They were surrounded. That was the second thing Ryan realized when he came to. The first was that his freaking skull hurt. Apparently his seatbelt had stopped him from the fate of vehicular ejection, but it hadn't stopped his head from cracking into the dash. Joys.

He didn't have time to lament sub-standard airbags however. The pain may have woken him up but the real adrenaline surge came from staring at the scene ahead.

Smith was being held in a headlock by a petite asian woman who couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall. She held him effortlessly despite his obvious struggling and was currently extracting herself from the destroyed engine block that had wrapped around her on impact. Her other arm shredded bent metal away from her as easily as unwrapping a present.

Her clothes were destroyed, fabric didn't really survive head-on collisions, but she didn't seem to care. Neither was she wounded. At all. Not a scratch on her that he could see.

That… did not bode well. What was worse, Ryan could see two men jogging up from the trees in the rearview. One a human male with a pair of pistols and an ammo belt slung crosswise across his chest. The other looked like an orc in medieval chainmail with… swords? Two comically oversized blades crossed his back like some kind of warcraft character. All he was missing were the pauldrons.

Ryan activated his power to see what they were dealing with but pared down the information he received from it to just the bare essentials - name and superpower. Any more and he'd waste precious time reading stats that he didn't care about. He could care less about their charisma score right now.

Name: Haruko Takahashi

Superpower(s):

Exponential Strength: Grants a multiplicative bonus to the strength attribute.

Dense Body: Grants the capability to temporarily increase the density of one's entire body, both hardening it against damage and substantially increasing mass.

Name: Jack Barrows

Superpower(s):

Rapid Reflexes: Grants the physical and mental ability required to react in a tenth of the normal time.

Name: Ogg Ironblade

Superpower(s):

Enhanced Physical Attributes: Grants a large bonus to all physical attributes.

'Multiplicative bonus'? Seriously? Ryan cursed. He might've even facepalmed if the dash hadn't just done it for him. Of course the one time he didn't look at his targets' stats would be when two-thirds of them had stat-related powers.

"Don't move, or I crush his neck." Called the surprisingly authoritative voice of the diminutive super woman holding Smith.

Ryan ignored her and checked the backseat. Michael was out cold, Sherry was busy loading his gun, and there was no sign of their shaggy dogman. That meant it was three on three. Even odds. Assuming there weren't more, that is.

"Two super strength, the tiny one and the… orc-thing. The other reacts fast." Ryan noted just low enough for Sherry to hear as he unbuckled himself. Chances were, they wanted him alive. If not, what he was about to do would be weapons-grade stupid.

Ryan got out of the car, hands held high in a clear "you win" gesture. He turned to look at the two jogging over, still a good distance away, and then started walking towards the one named Haruko.

"I am going to kick your retarded teeth in if you don't drop my friend there, bitch." Ryan threatened as he advanced slowly. To all the world it probably looked like a surrender. Or at least, he hoped it did.

Haruko's expression was… puzzled, to say the least. The half-naked, would-be assassin clearly did not expect to be threatened by an emaciated youth in a hospital gown with his hands up. For a moment it looked like she might laugh, but then her eyes grew calculating.

Reason and logic said he wasn't a threat, given what she'd just done to the minivan. But reason and logic were taking a backseat to superpowers these days. Until she knew what Ryan could do, he very well might be one.

Then again, she probably didn't run into many who knew her powers either. Haruko didn't step back, but she did tighten one arm around his friend's neck. Smith had given up flailing and was watching Ryan with a quiet readiness in his eyes. Ryan just hoped he was ready to improvise.

"Bold talk coming from a small man in a big dress." Haruko retorted with a smirk. Then her eyes narrowed. "I do not care how long you slept, boy, one more step and I crush your chest."

"Yeah?" Ryan stopped just a few feet from her and lifted an eyebrow with as sarcastically as he could manage. As he took another step, he added. "Why don't you give it a try princess. Or are you afraid I'll--urgk!"

Haruko interrupted his insult by smashing him in the chest with her hardened fist, just as she had promised. Several large cracks formed in the diamond skin of his chest and blood poured out of them into his already blood-soaked getup. She hit him so hard the air in his lungs was forced out, winding him, as the diamond skin pressed deep into the rest of his flesh. It felt like the bitch had knocked his rib cage into his spine.

At that moment, two things happened.

One: Haruko cried out when she discovered that even if you harden your body, if you leave yourself open, an enterprising man might still try to jam his hand up your ass.

Two: Ryan got what he was after. And then some.

All he'd really needed to test out his power was to touch her. That was the requirement after all

It didn't really seem to matter how long either, just as long he had time to visualize the change he wanted to make and pay the cost. And in this case he knew exactly what he wanted to change, it was just a matter of paying the cost. Ryan was done playing nice with these bastards.

So before Haruko's shock and rage could turn towards the previously ignored captive whose fingers were now firmly lodged up her moon cavity, Ryan took advantage of her momentary distraction to grab her arm as he fell to his knees. His body weight did little, if anything, to stop her. In fact she had already lifted him off the ground in her haste to indignantly smash Smith's skull when Ryan activated his power.

Would you like to reduce Haruko's spinal column to ash? Cost: 47 points. Yes, or no?

Dark? Yes. Villainous? Possibly. But you can’t wrestle with the morality of your decisions if they get you killed. And if Ryan was being honest, he already knew this decision wouldn’t haunt him.

Hell, it felt right.

A simple 'yes' later and Haruko went from furious assassin to limp ragdoll. All in the span of time it took her to throw a single punch. Ryan ended up in the dirt, landing mostly on his face, a few feet away. The pain in his chest heightened, but he pushed it down. He may have the points to fix whatever she'd busted now, but until they were out of this saving them was the smarter move.

Better to struggle-bus through it for now. Ryan thought as he rolled to his side and coughed up an oddly chunky mixture of dirt and blood. Smith was already up. A quick glance told him Haruko, the super-strong pile of unmoving flesh that she was, was done. Her eyes were frightened, even pained, but those were the only moving parts.

Good. Ryan thought, grimly satisfied with his results and more than a little emboldened by his ability to finally take out one of his foes with his power. He turned to face the direction the other two had been in. Now for the--

His thoughts were interrupted by four gunshots that ripped through him, piercing both hands at the wrist and both of his ankles. The gunman, Jack, had--

“No!” Smith shouted in panic as he put himself between the shooter and Ryan, who had crumpled to the ground. A fifth shot ricocheted bounced off the invulnerable man, saving Ryan from whatever fate that one had intended for him.

Someone darted out of the van, but Ryan couldn’t tell where they were headed. Huddled down in the dirt he found he couldn’t actually tell much of anything. His mind, which had just been overwhelmed by the pain his body was reporting, was now blissfully blank. A dense fog descended upon him and simply washed everything away.

It felt… nice. There was shouting from a distance that tried to pierce it, but the fog soon took that concern from him as well.

A soft female voice like the edict of a loving angel bade Ryan to sleep, so he did. Right in the middle of a battlefield… bleeding from every limb… as soundly as if he had not a care in the world.