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Hi everybody! This is sort of an experiment, so please let me know what you think in the comments. If this gets enough of a response, I may do more chapters and will be happy to include cameos :) Also thinking about starting up an RP forum for this. Can you tell I've been reading too many comic books lately?

Subject: Re: Your Request.

From: [email protected] (John Silverstone)

To: [email protected] (Theo Remy Jr., PhD)

Attachment: Ifuckinghatemylife.VR

Doc -

Here's the memory reconstruction you asked for. I hope you can help us figure out what the hell actually happened out there. Jeff's basically closed himself up in his apartment and won't come out (pretty sure he's building something, by the noises), Eve's still pretty much comatose, and Mack is driving himself crazy trying to snap her out of it.

Hey could you do me one other favor - Don't send this shit off into the ether like you did with the last one. I know you need it for your dimensional mapping experiments or whatever, but it kind of attracts unwanted attention don't you think?

That whole Spinner thing is still a pain in my ass. Dimension-hopping crazy chick keeps leaving mementos in my house, and it's really freaking Bobby out. You know what he's been through, so...Yeah. Just be careful okay? We're lucky she's just a stalkery yaoi-fangirl with superpowers, and not some extra-dimensional serial killer.

My powers make me immune to evoked abilities - Like laser beams and mind control. Not super strength or some extra-dimensional badguy eating my brain with a spoon.

Anyway, here it is: The leadup to and results of the Presidents' first real fight. Hopefully not our last jaunt as a team.

• John

Synchronized VR Log #12

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Eve Hightower, Jeff Castillas, John Silverstone, Mack Franklin

10:00 a.m., The Hideout

"HI TEAM!"

Eve bubbled at the only volume she possessed when it was time to make an entrance, that being 'extremely loud cheerleader yelling across the quad', as the petite vixen bounced her way through the door, bright red floofy tail dancing about to the music of the myPod bud stuck in her left ear. With a backpack over her shoulder full of her newest well-meaning attempt to get everyone wearing some sort of uniform or costume, a laptop, a tablet, and a thirty pound iron barbell weight, she almost weighed enough to class as a featherweight.

Not that it mattered. Given she could pick up and throw the average compact car by making it utterly weightless using her gravity-manipulation powers, the fact that her pack ought to have weighed more than half what she did made no difference.

At the pool table, Mack Franklin, wearing his old Windsor University football jersey with its faded red and white and streaks of grass-stain, looked up with a bright grin flashing over his leonine face. Tufted tail tip fluffing out, he tossed his pool cue onto the table, accidentally over-strengthing it enough to jam it into the padding across from him, and bulled his way around the table, only to slow down deliberately, and very gingerly grab Eve in a hug, spinning her around slowly as she squealed and giggled.

Looking down at the now-wounded pool table with his usual sardonic and long-suffering frown, the slender, wiry grey wolf named Jack Silverstone sighed and rolled his eyes, biting down on the urge to make comments about his teeth going rotten over the former football star and current cheerleader's sordid but over-sweet romance.

From across the room, seated at a workdesk covered in electrical wiring and machine parts, Jeff Castillas glared at the flame-red vixen and her boisterous entrance, with his frizzy black jaguar fur all puffed out from surprise at the noise that made him hunch, yelp, and drop something complicated-looking and covered in wires on the table. His tail lashed angrily as Jack shot him an eye-rolling look of sympathetic aggravation, and made faces of mock disgust while turned away from the happy dysfunctional jock couple.

When Mack finally set the tiny slip of a girl down, she floated right up off the floor, weightless, covering their foot and a half of height difference so she could grab his leonine mane and pull him into a spit-swapping tonsil-diving kiss. The big guy had to move carefully, everyone knew, and very gingerly put his arms around her lower back to hold her up, as Jeff hissed out a warning.

"Guys! Fuck's sake! We're in a goddamn dorm rec room! No powers! That means no fucking floating!"

John rolled his eyes again, laughed, and leaned his black-slacks-clad hip against the pool table. Eve meanwhile just wrapped her legs around her boyfriend's waist and cut her power, relying on his massive and muscular body to keep her from falling.

"Hey Mack, when you guys fuck, does she have to tie you down and cowgirl you so you don't smash her pelvis?"

An eloquently extended red-furred middle finger from the vixen just got a sardonic wolf grin in response. Her boyfriend didn't respond at all, not verbally at least. The suddenly careful swishing of his tail, consciously controlled to avoid smashing any more cheap dorm lounge furniture and the slight hunch of his shoulders gave every answer they needed. He still couldn't quite control his strength well enough to risk anything but the most careful of light petting.

When she broke the kiss a second later, it was just to snark right back at the wolf who went by the 'Wolf In Black', though with a good-natured grin.

"Why don't you help him with his blue balls and blow him for me, John? I know you're into the cat dick."

"Sure, but I don't want to have him blow jizz out the back of my skull if his super strength decides it works on his cock."

Across the room, the jaguar listening in on their repartee facepalmed and growled out an interjection before they could get into another barbed-comment contest.

"Okay seriously, shut the fuck up both of you. John, the penis has no muscles in it, it's basically just a big bundle of blood vessels. Eve, stop feeding the trolls. Also, Eve, have you heard from the professor? If we actually have some superhero stuff to do, let's get to it. Otherwise, I have a fucking final to study for."

With a long-suffering sigh that was completely obliterated by the sunny nature of her very vulpine smile, Eve gracefully twirled free of her boyfriend and marched up to the rec room pool table, plonking down her backpack with a thud that shook the still-in-play balls. The eight rolled right into a pocket, and John sighed at it wistfully. Playing pool with a bunch of college kids seemed so much more productive than running around beating up tights-clad morons.

"Okay Presidents, gather up! Let's find out what the Doc's got for us!" the designated team leader shouted out, swishing her tail excitedly as she unzipped her pack. From inside, a heap of spandex began sliding out, bright red white and blue.

In tandem, John and Jeff spoke in hard, flat tones that brooked no argument.

"No."

Her face fell like a crashing mountain. Mack got his arm around her in a very careful hug, and with his eyes shifting back and forth between the black-clad wolf and black-furred jaguar, spoke in conciliatory tones.

"Babe, I'll wear it if you want. Let these two goth it up if they want okay?"

She sighed and leaned her head against his chest, face tilted back with a loving but cross look, about to launch into her team-spirit and enemy-intimidation lectures, when her tablet slid free of the bag as well and lit up with its usual uncanny timing.

On the screen, the traditional shadowy silhouette of their team mentor appeared. After a few seconds, the scratchy but well-enunciated voice of their mentor spoke.

"This is Professor Theorem. Presidents, are you there?"

"We're here, professor," Jeff said. All annoyance was gone from the jaguar's voice, and for once his paws were empty, his electrical devices set aside in respect for the old, famous superhero who had put them all together.

"Good. Team, we have a problem on our hands. The Deadlies got loose of the Negative Zone again somehow, and are tearing up one of the small towns to our south. The Mnemosthenes and I are on our way to take care of them, but about an hour ago the Augur gave me some cryptic information I want you to look in on."

John sighed, as quietly as he could, and leaned back against the wall. Anything that came up as 'cryptic' to the legendary Dr.-Fucking-Theorem was likely to end up being just plain confusing and pointless to anyone else. And as the only veteran super-hero of the group, such as he was, the timber wolf knew it could be very serious trouble for a group of newbies like the Presidents.

"What sort of information do you have, professor?" Eve chippered out, tail wagging a mile a minute.

"The Augur gave me this and only this: 'At the twelfth chime, a dream of doom reaps at the eldest bell.'"

John had a paw over his face, but kept his aggravation quiet. Hiding behind jokes and sarcasm-exchanges was fun, but mouthing off in front of Dr. Theorem would just make the legendary old superhero unnecessarily grouchy. And unnecessary grouchiness could lead to the delay of what passed for his paycheck, officially as a 'teaching assistant' to the aging professor of religious archaeology.

"Well...Uh..." Mack started off, his timid voice and fear of speaking in front of groups, even small ones where he knew everyone, seeming extra-ridiculous coming from the massively muscular bruiser. "Twelfth chime probably means noon, right?"

Eve patted his arm and smiled, in what she seemed to think was an approving and supportive way. To John and Jeff, it just seemed the kind of accidental patronization the fox would never realize just made Mack feel worse about himself.

"Right! Well, we have no way of knowing what a 'dream of doom' is yet, but 'reaping' isn't good. Eldest bell...Hm...Jeff, could you check the web and look for the city's oldest bell or belltower?"

The jaguar sighed and shook his head, grumbling something about not needing to be coddled, as he went for the lounge computer's flickering old screen.

Meanwhile, Dr. Theorem continued.

"Presidents, I want you to wear your masks for this one. We have no way of knowing if active villains will be there or not. Remember, you're all quite new at this, but have a lot of potential. Please do not waste it making mistakes so early in your careers. Eve, you're in overall lead, but I want you to listen to what the Wolf In Black tells you. He has five years of experience on all of you, and knows what to watch for.

"And remember the rules. What is the most important one?"

"Protect the innocent at all costs," the group responded as one. Mack and Eve with enthusiasm, Jeff with a tired and put-upon air as he typed, John with the simple flat tone of a person speaking a fact everyone knows.

"And the others?"

Eve spoke this time. "Limit collateral damage whenever possible, cooperate with the authorities when the situation permits, and do not kill."

"Good. Get your things and go. Having extra time to set up will be a good thing."

Uneventful segment edited out. Log resumes in transit to target location.

"So John, do you have a thing for Johnny Cash, or is it just your personal fashion sense?"

John looked up from the back seat of Mack's panel van, as he pulled on the heavy black leather duster that had given him his name. It showed more battle scars than the timber wolf himself did, despite five years of 'dealing with this sillyass bullshit.' The wolf gave a snort, and looked forward at Jeff, who was wearing a drab canvas trenchcoat that bulged over the complicated wired-up outfit he had to wear underneath it.

"While I do love good old Johnny Cash, no. I wear black because black and grey in combination make good urban camo. Also, this thing's armored to hell and gone."

He whapped at it with the flat of his paw, which gave a somewhat muffled metallic 'thunk' as it hit a trauma plate that was sandwiched between the layers of Kevlar that lined his coat.

Mack chimed in, louder now that he wasn't looking them all in the face. Instead, he was looking out the windows, as befitted the passenger in shotgun seat.

"I thought it was just...Y'know, like an identity statement. I mean you're...Uh...Gay and all, but not like all fruity and sparkles and stuff?"

"Hah no. None of that shit matters for a damn when someone's trying to kill you. I'd wear bright pink if it was good camo. You would too, because I'd make you."

"Make me?" The lion's head twisted about, and he glared back at the smaller wolf. Pound for pound, Mack had a good sixty of muscle on John, not to mention the whole super-strength thing. Nonetheless, the Wolf In Black grinned right back, while pulling a black knit balaclava atop his head, concealing it under his hat for fast pull-down later.

"Remember the first sparring match we had, kid? The one where you ended up on the ground cradling a sprained wrist? Yeah. Make you."

"The Doc had my powers turned off!"

"I wasn't using mine either."

"Yours don't work on me!"

"I also wasn't using my forty-five, kid."

Eve piped up, from her spot in the driver's seat, voice chipper as ever.

"Guys, if you need to whip 'em out and compare, I'm cool with that. But we should probably wait till after. We're here."

Mack growled in annoyance, glaring at her with a sidelong glance, before her pointing paw redirected his eyes.

Looking out the windows finally, the Presidents saw what they'd pulled up to. St. Mary's was an old, foreboding stone building, built in the neo-Gothic style half their city had once carried right around the 1920's. In front of it, furs were walking to and fro in all the normal traffic patterns, swamping the street in folk on their way to work or lunch or home or back to school.

Normal, for all they could see. But high above their heads, which only Mack could see from his passenger-side seat, was the soaring high bell tower, the town's oldest.

"Okay, uh..." Jeff slid over on the middle bench row, pressing his ear to the window so he could look up. "What could a supervillain possibly want here? I mean it's a 1920's Catholic cathedral. Not exactly a bank vault or museum or anything. Religious relic or something maybe?"

"Hard to say," John responded, while tucking the balaclava up under his hat. No sense getting people spooked by having it down before anything bad showed up. A quick check of his trusty old M1911 pistol, a quick dusting of well-worn gloves, and a visual once-over of the team, and the Wolf In Black gave the thumbs-up to Eve.

Parallel parking the van on a busy city street in downtown should have been a superpower of its own, John figured, as Eve deftly got it on the first try with her usual attention to precision. Then, leaving the engine on for the life-saving air conditioning, she unbuckled herself and twisted nimbly around in the driver's seat.

"Okay guys, here's the plan. John...Uh...Wolf in Black. You're the best at staying hidden, so I want you to go inside the church and find a good vantage spot looking out over the street. Jeff, you've got problems controlling your area-of-effect, so you're inside the church too where there won't be a lot of furs. Stay to the main entry area if you can. Mack, you and me are gonna be walking the crowd looking for anything funny, and to warn people if things are about to go nuts, alright?"

Everyone nodded, confirming their parts with short verbal responses. Jeff unbuttoned his coat for the fifth time, double-checking all the exposed electrical gizmos on his suit. Anyone who looked could have seen he was sweating, by how he kept wiping his paws on his jacket. John sat forward, and reached out with his gloved paw. The titanium studs along the back of the motorcycle gauntlet's knuckles glimmered dully in the dome light's yellow glow.

"This is your first time out, and you're a blaster, so remember...If you have an option, don't power up. Use your brain and your paws first. Powers are a last resort, especially super-destructive shit like yours. Got it?"

Jeff swallowed, nodded shakily, then slipped in another biting comment as if to retain some sense of his pride.

"I'm not a kid, Wib."

"...I fucking hate that nickname..." John mumbled, drawing his paw away from the slight jaguar's shoulder as he reached for the panel door. Stepping out into the heat of an Illinois summer day was like walking into a soggy fireball. John wished he was super-tough with bullet-proof fur like Mr. Ironhide. It would save him from having to wear a triple-layered leather armor jacket in the middle of July.

VR Log #15

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): John Silverstone

11:44 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

Apparently, for all its long and sordid history of wealth and comfort, the modern Catholic Church cheaps it up on air conditioning. God damnit. Blasphemy in Your own house, You ass! Give us some cooler weather for super-heroing! Urgh!

So for the last hour and a half, we've been split up. I'm up in a room above the main worship chamber (Nave? It's a Nave, right?) of the cathedral. Out on the street, through a tall window that streams in way too much sunlight for my health or comfort (90 degrees...fuckingfuck), I can see the crowd thickening and clustering as it always does this time of day on one of downtown's main pedestrian thoroughfares.

Furs in suits and ties with briefcases rush to and fro, elbow to elbow with soccer moms dragging recalcitrant kids from someplace to someplace different. A street vendor sells hot dogs that stink of being slightly past-date, but make my stomach grumble anyway. I'm sweaty and the whole room I'm in stinks of old books, dust, and neglect. I'm about to check in again, as we've done every ten minutes since we left the truck, when Mack calls out on the walkie-system.

"Hey...Mack here. I just spotted someone suspicious-lookin'. Uh. By the hot-dog vendor. Big dude, heavy trench like he's hiding something."

"Roger, Mack," I respond, taking half a breath before continuing, "Eve, let me check this out. You and Jeff stay where you are, could be noth..."

In the meantime, I've moved up to the window pane, and rubbed away a bit more of the old grime on glass drippy and warped with age. What I see cuts me off mid-sentence, as a lump of dread fills my gut.

Mack was making an understatement when he called the guy 'big.' This dude's seven feet if he's an inch, and built like a brick house. Squarish to a degree that's barely anthropo-morphic (I do too know big words!). He's in a long brown-grey trench coat that looks dirtier than the window sill that's wrecking up my coat with ten years of dust, and has a wide-brimmed hat that wouldn't look out of place on a Vaudeville performer.

But when he tilts his head forward, leaning down to take the hot dog he's just bought, I see the hard grey skin underneath, furless and slightly reflective...Like when he's not concentrating on keeping his power turned down, his skin transforms into iron. Because that's exactly what happens with this guy. Oh fuck me. This isn't good.

I try to keep my voice totally calm and nonchalant as I call it in.

"Okay guys, that's Steamroller. He's serious business. I've tangled with this asshole before, and he's out of your league. Let's back off and call it in to the doc."

There's a few seconds of silence. I can almost feel the disappointment in Mack's eyes, see the relief in Jeff's shoulders. Then Eve fucks us right in the ass.

"Wolf In Black, that's negative. He's a class four bruiser, right? Super strength and skin made up of bio-iron? I've run the calculations. We can take this guy."

I slap a paw over my face, and try to tell her how bad a fucking idea this is, only to find I can't transmit because she's hogging the frequency with rapid-fire instructions.

"Mack, you and I are going to fall back to the Cathedral. I'm guessing whatever they want is in there. I'll sneak, you be obvious. Keep looking at him and looking away, like you're trying not to be spotted and doing it wrong. He'll spot you and probably come looking. Jeff, as soon as he's through the door, hit him from the side with one of your blasts, see if you can stun him. Mack, you're not going to touch the guy with your paws if you can help it...He'll be electrified or scalding hot pretty quick. You'll be throwing the discus with me making it weightless. If things go wrong, I'll float him up off the ground and we'll deal with him when he can't move on his own. John, get into the balconies and keep a watch. If anyone tries to sneak up on us, give warning, but stay out of the fist fight. Everyone got it?"

"Yeah!" Mack enthused, which cancelled out anything myself or Jeff had to say. That fucking jock goon's always neck-deep in kissing her ass when she takes charge like this. Must be something about his days on the football squad, taking orders and whatever. Or maybe he's just one of those weird subby straight guys. But her plan's not a bad one. Even I have to admit she's showing a talent for coordinating and not taking shit from unruly squad-mates.

The only problem is, Steamroller's dumb as a brick and knows it. He almost never does anything alone, and the fact I can't spot whoever he's taking orders from has the furs on the back of my neck rising like crazy. On top of that, we still don't know what they're going to hit the cathedral for. So far as I can tell, there's nothing all that special here except a lot of expensive stained glass, diocese records that could be useful for identity theft I guess, and some silver-plated ceremonial shit. Small-scale or even useless stuff for villains to be after.

"Oh and everyone," she adds, as I'm high-tailing it out of the street-observation room and thudding through the building toward the balconies, past the room where Father Pat is hiding after we told him our suspicions, "Mask up. It's showtime."

Synchronized VR Log #13

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Eve Hightower, Jeff Castillas, John Silverstone, Mack Franklin

11:58 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

"GET READY TO GET FLATTENED!" the iron-skinned behemoth roared, as he slammed straight through the heavy, engraved cathedral doors, shattering them like kindling as people on the street started to scream and run. Tramping up the stone stairs, Steamroller's boots were swiftly torn to bits as his malformed scaly skin transformed from flesh and keratin to solid iron, the sound of thundering footpaw-falls suddenly replaced by the clanging thuds of a malfunctioning jackhammer.

The plan had been a good one, they all agreed on that much. Lure Steamroller in, hit him hard where no civilians can get hurt in the crossfire. Problem was, Steamroller had either suddenly gotten smarter or had someone tip him off, because he didn't come walking over to check out something that seemed odd, with the uncertainty that led to being surprised. He'd come barreling in at full speed, powered up and iron-skinned, and hit Mack with a lowered-shoulder charge that sent the footballer bouncing through shattering pews with a shout of pain and surprise.

Still, old football instincts held strong, and the surprised hero in the Teddy Roosevelt mask with its ursine jowls toughed through the vicious hit, managing to roll and start coming up even as Eve and Jeff were engaging.

Jeff "Jefferson" Castillas let his canvas trench fall with an audible thud, its pockets full of spare parts for his complex suit. What was left was a jumpsuit festooned with wires and exposed copper and brass leads. John watched from above, .45 virtually flying into his paw, as the slightly underweight grad student in a Thomas Jefferson mask started crackling audibly with a hum of deadly electrical charge. The mockingbird mask, with its long black beak, was a good way for him to conceal what amounted to a miniature Tesla coil in its beak, to direct the massive surge of current the jaguar was generating.

As Steamroller stomped forward to continue his brutal attack, he was savaged from the side by a bolt of electrical power so strong it shattered glass with the sound of its thunder, and buffeted other teammates' ears to the point of near-deafness. Seven hundred pounds of steel and flesh flew sideways, sliding across and tearing chunks from the cathedral's old wooden floor and leaving a smoking furrow in his wake.

Then Eve leapt up on top of a pew that was miraculously still standing. Her jumpsuit, skin-tight and red white and blue in diagonal stripes, looked absolutely ridiculous to John's eyes, especially capped off with the black and white feline face of Hillary Clinton on her as a mask. Her power, though, was nothing to laugh at.

Steamroller let out a yelp of enraged surprise as, instead of getting to his feet as he'd intended, the suddenly nullified gravity around him caused his jolt of muscle to send him flying into the wall, then bouncing off it, spinning sideways through the air to rebound off a pillar.

"Mack! Mack help me stop him! His inertia's too much, he'll wreck the building!" she yelped, panicked enough to have forgotten his code-name. Mack, meanwhile, dazed but standing again, charged toward the rapidly-accelerating pinball of a supervillain that flailed through the air, as Eve's knees wobbled, sending her to a crouch as her power struggled to keep up with the load she was trying to control. With a springing leap, he tried to catch the flailing villain, but misjudged, slamming into and wrecking another wooden pew.

"I can't, he's bouncing too fast!"

"YOU LITTLE PUNKS!" Steamroller roared, as he slammed into another pillar, tearing a chunk out of it with sheer velocity and his iron wrecking-ball of a body. "I'LL KILL YOU FUCKERS FOR THIS! HRKKKKK!"

"Aw goddamnit!" Jeff yelled, as a stream of vomit exploded from the bouncing, flailing villain, splattering his gear as the panther threw himself flat, paws over his head, to avoid being crushed as the massive pinball flew over his head. Then his gear started arcing as the vomitous liquid began shorting his delicate wiring. The jaguar was swiftly yelling and rolling around, trying to extricate himself from the complex suit before it could overload entirely and detonate the capacitor batteries he'd built in to store up charge.

John, meanwhile, kept scanning the church, unable to get involved directly in the fight down below and growing more and more worried for the youngsters he was supposed to be helping. Up above him, on the second tier of balconies, a shadow moved, and he had his pistol trained that direction in the blink of an eye, but too slow to fire even if he'd been able to identify a target.

Probably just a nun or something, keep it together man, come up with an idea to help the kids...Wait a minute...

_ _

"Teddy! Use a pew as a baseball bat! Hilly! As soon as he's hit, amp his gravity way up!"

"RIGHT!" she yelled. The two flew into action, their panic ended by the suddenly-barked order. Mack lunged for the largest, heaviest pew he could find, one crafted of solid granite that sat across the middle row of seats, the very one that had stopped his tumble. Wiping bloody paws, he grabbed the thing, bent his knees, and wrenched. The bolts that held it to the floor bent and then tore free with loud popping clangs.

Eve rushed to his side, and as he pulled the bench free, sprinted out to just past the end of its length, knowing the closer she was to her target, the easier it was to have fine control over her power.

Jeff kept rolling around, his shout climbing in pitch to a scream as he flung away another piece of his gear. There was just too much, though, and despite his fast, frightened paws, disassembling the suit simply took too long. While he could easily turn his power on and off, his gear was designed to store excess charge. When he was 'on', he generated far too much for the simple copper-and-ingenuity materials he could afford to conduct out all at once. For safety, he'd placed the capacitor batteries in the deepest layer of machinery, strapped directly to his lower back inside an armored box he and John had welded together out of scrap metal one afternoon. Overloaded and with current arcing, at any moment the industrial-grade acid batteries could explode, filling their armored case with liquids that could melt through it in seconds, followed by the vulnerable flesh beyond.

As Eve's athletic vulpine body strained with the effort of preparing to reverse her own power, Steamroller, pinwheeling through the air in a hail of curse words and motion-sick gagging, bounced off the wall just to the side of the main altar and came hurtling back towards Mack. Raising the fifteen foot long stone pew with two hands like it was just a heavy moving box, the big lion in the Teddy Roosevelt bear-mask braced his footpaws, took his aim, and swung with a noise not unlike the air-cutting rush of an oncoming subway car.

The pew shattered into a thousand pieces, each caught by the sudden heavy gravity field Eve had generated, dropping to and indenting the floor like blocks of lead. Steamroller was far less fortunate. With a terrible 'WHANG!' the iron-clad villain's momentum was reversed and then massively increased, as inertia reared its ugly head with gravity's many-times multiplied effect. He hit the stones of the church floor with a noise like a stricken construction crane collapsing, rolled, slid, created a deep furrow through the stones, and then with a metallic, ringing, dissonant thudding crunch, broke through and fell into the basement.

Eve was bathed in sweat, an unfortunately-placed white stripe of her jumpsuit becoming just transparent enough that John felt the urge to look away from her heaving chest out of politeness. But in that moment, instead of worrying about politeness, he was running to get an angle, to look down into the basement.

"Help Jeff get that contraption off!" the wolf yelled, pointing emphatically with his left paw, and Eve rushed to do so, quick on her footpaws as always. Right about then, Mack fell to one knee, holding his paws under his armpits with a deep grimace on his face. Super-strong more so than super-tough, he'd likely cracked some bone with that last hit. Not that he was any stranger to that sort of injury. John had to give him credit for having a strong pain tolerance.

Which wouldn't have done their villain any good. From where John finally got an angle, looking down from the balcony through the main nave and a floor of torn-open stone and rebarred concrete, like spread ribs on a corpse, he could see Steamroller crumpled and unconscious in the cathedral's basement, half-buried by collapsed crates that had spilled little crackers all over the downed bruiser.

Somehow, it didn't relieve the almost-painful tension in his chest. Though Eve yelled out an all-clear, having yanked Jeff's battery pack off and flung it halfway across the nave, the jaguar was still curled up shaking like a leaf. Mack was sitting on the floor next to the hole into the basement, tense with pain. And whoever had put Steamroller up to this was still nowhere in evidence.

The wolf in black was far too experienced to think he hadn't missed something.

When Father Pat let out a terrible, shrill, balls-crushed-in-a-vice shriek, his fur puffed up like a startled cat as his heart leapt into his throat.

"Presidents! Second floor, now!" he roared, while wheeling and charging back down the hallway, armored trench coat flapping in his wake.

= = = Error: Individual log segments cease to synchronize at this point. = = =

VR Log #16

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): John Silverstone

11:48 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

The air stinks of vomit, sweat, blood, sawdust, hot metal and fear-piss, probably John's. If that poor son of a bitch is willing to go out on another super-hero venture after this, I'll be goddamn surprised. Nearly getting killed by your own suit has pretty serious effects on a rookie sometimes. Which is a shame, because I like him and he's actually pretty damn powerful.

I'm hearing the batteries explode with a staccato BANG-BANG as I leap clear over the balcony seats, land hard in my combat boots, and book it for the Father's personal living quarters.

In all of this, all our futile planning for this fight-gone-wrong, all of our smart-kid brain-storming about what the mysterious omen meant and what any villain could be after at the old church, it had never occurred to us that the target could be kindly old Father Pat.

I'm skidding around the corner when a small-caliber firearm goes off, and my stomach lurches into my gut. I twist around quick, and kick out backward with one foot, hitting just in that good spot right near the doorknob that sends the heavy solid door crashing open, and I whip around with pistol in both paws, ready to fire Doc Theorem's lovely little magic bullets into some clownball's face.

What I see is Father Pat, with a pistol in his paw that's still smoking and stinking of cordite. There's a neat little hole in the old bulldog's temple. My mind immediately rejects the concept that he'd commit suicide. I'm clearing the room, checking corners with my pistol covering the angles, when I realize I'm not hearing anything from the Presidents.

"Hey! Guys! Where are you? Check in!"

The silence is damn loud. Louder than that gunshot by a factor of 'oh shit'. I'm running out of there, leaving poor Father Pat's corpse where it fell, pouring on the gas well before I hit the spiral stair that'll take me back to the main nave. I smash through the door at the stair's base and am into the big open echoey chamber just in time to hear a choked, throaty shriek from Eve, the kind of thing I've long learned to associate with a woman trapped in an alleyway by a bunch of mask-wearing creeps with vicious malfeasance on their minds.

What I see chills me, ruffling my fur and rousing a heated fury that balls my fists and lends rage adrenaline to my pumping limbs.

Jeff's curled up on the ground, fetal position, arms around his legs with those big golden eyes of his staring open and twitching while he makes breathless huffing noises of utter, mindless panic. Eve's on the ground thrashing, clawing at the air and screaming out unintelligible sounds of terror, making moves like she's fighting off some kind of betentacled monstrosity.

Mack's knees are still wobbling as I get into sight of them all, and then he's down, twitching and jerking in a way that registers as wrong to me, as he let's out whimpering little gasps that sound less like terror and more like someone with a bad case of blue-ball getting their rocks off. Either way, he's down and not even trying to get up.

Standing in their midst, there's a fur dressed all in midnight blue, with white spot highlights, like a field of stars. He's on the short side, maybe five foot four, more slender than most super villains try to make themselves look. There's also no molded-plastic abs under his shirt, like some of the costumed clownballs we've had to deal with. Nor is their any obvious armor, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. No, he's just wrapped up, in skintight sorts of things that are uncomfortable as hell but make it virtually impossible for anyone to track you down by DNA traces. I've got no idea of his species, except that he's probably some kinda cat by the shape of his tail. Not that I'm particularly in a mood to care at this point.

He's got his right paw out and down, holding it pointed toward Eve. They're at least three feet apart, and she's shrieking and clawing at herself, leaving long furrows of red in the skin beneath her fur as she rolls about on the ground. I don't know what the hell he's doing to her, but I can guess. Whatever it was, it's what he did to make Father Pat slot himself.

And that just ain't okay with me. A red spark of light fills my vision with a bloody haze. I'm not about to lose another team. Not these kids, not on my watch.

He hears me coming, and that's no surprise. I realize I'm roaring out in rage right about the time he turns toward me, palm out-stretched. In my earlier days, I would have flinched and ducked, just in case his power could somehow effect me. These days I know better - He'd just readjust, or maybe fire a blast at some scenery that could hurt me. And getting in a shoot-out with an unknown-level MU just isn't to my advantage.

I can't see his eyes, but I can tell by his tail's sudden jerk that he's surprised, as he thrusts his paw toward me and I fail to even slow down, leaping right over Mack's twitching form. I'm on the little bastard before he can get off his yelp of costumed-villain indignation at being pounced on by some jackass effectively-non-powered hero.

Not going to lie...That first hit, smashing the metal knuckles of my biking glove across his face feels really, really good. I don't know what he's done to the Presidents, to leave them sprawled all over the floor screaming and twitching, but whatever it is, it can't be good. I follow up my first head-jolting jaw punch with the whole weight of my body crashing into him, and then we're on the ground. His paws grab onto my back, digging in claws that tear through his cloth gloves and into my skin but not nearly hard enough to deter my wrath.

"Let them go!" I roar, as I sit up, holding him down with a rain of one-two punches that have his head bouncing off the floor. He's trying to speak, but I'm not about to give him any villain-monologue time. Not while my teammates are thrashing around like electrocuted fish.

He's trying to talk, little bitten-off words coming out between punches. I'm just registering that his midnight blue mask is starting to purple with blood and that I should probably ease up before I kill the guy, when something hits me from behind like a runaway train.

Right before I slam into the ground and black out, as I'm rolling over in midair from the force of the hit, I see Steamroller, bloodied and battered with his iron shell all torn up around his face and arms. He's lowering his shoulder to repeat his charge and trample me into bloody goo.

VR Log #17

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Mack Franklin

11:52 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

One moment, the former football star-cum-superhero had been cradling his busted paws under his armpits, looking down into a torn-open hole in the cathedral floor at a downed supervillain. The next, the world had swirled around him like it had been painted in oil now dashed by a flood of water.

For a second, he reeled in disorientation, throwing his injured arms out wide for purchase. Then, with a strange sense of calm, a flood of emotion rolled over and through him, taking over his mind with a muzzy sort of half-logic.

When his eyes opened and he found himself in the university's locker room, there was no sense of disorientation or concern for the fact that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there. Everything seemed a bit odd, and yet normal, as if many details were slightly fuzzed out but beneath notice.

In any case, what he saw before him seemed familiar, so familiar in fact that for a moment he forgot to worry about what was going on. There Eve was, naked and splayed out on the locker room bench, legs spread and beckoning him with a sultry grin.

Returning her lewd and welcoming smirk with his own, he reached up to shuck his pads. Before he could even get the laces undone, she was kneeling in front of him, had his pants open, and was slurping down his spine-rimmed leonine cock with an eagerness that struck him like a dissonant note in a marching band rally.

But she hates giving head...I have to do all the oral, the selfish bitch...

...Why are we in a locker room?

_ _

...This is the wet dream I had last night!

_ _

By then it was too late, and he was blowing his load down her throat, as she grabbed onto his squirming, muscular ass, evidently unaware that the room was starting to fill with electrified water that had come from nowhere and everywhere, arcing and sizzling.

VR Log #18

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Eve Hightower

11:52 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

==Error 4107: Memory incomplete.==

VR Log #19

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Jeff Castillas

11:52 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

When I was fourteen years old, my powers manifested. Unlike some, it wasn't a joyous occasion for me. I'm not even with the majority, who were traumatized and terrified. Mine was downright awful. So bad, in fact, that I dream about it almost every night, and wake up in cold sweats. Even in my freshman year at college, I had to find ways to make ends meet so I could rent a tiny apartment for myself, because all the screaming would have made the dorms an impossibility.

The constant static discharge I give off when I don't have at least part of my suit on certainly wouldn't help anything. My teammates believe the lie that I'm in total control, that I don't emit anything when my power is 'off.' If they knew the truth, they'd do what all the other frightened and poorly-educated norms already want to do; get rid of me, at the very least put me out of their lives, and at the very worst put me down entirely.

In the dream, I'm still just a fourteen year old kid. I'd been having nightmares, ever since I turned 13, the sort that scare the hell out of you but you can't remember at all upon waking. Well, mostly can't remember. I do recall this sensation of otherness, and a feeling like being covered in worms made of slime.

In my dream, I sit up, gasping out, slapping my paws over my muzzle so I don't wake my parents. We all share one bedroom in a tiny apartment, and I know that if I wake up screaming again, dad will wallop me one and start yelling. He's got a pretty bad temper, and a drinking problem. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the good grace to be a sauced drunk who could sleep through a plane crashing through the building. A light sleeper as always, he hears my gasp and sits up, growling low in his throat in a way that to this day sends my gut into a hard, acid clench whenever I remember it.

The rage and hatred in his eyes gets directed at everything he sees. Even at age 13, logically I know it isn't my fault. Even so, I can't stop myself from whispering how I sorry I am as he pulls himself free of his futon and comes at me, suddenly yelling. Taking hits is something I'm used to, and though his rage scares me to tears, I manage not to scream. This time, though, something's different. Mom grabs him and tries to stop him this time, and he hits her back hard.

I see a tooth fly up into the air, a graceful little curve made by chaotically spinning whiteness. Something inside me snaps. Maybe it's the onset of puberty, or maybe I sensed what was coming somehow, but for the first time I wanted to make him stop. To hurt him for how much he'd hurt mom and me.

I try to roar at him, the way he roars at me. My head back, my lungs full, I let out the deepest, most intimidating sound I can. It comes out as a kitten's squeal, and he ignores me, as he's yelling at my mother to stay out of his way, hitting her again and again as she tries to back away.

Then he jerks forward like he'd been punched in the back, and there's a blinding flash of light and the stink of scorched fur. My eyes are streaked with flashing streamers of color as I advance on him, letting out another screech. My fur's frizzing out, and the air tastes like a thunderstorm. From the corners of my eyes, I see the peeling paint start to sizzle and curl, the nasty old microwave on the wall sparking and turning on of its own accord.

My mother is screaming, dad's letting out this weird grunting sound and jolting around like a marionette, and yet somehow I'm not scared. I'm laughing, so angry I can't help it. It's a catharsis, pure and simple, an unexpected release not unlike my very first orgasm would be a year or so later.

Dad flies away from me burning, and hits the wall, leaving a streak of soot as he slides up it, carried by the massive current surging off my body. Mom's stopped screaming, and I turn to look, only to see her lying on the floor jiggling like a snake, jerking and spitting up foam as current dances in graceful arcs over her body.

Now the fear comes, and the guilt, and it's so intense it almost wakes me up. I start shrieking, like a little child, and trying to shut off whatever it is that's coming out of me. But it just wants out, just keeps coming, and I'm screaming and reaching for her and it's just getting worse and worse.

That's when I realize something's wrong with the dream. This time, mom's looking at me. It's a small detail, something anyone who hadn't relived the same memory over and over again might miss. In the real dream, her eyes are open, sure, but she was staring up at the ceiling. Now, here, she's trying to mouth something, with tears boiling off her face, and it's like someone just punched me in the gut. She's jerking too much for me to make out what she's trying to say. I know this is wrong - The coroner would, years later, tell me over a beer that she would have been dead almost instantly from that kind of amperage. I know my own fucking nightmare, goddamnit.

That realization snaps me back to reality, though I'm still trapped in this awful dream-memory of my powers' first manifestation. I know that in another few seconds, the neighbor comes through the door and blasts me with rock salt from his shotgun, which shuts me down and nearly kills me. But now there's no emotion to it - I'm just watching an event unfold.

From there, it's not hard to figure out what happened. We fought Steamroller, my capacitor batteries got wet and overloaded, and then a costumed villain walked right up to us while Eve was trying to help Mack up after he'd tripped over a broken pew. He dropped us like flies, by shoving himself into our minds and dragging up our dreams, hurling them to the surface and overwhelming us with them.

Yet that knowledge doesn't get me free. I know my power well enough to know I can manifest it even when sleeping. I've got no other choice but to let the current rip, and hope the idiot's too close - maybe that he's leaning over me with a knife, ready to slit my throat. I just hope the others haven't gathered up near me. Once I start this, it's going to be awful hard to stop it.

Synchronized VR Log #14

July 19

Experimental Subject Group A: "The Presidents"

Subject(s): Jeff Castillas, John Silverstone

11:55 a.m., St. Mary's Cathedral

Well now I'm in trouble, and it's my own idiot fault. I just had to go ballistic on this guy, instead of playing it cool; charged him, jumped on him, started bashing his face in, and totally forgot rule number one: Keep your eyes open. Also rule number two: never count a badguy out completely.

Steamroller hits me again, and I snap out of the half-conscious reverie I've been in for at least the last few seconds. He's got me up in the air, with my booted toes dangling a foot off the floor. As my head snaps back to it's centered and un-torqued position after his little slap, I see my pistol lying half a dozen feet away. If I were on the ground, I could reach it in a second, maybe get a shot or two off. But up here, in the grip of the steel behemoth, it might as well be on the moon.

He shakes me, and I realize through a muddled haze of buzzing bees and concussion that I'm being asked a question.

The voice comes again, and it's not Steamroller's growling, grating roar. It's a soft, almost feminine voice, and it's coming from the male feline in the mask, who's leaned up against a damaged pillar. I hear some kinda accent, but my ears are ringing so bad I can barely hear him, so I don't bother trying to figure it out.

He repeats himself a third time, and Steamroller has his massive iron paw drawn back, ready to slam the anvil-like thing across my face and send me to the coroner with a broken neck. Luckily he's more scared of this guy than he is mad at me, by the wideness of his eyes, and he holds back.

"I said, do you know Father Maxwell?"

"Fther...Max?" Shit. I'm hurt worse than I thought. On the upside, my internal monologue is still working fine! Checking sass circuits. "Mnope. Only Maxwell I...I know's a coffee guy." Shit. Nope. Sass unsuccessful.

"Then you...Tried to defend the monster upstairs on principle?" His tone's so neutral, but tinged with confusion, that I'm pretty sure he's either out of touch with reality or building up to some kind of really weird villain monologue.

"H-hey," I say, "You wanna...Hurry this up? An' jus' get it over with? I got places t'be."

Steamroller finds that pretty funny, in that sort of way where he gets a grin and thinks nobody's about to have fun but him. But this...Kid...That's whammied my whole group? He shakes his head, blood dripping through his soaked mask now, like he's disappointed in me.

"If you're defending the monster I destroyed, you are no better." Here it comes. Shit. "Kill him."

"Wit' pleasure," Steamroller hisses out. His fist ratchets back, and I stare up into his face. If this is it, I'm not about to go out crying or averting my eyes. Instead, I spit a muzzleful of blood into his yellow, slitted orbs. Which stings, let me tell you, because he lets out a bellow and takes a second to slam my back into the pillar with lung-emptying force, then whips me around to dangle in the air again, roaring in my face hard enough to blow my whiskers back. Which delays him just long enough for something I half-expected thanks to my peripheral vision.

A second ago, in the corner of my eye, I saw something like St. Elmo's Fire. That purplish rainbow haze that sometimes appears on the decks of ships stuck in electrical storms, or on the wings of airplanes.

This second, a cerulean and eye-searing white lightning bolt I swear is bigger around than my body comes flying off Jeff's open-eyed unconscious body, and goes straight for the nearest lightning rod. Which is the battered, iron-skinned asshole holding me off the ground.

I give him my best cracked-tooth grin, as the bolt hits him so hard we're sent bowling across the floor. My head bounces off something hard and rock-like, blasting ribbons and whirls of color across my vision, and then I'm struggling back to my feet just as Jeff's starting to shriek again. The masked kid is standing over him, jolting with current, but has managed to shove his paw out. Whatever he's doing, Jeff's feeling it, and he's shrieking that open-mouthed wail of someone who's so scared they don't even know where they are any more. But the current keeps getting stronger and stronger.

When the current finally flings him, the kid leaves a trail of smoke through the air on his way to crash through the lower end of the stained glass window. Jeff's hyperventilating, and his power is building fast. I smell thunder storms, and can see where the electricity is shattering lines of fracture marks in the stone floor, in a near-perfect circle around the unconscious cat's curled-up body.

Praying that my power works on his electricity, I wobble to my feet, and start towards him. If I can knock him out cold with the syringe I keep around for just this circumstance, maybe the Presidents won't get electro-cooked to death today.

End VR Log Collection A-1-5.

Bobby Shore drove, and John Silverstone rode, both in silence in Bobby's elderly Buick, on the way home from the hospital. With bandages wrapped around his battered skull and torso, the grey-furred wolf was cautious not to let his aching head lean against the window, where every jostle of the road would leap through him like a current of agonized nausea. Bobby just chewed his lip, sharp cheetah fangs leaving little divits as he navigated in pregnant silence.

Finally, as they turned off the highway and toward the squat little old suburban house they called home, John broke the silence.

"Doc says everyone's going to make it, but he's not sure Jeff and Eve can...Y'know...Hack it, after what they went through. I uh...D'you think you could...?"

The cheetah's shoulders hunched, and his claw tips dug into the dense, hard plastic of his wheel cover. His voice sounded pinched, throat tight from all the hours of worrying in a waiting room, since no one would tell him anything of his boyfriend's condition.

"John...You promised me you'd be careful. When you've broken a promise to me isn't the time to ask for favors."

The wolf grunted softly and looked away from the slender, pretty cheetah, staring out the window into the night-time city's rain-soggy streets. Overhead, flashes flared now and then, followed by the distant roil of thunder somewhere beyond the great concrete and steel maze.

"I just...They're good kids, Bobby. Not sure what they saw in there but uh...Well, I don't think they'll recover from it, if they can't get back in the saddle. Be 'fraid of the horse forever, right?"

"You look like a modern-day cowboy. That doesn't mean you get to mis-use cowboy aphorisms."

"Hey, no, I look like that guy from Maltese Falcon, not the Lone Ranger..."

"That's besides the point! Goddamnit..." The cheetah hissed and took a deep breath, forcing it back out after a three-count and trying to make his clenched-up muscles release. "John, hon, you know I love you. But I can't...I just can't. My doctor would flip if he knew I was even talking about this. You know what he told me? That I can't handle super-heroing any more. That's why I retired."

"Well what the fuck's he know anyway? You're doin' fine! He's just a shrink, baby."

Lightning lit the darkened car a moment, and the wolf saw his cheetah clearly for just a second. His face was drawn, cheeks clenched and jaw gritted. He hadn't realized Bobby was fighting down another panic attack until that moment. The wolf would have offered to drive the rest of the way home, if they hadn't been just about to pull into the driveway.

"I...J-john...I c-can't handle losing another...I mean it's the not knowing...A-and...Waiting up nights not knowing if...you..."

For a long time, they sat in the driveway as rain pattered on the car's heavy old steel roof in a long and staccato drum solo. Neither could meet the other's eyes, and instead stared out their own window at the running water on the ground. Finally, John broke the silence again, as was his way when they were alone together.

"I love you, Bob. But other than you, this is all I've got. Don't make me choose between you and the job. Please."

"I d-don't...I don't know if I can help it any more," the cheetah whispered, as his forehead finally touched the steering wheel. He was breathing hard, like he'd been running a mile or more, and had gone tense like a spring. John almost made a quip or some kind of bad joke. Instead, for once letting sensitivity get the better of him, he reached out and touched the quivering cat's back with a soothing stroke.

He almost commented on the irony of it. Bobby could throw a fully laden semi truck a hundred yards with nothing more than his mind. But he couldn't control the anxiety attacks any more than he could stop the sun from setting. One of the world's most powerful telekinetics, taken down by PTSD and a few crossed wires in the limbic system.

So instead he pulled the shaking cheetah over, ignoring the twinge from two broken ribs, and cradled him, kissing the top of his head as soothingly as he could.

He couldn't bring himself to tell Bobby what happened in the fight's aftermath. How the cops had rolled Steamroller's unconscious body out the door and into a special armored paddy wagon. Or how they couldn't find the mysterious masked dream-manipulator anywhere.