Another successful stealth mission

First time out since the NexHuman lab mission. I didn’t want to leave Julie and Reggie, but the team needed to put another widget on a tower for the DarkR web.
 
I didn’t feel much like going. Felt like I should crawl back in bed for a hundred years and hide from the world. The realization that NexHuman used my DNA to turn friends into superhuman slaves still too raw in my memory. It was my blood that caused Adam his life and God knows how many others. NexHuman was still out there making more, taking more people and mutating them against their will.
 
Was I any better? Copying others powers often by force or without their permission was part of what makes me valuable to the team. But how’s it different than what NexHuman was doing? Because the “Ends” to the “Means” where different? Because I could convince myself our goals were nobler?
 
No. I’ll keep being in the New Champions, I’ll continue to fight but I won’t use those powers I stole. I won’t use my mimicking ability again. Never again!
 
The autopilot to the X-jet buzzed as we approached the landing cite. I disengaged it and took control of the plane again and used the VTOL engines to bring the plane down slowly and vertically down on the spot Socrates identified before.
 
The plan was simple. Another stealth op, although all our previous stealth ops hadn’t ended so stealthily. And this one wasn’t going to be any different. “Hey guys! We need another stealth mission so let’s bring along Puff the Magic Dragon that we just rescued from a torture prison along...Don’t worry she’ll fit in the cargo hold.” Yeah! Great idea. I’m all in.
 
This time I stayed out of the planning. The last stealth mission I planned...Adam died.
 
I wasn’t about to use my invisibility power. It wasn’t mine. I took it. So I stayed behind out of sight with Pete’s Dragon and Daisy Duke until the heavies were needed to crack some skulls.
 
Wild Thing and Ghost went in stealthily to plant the widget. Of course, our fool proof plan has the alien supermodel with the innocence and common sense of a five year old place it on the tower. Oh, yeah, you got to love our stealth missions. I couldn’t have planned it better. So you know what? At least we get shit done.
 
As the team approached the base we spotted a twelve foot invisible demon standing right by the tower. I’ve seen this guy before. I looked back at Daisy, the giant dragon, and she’s lost in self-reflection. Ok, that’s unexpected. An introverted Dragon the size of a tank. I mean, who am I to say that’s weird?
 
Of course, why would the invisible demon change our strategy at all? Yup, there went the innocent, dark and mysterious supermodel straight into the demon lair. And of course, she’s spotted and of course the maintenance workers turned into witches and witch-fire started going everywhere and the fun began. Apparently the witches spooked Ghost ‘cause she threw the widget from a hundred feet in the air to Wild Thing who actually managed to catch it one handed.
 
You gotta love our stealth missions. My mood was actually starting to lift. I turned to Nemesis and Daisy to share a piffy comment, but Nemesis teleported away before my eyes just before Daisy sped off at 200 miles an hour. The backdraft from her wings nearly dropped me on my ass. That’s teamwork! maybe I’ll mention that taking slower teammates into the combat zone so they get there faster might be a good strategy. Nah! We’ll figure out. This way was way funner.
 
I set off after them although not in bat-out-of-hell speed. Everyone else seemed to be smacking the witches to next year’s halloween. For a change, I took a wait and see approach. I saw the demon started climbing the tower to get to Ghost. So I sped toward him at full speed.
 
By the time I get to him, the demon was almost to the top to the tower. I plowed into him at full speed as I noticed the last of the witches go down. I hit him square in the torso and it flew off the tower; plummeting to the grown below. My teammates blast him and kick the crap out of him in the air before he crashed to the ground and made a nice sized crater. That had to hurt. I didn’t know demons could bend their bodies that way. Oh, as he laid there, the ground opened and other fiendish hands grabbed and dragged him presumably back to hell.
 
I hover there, watched this happen a hundred feet off the ground. I look around and the Champs are just walking around and laughing and the butt kicking we just did. Ah, hello, guys, Satan just grabbed this thing and dragged it to hell...hello? Yeah? Nothing.
 
Good times.