Scene 1:

Frank and Wren from Manchetti’s outfit visit Aster at home. They deliver a hamper of Italian foods, wine, coffee. The bottle of wine enclosed looks rather expensive.

Cut scene shows Benji, working in the restaurant, putting the wrong wine in the hamper.

Aster’s annoying neighbour is there for the start, but Frank ushers her off politely. Frank explains to Aster that Dr Rodd conned them into shipping something very valuable and illegal for him, thats why they won’t give it to him. Now some of that drug is stolen, and Dr Rodd was knew they had it. They want to talk to Dr. Rodd. Aster calls him for them. Dr Rodd begs Frank not to hurt Aster, he’s known her since she was a kid (lie). Dr Rodd agrees to meet Frank.

Scene 2:

Cupid shows up at Sundog’s house – threatens to come in if she wont come out (writes on the window the wrong way around because hes too dumb to reverse the writing). Sundog comes out and chats to him: demands he stop levitating because it’s rude. Cupid looks surprised, but stops levitating. Cupid says that the Mallrats must be pretty smart and sneaky because they figured out about the red stuff so fast, it took the Rogues a month. He claims they didnt know what the red stuff was till it broke, now they think that it was being sent to the prison to start a powered riot and justify a crackdown. Cupid asks the Mallrats to investigate – it’ll get messy if he does it.

Scene 3:

In the resturant, Chef Razeto explains to Benji that he put the wrong wine in the hamper. Patiently, he teaches Benji how to appreciate wine – with a focus on Italian wines being the best.

Scene 4:

The team gather at the library the next day and exchange info.

Benji and Aster argue about Benji being so young – Benji explains he’s been the adult in his family half his life, he’s not a kid. They come to an understanding.

While they are there, the news shows a powered escape from Midtown Prison. From the damage, it looks like someone just ran through the prison wall, leaving a person shaped hole. That would require super strength or speed, and invulnerability. Aster checks who shes knows is in the prison – it doesn’t match any prisoner she’s aware of. Even allowing for a power boost from the red liquid, it seems unlikely to be anyone. The only mutant she knows of that could do that is Seraph. But Seraph could have just flown over the wall.

The team investigates as best they can via CCTV feeds and news media. They only see a blur. They reckon if it *is* Seraph, she might go back to her penthouse tower. So they decide to go there.

Scene 5:

The team go to Seraphs tower – when there, they see Jenny Yoo go in. Benji scouts out the taxi she arrived in to confirm her ID and where she’s come from – and confirms it was her, and that she came from the Angelus Gallery. Eventually, Sundog burns her way into the top of the tower through an “impenetrable” steel door, and confronts Jenny. Security systems in Seraph’s penthouse respond to Jenny’s voice command. There’s a tense standoff, then Jenny invites the team to come up in the elevator. 

The Ma*lrats discover that Jenny Yoo is Seraph’s assistant. She also came her to see if the escape could have been Seraph. She lets Aster use Seraph’s computer to track the escapee, but.. they’ve disappeared somewhere in downtown Storm City.  Jenny gives the Team communicators so they can keep in touch with each other and her.

The comic opens with Aster driving her car into the back of the truck, shattering all the cylinders.. sending a cloud of red vapor across the whole scene.

Through the red haze, Bon Chance calls to the other supervillains, “It’s all gone. Nothing we can do. Break off”.

When the haze is gone, the supervillains are gone, most of the crowd are fleeing, there’s the sound of approaching police sirens – and two young men are struggling with powers out of control. One is on fire, most of his clothes burned away as his skin burts into flames. Another is melting into the sidewalk, as if drowning in quicksand. Sundog is holding Red Blade’s sword, taken from him in battle.

The team struggle to help the two young men control their powers, while breaking open a fire hydrant to clear the red substance from the street. Then they all move to Aster’s penthouse apartment to figure out what to do next.

In the apartment, the Mallrats talk with the two young men. Jakob is the one who is one fire – normally his power won’t let him do more than light a cigarette with his fingertip. Petr, the other who is constantly melting into the floor unless he keeps moving, can sometimes move through a wall if he takes five minutes to do it slowly. Both of their powers are in overdrive.

Aster calls the only person she knows who might understand what’s happening. Dr Rodd, who provided her with the superdrug in the first place. Dr Rodd has never heard of anything like the red liquid before – but he might know of an antidote. He’d imported a Russian drug that can be used to suppress superpowers, but.. it’d been intercepted by Joseph Manchetti, second in command of The Outfit, Storm City’s organised crime group. “Manchetti won’t give it to me”, Dr Rodd explained, “But maybe he could be persuaded to part with some of it by someone else?” Dr Rodd also explained that the Outfit doesn’t use powered people, and doesn’t much like them, so maybe thats an angle?

Dr Rodd offers to drive Aster and Izzy to see Manchetti, Sputnik wants to go too, but Izzy strongly opposes that. Aster and Izzy ride up the coastal freeway in Dr Rodd’s customised pick-up truck, and he drops them round the corner from the Italian restaurant, Manchetti’s.

The restaurant had a Closed sign on the door, but there were people eating inside. Everyone was wearing expensive suits, even the women. A tall, lean man met them, and told them it was a private function. Aster explained she wanted to do some business with Mr. Marchetti – and the tall man seemed to find that amusing. He took them through the kitchen, into a backroom, where an older man sat behind a desk along with two men whose hands move to guns as soon as the door opens.

They sit down, and Aster explains that she has a neighbour with superpowers who is causing noise probems – and she’d heard that Mr Marchetti might have a fix for that.

Meanwhile, Sputnik had left Aster’s apartment, claiming he had to get home. But instead, he dropped  his Sputnik costume off at home, and jumped on the L train north to go to Manchetti’s. When Benji arrived, he noticed that there was a “Help Wanted” advert in the window, and walked in, saying he was looking for a kitchen job. The same thin man, Frank, met him and took him back to the kitchen, where he was given a trial shift helping the chef. A job conveniently within earshot of the kitchen.

Back in the apartment, Sundog is trying to manage two out of control mutant teenagers. A heat sensor in the bathroom triggers as Jakob flares into flame again – and Sundog ends up putting the sensor in a plastic bag full of ice. Then the doorbell rings, and the nosy neighbour from downstairs tries to find out who is in the apartment  – and get Aster to attend her potluck. Put off by Sundog, she returns with the building superintendant, who Sundog keeps out of the bathroom by claiming shes in the shower.

Back in the restaurant, Izzy and Aster negotiate with Mr Manchetti. He offers to let them try the supressant he has, if they bring someone with powers to him, so he can see it work. Izzy and Aster leave, determined not to do that.

Not long after they leave, Benji (who has overheard where the drug is stored), sneaks into the freezer and steals three vials. He works till the end of his shift – and earns a $300 bonus from a grateful Frank, as well as an offer to come back and work again.

Later, Benji hurriedly puts on his Sputnik costume as he arrives at Aster’s apartment. Sputnik delivers the three vials of supressant, and the team successfully use two of them to calm down the powers of Petr and Jakob.

The next day… After a run of bad luck, Sundog ends up delivering a package to Bon Chance, and escapes dispite bike malfunctions. Benji, working in the restaurant, overhears Frank talking to Mr Manchetti about the stolen suppressant – the Outfit have Izzy and Aster’s faces on camera, and Manchetti is sending Frank to Asters house to check if their story is legit. Aster phones Izzy, who is seen packing boxes, as if leaving town. And in the very last panel, when Sundog arrives home – Cupid is watching from a rooftop across the street.

Phineas offers his graditude to these “mallrats”, and wishes he knew who they were, so he could thank them properly. The SCPD is not releasing any further information on this incident.

Aster sits at her computer, picking through surveillance videos, looking for Bon Chance – but cameras seem to just malfunction near the villain. Digging through “known associates” she finds the villain Red Blade listed, and through research finds he’s been surprisingly involved in two low level robberies recently. But in both cases, identity cards belonging to a police prison transport driver were stolen.

In a car parked near the river, on the lower level of a stacked two level road, Aster Eliot and Izzy Lockhart sit in the front, while the masked and grey suited Sputnik sits in the back. Aster goes over the plan – Izzy will become Ghost, and sneak into the police station to investigate any unusual police prison transports, while Aster and Sputnik “babysit Betty”.

Wispy smoke-like material leaves through Izzy’s mouth, and Ghost heads off to the police station. The station seems to have been designed to stop some sort of non physical intrusion, but.. not quite Ghost. Soon Ghost is looking over the shoulder of two police officers who are wondering why the SCPD is sending an empty prison transport to the county jail.

Sputnik and Aster are in a rave at an abandoned underground bus garage with Bad Betty, who looks just like Izzy, but her speech bubbles are white text on black. Betty is pouring a line of shots from a whisky bottle while exclaiming, “Again!”

Sundog, a cycle messenger with pale skin and pillarbox red hard, is sitting at a table in a library. The librarian, Sarah, brings Sundog a new book. “I think you’ll like this one”. Outside there are blue lights, but no sirens. Sundog checks a text message, then steps outside, just in time to see a glowing pink form overturn a police truck by throwing a heart-shaped energy blade into the side of it. Then Bon Chance and Red Blade step out of a white van across the street. Three supervillains! Sundog sends a text and photos to their team, and the her eyes turn black,  as she exerts her powers to try and protect the truck from the villains.

The final panels of the issue show Aster, Izzy and Sputnik racing to the scene in a car, while Sundog is is now wreathed in an aura of bright plasma, with cracked porcelain skin, battles with Red Blade. Bon Chance and Cupid have started to unload some cylinders of red liquid from the police truck.  A battle commences, where Sundog and Sputnik engage Red Blade, Ghost tries to keep the van keys away from the incredibly lucky Bon Chance… one of the cylinders shatters, setting red liquid into the watching crowd… a boy in the crowd catches fire, as if losing control of powers… and then finally, Aster drives her car into the back of the truck, shattering all the cylinders.. sending a cloud of red vapor across the whole scene.

TO BE CONTINUED.