Morning sun streamed into the Mendolsson Memorial Hostel for Displaced Metahumans, bringing the same promise of hope and joy it brought to every mornin since time began. However, one resident was not particularly happy about the sun.

	Rolling out of bed and grabbing his cane, Anthony hobbled over to the window, and pulled the blinds shut. Grunting, he eased himself back down on the bed, and grimaced at how pathetic he felt. “I used to start every morning with a workout and a run,” he muttered. “Now, I’m lucky if I can cross the room.”

	A knock and a yell from his door interrupted his self-pity. “Wake up, leatherneck, it’s time to start heading out!” came the booming voice of Brian Murphy, also known as Hauler.

	Anthony responded the best way he knew how. Waiting for just the right moment, when Hauler opened the door, he tossed one of his shoes. The flying footwear clonked Hauler right between the eyes, not hard enough to hurt him, but definitely enough to startle him. “I’ll be out there when I can! It’s not easy with this bum leg, yannow!” he snarled.

	Brian grinned. “Gee, someone needs his coffee this morning, huh?” A negligent toss, and the shoe landed on the bed, next to Anthony. “John wants you in ‘uniform’, Marine. It’s been two days, and the local media is having a field day.”

	Moaning, Anthony rolled over once more, and began dragging on his clothes. “Aww, no. What are they saying?”

	Brian shrugged. “Ah, the typical. ‘Is Legion cut out for this?’, and ‘Why can’t they find one of their own?’. That sort of thing.”

	“Great. Just great.” He looked thoughtfully at his boots. “And I have no idea how I’m going to force my broken leg into this other boot, either.”

	“Well, maybe Darkenwulf can come up with something for you,” suggested the massive metahuman. “Leave it off, and we’ll go down and see.”

	They walked down the hall to the new elevator, and took it to the first basement level, to Darkenwulf’s lab. Sure enough, the lupine alien was there, fiddling with something of arcane appearance. “Ah, Anthony, excellent. I was intending to get this completed before you woke up, but I guess it’s just as well.” He held up what appeared to be a thin-walled tube of metal, with a few buttons near one end.

	“Well, should I be disappointed?” asked Anthony. He fiddled with his hair as he looked at the tube, causing his hair to grow to shoulder length, then back to a USMC High and Tight haircut.

	“Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s something you can use to get back into your morning excercise routine faster,” chuckled Darkenwulf. “It’s a form of brace, but one that uses a combination of simulated gravity and other forces to hold the bones in your leg together under almost any stress you can put ir under. It will heal in the usual amount of time, but you will be at full readiness as long as you wear it.”

	Anthony’s eyes grew wide. “Excellent! I mean, it’s too late for today, but just in time for tomorrow! How do I put it on?”

	While Darkenwulf carefully attached the tube around Jarhead’s broken leg, Hauler glanced around the lab. He could barely recognize most of the items present as being some variation on normal lab and medical equipment, but other devices seemed beyond his understanding. “Well, when the two of you are done with that, let’s get back upstairs. John is holding an impromptu interview with some of the news people, before we all leave to search for Calvin again.”

	“Of course, Brian,” said Darkenwulf. “We have just finished. Shall we go?”

***********************************

	The front yard of the Hostel was almost literally crawling with reporters by the time the three reached the front door, where the rest of Legion waited. A podium had been erected with several microphones on it, and John Mendolsson, also known as Silverlance, was pacing back and forth behind it, apparantly waiting for his errant teammates. “Wow,” muttered Jarhead, “When you said ‘some of the news people’, I didn’t know you meant from every single TV and radio station in the Side Range!”

	Hauler just stared at the mass of people with cameras, notepads, and microphones, his jaw open. “I... I... I didn’t think it would be so many...”

	“Good, you guys are here. We can get this thing started. Jarhead, you’re on my left. Hauler, on my right. Darkenwulf, you’re between Flamestrike and Dragonlord,” said Silverlance to them as they exited the building.

	“Heh, wanted to keep as much space between Dragonlord and a microphone as possible, eh, boss?” chuckled Anthony.

	“You don’t know the half of it,” groaned John. He shook his head, and the four assumed their places. Taking a deep breath, Silverlance addressed the crowd of reporters. “Thank you for coming here today. The first thing I would like to do is to stress that we will most certainly find our missing comrade, and return him home,” he began.

	Before he could get any further, questions and demands for answers erupted from the crowd. The noise was tremendous, and John had to strain to be heard, even over the impromptu loudspeaker system set up. “Please, please, We don’t have any time to answer questions, we have to take every possible moment to find Calvin!”

	The noise did not abate, but grew in intensity. Each reporter shouted his or her question as loud as possible, both to be heard and prevent their neighbor from being heard. “CUT IT OUT!” bellowed Hauler, so loud that a few reporters standing just a little too close were actually knocked over by the force of his voice.

	As soon as the ringing from his ears had quieted down, John glanced over the stunned crowd. “As I said before, we are doing everything we can to find our missing comrade. No matter where he is, we will find him, and bring him home. Thank you.” Disgusted with the proccess, he turned, and walked back towards the Hostel door.

	Three figures in long coats and wide-brimmed hats, near the back of the crowd, nodded to each other. The coats suddenly were ripped off, revealing glistening black bodysuits and obvious cybernetic prostheses. “Reporters, leave now if you want to live!” shouted one, whose right hand transmogrified itself into a gleaming metallic sword.

	“Legion, we’re under attack!” shouted Silverlance. “Amber, Wingstorm, Flamestrike, Dragonlord, the five of us will provide covering fire while the reporters escape, and the close combatants move forward! That’s you, Hauler and Jarhead. Darkenwulf, Gateway, help the reporters get in the Hostel!” He raised his hand, and shimmering silver energy cascaded in the general direction of the cyborgs, who narrowly avoided it.

	“Feel the rage of Decibel!” shouted one of the cyborgs, with what looked like a loudspeaker for a hand. He pointed the speaker at the advancing Hauler and Jarhead, and a high-pitched squeal erupted from it. Along the path of the focused somic beam, both Hauler and Jarhead dropped to their knees, unable to think through the pain the white noise barrage brought.

	“And the hate of Gauntlet!” shouted another, the one with unusually large forearms and hands. His hands retracted into his forearms, and beams of unknown energy began to blast forth, chewing up the ground between them and the stunned Hauler and Jarhead.

	The last one stayed silent, his sword-hand flashing as he ran foward to the foe. However, before he could reach the helpless pair, a bolt of searing flame slammed into his ally, Decibel, from above. Suddenly superheated, his emergency response units activated, sealing off his brain and spinal cord to prevent their damage, sending him into unconsciousness. “That’s one!” suddenly shouted Glaive, the blade-armed one.

	Jarhead dropped into a low stance, seeing the large cyborg heading his way. Estimating the weight of that much metal at a glance, he nodded to himself, and simply waited. Behind him, Hauler shook his head to clear his vision, because one of Gauntllet’s blasts had kicked up a lot of dirt into his eyes. Before either could react, Glaive suddenly switched course from Jarhead to Hauler, and slammed full into the one-ton metahuman, who grunted, and fell back a step.

	“We don’t know if that blade can hurt you,” shouted Silverlance. “Dodge!” He then fired once more, this time connecting with Gauntlet on one of his forearms. he glanced back, and was reassured by the sight of the door to the hostel closing as the last of the reporters escaped inside.

	“Har, that’s two!” shouted the cyborg, who began to fall back, covering the fallen Decibel.

	Amber and Dragonlord had reached the melee in the middle of the field by this time. “Dragon, you cover me with your flame breath!” she shouted, pointing at Gauntlet who was still blasting away with his remaining arm. He nodded, and sheets of flame cascaded forth from his mouth, surrounding the cyborg with flame hot enough to melt steel. 

	“That’s three!” exclaimed Glaive, as Jarhead narrowly dodged the gleaming blade by diving to one side. Amber saw this, and took advantage of the moment to snatch up the last cyborg in a grip of golden energy. “And four!” he shouted triumphantly. “One left!”

	Confused at the cyborgs’ counting, Wingstorm flew ahead of her comrades, and saw that Gauntlet had still withstood Dragonlord’s flame. “Heh, don’t use flame ‘gainst me!” he shouted. “My whole body’s polyceramic, it can resist the heat of a sun!”

	“But what about my blades?” asked Wingstorm, hurling forth a volley of spinning psionic blades that ripped through the cyborg, tearing apart some sections that were entirely inanimate, but passing through others as raw mental energy. Gauntlet staggered, and fell to one knee.

	“Five! Now!” shouted Glaive, as he managed to work hos non-blade arm free of Amber’s energy construct. He threw something with that hand, and huge clouds of smoke billowed forth, blinding everyone still remaining out in the yard. 

	Blinded by the incredibly thick, grey smoke, Silverlance yelled, “Hold your fire! Wingstorm, fly above the cloud, and create as strong a wind as you can with your wings!” As she did so, the smoke began to blow away, to show no sign of the cyborgs. The yard was pitted with craters from the various blasts. Not even footprints were left behind, only the tattered remnants of the trenchcoats they had worn.

	“Blast it!” shouted Jarhead. “I KNEW those mob guys couldn’t have been our new enemy!”

	Silverlance nodded. “Yes, you were right. Flamestrike, you’re closest to the door. Go let the reporters know it’s safe to come out.”

	She pointed. “I don’t think I hafta do that, boss.” They turned, and saw the doors opening, and the reporters cascading out. “I saw ‘em watching at the windows in the middle of the fight.”

	Groaning, Silverlance walked up to the surprisingly undamaged podium, as a hundred questions at a time were shouted to the air. “Hold on, please, one at a time, I can’t hear you, could you please...”

	“RROOOOOAAAAARRRRRR!”

	The call resounded through the scarred yard, even louder than Hauler’s earlier shout. Everyone looked to the side of the Hostel, where they saw Calvin Hobbes, also known as the Black Tiger, walk forwards. “Ya better give ‘im time to answer th’ questions! It’s only polite, after all.”

	“Calvin!” yelled almost all of Legion, nearly simultaneous. They rushed him, and nearly dog-piled him in their rush to welcome him back.

	“Hiya, guys! I missed you all,” he said.

	Hauler cuffed him gently on the back of the head. “Where the heck have you been? You’ve had the entire Hostel worried about you!”

	“Umm, can we talk about this inside? I don’ like the hungry looks those reporters got on their faces,” responded the feline humanoid.

	As they headed to the entrance, Gateway eased up next to Hauler. “Cat hair,” she chuckled.

	“Ball o’ yarn,” he answered. The two started making faces, holding in laughter, as Calvin, not quite understanding but knowing they were referring to him, just shook his head, and walked inside his home.

********************************

	A cyborg technician approached Earthshaker later that day. “Sir, the reports from your reconnaissance team are in.”

	“Excllent, Staff Sergeant. I will review these in a moment. Begin the project we discussed now,” he replied, taking a disk of plastic from his underling. As the technician left, he inserted the disk into a slot on his desk, and aplugged one finger into another port.

	“Hmm... so Flamestrike’s flame has almost the exact same consistency as the plasma found in the corona of a star, while Dragonlord’s is almost entirely methane-based. Interesting...” He fell silent, reviewing the data his men had gathered, and a broad grin spread across his face. “Interesting, indeed...”