Young Writers Society

Dresden also paused, though it was only mentally and not physically. He had to agree with the guy who had appeared in the shadows. They needed to get out of here. They could talk about what to do next later.

"Meta's short for metahuman," Dresden clarified. "It's basically anyone that's not a regular human. Like the Flash, or maybe even Superman. It's a gene thing."

He thought so, anyways. In the fics Pres had shown him, there had been mentions of a meta gene every so often.

Tempest Briar silently thanked the stars for an explanation. It would be wildly challenging to convince the group he wasn't a "meta" if he didn't know what a meta was.

The black-haired man that seemed to know a lot about this strange world didn't fully register Tempest Briar's full scale of non-human. Alis were known for their peculiar hair and eye color, Tempest Briar even more because he was a hybrid. But he could take a gamble. The man didn't immediately write off Tempest Briar as a meta, so maybe different hair colors existed?

She smoothed her hair. "I'm not a meta, but I'm willing to do what it takes to keep those that are metas safe."

Bobby's mind raced with plans, possibilities. Where could he go? They didn't approve of going to Wayne manor, fine. So where?

This was Gotham.

There were probably dozens of abandoned warehouses. Going to the police station would be a good idea if it wasn't Gotham. Or any large city. Depending on the version of Gotham he might be able to find a place among the local street kids, but not with these people.

Maybe...maybe...maybe something would come to him if his heart would just slow down.

Vankous

"Don't even think about Superman," said Vankous, making a disgusted face. "So...you were suggesting we do some heisting maybe. Where do you think we should begin?"

Katherine

"Yes, if you all need all these trivial little things explained, how about we do that while on our way to something because this is not a situation where time is on our side."

Dresden agreed.

He started down the alleyway, avoiding another one of Poison Ivy's snaking vines. Luckily, it seemed like they didn't go past the end of this alleyway. They could keep talking while they walked or after they reached a safe place.

"We're not going to be heisting anything yet," Dresden said. "We have to be subtle-"

Dresden faltered as he took another step, suddenly thinking about how, according to Pres, he couldn't be subtle. Normally he'd just do it out of spite to prove him wrong, but it left a bitter taste in his mouth when he thought about it now.

"-and figure out who brought us here first. In the meantime, we can find some random abandoned warehouse and camp out there."

Bobby could agree to that. They seemed to be near the edge of town. It would probably help to get up higher...

He spotted a crack between two almost-touching buildings and scampered up it, his calloused hands and rubber soles clinging easily enough to the rough brick. He made it to the top and looked around, trying to figure out what district he was in.

The shining glass towers of the rich people part of town were far enough away that he thought it a safe bet this was the poorer part of the city. The buildings looked like apartments for the most part, with some small businesses scattered throughout. They still had a long way to go until they'd reach the looming shadows that pay at the distantly-visible edge. Warehouses that shouldn't be occupied but almost certainly were.

Bobby took off in that direction, having taken his moment of thought to catch his breath. The others would catch up, or vice versa. They were going to the same place after all.

Dresden followed after the boy who had scaled up the side of the building, keeping to the ground instead of trying to hoist himself up. He had to admit—it was impressive how quickly that boy had climbed to the rooftops. Dresden would have taken notes, if he didn't normally have better ways of climbing up tall structures.

After walking for what felt like forever, but was probably just fifteen minutes at most, they finally got away from the sounds of the fighting. They also found themselves in front of a conveniently abandoned warehouse. When Dresden tested the inside of the building with a subtle gust of wind, he didn't feel anyone moving around right inside of it. He also didn't see anyone through any of its windows—checking the planes or not.

It was an older warehouse, kept closed by a rusted lock. There were also a few broken windows. At another time, Dresden might have been slip through one of those, but the holes in them were something that the boy on the rooftops could probably only fit through. Dresden would need a different entrance.

He eyed the lock for a moment, then decided to do something probably stupid.

He rolled his shoulders, took a step back, and then slammed into the door with his right shoulder. In retrospect, he really should have seen what happened next coming: the lock, which hadn't actually been closed but just looked closed fell to the ground, the door went swinging open, and Dresden fell to the ground when he suddenly didn't have the door to support him.

He lay on the floor for a second, stunned, and then immediately jumped to his feet.

"There," he said, brushing dust off of his jacket. "One safe house."

Honestly, Tempest Briar had been in worse. He had spent many nights in various abandoned homes and alleyways. At least this one had all four walls and a roof.

He tightened his grip on his bag, ignoring how sore his back was. He’d have to sneak out later and stretch.

She looked the warehouse. It seemed pretty empty, save for a couple of very strange looking carriages or train engines. Hopefully no one would mention then and she doesn’t have to worry about pretending to know what they are.

“So, how are you going to do this? I highly doubt fate will be so kind to place the solution to this debacle at our feet, so we have to find it ourselves. How do we know who to even begin investigating?”

Bobby had climbed in through a busted window and clambered down to the ground. He padded through the rows of cars and climbed on top of one near where the rest of the group had come in.

"It was probably one of the villains," Bobby said a notch too quietly, "I'd guess one of the doctors, not that that narrows it a lot."

Dresden looked around the room. Eventually, his eyes settled on a pile of somewhat worn wooden boxes. He eyed one of them, then decided to just go for it and claim it.

He sat down on the box and looked up at the others.

"It's definitely a doctor," he agreed, crossing his legs and arms. "Doctorate or not. But they might not even be from the actual comics canon—for all we know, this is like a fic and they're the oc villain someone made to better fit the story."

Did it sound silly hearing Dresden say something like that? Probably. But Raptor had heard Dresden sing "Fallen Kingdom" back when they first met, so he had cast away his dignity when it came to fandom things ever since then.

A thought suddenly came to him.

"Before we play detective, we should say who we are," Dresden pointed out. He didn't know everyone's names, and it would be a pain later on if he needed to. Names had power, after all.

Dresden got to his feet.

"The name's Dresden," he offered, giving a little theatrical bow. "I'm your friendly neighborhood magician."

He straightened. As far as he was concerned, metas and magicians were a whole different can of worms. He could pass as a human magician. He had already been doing in Minecraft.

"And by magician," he clarified, "I mean the ones that can actually do magic. Like Zatanna or Constantine, not the kind you rent for a kid's birthday party."

Vankous

Vankous did his absolute best not to laugh at the antics unfolding here. He definitely shouldn't be laughing. These people were doing the things that they knew to do, although the amateur mistake of trying to break a lock that wasn't even breaking was definitely laugh worthy. He was proud of himself for not laughing at that point. Kate was somehow managing to show absolutely no emotion as she followed along next to him, so Vankous didn't even know if his current abstinence from laughing was a problem he was suffering from. Harry would certainly be stifling his later about now. He'd have to unpack those differences later however as it looked liked everyone was chatting about some kind of doctorate and then going on about introductions. He let out a sigh. Well, they'd done that once already.

"Well you know I am a Doctor. Doctor Cerebro," said Vankous, allowing a smile to finally appear. "I am your umm...well I guess I'm not a friendly neighborhood magician...but I am a magician, mage, sorcerer, wizard, what you call it...I suppose...neutral multidimensional magician would work."

Katherine

Kate seemed to frown ever so slightly at the last part. It was almost invisible, but Vankous had seen that exact look before.

"Hardy. Katherine Hardy. Just a kid going through high school," she said, with a shrug. It wasn't exactly a lie after all.

Tempest Briar just nodded and smiled. Many words were being thrown around, and she'd never heard of many of them. Zatanna, multidimensional, high school? Maybe this was an elaborate code, and Tempest Briar had accidentally thrown herself into a heist that would bring the world to its knees. That was the only reasonable explanation so far.

"I'm Tempest Briar. I'm-"

Should he say what exactly he was? Like, oh hey, I know we're planning a heist that being non-human inherently makes more complex, so I figured it was a good time to mention that I'm descended from angels and have strange powers over the elements.

"-your standard Englishmen. Nothing too special about me." That was a poor lie that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. Alis aren't precisely "built" the same way as humans, down to their very bones. But, perhaps no one would take the time to consider it.

Bobby subtly stiffened up as introductions went on. Magicians.

There was a weight on his chest, warm and heavy and stiff. Gurgling breaths echoed in his head, like a pipe struggling to pump water and air out of a deep pit. He couldn't move. His limbs wouldn't obey.

It felt like forever, trapped back in that moment, that eternity from yesterday and a lifetime ago. Then he blinked and it was over.

"Nothing too special about me," Tempest Briar was saying. Tempest. Bobby already knew a Briar.

There was a beat of silence before Bobby realized he was meant to say something. His name. Right. Name.

A lump formed in his throat and he choked it down. With every ounce of strength he could manage he forced his voice to sqeak out an, "I'm Bobby," and nothing further.

Rolling her shoulders back, Mireya noticed she was up next for saying something about herself. What would warrant being said? She probably had something like that she could bring to this, but since she wasn’t sure what this situation even was, it was hard for her to tell what skills would be useful to mention. Maybe that she could have picked the lock that hadn’t been locked at all, or climbed that building like Bobby if she’d wanted to, but she decided to be less specific.

“I’m Mireya,” she said, counting each piece of information on her fingers. “Not exactly a meta, a jack of all trades somewhat, and I usually hire out my help. Might overlook that this time, though.”

Almost subconsciously, she glanced around briefly to check the lightbulbs. No one had turned any of them on. She wasn’t sensing very much electrical power nearby at all, maybe just a backup generator stashed somewhere that wasn’t being used. At least a couple of these lights should turn on if given power.

“Maybe we should turn on some lights,” she said off-handedly. “Either by figuring out how to turn these ones on, or getting some another way.”

Vankous

Vankous kept his smile plastered onto his face as he observed everyone else clearly trying to hide something. Well, he really couldn't expect anything different from any of them. At the very least most of them seemed to be telling the truth, just not the whole truth. He could respect that. Of course they could all just be really, really good liars, but he chose to ignore that.

Before he could reply to the comment on the light, Kate spoke up.

"Do we really need light?" said Kate. "Isn't the darkness a bit more relaxing to work in and besides we don't want to attract any sort of attention."

Vankous smirked. Once the Princess of the Darkness, always the Princess of the Darkness. Well some things at least never seem to change.