Things were bad for witches and wizards after the AntiChrist war.

It took an entire generation for planet Earth to recover from the devastating events, and while the world was far from healthy in 2013, it could be said it was no longer on life support. In the aftermath of the disaster, governments around the globe banded together and formed alliances for their mutual survival, alliances that have endured to this day. However, amid all this turmoil, some governments adopted what could only be described as dubious hiring practices.

For example, Recruiting The Lady Of Fear.

In their desperate bid to stabilize the country, WASP of the US of A relied heavily on the Caretakers. However, they soon discovered that the Caretakers had their own global agenda, which didn't necessarily align with American interests. The Caretakers sought to stabilize the world, even if that involved actions that were detrimental to the US. With WASP's focus solely on the United States, they realized they needed their own pro-American team of metas. Unfortunately, finding suitable candidates proved to be a difficult task. The pickings were rather slim. Those who were a viable option had gotten snagged up by the Caretakers early on.

The Lady Of Fear's reputation improved significantly after it became known that she was one of the few magic-powered superheroes in the world who was not aligned with the AntiChrist. Following the war's end, WASP offered her a chance to work for them and receive complete amnesty for all her past crimes, on the condition that she followed orders. Despite being a former criminal, she surprised everyone by agreeing and proved to be an excellent example of rehabilitation.

The reason was her... dietary requirements.

The Lady Of Fear relied on consuming the souls of magic meta-humans to maintain her youth and power. While she was immortal, her longevity was contingent upon the regular infusions of souls from those who had a natural affinity for the arcane arts. Unfortunately, the AntiChrist war basically zeroed out the world's supply.

During the AntiChrist's invasion, those who attempted to become magic users using the cursed magic tomes supplied by the AntiChrist's minions met their end on the first day, as each death served as a sacrifice to summon a demon. This loophole allowed the demons to enter Reverse World despite the mystic ban. Even natural magic users who used the books to gain more power were not spared, as the demons possessed their corpses and used them to hunt down any remaining magic users.

Following the war, there was a period of several years during which anyone suspected of being a magic user was hunted down and burned at the stake in a manner reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. While this did result in many an accident because of 'false positives', at the time, the cost was considered a small price to pay. This resulted in an absolute drought of magic-using metahumans, which was a serious issue for The Lady Of Fear.

There was a good chance she was going to starve to death.

So it is not surprising that she played the part of a submissive and obedient witch to perfection. She needed magic meta-human souls and the perfect source was the people who held the largest database of people with supernatural abilities on Earth. In the chaos of the nineties, it was easy to make a few people disappear here and there. She kept it to a bare minimum to maintain her impeccable image. Thus, by the start of the new millennium, she had gained control of Project: Kindergarten.

Yeah. It's exactly what you think.

She strategically established 'Free Child Clinics' all over America while putting magic detectors on-site at each location. Although she did not capture every child with magical abilities who triggered the detector, the particularly yummy ones... well... that's another story.

For example, Grease.

Usually, when a detector goes off, The Lady Of Fear would just appear at the clinic, pretend to be a doctor, then determine if the child in question was worth the effort. This time, however, The magic detector went off, signaling the presence of multiple exceptionally potent souls that she could devour. However, the prospect of taking on four individuals alone was daunting, especially when she sensed that three of them were concealing themselves on a rooftop across the street. It seemed like a setup, and she was wary of walking into a trap. However, she was also very... very hungry. These many succulent choices were hard to pass up.

So The Lady Of Fear decided that maybe she might need some backup...

Fear brought friends.

One appeared to be a typical mercenary. The soldier was a hefty woman dressed in full military attire, complete with a motorcycle-style helmet. The helmet had a disturbing half-skull design covering the visor, and she was carrying a sophisticated-looking sniper rifle that appeared to be futuristic. Standing next to her was a shriveled corpse draped in purple robes, enveloped by a swirling mist of the same hue.

Standing on the other side of Lady Fear was a woman dressed in a crimson suit of armor adorned with sharp blades or spikes on every possible surface. Her fiery red hair was fashioned into a long ponytail that terminated in a blade resembling a serpent poised to strike. At the far end of the group stood what appeared to be a humanoid crafted entirely from blood. Just. Blood. A six-foot-tall figure constantly morphing and streaming blood in the likeness of a woman.

As the long-range teleport finally finished and they fully materialized, The Lady Of Fear abruptly brought up one hand with four fingers straight up as she said, "Death Rattle."

Apparently, that was the mercenary's name as the mercenary snapped off a shot at Jack.

Captain Conscious always put the safety of innocent bystanders first. For this reason, he had created an injection that he could administer from afar to enhance their innate constitution. Thanks to Jack 'jacking-up' Conscious's combat stims, he was already moving faster than ever. Despite this, Conscious barely had time to shoot a booster into Jack's leg before Death Rattle shot Jack in the face. The impact sent him hurtling off the roof and crashing onto the street below.

Next to act was Lord Od, who singled out The Lady Of Fear as his adversary. He charged towards her, but to his surprise, she was quite agile and managed to evade his attack. Both of them quickly disappeared over the edge of the building in a flurry of near-misses and expert maneuvers.

That left four on three. Two guns leaped out of Captain Quaalude's legs as he leaped into the air with a grin, "Wait! I know these guys! It's the Blood Club!"

The figure draped in purple unleashed a burst of black energy from their clawed hands. Grease managed to dodge it by a hair's breadth. It missed its intended target and struck the corner of a building across the street. The impact caused the brickwork to age into a fine powder.

Quaalude made a nonchalant remark, "Yeah, that's Macabre, typical necromancer," as he fired what appeared to be a super-soaker at her. Upon impact, the water froze instantly, enveloping her in a layer of frost.

The Necromancer laughed in an echoing voice, "You fool! The dead-" Then abruptly she started screaming and clawing at her body, trying to scrape the ice crystals off herself.

Quaalude's smirk turned into a frown as he warned, "Supercooled holy water, Br-" but was interrupted by a sudden realization. "GREASE! RIPPER'S A 'PORTER!" Meanwhile, it seemed that the weapon in Quaalude's off-hand had misfired, causing a miniature rocket to shoot straight up into the sky.

As she attempted to flank the Blood Club, she set her sights on the opponent dressed in red armor. As she approached, the figure vanished into thin air. Upon hearing Quaalude's warning, she dropped low to avoid getting a claw in the back as Ripper had teleported directly behind her. In a swift move, she balanced on one hand and foot to deliver a lightning-charged back kick directly into Ripper's abdomen. The impact was powerful enough to send Ripper skidding back about twenty feet, but she managed to stay on her feet. Grease frowned because Ripper seemed little more than annoyed.

Conscious wasn't doing too good.

The fourth member of the Blood Club was known as 'Blood Bath'. Unsurprisingly, her primary attack was to envelop her enemies and drown them in her blood-like form. Although Conscious was quite the acrobat, it was a bit too challenging to avoid a wave of blood approximately fifteen feet wide. As soon as the wave made contact with him, he was engulfed and vanished within her ever-shifting form. Repeatedly Blood Bath slammed him against any available surface as she exerted pressure on her struggling prey.

Grease was locked in a desperate battle, finding it hard to hit her very sharp opponent without injuring herself. However, despite that, she had time to shout out, "Cee Cee is in trouble!"

As he moved around the roof with ease, Quaalude deftly switched between weapons. Currently, he was engaged with Death Rattle, who was blasting away with his supercharged bullets. Quaalude countered by shooting black goop that intercepted the incoming bullets and turning them into bouncing rubber balls that ricochet harmlessly away. He appeared unfazed by any of this. Neither about his attacker nor what was happening to his doppelgänger, "Don't worry, he's alright. He just doesn't want to kill her. He'll-"

At that very moment Blood Bath suddenly slowed, staggered, then abruptly started to scream. Well, tried to scream. Alas, whereas Captain Quaalude focused mostly on offensive weaponry, Conscious was the defensive sort, which included having access to a wide range of medical supplies. In this case, he had fired a wide dispersal shot of fast-acting coagulants

Just in case one might need to stop an entire crowd of people from bleeding to death.

That shot going off INSIDE Blood Bath had the most curious effect of causing her entire body to turn into one massive CLOT so fast she didn't have time to scream, instead freezing her body into an extremely disgusting and morbid statue at the moment right before. The eerie sight existed for only a second before Conscious abruptly punched his way out of Blood Bath. He split her body apart to tear his way out with a loud gasp for air.

Quaalude's face was a combination of shocked and impressed.

As Death Rattle continued her assault on Quaalude, she quickly touched her ear and gave a nod of confirmation before effortlessly pulling out a gun with her off-hand. With her unwavering focus on Quaalude, she calmly aimed and fired the pistol at something on the street below. The sound of screeching tires and a violent crash soon followed, but Death Rattle didn't even flinch as she continued her attack.

Ripper, on the other hand, apparently took Blood Bath's apparent demise rather badly. With a roar of berserker's rage, she abandoned her duel with Grease and barreled at Conscious with murderous intent, completely heedless to any other concern or danger. This impulsive decision proved to be unwise as half the SePUs launched a volley of monad-seeking missiles, thus lighting up their battleground like the fourth of July.

Conscious pulled out a yellow weapon that looked like some sort of futuristic caulk gun. As Ripper reached Conscious, he clicked the weapon to full auto and unloaded at his feet. The two of them were suddenly engulfed in multiple expanding bubbles of yellow goop that formed a protective bubble over both of them as the first of the missiles hit.

Quaalude was not as merciful towards his opponents and simply leaped upon Grease, flattening her to the rooftop as he casually tossed a small grenade-like device in the air. A second later, the two of them were beneath a dome of black.

Death Rattle let out a mild curse and hunched down while he slapped a button on his chest and gave it a twist. A crackling force dome covered him as the flames washed across the surface.

Macabre, the slowest on his side, had spent a good ten seconds trying to remove the offensive substance from his person. So he, and he alone, was caught completely unprepared and unaware as he took a Hellfire Anti-Monad Missile directly to center mass.

Let's just say Macabre would no longer participate in this battle in any tactical fashion, unless you want to claim the greasy smear where he once stood was a travel hazard. You know, someone might slip on him or something.

Oh, wait. Scratch that. I forgot.

That was the point where the roof collapsed dumping everyone still on it into the top floor of the now-burning abandoned office building. There was no longer a roof to travel across for him to be a smear on.

My bad.