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Ore on Lead
 Fire: superior (rank 2)
- Ranged Attack
- Area Affect
Mr. Burke manages Kameleon. You can always tell when he is lying; just look to see if his mouth is moving. But to be fair it would turn out he was never directly lying about the job, just forgetting to mention certain important elements.
The instructions seemed pretty simple at first. Meet up with Fiddlesticks, follow him, do whatever he says, and cover his ass. So there I was on Hope Street when the kind of guy who would voluntarily call himself ‘Fiddlesticks’ showed up. I don’t really have a thing for guys with bowties, so I just let his pick-up lines slide till we could finish the job. He drove us into Dockside. Josh never mentioned Dockside. I don’t particularly like Dockside, but hey, I don’t particularly like any of this.
We entered one of the import wharf buildings that turned out to be some administrative office, nothing of value in sight. The possibility that Josh was just doing this to fuck with me because of the frat boy incident was beginning to seem more likely.
But I was quickly proven wrong; Fiddlesticks knew exactly where he was going. In the owner’s office there was an impressively ugly picture of somebody’s mother. Fiddlesticks took it down to reveal a large black safe. He tried picking it for over half an hour before I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Oh for shits sake.”
I took a razor blade from my coat pocket and turned my wrist. A fresh cut was added among the tally mark of scars on my arm. Blood like molten iron floods out. I shoved Fiddlesticks out of the way and let a large volcanic drop hit the safe. Before long there wasn’t a lock, just a burned hole where a lock used to be. Fiddlesticks mumbled something about professionalism, then opened the safe. He grabbed a ledger from inside, as well as pocketing a few bundles of cash.
When we exited the building a row of cars was waiting for us, along with half a dozen armed goons with accents. Burke should have mentioned we were stealing from the Russian mob.
Fire on Ice
 Marksman: standard (rank 1)
I don’t know who owns the docks. And to be honest I don’t care, save that I can guess that Burke doesn’t like them that much. So when the bearded goon asked if I knew who the hell I was stealing from, I could honestly say I had no idea. But I didn’t actually say that, I was too busy curling the thick burning ore around my fist. As soon as he was done talking I flung my hand forward.
The entire area was sprayed with molten projectile and grown men ran screaming in a language I didn’t understand. You wouldn’t think I would have that much blood, but with a wide enough shot I can hit just about anything. I hope those guys weren’t too badly off, it wasn’t supposed to kill them or nothin’.
This would have been the part of the story where Fiddlesticks and I just ran like hell and never looked back. Bad news is that when I turned around he was frozen in a block of ice. How’d that happen?
“What’s wrong, am I interrupting your hot date?”
God I hate puns. The guy standing on the rooftop was dressed like he just escaped from a frickin’ comic book. I threw a smoldering softball sized missile towards him. He blocked it with an icicle. Seriously an icicle, what is he my evil-twin? Before I had time to say ‘what-the-fuck’, he pounced from the roof and froze me into a block of ice.
Crap.
Metal on Water
 Energy Body: superior (rank 2)
I guess I shouldn’t have been taken by surprise; as a meta myself I should have assumed that sometimes people look badder than they are. But I didn’t, I assumed I could take him easy.
He was about to give the big hero speech when the ice shattered like glass and I sent a left cross into his cheek. The flesh singed on contact.
I don’t really like using my power like this, it has nasty consequences. If shooting globs of molten metal is dangerous, covering your entire body in it is just plain stupid. I guess that just makes me the dumb-bitch of the month. Ice-guy threw up some useless defenses. His creations just melted into puddles. I was so sure I had him; then he turned into a talking bipedal mammoth.
Crap, again.
I could smell the odor of singed fur but it wasn’t enough to slow him down. He’s a lot quicker than you might think, and me, well I’m just sort of heavy. Like heavy metal, heavy. It’s a problem; I can’t dodge, I can’t sit in certain chairs, and I definitely can’t swim. That’s why I don’t like Dockside. When the mammoth shoved me into the bay it was all over. The protective shell covering my body became an anchor. The water was cold and I just kept sinking down till I couldn’t see the light.
My molten armor was cooling, hardening into a cocoon around my body. More like a coffin actually. I was paralyzed beneath the water, and little air bubbles zooming off the hardening shell were the last thing I remember. Oh wait, no, those bubbles were coming out of my mouth. I was drowning too.
When I woke up I was back on the dock, he was breathing into my lips and trying to pump my chest through a layer of solid metal. I vomited sea-water onto his shirt. To be fair, I never expected to wake up again, so I guess I owe Ice-guy an apology.
Slag Under Their Thumb
 Regeneration: standard (rank 1)
At some point during my half-conscious stirring, he left. I could barely find the energy to breathe, so its not like he was afraid I was going anywhere.
When the cops showed up, Fiddlesticks and the mobsters were all frozen in blocks of ice, which the police managed to smash open with sledge-hammers. I was a more complicated issue; they needed to call in the jaws of life to cut away the iron shell away. Oh and it gets better; my clothes weren’t molten iron proof. So there I am, daughter of Khazan’s greatest industrialists, laying naked on a dock, half drowned, while EMTs try to cut me out of an iron cocoon I spot welded to my skin. Fan-freaking-tastic, Emmi.
I stayed at Khazan General that night. They wanted me to stay a week for observation, but I guess my body’s been well trained to adapt itself to self-inflicted punishments. One of the patrol officers was nice enough to feed Gracie and bring me a change of clothes. The next day I was moved to central holding. The bail got paid, and I prepared to get an earful from Dad.
But Dad wasn’t the one who paid the bail. It was some smooth talking character in a cheap suit by the name of Mr. Jack. He worked for the same people Josh did, just higher up. He paid the bail, hired me a lawyer, and took care of everything I could need.
But now I owed them for covering for me. I didn’t want to say yes, but what choice did I have? I needed the cash, so now I was in their pocket. I was their ‘Syndicate Slag’. I really don’t like that nickname, I tried to get them to change it, Molten Miss, or Iron Lass. But Slag just caught on. Guess I’ve got no one to blame but myself for that.
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