Location New Athens Super Center - Western Wing-

In a splendidly furnished changing room, Amelia rested on the love couch as she flicked through a report given her less than ten minutes prior. She had been in the middle of trying out some white lingerie with feather motifs and admiring how they fit over her figure. Her caramel skin stunning on the snow-white fabric.

It was the type of report you don't want to receive when the mission was originally expected to be a simple and straightforward retrieval.

While it was over four pages long it boiled down to three annoying points.

First, unknown forces have been detected infiltrating the mall through the east wing slowly spreading out throughout the entire mall. Information courtesy of the technopaths she has under her employment.

The second one was that they had Lurkers, and from what it's looking like (C)-Ranked no less. A problem when you’d have to keep watch of your own shadows to avoid getting assassinated. The only positive note here was that their physical capabilities were barely (D+)-Ranked, so her X-series Bruisers would be enough to deal with them. As long as there weren't too many that is.

Lastly, but potentially the most chaos-inducing was the information about a new potential (SSS)- Graded individual having awakened their power within New Athens City lines. Amelia wasn’t an idiot and it didn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that either the unknown forces were here for either her target or the newly awakened.

“Diablo..” She whispered to herself as she began to dress. She didn’t have time to take off the lingerie she was trying out so instead she just sent Stephany a telepathic message to deal with the mundane task of purchasing the underwear for her.

It also helped that she really did like the way it look on her.

Once she was done, she stood there giving herself a quick glance to make sure she appeared as interesting as a regular 18-year-old latina. Minus the jaw-drop beauty, of course, that was a little difficult to ignore. Instead, she leaned into the casual beauty facade where she appeared to be unaware of her looks by dressing in a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt with some random video-game character plastered to the front.

It made blending with the masses a lot easier than overdressing.

“X-71, inform 72, and 73 to be wary of unknown faction Lurkers and Agents.” A wall of flesh and muscle 7ft tall ducked through the doorway as it entered the room.

“Affirmative.” A deep voice with some rumble to it came from the massive Enhanced. He moved to grab the report that Amelia was holding out to him.

“Burn these.” She stated.

“Affirmative.” The man responded as his hand suddenly caught fire destroying all evidence besides a light scattering of ash. No discernible emotion was visible on his rough-looking face.

Which was to be expected since they had none, something that a more innocent and younger Amelia had struggled to understand in her youth.

These were machines of flesh and blood. Tools designed to be the perfect minion.

There were no inner thoughts of any kind within them.

Continuing on Amelia exited the store while ignoring the people around her. She no longer fit with the trendy people around with her current apparel.

‘Stephany, I’m speeding up the assignment. I’ll be heading onwards to Joe’s now. Stay somewhere safe, and keep the X-70s informed for me. If your in danger high-jack X-73’s brain and have it defend you. Also only touch on upon our minds, we don't know if they brought any telepaths with them.’ Amelia sent.

‘Understood Heiress. Please stay safe as well.’ Stephany sent back, a woman of few words.

Amelia could see her in her mind in a forgotten janitor's closet or supply room sending commands to the X-series.

She chuckled under her breath as she entered the greater opening of the mall. The west wing was the largest of the four wings due to its need to hold so many stores.

Comparatively the north wing she was headed towards now wasn't as large but was much more open as it dealt with raw materials. It was geared towards handling the larger requests of construction and manufacturing as well as recycling.

She moved at a steady pace, her posture, and presence the perfect mixture of a somewhat unsociable teenage girl with nothing better to do than waste her weekend at the mall. Luckily for once, she was completely ignored. It wasn't beyond expectations to have one or two guys approach her.

It was as she was passing one of the open food courts, that some arguing caught her attention, which was strange considering she was skilled in ignoring the background noise that didn't consist of potential danger.

“I don’t know why you didn’t let me beat the shit out of that guy.” A fiery and short girl around her age squabbled with a young man of similar age.

“We’ve barely been here long enough to buy you idiots clothes. I don't need security kicking us out before we’re done. That is unless you’ve decided you don’t want to buy shit at Joe’s. I’m perfectly happy with not spending any more money.” He responded.

“I’m going to agree with her this time Lucas, that guy wouldn't leave her alone. He was lucky Reol only kicked him in the balls” Another girl responded in-between bites of a monster of a burger she held between her hands.

The guy turned around and with barely contained rage spit out his words slowly in a hushed tone doing his best to not attract too much attention, which was already a failed attempt considering Amelia wasn't the only one looking at the trio.

“And you. How the living fuck did you spend 900$ on clothes in the short time I was in that wanna-be goth shop with Reol.”

“Hey, are you shit-talking my clothes asshole?” The shorter girl responded, some neon pink glowing hair falling out of the beanie she was wearing warning Amelia of potential energy base powerset.

The young man ignored the neon pink-haired girl. Which only made the few strands in view glow brighter. Amelia could tell she was barely holding in the urge for violence.

The other girl who Amelia suspected was his sister due to them having almost identical eyes and hair color responded with a cheeky grin, some ketchup on the side of her mouth.

“Me myself and I move quickly what can we say? That, and good lingerie isn’t cheap you know.”

Amelia couldn't help but agreed, disgustingly wealthy as her family was her father had made sure to teach her the value of money through various lessons that still made her somewhat miserly under certain conditions.

Though the girl's choice of words was exceptionally strange.

“Nope, I'm going to pretend I didn’t just hear what you just said. I’m making enough of a scene as it is.” The man said as he rubbed his temples and regained a calmer outward appearance.

Only to have it destroyed once again as the girl dug into one of the many bags by their table and pulled out lingerie identical to her own recent purchase except they were black like raven wings instead of white doves.

“Good boy, now maybe I’ll give you a little show with these as a thank you!” She said with a radiant smile that somewhat charmed even Amelia herself, let alone the spectators.

So much so that she barely noticed as the young man lost it and grabbed the package holding the garments and threw it with all his strength.

Right at her.

Her body reacted instinctively as it step backward while plucking the package out of the air before it could pass her, an impressive display of finesse as the package had been spinning rapidly like a frisbee.

Which in the end did more bad than good as suddenly everyone went from attention was transferred from the trio to her.

‘Shit, I should have dodged, or better yet ignored this comedy act in the first place.’ Amelia thought to herself as she watched the horror light up in the young man’s eyes at his actions.

“Oh god! I’m so sorry.” The young man apologized as he jogged toward hers. His ease of speed was surprising in a way that hinted at either peak physical human, the more likely, improved physiology due to a power.

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” She spoke as shyly as she could trying to give the appearance of someone who would rather not continue talking. Which was technically also truthful.

Her regular self would have just said fuck off, or cut him to pieces, but this persona was the one she was planning on using at the academy so she would have to become accustomed to situations like this.

Still, it was annoying. How was she going to disengage from this without attracting even more attention? Amelia wondered to herself. At this point, everyone in the food court had more than just mild curiosity over the teens making a scene.

If she ran she’d only attract more attention, and she was sure to catch a Lurker's attention. They might not do anything besides follow her but it would be weird of her to run away so suddenly even if her anti-social persona gave her an out of sorts.

So instead she chose to lean even heavier into her current identity, showing as much nervous discomfort as possible in front of the guy as he approached.

“Sorry about that, for real. That girl sometimes makes me lose it.” Now face to face she couldn't help but inspect him for a brief moment as it was skill she performed without thought whenever she came face to face with a person of interest.

A little taller than average he stood between 6’1”, and 6’2”, making him tower somewhat over her modest 5’7”. Hand holding the back of his head, his face was flushed from the mortification of what he had just done but it was quite a cute appearance as it enhanced his boyish charm.

Wavey curls of brown silky hair gave him a messy yet attractive appearance of someone who didn’t care enough about a good impression beyond the bare minimum needed, while his blue eyes were clear like the sky beyond the skylight.

“Um, don’t worry about it…..” Adding a nervous titter to her voice she waved her hands anxiously hoping he would take the cue and realize that she didn’t want to continue this for too long.

Quickly handing him the garments she was about to disengage before he could apologize anymore when suddenly she got a telepathic message from Stephany.

‘Abort Mission! The Lurkers planted small explosives all over the Super Center!’ A blast of worried emotions that almost cause her to fall came from Stephany.

‘Those fucking morons they're going to bring the heroes guild down on us like this!’

Without a chance to respond to Stephany's warning, from the corner of her eyes, the young man's shadow grew darker, as a ripple spread from within, as though looking into a pond. A form hiding in plain sight.

Lurker.

She gazed back up at the man who was looking with worry as her no longer faux nervousness.

Then like a bolt of lightning, the thought struck her.

‘I can’t be this unlucky.’ There is no way that on this day, on a random mission taken only because of being nearby that a statistically impossible individual also appeared and somehow managed to drag her by suddenly throwing lingerie at her.

It was just insane.

Which only got even worse when the explosions began.