SPEAR Team Alpha flitted from alley to alley beneath the cover of night and a great deal of cosmic bullshit. A warped cloud of ethereal, shifting darkness followed them, as obvious to those within as obscuring to those without. It flowed out of Haze, Alpha team's infiltration specialist, forming a flowing shroud that interfered with sight, sound, and scent. It bamboozled the senses of those looking inward, while enhancing that of those looking outward. The shroud would remain, even in combat, forcing enemies to move in close.

Each of the four teams had their own infiltration specialist, with an upgrade to match, chosen from the broad and highly developed arsenal available only to law enforcement. Concealment was not their only advantage. Every member of a SPEAR Team used the highest tier of upgrades available, and each was specialized to fill a specific role, while also being useful in direct combat.

Rapunzel, Cornelius' second-in-command, was a capture specialist. She could manipulate her own hair, growing it into extreme lengths and cording itself to form ropes as strong as steel. It acted as an extra limb, giving her full tactile feeling while simultaneously being immune to pain. Any that was lost could simply be regrown in an instant. Her upper limit was based only on her ability to produce keratin, and she carried combat supplements to resupply herself.

Michelangelo was the team's shield. His upgrade allowed him to create flat panes of energy, about four feet across, that reflected whatever struck them. Individually they were fragile compared to most barriers, breaking quickly under sustained gunfire, but he could layer up to ten of them at a time. They also worked on just about anything, and perfectly redirected any projectile back at the sender. Assault rifles could break the barrier, but the wielder would just as often perforate himself first. Force was matched with force, often breaking the bones of melee combatants as they suffered from the backlash of their own strength. It was an incredibly versatile upgrade, and Michelangelo performed his duties well.

Lynx was the team's striker, and her chosen alias perfectly matched her upgrade. With slitted eyes, sharp claws, a whip-like tail, and digitigrade legs, hers was the final evolution of the popular civilian feline model. Rather than the flowing, lithe grace that the weaker upgrade granted, Lynx's form matched that of a big cat. Her muscles nearly matched Gregoir's in size and tone, and her running speed surpassed even Cornelius' own. Her reflexes bordered on the absurd, and she had a twenty foot vertical leap. But she was no more resistant to bullets than your average lion, and her sheer bulk made it impossible to have the same agility that Cornelius could bring to bear. She relied entirely on the SPEAR Team's admittedly formidable armor for defense.

Cornelius, of course, used Twice-Born. He was twice the man that he was before the upgrade. Twice as strong and fast and coordinated. Twice as effective. He was the team's leader, and a jack of all trades. He was whatever the squad needed him to be. At this very moment, he was the scout. Lynx had better night vision than he, but with the aid of his helmet's sensors, the difference became irrelevant. He was smaller than her and more flexible.

He also didn't weigh three hundred pounds.

His very body was altered by cosmic energy. His tissues were simply better than a normal human's. His muscles, his skin, his cells, all changed at a fundamental level. It had been a uniquely disorienting existence for the first few days after the upgrade, though it had all been worth it. This, he thought to himself as he swept the street for observers, was what he was born to do.

They reached their designated checkpoint, less than a hundred meters of street and parking lot separating his squad from the gym doors. This close, he could make out the cameras lining the outside of the building. He had no doubt that people were watching the feeds closely, but Haze had shielded them well. It would take direct observation from an equally powerful upgrade to pierce Haze's shroud, and that kind of security at a mere gymnasium would be deemed suspicious.

There was no movement from within. A series of lights popped up in his HUD, signaling that his fellow squads were in place. Still, no response from the gym.

They were in the clear.

He waited, as Charlie squad's infiltration specialist scanned the building's contents and shared them with his fellow SPEAR teams. One by one, red outlines appeared on Cornelius' HUD. A purple sheen appeared over the floor of the gym, signifying that it was shielded from their senses and sensors. Air intakes on the side of his helmet opened up and tasted the air. Presumably, Andros Bartholomew was inside this building. His ability to produce airborne toxins was well known to Cornelius, and he had passed along the warning. His equipment would keep track of the air, and hopefully trace its origin to the terrorist himself.

The various smudges of red eventually faded into person-shape. Twenty-two enemies inside. The gym was closed, the civilians had gone home. Twenty-two terrorists and gangster scum. That was more than they'd expected. This safehouse was presumed to be housing the elites, given the presence of the enemy Natural, but they hadn't had the time to confirm that suspicion. The risk of losing track of them again was too high, but Cornelius hated rushed operations.

Nonetheless, this was the hand he'd been dealt. He hoped High Command knew what they were doing. He trusted his Captain implicitly, but Gable obeyed a higher power, and the Chief of Police was a political animal. But Cornelius was allowing himself to get distracted. He shook off his doubts.

Time to begin the assault. He held up a fist to his team, and they all dropped into a sprinter's stance. Cornelius tapped the receiver on his helmet, a simple pattern, Shave and a Haircut. The lights on his HUD flashed green. He released his fist, and they were off.

Lynx covered the distance in four seconds, each stroke of the clock encompassing a single, great bound. From each corner, her fellow strikers followed up, with the rest of the squad hot on their heels. Lynx unhooked a belt of grenades and, with preternatural grace, lobbed a handful through the tiny glass windows of the gym's upper floor. Each landed at the foot of a red outline, detonating within a second of arrival.

The noise was deafening, but the helmet's muffled the worst of it. Lynx crashed through the entrance, bending the steel doors and sending glass across the lobby. Cornelius was less than a second behind her, lobbing a flashbang past her shoulder and into a group of surprised gangsters. Several were using the gym equipment, while several more lounged beside a television. Most were armed, or had weapons nearby, but none were prepared for the blitz assault. The flashbang sent them reeling, and Lynx fell upon them like a fox in a henhouse.

The gym had multiple rooms on either side of the building, presumably for classes, but several had tables set up and people within. Cornelius unslung his assault rifle and attempted to perforate the surprised gangsters, just now climbing to their feet. He cursed as the reinforced glass caught his bullets, and he swapped magazines to something with a little more kick.

The smartest of the group kicked over the heavy wooden table and dove behind it. Another threw up a layer of obfuscating ice over the cracked glass, while the rest ran for the door. Cornelius adjusted his aim, and turned the latter into swiss cheese. A moment later, and the glass shattered. Gunfire barked out from behind the upturned table, and Michelangelo intercepted it with a sharp gesture. The bullets whizzed back to their source, peppering the thick wood and eliciting a wide array of angry curses.

Cornelius heard screams from above. Beta team had arrived, and had gone about their business with gusto. A body toppled over the railing, slamming against the tile floor. Waves of ice crept up the walls, as more Coldeyes' members began to respond. The door to the manager's office crashed open, and a barrage of icicles bounced off Michelangelo's shields. A golem of carved ice crashed through the wall separating the bathrooms from the lobby, and took a swing at Rapunzel. Her hair caught the blow, and she used the force to leverage herself to the side. More strands wrapped around the golem, squeezing and cracking the ice.

The door to the locker rooms opened, and Cornelius' target stepped forth. The big Natural was coated head to toe in a layer of shifting, mottled material. The room behind him was stripped bare, the tile gone and the lockers reduced to husks. Cornelius immediately dumped what was left of his magazine into the Natural's face, and was unsurprised to see it splatter like paint against his armored helm.

Cornelius sprinted forward, leaping over a treadmill and past a stationary bike. He had several theories about the Natural's limitations, but he had little time to test. He passed a bench press and took the barbell, easily wielding it in both hands. He swept aside an unfortunate gangster who was still reeling in confusion, and the man's body broke like a cracker. Then he was on the Natural, swinging his appropriated weapon like a golf club. The enemy didn't even break stride, and the barbell splattered into liquid before it even touched his body.

Cornelius ducked beneath the man's counter strike, but a spike erupted from the armored arm. Cornelius dodged it by a hair's breadth, and skipped back a step, mentally reevaluating the Naturals' power. It seemed to be emitted in a small radius around his skin, reforming matter as needed. He could clearly manipulate the material into whatever shapes he needed, though it seemed to require focus. Otherwise, the man would simply turn himself into a porcupine.

Cornelius took up his assault rifle, slotted in tracer rounds, and fired at the terrorist's eye slits. The small pyrotechnic charge that gave the rounds their bright color did nothing to harm the man, but the bright light made him flinch and swipe at his eyes. Cornelius palmed a flashbang, and sent it out the moment the man looked away. The Natural turned back to Cornelius, only to catch the sun exploding in his face. He screamed, clutching at his eyes, and Cornelius dashed forward, firing away.

Bullets had no more effect than usual, so Cornelius took a risk. He closed the distance, leapt into the air, and slammed his fist against the man's armored skull. Cornelius' knuckles came away bloody, and his fist throbbed, but the man's head whipped to the side like... well like he'd been hit by Cornelius. It wasn't nearly as effective as it should've been, given the inch or two of armor surrounding his skull, but Cornelius had finally landed a blow. The Natural couldn't affect him directly.

He palmed another flashbang and lobbed it gently upward. The Natural blindly lashed out, spikes blooming along his arm, but not protruding more than a few inches. Cornelius stepped aside, keeping a count in his head, and swept the man's legs out from under him. He was happy to take the Natural apart with his bare hands. It was just so much more viscerally satisfying that way.

The big Natural hit the ground with a grunt, and the tile floor immediately suctioned up around his body. It formed into a blob of swirling liquid held in his hand, and he cast his arm outwards. The liquid turned solid in a heartbeat, and fired out like a shotgun. Cornelius had the good sense to leap behind cover, and he felt the walls shake as they were peppered by the man's improvised weapon. It didn't seem to do all that much damage, though. The material he'd used was still just tile, even if highly accelerated. They weren't even shaped like bullets, just haphazard blobs turned solid.

The enemy Natural came to his senses, just as Cornelius' flashbang touched back on the ground. From the safety of his helmet, he watched realization dawn on his foe's face, before the light once again blotted out all else. Cornelius' let out a vicious laugh, and moved once more to engage.