Metabrawl

"You don't want any of this," you warn him while halfway bluffing. One on one, you are more than certain you can take on the punk. Beastman, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.

You can see Beastman watching you carefully. His nostrils are flared and his posture is one of challenging dominance. You look into his eyes and the two of you connect on a primal level. He is more than well aware of the fact that he is an apex predator in the presence of another apex predator and he bares his teeth at you. There is a glint of challenge and anticipation in his eyes.

He wants to fight you.

"What if I do," the stupid thug asks arrogantly, getting in your face.

"Back. Off." you warn. Your power is instantly responding to your call.

"Fuck you!" the punk shouts as he shoves you.

It was all the excuse you needed to ruin his day. Using one hand, you place it on his chest and push. Your power responsed instinctively and he is sent flying into the brick wall of the building behind him. He makes a small impact crater on the wall as he bounces off of it and falls to the ground flat on his face.

For a brief moment, you're given a flash of insight and you can Beastman charge at one another. You rear back your fist, already charging it with as much psychic energy you can muster. Beastman does the same as he leaps towards you, his clawed hand forming a fist. Both of you, surging toward one another, each throw a punch, your fists meeting in the middle.

The loudmouth, trying to shake off his impact, looks up as Beastman howls out in pain as your fist broke severl bones in his hand- something that had never happened to him before, despite once being hit with an armored truck. Thinking that with two to one odds in his favor, he charges up power of his own and sends three rapidly fired bolts of plasma at you. Knowing that you have no time to dodge and that you are currently incapable of shielding yourself with your powers, you gesture with your left hand, gripping Beastman with your telekinesis, and move him in between yourself and your possible demise.

He screams in pain once more as the searing hot plasma tears into his furred back. Holding him in place, you thrust out your right hand and slam your newly made enemy back into the wall. You then pull him towards you. "Next time someone warns you to leave them alone... Leave them the fuck alone!" As you say this, you channel every bit of rage and anger that you are currently experiencing, making the thug nearly piss himself in sheer terror, before slamming him back into the wall.

Through all this, Beastman was not idle as he struggled to get out of your telepathic grip. With your attention on his compatriot, he nearly succeeded. Reinforcing your hold on him, you use both hands to telekinetically hold him still. "Bastard! I'm gonna fucking rip you apart!" he roars in primal fury.

Bring his face level with yours, you look him square in the eyes. He snarls and rages against you and it's all you can do to keep him from succeeding in attacking you. You sneer at him, letting his rage feed into yours. "You'll be lucky if you remember your own name, let alone my face."

With that said, you begin to reach into his mind. You're not careful, you're not subtle and it's not painless. Beastman roars out in pain once more as you forcibly rip his memories of what you look like from his mind, obliterating them utterly and completely. The stress on his mind and brain are such that he actually starts bleeding from his nose. Before he can recover, you spin around one hundred and eighty degrees and fling him with all of your substantial telekinetic might.

You're only mostly certain he'll survive his inpromptu flight.

Meanwhile, the thug who picked a fight with you, is still on the ground looking at you in sheer terror as you seemingly effortlessly hurt and defeated a metahuman he wasn't sure could be hurt or defeated. "W-Who... What are you!?"

"Call me... Mastermind..." you say after you telekinetically grab him once more. Just like Beastman, you reach into his mind while looking into his eyes. You're no more gentle with him than you were with Beastman. It's readily apparent, even if it wasn't before, that Beastman is far more resilient than his partner in crime, who screams and passes out, while also bleeding from his ears, nose and eyes as you rip more than just his memories of what you look like, but also all knowledge of his powers: how he got them, what he could do with them, that he even had them. For all intents and purposes, he had been effectively stripped of his powers.

You carelessly drop his seemingly lifeless body on the ground as your powers, which had been thrumming just underneath your skin, calms itself as you had successfully purged the negative emotions you were feeling. It all hits you like a ton of brick and you almost think you're going to be sick, despite the proud feeling at having easily defeated two other metas.

"James, I got you," a familiar feminine voice stated as she pulled you into a hug. Without seeing who it is you bury your face in the crook of her neck as you try to steady yourself and find equalibrium. A job made easier in the presence of a person you know without knowing. Unbidden, a name comes to mind, like the echo of a memory long forgotten- Delphi.

The two of you are silent as she holds you. The both of you are content and you take a moment to inhale the scent of her floral shampoo. It isn't long before you break the silence. "Thanks for being here for me, Delphi."

She giggles in response, as if you'd just said something incredibly silly. "You saved me. Saving you was the least I could do."

You pull back from Delphi, to get a good long look of her face. Unsurprisingly, it's the red hair and green eyes that have been haunting you since your stint in the Astral Plane that you immediately notice. However, your eyes widen in shock when you see Delphi's face. She is both pleased and anxious that you obviously recognize her as both Delphi and herself. You, on the other hand, are stunned speechless.

"Y-you...!"