5

  Five muttered softly in excitement, kneeling down next to a cardboard box. Her thigh had a small opening in it, a speaker blasting her favorite music while she analyzed a formula in her mind. To any outsider it looked as if there was just a young woman crouched down on the floor of a laboratory doing nothing. The petite, girlish looking Austrian woman was humming along to the music coming out of her body, her fingers moving in the air rhythmically as if she was playing an invisible piano. A normal eye would never be able to see it, but her intense fluorescent dark green eyes weren’t normal. Directly in front of her, floating in the air, was a collection of nanobots and fatty acids that she was currently playing around with. She had been given a task by One, and although Eight insisted she didn’t have to do it… One’s request had intrigued her so much she couldn’t help but want to do it. She was deep in thought; I see, if I change this here… remove one appendage to compensate for the added size… receptors to detect apoptosis… She frowned, the nanobots frying the moment she assembled them. Another failure. She sighed, standing up, slightly bummed out. It was getting late and she had the big meeting tomorrow, so it would be better if she continued some other day. The hole in her thigh closed, the music turning off. She disassembled the nanobots with a flick of her finger, the raw materials that composed them assembling into tiny cubes she gingerly picked up and gently placed inside an eppendorf tube which she neatly placed inside a cardboard box labeled ‘DO NOT TOUCH.’

  She turned around and exited the room, humming to herself the song she had been listening to for a few moments before suddenly stopping in her tracks, barely a few meters from the room she had been in. Her ear began to ring, suddenly turning around in high alert. The lab she was in was the most secretive installation of the entire Hero Association, and something had just crossed the movement sensors outside. She knew because every single device in the installation was directly rigged to her own brain. The middle of Antarctica isn’t a place many people or animals wandered around in, so it was almost certainly a malicious intruder or a monster. Five cursed softly, dreading the situation at hand. It’s just me here at the lab today… Dammit!! I’ll have to go and do it myself…She sighed softly, rolling up her sleeves as she made her way towards the front door of the maze-like structure. If the World State or the Rebellion caught wind of this place, they’d have to relocate the whole damn thing, and that was far too bothersome a scenario for Five to consider just ignoring the problem. She turned around the various corridors of the building, her eyes emitting a faint green light reminiscent of LED’s, her fist clenching softly as she neared the entrance and still saw no sign of an intruder. She didn’t make any effort to conceal her presence, since that would have been impossible anyway. Her steps were too heavy, and the sound of her joints moving was far too loud to attempt any sort of sneaky behavior. She saw the snow before she reached the primary hallway of the bunker-lab, her eyes darting to the white patches and taking note of it before returning to scanning the entire room as she continued to walk forward. The snow… it must mean that the bunker door is open. Whoever it is didn’t bother to close the door… Average temperature is -90 degrees Celsius. Humans don’t tend to be able to withstand these temperatures. Probability that it's a monster… around 70%.

  Her internal predictions were quickly halted as she entered high alert, her thermal sensors suddenly picking up heat above 0 degrees directly behind her. She involuntarily gasped, her body whirring and twisting around as fast as she could, her arms outstretched. A portion of the various metals and gunpowder deposits hidden deep inside the lab-bunker disappeared, two fully functioning assault rifles materializing in her hands. And yet, as she aimed them to where she had picked up the heat signature, nothing was there. Her eyes began to glow more intensely, darting around the room to try and pick up the heat signature again. How?! Heat signatures do not disappear instantly - at best they should leave a trail behind!! She grit her teeth at the ridiculousness of the situation, the guns disappearing from her hands - as well as a small amount of glass from a different deposit deep in the laboratory. Instead, two turrets were now on her shoulders, a red thermal camera on each of them as they automatically scanned for heat signatures independently from her. She took a deep breath to steady herself, despite not needing to breathe. She put a hand over her chest, closing her fist. Is it messing with my electronics or does the intruder just have a power that allows it to disappear like that? The turret on her left shoulder made a beeping sound, suddenly firing a shot. Five’s eyes narrowed again, twisting around to try and catch a glimpse of the intruder, only to find a bullet hole in the wall and no intruder in sight. The thermal energy was gone as fast as it had arrived once more. Five grit her teeth, putting her index finger into her mouth and biting down on it nervously. She was beginning to feel overwhelmed, just standing there on guard with absolutely no idea of what was happening around her. She crouched down, closing her eyes as the only sound she could hear was the faint whirring of the turrets as they swiveled from side to side, trying to find a target. I'll initiate a scan. This will put me in a vulnerable position for a few seconds, but the automatic turrets should still stave off any attack for now. Her hand twisted into the shape of a speaker, pressing it against the floor and releasing a short but extremely deep bass sound that reverberated across the entire facility, feeding the information to her. She got up after a second, taking in the information from her sonar blast, her eyes narrowing as she now had a clear idea of exactly how much of everything there was in the lab. She now knew what materials she was working with.

  Her eyes shifted to the front door - which was still open - quickly realizing that it hadn’t been blasted with an explosive or forced open with brute strength. It wasn’t even undamaged, in the way a hacker would open it. The door had melted, a solidified puddle of stainless steel on the ground. She pondered this for a second, finally an idea of what her enemy was capable of forming in her head. Could it be temperature manipulation? Whatever the case, I can’t let whatever is in here escape… at least until I have properly disposed of it. She extended her hands, the melted steel disappearing and just as quickly re-appearing in the form of the door as it had been before it was melted. Soon after, a small amount of chromium was gone from an underground deposit and the door was now coated in it. Chromium is very heat resistant. If my enemy does what I think it can do, this should at least slow it down. She got up from where she was crouched down, mildly surprised that she hadn’t been attacked while in that position. Either her enemy was idiotic, or it was biding its time. She finally decided to speak, “W-Who’s there?!” she stuttered faintly, closing her fist as she tried to steady herself before continuing, the turrets on her shoulders whirring softly as they scanned for heat signatures, “If you can understand me, please surrender immediately and I will show mercy. This is the only warning you have.”

  In response, she suddenly felt her right arm quickly heating up, her eyes darting down to it as her turrets responded to the heat signature and began to shoot at her. She winced in surprise, taking a step back and quickly dismantling the turrets, the raw materials that composed them dropping to the floor from her shoulders. She grabbed her right arm with her left hand, looking down at the bullet holes in her arm. The temperature keeps rising, even after I took a step back. Either the ability automatically tracks me, or my enemy has had an eye on me from the very beginning. She looked around, the camera lenses in her eyes darting all over the room for any sign of her enemy. She found absolutely nothing at all once more. She clutched her arm, which was now glowing red as the metal in it began to turn soft. Her body was made of alloys that were resistant to most kinds of damage, including thermal. So the sheer potency a thermal attack needed to have in order to affect her this much was impressive. I’m fighting humans. No monster is smart enough to attack me in such a precise manner. Five was now convinced that whoever was her assailant knew exactly what they were doing, and that they had come very prepared. This wasn’t some sort of random criminal activity or a villain that had simply stumbled across the Hero Association’s top secret laboratory; this was an attack on her specifically. An assassination attempt. The Rebellion. Five grit her teeth, slamming her fist into the ground.The entire facility is compromised. There’s no reason to keep defending it. I’d have to dismantle it after the fight anyway!!

  The moment her fist connected with the floor, it all disappeared. The entire floor. No, the entire complex that was the laboratory-bunker. It all vanished, and in its place Five had created a massive cube made up of all the raw materials composing the laboratory bunched up in the center of what was now a massive crater in the middle of Antarctica. She entered free-fall as soon as the ground under her vanished, but so did whoever was targeting her. She was certain they had been inside the facility and had been looking at her. How else would they have been able to target her so precisely??

  Still, even as she was surrounded by nothing except air, she couldn’t spot anybody no matter how she twisted and turned. She bit her lower lip in frustration, clenching her fist. Fine!! I’ll just have to use brute force!!! What a waste of materials… She extended her arms to her sides, a corner of the massive cube disappearing as almost all of the gunpowder, large quantities of steel, and petroleum all vanished as suddenly the entire empty space was filled with small beeping devices who also entered freefall as soon as they were created. Grenades, or more specifically, incendiary grenades. There was exactly one per cubic meter of air; far more than enough to ensure a hit no matter where her enemy was. A handgun appeared in her hand at the same time as the grenades manifested, quickly twisting around, her camera lens eyes focusing in on the closest one and shooting at its release trigger with perfect precision. Another portion of the cube disappeared the millisecond she pressed on the trigger, suddenly her entire body encased in a thick sheet of iron right as the bullet blew off the trigger for the grenade, starting the chain reaction.

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  What followed was an absolute spectacle of raging fire, as the crater was very quickly covered in explosion after explosion until the entire empty space was engulfed in a hail of steel and fire so bright it looked as if the sun itself had descended. It only took a few seconds for the explosions to all detonate and subsequently dissipate, the sound of the chain reaction thundering across the vast desert of Antarctica and spooking a penguin or two. Five’s protective bubble slammed against the ground with a loud bang, and soon after, the iron casing disappeared - its components rejoining its brethren to be a part of the gigantic fifty meter tall cube that now lay in the center of the thoroughly destroyed and smoldering crater. Five took a step forward, unharmed by her stunt, entering tracking mode immediately as her piercing green eyes scanned for any biological matter in the obliterated and still burning environment. She also took note of how her arm - that had been on the verge of falling off due to the metal in it liquefying from the heat - was now back to normal. She quickly picked up something that looked like carbonized flesh on her periphery. She quickly approached it, her face wrinkling in distaste as she laid eyes on what was effectively the smoldering remains of a person, far too burnt and disfigured to even tell its sex. “Ouch,” she said politely while taking a step back, shaking her head, “I hope whoever it was died quick. Burning isn’t a very pleasant way to go! Or so I’m told.” She turned around, sighing as a cellphone manifested into her hands, the raw materials to compose it vanishing from the cube. But before she could begin dialing Eight’s number, her heat sensors picked up something. She twisted around, her eyes widening in surprise and fear. Her chest, or rather her heart, was very quickly heating up. Had that corpse just now attacked her?! How was it even alive?! No, that was impossible. There must have been two of them.

  Where normally the heart of people should be was where her power core resided. The thing that powered her body, and kept her brain functioning. Of course!! Powers generally cannot affect living biological material - only certain exceptions in very rare cases avoided this rule - and this “temperature” power was no different. My enemy is really smart. They must have realized they cannot overheat my head as it is where my brain - and therefore living tissue - reside. So they are targeting my robotic apparel to kill me instead. Five let go of her chest, now understanding that this had become a race against time. Her entire left arm flattened into the shape of a sword, while her right arm reconfigured into a rifle. Her eyes began to switch between all vision modes in rapid succession, doing her best to redirect the thermal energy being produced in her chest to her legs, giving them a significant boost in power that she used to sprint around the entire crater as fast as she could, scanning for anything even resembling a human. If her calculations were correct, her enemy could overheat her core to the point that it would enter critical condition and stop functioning in about ten seconds. DAMMIT!! If I hadn’t used up all of the oil inside the lab to create those explosives I could use it as fuel to propel myself faster!! But in the end, much to her relief, it didn’t take long for her to find her enemy. Lying on the ground on the opposite side of the crater, charred and wounded to the point that it was impressive he was still even alive and conscious, was the body of a man with his hand outstretched towards Five. Her eyes locked unto him, her rifle arm lifting up slightly as she coldly calculated the distance between herself and her enemy, ready to fire and finally kill him. But then, much to her surprise and dismay, the heat building up in her chest vanished as the man began to visibly cry, now his charred and barely functioning arms in the air as a sign of surrender. Five slowed down, blinking a few times as she slowly lowered her arm and both of them switched back to normal.

  She skidded to a halt once she was directly in front of the sobbing man, tilting her head in confusion. “You. Are you surrendering?” she demanded to know, crouching down to try and look at the burnt man’s eyes. He answered with garbled sobs mixed with the rasping of burnt vocal cords, “She died for me!! She died for me, she told me- she told me to LIVE!!!” the man screamed nonsensically. Five grew slightly irritated that the man wasn’t answering her. “Hey!! Answer my question!!” she demanded grumpily, standing back up and looking undignified. The man was quaking where he lay, his body so heavily damaged it was a miracle he was even alive. He finally stopped speaking, his eyes looking up and at Five’s visage. He grit his teeth, his eyes shining with so much unfiltered hatred it made Five nearly take a step back in surprise. “....Yes. I surrender,” the man finally admitted, looking away from Five and at the floor, “Only because of her. If it wasn’t for her words… I would rather DIE than ever surrender to YOU! You disgusting crime against everything that is sacred!!” Every word he uttered was like pure poison; spoken with so much vile disgust that even Five was shocked.

  She only answered after a few seconds had passed and the silence had begun to grow uncomfortable. “S-So umm… this… aha….” she began to say, stumbling on her words as she put her two index fingers together nervously. Waaaa!! Why did it have to be a human?! I can just kill a dumb monster and call it a day!! I HATE having to fight and talk to humans!! Ughhh, if Six ever finds out about this conversation he’ll make fun of me again! She took a deep breath, much to the renewed anger of the man at her feet. She didn’t need to breathe, yet she breathed anyway, as if to simply spite the world. “As I was saying! Well, since you have surrendered, I…Should- Should I call the association first or medical experts?” she wondered softly, blinking a few times. The man beneath her looked up at her in a mixture of shock and horror, making her wince nervously. Dammit!! I’m screwing up again!! “Medical experts!! Right, of course!! Burns are very painful, yes? Right,” she muttered softly, blushing anxiously the longer the man looked at her with that expression. He remained silent the whole time.

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  Five sat in the helicopter, scratching her chin. Meanwhile, the man that had surrendered from before was in an emergency resources yacht below, being taken care of at that moment. He is, of course, the one who was controlling the temperature. Then who was the woman that was with him? My current theory is that she had a cloaking power, capable of turning what she is touching invisible. That way they’d be able to hide from all of my different vision types. “Miss Five?” the helicopter pilot asked politely, snapping her out of her deep thought. Five shook her head quickly, turning to look at the driver. “Ah- YES!! I mean, yes, David?” she answered quickly, like a student who just got woken up by a teacher to answer a question. The driver, David, chuckled at her antics. Being an old employee of the association he had long grown used to all of the Celestial’s different… quirks. “I was just going to ask what’s gonna happen to the poor bastard down there,” he asked, nodding with his head at the yacht with a big red cross on it down below. Five tilted her head, looking up to think. “I think I’ll make him a lab rat. His temperature power is fascinating and could be extremely useful in various experiments I have in mind…” she muttered. David nodded, having no qualms about the way she so easily considered turning a human into a subject for experiments. “That sounds splendid, miss Five.” As a matter of fact, Five began to grin widely, suddenly an idea popping into her head on how she could use that man’s power in order to finally solve the request One had given her earlier - the one she had been trying to complete before being attacked.

  But before she could play around with that idea, a radio message sputtered to life on the intercom of the helicopter, drawing the attention of both her and David. “ATTENTION!!! ALL HERO ASSOCIATION PERSONNEL, THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” the voice screamed loudly into the radio, a booming roar of what was obviously a monster being heard in the background. “THIS IS A GRADE ZERO EMERGENCY!!! GRADE ZERO!! NEW YORK-” the radio message cut off there. David quickly turned around to look at Five, whose eyes were already narrowed as she began to stand up from her seat. “Jump off,” she ordered in an uncharacteristically grim and serious tone. David nodded, opening the door next to him and quite literally jumping off not a second later. Five extended her arms and the helicopter vanished suddenly, metal wings appearing at her sides, her legs merging together as her feet blended into a turbine, all of the gasoline that had been in the helicopter now inside a box connected to her abdomen. She had effectively transformed herself into a miniature jet, and with that blasted forward and towards the closest human settlement with an airport at mach 3. David watched the spectacle unfold, deploying his parachute once Five was far away on the horizon. She’d have to reach pretty far to arrive at a functioning airport. But even then… he simply prayed she’d get to New York in time.