything, to cover what she knew was going to happen next. The wings winked into nothing, covering her in a hail of feathers. She dashed back to Machine Head, her hands still clasped firmly over her breasts. Fat lot of good it did her; her breasts were large enough to bulge around her taper fingers, and for all of her efforts to keep them down and out of sight, they curved enticingly around her hands.

“Cover me!” she hissed, not unkindly, but in the tones of someone who was struggling to fight off impending embarrassment. “Or get me somewhere safe, please!” This close to him, he would be able to tell that the thin chemise was…melting from her body, each dampened fold of fabric pulling away into that purple smoke. "Please help me," she pleaded, her large eyes on the verge of tears. "I don't want everyone to see me naked!"

 

[BewareTheDream]

Moonrise’s sudden change in demeanor snapped Machine Head out of his stupor. Rolling over, he got into a kneeling position at the same time that her wings disappeared. Still exhausted and achy all over, he didn’t stand up right away, so he was eye-level with her breasts when she rushed back to him. He got treated to an even better, close-up view of her glorious, brown tits, which easily resisted her hands’ feeble attempt to cover them up.

And just like that, he was back to being brainless.

“Ahhhhh, hachi machi!” That was his second opportunity to say something normal, and his second utter failure.

The desperation in her voice made him glance up from her brain-draining fun bags to her equally-captivating face. He saw the tears well up in her large, uniquely-colored eyes. That was what got him to stop acting like an idiot.

“Naked? Oh! Erm...” Blinking and shaking his head, Machine Head finally got up off his knees. One of the side effects of being Machine Merged with a fire truck was the knowledge of what was inside of it - not only all of its working parts, but also what was contained within its storage compartments. Moonrise asked him to cover her, and he knew of something that would do the trick.

“Come with me!” Before he realized what he was doing, he reached for Moonrise’s hand and pulled her to the side of the fire truck, where its cabinets were located. He grabbed the latch of the smallest cabinet’s door and tried to open it, but it was locked. Letting go of Moonrise’s hand, he activated his Quirk again, even though doing so intensified the aches he felt from his head down to his toes. It was fine, though - he only needed to use his Quirk a tiny bit.

While blue electricity danced along his limbs, he reached for the cabinet again, only this time his hand slipped through the metal as though it wasn’t there. There was a soft click, the door popped open a bit, and then Machine Head withdrew his hand. Sparks coursed between his fingers for a moment or two before fading away.

Machine Head swung the cabinet door open all the way and immediately saw what he was looking for - a spare firefighter’s coat. He yanked the thick, heavy garment out and offered it to Moonrise. “Here, take this.”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

No matter how many times she’d seen different Quirks, they never ceased to amaze her. Her eyes widened as his hand simply phased through the locker - and she was still in a state of shock when he held out the heavy fireman’s coat to her.

“Oh…” she finally breathed, and she took the coat, stumbling ever so slightly under its weight. Then, she laughed, uncovering her breasts. In the shadow of the fire truck, there was less chance of being totally exposed to a crowd, and it was as if a weight dropped from her slim shoulders. “That’s quite the Quirk,” she chirruped, confidence back in her voice. As she shrugged on the coat, she was briefly, gloriously bare in front of him, the last bits of violet smoke vanishing from her body. Her body, still damp from the water, glistened in the sunlight.

Pulling the coat closed, its bulky exterior fell to below her knees. “Ugh. I pushed myself way too hard back there. But what else was I going to do, let that little girl die? That’s not what heroes do. But you totally saved me. This coat’ll buy me enough time until I get my energy back up.” She was steadily doing up the ties for the coat, securing it in place. “Gonna be hard walking around barefoot until then, though.”

She spoke easily now, as if she’d known him for years instead of mere seconds. “Hey, what’s your name? I’m Moonrise,” she held out her hand. “Thank you so much! I owe you one.” Without waiting for him to shake her hand, she scooted closer, standing up on her tiptoes, and kissed the side of his cheek, even though it was covered by his helmet.

Settling back down solidly on the ground, she smiled at him, her cheeks flushed the slightest pink. She pushed heavy silver bangs out of her eyes, and looked around the edge of the fire truck. The other heroes, Bison Max and Mercury Heel, were helping the police with crowd control. She sucked in a deep breath, leaning forward a bit more. “I think they’re gonna be here for a while….and I can’t go out there like this. They’ll think I’m some sort of flasher…” She sighed, a wistful whine on the end of it. “This always happens! I always have to vanish before the event’s done! But you know,” she turned back to him, with a slightly mischievous expression on her face, “Maybe I can work that into my hero gimmick. People like a bit of mystery, right? I mean, not like you need a gimmick to be a hero; Quirks do that enough.”

As conversational as she was with him, she hadn’t once mentioned why she was naked, or what she could actually do. It’d be hard to tell just by watching her moments ago. The comment about energy? Well, that could be for anyone who’s Quirk took a lot out of them. For all she knew, his assumption could be that her Quirk was the angel wings, and she was quite fine with him keeping it to that.

“I really like your suit,” she said, suddenly. “It totally makes me think of that comic. You know, Iron Man?” She turned back to him, her bright eyes guileless. Then, as if having second thoughts, she laughed again. “I didn’t mean that as an insult; I mean, it looks really really cool!” She reached out; ran a slim hand down his chest plate. “Did you design it yourself? That’s even cooler!”

 

[BewareTheDream]

Machine Head’s brain short circuited yet again when he got a glimpse of Moonrise’s naked body beneath the firefighter coat. It was such a brief look, but he saw so much...so, so much! Every detail of their meeting - her bare flesh, the violet smoke that wafted off of it, her angelic wings, and even his embarrassing behavior - was permanently seared into his mind. And the memory of her delightfully feminine form would surely keep him nice and warm on cold, lonely nights.

Much of what she said went unnoticed, at first, for he was lost in lewd imaginings. He thought about nibbling on her neck again, even though it was covered by the high collar of the coat. The next thing he fixated on were her plump, pink lips. They were moving because she was saying something that he only vaguely heard. As he watched them move, he wondered what they tasted like.

If not for his damn helmet, he would’ve felt her bubble gum lips against his skin when she kissed him, and he would’ve melted. No doubt about it - one touch of her lips would’ve reduced him to a puddle of goo. But no, her lips landed on his polycarbonate face shield instead, so he didn’t feel it. As for what she felt, it was like kissing glass.

The kiss nudged his head a tiny bit, which was enough to get him to start thinking straight again.

What did she just say? Moonrise? Her name is Moonrise? That’s pretty, just like her.

“My name’s, uhh…” His throat and mouth were dry, so he had to swallow and lick his lips before continuing. “Machine Head. My name’s Machine Head.

“And don’t worry about it,” he said in response to her claim that she owed him one. “It wouldn’t be right for you to be so, ah, exposed out there.”

For the next few minutes, Machine Head did nothing but stand there, as still as an out-of-commision robot, and listen to Moonrise speak. Right away he liked the sound of her voice, and he wanted her to keep talking to him. She had mentioned her bare feet earlier, so he glanced down at them. There were still droplets of water on her toes. A thought suddenly crossed his mind - he wanted to suck the water off of her toes. That thought shocked him, because he never considered sucking someone’s toes until that moment.

What’s happening to me? Why am I thinking like this? Am I a toe sucker, now?

What is this angel woman doing to me?

Moonrise placed a hand on his chest. Looking down at her hand, he felt his knees begin to buckle.

“Hey, Machine Head!” A man called out from the side. Startled and already weak in the knees, Machine Head stumbled backward and would have fallen on his ass if not for the fire truck; his back bumped against the side of the truck, instead.

“I’ve been lookin’ for ya.” It was one of the firefighters who Machine Head chased away when he commandeered and possessed their truck. The guy gave Moonrise an odd look. “Oh, hey. Everything okay?”

Machine Head was almost thankful for the interruption. Now that he was no longer alone with the enchanting angel woman, he was starting to feel more like himself. He stood up straight and tried to look like a Hero should.

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine. You said you were looking for me?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to tell you that you did some good shit out there.” The firefighter slapped the side of the fire engine a couple of times. “I also gotta thank you for bringing her back in one piece."

The man continued. “I hafta admit, I thought you were a real jerk at first...”

Machine Head glowered, but the expression was hidden.

“...A real jerk and a nutjob, too. But what you did, that sure was somethin’! I haven’t seen anything like that before! ‘Cause a’ you, the building’s still standing.”

The praise really helped Machine Head feel like himself again. He puffed his chest out, put his hands on his hips, and held the pose. “That’s what a Hero does, of course. We save lives!”

“Oh, no, you didn’t save any lives,” the firefighter said. “I mean, yeah, nobody died. Thank God. But the building was already evacuated by the time you got here. From what I hear, she was the one who rescued the last student.” He pointed at Moonrise.

“Wait, what?” Machine Head’s shoulders slumped.

“The building was already empty.” The firefighter seemed to notice Machine Head’s slumped shoulders just then, but it was too late. “Don’t get me wrong, though! Saving the school was, you know, important, too. I mean, the students will still need to go somewhere else to finish out the school year, but the building can still be used in the future. I think.

“And...hey! Look at it this way: thanks to you, the fire didn’t spread to any other buildings. Maybe you saved lives, after all!”

The firefighter gave Machine Head a friendly pat on the shoulder before looking at Moonrise. “I saw that little girl get interviewed a coupla minutes ago. She said your name and everything. You did some real good shit, too!” Moonrise got a friendly pat on the shoulder, too. “Oh, and you can keep that coat, I guess. We've got plenty."

After several moments of awkward silence, the firefighter just sorta wandered off, leaving Machine Head and Moonrise alone once again.

“I didn’t save anybody,” Machine Head whispered.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Machine Head. Well, that makes sense.

Before she could say anything else, the firefighter came around the side of the truck, and she gave him a megawatt smile. “Totally fine! Nothing to see here!” She waved her hands, hoping that the gesture would look innocent enough. After all, she WAS dressed now.

Somewhat.

As the fireman continued talking, Moonrise noticed the slump in Machine Head’s shoulders - and, without a word, gently put her hand on his right shoulder, the one closest to her. Though he wouldn’t be able to feel it, she gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, as the firefighter complimented her rescue. “It would have really ended badly for me, though, if Machine Head hadn’t been here! And he definitely saved lives,” she added with a confident nod of her head. “Bill Finger’s an old school; I’m sure there was a gas tank that would have caused a massive explosion if the fire had been left unchecked. And then, if the fire hadn’t had been put out, the rest of the structural integrity of the building would be totally kaput.”

Why am I defending this complete stranger?

Well, he DID keep me from being seen completely naked.

“Thanks about the coat, too,” she added lamely, thrilled that the firefighter was…well, leaving. Not very heroic, she knew, but the whole persona she was working on involved mystery - moonlit nights, sparkling starlight! Romance! Not…broad daylight stuff. But if there was a life to be saved and she was close by, she was going to do the right thing.

Once the firefighter was out of sight, she stepped in front of Machine Head, and though he was taller than her, she squared up, and placed her hands on both of his shoulders.

“Hey. You did save someone. Me.” She gave him that bright crescent moon smile, the corners of her multi-colored eyes turning up with the expression. “Really. I would have been so screwed if your quick thinking didn’t help me out. Plus,” her sunny expression faltered a bit, “It’s really hard for new heroes to get a foothold in anywhere. Some of the old pros are really, really territorial. It’s like they’ve forgotten why they do the whole hero thing to begin with. So us newbies, I mean, I’m assuming you’re a newbie, well, we gotta stick together, right?”

Suddenly, those eyes brightened. “Hey! Speaking of sticking together, want to come with me to go grab a bite? I’m totally starving, and I can’t go home in this giant coat. I need to get my energy back up. I think I read something about there being a set of hero food trucks not too far from here? I think the idea is that they’re discreet when heroes that require a lot of energy for their Quirks need a pick me up. I guess they’re tuned into police scanners or whatever and drive to the latest emergency. It’s a little ghastly but on the same hand, it’s a good service they do, sort of like undertakers. Well, I mean, it’s not…well, you know what I mean,” and she lightly patted his chest again. “OH - you’re totally not obligated to come with, you know, if you don’t want to. I just thought, you know, maybe I could treat you to something as a thanks? Also, I’d really love to get out of this coat. It reeks of smoke and it’s really heavy."

 

[BewareTheDream]

Machine Head recognized that Moonrise was trying to make him feel better, and although he didn’t say ‘thank you’, he did appreciate her effort. However, the fact remained that he didn’t save any lives that day. He pushed himself and he pushed his Quirk to their limits, and all that did was save an empty elementary school from burning down.

The best Heroes in the world didn’t just save buildings; they saved lives. Heroes who only saved objects were little more than the clean-up crew. Machine Head didn’t want to think of himself as a mere cleaner.

After the fireman left Machine Head and Moonrise alone, she placed her hands on his shoulders. Raising his head, he looked her in the face. Just seeing her smile made him feel a little better. It also made him want to see her smiling all the time. All of a sudden, he felt weirded out by how this angel woman - who he knew almost nothing about - could affect him so deeply and easily.

“Yeah, I’m a real life-saver,” he said, sarcastically, in response to her claim that he saved her. “Woooo.” He twirled his index finger round and round in the air in a universal sign of celebration, but there was no excitement in either the gesture or his voice.

She called him a ‘newbie’. At first, the term offended him, but then he admitted to himself that he was, technically, a newbie. Sure, between his years at U.A. High, his time as the sidekick of Silver Fox, and his first few years as a globe-trotting, solo pro, he’d spent nearly a decade honing his Quirk and training to be a Hero. But training and sidekick years don’t count as Hero years. Yeah, he was a newbie, especially here in the States.

“We gotta stick together?” he repeated. “You mean, like, team up?” The idea made his heart race, but he tried to keep his cool. His futuristic, full-body suit should’ve hid his excitement, or so he hoped.

“Sure, we can team up,” Machine Head said as cool as he could.

What Moonrise said next made it seem as though their first team-up would involve food trucks rather than criminals. Well, maybe there’ll be criminals at the food trucks. Criminals have to eat too, after all.

“Wait a second...how are you going to treat me? You weren’t wearing any…” Images of her nude body flashed through his mind, and he had to will himself to concentrate. “I mean, you were, you know…” Unable to say the word ‘naked’ for some reason, he simply gestured at her current state.

“Do you have money hidden somewhere?!” Behind his visor, his eyes went wide and his cheeks got warm, for he was thinking about where she could have possibly stashed her wallet.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Realistically, there was no reason for her to be hurt. He didn’t know her well enough (honestly, he didn’t know her at all) for his comment to be a direct dig, but it felt like a pot shot anyway.

Her smile faded, replaced with a slightly angry look. Figures. This class of newbies were all glory hounds. They didn’t get that even the smallest thing, the smallest action, could make anyone a hero. Didn’t anyone learn ANYTHING from how amazing All Might was?

“Yeah; being there for me meant absolutely nothing,” she snapped, sharper than she intended. Sure, she’d gotten there early enough to save someone, but even if she hadn’t, it was important for her just to BE there. To show that there was support. “Sorry to bother you.” She was tempted to shrug off the fire coat and hand it to him and just walk away as bare as the day she was born, but the bit of sense underlying her hurt pride kept her from it.

She turned away from him then, gingerly stepping across the pavement. Her stomach rumbled at her impressively. A good meal and some time to herself would do wonders for her now flagging spirits. And, just as she said, behind the sirens of the ambulances and fire trucks, smaller trucks were pulling up, and starting to set up. At the sight of a familiar white and blue truck, she picked up her pace. She was delicately leaping from one clear spot to the other on the pavement, careful to avoid puddles, broken glass; rough spots.

It felt like it took forever, but soon enough, she was standing in front of the blue and white truck, her eyelids fluttering closed at the delicious smell wafting from the grill: onions and bell peppers. “Hero’s Gyros” blared the highly stylized font from the side of the truck in bright red, the swoops and curls of the lettering hinting at written Greek. The truck had seen better days, with rust spots peppering the sides and the hood, and sure, some of the paint was chipping and the plastic menus were yellowed and bent, but the appetizing smell was undeniable.

“Moonrise, my favorite girl!” chirruped a heavily accented voice. “The usual?” The voice belonged to a pleasantly smiling, slightly plump woman with scads of dark hair tied back away from her face. White streaked her temples, drawing attention to her elfin ears. The woman took a step back from the makeshift counter of the food truck, putting her hands on her hips as she took in the sight of Moonrise in her coat. “Better make it a double regular, huh?”

“That would be great,” sighed Moonrise gratefully, managing to find her smile again.

“Oh, is Moonrise here?!” called a masculine voice from the depths of the truck. The face of an older man, his thick beard turning white, appeared. His curly hair was covered by a hair net, (only slightly bent out of shape by the two horns that curved from his forehead) and he had a knife in one hand. He was short, squat, and hirsute. His ears, too, were pointed at the tips. “Did you save anyone today?”

“Papa, don’t bother her,” hissed the woman, waving for him to get back to the grill. “Feed her and then ask her her questions!”

“You always take the best care of me, Pitys,” Moonrise sighed, leaning across the counter. Folding her arms under her head, she rested her cheek against them, crossing her ankles one over the other. It would be a strange sight; the hero leaning across a food truck counter, her coat riding up to expose the backs of her knees, the bare feet dirtied by walking across the street.

“Oh, oh, I don’t like that face,” cooed Pitys as she leaned across the counter, gently petting the top of Moonrise’s silver hair. “Want to tell me about it?”

“No,” Moonrise pouted, leaning into Pitys’s touch. “I’m being silly about something equally silly. I’ll be okay.”

“Do I need to cut someone?!” The man turned away from his grill, brandishing his spatula menacingly. Pitys turned away from Moonrise for a moment, hissing something at the man in Greek before waving him away with a shooing motion.

“Worry about the food, you shameless old man!”

His response was a grumble, not unlike the rough bleat of a goat.

 

[BewareTheDream]

What, she just going to leave without answering my questions? That’s rude.

Confused, Machine Head watched Moonrise walk away and skip over rough spots on the street. The abrupt and unpleasant ending of their conversation reminded him that he knew nothing about women. He didn’t know, for sure, what he said or did to offend her. Maybe it was his tone more than anything? Hell’s bells, he didn’t even know what was worse - how their meeting began or how it ended.

All he knew was that the angel Hero intrigued him, and that it bothered him to see her upset, especially since he was the one who upset her, somehow. By nature, he felt compelled to fix what was broken, and right now that meant fixing Moonrise’s mood.

Not only that, but he really was curious where she kept her money. His cheeks warmed as he played around with some possible solutions to that mystery.

Machine Head sighed. “Shit on a shingle, I’d better apologize to her.” He marched after her, the soles of his thick boots crunching on some glass or splashing the puddles that Moonrise had taken care to avoid.

He stopped maybe 10 yards away when he saw her go to Hero’s Gyros, a food truck he recognized since he had eaten there on his day off a couple weeks ago. They served good stuff.

Mustering his resolve, Machine Head puffed out his chest, squared his shoulders, and approached her from behind. Almost instinctively, he Machine Merged with his suit in order to take direct control of it and to modify his helmet. As blue electricity climbed up his neck and around his head, the full-face visor shifted into a half-face visor. With that done, anyone who looked at him would see his mouth, his angular jaw, and most of his smooth cheeks. He looked a little less like a robot and more like Robocop.

Machine Head adjusted his appearance like this because he found that it made it easier to talk to people in a relaxed manner. He guessed that people were more comfortable when they could see they were talking to a flesh-and-bone person underneath the hi-tech suit.

Standing behind her and doing his best not to stare at her bare legs, he cleared his throat. “Hey. Is it okay if I join you?”

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Free country,” she said, her voice considerably less buoyant than it was before. Maybe not quite “business,” but certainly not the same excitable tones as before.

Pitys, glancing over Moonrise, gave Machine Head a big grin. “What’ll it be?”

“For the prettiest girl in the daylight,” beamed the older man, with a bit of a tottering to his walk. Faintly over the sound of the grill, it sounded like little hoof beats every time he took a step. In his hands, he held out a massive paper plate, sagging under the weight of golden French fries, a gyro loaded down with tender strips of lamb, red onion, and tons of tzatziki. It was enough food to feed at least two teenage boys, and her face lit up considerably as she saw it.

“Yay! Thank you, Papa!” Moonrise took the plate eagerly. “Could I get a-”

Before she could even finish, he set down a massive cup, filled to the brim.

“How could I forget the lemonade?”

“You’re the best,” Moonrise beamed, and, without further ado, practically inhaled half the order of fries in one mouthful. Her eyes squinched shut in pure pleasure, and she looked as if she was about to start purring. “That is sooooo goooddddd,” she practically drooled. “Always the best for filling me up!” She shoveled the last of the fries in her mouth, and smiled in bliss. “Hooo-okay…” She inhaled, and, closing her eyes, faint silver light pooled at her feet, before surrounding them in ribbons of silver light. The light flickered, snapped, and when it vanished, she had on white boots.

“Oh, man,” she grinned, rocking back and forth on her heels. “I was so tired of standing barefoot, you have no idea.”

“I can imagine, tender foot like you,” grinned Pitys. “More fries?”

“Uh, of course!” Moonrise eagerly held out her plate, snagging the gyro off of it. She took a massive bite, chewed, swallowed (as daintily as a queen), and then, finally, she turned back to Machine Head. “You know, what you said back there, about being a ‘real life-saver’ was a totally jerk thing to say.” Gone was her anger, replaced by a “I’m disappointed in you” look that edged on the sad. “You DID actually save me, but I guess it only matters if cameras and stuff are around, huh? Or am I wrong?”

Waiting for him to answer, she took a long swig of her drink, and took another massive bite of the gyro. Impressive; she’d nearly finished the thing in two bites.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Even though she wasn’t technically giving him the cold shoulder, it was still pretty close. Moonrise’s sour mood made him feel glum, so he stood beside her without saying anything more, until Pitys asked for his order.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Um…” Machine Head quickly scanned over the menu. His visor automatically scanned the pictures in the menu, and seconds later the relevant nutritional data began to scroll on the bottom left corner of his HUD. Normally, he didn’t care about things like calorie count or vitamin content; he wasn’t even sure why he programmed his suit’s computer to scan for info like that. He made a mental note to hack and slash unnecessary lines of code the next time he had a few hours free.

“Just a couple of lamb kebabs, please.” He smiled a polite smile at Pipys, although he didn’t feel much like smiling right now. It disappeared from his face immediately after she turned around.

Unlike Moonrise, Machine Head wasn’t that hungry. He still ached all over, and he was tired, but not famished. He drew energy from the machines he merged with, so as long as a car had gas in its tank or a computer was plugged into a socket, he was able to merge with it and control it.

Awkward silence hung between the two Heroes while Moonrise ate and Machine Head waited for his order. Well, it wasn’t entirely silent - she wasn’t quiet at all with her eating.

His order arrived at about the same time that Moonrise began to scold him.

“No!” he said, his voice raised and his tone defensive, when she accused him of only caring about Hero work when cameras were around. That was mostly a lie - he enjoyed Hero work the most when there were cameras and live witnesses.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry for acting like a jerk. I just, you know...I didn’t know that giving you that coat was that important to you. Since it is, then I’m glad I was there to help.” That wasn’t a lie.

Not sure what to say next, he picked up one of the kebabs that Pitys set on the counter in front of him. It was loaded with chopped herbs and spices, and smelled exquisite, but Machine Head didn’t notice, for he felt too bummed out that the angel woman was being hard on him. He took a bite, and it tastes as good as it smelled, but again he didn’t really notice.

As he ate the roasted lamb off the first stick, he wondered exactly what Moonrise’s Quirk was. He saw the boots materialize around her feet; how could anyone have missed it? Perhaps her Quirk could create inanimate objects, like clothes and other things. The wings could’ve been a second Quirk, maybe?

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“Of COURSE it was important to me! I mean, who wants to be naked in front of a bunch of strangers?!” She turned to goggle at him – before the light clip clop of Papa’s hooves brought her attention back to the take out counter.

“For my Moonrise,” he said, with a mild flourish and a rakish wag of his eyebrows, that, once upon a time, must have been heartbreaking.

“Thanks, Papa.” She took the second, heavily laden plate, and was about to start popping fries in her mouth before Papa placed another small container on the take out counter.

“Loukoumades, for my sweet. And for you, too,” he nodded at Machine Head. “We heard that you put out the fire. On the house.” He smiled, showing slightly sharpened teeth.

“Papa, you spoil the girl,” Pitys said, without much conviction. Instead, she winked at the both of them. With a twitch of those pointed ears, she looked over the heads of the two. “Now scoot your butt out of the way; we’re getting a line.”

Behind the two heroes, sure enough, a collection of people had started to grow- a sheepish collection of police officers and firemen. Flushing, Moonrise grabbed her cup and the container of loukoumades, shoving one of the sweet dumplings into her mouth quickly. “Put it on my tab!”

“But of course. NEXT!” Pitys’s voice was booming, despite her short stature.

“Come on,” and she took one of Machine Head’s free arms to tug him aside. Once they were out of the way of the line, she took another look around. Satisfied that everyone around them was suitably distracted, she tugged Machine Head to the back of the truck.

The school had sports fields on either side of the road leading to the school – the school itself being at the end of a graceful cul-de-sac. It was in these fields that the firetrucks and food trucks had parked, and, now, behind the blue and white of the gyro truck, the two of them were strangely alone, looking out into a soccer field.

“If I hurry, I can give them back their coat,” she muttered, almost to herself, as she let go of his hand and sat down on the neatly trimmed grass. She began to eat again, wolfing down her food in that speedy, but oddly dainty way of hers. “Well, for whatever it’s worth, I mean. About the whole coat thing. It really did mean a lot to me.” She paused, nibbling on a fry, “So why do you do it? Heroing, I mean. People who have Quirks don’t have to be heroes.”

Her food finished now, with the exception of the loukoumades, she licked her fingers, finished the rest of her drink, and stood up. Took in a deep breath, and exhaled it – and beneath the coat, there was a massive flash of silver light that quickly dissolved into glittering particles. She was shrugging off her coat now, with a sigh of relief. “Ugh. So glad to get that thing off.”

Beneath the coat, she was fully dressed – and looked more like a hero than her angelic first appearance. Her outfit was in hues of deep violet, black, and white. White boots leading up to long, muscular legs covered by a purple fabric that appeared to have been painted on. The violet melted into black when it came to her chest. An opening in the fabric allowed a generous look at her breasts – the fabric snug across them and hugging her throat, ending at her choker. White gloves completed the look, and when she turned her back to him briefly to set the coat neatly down on the ground, it was revealed that her suit was a halter top; wrapping round her neck and leaving her back bare. Her hair even looked neater; pulled back from her face in ornate loops that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a painting from ancient China.

“Not that you have to answer me or anything,” she flopped down on the grass next to him, stretching out her legs. “I should probably get going anyway.”

 

[BewareTheDream]

Loukoumades? Machine Head hadn’t heard of them before, but one look at the little pile of golden treats was all it took for him to know that they were probably quite yummy; they sure smelled yummy. They were probably really unhealthy, too.

It’s no wonder why so many Americans are fat. They stuff their pie holes with the most fattening foods from around the world.

Glancing around the sports field, he saw a veritable world map represented by multicolored food trucks. One truck served grilled chicken piri piri from Mozambique. Another truck, called Kangaroo Jack’s, served Australian-style burgers. Another one served Spanish tapas. Another one served served soft-shelled tacos and burritos stuffed with Korean BBQ, so that was two different countries on two different continents represented by one truck. And, of course, there was Hero’s Gyros, the blue and white food truck whose owners looked like they stepped straight out of a book of Greek mythology.

Machine Head’s mind wandered a bit, to his admiration of the spirit of American immigration. It attracted people from all over the world, which inevitably meant that cuisine from around the world ended up here, too. It also attracted Heroes from around the world. Machine Head, himself, was an immigrant.
His attention returned to the here and now when Papa placed a serving of loukoumades in front of him.

“Thanks.” His spirit lifted when the satyr-like cook said that he had heard about Machine Head putting out the fire at the school. Maybe Moonrise was right - what he did today actually was important.

Due to the line that suddenly formed behind them, Machine Head had to get out of the way, fast. Before he really knew what was happening, he found himself walking away from the counter with his last kebab and a container of deep-fried dough balls balanced on one hand, and his other hand held and tugged by Moonrise.

He didn’t want her to ever let go of his hand. Unfortunately, she did, and moments later she asked him about Heroing.

“Why do I do it?” he repeated. “That’s a deeply personal question. But okay, I’ll bite.

“I was born to be a Hero.” He meant to state that proudly, but it sounded sorta silly once he heard himself say it. There were other reasons, like the fame, glory, and money. These reasons had always made sense to him before, but now, with Moonrise staring at him, he didn’t feel comfortable telling her everything, mainly because something told him she’d scold him again.

The intense flash of light saved him from having to answer more of her questions, at least for now. Machine Head averted his gaze, and when he looked back he saw Moonrise shed off the fireman’s coat while silver particles, like pixie dust, drifted around her. For the first time, he saw her in her Hero costume, and entered into a new state of shock.

Because his recently-morphed visor only covered the top half of his face, Moonrise would be able to see Machine Head’s jaw hanging down as he ogled her. Practically drooling, he feasted on the sight of her.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

“I didn't think it was that personal of a question,” she murmured, sounding slightly put out by Machine Head’s answer. Still, as he talked, she popped one, then another, loukoumades in her mouth. The cinnamon laced honey left dark marks on her formerly pristine gloves, but she didn’t seem to care.

“You’re a strange one,” she sighed, then, realizing that she’d said it aloud, her cheeks flushed. She then cleared her throat, and said, a bit louder, “Well, I mean, I guess that’s one reason to be a hero.”

She stole a shy glance over at him. The jawline was enticing; strong. Even if it was hanging open - which wasn’t helping her blush. Not that he was the first person to look at her like that.

Funny - the moment I’m a hero, everyone notices me. And when I’m me, no one cares.

“…Well,” she said, giving him a small smile, “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. I’ll see you around, Machine Head. Thanks again for the coat.”

She gave him a jaunty two-finger salute, right over her brow, before she parted her fingers into a V. Within the frame of her fingers, she winked, with a soft giggle, and, in a single bound, had leapt to the top of the food truck, soundless, before she seemed to just vanish from sight, in a swirl of long silver hair.

_______

Serena Hawkes, by her own estimation, was a pretty nondescript person. Average height, brown hair, brown eyes. No tattoos or piercings (outside of her ears), though she always humored getting a crescent moon tattoo on one of her fingers. Those were cute. She liked to stay in shape, but otherwise loved curling up on the couch with her two toy poodles, Lucy and Ricky, and binge her latest Korean drama.

So, even to her, being Moonrise was a bit of a shock.

With the way that work places were designed nowadays, especially for those who wanted to be heroes, stepping away from one’s desk for extended amounts of time wasn’t frowned upon. Some workplaces were better than others - and put all aspiring heroes in one department - and therefore, whenever someone had to leave, the whole department was excused so one person couldn’t be singled out. It helped, though, if you were actually a good employee otherwise.

The next call that came in over her wrist communicator was a welcome distraction from the proof-reading she was doing. A flurry of activity in her office as everyone prepared to leave - sending collective messages to management, getting hero gear on the ready. It was sort of fun, she thought, as she logged out and started her message to management. The way that everyone in the office handled it, really. No one on her team here were pros yet - some were training to be sidekicks, others wanted to be truly independent. She’d often wondered if some of the bigger hero agencies had a hand in creating departments like these; the funding had to come from somewhere. And, well, it seemed to be the best of both worlds - heroes that could, in theory, retire and go back to the private sector as if nothing ever happened. And then - how many heroes were here with her? No one knew each other’s hero personas; she could be, in theory - working right alongside Machine Head and wouldn’t have the slightest clue.

She felt her face warm.

She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that guy. Not like she’d really seen his face - but his quick thinking on how he’d given her the coat, and then his strange answer. Born to be a hero. What did that even mean?

Maybe she’d see him tonight, on this hostage situation. Maybe. Maybe not. But…it was still fun to think about.

 

[BewareTheDream]

It was in a state of shocked silence that Machine Head watched Moonrise go. He couldn’t even say ‘goodbye’ to her before she, quite literally, disappeared. Some time after she blinked out of sight, he picked his jaw up off the grass, and then realized that he had been staring, like a doofus, at the now empty spot where she had struck her adorable Hero pose.

Annoyed with himself, Machine Head took physical control of his suit once again and reshaped his helmet to its full-faced version. He was more comfortable like this when he was out Heroing - with his black-and-chrome suit not showing even an inch of skin. Looking around, he was only vaguely aware of the nearby food trucks and the crowd of people who were chatting and eating as though they were at a music festival, not the site of a fire that had almost blazed out of control. His focus was mainly on the closest buildings, which weren’t tall enough to get a good grapple swing going, and weren’t even that close by to begin with. He briefly considered Machine Merging with one of the food trucks and driving away, but abandoned that idea immediately after it popped into his brain. Why mess with someone’s business like that?

Sighing, he turned around and began to march across the sports field, his container of mostly uneaten loukoumades in hand. Walking was such a boring way for a Hero to get around, but at that moment it was the best way for him to leave the scene.

_______

The sign above the shop said ‘HIDEKI’S QUICK FIX’. Over the big, front window was a poster that had images of a smartphone, a laptop, and a computer tower beside a monitor, all underneath the words ‘WE CAN FIX THAT! NO PROBLEMO!’

Beneath all of that were the words ‘HABLAMOS ESPANOL'.

Hideki Moryiama stepped through the doors of his repair shop. An electronic bing bong played when he did, which alerted the only other person inside the store.

“Hey, Deks,” the man behind the counter said with a smile.

“‘Sup, Popcorn.” Hideki gave a half-salute, half-wave with the hand that wasn’t holding a gym bag. “Everything hunky-dory?” he asked as he walked past shelves filled with low-priced chargers, USB cords, phone cases, and other electronic accessories. After stepping around the counter, he placed his gym bag on the corner of the nearest workbench.

“Yep, business as usual.” Popcorn gestured at the laptop on the workbench directly in front of him. “Look what’s back.”

Hideki recognized the laptop right away. “Ah, Mrs. Santiago’s. Malware, huh?”

Popcorn snickered. “No, she wanted to upgrade her video card so she can play Mortal Kombat XV when it comes out. Of course it’s malware! What else would it be?!”

“Okay, okay, calm down, you little punk,” Hideki grumbled. “And watch your tone. Remember who’s boss around here.

“Wasn’t Mrs. Santiago just here with that same problem just a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yeah.” Popcorn closed his eyes, which Hideki knew was a sign that he was accessing his Quirk. “We cleared her system and gave it back to her 15 days, 5 hours, and 13 minutes ago.” Hideki’s best friend and lone employee opened his eyes. “Didn’t take her long to screw it up again!”

“Must be some kinda record.” Adjusting his glasses, Hideki stepped close to the laptop, which was turned on and booted into safe mode. Popcorn hopped off his stool and got out of his way without needing to be asked. “I swear, she’s like a malware magnet. Must be because of all the super-deviant porn sites she visits on the daily.”

Popcorn couldn’t help but snort-laugh. “Don’t talk that way about Mrs. Santiago! She’s super-sweet, not super-deviant, and you know it.” He sounded appalled, but at the same time he giggled like a school boy who’d just heard a naughty joke for the first time.

Hideki smirked a tiny bit as he Machine Merged with the laptop. Rings of blue electricity slid along his sleeve and his hand, and two of his fingers phased into the computer up to the second set of knuckles. Instantly, his consciousness became an amalgamation of what was within his organic brain and what was contained within Mrs. Santiago’s machine. It only took a few minutes of standing there, eyes rolled to the back of his head, for him to wipe the system clean of malware, and then reboot it so that Popcorn could give it a check.

After he was done, his eyes went back to normal, he slipped his fingers out, and the sparks disappeared from his arm.

Popcorn scoffed. “Show-off.”

“Whatever. If it checks out, give Mrs. Santiago a call and see if she wants to pick it up before closing.” Hideki already knew it was fixed, and he guessed that Popcorn knew, too. He zipped open his gym bag and took out the container from Hero’s Gyros. “Hey, you want some loukoumades?”

“Lou-ko-whats?”

“They’re balls of dough that’ve been deep fried by a hairy Greek dude with goat legs.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, except for the ‘deep fried dough’ part. Gimmie!” Popcorn gleefully snatched the container from Hideki’s hand like a kid receiving a Christmas present.

Although Cornelius ‘Popcorn’ Benz was 30 and, therefore, a few years older than Hideki, he looked much younger than him. While Hideki was taller-than-average for an adult Japanese man, Popcorn was shorter-than-average for an adult male of any ethnicity. And while Hideki’s angular features, natural intensity, glasses, and ‘resting douche face’ made him look older than he actually was, Popcorn’s expressive, oversized eyes, round face, and the smoothness of his light brown skin gave him the appearance of a chubby-cheeked child.

That chubby-cheeked child noisily devoured the loukoumades, which immediately reminded Hideki of the way Moonrise ate.

Moonrise was cute when she ate, though. Popcorn’s just a slob.

Hideki yawned, stretched, and headed toward the very back of the shop, where there was a staircase that lead up to his apartment. He still felt sore after Machine Merging with a fire truck, even though that ended several hours ago. “Okay, Pop, I’m gonna take a nap. Please lock up when you go.”

Just then, his smartphone-watch chimed The Avengers theme song, which was the ring tone he chose for Hero-related alerts. He swiped the screen, tapped the icon of a police scanner app he used more than any other app - except for, maybe, Google Maps and Yelp - and listened to a dispatcher’s voice on the watch’s speakers.

“Calling all units in the vicinity of Central Park North. We have a 1313 on West 111th, between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Manhattan Avenue. I repeat, we have a 1313 on West 111th between Frederick Douglass and Manhattan Ave.”

A 1313 - police code for a Villain who’s taken hostages.

The dispatcher continued. “Establish a perimeter and await the arrival of Heroes!”

Hideki and Popcorn looked at each other.

“So much for that nap.” Hideki whipped off his jacket and merged with his super suit, which was morphed into the smallest shape it could take in order for his street clothes to conceal it. Sparks crackled up and down his body while the suit morphed yet again, this time oozing like liquid metal over his neck, head, hands, clothes, and eventually his entire body.

In a matter of seconds, Hideki Moriyama was gone, and the electric, chrome-covered form of Machine Head stood in his place.

He rushed for the back while Popcorn yelled after him. “Good luck! And thanks for the dough balls!”

“I don’t need luck!” Machine Head shouted as he burst out the back door. “And you’re welcome!” He thrust an arm up at a wall, fired a grapple at it, and got yanked out of the alley and into the air. Between grapple swings and rooftop running, he knew he could make it to the Central Park North area within 15 minutes.

As the sun lowered behind the tallest buildings on the western side of Manhattan, Machine Head raced toward the hostage situation.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

The scene wasn’t what one would call a “bleak” one. If anything, it was a little pathetic. Only the most diligent workers were still at the office this time of night, so it wasn’t so much of a “real” hostage situation as so much as one disgruntled tiger-man with two exhausted looking men and an irritated janitor.

“I don’t understand; the deadline was for tomorrow’s news,” growled the tigerman, seeming to be more worried than angry. “That was the whole point of taking you guys hostage – keeping all of that from going to print!”

“Yeah, well,” grumbled one of the haggard looking employees, “Click-bait doesn’t sleep.”

“So, you know, if it’s not too much trouble, could you let us go?” asked the janitor, who looked surprisingly…fresh-faced and in control. He was an older man, complete with a bristling push broom mustache. His eyes, however, twinkled with a youth that belied the crags of his face.

The tigerman nervously bit his claws. “I can’t,” he whined, almost plaintively. “I’m going to get into so much trouble as it is!” He looked around desperately, nibbling on his long claws faster. If it wasn’t for the fact that he towered over the other employees, he would have appeared to be just another worker. He too, was dressed in a rumpled white shirt, tie askew, coffee stained pants. “I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea,” he sighed.

“I don’t either, George,” sighed one of the men, adjusting his glasses. “That story was going to go to print regardless.”

“Yeah, but it’s wrong,” snarled the tigerman, George. “It’s a blot on my journalistic integrity to let it go out like that!”

“George,” grumbled the other man, who was sporting a still immaculately curled mustache, “We write clickbait articles and bullshit quizzes for HumNews. Do you know what our most popular article was last week? ‘Which Quirk is your best romantic match?’”

George’s whiskers drooped, and he let out a long suffering sigh. His shoulders slumped, and he cradled his head between his massive paw-hands, murmuring. The younger man with the mustache gently patted George’s back.

“Hey, bro, it’s okay. Really. I mean, we all go through that. But gotta keep the lights on. And like, maybe if you really push hard, you can do one of those investigator type articles.”

George lifted his head from his paws. “Y…you think so?”

“Yeah, totally,” said the older man, with a light shrug of his shoulders. “Why not? Find something that seems sketchy and keep digging into it.”

“But…”

Now it was the janitor’s turn to talk. Clicking his tongue, he said, “Well, this ain’t much of a hostage situation. You really should let us go.”

“Yeah, bro, that’d be cool. We could all go get drinks.”

“But the cops…” whined George.

“I can go talk to them. Tell ‘em this all was a huge misunderstanding,” said the janitor, with a shrug. “No harm, no foul.”

“Y…You’d…do that for me?” George whimpered, his large golden eyes hopeful.

“Of course!” chirruped the janitor – who, by now, was starting to have long wisps of violet smoke trail from his shoulders.

“Uh…’Bob,’ was it…? You’re smoking.”

“Oh, uh,” fumbled the janitor, with a strange grin, “It’s my Quirk! It’s deodorizer, makes all the offices smell real nice.”

“Huh. That is…actually pretty groovy,” said the mustached man. Leaning forward, George took a long sniff.

“Oh, man, that smells wonderful! Like honey and roses…” He leaned in more, his nostrils flaring. “Wait. Our offices always smell like b.o. and feet. Even after the janitor comes.” George took a step back, crossing his arms. “Who are you?”

“Ha ha ha!” burst out Janitor Bob. “If you don’t know, I’ll tell you! Sometimes, I’m an intern working for Instagram cred! Other times, I’m a sassy barista, and sometimes, I’m a janitor named Bob. But what’s the reality?”

Bright silver light engulfed the roof, and the janitor’s body went to shreds, sending long snarls of fabric fluttering away. The stooped old man form shuddered, melted, and reformed into a curvaceous woman’s body, that, appeared, (and perhaps it was a trick of the light) completely nude before being clothed in painted on fabric of purple, white, and black. Thick silver hair was pulled back into two braided loops with long ponytails trailing behind her, and, as the light died down, she was standing on top of a desk, posed.

“Warrior of Mystery and Love – Moonrise!”

The three men gawked at each other, then her, then back to at each other.

“…Dude.” Finally managed the mustached man, “You’re…like, that new rookie hero, right?”

“Yep!” Moonrise nodded, eagerly. “And since this was a huge misunderstanding, I think I can go talk to the cops. I’ve been watching you guys for a while, and figured something might be up.”

The older man was fumbling for his phone. “I gotta get a picture…no one’s gonna believe this!”

“Forget your picture; what about video?! You’re not with any agency, right?” The mustached man was now looking for his phone as well. “I gotta get this on the ‘Gram!”

Suddenly, George was upon Moonrise, grasping her shoulders in his massive hands. “You gotta give me the interview! If you were Shelly the Barista, you know how bad I’ve needed this!”

Moonrise, shaken, but not stirred, simply blinked, and let out a weak chuckle. “Actually, I don’t think I can really talk to the media without an agency backing…”

“What?! Why NOT?!” This close, George’s whiny, almost petulant tones took on a real menace. “We’re a reputable website! Sure, I made that one, teeny, tiny mistake…”

“…You said that fracking didn’t damage the environment,” said Moonrise, flatly. “And you were paid by Nexxus Gas to say that.”

George’s face, as so much as a tiger’s face could, paled. His grip tightened on Moonrise’s bare shoulders, his claws lightly digging into the skin.

“I gotta pay rent!”

“Yeah, but even for us, that’s shady,” grumbled the mustache’d man. “We were here late trying to write like, 15 different ‘Here’s how you can help the environment’ posts because of that.”

“Oh, can it, Joel!” snapped George, the last word ending on a nasty snarl. “You just think you’re so much better than everyone else because you bike to work! You look like an asshole!”

“Hey! That’s hurtful!”

“Yeah, George, that was kinda below the belt.”

“Oh, like you’re any better, Steve!” George whirled around, still holding onto Moonrise, to growl at the older man. “You totally cheat on your wife with that vendor from BeautyToday!”

“I do not! She gives me samples for my hair.” Steve absent-mindedly rubbed the back of his head. “You know I’m sensitive about balding.”

“Some ‘samples’ she gives you, in your office with the closed doors for like an hour! Come off it; everyone knows.”

“…Really..?”

“Yup,” deadpanned Joel.

“Okay…so maybe what we’ve learned here is that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” piped in Moonrise. “And that maybe a good togetherness retreat might be helpful for the whole office-”

“You can fix all of this by just giving me an interview!” George shook her – then instantly glanced down at the motion of her chest, and flushed.

“…My eyes are up here,” she grumbled.

Caught, George’s striped face seemed to turn red. “It’s not my fault! You have a very distracting costume! At least Midnight censors herself!”

“Whoa, man, now you’re costume policing? You’re a real prick, George,” snapped Joel. “Moonrise is an empowered woman who has her own agency to wear whatever she wants!”

“Oh, like you totally weren’t looking at her, drooling, like, 5 seconds ago.” George turned his attention back to Moonrise. “So, come on; gimme an exclusive.”

“Like I said,” Moonrise ground out between clenched teeth, “I can’t without an agency backing.”

“That’s bullshit!” George roared in her face. Moonrise winced, closing her eyes against the nearly physical onslaught of George’s voice. As soon as he was done, she opened one eye, then the other, and blinked, before reaching up to jiggle her ears. The moonstone studs she wore in her lobes caught the light in shades of pale blue.

“Wow, okay, even if I could, with that attitude of yours, that would be a solid no. You need to take your hands off me and we can settle this like adults. If you don’t, I’m going to have to take you in.”

“You? How? Knocking me out with those tits? Seriously, they’re massive. How do you not give yourself black eyes whenever you run?”

“Okay; that’s it!” Despite George having a good foot and a half of height on her, Moonrise leapt up in his arms, her foot solidly connecting under his chin. Yowling in pain, George’s grip on Moonrise instantly loosened, and she leapt off of the top of the desk, putting distance between her and George.

“All right…” she said, not even out of breath, “Let’s be rational about this…”

Blinking spots of pain from his eyes, George whirled to face Moonrise – and let out a deafening roar, his claws gleaming in the dull office light.

And charged.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Red lights flashed on the street several stories below the HumNews offices. The NYPD had blocked off the area and were busy keeping back crowds of lookie-loos. The press were beginning to arrive, as well.

Machine Head swung high above the gathering of people and emergency vehicles before landing onto the rooftop across the street from the hostage situation. The landing was pretty smooth - smooth enough for him to smile at himself for getting better.

There was another Hero there already, seated, criss-cross applesauce, near the center of the roof. Machine Head wasn’t surprised that someone had beaten him there, nor was he surprised by who it was.

“Hi, Deks,” the woman said without turning around or opening her eyes. She was dressed in a flowing, white rope with purple trim; the robe looked especially white in contrast to her deep olive skin. Her long, dark brown hair was held away from her eyes by a bejeweled, platinum tiara.

“Hey, Seer.” Only slightly perturbed that she used his personal nickname rather than his code name, Machine Head crouched by her. Seer was one of the few American Heroes who knew his real identity. “What are we dealing with?”

Beneath her eyelids, Seer’s eyes moved as though she were having a dream. To the casual observer, her Quirk wasn’t visibly impressive when she used it - It looked like she was just sitting there, meditating. But Machine Head knew that she was observing the hostage situation as though she were physically there.

“There’s a tiger-man holding three normal-looking men hostage,” Seer explained, her voice soft and measured. “The hostages know the tiger-man. They’re co-workers. It doesn’t appear as though he wants to hurt them; as a matter of fact, it doesn’t appear as though he has any idea what he’s doing. Very nervous.”

“That’s good.” Machine Head was tired when he left his shop, and he felt especially tired after grapple-swinging the whole way here. If the perpetrator was already shaky, maybe that meant this could get resolved fast. The hostages would be safe and he’d be able to get back home to sleep. “What’s the tiger-guy saying? Anything I can use to talk him down?”

“It sounds like this is a work issue,” Seer continued. “The tiger doesn’t want a story to get out, but it just did.

“This is happening in a news office. Top floor, 5th window from the western corner. Hold on...HumNews. The office belongs to a place called HumNews.”

Digitized laughter burst from the speakers in Machine Head’s helmet. “HumNews isn’t news. It’s a gossip site. Their ‘articles’ can barely be considered articles; most of them are just top 10 lists.”

A small smile appeared on Seer’s face, and her shoulders bounced once when she chuckled. “Thanks for sharing. Now focus, would you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Machine Head stared at the sky as he used Seer’s descriptions to imagine what she saw. Not wanting to distract her too much, he remained silent and waited for her to tell him more.

“Strange,” she said after a few minutes. “I smell honey and roses. And there’s smoke rising from the body of one of the hostages, a janitor.”

Machine Head hopped to his feet, ready to go. “Did the tiger set him on fire?!”
Seer shook her head. “Calm yourself, dear. If someone was set on fire, I’d tell you.” Seer paused to watch what was going on from afar. “The janitor may be a Hero in disguise. He just transformed into a woman. Big burst of white light. Long, silver hair in an elaborate style. Her costume is purple, white, and black; very revealing.”

Wait a second...Silver light? Silver hair? Revealing costume? Smell of honey and roses? It must be HER!

“Does she have big boobs and angel wings?” Machine Head blurted out.

Seer laughed out loud. “What?!"

“I think I know who that is.” Machine Head stepped closer to the edge of the roof, until he could see the window across the street that Seer described. Using the zoom feature of his visor, he peered through the window to try to see what was going on - to try to see her - but the angle was wrong.

“What’s happening?!” With a single thought, Machine Head switched his visor to thermal view. After a few seconds of calibration, figures of bright red, orange, and yellow appeared on his display. The biggest figure sure looked tiger-shaped. There were two smaller figures keeping their distance. And there was a fourth figure that looked distinctly feminine standing closest to the tiger-man.

“They’re just talking,” Seer called out. “Saying something about an interview.”
Machine Head relaxed a little. Based on what Seer was describing, it sounded like things would be over soon. Now standing at the edge of the roof, he continued to watch the thermal images.

He knew there was trouble even before Seer called it out, because he saw two of the figures get into a grapple.

“They’re starting to fight!” Seer said behind him, but Machine Head was already aiming his grapple at the building.

“I’m on it!” Immediately upon seeing the grapple connect, he willed the winch within his suit to reel the line in, fast as can be. Yanked off his feet, he got sent soaring through the air, straight toward the biggest window of the HumNews office. Right before impact, he detached the grapple hook, covered his head with his arms, and crashed through the glass.

“OOOPH!” Machine Head tucked, rolled, and slammed into a cubicle wall hard enough to crack it. Shaking the confusion and pain from his head, he looked up to see Moonrise starting a fight with an anthropomorphic tiger journalist.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

In the face of those teeth and claws, Moonrise did what her gut told her to do:

She got out of the way, and took the other two employees with her. With her Quirk came reasonably enhanced strength and agility, so picking up the two men and leaping out of harm’s way was no problem. Once her feet touched the ground again, she turned to them and said:

“You two get out of here. There should be cops outside; explain to them what’s going on and I’ll take care of George-“

Before she could finish her sentence, Machine Head came barreling in, causing all in the room to jump back in surprise. Without waiting, Joel and Steve bolted out of the room, leaving Moonrise, George, and the newly appeared Machine Head to face off.

“Who the hell are you?!” snarled George, his eyes glittering with a feral light. He flexed his hands, causing his claws to pop out further, and they gleamed dully in the office light.

“Machine Head!” She looked as surprised as George had been a moment before to see him there. There were no trace of her wings now, and she seemed to hum with a barely repressed energy. Her body emitted the faintest of glows, in tune with the energy radiating off of her.

Startled as she was to see him, it didn’t take long for her to bring her attention back to the situation at hand. George, his body shifting and expanding until it ripped through his shirt, turned his full attention to Machine Head.

“Two new heroes,” he growled, low in his throat. “Don’t worry, Moonrise – I’ll get this can off this guy and then we can continue our dance.”

“Not likely,” she snapped. She wasn’t in a good position. Sure, she could attack from behind, but that would put Machine Head at risk, and she wasn’t sure of WHAT his Quirk was. She flexed her hands within their white gloves. Why did this always seem to happen? Simple situations escalated like crazy, no matter how hard she tried to calm things down.

A small bead of sweat ran down her temple, and she licked her lips, waiting to see what Machine Head would do. If he got out of the way, she’d be able to attack; potentially take George down.

 

[BewareTheDream]

Students at UA High - Machine Head’s alma mater - were taught that the very first thing a Hero should do when faced with a dangerous situation was gather intel. He and Seer (mostly Seer) had already done that.

Next, a Hero should get innocents out of danger’s way. Glancing past the tiger-man, he saw that Moonrise had taken care of the two hostages, who bolted for exit.

The only thing left to do was to subdue the threat. In this case, that threat was a hulking tiger-man who was growing bigger and scarier before Machine Head’s eyes.

Shit. Shapechanger. He looked strong in his base form, and now he’s packing on even more muscle. I don’t know about Moonrise, but I can’t fight him like this.

Machine Head knew what kind of machines were typically found in offices like this one. His helmet-covered head swiveled to the right as he scanned the room for one machine in particular.

There! It’s a big one too! Good!

The tiger-man said something about removing his can. “My can? If you want my can, you hafta catch me, if you can!” he yelled as he vaulted over the cracked cubicle wall. That line was corny as hell, but he didn’t have the time to come up with a better zinger. Besides, his focus was on bounding from cubicle to cubicle in order to get to that machine against the back wall.

If Moonrise engaged the tiger-man and didn’t finish him off too quickly, then Machine Head would join the battle in his new form less than a minute later.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Blinking, Moonrise could only watch.

Seems like he's got a plan; I probably need to buy him time!

The air around her began to audibly hum, and her palms flickered, sparking into a pale white light. Lifting two fingers to her forehead, she closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath. Drawing from deep within her, from the pool of light that seemed to gush from a never-ending well inside of her, she imagined the light, the warmth, gathering in her arms, her hands, her fingers - flowing through her veins.

"Crescent..." Her words echoed; power rumbled through them. George paused, an ear twitching to catch the sound of her voice. By the time he figured out that he should attack, move, do anything - it was too late.

"BEAM!" The light snapped from her fingers as she pointed at him. Silver light pooled from her fingertips, before converging into a straight beam. As George was whirling to face her, it hit him square in the shoulder, knocking him off his feet and into a desk. The desk, heavy as it was, wasn't enough to stop his tumble. He took the desk with him in his full on tumble, snarling and spitting as he went.

Moving her fingers away from her face, Moonrise stood ready, her hands clenched by her sides.

I hope that got him the time he needed...

 

[BewareTheDream]

The snarling tiger-man crashed through the cubicles of his soon-to-be-former workmates. Wood cracked, partitions got smashed, and a variety of office items and personal knickknacks got scattered across the floor. As physically impressive as George may have been, he wasn’t used to combat. After all, he was a journalist, not a real Villain. Hell, he wasn’t even a real journalist. So after his tumbling ended, it took him several seconds to shake the cobwebs from his skull, remember he was pissed, and then figure out which of the two Heroes to slash into bits.

Those precious seconds that Moonrise bought were more than enough for Machine Head to merge with the largest machine in the office.

“Okay, fuzzball,” he said, his voice sounding even more synthesized than usual. Using his new, plastic hand, he grabbed the edge of a broken desk and shoved it aside, clearing a path between him and the newbie Villain. “You said you wanted my can, right? Come and get it.”

George turned toward the voice, and his cat eyes went wide once he saw the Machine Head’s new form - that of a vaguely humanoid copier / printer / scanner. The Hero had a bulky, blocky body from which he had grown two plastic arms and two plastic legs. A wide face with two large eyes and an even larger mouth had appeared on the front of his body. That weird, wide face drew into a scowl, and his artificial hands clenched into fists; the copier-man assumed a martial arts stance.

George’s mouth was wide open in shock. It was clear from his expression and the several seconds of silence that he was having trouble understanding what he was seeing. “What the hell are you?” he finally blurted out.

“I’ll tell you what I am,” Machine Head replied as he bent his newly-formed knees, preparing to charge. “I’m the Pain Train, and I’m gonna run you over.

“Canon Ball!” Moving faster than a copier-man should, Machine Head burst forward. He had Machine Merged with plenty of copiers over the years, so he knew how to push this body’s capabilities, including its speed. After a couple of bounding steps, he leaped, balled up his blocky body as best he could, and somersaulted directly at George.

“WOOOOMMPH!” Machine Head crashed into George, knocking all the air from his lungs. The tiger-man dropped like a sack of garbage while the copier-man’s momentum carried him in Moonrise’s direction. For a moment, it looked as though he was going to crash into her as well, but instead he rolled on the floor a few times, stood up, and skidded to a stop a couple feet away from her.

A grin spread across the copier-man’s broad face. “Not bad, huh?”

A half-growl, half-groan caught Machine Head’s attention. Whirling around, he saw that George wasn’t yet out for the count. The furry fiend struggled to his feet, saw the two Heroes, and then roared, filling the entire office with the sound of his rage.

Shit on a shingle, this guy can take a hit! Machine Head knew he should’ve done some serious damage with his attack, but the big guy wasn’t showing it.

“You’re both DEAD!” George picked up a nearby computer monitor and threw it out the window. Outside, a couple people screamed when the monitor crashed onto the sidewalk.

In his current form, Machine Head didn’t have a neck or shoulders, so in order to glance back at Moonrise, he had to rotate his whole body. “Don’t worry; I got this,” he said with bravado that he didn’t really feel, all of a sudden. In an attempt to psyche himself back up, he smacked his fist into the open palm of his other hand in the universal sign of ‘Let’s rumble!’

Claws and fangs both bared, George charged. A fraction of a second later, Machine Head charged, too. Despite how cumbersome his copier body may have looked, the Hero had the slightest speed advantage over the Villain. So when George went for a slash, Machine Head blocked it with one arm and then followed up by launching his big, plastic fist into the side of the fuzzy face in front of him. Spittle, blood, and a fang flew through the air as the force of the right cross whirled George around.

“Ha! Booyah!” Machine Head was convinced that George was on the ropes. He clasped both plastic hands together, preparing for an overhead smash to the back of his opponent’s head that would knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, George still wasn’t through. In the grip of an animalistic, berserker rage, George roared, spun around, and slashed the front of the copier-man’s body.

Three deep, long gashes were cut into Machine Head’s face, making him scream out of surprise. One of those gashes got him right across the eye, shattering it. (Good thing it wasn’t his real eye.) Before he could recover, he received another slash that tore the front of one of his paper trays open. A stack of papers began to fall out of the gaping wound on his side. Stumbling backwards, he clutched at his newest wound and tried to stop the paper from falling out of it, almost like a soldier holding in his vital organs.

“Oh, you hairy bastard!” The good news was that Machine Head felt no pain when the machines he merged with got damaged. The bad news was that if the machines sustained enough damage to render them inoperable, then he’d be rendered immobile in that form. The copier he presently inhabited wouldn’t be able to take much more damage. Looking up, he saw that George was closing in for the kill.

I’m going to have to eject soon. Moonrise will have to finish him off.

Machine Head popped open a panel of his copier body and aimed it at the tiger-man. It was time for one last, desperate move.

“INK JET!” Emptying out the copier’s black and color ink cartridges, Machine Head sprayed copious amounts of ink all over George. The liquid covered the tiger’s face, matted his fur against his skin, poured into his mouth, and completely ruined his shirt and slacks.

“ACK! PTUU! ARRRBLUURGH!” Coughing, spitting, and trying to wipe ink from his eyes, George staggered toward the wall of windows. No longer raging, he was now blind, confused, and vulnerable to Moonrise’s next big attack.

 

[Apollo Wilde]

Luckily for Moonrise, agility in this form was second nature. She easily leapt out of the way of George’s tumbling fall, her mind racing to keep up with what was happening around her. Machine Head looked so different from the first time she’d seen him; almost like those “giant” robots she remembered from tv shows as a kid. The kind that was always battling some equally giant monster.

As Machine Head spoke, she couldn’t help but to give him a wry grin in return. His cockiness was…charming. She could feel her cheeks warming up. Not that she was familiar with him in action, but…maybe he was doing this for her?

She seemed to be on the verge of relaxing, of saying something, then, George was back up on his feet, and charging the copier-merged man.

“Machine Head!” she cried out in horror as slashes appeared on his face, his chest. And then she was acting. Leaping into the air, she didn’t spare time to shout an attack phrase. After all, her abilities didn’t rely on her saying “magic words” to make them work. It was only in the small part of her rational brain that she recalled that George, as ferocious as he was, wasn’t a true villain, that she had instigated this (though she knew she wasn’t in the wrong; George was an asshole. But just because he was an asshole, it didn’t mean that she had to kill him), and it was only right for her to put an end to it.

Maybe not as peacefully as she would have initially wanted, but hey, she could only be blamed for so much.

“Thanks!” she called out, quick as anything, as George fumbled beneath an ink cloud. Her body knew the answer before her mind could.

He took a full on hit from Machine Head in a bulky form. Brute force won’t work. But if I do this too gently, he’ll attack me, and I have no protection from those claws.

While George was floundering, she leapt in front of him, her body illuminated deep within. As if her heart suddenly turned to crystal, white light flowed through her veins, the power rich and warm and familiar. Waving her hand in a circle, mimicking the perfect round of the full moon, she opened her eyes, and light issued from her silver pupils. George was held fast by that warm, glittering light - and he stopped, as if caught in a tractor beam. Without a word, his form seemed to shudder, and shrink - before he collapsed, knocked out, onto the floor.

As the light faded, Moonrise staggered a bit, before leaning heavily against an upended desk. She took in deep breaths, struggling to steady herself. It had required a great amount of her power - but thankfully, it was within her power capabilities in this form. She would be tired, she knew it, but at least she didn’t run the risk of de-transforming and exposing herself.

In more ways than one.

Once the world steadied, she managed to get to Machine Head, her chest heaving. “Machine Head…” She trailed off, looking around. “You okay…?”

She had an idea in mind, if he was hurt. She still had a bit of power left, after all.