Young Writers Society

Susan was busy trying to figure out how to get up. It was a little hard to do that when your hands kept slipping right into the floor, it was a small miracle she hadn't already sunk right down to the center of the Earth to her fiery doom already with the number of times things like this tended to happen.

And then before she could do anything, she was suddenly being surrounded in some kind of purple glow and being confronted by someone in a scientist's outfit although she was pretty sure this one was definitely not a real evil scientist...well, the evil part was debatable.

Before Susan could appropriately begin reacting to the potentially evil fake scientist, the cute little kitten she'd seen earlier transformed bit the man and turned into a human. After nearly cheering out loud for the kitten as it bit the fake scientist she then wondered where the girl that now introduced herself as Alissa came from, and why she was infiltrating a meeting of evil scientists. Could she be in a similar situation somehow? And what was the deal with this dude. She decided the first thing to do was stop pretending to be an evil scientist.

"OKay, first off, I also don't like being picked up...or floated or whatever you did to bring me here," said Susan, picking herself up as best she could. With a little bit of concentration she managed to sit leaning against the corner and not disappear into the wall. "And second, yes I'm a superhero...kind of, but why don't you tell us who you are first, you're the one that dragged us over here with whatever magic nonsense you just did. And what are you doing, dragging us into a corner like this? You want to get all of us caught? We're surrounded by evil scientists here."

Wren shouldn't have doubted Loki when he said it wasn't hard to sneak into evil villain bases. The kitten was actually a shapeshifting girl named Alissa, the scientist who had grabbed Alissa earlier and then phased through part of the room was a superhero, and the man (?) who had grabbed Alissa and made the accusation that the kitten was a superhero didn't seem all that villainous, either.

The one who had admitted she was a superhero had said they were surrounded by evil scientists, but Wren had done the math. There was only one person left who hadn't said anything about being a scientist, and one person really wasn't all that hard to beat.

...Wait a second.

She looked like an evil scientist right now.

Keeping her eye on the one person who hadn't revealed that they weren't normal yet, Wren raised her hands in surrender.

"I'm not a scientist, either," she quickly said. She used her powers to shift from the lab clothes to her actual superhero outfit—swapping out her glasses for her mask. It wasn't as complex of a change as she usually needed; she was basically her superhero self already. "I'm The Actor. I'm the only superhero my world has, so I think we're from different reali-"

Before she could finish her sentence, a glitch rippled through her. Wren tried to keep herself standing, but it was hard. She settled for kneeing on the ground until the glitching stopped.

The glitching overtook Alissa, and she fell back into a ball, jerking into a fetal position.

what is this what is this it hurts it hurts-

Alissa changed between squirrel, bat, mouse, possum, and anything else to try to escape the pain, but nothing worked. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and Alissa was a naked mole-rat. Embarrassed, she turned back human, but realized she wasn't the only one that had happened to.

Nikolai watched the Actor's transformation quietly. It should've been a good sign that there were other superheroes here. But Nikolai had been involved in enough infiltrations to know that this could be a trap. He wasn't in any rush to reveal himself just yet. ​

Then glitching started. Nikolai dropped to his knees when it hit, shutting his eyes tight against the pain. When it was over he stood up and looked around the room. "Alright," Nikolai's voice shook slightly. He cleared his throat before continuing. "Everyone alright?"

THE CAT HAD BIT HIM, he had saved the kitten, well Alissa, and she just went and bit him!
Also, it seemed that all except one of the scientists in the room were superheroes so he really hadn’t needed to pull Alissa and Susan to the corner of the room.

“Well ok I guess if we’re all on the same side then, uh I’m Julius D’Hondt or Arcane if you prefer, and uh as far as powers go, well the easiest explanation is I’m kinda a wizard, and Ali-”

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“AAH NO WHY GHRAAAA! Bottle-BRACKETS!

Said as his whole body “Gllitched” again

“Grr, also ya I think everyone’s alright”

Susan attempted to maintain a stern expression as she stated that then her eyes widened as everyone revealed themselves to be superheroes. The transformation by the female scientist talking about particle colliders was soo cool. She wished she had a superhero outfit to reveal like that. Sadly, costumes were not a thing that the undead had the privilege of wearing.

"Cool cost..." she began, when she saw the girl in front of her shapeshift randomly, several others looked like they were in pain, and then it happened. An excruciating pain, rippling through her, enough to make her eyes water. She lost the tiny bit of control she had over her state, and she glictched back and forth between invisible, intangible and solid. And then as suddenly as it came, it stopped and she quickly turned away to discreetly wipe her eyes before anyone saw that she'd teared up. The last thing she needed was for her first impression to a bunch of superheroes to be of her crying in pain.

"I'm okay," she managed. She meant to sound confident, but it came out sounding more like the squirrel Alissa had been moments ago.

"I'm also okay," Wren managed to get out. The glitching didn't hurt once it had stopped, but her voice—which was usually on the quiet, slightly distant side by accident and not by choice—sounded strained as she got up.

The last scientist hadn't admitted that he was a superhero, but he had glitched too. Wren just hoped that meant they were all on the same side. All of the spider people had been on the same side in Into the Spider-verse, but she knew she couldn't keep relying on that movie to get all of her information. They weren't even different versions of the same person.

A thought suddenly hit her.

She glanced around at the others in the room.

"...Wait," Wren slowly said. "We're not actual scientists. So either that intern knew that and brought us all here as a trap, or they're going to realize we're not really them when the actual scientists show up for the meeting-"

Wren was cut off by an alarm suddenly blaring in the building. Even though Wren didn't have any superhearing that could tell her what was going on outside of the lab, she didn't need it to know that the scientists who worked for this organization would be heading towards the room any minute now.

Bang, they needed to get out NOW, guards were already banging on the door and with the kind of technology they had here, it wouldn't take long for them to break through.

Though on the one hand, they were a bunch of superheroes who could probably handle themselves, but on the other hand, could they guarantee no innocent people would be hurt if they blasted out?

“Ok I don't know about you guys but I don't wanna try blasting out of this place, so, if everyone here will trust me,” he took a breath, was this really a good idea? He knew it was possible to create portals without his slingring, but that didn't mean it would be easy, or all that painless.
“I can make a portal outta here, but I won't be able to hold it for long so as soon as it opens go through as fast as you can” he looked around at everyone, Wren at least seemed to maybe trust him, he seemed to be an alright guy, Julius would trust him if he had too.
Whether or not anyone else trusted him he couldn't tell, but if they didn't then well, it would be their fault if they didn't make it out.

He focused on a place, the place he had first been when he came to this dimension, the old alley next to an old gas station, putting one hand out and the other out a bit lower, he had to get the position right since he didn't have his ring to help him, started spinning his arm in a counterclockwise motion and, “saying a couple of spells he wasn't sure were correct, a glowing golden spark of energy started to appear at the end of his fingertips, moving in a choppy circle slowly connecting, his hands were getting hot, this wasn't good, the sparks popped and disappeared then came back, he couldn't hold it too long, hid hands were glowing red and they almost felt numb with the heat, slowly the alley appeared on the other side of his glitchy, makeshift portal.

“Go! Now! Move I can't keep it-”

He couldn't keep talking his portal was flickering in and out, and his hands seemed to have sparks, coming out of them

Not again. That was the thought that currently flooded Susan's mind as she heard them trying to break the door down. Superhero missions somehow seemed to involve far too many situations where she was on the wrong side of a door being broken down by the bad guys. And this time, she was alone, well, not alone, it looked like they were all superheroes, and some really cool ones at that, but, she didn't know whether she should trust them.

One piece of advice that she'd managed to remember from their orientation with Jennifer was that you should never ever fully trust a stranger. Being constantly suspicious of everyone around you seemed like a bit of a stretch at first but after a few encounters with the world, she'd learned just how convincing people could be when they were trying to trick you. She couldn't trust anyone in the room, cool or otherwise, friendly or otherwise. She did have to be logical however, everyone on the other side of that room trying to break in currently definitely was a bad guy, all one hundred percent intent on killing her, staying in here was not an option.

And then the magic guy opened up a portal, it was taking him a huge amount of effort and she had to wonder is he was putting up an act of some sort. The portals she'd seen Jennifer, Harry and his friends open all seemed to just take a snap of the fingers and a moments concentration. Either, this wizard was just a lot weaker than most, or he was faking it.

She thought about her next course of action. She could get out of the building as easily as she came in and try to lay low for a while, come back to explore the thing later, but...that would mean her powers had to work perfectly, and after whatever that glitching thing was, she wasn't too confident in them working perfectly. Her powers weren't perfect in the best of times but everything was currently in too much flux to risk using against potentially lethal weapons.

As sketchy as the magician seemed to be, at least it was a relatively safe way out, and she could run away from their if she had to. She ran for the portal, an ended up going right through. Well, this was going to take a few tries.

Wren knew that she wasn't supposed to trust strangers. Comic books were full of heartbreaking betrayals. That hadn't even been a thing she had considered before she met Loki, but she kept thinking about the possibility that he was going to betray her someday. It was hard not to think of that now.

But even though she wasn't entirely sure she could trust where that portal was going to bring them, she wanted to trust where they were going to go. Its creator didn't seem to be handling the portal well; that desperation had to mean his desire to help them was genuine, right?

She glanced at the others in the room. The one who could phase through things hadn't been able to get through the portal. No one else had even made a move to go through it yet. Wren wasn't sure how long it could stay up, but she knew that at least one person could just turn into animals. She wasn't sure what the other superhero could do.

She headed to the front of the room, listening to the pounding on the door.

"I can hold them off while everyone else goes through," Wren said. She didn't fully look in Julius's direction, but it was clear she was trying to turn to him. "I'll go through right before you do. I'm good at defensive and offensive."

Nikolai wasn't all that thrilled about trusting Julius. Or any of the others, for that matter. But it didn't look like Julius could keep his portal open for that much longer, and Nikolai was running out of options.
Frowning, he stepped towards the portal. The others didn't know that he could fly. If this was a trap, Nikolai figured he'd have a decent chance of escaping. He took another step towards the portal. "I'll try and make sure the other side's clear when I get through, alright?" Nikolai said, glancing towards the others. He didn't wait for a response before walking through the portal.

Susan finally managed to wrestle control of herself as people hopped through the portal one by one. Now it was just her, the one who'd volunteered to help defend them and the one who'd opened the portal. That had been an incredibly heroic moment earlier...and even if Susan didn't want to fully trust that one based on that, she felt like with her phasing under control she could probably help out here.

"Heyy, why don't you go through now? I can draw their fire. Nothing will be able to hit me. I'll go through after you," said Susan, offering a small smile. She willed herself to become intangible as she walked right through the portal and through the portal guy by accident before stepping in front of the one with the cool costume. She offered portal guy an apologetic smile.

Wren shook her head.

"I can stay," she argued. Intangibility was a good power, but the other hero had trouble controlling it earlier. Wren had a good grasp on her shapeshifting. She had been doing it for years before meeting Loki, and he had only made her control over it better.

She gave the other hero a reassuring, somewhat urgent smile. "I can always make my skin hard enough that bullets can't pierce it."

"First of all, that is ridiculously cool," said Susan, immediately blushing for actually voicing that out loud," hmm, and..uhh...umm...second of all, I'll be fine, trust me, you did a lot already to let the others get through, you don't want to tire yourself. Let me help you and make myself useful here now that my powers are actually under control."

Augh, they were arguing, about which one would risk their lives for the others, it was bound to happen when this many superheroes came together.

“I don’t care which one of you goes through first but IM going last, so unless you want me to leave you here you two better shut up and GET THROUGH THE PORTAL”

Julius yelled at the two last superheroes to remind them he couldn’t hold this portal for long.