Enlightened

"Good question," Lloyd said sincerely as he looked over at Amy. "We know that his abilities revolve around fire and heat," he explained. "I'm guessing that he doesn't have a large amount of control, so we need to make sure that we find a way to neutralize that before we walk right up to him," Lloyd explained.

"Amy, you use gravity correct?"

“That’s me,” Amy remarked with a half-assed salute. “I’m the gravity girl. Let’s not spread that around too much… On another note, fire sucks. I’d rather not get my eyebrows singed off. I just groomed them the other day…”

Lloyd just smiled at Amy's jokes. "Understandable," he said before looking at her once again. "In order to access his fire he has to move his body in conjunction with what he wants to have happen. If we can stop him from moving, I can guarantee that he won't be hurting anyone," Lloyd said seriously.

Ryan glanced over at Amy. "Do you think you have enough control for that?" he asked curiously. "To hold someone down hard enough while at the same time not breaking their spine in two pieces?"

Amy’s eyes shifted left and then right nervously as she heard what was asked of her.

“I can do my best, but I can’t really vouch for having excellent control of my own abilities,” she finally admitted. “Is it really a terrible thing if I do cripple him? I mean… he is about to do a lot worse to a lot more, isn’t he?” She gave a lax shrug at that. She couldn’t really see permanently injuring a criminal to be anything that would keep her tossing and turning at night in guilt.

“If that’s not good enough a promise and you’re really opposed to injuring him a good alternative would be for me to slow his movements as much as I feel is safe. It wouldn’t remove the possibility of attacks, but it would make them more predictable.”

Ryan glanced over at Lloyd. The man spoke like he had worked for their employer a lot longer than anyone else, which basically meant that he was leading this operation for the time being. They had to trust him, despite the fact that they had no idea what he was capable of.

"Give it a shot, you need to develop your ability in the field. This will be a good test run for you. And no, I don't expect you to feel guilty if something happens, but we at least need to try and not hurt him. If he threatens anyone I'll kill him myself," Lloyd fully admitted. "I'd really rather avoid that though" he added as he glanced to where the man was still sitting.

"Amy, activate your power as we get close. If we just sit next to him he might think something is up, we need to restrain him before he gets nervous," Lloyd said as he stood up. "If you two are ready, we should do this now before he rushes ahead of his schedule"

“Aye aye, Cap’n Spanks!” Amy responded with a mock salute. “I’ll do my part! So… if you’re a part of this whole shebang… do you have your own special shoop da whoop?”

Lloyd raised an eyebrow at the title that he had just been given. He was mainly confused on if he was supposed to like it at all or not. Thankfully, her next question was enough to draw his attention away from the previous comment, although her phrasing left him just as confused.

"I'll translate," Ryan said before clearing his throat. "If you're working for our mutual friend you must have an ability as well. What is it?"

"AH! Yes of course, forgive me I thought he told you," Lloyd said before holding a finger to his lips to indicate to them to be quiet at what happened next. He held out his hand and held it still for a moment before focusing his mind. Suddenly, fire began to spring forth from it as if from nothing. "Don't be afraid, it's not real at all," he said as he made the fire disappear. "I can create and cast illusions, I do mind tricks"

“Aha,” Amy replied simply, returning her attention to the man that they were approaching. She didn’t seem alarmed at the display, but then she was also beginning to exert concentration around the general vicinity of the future criminal. The pressure of the area would begin to increase in amounts that would be hard to notice until it was far too late. By the time she was finished it would be difficult to lift a hand without a good moment of struggle. “For a second there I was gonna call you on copying his gig.”

"Yeah I thought the same thing, I was wondering if you had the exact same power that he did," Ryan admitted as he glanced over at Lloyd.

"Well I couldn't think of anything better to show, and fire is a simple enough illusion to create. It doesn't have any true form so it's easy to watch it and not realize that it's fake until you get close," Lloyd responded as they moved forward. "But the extent of my abilities is a conversation for another time" he added as he looked towards the man that they had marked.

"So how do we tell if it's working?" Ryan asked Amy as they watched the criminal from afar. Of course right after he asked that the man tried to stand up only to find that he couldn't move at all. His body kept trying to move but the only thing that he could really move was his jaw and head.

"Like that" Lloyd said with a simple smile before looking over at Ryan and Amy. "You two go on ahead, this is still your show today. I'm just here in case there's an emergency"

Amy strolled on ahead confidently to confront the man at the table, pulling up a chair and sitting herself down casually. She threw up a hand In a half-assed wave of sorts and continued being herself.

“Wassup?” she asked with a friendly smile.

Morris glanced up as both Amy and Ryan sat down, although it was Amy that he looked to mainly as she was the one who spoke up. He just looked from one to the other. "Who are you two, and why can't I move?" he asked in a clearly angry voice. He thought about it for a moment as he looked at both of them. "You're one of them aren't you? You're like me.........it's either that or you poisoned my drink with some kind of paralyzing agent. Which is it?"

“Well it couldn’t really be us who poisoned your drink, could it?” Amy asked casually. She felt perfectly well under control with her gravity force keeping him down. She was on top of the world! “We only just met, after all.” It wasn’t meant to be a clear answer. She didn’t really feel as though she owed this guy an explanation as to why he couldn’t move.

"We know what you're trying to do here," Ryan said as Morris just looked at Amy in confusion by her answers. "We're the reason you can't move, because we know what exactly you mean to do, and we're here to stop you before you do something unbelievably stupid for you and all of us," Ryan said clearly.

Greg looked from Amy to Ryan in confusion. "Just who the hell are you people?"

"We're the people who are gonna shatter your spine if you go about robbing these fine establishments," Amy answered while holding her friendly smile. "We know things, so don't think that you can trick us," she continued to ensure he wouldn't do it on a different day.

Amy's words were probably far more effective than she thought that they would be. Morris' eyes went wide as she mentioned that they could easily break his spine if they wanted to. He wanted to call them out as liars, but considering he couldn't move how could he say they were lying? "Okay okay okay, what do you want from me? I won't rob the bank so will you please just let me go?"

"Not quite yet," Lloyd said as he walked in to view and looked down at Morris. "How would you like a job where you use your powers for more noble reasons and get paid a lot more money?" Lloyd asked simply. "You can quit at any time, no catch," he said simply.

Morris stared up at him as if the man was selling snake oil. "And why would you want that?" he asked curiously.

"Because your gift is something that needs to be used but it also needs to be used correctly. If you work for us, we'll make sure that you don't go off getting yourself killed or arrested," Lloyd responded.

Morris glanced over at Ryan and Amy. "You two....do you work for him?"

Amy flashed a confident, successful smile as all seemed to come together pretty easily. That was a lot more simple than she’d anticipated!

“We don’t work for him, but all three of us work for another guy who stays behind the scenes,” she explained. “This bloke just has seniority.”

"Seniority huh?", Morris questioned as if in surprise. He bit down on his lip for a moment, clearly debating about if he was getting involved with the right or wrong people. Still they had the ability to kill him and they were choosing not to, and if the pay really was that good........what downside was there? "Alright, how do I get started?" he asked.

Lloyd pulled out an envelope and slid it to the man. "You're about to lose your house. There's twenty thousand in there in order to save your house and get more food and supplies for your family. And don't worry it's not stolen or fake, you'll have no trouble using it," Lloyd said before glancing over at Amy. "Let him go"

"We will be in touch with you Mr. Morris, just await our call"

"Bang," Amy announced randomly as the pressure in the area lifted instantly. "Not bad for a first job, right?" she asked of anyone listening with a confident grin. That had gone pretty darn well if she had anything to say about it!

Morris left quickly after Amy dropped the field. He wasn't gonna stick around to have those guys change their minds.

Lloyd glanced over at Amy as she celebrated their victory. "Yes, not bad at all," Lloyd said before throwing down two envelopes. "Ten thousand for each of you for succeeding without any damage at all. Good work," Lloyd said before turning and starting to walk away. "We'll meet again, enjoy the rest of your day off"

Ryan watched as Lloyd walked away. "You know, is it just me or does that dude seem unnaturally calm about all of this?"

“Pleasure workin with ya, boss man!” Amy called after him, picking up the envelope to ensure there was actually money in it. She didn’t really doubt him… but it didn’t hurt to double check…

Once she was positive that he was out of ear shot… and nearly out of sight, she finally answered Ryan’s question.

“I’d say that he’s just been at this for awhile longer than us… or maybe he just follows my philosophy. You don’t really need to worry so much unless something is attempting to kill you directly, then you worry a lot.”

"I suppose it's not that bad of a philosophy," Ryan admitted as he looked at the money that Amy had opened up. "I'd keep that tucked away, it'd be hard for us to explain where we got it from," Ryan pointed out as there were still a lot of people walking away.

"I wonder if it's hard to be Mr. Reese. He knows all of this stuff that's happening and yet he has no act like nothing's happened," Ryan remarked as he looked at all of the people. "I mean look at them, none of them have any idea of what almost happened to them"

“We got it from a guy who dropped it on the table in front of us, though neither of us can specifically recall any of his features,” Amy explained even as she obliged his request and shoved it into her pants. “As for the big boss… I don’t think ‘acting like nothing’s happened’ really fits him. He’s not really sitting around doing nothing since he has at least us and Lloyd running around doing the dirty work. It seems that he’s looking to expand his empire as well since Lloyd was so willing to sign Mr. Hotpants onto the team. So long as he’s one step ahead of the baddies, prevention isn’t such a bad gig.” She shrugged.

"Empire, you really think that's the right word?" Ryan asked as Amy phrased how she thought of Mr. Reese. He supposed that it made sense, they were all going around trying to recruit everyone to the cause. There couldn't be that many of them around the world, but of course there were already four in this one city, so perhaps there were a lot more than anyone even realized. "Well, today's been a good day's work I'd say," Ryan said as he stood up and stretched a tiny amount.

"What next?"

“Can you think of a better way to phrase it, then? It seems appropriate enough to me,” Amy asked as she stood up right behind Ryan getting to his feet. “I chose our activities last and it got you a foot injury. It’s your turn to choose now.”

"Oh come on you're not still worried about that are you? It was just a sore foot it wasn't like you broke it," Ryan pointed out as they made their way to the car. "You act like I nearly lost the front half of my foot, calm down already," he said with a laugh. "Well I don't know about you, but while we're out I think that I'm leaning towards lunch. I could use something filling, and I definitely have the money to get what I want," he pointed out.