The villain duo "Ash and Dust," two young men with abilities pertaining to fire and earth respectively, had intended to make their big debut today. They'd been planning it for quite a while, and all the pieces had been laid out as they'd intended. This wasn't Dust's first tango with the Initiative, so he'd gone out to get himself spotted and to lure over a weaker hero or two. Meanwhile, Ash was already in the apartment building, turning off alarms and sabotaging gas pipes, careful not to cause a stir before the finale. After all, what better way to get the public's attention and Arkham's praise than to take a hero down in a blaze of destruction?

Unfortunately for them, the longer they planned, the more time Raz had to prepare.

Raz's insect constructs had gathered samples of the two metahumans' genetic material for analysis which, in combination with near-constant observation, gave the evolved human a very good idea of what this duo was capable of and how they reacted to potential threats. They'd spoken about their plans in detail, all in areas where Raz's little birds could hear.

Long before Dust entered the building, Raziel had teleported right behind Ash as he cracked opened a gas pipe. Their outfit had been shaped to include a hood and face mask, in part to avoid breathing in the gas and in part to make an immediate ominous impression. Alarmed by the sudden presence, the criminal instinctively (and true to his name) turned into a cloud of ash. It was quite an effective means of escape from nearly any danger. However, Raz already knew about it. The magitech mechanic opened the box which they'd been working on for the past few days, causing the ashen figure to be sucked into its open cavity. The box was closed, and the fire elementalist was contained. Raz was relieved that he'd been subdued so easily.

The rest of the time before Dust's arrival was spent repairing all that which Ash had broken. In addition to fusing the metal of the leaking pipes back together, Raz cracked open a delicate orb containing a pre-prepared chemical which permeated through the cloud of gas. The chemical turned the natural gas into clean, harmless air, blazing through the invisible cloud with a sheet of light at the location of the reacting substances. Once all was well, Raz began fixing the alarms in the hallways so the residents would be properly warned about future emergencies.

Dust's entrance was even louder and more quickly neutralized than Raz had expected. Glancing down through the hole in the floor to look at Pulse, Raz's mask appeared to melt away so that the Initiative hero might recognize them from their previous (albeit brief and wordless) encounters.

"I'm glad you're here, Mr. Fox. Would you be able to take the partner of the man you've subdued to the Initiative's holding cells for incorporeal beings?" Raz telekinetically held the magitech box, now quite hot due to the efforts of its prisoner, between their hands so that Pulse could see it. "Although he is presently contained, I do not have access to a more permanent prison capable of holding a man who can turn into ash and fire." Although Raz was not especially fond of the Initiative's overall philosophy, the mechanic hoped that they would be able to work together with some of its members without being persecuted.

NOTES: pulse It's perf \ouo/
also don't expect posts this long in the future /nervous laugh