For the second week in a row he noticed someone breaking into his warehouse, they didn’t find the safe room he built one to be a safe house for him or any of his friends that needed it while they were out on patrol or needed a place to lie low. It wasn’t his only one in the city but for the second week in a row the sensors went off. Sam didn’t think much of it but it was around the same time so when he got information again he decided to investigate.

Turned out that someone had broken into his warehouse to store something, he didn’t know what but he intended to find out. His warehouse may have looked abandoned and an easy place to store something but it wasn’t.

The icemancer managed to follow the car to another warehouse, who owned it didn’t matter. The icemancer was curious more than anything.

It was late night; the moon illuminated the roof as he touched down just as the car entered the building. He landed quietly and took to cover to see if he could spot anyone or any cameras. There was only one that quickly got a knick in the wire. He walked the roof sending out the cold to feel for anyone else as he walked to a skylight and crouched looking in seeing some dim lights that illuminated a few men blatantly holding guns.

Good, Sam felt like hitting something.

Okay, so it turned out, finding dirt on the russians was more difficult that messing with the italian mob. For one, they were much more diligent about letting their leaders walk around casually.

For another, they covered their tracks well, with single operations being well contained and barely leaving a paper trail to any other branches of their mafia.

Finally, they were lucky and seemed to have great eyesight. So, when she was snooping around following one of their break in crews to get pictures, one of them spotted her, and threw her into their van. So, now, she found herself in a familiar situation.

EllaLouise Gartner was tied up in the back of an unmarked van. Mind you, she was working on getting out. She kept a scalple in her open stomach wound for just such an occasion. Getting it to poke out required some practiced maneuvering, but soon it was rubbing against the rope with every movement of her body.

What was, until the van came to a stop, and she was lifted out by her hogties, and dropped unceremoniously into the pale beam of light coming down from the skylight above.

A giant of a man's form could be seen in the shadows, and a deep voice echoed out as a hand motioned, and the other men's weapons were trained on her.

"Someone has been snooping in our operations. My men describe... little girl, takes picutre with her phone. Tries to hide when seen. We go out on business, and... low and behold. Here is little girl, try to take picture. Try to hide when seen. Easy peasy. Little girl. Tell me why I don't kill you right now, throw you in the sea?"

L, from her well secured position, surrounded by men with guns, looked up with a bored expression, and shrugged as best she could. "Woof, nice monologue, fatty. By all means, give it a go. I'm a sh$%ty swimmer, so you've got that going for you. I'll miss this dress, though."

Not taking kindly to being called fat, the man gave the order, and the men started shooting.

A van pulled into the warehouse watching the entire scene unfold Sam cursed when a child was removed from it. One of the thugs got close to her said something and before the shooting could take place several ice constructs followed by a now infuriated icemancer kicked down from the roof ruining his plans to see what was going on. They were going to shoot a kid. That was a big ‘no-no’ in his mind. Everyone was about to figure it out.

The first one to touch down was an ice clone same size as Sam and even looked like him, had a matching eye patch and everything. The ice clone landed and turned towards the kid and wrapped her in a hug. While a larger golem of ice landed on the fan with a loud crash. Anyone who was standing near it would have been startled enough to stop shooting at the kid.

The words ‘ice’ ‘kid’ and ‘kill’ were heard a few times through out the confusion as Sam leapt from an ice slide and landed in the center of everything. The golem struggled to get free from the van that was wrapped around him. ”Who shoots a kid?” he asked allowed pointing two hands at the groups of gunmen. With his armor of ice covering his body he asked again this time in Russain. He was still a little rusty but he heard a few clicks of people reloading.

”Kid. Your safe now. Everyone else here…. “You’re ****ed”

Welp, here came the minor inconvenience of getting shot in the face several times. Or so she thought. Instead, a frozen ice man landed in front of her, and decided it was hug time. Since she was hogtied, there wasn't much she could do about that other than let out a quick - "What the @#$%-"

There was a loud crash as a large ice golem landed atop the van with a great crash, causing the confused men to start firing in every which direction.

The man asked the room a simple question, to which the struggling munckin chimed in with, "A surprising percentage of the people I meet!"

The Russians ran for cover, and a commotion was heard deeper in the warehouse as well... More were on their way. The large shadowy man cursed louldy in Russian and yelled as he ran toward the commotion,"It is X-Man. Get him!"

"Oh, that's nice. I mean, I had it handled, but... Could you untie me?" The little girl replied to the strangely familiar looking eyepatched man from her prone position.

The ice clone shifted to a hug and scooped the young girl up still leaving her hogtied until they were covered by one of the shipping containers that littered the warehouse. ”You’ll be safe there.” Sam said as the clone started to go to work cutting the binds that held her. His clone stayed close to her just in case someone decided to go for her. Sam and the golem however had plans of their own and that was to inflict as much damage as possible.

The Golem now free from the van reached down and picked up the nearest gunman and opened its mouth wide enough for a body to go into. The gunman yelled as he was swallowed and the silhouette of the gunman was seen moving around in the golem. If the Golem could burp it would have been a loud one. Turning tot the next gunman it tried to repeat the process. However now they knew what he was capable of most of the other mafia guys decided to try and keep their distance from the golem. No one in his or her right mind wanted to be eaten right?

Meanwhile Sam danced between the nearest gunman and grabbed the nearest gun and froze it pulling the gunman who was holding it. Once in close striking distance Sam broke the guys elbow, punched him in the gut then the face and finished it with a stomp to the outside of his knee causing the bone to snap outwards. ”Yeah, X-man. Get him.” he mocked as he twirled and moved to the next unfortunate gunman.

In his best Russian Sam added, ”Can’t hide. Can’t run. Lay down and I won’t break you too bad.” he was told he could just get by if he was in Russia the only other Russian he knew well enough had teased him endlessly on his pronunciation, luckily Sveta wasn’t around other wise she would have had more to make fun of him with.

”Why were they shooting at you!” Sam yelled to the shipping container corridor where the child and his clone were at. ”Who are they other than Russian?” Sam asked as he threw a back fist into someone’s face and then fell forward into a roll bringing the punching bag with him.