Xavier, true to form, hopped right into the thick of it. She watched with a barely contained eye-roll as he tried to negotiate with them for a moment, and then hustled into cover behind the weird field he made. She didn't need to bother with those 4 then. Once they were down Elke carried on, waving her clone along, who had stopped to pick up a helmet for herself and a rifle that she could use as a makeshift bat if needed.

Halfway down the hall, she let out another whistle, which was immediately answered.

She paused instantly, stopping dead in the middle of the hallway and hushed her clone.

... the place was eerily silent all of a sudden, wasn't it?

She eyeballed the end of the hallway and the large doors the whistle seemed to have come through. The pain she was in from whatever was being inflicted on her clone was growing slightly in intensity, but still nothing she couldn't shrug off.

"...Boss fight ahead. An ambush attempt, I think." She flipped up the little whisker biscuit that was zip-tied into the middle of the Y on her slingshot and reached back to grab a few of the modified arrows in her quiver. They'd do much better at crippling limbs and dropping a gun-wielding opponent. The native let out another, shorter bird whistle. A moment longer than the last one passed before the captured clone replied, with a different sounding whistle than before.

The other clone at her side gasped softly and readied her improvised bat. "Not safe."

She looked over to Xavier, "You go first and keep the gunfire off of us. I'll hang back and snipe."

She paused and sneered at him after a moment. "..Nonlethal."

Inside that large room, past two heavy metal double doors was a small army of heavily armed goons waiting and aiming at the doors. About 20 of them all lined up, with a giant of a man in a nice suit sitting at the back on a wooden crate smoking a cigar. The clone was trapped under one of his giant shoes, slowly being crushed as time ticked on.

After he cleared away the four, an oppressive silence fell over the room. He looked to Elke knowingly as she stated what he'd been feeling. She made a suggestion, and he nodded, and smiled warmly. "Thank you."

He moved to do what she had said but had a thought, and raised a finger.

"I have a plan, too. Bear with me a little bit?"

Moments later, an office desk flew through the wall in the side of the room, managing to knock a gunman over as it slid across the floor in a happy accident. They opened fire at the hole in the wall, and seconds later the doors burst open, and Xavier strode in hefting a large bag of feed. He used his power to launch it into a row of men at a high speed, smashing into one and knocking over several others.

Then, he hunkered down, and awaited the hail of bullets, leaving an opportunity to Elke to attack from the hole in the wall they'd made earlier.

It was a great start to a plan, but they would have to see how it went from there. His eyes lingered on the clone who has being crushed by what only could have been the boss of these guys.

They needed to act quickly.

Contrary to how she usually portrayed herself, Elke was open to the suggestion. This was business, and you had to conduct yourself in a different manner than normal. She lifted a brow at his suggestion but followed along with it regardless. It didn't matter much where they made an entrance, really, and his idea could certainly add quite a bit more to the whole 'catch them by surprise thing.

Her clone whistled lowly as the tall blonde sent a whole ass desk crashing through the wall, and Elke elbowed her sharply to shut her up. Yeah, it was, uh... certainly a show of power there. Whatever his power was, it certainly hadn't stopped catching her by surprise yet.

He hightailed it to the other end of the hall as she positioned herself at the newly made hole. She winked at him as a reward as they passed each other, too. It had been a good idea!

She prepped herself and waved her clone into a crouched position. As soon she heard X make his second attack and knock over a handful of guys like bowling pins, she poked stealthily around the corner to pick off a few. One down with an arrow to the thigh, another down a second later with one stuck expertly through the shoulder. She ducked back out of the way as gunfire aimed her wait, waited for a moment, and then snuck another shot out when she heard a few clips empty. Between them, they downed about 9 in record time and were left with some heading X's way, and some heading hers. Close quarters fighting wasn't the best for sling bows, so she tucked it away and got ready.

5 had headed her way, and 6 had split off to head for Xavier. Between her and her twin, it didn't take them long to down their five foes. Elke dropped the last guy from the chokehold she had gotten him in, stepped over the small pile of unconscious bodies and re-entered the room.

The only one who hadn't moved a muscle so far was the boss. The father of the two they had faced before. He was still sitting and chewing on the end of his cigar, teeth grit and thick brows furrowed. His leg flexed and the foot on her second clone pressed down harder. She felt the break in a few bones exactly at the same time her twin screamed in pain. A rib bone snapped, and one arm was broken.

Thick, dark goo started oozing out from every orifice on the man, converging over his body quickly. It seemed to form a thicker, second-skin over him. Elke took a potshot at him with an arrow and, like she assumed, the whole bolt hit and then sank slowly into the outer goo. Yuuup. No wonder he hadn't reacted at all to her sniping his subordinates.

He stepped over the crippled clone, flicking his cigar to the side. He seemed less concerned with her, and more focused on boy wonder... which she could totally use to her benefit.

"First... you put my son and daughter in jail..." Even his voice was thick and goopy from behind the barrier he wore. "Then, you come here to try and ruin my organization?"

He had no clue who Elke was other than she looked exactly like the rest of the idiot girls that had wandered in over the last few days. In his mind, she was some buzzing little fly to worry about later, if she didn't run first when he put her friend six feet underground.

Elke tried to catch Xavier's eye as she tucked her slingshot away and fiddled around in her backpack for a moment since goop face wasn't paying her any attention. She withdrew a length of wire commonly used to cut clay or large cheeses. In her case, it worked really @#$%in great for choking a @#$%& into submission, when she needed it too.

All she needed to do was sneak up on him.

You know, things were going perfectly according to plan. They really were. It was amazing. Unfortunately, the plan wasn't very well thought out, because it left him standing there with a bunch of dudes firing at him with guns. THe six that remained had taken to slowly encircling him, as he seemed to be bullet proof. They took turns shooting at him, and looked back to their boss to shrugg as it obviously wasn't working.

Little did they know he couldn't breathe while he was doing this trick, and while he'd practiced to extend the ammount of time he could go without passing out, he hadn't had much time to perfect that skillset yet.

He managed to look to the side as the big man crew an oil slick sorta coat, and shrugged off an arrow like it was nothing. Crap. He was headed this way too. He was running out of breath, though. Fast.


There was really only one option, huh. His eyes flicked over to where Elke had been. Great. Was it silly that he didn't want to do this in front of her? Yes, it was silly. It didn't make any sense. Fight the criminals, save the people. That is what you do, Xavier. Everything else is a distraction.

He nodded to himself, and then clenched his teeth, digging deep... deeper... all the way to the bottom, and.... BAM!

There was a split second of silence, and then a great burst of air and pressure as a shockwave ripped from his body, taking all of his clothes with it, but shaking the large open building dangerously as it flung the men near him in every which direction, and caused a partial roof collapse in the corner of the room.

Moments later, Xavier slowly stood shaking away clouds of dust as he covered himself, looking around at the people nearby to make sure they weren't hurt too badly... As he finished checking on a man against the damaged wall, and turned around, he was suddenly grasped by a sludge encrusted hand, and lifted from his feet.

Uh oh.

Why was it surprising that he hadn't taken care of his group of guys yet? Like, for real, what the hell was taking him so long? She lifted her hands up in a silent question at him, regardless if he could see her do it or not.

"Oh no... hotties gonna die, huh?" The clone received a swiftly stomped on foot and an exasperated sigh from Elke. Dealing with idiots was hard, sometimes.

Huh... he looked like he was bracing for something. What though? She tensed automatically when she saw him sense, got that feeling in the pit of her stomach that being around powerful unknowns often brought, and hauled ass into the space behind Mr. Goop as silently as she could.

Good thing, too, because her unaware clone got hit by whatever concussive force Xavier has just farted out, and was flung across the room with the rest of the dudes. Mr. Goop stood up fairly well against the force, which was... frightening. Didn't even seem to-

HOLYSH@#! Xavier was butt ass naked!

She let loose an honest to goodness spit-take, followed by a muffled cackle that was quickly squashed. Dude has just exploded his own clothes off! Who did that?!

Her clone had seen and was turned around fully to face the opposite direction, muttering to herself about nudity with her hands over the visor of the helmet to try and block it out.

Well, when she wasn't sneaking peeks, that was.

Not only that, but apparently getting shanked in the kidney hadn't taught him not to turn his back on the enemy after all. Xavier, in all of his naked glory, was actually checking on the people who had just been trying to kill him.

... dumb!@#.

At least his dumb!@#ery made for a suitable distraction, though. Mr. Goop slunk up on him and had him in a grip before he realized he was caught. Elke used that moment of distraction to swoop in and put her plan into action. Somewhere under all that gross goo was a guy... she hoped. Seeing as how it had oozed out and onto him and he hadn't just turned into it, she was hoping her makeshift garote would sink through the thick of it and snag around his actual neck. Then, it was just a matter of holding on until he lost the struggle.

Using the wall as leverage to get herself up to the height of his neck, she mentally prepared herself for what she was about to do, as she did it. Her thighs landed smack onto the squish of his shoulders and she locked ankles. The wire swept around his head and tightened around his neck as she put all of her strength into pulling on each end in opposite directions.

He didn't seem too concerned until he seemed to realize what she was doing, and reached his free hand up to make a grab for her. Meanwhile, the goop from his body was slowly spreading up her legs as it drew her in. It was also spreading out onto Xavier at the same time.

She just had to hunker down and wait...

Wait for it...

Pull a bit tighter, c'mon! Tighter!

The wire pulled taut against something solid, finally. A definite difference in resistance to everything else, which felt like thick clay. Once she knew it was hooked on his actual body, she put all of the force from her arms and back into tightening it.

His reaction swiftly went from calm and calculating, to frenzied and violent as she cut off the blood flow to his head.

Oil-like substance was engulfing him before he could really react, leeching onto him from the arm grabbing him and seeking to overtake him.

Luckily for him, he was built to fight and ability like this. Rapidly the mucky substance was repelled from him, starting from the outside and ending with the grip, which the man didn't even seem to be focussing on anymore.

Why? Well, there was a native american woman strangling him with a garot...

Jesus, she was really going at it, too. There was a lot of muck to cut through, and the man had honestly seemed like he was built out of bricks like his... daughter?

He landed on his feet, cleaner than the day we was born, and walked up to try and assist, but the giant form had already fallen to his knees, and then on his face.

She was still struggling, though... "Elke... Elke?" She wasn't responding. He reached out to grab her shoulder and shake it. "ELKE! He's out! He's out!"

It was true. The muck had already started to turn runny and seep to the ground as she shook her. They had won.

Embarrassingly, she may have, uh... blacked out for a bit there.

There were these pesky little words nagging at her that she needed to hold it tightly for such n' such amount of time just to be sure that he was dead until someone shook her and she remembered that, oh, yeah, she wasn't supposed to be killing anyone right now... was she?

The Native blinked and the tension on the cords dropped. He was definitely unconscious, so, uh... she won!

Everyone just ignore the blood rage now, kthnx.

She turned her head slightly and blinked again, because, oh yeah, he was totally naked still. His clothes had really shredded then? That was going to be a pretty embarrassing walk home.

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP!"

Her head whipped around toward the hole in the wall Xavier had made, where a lone cop was standing with his gun drawn and pointed at them.

"GET ON THE GROUND!"

She made no move to comply at first but glanced at X, and then over to her two clones. They had recouped at some point, but the cop hadn't noticed them yet.

Then, very slowly, she started putting her hands up like she was really going to follow his directions.

Dude looked super uncomfortable and jumpy being surrounded by unconscious bodies literally all over the place, and just two teenagers still standing in the room. He was out of shape and already sweating rivers, without having even done anything yet.

The guy squinted at Elke specifically as he recognized her, and then it dawned on him.

"...It's you again! Y-You have no clue what you've done, girl..."

She smiled maliciously at him as he radioed in for backup. He was exactly the man she had wanted to run into on this mission.

"Yeah, yeah.. 2 juveniles. DOA." He aimed.

Her clones rushed him from behind.

So... The first instinct of the ultimate boyscout that was Xavier was to comply immediately when a police officer gave you instructions. Thus, his hands went up immediately, and he looked down sheepishly toward Elke, who wasn't complying.

Oh, right.

This was that guy, huh? Elke looked back, and he grimaced a little bit, shying away a little, as he was... well, completely naked. 

He tried to ignore that, and his reddening features as the man approached. The man seemed to recognise Elke, and his time looking her way gave him a chance to get into a good position to jump. He called over his radio, and Xavier, having studied police codes and terminology extensively, knew exactly what was going on. 

He also saw the clones closing in. "You won't get away with this... You've failed the system you swore to uphold, and you will pay."

They had one chance to do this right. As the clones pounced, the man would surely fire. When he did, Xavier was there, his body in the way of the bullet.

He was far from self sacrificing, though, as the bullet was flung harmlessly off to the side, and he was likely racing her to the pummel fest that was about to occur on the crooked cop. 

Fire he did. Two clones tackled him bodily from behind, even with one clone sporting a broken arm and rib. Elke hardly flinched as Xavier hopped into action and rather than stare at his presumably taunt tush while he and her twins kicked the crap out of a crooked cop, she pulled her backpack off and started rifling through it for the things she needed to wrap up their job with a nice little bow.

At some point, she interrupted the punchfest and shooed her clones away. Zipties secured the cop nicely so that even if he woke up, he wouldn't be going anywhere before the actual cops arrived. She then proceeded to dress him up like a Christmas present with festive ductape and pages upon pages of the various evidence of his guilt she had compiled. Black and white printed photographs of him from afar with some of the very people in the room, documents she had discovered in the pawnshop that either mentioned him or were signed off by him. A few cases that were open to the public that she had pulled up where he had been involved and where evidence had mysteriously vanished.

She finished it all off with a little sticky note with the directions to an anonymous page where all of the printed information could be found, in color even! She didn't have time to decorate his face with a pink sharpie like she wanted to, but ehhh, it was still a massively successful job!

Dusting her hands, she stood back up and shouldered her bag again. She was pleased. Heck, more than pleased. She was @#$%ing GLEEFUL at how this had gone down.

Happiness was infectious, too. So, being in a mood to share, she turned to her partner in crime-fighting. Elke grabbed him by the hair, went up on her tiptoes, and pressed a deep, greedy, elated kiss right smack onto his mouth.

"OOOOOHHHHH! Her clones lost it. Arms (cept for the one) flew up into the air and they pointed at her as they hollered at the top of their lungs. "YOOOOOOOOO!"

Elke dropped back down and released him, licking her lips as she turned without a care in the world and tossed a baggie of more zip ties at him.

"Better get to work!"

Honestly, Police officers breaking the law made him almost as angry as a man running around killing people while sporting a judge theme. He may have punched this man a lot. By the time the guy was out nice and cold, he looked back to see the pile of evidence Elke had dropped about, and raised an eyebrow.

Oh, wow, she'd really thought this out, huh? It was sorta neat, actually, he would have to say something about it- oh, there she was! He could mention it now. Wait, she was reaching up at him. Crap, she was going to hit him? She grabbed his hair, and pulled him down, and his eyes widened as she planted a kiss on his lips.

Woah.

Like... Woah. He was almost too shocked to enjoy it. Almost.

He caught the bag of zip ties by absurdly well trained reflex and stood there for a second, before using it to cover his manhood, which he'd remembered was exposed. Quickly he got to zip tying the man while also trying to cover himself. It was a diffcult task, honestly.

Soon, they were done, though, and he managed to pull off the police man's overcoat to tie around his waist at least.

It was better than nothing, right. Sirens were heard overhead, though. "We'd better get out of here, Elke... Uh... Fifth and parsons... We are a few blocks from my place... If we could head there so I could... Well, you know, not be naked..." Just ignore the fact that she kissed you. Ignore it. You are naked right now. Don't think thoughts. Stop.

Clothes first, then thoughts.

She went and retrieved her wire from big bossman's neck, tucked it and her slingshot away in her bag and went around collecting her arrows back up. A good twist and a yank and they were hers again. Stuffed back in her quiver to be disposed of later.

She slipped her coat back on over it all, backpack back on last, and turned back to Xavier as he finished and spoke up. "Yeah, sure. Sounds good."

She waved her clones over. One of them still couldn't look in Xavier's direction even through her riot helmet, and the other was giving him two thumbs up and a huge grin. That clone was promptly smacked silly until they were both silent and compliant.

"Back to the school. Clean up and hide. Not a word to my dad yet, you hear me?"

There was a chorus of 'Yes Ma'am!'s and then the two twins scrambled off. She waited for just a bit to make sure they didn't come scrambling back with more questions, and then turned and jerked her chin at X.

"Let's get going."

Man, the bus ride the few blocks over was even more awkward than the bus ride to the warehouse had been. Xavier was naked for one, save for a coat tied around his waist, and Elke had reclined herself back in a seat again, but it was in a different row than him. The bus was a bit crowded. Thus, she was sitting in the seat in front of his. A dude sat in the seat beside her, passed out and snoring quietly. She was busy scrolling through various social media platforms on the silent ride, ignoring most of the looks everyone else was giving them. Really, it was best if she did. One wrong sideways glance and she'd cause a scene and get them kicked off.

Once they were actually at his place, she let the silence drop.

"Wow, you live in a @#$% hole."

Honestly, he couldn't stop looking over to her during their ride to his apartment building. It had been hard enough to look at her gawking clones on the way out. Oddly enough, the bus driver hadn't taken a second glance, It was a fairly busy bus, though, and he'd been force to sit in the back, a few rows from the native.

Why were his hands sweaty? He took a deep breath, and scooted a few more centimeters away from the grandma he'd been sitting next to, who was eyeing him intently. She waggled her eyebrows, and he hopped up. "Uh, my stop."

He hurried past Elke to the exit of the bus, assuming she would follow.

There was a slight wince as she mentioned the conditions of his apartment. "They're, you know... working on it... Close to the school, though!" He smiled, and pushed in the little keycode to get in. The lock half opened the first time, and then fully opened the second time. Always did that.

He then opened it up, and made his way up the stairs to the right... The elevator was broken. All the while he was careful not to go up ahead of her... No views. They were on their floor before too long, and he walked up to his apartment... Gosh, was his heart beating fast? Must have been the climb up the stairs. Yeah. Boy, was his throat dry, though.

"Uhm... This one- this one's mine." He reached into the coat pocket for the key, which he'd had to scrounge for on the floor of the warehouse.

Soon the door creaked open to reveal a wide studio, with obviously DIY knocked down walls. His bed was on one side, neatly made, and sporting a dresser on one side, and a stereo on the other. Across there was a punching bag, lots of workout equipment, and a couch. In the middle there was a monument of memorabilia, including wall mounted shelves with statues, comics, collections, ETC. It was like the place was a neatly divided space for three people. One, a human with needs, another a workout buff, and the third, a giant nerd. Only they were all one person, and he was naked.

He walked in, and invited her in, looking around awkwardly. "Uh... Yeah, um... make yourself comfortable. I gotta... Change."

Was it amusing that he was so red the whole time? Yes.. yes it was. She couldn't figure out if it was due to being Nekkid in public, or because she'd kissed him.

Then again, she'd gotten him to blush a handful of times before he was naked, hadn't she? Heh!

He rushed off the bus and she did indeed follow, tucking her phone away and keeping up with his stride.

"Sure, they always say that. All @#$%holes are the same around here. Bet your elevator's broken too, innit?"

It was. She grinned at him smugly.

The trip up the stairs was probably even more awkward than everything that came before. He didn't wanna go in front, she didn't wanna go in front since she had no idea where his apartment was. So. Cue awkward side by side step climbing. "Jesus, I'm not going to stare at your taint or anything, calm the @#$& down."

It was slightly endearing how goddamn tense he was though. Poor boy scout didn't know what to do with himself!

He let them in and she stood just inside the door for a bit to silently appraise his place. It wasn't as much of a dump as the rest of the building, so that was nice. She hated unclean environments. Hadn't always cared for much, but couldn't stand them now. She took stock of the workout gear and its placement and have him brownie points for it.

"Oh god, you're a huge nerd." Was that a @#$%ing Becca action figure? Ew! Gross.

She refocused on him as he tried to escape to find clothes and slowly blinked at his stolen waistcloth.

"Sure, I guess." She shrugged off her coat and backpack and just kinda tossed them at the foot of his kitchen counter. The quiver was unclipped too and gently set down, and she kicked her shoes off last. Might have seemed like she was just being polite for a moment there until her top came off with it and she dropped that on the floor also.

"Sounds pretty @#$&in boring though." Maybe a teeny, tiny bit awkwardly she crossed his space and invaded his bubble again, locking eyes for a moment before she went in for a second kiss. He hadn't stopped the first one, right?

Whew. He was home free. The tension and just sort of nervous feeling he was getting. It had to be the nakedness getting to him, and here he was, digging through his dresser, preparing to fix that. Gee, why had he knocked the walls down again? It might have been nice to have a room, you know? Like, one to make it so you weren't naked looking for clothes in front of your guest.

He glanced over to Elke, oh, she was taking her shoes off, how nice. Back to the drawer. What was he going to wear? Why was that a hard decision. Socks. He needed socks. Why the heck was he digging through his sock drawer?

He needed pants. He needed a shirt. That stuff. I mean, nerds needed that stuff too. She said something about things sounding boring, was she closer? He looked up. His eyes went wide. He dropped his socks.

And now, a short poem:

She kissed him.

He kissed back.

Holy Crap.

*Fade to black*

You know, on one hand she was pissed because a lot of adults had lied to her face about what doing the do was like, and it was really just @#$%ed, right? On the other, apparently they had lied in the sense of really, really toning things down a lot, so... pleasant surprise, right?

Unfortunately, she got a little distracted by the, erm *cough* newfound past time she decided she liked and the rest of the day just kinda bled away into one big mess. Before she knew it, it was the next morning and she was a little dehydrated, sore, and sliiightly worried. Ever so slightly.

Her dad was probably royally pissed. Super peeved. All of the other synonyms for angry, probably. She'd vanished on him and not come home for dinner, and then forgotten to text even.

...Ah, well! It'd be fiiiiine! It wasn't like he knew where she was.

Elke was working through a relatively simple morning stretch routine in a borrowed t-shirt, while actively trying to avoid the stupid fluffy vermin that Xavier had allowed to live in his space. The dumb cat just kept showing back up after she shooed it away, purring like crazy and trying to rub up against her everywhere it could.

Orange ball of fluffy trash. Ugh.

She stretched her arms above her head and her back popped in six places and instantly felt better. She turned back to the kitchen and stooped to get her phone from her bag, pausing for a moment to loudly laugh at all of the hickeys she'd left practically all over his neck and shoulders.

Then she looked at her phone.

91 missed calls.

....Oh sh*t. She was in DEEP!

Her phone chirped loudly in her hand and a notification popped up suddenly.

[PANIC ALERT ACTIVATED. LOCATION SERVICES LINKED]