((OOC)): Nice!
One nitpick. Put some spaces in your writing! Not like double spacing after each letter, or anything like that. I've seen that. That's pretty harsh. 
Just hit enter twice after each paragraph so it looks less like a gaint wall of text.
That is all,
- Fire Lilly
(OOC: Eep. I usually do that, but I copied/pasted this from my Word file. Thanks for pointing it out, though, I might not have noticed.)
((OOC)): Much better!
Great story as well!
...
I wonder if I should start my own story thread.
Pain racked her mind and her body, nearly knocking her unconscious only to shoot her back into an all-too-alert stage yet again. One of the boys was holding his hands out in front of him, shooting great gouts of electricity into her body, making her muscles twitch and jerk, contracting so painfully tight that tears ran down her face. He lowered his hands, for a moment, something crossed her mind. She knew who they were and why they wanted her.
The Outcasts, a gang of outlaws, dope peddlers and thieves. Purse snatchers. Usually just kids her age, but Mutants. Mutants like her. Unbeknownst to her parents, she too carried the gene for mutation. A few weeks ago, she had been holding a glass of water, and noticed that no matter how long she held it, it was always ice cold. She was always comfortable, regardless of the temperature, and sometimes when her anger flared, wherever her hands rested would come away slightly charred. She had kept it a secret from everyone, even her own parents, but somehow the Outcasts had found out. Now they wanted her.
The burly man picked her up by her shirt collar, held her where her feet dangled off the ground. He brought his face close to hers, and for a terrifying second, she thought he was going to kiss her. Then he broke into a smile and said, "Ready to have some real fun?"
Before she could reply, he drove his forehead into her face. She saw a brief spray of blood, and then the shadows swelled into her vision once again.
*** *** ***
Magnimoth dropped yet another Outcast to the ground. He had taken out nearly two dozen of them so far, and all he knew was that some sort of "recruitment" was going on. One thing he knew for sure was that "recruitment" was not the proper word for what he had seen going on. He found a large, sealed door, made of old but still sturdy steel. He pressed his ear against the door, and heard the sounds of torture. A girl whimpering in pain, adolescent laughter, and then a loud thud.
The crimson edges of his vision threatened to take over. He didn't know what he would do if his rage overcame him at the wrong time. It had happened before. So much blood. He brought his hands to the seam in the middle of the door, driving his claws through the steel with little effort. He pulled and strained, flexing and bending and even breaking the steel to get in. He heard hurried shouts from behind the door, and with a final roar, he broke through.
He saw a few Outcasts running towards him, as well as one rather bulky one that released one of the girl's arms before turning towards Magnimoth. What happened next happened quickly, but in Magnimoth's adrenaline (and blood) fueled rage, it didn't happen fast enough.
He drove a fist into the face of the nearest Outcast charging at him, flinging his limp body and broken face into a nearby wall, which splintered with cracks. The next one was carrying a gun, and didn't hesitate to use it. Buckshot spread across Magnimoth's chest, barely penetrating his skin, and the load of the bullet was quickly pushed out of his healing flesh, ringing to the floor like tiny dying insects. Magnimoth got a hand around the stunned boy's neck, and flung him hard to the ground, driving awareness from his head. Finally he reached the stocky one, who smiled at him as strange excrescences of mottled brown rock seemingly sprouted from his body and covered his skin. He rushed at Magnimoth, no slower for being covered in stone, and slammed into his body hard. Magnimoth stumbled back a step or two, obviously not as far as the boy had expected. Magnimoth grabbed his arms, lifted his feet from the ground using his superior height, and rushed forward, both of them roaring in rage.
Magnimoth slammed him hard into the wall, pulled him back, slammed him again. The boy slipped a knee up, used it to push Magnimoth back. Swinging a right hook, he caught Magnimoth's jaw. Expecting bones cracking, staggering, he paused to see the damage. A mistake.
Magnimoth barely flinched, his head moving only slightly, and then he swung his own fist, hard and up, striking the boy squarely in the jaw. He went up and back, and Magnimoth leapt onto him, flinging himself at him, driving him down into the murky ankle-deep water and rapping his head hard against the floor of the sewer. Magnimoth wrapped one of his big hands under the boys chin, lifted him into the air, and unceremoniously broke his neck.
Huddled around a cup of coffee, her shivering seemed to know no end. A blanket was draped over her shoulders, warming her slightly. They said she was in light shock. She didn't know or care about that. She didn't feel anything. He had delivered the news in the nicest way possible, softening the emotional blows, but it didn't matter. Nothing could have prepared her for this.
"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" The detective asked, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what I mean when I say-"
"Yes!" she shrieked, pushing his arm away and standing on wobbly legs. She started to fall, but Magnimoth steadied her with one big hand. He seemed to be the only one she could be civil with. "I understand! My parents are dead! What else is there to understand, officer?"
Magnimoth waved the detective and other officers away, and turned the girl to face him. "I know this is hard."
"How do you know this is hard? What do you know about pain?" Her eyes were streaming, red. Her mouth twisted in a grimace of pain. Suddenly, she fell to him, her head on her chest, her arms around him. After a moment's hesitation, his arms went around her, too, engulfing her. She whimpered into his chest (low on his chest, he kept being reminded of how small and vulnerable she was), and gently he asked, "Is there somewhere you can go? Family you can stay with?"
She shook her head, sniffling, trying to regain some manner of composure. "No one. They were my whole family. They were..."
She began to sob again, and Magnimoth held her again. A detective had dared to creep close enough to offer a suggestion. "We can put her in a state home, a good one, not one of those dumps-"
She started screaming. "No, no! I don't want to be pushed aside, forgotten, left with those other kids, they'll be just like them, just like them-"
Magnimoth hushed her, and wave the detective away again, an impatient look of anger on his face. A rather imposing look. The detectives didn't try and creep up again. He leaned down, and whispered to her, "You can stay with me.'
She looked up at him, surprised. "Really?"
He nodded. "You're nineteen years old, old enough to make your own decisions. You can't afford your own place yet, so it's either stay with me or go to an institution, and we both know you don't want-"
He was cut off as she leapt up and hugged him, her slender arms around his thick neck. Her could feel her scalding tears on his skin, and his arms went around her, comforting. She whispered in his ear, "Thank you so much."
At that moment, he knew what it meant to be a hero.
From the ordinary comes the extraordinary. From the mundane, the strange.
Magnimoth had known this for years. Consider his life, he had no choice. It was either adapt to the unexpected, or throw himself into the same fire that had consumed his Maker. Here, in this modern day world, strange things were commonplace. Thieves running the streets, the police stretched to the limit. Murder, burglary, [censored], all so commonplace it made him sick with rage.
Perched precariously atop a building, Magnimoth first saw the strange sight as they dragged the girl into the sewer. Five men, followed by a much larger group. He could tell by their outfits what they were. Outcasts. A gang of mutants, petty thugs at best usually. They had recently began some grander schemes, and Magnimoth was worried about the repercussions of it. He had enough to worry about without dealing with teenage misanthropes with super powers.
The girl was young, no older than twenty, with raven black hair and delicate features. Magnimoth felt a pang of anger, the vulnerability of the girl stirring a rage in him that he knew all too well. He growled softly to himself, the animalistic side of his curse showing through in his fury. Talons clenched on the stone of the roof, making small cracks.
He had been one of Paragon City's "heroes" for nearly a year now, taking down villains and acting as a super-powered enforcer of the law. "Justice Incarnate", he had been dubbed once, by none other than the city's most famous hero, Statesman. He had seen heroes come and go, and in comparison to his unnaturally long life, this year had been short, a brief flash in the story of his life. Yet it seemed like the most important page or two of an immensely long book - gone in a flash, yet revealing more about the story than anything else in the pages.
He had seen heroes become jaded - emotionless almost, seemingly uncaring about their charges, but still duty-driven to help them. Not him. He still felt that fury, that wrath, that had driven him to his first act of heroism, and sealed his fate thereafter. The vulnerability and poignancy of the young girl's cries as she was dragged into the sewer lit an inferno inside of him. He leapt from atop the building, dropping nearly a hundred feet to the ground. He landed, unharmed, and walked to the sewer grate. It was locked.
With a clenched fist and a savage twist, he ripped the lock off, pulled open the gate, and plunged inside.
*** *** ***
When she came to, she was being dragged down an alley. Horrible fears erupted into her mind, fears she had never known before. Living in an affluent neighborhood had not granted her immunity from this terror, but from the expectation of it. She screamed and kicked, but a searing heat suddenly flared in her wrists, where the man dragging her had her held. Flames flared up around his hands, then died.
"Don't make me hurt you, pretty little thing." His voice was gruff and rough, but still young, still the voice of an adolescent. It was one of the scariest voices she had ever heard. She watched in horror as the sky faded to black, being drug into the sewers through disgusting muck and grime. They carried her deep through passages and across walkways, finally depositing her in front of a short, well-muscled teenager. He couldn't have been more than twenty. He wore a yellow baseball cap and shirt, with brown pants and shoes. His skin looked dry, like old sand.
He was smiling at her.
"Scared?"
She looked away from him. He laughed coldly.
"Good."
She felt his hand on her neck, and screamed.
*** *** ***
As he approached a bend, two of the Outcasts suddenly appeared, scowling at him. "Who are you?" One of them asked. Magnimoth ignored them, striding past as though they didn't exist.
The smaller one growled, despite Magnimoth's size advantage. He stood nearly six-foot-seven, taller than most, and was well muscled. The boy assumed his Mutant powers would be enough to guarantee him victory in a fight. His hand grabbed Magnimoth's arm, and he started to speak.
Before the words had left his mouth, Magnimoth spun with lightning speed, flung him into the wall hard enough to crack the stone and send a spider web fracture out from the point of impact. Turning on the second youth with a snarl, he slammed into him with his entire body, pinning him to the wall. Both of his enemies slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Magnimoth continued on. He heard a scream in the distance, a young girl scream, a scream filled with terror. A second scream pierced his ears, and this one echoed with the sounds of pain. Magnimoth broke into a run.