Utopia

"I... don't think I'm quite ready yet," Luke replied quietly with a deep breath, not sure if he was making a terrible mistake. But he knew it wouldn't be a very friendly encounter if the three reunited like they were currently were about to. He had to admit, he was a lot more scared of meeting up with Kira than he was of Nathan. "I will, I promise I will, but... not now."

Nathan listened to what Luke had to say and without his former teammate knowing, even listened in on what was going on in his head. Taking these into account he turned his back on the Irish born man and looked instead on Kira. Luke wouldn't be able to see the selfish yearning in the English man's eyes, but it was there briefly. Oh how Nathan hated being the good guy, this turning over a new leaf thing really did suck for him. But that didn't mean he couldn't have fun.

Luke wouldn't have felt it, but the temperature around the hospital dropped instantly to below freezing and a blue hue began to cover Nate's hands coating his fingers in frost. With a few gestures he formed spikes of ice directly in front of him. Having counted the police cars he created seven of these spikes and looked down.

Making sure to focus he splayed his hand and seven spikes rained down to the ground, each one stabbed into the engines of the police cars but avoided direct contact with any of the gathered people.

The temperature returned to normal and Nate turned to Luke. "I know a better place for this chat, jump onto my back and we'll get going."

"We need to stop off at my place at some stage," Luke replied, giving Nathan his address and obliging his old friend's request by jumping onto his back. Luke's was a bit stronger and heavier than he had been in the tournament, where he had been very light and quick on his feet, but had definitely been a lightweight. Now he wasn't huge or even a heavyweight, but he was definitely a lot more solid than he had been in the old days, looking a bit stronger.

He eyed Nathan's attack with calmness, impressed with the power displayed and knowing his old team-mate had definitely improved in the years past.

Russell stood there with a groan, swearing as his colleagues cars were destroyed around him. It was beginning to look like it would be a day he was eager to forget. He was already imagining how difficult a PR stunt this was going to be for both the police department and for the mayor himself.

Kira jumped when the ice spikes came down, her eyes widening as she noticed what Nathan was offering to do. It was already too late, she knew that, but she ran towards the hospital, her hands glowing green with Flow. Three years she'd been trying to find Luke, searching places she'd felt his Flow, only to come up empty handed. She was tired of being left behind, just because her teammates didn't think she was strong enough. "Stop!" she screamed, a desperate tone in her voice as a tree sprouted beneath her, aiming to raise her up to the roof.

Nathan nodded when Luke told him the address that they were heading for and he tensed his body in preparation for the use of Super Speed. Whilst Luke may have gotten heavier and was probably move stocky and muscle built that Nathan now, he wasn't the only too have gotten stronger. Years of training had left Nate lithe and toned with the strength to back up his attitude. He found no difficult in holding onto Luke. "I'll go to your place first and then we'll head to mine."

Just as he was about to leave he heard the scream and felt the flow. He knew exactly the same thing that went through him was going through Luke. Were they really going to do this to her? Again? Nathan took one last look over the side of the building and then both he and Luke were gone.

The only person who would have been able to keep track of them before they took those few seconds to be gone would have been Russell.

"Of course we can." Percy said to Mary, before turning to Zackary, and nodding to him. While he would like to go check it out as well, Mary came first, and he needed to get her home for the reunion. He briefly wondered what Nathan was up to, but put it to the back of his head. He would find out later. He held out a hand for Mary, so they could start walking back together.

"Mind tossing me a note or something, so that I don't get arrested for using...my gift to catch up then?" Zackary offered in a slight joke. Well, what. He was mainly just a sellsword sort of. He didn't have a stable job, just took money for protecting really things. Then again, why would they arrest him for going after the baddies?

...Then again it was the government he was thinking about.

They were gone. Kira had been so close, and yet Luke had just slipped through her fingers. A feeling of despair and anger overwhelmed her, and she stared angrily at the hospital wall as the tree lowered her back to the ground.

Why would Luke run? Certainly he wanted to see her as much as she did him, unless he hated her... That would explain the three years without even a letter. A pit started forming in her stomach as she walked back towards Russell, glancing at the cars. "Sorry," she murmured, before continuing on her way. It wasn't like she could help with anything else...

She glanced down at her watch, frowning. She really wanted to go to a bar or something and stop feeling so sad, but she had to pick up Jason in a few hours. Now what was she supposed to do?

"Whoa, hold on a second!" Russell called after Kira, pushing himself to his feet with a vaguely annoyed look up at the hospital roof. How the hell had someone just appeared in a hospital and completely wrecked them? Who was the person who had narrowly decided against helping them but had destroyed their guns a couple of minutes later? The girl had to know, and he had to find out something or his superiors would make him a mall cop or something.

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Luke stayed silent as they left, looking extremely guilty and feeling like he had made the wrong decision. Nathan's mind-reading abilities would probably be able to pick up his fear strongest of all, that he had been afraid that Kira would hate him for leaving and that's why she had a kid that wasn't his. Another part of him worried that if she hadn't hated him before, she would now. He steeled himself however, forcing these to the back of his mind to focus on what was going on around him.

Kira stiffened as the officer called after her, stopping where she stood and slowly turning around. She was definitely visibly distressed, and she tried to keep it hidden, but it didn't turn out very well. "What?" she hissed, her voice sounding rather bitter, though she hadn't intended to make it that way.

Why did this guy want to talk to her? There was no chance in hell she would give up what little information she had on Luke and Nathan these days, and she certainly wasn't going to help the people who'd pushed Luke away help capture him and Nathan. That was just stupid.

Paul whistled, looking at the destruction. Such violence and ruthlessness, it wasn't surprising. Nathan hadn't changed a bit, not that Paul had expected him to. Not everyone had just dropped what they had been doing before. Unfortunately, some people had problems with over extending their reach of power and posing a threat to those who just wanted to get on with their lives.

While nulling wasn't exactly fair to most people and Paul disagreed with it, he also believed that going about destroying everyone in the way was a bad idea as well. Death and destruction only has one outcome in the short term and a variety of situations in the long run. The only thing Paul could do was sit back and watch the show.

"Those two were Luke Evans and Nathan Stanton, right?" Russell asked, his eyes a bit nervous and irritated looking when he saw the destruction around him. He knew he was going to catch hell for this, but he needed to know everything about the incident so he could properly defend himself from the inquiries into his competence that was sure to follow.

Kira stared at Russell for a few seconds, anger flaring up in her eyes. She'd been getting more and more angry since she'd started living in Utopia, though Luke's absence had definitely helped speed her temper along. She didn't want to hear this government pawn talk about Luke like he was some sort of criminal.

"No," she lied, her fist clenching for a second, before she relaxed. "That was Nathan Stanton up there, but I don't know the other man." While she was fond of Nathan, she hadn't seen him in quite a while, as he hadn't been allowed into Utopia, and she wasn't going to lie for him. Luke on the other hand, if he got into more trouble, she figured her chances of seeing him would be less and less.

"That's...odd," Russell replied calmly, though he didn't say that she was lying or anything. He had to admit that her reactions pointed to the contrary, but he didn't really want to bully her after seeing her distraught reaction to the other two's departure. He was sure that there were a lot of personal issues tied to this incident, but people with that level of power tended to have endured hardship to get it, and therefore were much harder to crack.

"Please just leave them alone...I don't think Nathan meant to hurt anyone, so...don't try to hurt him," Kira advised, her voice suddenly becoming very soft, though her face quickly became hard again and her eyes flickered with anger once more. Even if these were the people that made Luke leave, she didn't want them to attack Nathan and push him into losing control of darkness. That would be bad for everyone.

She turned on her heels once more. "Now if you'll excuse me..." she trailed off coldly, starting to walk away stiffly. She didn't want to be here anymore. Maybe if she focused, she could feel Luke or Nathan's Flow somewhere in the city.

"I don't plan on hurting anyone, ma'am," Russell answered her, turning back to his injured men to administer whatever first aid that he could until his backup arrived. He was intrigued by her reaction, he had to admit. He figured that she would be Kira, the last of the team that Luke and Nathan belonged to, and he was surprised by her attitudes towards them.

"You're... Kira right? I appreciate the help you tried to give today, even though it didn't work out. If you ever need a hand, or if I can give you whatever information I can about your two team-mates, just ask and I'd be happy to repay you," he offered, feeling surprisingly bad for her considering how he usually detached himselves from cases. He felt that she'd really been hard-done by.

Kira sighed, stopping in her tracks and turning back towards Russell. "If you want to help, you can get them to stop having those cops wandering around near my apartment. Luke is not a criminal, and it's not fair that you're treating him like one," she said slowly, obviously holding back a bit of anger. She paused for a moment, biting her lip. "Plus, at some point my son is going to notice them, and he'll start asking questions that I don't want to give answers to."

"Now that... May take some doing. You probably don't believe me when I say I'm trying to stop that sort of corruption, making the police serve personal interests, but I am, believe it or not. Of course, until it starts actually working, which it hasn't been recently, it's not much help to you, so I thought I'd offer something more immediately useful," Russell replied with a world-weary sigh.

He figured that she probably thought that he was a bad guy for shooting at Nathan if she still felt close to him. Russell still believed he had done the right thing, but he didn't fool himself into thinking that everyone else would see it his say. He was also thinking about the Flows involved, what they could be used for and what could be done about them, without him getting as utterly outclassed as he had been.

Kira's face fell a little, and she frowned softly, turning away from Russell again. "Right," she muttered, sticking her hands in the pockets of her coat. "Bye," she sighed, walking away from the scene and staring at the sidewalk ahead of her. She was still frustrated that she'd been so close to Luke and he'd still gotten away.

She looked down at her coat, noticing drops of water soaking into the fabric. Her hand went up to her eyes, wiping away the tears, and she sighed again. Crying wouldn't do her any good. If anything, it would only attract more attention.

"So...uhmmm..." Rebecca said to herself, starting to stand up. "I guess...it was way more serious than I thought."

Why did I have the feeling someone saw me...and reconized me... She then thought. Shivering slightly as she walked out of the building. Stopping when she saw all of the cop cars.

"Oh dear..."

Luke had been lucky that Nathan's mind reading abilities weren't properly able to be used when he was using other powers. They were speeding relatively fast through the city and Nathan was exerting his expert flow control to completely hide the fact that they were doing so, he wasn't so sure on whether or not Luke could effectively control his own flow enough to hide them properly but he had other things to worry about. That detective could prove to be trouble, after all he had Intuitive Aptitude and would more likely than not have been able to have deduced some kind of strategy. Having an enemy like that was never a good thing, as most people who had genuinely opposed Nathan had found out.

With Luke on his back he couldn't go as fast as he normally would but they still made good progress and soon arrived at the spot that Luke had said they should go to. Surprisingly it wasn't far from where Nathan's own base of operations was.

"Don't be too long..." Nathan muttered after letting Luke jump off his back.

"I'll try not to waste your precious time," Luke replied sarcastically, entering his apartment block and sighing to himself. He took the lift up to his floor, not wanting to bother with the stairs as he usually would. He arrived at his apartment with the same feeling of passive embarrassment at the mess that he usually had, but never felt strong enough to clean up more. Clothes coated his bedroom floor, and empty bottles took up much of the table spaces. There were even blood stains on the couches.

Nevertheless, he found what he was looking for quickly, exiting his apartment again to find his confused receptionist passing him by in the lobby with a confused look on her face. Luke told her that he would explain later, all the while waving goodbye as he left his dwelling. He stopped next to Nathan with feelings of trepidation

"I don't suppose we can walk this time, can we?"

Nathan turned to face Luke and shrugged in response to his question. "We could walk, I mean Kira and the police, and the flow response unit will all be searching for any traces of flow that could be linked to ours and will probably be fanning out in order to better their chances of keeping the trail warm," he rolled his eyes at this. "Or we could use my Super Speed to get out of the open..."

As he was talking to his former team mate his appearance began to shift, subtly at first but becoming a lot more noticeable with each passing second. His hair grew longer, he lost a good few inches and his features became more petite. Within two minutes Nathan as Luke knew him no longer stood there, instead there stood a fourteen year old girl with emerald green eyes and bright red hair.

"It's all up to you really!" 'Nathan' said to Luke in the girls voice.

"Stop that, it's freakin' me out," Luke replied with an uncomfortable look, having trouble associating the kind of reckless violence and darkness he usually associated with Nathan with a small girl only fourteen years old, even though he had been that young when he was in the tournament. He was surprised by all of the powers that Nathan had gained since the last time he had seen him. "You made your point, take me there."

The girl smiled an innocent smile and then began to change again. The hair grew short and her height began to increase. This transition was a lot quicker and pretty soon Luke found himself staring at a man who he and anyone else from the Acer Tournament would know all too well. Well kept long black hair framed his auburn eyes with a single strand falling over his right eye. Across the other was a scar.

In terms of attire he wore a form fitting white shirt complete with bracers that attached to his smart looking black trousers. For Nathan's own purposes he'd added an expensive looking black blazer and a black tie. There was no doubting who it was, directly before Luke stood Shima.

"If you'd proceed to jump on my back, we'll be off."