A Team of Heroes

[Gifted]

It was supposed to be a pretty normal day. The streets were bustling with harried and happy people hurrying from building to building. The air was crisp and clear. Wulf was walking down the road when he passed a small group of three, two of whom seemed to be tourists, chatting in English to each other.
"It feels so great to be home." The man at the front was saying to his two companions behind him. "And bonus points, we get a whole day away from Valeriya before Banion comes to collect us!"
A brown haired girl in a plain beige skirt and glasses behind him stifled a giggle, but the short Asian boy who looked like his companions had several years on him came to the defense of the girl they were bashing as Wulf walked by. "Oh come on, Valeriya's not that bad. I mean, she can be prickly I guess..." Their conversation faded as Wulf passed them.
As he made his way down the street, a blinding sparkle of light his his eye from a window across the street. He stepped forward one step and it disappeared, revealing a sight one definitely shouldn't be seeing on a normal street in Germany; A large sniper rifle, aimed out the window, with a woman dressed in black behind the cope.
She didn't appear to be aiming in his direction. She was aiming behind him, down the street from which he'd just come.

[Raven]

Konstanz was a large city, with a population of more than eighty thousand, but the lake, the reserve, and the wilderness surrounding it had always made Wulf feel that on the whole, Konstanz was its own small corner of the world. The fact that it was quite literally on the border of Switzerland, with only one direction to go by land in order to return to Germany, less than that if you were south of the Rhine, did nothing to diminish the feeling. He'd been born here, and grown up nearby, in a small house on the edge of the city, with the woods as his backyard, and the lake not far off. It was in those woods that he’d realized he wasn’t just well-trained like his siblings when it came to hunting. Wulfgard had a more profound ability of self-preservation than anyone he’d ever met, although it hadn’t stopped him from walking the line in order to help his family when it came to true danger. Whatever Wulf could be called, coward was at the bottom of the list.

On that particular day, he’d decided to walk to the market he knew was around here in order to get some fish. Today he didn’t have time to catch it himself. Then a light caught his eye and he looked up, and saw something that caught him off guard. Even still, Wulfgard's gaze didn't linger too long. While his family weren't snipers, they were hunters, and he knew a gun when he saw one. His eyes turned back the way he'd come and he shouted, "Everyone get down!" His voice was deep, and he was well aware that it tended to carry. He just hoped that those who could hear it would follow instruction. He figured if someone knew they were a target - if the target was indeed a person - they would probably be the first to hit the ground. He pressed back against the wall in case the sniper took insult to his warning.

[Gifted]

People looked around in alarm. A few people ducked, but still others were looking wildly around for the person who shouted. There would not have been time for them to get off the street anyway.
A shot rang out, and several people shrieked. The bullet flew past Wulf, hitting the German boy who'd been so excited to show his foreign friends around his hometown. The teenage boy jumped back and exclaimed something in Mandarin. The girl squeaked "Oh god!" But neither moved, and the girl started scanning the buildings. She quickly noticed the woman with the sniper readjusting her shot. "Jae! She's here!" The woman in the beige skirt and glasses pulled her still-living friend to the side of a building.
The boy nodded. "I'll call, you fight." He pulled out a phone. The girl nodded and held out her hand. The window of the building smashed and the bricks knocked inward, shuddering as if the building were hit by an invisible wrecking ball. But the sniper had disappeared from the window.

[Raven]

Wulf's eyes widened, but he could tell that, for now, he wasn't in particular danger. People would realize why he'd yelled now - there was a gunman taking shots. He moved through the crowd toward the man who had gotten shot, hoping he was still alive. What the hell was going on?

[Gifted]

He was correct, and people scattered. All but the pair that had been with the man who'd been shot in the first place.
"Banion! She's ambushed us, Klaus is dead. We can't hold her off just the two of us." The teenager was saying desperately. "Can you, or Valeriya or somebody-"
"Jae, your left!" The girl shouted.

The woman with the sniper rifle was suddenly there, and tried to hit the teenager with the butt of the gun. He dodged backwards in alarm and the girl threw her with some sort of telekinetic force. But the murderer wasn't fazed. She hit her shoulder on the ground, rolled and was on her feet in an instant. She leveled her gun to shoot again.

[Raven]

Wulf leaped forward, trying to grab the barrel of the gun and punch the woman in the face, though the gun was his priority. What the fuck was a sniper doing here? Did the girl say that guy was dead? What the hell was going on?

[Gifted]

He managed to grab the gun, but she jerked back to get it out of his hand, backing off.
The teenager Stepped to the side of the fight and a ball of blue energy began forming in his hand. It was clearly a gift, but it seemed to be some sort of charge attack.
The girl looked at Wulf with a concerned expression. "Don't get yourself hurt..." She tried t flank their opponent, staying in front of her teenage friend as he charged his attack.

[Raven]

"I won't," Wulf told her, but he didn't back down, his eyes not leaving the woman with the rifle. His hands were clenched into loose fists, ready to throw a punch if he got the chance.

[Gifted]

The woman leveled it and tried to shoot from the hip, but her aim seemed to mostly ignore Wulf altogether. She shot at the teenager, but the other girl moved and took the bullet to her side. She cried out in pain. "Jae..."
The teenager looked from his friend to their attacker, his frantic eyes taking in the red that was staining her proper white blouse and beige coat. He threw his small charged ball at the girl, but she avoided it by running up a wall like some kind of videogame protagonist. The energy ball blasted a hole straight through the brick, much smaller but more potent than the girls telekinetic blasts.
The attacker pushed off the wall and landed on the cement, putting the sniper into a holster on her back and drawing a small pistol. Now it was Jae's turn to protect the injured girl, but she wasn't completely down and out either.

[Raven]

Wulf rushed her once more, this time aiming to take her to the ground.

[Gifted]

Caught off guard, the attacker fired her pistol at him.

[Raven]

Wulf didn't dodge the bullet, but he somehow managed to maneuver so that it hit his left arm, clipping absolutely nothing vital, and slowing the bullet down enough that it couldn't kill the woman's targets. He clenched his jaw against the pain and threw his right fist towards the woman's face.

[Gifted]

He actually made contact despite this woman's obviously insane reflexes. The girl took full advantage of the attacker's distraction and sent her sprawling to the ground with a telekinetic blast. Then a group turned a corner down the street. The attacker took one look at the people coming, and disappeared. Wulf heard the sound of running footsteps but they were quickly drowned out by the approaching group.
"We came to help, but it appears you had had the situation quite in hand." The man at the front had a voice as smooth as honey, and an approving smile graced his lips. "You fought impeccably, Sasha, Jae. It is regrettable Klaus was not given the chance to do the same." He looked down with sad blue eyes at the body of his former friend and comrade. "He will be sorely missed." He looked up at the new stranger. "But who is the man accompanying you?"
The girl, who's name was apparently Sasha, answered. "Oh, him? He just... stayed to fight with us."
"He punched Hel in the face!" Jae said with some awe.
"Yeah," Sasha agreed. "I couldn't believe it, someone untrained..."
The blonde leader raised his eyebrows. "Is that so? That certainly is a surprise." He looked over to Wulf and held out his hand to shake. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My comrades in arms appreciate your assistance."

[Raven]

Wulf took a long breath as the others spoke, drinking in what was happening, and trusting his instincts that the sniper wasn't planning on making a reappearance. When the leader held out a hand, Wulf shook it firmly. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said, seeming to stumble over his words at first, though he'd followed the conversation well enough. "I'm glad no one else died, though. I'm Wulf, what was that about?"

[Gifted]

"Well Wulf, it's a pleasure. My name is Banion Maree. I am the present leader of the Gifted World Protection League, the current iteration of which you see before you." He gestured to the people behind him, as well as Sasha and Jae. One of the twin girls smirked, while the other remained stone-faced. The eldest girl gave an embarrassed smile and a small wave. Anyone who'd been watching the news for at least twenty years had heard of the Gifted World Protection League, though they'd faded into the background more recently.
Banion continued. "Of course in our line of work, casualties such as this occur from time to time. Presently we've acquired a stalker who seems insistent upon bringing a swift end to our assistance to the world."