Out for a walk

You know without a doubt, that the last thing you should be doing is going out on your own. Between your own volatile mood and the fact that metahuman crime was slowly, but steadily rising in the city- not to mention the presence of a member of the Justice **** and you are well aware that you are not only asking for trouble, you're actively courting it.

Closing your eyes, you attempt to calm yourself. Your emotions are running hot, and you briefly manifest an aura. You feel nearly invincible as your body becomes infused with psychic energy. A deep breath helps you diffuse and disperse it. However, your mood as not calmed in the slightest and your power is just itching to be called upon.

With the way your powers have been seemingly growing at an accelerated rate since your little jaunt into the Astral Plane, you can't help but be worried that you are going too far, too fast- just another overpowered metahuman statistic.

You remember just a few years ago- the incident in Champion City and the girl Janice Bree. There have been debates on what her exact powerset had been, but one thing had been certain. She was beyond powerful and even the combined might of the Justice **** and The Radikalz were no match for her and they'd had to rely on outside help. Even with the aid of relatively unknown metahumans of various powersets and allegiences it had ultimately come down to dumbluck that she's been defeated. That and her inexperience with her powers. Had she had time to properly learn to use her powers, she might have been able to defeat the united metahuman coalition that had risen up to face her.

It was with these turmoiled thoughts that you wandered aimlessly and without purpose. You simply knew that you needed to be away from Jen and Allie's apartment for the time being. It was increasingly becoming apparent that coming to stay with your elder sister may have been a mistake. Looking down at your right hand, and it glows dimly with barely restrained power.

'Well James, maybe Mother had the right idea after all. Maybe I am a freak,' you think morosely. Closing your hand into a fist, the power recedes.

"Well, well, well... Look at what we got here!?" announced a rather annoying thug.

Sometimes it really didn't help to get out of bed. You easily recognize the two people whose attention you've garnered. The first- the speaker- you had seen a couple times on the local news. He was a low/mid tier meta. No one particularly dangerous, but he had nasty connections- one that could potentially spell trouble for you. For the life of you, you can't even begin to fathom what his real or street name are.

The other one, however, WAS dangerous.

You are more than well aware of the fact that you were quite fortunate with what powerset had awakened and the way it had awakened. Not to mention the fact that you didn't develop any obvious physical mutations to facilitate the fact that you had powers.

Others were sometimes not as lucky.

The strongest telepath on record not only lost his hair, but his cranium had expanded to house an abnormally large brain. Almost from the instant he got his powers, he was seemingly capable of using them to their fullest extent. It was a toss up as to whether this instant access to power or the fact that he, and many others, felt that he was a mishappen abberation to the natural order, that corrupted him, but he quickly became corrupted by his own power.

The idiot thug's companion, was perhaps the most dangerous known metahuman in the city- and that included Maxwell Swift. More beast than man these days, the metahuman in question unimaginatively called himself The Beastman. Covered in black fur, his face was feline-like in appearance, stuck somewhere between a lion and a human. His muscle mass had greatly increased when he became a metahuman, his arms elongated and his posture was slightly slouched forward. Not only was he super strong, he was agile and fast. Beastman also possessed enhanced senses and reflexes- making him an excellent tracker and a dangerous combatant and, while not invincible, he was nigh invulnerable and had a pain tolerance that was likely to be unmatched.

Several times police had attempted to bring him down to no avail. And he liked to indulge his baser sado/masochistic tendencies in violent way. The name he chose for himself, as unoriginal as it was, was incredibly apt. Very few, if any, other metahumans indulged in his level of savagry with such revelry.

Despite his apex predator attitude, even the Beastman was a mid-tier meta, if not in power and ability, but in ranking. After all, it was well known that he was a member of the Knights of Walpurgis. However was pulling his strings was powerful or cunning in the **** and not to be crossed lightly.