An Unusual Enemy

Jeremy had been walking along the beaches for most of the day, it was now evening and the sun qas starting to set. making decent sized waves for some of the surfers to ride as he went along. He had been doing this for the past hour, mainly to hang out with some of the aquatic loving people. The surfers who wiped out and ended up on the shore would often run by Jerry and say, "Thanks for the wave little dude!" Jeremy would give a slight chuckle and say, "No problem, got nothing else to do right now."

About ten minutes later he would find a hooded man walking along the beach. This man would turn to Jeremy and with a flash from under his sleeve, he would suddenly push the wave into the beach, wiping out all the surfers and crash them into the beach. One would look at Jeremy and say, "Very funny, but that hurt quite a bit." As soon as this was said, the hooded man suddenly lifted that water in the air and start launching blasts at Jeremy, causing him to take the defensive in a fight he wasn't even expecting. Jeremy pulled some water and started blasting back at the shots to hold a defensive. This fight randomly started and it was obviously getting no where fast.

It was a wonderful day for a ride and it was something that Roy hadn't done for a while so now on a break day from training with Diamante he would take a long ride down to the beach and enjoy the sun sand and surf, maybe even eat lunch on the boardwalk. It'd been so long since he'd stretched his bikes legs that he'd taken it down the highway and let it run free before slowing down for the road that ran parallel with the boardwalk.

Having stopped to admire the waves, and watch the surfers wipe out, Roy was taken aback as he noticed some waves washing up higher down the beach, this intrigued him, so he locked his bike and helmet and went to investigate, trotting down the boardwalk to see... two hydro-kinetics duke it out. One he recognized from his school, a good underclassman, but otherwise unremarkable.

The other was still hidden, and seemed to be on the offensive. Roy would take a moment and analyze the situation, he wasn't going to just jump in and start swinging, he didn't have enough information, however the people around them seemed to be clearing out not gathering around leaving out an exhibition match of sorts, and training like his and Phalanx' would be done more privately, this was a fight and Roy was unsure who the aggressor was. He would wait and see, just not too close.

Jeremy hadn't noticed Roy watching as he was busy avoiding someone through water at him... That was his thing! He decided that enough defending was enough and started launching water from the ocean at the masked figure, getting a couple good hits in and pulling some more water close to him to start slashing. His foe, of course recovers and grabs his own water, ready to fight water swords with water swords. The hits were seemingly equal in power and this guy doesn't seem to be retreating much from taking a couple hits. The slashing goes on for a while until Jeremy pulls another blast from behind his foe after him and threw him forward, towards his knee. The masked man narrowly dodged it my using his own liquid abilities to push himself outta the way. This fight was seeming to just go on and on.

There was just too much going on that Roy didn't understand. Well there was no better time than now to make himself a target. He would run a hand through his messy White helmet hair, take a deep breath and excrete some quicksilver into his palms if this went pear-shaped as quickly as it could. He would have to stay on his guard and not let the silvery liquid in his palms be noticed by either, he would keep them close to his body, if either one did anything stupid he'd be able to deploy it quickly and hopefully counter.

Standing up strait Mister Mercury stepped into the crossfire. "Stop this now! Both of you!" He gave his best drill sergeant impression, noticing the masked man's will to hide his face as he made his way. Many hero's wore masks but this guy didn't give off that kind of vibe. Not while fighting with a school kid. He was starting to get a sense of how this was going to go.

Jeremy had only just noticed Roy when he jumped in front of them. He would've stopped if it weren't for a certain masked man continuing on, angling his attacks at Roy. He changed the angle of his own attacks to deflect the masked man's and ran next to Roy, "Hey... Guy, don't know your name yet sadly, sorry. But uhh... Yeah, this may look bad, but I was attacked by this guy who is using the exact same abilities as me a-" His sentence was cut short as he got blasted back by the masked man's water attacks.

After climbing back to his feet and now covered in sand, and spitting some out, he said, "Okay, there's your proof... Now lemme restrain this guy..." He then pulled some more water from the ocean and batted this masked man with it, knocking him aside. The man got back up rather quickly and tried slashing at both of them again, Jeremy was blocking his own attacks, but could help out Roy now.

Roy was taken aback as Jeremy the kid her recognized stopped and addressed him only to be blasted back by a spray of water from the masked man who ignored him. That was going to be this guy's last mistake.

The next blast that came at Roy wouldn't even get close as Roy formed a long skinny rod, and with all the power in his hips spun and lashed out at the spray with a long sweeping attack that scattered the water making it rain down onto the already drenched sand.

Roy wouldn't give his new opponent a chance to counter his attack shifting onto the balls of his feet once more and moving diagonally from his opponent and attacking at a ninety-degree angle from Jeremy attacking from the inland side. Wielding his rod and attempting to strike the man's neck or face with enough force to knock him out cold in one blow.

The masked man would've been able to block the attack, if he hadn't been using water as a power at the moment. He at best, slowed down Roy's attack to be hit less hard about it, keeping himself awake, though after being thrown aside, he is still completely unable to get up at all, he is down for the count.

Jeremy was relieved that Roy attacked he did. He, alone, would've had more trouble. He quickly ran over to the obviously really injured man on the ground and grabbed him by the collar, saying, "How did you take my powers?" As he said this, he made a point by pulling up the maximum weight he can carry for water right now, one hundred gallons on water above this guy's face. After realizing that that was a bit much, he dropped the water aside the man and tore off the hood, only for it to reveal one of the many powerless school bullies within the school, Joe.

Now Roy recognized the man with the hood, but he wasn't exactly a man, he was a boy, a bully none the less someone Roy was sworn to destroy and destroyed the kid he had, his superior skills hadn't been lost on striking the boy at the off angle. And he'd also not been off target thanks to his training in the fencing club.

Mister Mercury was about ready to dash the water but instead Jeremy did it for him discarding his coup de grace just after questioning the boy. That was fine but you didn't throw your hand when you had the upper hand. Taking the rod he'd formed the rough young hero pressed it into the base of the downed boy's neck, in the notch where his collar bones met, the pain was an eye opener. Pulling the produced weapon away from the boy's neck Roy released the pressure, allowing the beaten bully to speak.

"How." Roy didn't so much ask as demanded preparing to inflict pain again if the boy didn't so much as cough in an answer.

Joe looked up at Roy from where he was lying and saw the threat very clearly. He said, "Some guy gave me a little machine-thingy that let me steal powers and only told me to beat up supers." Jeremy grabbed him by the collar, "Alright, you tell us where this guy is."

"He changes locations every hour or so, I don't know where he is."

Jeremy sighed and dropped the injured kid, "Let's go take him to the nearest station." He then pulled out the sleeve and started moving to the station, carrying Joe by the right arm.

Well that was infuriatingly odd, a guy with machines that lets normals copy the powers of supers. It was something that bothered Roy in a serious way. How many of these devices were in existence, how close did one have to be to copy the powers? How long did the powers last? How much did the device cost? Did this Joe have the device on him? It was like the guy selling the machines was some sort of drug dealer. Information was the best way to combat dealers, and right now Roy was going to get information from his current prey.

"No." Roy told Jeremy, planting his foot right in the middle of Joe's chest and stomping the young bully back to the ground most likely knocking the wind out of him again. "Me and this kid are going to play twenty questions. For every answer I like I don't break a bone." Roy growled. He wasn't much of a hero, and he was damned if he was going to be bit in the ass if this thing fell into the hands of people he'd already avenged himself upon. This had already ruffled his feathers and he was already soaked by this guys antics, people could have been hurt and worse. Joe would learn a lesson here, and then the guy selling that crap would get a taste.

Poking Joe's nose with the metal rod. Roy began to ask his questions. "Where is the device you bought. Right now, What was the location you bought the device from this guy? Was it at Alabaster High?" He demanded, keeping firm pressure on Joe's chest with his foot so the guy couldn't catch his breath quite as quickly.

Jeremy wasn't exactly wanting to get beaten again through interrogation, but stepped aside as Roy started asking questions. Joe started answering the questions as fast as possible, "On my arm, where else!" He pointed to he already really injured and likely broken left arm and there was in fact a broken device that doesn't seem to be able to give off any info due to the damage done. "Random alleyway on Topaz street, he's gone now." He knew Roy would be smart enough to realize that isn't Alabaster High.

Now that he had the subject answering questions Roy let up a little bit, letting the man catch his breath a little positive reinforcement for doing good and answering questions. Though not getting beaten half to death and having every bone in your body broken should have been motivation enough for any man to spill his guts, some were needlessly obstinate. It would have cost this Joe fellow a trip to the hospital. Thankfully there was no buyer loyalty here. For now it was all Roy could do to get as much information out of this particular worm as he could.

Topaz street was a good start, but a uniformed officer would scare away anyone selling such a shady device. Roy would have to investigate, he might even see if someone in the SAFE program could help him with such a device.

However Roy kept the actual stick part of his carrot and stick interrogation visible and in Joe's face as he continued to ask questions. "What did this guy look like? What was he wearing? How many did this guy have to sell? How much did it cost? How close to you have to be to copy powers? How long do you have the powers for?"

Jeremy stood back, saying, "Don't kill him with questions, still illegal..."

Joe answered everything, terrifiedly, "I don't know what he looked like, he wore clothing like mine, he never showed me all of the ones he had, just the one you guys gave, he gave it for free in exchange for attacking supers, he said you only have to see them, and he said that I have it until I steal a new one." He's now wetting himself, which is altogether hilarious to Timothy, because he's still an asshole.

Roy scoffed at the rat beneath him, collapsing the metal rod into it's liquid form and absorbing it into his hands. He was done here and there was no reason to break the man anymore he answered all his questions. His mind played over the specifics, he wasn't some kind of detective however. He would start looking up Topaz lane and bring this to someone from the Superhero Foundation, maybe one of the SAFE faculty. As someone with powers he'd sworn to help those who needed it. Now it was heroes that needed that help.

"If I see you trying any crap like this again you'll be waking up in a hospital. Got it?" Mister Mercury crossed his arms, turned his head and spat in the sand. "Take him to the proper authorities, Waves." He'd of course made up the nickname for Jeremy whose name he'd didn't actually know, just knowing that he was an underclassman from Alabaster. "I'll let you get the credit for this one."

In truth Roy didn't want to do paperwork with the SF and get everything in order, though if they found out about him he'd have paperwork to do anyways, considering he'd used his powers in public. It was always paperwork with those paper-pushing-bastards. He couldn't help himself he hated paperwork, that meant he needed to be indoors not outside where it was beautiful.

Starting to walk away, Mister Mercury stopped as though he'd forgotten something important and looked over his shoulder back at Jeremy, taking a long look at the hero's face as if etching it into his mind. "Good work, Waves."

Joe nods, still completely terrified as Jeremy grabs him by the arm and starts taking him to the police station nearby.  After hearing himself being called waves, he laughs a little, saying, "Name's Jeremy."  He figured that if nicknames work the way he thinks they do, it won't go away either way.  He continues on his way, saying "Thanks" on his way out.  What had happened this evening?  What was going on behind the scenes?  This could get exciting...