Tokyo, Japan: 1300 hours
Cat took a huge swig of her root beer and sat back against the fire escape with a contented sigh. Her best friends, Josh and Simone, leaned back with her, both also happy to just look over the city.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Josh said.
“Yeah. And safe, thanks to us!” Cat added, nudging her friends. They smiled at her. They had all ditched their masks as soon as they got home and met up at Cat’s apartment to celebrate a successful patrol and the anniversary of their first year as “superheroes”.
Oh, did we forget to mention that these three teens were all metas?
Cat, AKA Catherine Zhou, Codename: Wildcat, was the leader of the trio, and was known for her somewhat mutant abilities that gave her the abilities of a feline. She had amazing reflexes, was unnaturally flexible, and had enhanced senses. Couple that with her amazing martial arts, and you had yourself a pretty much unbeatable fighter. Her most obvious feline ability, though, was the claws she sprouted like Wolverine. Those were pretty epic, in her opinion.
Joshua Parker, Codename: Spider, had the abilities of a spider: simply put, his were a lot like Spiderman’s. He inherited his powers from his father’s side of the family. They were originally from America, but moved here when Josh was six. (Cat made fun of his American accent when he spoke in Japanese.) His uncle back in America was VERY rich, and all their oldest children were on their way to becoming successful businessmen (and women) of their own. But…for some unknown reason, the adults of the two sides of the Parker family hardly talked to one another. The kids often came to visit Josh and his younger sister, Marie. One of the older kids, Alex, had the same abilities as Josh, and started coming to train him as soon as he found out. But all of this was done in secret. Josh’s parents didn’t even know he HAD powers, and neither did his sister. His parents had made it obvious that they didn’t even want to acknowledge the other half of their family had powers or even EXISTED. Marie hadn’t shown any sign of powers yet, and Josh wanted to leave her out of all this craziness, so he didn’t tell her about the Parker family “gift” or that he had inherited it.
Simone Chester, Codename: Falcon, had actually been the NORMAL girl of the friends, the sweet, shy, girl next door (besides the fact she was a second generation from Australia) - that is, until they were eight and her wings came in. Simone also inherited the gene from her family. Her grandmother had wings, and they even had a special family heirloom (weapon) from her great-grandfather: a really powerful hammer (which is more like a freaking mallet that weighs about a gazillion pounds). Apparently, there are two genes: One that lets them use the hammer, and one that gives those wings. Simone is the first person EVER in the family to get both genes.
They were the best of friends, which made them the perfect team. Last year, Cat’s older cousin (older only by a month! He was not holding that over her!), had approached them and asked them if they wanted to join a certain team he had created.
She denied almost fainting when he asked her if she wanted to join the Titan Army.
After a few training exercises and an interview with the General (who, had insisted, that when they were talking face-to-face personally, to just call her Nikki), they had become full-fledged members. Members of the super-secret, fabled TA! Then they had told them they would stay stationed in Japan, and as long as they followed TA policies and rules, they could claim that city as theirs.
It was a dream come true for the three teens, and they had embraced their new responsibilities in earnest. They had even sent a couple of recruits Nikki’s way. It’s been bumpy, and they’ve gotten beaten and thrown around, but they’ve come out on top, and all-in-all, they’re doing pretty good.
Cat leaned back to take another sip when a streak flew across the sky.
“Is that a shooting star?” Simone said, sitting up.
“No, it’s falling from the atmosphere. If anything, it’s a meteor,” Josh said. God, he was a nerd.
Cat squinted, then jumped to her feet. “Last time I checked, meteors weren’t human shaped.”
“Alien attack?” Josh said. His domino mask was already on, and Simone was pulling her cowl over her head. They watched as it made contact at the edge of the city, a boom rattling their ears.
“No clue. But we better check it out. Come on.” Cat snatched her mask from behind her, and they went leaping off over the rooftops.
