《Heroes Die First》


 Beginning 1.01

    ¡°Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.¡± -Albert Camus


    ----


    I pull out my phone as I wait for the city bus. I never really thought of myself being that heavily affected by my ADHD as I got older, but once it was pointed out to me I was forced to admit that I could hardly stand to go even a few minutes without some kind of stimulus. In this case, I am opening a news stream, one a little less whitewashed than mainstream television. The earbuds go in as the bus pulls up. I palm my High School ID and wait in line, it is a good thing that students can ride free.


    ¡°-admit that the estimated rate of mutation and power emergence in the state reported by Senator Hammon was incorrect. The leaked documents show the rates are at least twice as high and may be only half of those who have the potential to either develop powers or mutate. According to the study, roughly one in five thousand people will undergo mutation and one in ten thousand can develop powers.¡±


    I find a seat, feeling a tinge of satisfaction as I see the school buses still loading in the school¡¯s parking lot. It takes almost an hour to get home if I take the school bus, but if I jump on the city line it is only about half an hour. It is a bit more of a walk, but with spring starting it was not cold enough to really put me off. Hell, even in winter I would just as soon be home sooner even if I have to trudge through snow. All I had to do was make sure I was prepared for winter, and I would have done that anyway.


    ¡°Speaking for the Fellowship, Silverscreen expressed his disappointment in the Senator and stressed that neither mutation nor powers are things to be feared or hidden. ¡°The first step towards the end of organised villainy is an atmosphere of inclusion and acceptance,¡± she told reporters, but sources suggest that the upper ranks of the Fellowship might have been aware-¡±


    The stream was interrupted by a text notification from my friend, ¡°ur not going with ur fam Max? Why the hell not?¡± It might not have been the best idea to let Jason know I wasn¡¯t going on vacation with my family like we always do when spring break rolls around; I certainly was not going to tell him the truth. Actually, I decided I would not even respond right now. My skill with procrastination is great.


    ¡°-other news, Police and Fellowship forces stormed a Bloc hideout in New York City, apprehending the Supervillian Phantasm after a brief battle. Collateral damage was significant, but quickly repaired by Heroes on scene. Despite many touting today¡¯s raid as a success, critics insist that the government and the Fellowship should do more to prevent the increasing rise in crime and villainy.¡±


    My stop came soon. I hefted my bag, nodded to the driver in thanks, and stepped out onto the sidewalk of Rochester, Minnesota, my thoughts equally divided between musing about the news and considering how to reply to my friend. It is oddly amusing for me to consider that those two topics are related, and far more so than I ever would have imagined. Approaching a deep puddle of melted snow on the sidewalk, a small gesture from my hand and a shimmering barrier appears over it, allowing me to walk over it without getting my shoes wet.


    I never really imagined that my life would be so mundane after I developed powers either; I guess that says more about my expectations and my imagination than it does anything else. Power fantasies about being a Hero are pretty poor preparation for reality, although I can¡¯t say that I am much fussed about having a boring origin story.


    Sometimes called Triggers, other times called Events or Morphs, most mutants and heroes go through some traumatic event and gain their respective mutation or power as a result. Like someone getting hit by a car and growing plates of chitin to protect them, or a person falling off a building and suddenly gaining the power to fly, these things happen in times of high stress to some people. A rare few, myself included, don¡¯t have any real stressor as a cause of our powers, and are referred to as Naturals. We are the lucky ones.


    Not the most lucky though, that status belongs to the people who get mutations and powers. Mutants might face a lot of discrimination and hate, but those who also have powers are simply too strong to disparage. The most powerful hero in the United States, Titan, is just such a lucky bastard, but he isn¡¯t a Natural. Supposedly, he gained his mutation and power when a building collapsed on him, although the details are scant to protect his civilian identity.


    Myself? Physics homework. I¡¯ve thought up about a dozen jokes about that, but it isn¡¯t like I have anyone to share them with.


    ¡°The case is going to the Supreme Court, where the ruling on whether time served on a criminal sentence is measured from the criminal¡¯s perspective or from the perspective of law enforcement officers when time manipulating effects are used, stands to determine the fate of several criminals and villains hoping for an early release. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that their clients have in fact served the time of their sentence and even that heroes like Eternity should be barred from using their powers for the purpose of imprisonment. Experts say-¡±


    I thought if I would get a power, I would become a hero. I imagined living a life of fame and wealth, with beautiful women hanging off my arms, smiting villains left and right. I had a fantasy about changing the world. Instead, I have mostly used my power to keep my shoes dry. In a lot of ways, my power isn¡¯t exactly impressive. I mean, sure, my powers appear to violate the laws of physics, but that isn¡¯t exactly a rarity for powers.


    However, when I got my power, I ended up having to do some serious research about what it would mean to step on to that stage. Especially considering that my power has no offensive potential whatsoever. The reality is that most heroes are relatively unknown and make good money, but not piles of it. As for the women, well, sure there are girls that crush on heroes, but any serious relationship is dangerous and a liability. Sure, there are some unwritten rules in the fights between heroes and villains, but a lot of villains would not even think twice about abducting a woman with a connection to a hero.


    So with my not very flashy power, I would hardly be rich or famous, and I would have to be worried any girl hanging off my arm would end up in a body bag.


    When I enter my house, I toss my backpack to the floor; there isn''t anyone here to complain about me making a mess, after all. I notice a stack of soup cans sitting on the kitchen counter, along with a note from my mother listing all the food she prepared for me to eat while she, my father, and my little sister were gone. And thank fuck she did, because I certainly can¡¯t cook worth a damn. I guess I don¡¯t really appreciate my mother¡¯s good cooking until I am staring a week of canned soup and cereal in the face. I¡¯ll just add, ¡°being an ungrateful brat,¡± to my list of personal failures and move on.


    ¡°-mobs assaulted the pair, and the encounter was captured by witnesses and recorded. Activist and advocate groups decry the arrest of the mutant husband and wife who were defending themselves from attack. Police forces claim that the arrest was for excessive force in self defense, but with the release of those who attacked the pair the State Governor has ordered an investigation into-¡±


    So if I wouldn¡¯t really have wealth, fame, or relationships, could I still change the world as a hero? Could I help slow the rise of crime and villainy? The news stream was a nonstop flood of reminders that since powers and mutations began to appear after the end of World War Two, the seventy years after that have been a slow descent into chaos. The law had to adapt to the emergence of all sorts of special circumstances, and in many ways that adaptation had tied heroes hands. Prisons were revolving doors; either because of the villains lawyers or because law was unable to sentence many villains to the length of time they deserve.


    I walked through the house and stepped out into the backyard; my family¡¯s house was one of the strange anomalous properties in Rochester that had an abundance of property even though we are in the city. Roughly one and a half acres in total, and it was a pain in the ass to have to mow it all in the summer. That was a thought that popped into my head as I made my way to the shed out back.


    Apparently, it was supposed to have been its own house at some point in the past, so it had power, heating, and plumbing. Something must have gone wrong though, because it had been folded into our property and sold with it to our family. We used it half as storage and half as a gaming or sports area. The only thing it really lacked was a path leading to it; I had to walk through the slush the whole way. At least the sunlight felt warm.


    I sighed and turned my thoughts back to my original question as I continued my trudge. Could I change the world? Or even help to do so? I would probably have a better chance to do so as a politician or attorney. Heroes only enforce the law, but it is politicians and lawyers that make and interpret the law; heroes cannot truly change anything if the justice system cannot keep up.


    And they most certainly can¡¯t. The legal definitions of criminals, heroes, villains, superheroes, and supervillains are still in flux. The laws change state by state and country by country, and how they are treated varies just as much. The legal definition aside, the way the words are used in common parlance are pretty easy to understand.


    Have a power or mutation and are on the side of the law? You are a hero. If you are a hero and you have a power that makes you like a demigod among mortals? Then you are a superhero, and the classifications for villains are just a mirror of the one for heroes.


    There are more superheroes than there are supervillains, but there are more villains than heroes. The reasons for this are debatable; gang initiations forcing mutations and powers to emerge, or discrimination against mutants forcing them into poverty and crime are the two biggest theories. You almost never see mutants among heroes, and companies are loathe to hire them, so a lot of them don¡¯t have much of a choice in where they end up.


    ¡°-bombing in Paris has caused the G20 summit to be canceled. The Supervillain Anarchy has claimed responsibility. In a statement released to news agencies, she railed against the rising legal restrictions on powered humans and mutants. Emergency responders were delayed in reaching the scene of the blast as local villains took advantage of the chaos. Rumors that the city is considering declaring a state of emergency have been dismissed as sensationalism, but military units have been observed moving outside the city. Caution when travelling to or through the city of Paris has been advised by the State Department when questions were asked to them, but no official warning has been issued.¡±


    I walk into our shed, although as I think about it that probably isn¡¯t the best word for it. Aside from the storage room, the building is finished and carpeted. The room I have entered into is set up as a lounge and sports room. Sports in the sense of sports watching anyway; it is the kind of place that you would imagine a Superbowl party being held. Honestly, I have no idea what my mother was thinking when my father convinced her this was a good idea, it isn¡¯t like we use the space all that much. Maybe she was just thinking that she should pick her battles; dad was always a bit eccentric and when he got an idea in his head he would pursue it to extremes.


    Still, it is nice to be able to kick off my shoes and throw my jacket into a chair. The builders never got around to the second floor before the properties were merged, but they did put in a basement. I headed down the stairs and flipped on the lights and what I saw really depends on a person¡¯s point of view. The United States, and states like Minnesota in particular, has a long history of gun ownership for hunting and protection. To some people, this might look like an armory. To others, it would look like a nice collection of hunting equipment.


    To me, as I look at the locked gun cabinets, wardrobes containing camo, duck calls, and camping equipment, I see a waste of money. Both my mother and father are doctors, not an uncommon profession in Rochester given the presence of the Mayo Clinic, so the family does not lack for money. However, what they do lack is time. Sure, dad has taken me hunting, but we have broken out this equipment maybe once every three or four years. In fact, he has never even entered the maintenance workshop that was connected to this room. Not that he can anymore, I have the only keys. I fish for them in my pocket for a second before I unlock the door and enter the room, flipping on the lights as I do so.


    It is a smaller room, it was probably supposed to be a bedroom in the original plan, and much of the space is occupied by tables strewn with various tools and parts. I took over this room initially because I liked to mess around with electronics and mechanics, and I still do. Now though, there is a good reason that I locked the door when I am not here. In the corner, with more than a few pieces of junk leaning against it to make it seem unused, was another gun cabinet. One that also had extra room for other equipment. It took me a bit of time to move the junk, I picked things heavy enough that my sister or mother would not be able to move it themselves if they somehow came in here.


    I took out a different key and opened this cabinet to reveal my secret. Perhaps the most eye catching is the AR-15, which I found incredibly and somewhat unsettlingly easy to purchase. In Minnesota, if it is sold by a private person outside of a municipality, you only need to be fourteen years old to purchase an AR-15 without a parent or guardian¡¯s permission. Not exactly the most powerful gun someone can legally own, but certainly one of the most convenient.


    ¡°-raises questions about the 2022 Olympics to be held in Beijing in two years. Critics argue that including events for mutated and powered individuals is impossible because they can not be made fair. In particular, while mutated individuals are still restricted by the laws of physics as currently understood, powered individuals may or may not be. ¡°Imagine if someone like Eternity was to compete,¡± Dr. Allan Yvanovich told our reporters. ¡°Sure, he can do a hundred meter sprint in record time, as an observer sees it, but from his point of view it could take him minutes to do it. How do you decide victory in a timed event where one of the participants controls time? What about teleporters?¡± Others still argue that the point is moot, because Beijing is unlikely to loosen their restrictions on mutants and powered individuals even under international pressure.¡±


    The second item in the cabinet is not nearly as eye catching, at least at first. My super costume turned out more eye catching than I had intended actually, I am kind of disappointed in it. On the other hand, it is an eminently practical outfit. No tights and bright colors for me, and definitely no cape; those always look tacky on any super who doesn¡¯t fly anyway. The outer layer is a kevlar trench coat. It took a bit for me to get my hands on one without having it traceable to me, although that was not nearly as difficult as doing the same for the inner layer. A full set of commercially available bulletproof armor, rated according to the NIJ standards as Type IV, which is capable of enduring even armor piercing rounds. Well, the lower end of the range of armor piercing weapons anyway.


    My mask however, was my pride. I took it to my workbench, pausing for a second to turn off my news stream; I was finishing my mask today, after all, and as distractible as I can be I couldn¡¯t allow myself to be distracted in this. It had started out as a simple full face respirator mask that I purchased at my local hardware store, presumably to be used while painting or other construction. But I had done my research, and this particular mask was compatible with a wide range of filters, and I had gotten my hands on AXBE-P3 rated ones, so they protect against a wide range of gases and particulates in the air. The filters also happened to be much smaller than most, with the downside being that they were only expected to last around eight hours as opposed to the twenty-four hours the full sized filters guarantee. Still, I was happy to have filters that weren¡¯t the size of two hockey pucks duct taped together and stuck on my face.


    I sat down, flicking on the brighter lights over the table and heating up the soldering iron. I was an amateur at this, but thankfully most of the work had been done for me. Putting together my own circuits and programs was beyond me, but stitching the work of other people together like some kind of horrid Frankenstein¡¯s monster was well within my capability. Kind of. I did have to farm out a bit of the programming to a friend of mine who lived on the east coast. We had met online playing strategy games back a few years ago and had kept it up since. He was going into programming and was frankly brilliant at it. I would have asked him to handle that entire part of the work instead of just bits of it if I wasn¡¯t trying to keep my identity secret.


    The mask had been attached to a small and thin casing that would rest over my right ear and run back a few inches along my head. It was into this casing that I had jammed all of the technology that I had thought would be so awesome and had turned out to be a complete and utter nightmare.Last night I had finally finished installing the smart glasses, although even at my most optimistic calling it "installed" is disingenuous. More like ripped apart and cobbled together inside the mask. I originally had dreams of having a heads up display like a video game, and I had quickly learned that the goal was far above my level of skill.


    So what was I able to do? Well, I managed to connect an old smartphone I disassembled to it. A little bit of risk to pay for and use the service, I suppose, but I was able to use the maps function and search the internet. Scrolling down was a pain the ass, and I did have to worry about getting tracked, but it was a prepaid service and I bought the cards with cash. They couldn¡¯t pull my identity from that alone, and I could easily turn off the device when it isn¡¯t in use. Either way, the main feature I wanted worked. Barely.


    The smartphone¡¯s camera had been placed on the center of the mask, and I could use my voice to take a picture. And with that, I could search by image and get information on any villain or hero of note. It worked in my tests, and if it worked out in the field I would never end up surprised by an unexpected villain and not know their powers.


    That was pretty much all I had managed to do, and it was a far cry from my initial imagining. I wanted to have a bullet count, minimap, remote drone control and more. But then I didn¡¯t have a techie or tinker power, so it isn¡¯t like this comes naturally to me. Hell, I wish I had one of those powers. I¡¯d have taken that old phone and made a plasma rifle or something. But no, I got forcefields.


    Even now, as I am soldering the connections for the microphone that will allow me to control my mask with my voice, I really can¡¯t help but lament how standard my power was. I could produce a forcefield anywhere within ten feet of distance from my body. It was invisible to everyone else but me, and even to me the field was nothing but a slight shimmer. But I didn¡¯t need to see it, I could feel where it was at all times. While I could only produce the field within ten feet, I could maintain it afterwards for up to thirty, and I could make it quite large; large enough to put my entire six foot frame behind it or block off a hallway.


    Although, according to the Fellowship¡¯s definitions, it wasn¡¯t actually a forcefield. Partly because, and I have no idea how to describe the feeling, but I can feel that I do not actually make my fields, I just make them interact with the world. I, all humans and all matter, are already within this field but it does not seem to interact with it. My power encourages parts of this all encompassing field to materialize.


    I waved my hand to disperse the bit of smoke that had appeared as I soldered, and set aside the iron to pick up a magnifying glass to examine the connection. Not exactly professional equipment, but I make do for now. If tonight goes well, I won¡¯t have anything to worry about in the future. I was incredibly nervous about my plan, but I was armed and armored as well as anyone could legally be.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    And on top of that security my forcefields- as I continued to call them for convenience sake- were bullet and blast proof. I had tested it myself as I had gotten more and more comfortable with its durability and it''s more unique properties. If you shoot a bullet at it, the bullet does not ricochet off or get caught in the field; no, the bullet stops dead and then falls to the ground. Shrapnel from a pipe bomb does the same thing, I wondered where all that kinetic energy went and with some experimentation I found that my fields stopped matter, but not energy.


    If I put up a forcefield, put a soccer ball on one side and then kicked my foot against the other side of it, my foot would stop dead, but the ball would move. How the physics of that works escape me, but it did help me to identify what the field was. Some time ago, light had yet to be revealed to be both a wave and a particle, and scientists thought it was just a wave. Yet light could travel through a vacuum, seemingly without a medium to propogate in, something no wave can do. So they proposed the existence of something called the aether, an omnipresent field that light could travel through to explain how it could travel through the seeming void of space.


    The theory was wrong, at least when it come to light, but if my power was any indication, the aether did exist to some extent. Including the proposed property that the aether could transfer energy without loss.


    My phone buzzed; a text from my mother, my family was at the airport. She wanted to know if I had noticed the soup, and I replied that I had I was going to sleep early tonight. It is easier to wish them well now and give that excuse than it would be to explain afterwords why I didn¡¯t answer my phone tonight.


    Sitting back for a second, I reflected on my thoughts. Earlier I had been asking myself if becoming a hero would get me want I want and the answer was no. Being a villain could, but I was not about to risk that, even if I could stomach the ethical issues and I was not necessarily sure I could do that. So I picked option three, I would become a vigilante and rob the robbers.


    Well, my target tonight was a dealer, but that doesn¡¯t nearly have as nice of a ring to it. They had been pathetically easy to locate, although admittedly I had a bit of an in. I had made it a personal policy to make friends with some of the rougher kids at school, because why the hell wouldn¡¯t I make friends with the people who were connected to villains? If a villain attacks an area with their gangs or minions, having someone on that side who can vouch for me will pay for itself in spades. And, to be honest, some of them are pretty cool people anyway.


    Not the brightest people though. A little bit of flattery, a little bit of incredulity, a tiny bit of respect, and I know where the local dealers go to get their product. If I called the police and they showed up there, I might be suspected, but if a rogue super armed to the teeth kicks in the door? I doubt they would ever even consider that the ¡°cool nerd,¡± had shot the place up and robbed it blind.


    There might be a mutant there, but the chances of running into a super are essentially nil. What would be there for sure were a few drug dealers and a few thousand dollars in cash. All armed, but not all with guns, and probably only 9mm handguns at that. Between my trench coat and body armor, I might as well be Titan compared to the weapons they have. Depending on the mutation, if there is a mutant there they might give me trouble, but my rifle is no joke like a mere 9mm pistol. An armored or regenerative mutant that can handle being shot by an AR-15 wouldn¡¯t be hanging in a small time shithole like I was hitting.


    My breath caught as I felt anxiety rise in my chest, but I quickly took control of my breathing and shoved the panic down. My best case scenario for tonight would have me shooting people. Not necessarily shooting to kill, but certainly not avoiding that either. I couldn¡¯t think about that now; I refused to think about it until afterwards. As far as I was concerned, I was morally in the clear. I wasn¡¯t shooting innocent schoolgirls here, but criminals in service to a local supervillain. But thinking that and actually doing that are two different things, and the closer I get to the latter, the more nervous I am. I¡¯ll just have to grit my teeth and bare it. By morning I will know for sure whether I can or can¡¯t do this again.


    I glance at the clock; it isn¡¯t quite six pm yet, and my plan doesn¡¯t have me heading out until eight. A few months ago it would already have been dark outside, but with spring comes longer days and that means a bit of a longer wait. I probably should relax, but I doubt it would be possible for me to do that. Instead, I pull out my notebook with my research on the local hero and villain scene.


    Looking just at Rochester¡¯s population, getting close to two hundred thousand now, you¡¯d expect there to be around twenty supers and forty mutants. Holding to the stats, twelve of the supers would be heroes and eight would be villains. The mutants, on the other hand, would almost entirely be villains. Thirty out of the forty would be villains, and the other ten would be civilians; hero mutants were very rare.


    The problem is that supers and mutants don¡¯t always stay where they emerge. In fact, small towns almost never have one of either because they all leave for larger population centers. For that matter, not every city is equally attractive. Rochester, with its medical facilities and growing economy, driven by wealthy doctors and investors, was a prime target. Villains came after that money like flies to honey, and heroes followed the villains just the same.


    The result? There were maybe one hundred supers in the city, with forty-two confirmed villains. As for mutants, estimates put them at nearly two thousand. The extra mutants were brought in by one villain or another as minions and when added to the unpowered henchmen, the criminal population in Rochester had ballooned.


    The wave of violence people predicted¡­ Didn¡¯t happen. Instead of minions storming the street and capes throwing buildings at each other, there were low key conflicts between heroes and villains on a daily basis with no escalation. Rather, the situation was more of a tense standoff, with neither side willing to strike a match and start the fire. The villains, and most of their activities, were contained to the rougher parts of the city. And even there, the average citizen wasn¡¯t directly threatened by the gangs and minions. The only serious fights happened between the villains themselves; the gangs did not share territory and turf wars could get bloody. But the heroes would come down on them like a hammer if they were too obvious and even the villains who weren¡¯t actively participating wouldn¡¯t hesitate to jump if one group or another became weakened.


    It was a delicate balance that could fall apart if the number of villains rose, but I planned to rectify that in the future.


    I opened my notebook and flipped to the section I had about my target tonight: The Devil¡¯s Boys. A small time gang, even for Rochester, with a mere three powered villains and a handful of mutants. The only reason they hadn¡¯t been subsumed by another gang was their affiliation with a much larger gang located in the Twin Cities to the North, The Devils. Mostly focused on drug dealing, even though they made sales they were notable for the fact that they would purchase prescription drugs from the Clinic¡¯s patients. Some were resold in the city, but it was openly suspected that most went north to the Twin Cities.


    But a lot of that was just background information; facts important only because they pointed to a target without much capacity to defend themselves or to figure out who hit them so that they could take revenge. But that was all details I had thought about when I had chosen my target. The actual bulk of the information I had compiled was on the villains.


    At the top of the gang was its leader, Gaslight and honestly he was not very threatening. Well, compared to other villains anyway. He had a wiki page, but it was just a stub. It listed his criminal record, and described his power, but there really wasn¡¯t much to either and the man was not particularly interesting. Again, all of this is compared to other villains. To civilians he is somewhat terrifying.


    As he breathes, he exhales a highly flammable gas which he can direct with his mind. He can also produce fire, though it is only essentially a spark, which he uses to ignite the gas. Dangerous to an unarmed person, or to anyone who has to attack him in a place he has been for a while, but otherwise no danger to anyone with a gun. Disturbingly, his costume looked somewhat like mine, if you can call it a costume at all. Does a dark hoodie and an old school world war era gas mask count as a costume? Perhaps I shouldn¡¯t ask, my costume is basically the same.


    Some of the rumors I have heard say that even though his powers are not that great, he is a smart leader, so I probably should not give him too much information just to be safe. Although admittedly I had never intended to give any more information about myself than I had to. In fact, there is a part of me that thinks I should just kill everyone in the dealer¡¯s hideout to avoid leaving witnesses, but I don¡¯t think I could be that ruthless. Not to low level thugs.


    The Devil¡¯s Boys even had a member I was reluctant to shoot at all. One of the lieutenants, Catspaw, had served time and her civilian identity was known, her name was Charlotte Smithson. I¡¯m not sure what it says about me that even though I know she is a ruthless criminal wanted for murder, I simply don¡¯t feel comfortable shooting a person who I know is a rather cute redhead just a couple years older than myself. Worse, she is one of those supers who wear tights and if the pictures of her are any indication, she looks pretty good in them. She also wears a cat mask and cat ears; it would almost be silly if she didn¡¯t have the power to control animals and was best known for ordering a murder of crows to murder a person.


    Her power seems pretty good, so long as their are animals around anyway, but she has limitations. She doesn¡¯t constantly control the animals, rather she is able to give them a command that they will attempt to follow to completion or death. More complex actions require her to layer commands, and it takes her time and effort to do this. She is a threat when she is performing a surprise attack, but otherwise not terribly dangerous. Still, I¡¯d rather not confront her at all.


    The last lieutenant didn¡¯t even have very interesting powers like Gaslight and Catspaw did. Going by the name Goblin, he had a pretty bog standard super strength and durability power set, and while his powers were fairly common he also was the biggest threat to me personally. The man is mostly bulletproof and I don¡¯t have a method to hurt him except for bullets. Still, the wiki noted that Goblin actually is hurt by bullets, he just isn¡¯t hurt very much.


    Whereas the strategy for handling Gaslight and Catspaw boiled down to, ¡°shoot them before they can use their powers to their full extent,¡± Goblin required a bit more thought. I could hold him back with my force field, but I won¡¯t be able to escape from him on foot and it will take a lot of shots to put him down. But my preparations for tonight were complete, and I had a solution to this possible problem. If the left over pipe bomb I had from when I was testing my powers didn¡¯t put him down, then I didn¡¯t imagine it would take many shots to finish the job after it hit. Given my power, as long as I know where the explosion will come from, I will probably be safe from the blast.


    Goblin wore green shirts and pants, and his mask was Halloween goblin affair. Again, not much of a costume, but they are bottom of the barrel villains. They were chosen because they lacked quality and resources, so the lack of them is heartening.


    I read and reread my info, too anxious to just sit down and wait and desperately trying to not talk myself out of it. The two hours passed excruciatingly slow; I thought about eating, but knew I would not be able to and trying to take a nap was not even worth considering. But even though the time seemed to pass so slowly, when the time did come it felt like it had come too soon; as if it had snuck up on me.


    I took deep breaths as I put on my costume. The coat and armor were heavy, although not as much as I had originally thought they would be before I started doing my research to purchase them; regardless, the weight was comforting. Aside from Goblin, this armor rendered me immune to anything drug dealers, even the powered ones, can throw at me.


    I gave my gun a check over; everything was proper and working. I was able to conceal the rifle under my coat, albeit it was slightly awkward to do so, and I placed extra clips in extra pockets. I didn¡¯t put my mask on yet, but I took it with me as I locked up the shed behind me and went back to the main house. I grabbed my keys and headed to the garage. I had a car, but I told my family I would rather take the bus than buy a parking pass from the school. That was a bit of a lie, the truth was I had spent all my savings on this project. A fifty dollar parking pass was literally more than I could afford right now; tomorrow would be different.


    Rochester did not have a high density of security cameras if you were away from the downtown. All I had to do was avoid traffic lights and certain few buildings and I would be able to get to a park close to my target in roughly fifteen minutes. In some ways, it is scary to know just how close I was to these kind of people. The drive went fine, but my anxiety turned to small city park into a nightmare of shadows that could be hiding villains in any one of them.


    ¡°Its time to nut up or shut up, Max,¡± I whispered to myself, tightening my hands on the steering wheel. ¡°One more deep breath, and take the plunge. You know you want this, its just a short walk and scaring the shit out of some assholes and you will be home richer and happier.¡±


    My friends told me that my pep talks were shit, and now that I am giving myself one I think I have to agree. If anything, I feel worse. The fact that I opened the door and got out of my car was almost a fucking miracle. I walked into the shadows of the park and put on my mask, pulling up my hood over it. I even had attached velcro to the top of my mask and the underside of my hood, so that it would stay in place even if there was wind or if I was moving quickly.


    Funnily enough, as nervous as I had been before about being seen, I realised that as long as you didn¡¯t see the mask you would not think that a man in a trench coat was all that odd in this weather. If I had put a scarf on, I probably could have walked around in broad daylight without too much worry. I found this absolutely hilarious, and I have no idea why. Nerves, probably. Anything even mildly amusing would probably be funny to me right now.


    It was hard to see in the dark, but I knew what this area would look like in the daylight. Dumpy is the word that comes to mind. Not so much that the houses were small or ugly, although that was certainly true in most of the cases in this neighborhood, but that they were poorly upkept. Paint was peeling, shingles were missing, and junk was peeking out from underneath the melting snow in the lawns. Some of the windows were broken and boarded up, which had to be absolutely hellish in Minnesota¡¯s winters. Hellish might not even be a strong enough word, it could be flat out deadly.


    The house I was heading to was not any different. It did not stand out from any others on this street and there was no real indication of what was inside. Perhaps that shouldn¡¯t be surprising, even supervillains kept their heads down and these people would not be in the same league. Light poured from the windows and the snow crunched lightly under my boots as I walked around to the back, avoiding the windows as I did.


    The last tidbit I had been able to get out of the kids at my school was the sliding glass door in the back; my point of entry. The story of the ¡°party¡± the kid had been to here had been shit, but it had been worth it to learn of the glass door. I had never really thought about it before I had started working on my plans, but getting into someone¡¯s house is fucking hard. Unless I wanted to blow up a wall, I didn¡¯t really have a whole lot of options.


    I got around back, and that was where my plan went awry. A scraggly, thin looking fellow had just taken a look outside through the door, a beer held loosely in his hand. He saw me and his face went through a number of expressions, the beer dropped from his hand and I raised my rifle.


    One thing you do not realise until you hear a gun is that they are incredibly loud. I am sure everyone knows that intellectually, but even with that the reality is surprising. I had gone hunting with my father, so I knew this and had my ear plugs, but I still had not had all that much experience with guns.


    When the beer bottle hit the ground and shattered in a spray of alcohol and glass, I had already put a round through the sliding door. The man had been smart enough to dive behind a nearby kitchen counter and was shouting something, but I was not really aiming him with that shot. Neither was I with the second or third; three shots through the glass of the sliding door and my boot was all it took to shatter the rest and allow me to step through.


    I stepped into a ratty kitchen, it was open to the living room on my left and two other men wearing Devil¡¯s Boys colors were scrambling up from the couch. One of them was reaching for a handgun at his waist and I shot him in the stomach and he collapsed.


    ¡°All of you put your hands in the fucking air and don¡¯t make any sudden moves!¡± I shouted, I probably had watched too many bad cop dramas but it got my point across.


    Or not, because not a single one of them listened. Instead, the second man by the couch dived down towards his companion, hidden behind the couch from where I was standing. He was going for the gun, but before I could take a step to stop him, the man that was hiding behind the counter tried to make a run for it.


    My first shot missed, but my second one caught him in the leg. Another one down, but the guy by the couch was already standing up with the handgun. Instinct took over and my left hand left the gun and I held it palm out towards him. The air shimmered, the man fired, and the bullet stopped.


    He didn¡¯t stop there though, he kept shooting until he emptied the clip. While I was watching this happen, the sound of my blood in my ears relaxed enough that I could hear him shout.


    ¡°Fuckers powered! He¡¯s a fucking super!¡± The man warned his friends, but aside from him they were both down. Not that I could dismiss the possibility that there were more, but this might be the best time to talk them down.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± I tried to sound confident and commanding. ¡°So toss the gun over and put your fucking hands up. You can¡¯t fucking hurt me, and I don¡¯t give a shit about shooting you.¡±


    The thug hesitated for a second, but threw the gun over and raised his hands after a second.


    ¡°You¡¯re fucked, you know that right?¡± He sneered at me, and despite the situation I had to note that his face had already been unfortunate and that when he sneered I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised if someone had told me that his face was Goblin¡¯s mask. I¡¯ll call him Thug C, I guess. Thug A would be beer guy and Thug B was the one with the gut shot. It is easier to think of them like that to think of them as people, even unlabeled by a name.


    I just fucking shot two- no, I am not going to think about that.


    ¡°We¡¯re Devil¡¯s Boys,¡± Thug C continued, unaware of my internal turmoil. ¡°Gaslight is going to burn your ass up.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I am so scared,¡± sarcasm is basically confidence right? ¡°Whatever shall I do about the guy who can be rendered fucking useless by a windy day? Here is a better threat: I¡¯m going to toss you a duffel bag and you are going to fill it with everything of value or I fucking shoot you.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you, you fucking cocksuc-¡± Thug A had been yelling in pain on the ground, and I wasn¡¯t about to listen to him cuss me out now that he was saying coherent words. Instead, I just swung the rifle towards him and put a bullet in his other leg.


    ¡°Hurry the fuck up,¡± I said aiming towards Thug C again, ¡°I haven¡¯t got all fucking night.¡±


    I tossed the duffel to the gangster, without anything in it the bag had fit just fine under my coat. And apparently shooting that asshole in his other leg had been enough of a threat that Thug C didn¡¯t argue. Turns out the dealers had been counting their money on the living room table, it was almost funny to see stacks of bills sitting on such a shitty piece of furniture. All around the room was trash and refuse; empty bottles, syringes, take out boxes; the place was a fucking mess.


    ¡°There you go, that¡¯s fucking everything.¡± Thug C had finished stuffing the bag, ¡°Unless you want to search this shithole, but I guarantee there ain¡¯t nothing here worth shit.¡±


    ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t give a shit either way,¡± I admitted. ¡°You toss the bag over, and I am going to toss you some handcuffs. Handcuff yourself to that shitty radiator over there and I¡¯ll be on my way.¡±


    ¡°Shits fucking hot!¡± The Thug complained, as if someone who had burst in shooting would give two shits.


    ¡°Do it, or join your friends on the fucking floor!¡± I shouted, and watched him carefully as he did what I told him. The only noises were the wind through the broken door and the crying of the two gangsters I had shot. All of that done, it was time for me to get the fuck out of here before anyone checked what the commotion was. I shouldered the bag and turned to leave, ¡°a pleasure doing business with you asswipes. Don¡¯t die, unless you do, I don¡¯t give a fuck.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Thug C called out. ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡±


    I laughed at that, ¡°what kind of idiot would actually answer that? I¡¯m not even going to give you my cape name, a bottom feeder like you doesn¡¯t need it.¡±


    I left at a brisk walk, I didn¡¯t want anyone looking out the windows to see me running from the scene. Not that people in this neighborhood were the type to hear a gunshot and to go looking for what happened. Curious people ended up in body bags around here and so did people who saw things they shouldn¡¯t have. Still, I was paranoid and took a circuitous path back to the park, checking to see if anyone was trailing me.


    ¡°Info, call the police,¡± I spoke to my mask. I decided to use the word ¡°info¡± as the trigger for my mask¡¯s voice commands. The phone was picked up quickly, and I talked right over the woman answering. ¡°Send police and an ambulance to 305 Technology Drive. There are three Devil¡¯s Boys gang members, two with gunshot wounds and a third handcuffed to a radiator inside.¡±


    ¡°They are on their way,¡± the woman replied after a second. ¡°Who is-¡±


    ¡°Info, hang up. Info, shut down.¡± I said, cutting the call and shutting down the device to avoid being tracked. Mask comes off, bag tossed into the car, and I am driving. I take another long route, wary of being chased, but I seem to be in the clear. 10:13 PM, and I am home taking off my costume in the shed¡¯s basement.


    ¡°Holy fuck,¡± the last piece off and put away, I collapse in my chair. ¡°Holy fucking shit, I fucking did it.¡±


    This feeling, I can only describe it as exhilaration. After all the anxiety and nervousness, the sudden release of all that worry is a wonderful rush. I just basked in that feeling for a moment, but it was not long before my greed and anticipation got the better of me. I took a look at the bag in the corner, and jumped to my feet.


    I dumped it out over one of the cleaner workbenches; I had never seen so much cash in one place before. Some of it was in stacks, rubber banded together and other bills were loose, probably uncounted before I arrived. It wasn¡¯t just cash though. Pill bottles and bags of other substances were also in the bag. I have no clue what I am going to do with them, I am not a drug dealer.


    Fuck it, I will deal with that later, I have some counting to do first! And I could only smile when I considered that a few months ago, I would have told someone who told me I would be looking forward to just doing some counting was crazy.


    ¡°Four thousand three hundred twenty, four thousand three hundred forty, and four thousand three hundred sixty!¡± It took a decent amount of time, I will have to thank the fuckers later for putting them in stacks like that. I¡¯d have been here all night if they had not essentially done most of the work for me.


    The next second I was on my feet, cheering.


    ¡°Fuck yes!¡± I started to dance, I was so happy. ¡°So fucking worth it!¡±


    As long as I don¡¯t think abou- nope, not doing that now.


    Instead, I am going to turn off and lock up the shed and head back to the house. I throw my pajamas on and just barely remember to text my friend.


    ¡°Yeah, I got shit to do unfortunately. But I have time, want to do something tomorrow?¡±


    The text back was almost instaneous, ¡°Fuck yeah, the group is heading to Bink¡¯s, up for it?¡±


    I smiled at that, and texted back, ¡°Up for it? Tell everyone it''s on me.¡±


    I went to sleep thinking how fucking awesome this day was.

 Beginning 1.02

    Loud.  It was so loud.  The roar of fire and steel and the breaking glass; the screaming and the crying that came before the whimpers and groans.  The noise made it all the worse, even though the world was dyed grey. Everything in grayscale, except for the blood which was bright red.  Too bright, just as the noise was too loud. He stepped through the glass and the man raised a gun towards him, he raised his hand but his power did not come to him.  He saw red burst from his own chest and fell to the ground.


    He was outside again, spring had come, but winter still held sway over the land; the perfect quiet that only a winter night can have still possessed the world.  He raised his rifle and broke the silence, broke the glass, and stepped through. This time he was already swinging to shoot, he wouldn¡¯t rely on his powers and he didn¡¯t have time to understand why they were not working.  He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened this time, and the man shot him. His armor, he wasn¡¯t wearing it, why wasn¡¯t he wearing it?


    The third time, he survived, although he did not know how.  But the screaming was louder, louder, and louder, what pain could cause a man to scream so loudly?  What precisely had he do-


    My phone¡¯s alarm woke me up, but I was still half asleep as I scrambled to turn it off.  It was unbearably loud, but that was the point. Experience had taught me that anything short of deafening noise would fail to wake me up; my phone¡¯s alarm would only get louder until I turned it off.  I needed my alarm to wake up at six in the morning, and that is why I fucking hated it most days.


    Today though, I had never been more thankful for anything before.  I had woken up absolutely drenched in sweat with my sheets a twisted mess.  My nightmares were an unending kind of horror where I had to relive last night¡¯s activities, but every time I did, something different went wrong.  Sometimes, I got shot, other times, I made it back to my car only to be ambushed. Some of the more terrifying nightmares ended up with me being stalked by villains in my own house.


    I would die in every one, and it would restart with me outside that sliding glass door again.  This was not the first time that a nightmare, even one including my death, had failed to wake me, but it was the first time one had been so vivid or so terrifying.  With my alarm off, I lay back in the dark room for a bit, calming my breathing and trying to slow my racing heart.


    I couldn¡¯t spend long doing that though.  Sweat soaked sheets, twisted and messed up, are not the most comfortable things to rest in.  I grimaced; my first day of spring break and my first day after my successful debut as vigilante and the first thing I had to do was laundry.  It was so pathetically mundane that it was actually wonderful.


    The chore of stripping my bed, gathering my clothes basket, and taking them to the laundry room was actually quite relaxing after that mess of a nightmare.  I threw my clothes in as a load first, I had spare sheets to put on the bed and I¡¯d need the clothes sooner; I tend to procrastinate when it comes to laundry, unfortunately, and I didn¡¯t want to be left in just my sweatpants again.


    I tossed my new sheets on to my bed and headed to the shower.  As I got my thoughts organized, I planned my day out. Preparation was not just a motto for me, it was a mantra and a way of life.  Not one I always lived up to, but one I always tried to accomplish. Apparently, I was on the autism spectrum- if on the highly functioning end- and with it had come somewhat of an obsession with plans and orderliness.  Of course, my ADHD fucked with that hard, but I feel like my life was a little too good to complain all that much.


    So I hit the bathroom, toss my ADHD meds into my mouth and wash them down with a cupped handful of water from the sink.  I turn on the shower so that it can warm up as I strip out of my now thoroughly disgusting sweaty pajamas. The water feels great; the normal activities of the morning had really helped me to relax after I woke up and now that I stepped into the shower I was finally able to think about last night.


    My nightmares had shaken me, but if those worries had any validity I would already be dead.  Rochester might be growing like crazy, but there isn¡¯t anywhere in the city or the greater area that you can not get to within an hours drive.  If The Devil¡¯s Boys knew who hit them, if they had tailed me home, they would have already been able to blow me sky high. Hell, even if I was attacked I am sitting on top of a small armory basically!  Even leaving aside my own stuff, Dad had wanted to take the whole family hunting and had also purchased handguns for self defense. If you did include the weapons I had hidden from my parents there were, what, eight firearms in the house?  A couple of pipe bombs and other improvised explosives, a couple of varieties of tasers, and my armored costume were all present as well.


    So they had no idea who I was, and even if they did they couldn¡¯t do shit about it.  That is what I was trying to convince myself of anyways. I don¡¯t think I ever really understood what false bravado was before this morning; I keep pumping myself up with both logical arguments and confident boasts, and I can certainly feel that.  But under than thin veneer of confidence, almost reckless arrogance, was a deep pool of anxiety.


    No matter how I thought about it, I was not able to get my mood into a better state than that; I tried until the water in the shower turned cold and I had to get out before I started shivering.  I dried myself off, wrapped my towel around my waist, and headed back to my room to get dressed. Blue jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, the latter branded by my school¡¯s cross country team which I was regretfully a part of.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time back when I was a freshman and I had been too damned stubborn to admit my mistake and quit. Actually, I had to correct myself there, I was still too stubborn to admit that I can¡¯t run for shit compared to the leaders of the team unless I really put effort in and practiced beyond what I did for school.


    Fuck that, I had barely ran since the cross country season had ended.


    Breakfast was cold cereal at the kitchen table as I checked the local newspaper¡¯s website.  For a long time I hadn¡¯t known that emergency responses ended up in the paper, and that the website actually had a running report of them as they got the information.  I¡¯m not sure how accurate it is, but my curiosity got the better of me and I had to check if my call had made it in.


    Officers were called to South East Rochester at 9:49 PM on Friday night in a shooting incident involving multiple victims.  Other information is currently being withheld citing an ongoing investigation.


    That was probably it, all things considered.  I was kind of disappointed actually, and a bit worried that the police might find me through the call.  But they should only be able to do that when the device is on, and I had made absolutely sure that it had never been on, and broadcasting a signal, while I was at home.  Not that being found by the police would be too problematic.


    The laws might be in flux, but the Fellowship of Heroes had a very long track record of how they dealt with vigilantes.  Vigilantes who hurt civilians got the hammer; the Fellowship line was that they were no better than the villains themselves.  On the other hand, vigilantes who had only hurt criminals got a choice: they could either join the Fellowship and play nice as a hero, or get sent to prison.  If I got caught by the Fellowship, I had no doubt I could parrot the party line. I might not be able to get and do what I want at that point, but I would have a steady job and I wasn¡¯t about to go to prison out of stubborn idiocy.


    I was a bit absentminded as I washed the bowl; I had made plans, but I had yet to consider the long term.  Honestly, while I would like to imagine myself as preying on criminals for a long time, a more reasonable plan would be to grab as much cash from villains as I can and then join the heroes for my long term career.  I honestly am unsure how to balance the risk and reward of all of this; the sharp divide between my desire for planned order and my impulsivity is almost painful.


    With the bowl drying, I toss on my jacket and boots.  Some simple wisdom I used to help prevent panic attacks: if the future is too complex to plan for, make the best choices you can and you won¡¯t end up in a bad place.  My friends and I are going to lunch later, and I said I would pay for it. So right now I have to get the money to pay for that.


    I don¡¯t want to deposit the money into my bank account right away, or to deposit all of it so that someone could link my actions, so right now it is all just sitting in my workroom.  And oh, what a sight it is to see when I step into the room again and turn the lights on. I can¡¯t sing to save my fucking life, and I can¡¯t rhyme unless I have time to sit down and think about it, but looking at the money on the table I can truly understand how there can be so many rap songs about fat stacks of cash.


    It is basically just ink on paper, but it has a gravity to it; I can¡¯t help but look at the piles of money and smile.  It is mostly broken up in twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. Quite convenient for someone wanting to spend it, probably because it was spent by people on drugs.  At first I think to take fifteen hundred in assorted bills to go out and play with, but it doesn¡¯t fit in my wallet comfortably. A thousand barely does, so I probably need to get another wallet.


    The only problem is that it only a little past seven, and I don¡¯t have to meet my friends for another four hours.  I have time to kill, and going back to make my bed isn''t going to cover it. I do it anyways while I am considering how to spend my time; I have books and video games, but I still have that anxiety under the surface and I really don¡¯t want to be alone.  Maybe I will go to the bookstore while I wait? I hadn¡¯t been there for a while, and there were more than a few series that had released new novels that I desperately wanted.


    Actually, now that I think about it, my favorite author had released a new novel just a few days ago.  That settles it, with the bed made and the lights off, I am off to the bookstore. It is also a short drive, I don¡¯t actually live that far away from the city¡¯s largest mall and that is where the bookstore is located.  The place is always pretty packed; I actually can¡¯t find a parking spot near the bookstores entrance and end up parking near the food court and heading in there.


    Being surrounded by people soothes my anxiety away; I feel safe here, although I probably am not.  Not all villains care much about whether or not people see them, or even if they have collateral damage in their attacks.  Still, if my anxiety responded to reason it would not be such a problem, would it?


    There are quite a few kids running around, or lounging about in the food court¡¯s seats eating food and talking with friends.  Spring, and perhaps more importantly spring break, has brought about a bright and cheerful mood about the place. The only damper on the mood was the hole in the crowd caused by people shying away from the eight foot tall mutant walking through.  It is easy to shout about discrimination when you are sitting on the couch watching the news, but when eight feet of solid muscle with six eyes and a second pair of arms that end in clawed hands walks through, you make space. He might be the nicest guy in the world who rescues puppies and grows flowers that he picks when he visits lonely grandmas, but he looks like he can and will murder anyone who he even slightly annoys him.


    ¡°Hey, Max!¡± A voice calls me from a nearby table, ¡°What¡¯s up? Lookin¡¯ to hang?¡±


    ¡°Rachel!  How are you?¡±  I replied cheerily, smiling to hide the fact that my anxiety had ratched up a notch and that my mind had kicked into high gear.  Did she-? No, if she did she wouldn¡¯t be so friendly. This is might be a good chance¡­ ¡°Actually, you know what? Why not?¡±


    I grabbed a seat by her and her friends, ignoring the fact that they had a bubble of privacy around them much like the mutant did.  None of them were actively wearing colors, but all the kids here had the look of the gangs and people usually avoided trouble. I knew a few, mostly gangster wannabes and druggies more than anything else.


    ¡°I¡¯m just killing time before meeting Jason and that group later,¡± I said as I sat down.  ¡°Meeting you will be a hell of a better time than wandering around by myself.¡±


    ¡°Damn straight,¡± she snorted and then introduced me to the ones I hadn¡¯t met.  ¡°Guys, meet Max. Yeah, he¡¯s a fucking nerd, but he¡¯s cool.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you, I¡¯m hardcore!¡± I laugh, ¡°have you ever even held a gun?¡±


    ¡°Max.  You went hunting with your dad once.  Three fucking years ago, did you even shoot the thing?¡±


    Oh, if she only knew.  But that isn¡¯t the kind of person I try to portray to her and her friends.  Instead, I just scoff and admit defeat.


    ¡°I¡¯m the one who has held a gun, and yet she is the one shooting me down,¡± I lament to the others.  ¡°And here I was thinking that with my parents out for break you might actually convince me to go to one of those parties you keep talking about!¡±


    That got a laugh out of the group, but Rachel¡¯s friend Cal, did not even though Rachel herself smirked.


    ¡°Party¡¯s canceled anyways,¡± Rachel said, leaning back.  ¡°Place got whacked, heard that the bosses are madder than shit.¡±


    ¡°Its not something to fucking smile about,¡± Cal half-snarled.  Where Rachel was a rather pretty girl- a long haired dirty blonde with bright eyes and an unidentifiable bit of a tattoo peeking out from her shirt¡¯s collar near her right shoulder- Cal was flat out ugly.  He probably didn¡¯t start out that way, but his face was such a mass of piercings that I often wondered if there was more metal than skin. ¡°I live by there, remember? Shit went fucking down and someone shot the place the fuck up.¡±


    ¡° Well fuck that then.  I was curious to know what the fuss was about; I am not about to take a bullet for it.  Was it a police shootout or something?¡± I lean back and hold my hands up slightly in front of me, as if I want nothing to do with it.


    ¡°Money¡¯s on another group,¡± Cal shrugged.  ¡°But I ain¡¯t about to ask questions; I had talked them up over joining, but I know better than to ask stupid fucking questions.¡±


    Interesting.  I would have thought that they would have pegged me as a vigilante.  If they thought I was someone from another gang then that was fucking great.  I was even more in the clear than I thought I was. Not that Cal was a direct line into the gang¡¯s thoughts, but he certainly knew a fair amount.  He had to, where he lived.


    ¡°Heard rumors that this might spark a war,¡± a larger guy at the end of the table, one I didn¡¯t know, spoke.  ¡°Everyone¡¯s been on pins and needles the last few months. Something fucking big was fucking building, and this shit might just spark shit off.¡±


    Honestly, I am not sure how I felt about that statement.  Would that mean that I might spark a gang war? I doubt that there would be one, but even if it happened, I wouldn¡¯t be convinced it was my fault.  Shootings happened every day, if all the spark that was needed was two low level drug dealers getting a shot and few thousand dollars being stolen than the war was inevitable anyway.


    ¡°A war?  With Northernwind in the city?  Unless Haggler or one of the other Big Three get involved it will be put down hard.¡± I pointed out.  The thing about heroes and villains is that while numbers can be important, some supers had powers that outclassed the rabel so much that numbers became irrelevant.


    Northernwind was a superhero, and the leader of the fellowship in Rochester.  Her powers allowed her to control snow, ice, and wind on a scale that could swamp a city.  If you had not seen a real Minnesotan blizzard, this probably wouldn¡¯t mean much, but any intelligent person would rather run naked out into a natural blizzard than fight her.  If a war broke out, she would freeze all sides to the ground and it would all be over save for thawing them enough to throw in the paddy wagon.


    Unless one of the supervillains that make up the Big Three showed up anyway.  The Big Three were the most powerful supervillains in Minnesota and one of them, Haggler, was known to operate in Rochester.  The exact nature of his powers weren¡¯t known, but it was well known that he had a powerful suppression effect. If he fought Northernwind he would be able to turn her furious blizzard into a mild flurry.


    ¡°Ha!  You think that bitch is really much of a threat?¡± The man laughed, ¡°the bitch is strong, sure, but she is a hero too.  If she goes all out, who knows how many civis will become icicles?¡±


    A fair point, that.  Still, Northernwind can control her powers well, if the public information about her is to be believed.  The conversation continued for a while and I ended up leaving to go to lunch without getting my book! Well, I¡¯ll have time afterwards I suppose.  Another short drive and I am by the small artificial pond that Binky¡¯s overlooks. It is kind of a pity that it is not summer yet, if it was warmer we could have sat outside.


    I had arrived at the same time as another one of the group, a brown haired girl who was almost as tall as I am and far thinner, and I waved and greeted them.


    ¡°Cindy!¡± I smiled, ¡°It is good to see you!  How are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Well enough,¡± her tone was bemused.  ¡°You are acting like we haven¡¯t seen each other for a while.  It was just yesterday, you know?¡±


    Yeah, it was, but damn did it feel longer than that.  I¡¯d said goodbye to her as school ended, right before I went to catch the bus but it felt like weeks had passed.


    ¡°I was bored out of my skull last night and this morning,¡± that was a somewhat true statement.  ¡°I¡¯m a bit more happy about seeing everyone than usual.¡±


    ¡°Pfft, you can¡¯t even sit still for a full day?  Sounds about right for you!¡±


    I open the door for Cindy and walk in, looking around the crowded room and I see Jason waving me over to where the group was sitting.


    ¡°And that¡¯s Cindy too,¡± Jason gave Max a smirk.  ¡°You sure you want to pay for everyone? Everyone¡¯s here, and I am not about to hold back my appetite if its on your dime.¡±


    ¡°Bask in my largesse mortals,¡± I say as I pull up a chair.  ¡°Worship me and unto you I will deliver my bounty!¡±


    ¡°Word choice Max,¡± Mark laughed, ¡°It sounds like you are asking us to suck you off.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, no matter how much you beg, I have standards Mark.¡±  I put on a pained look of regret, ¡°But instead of my stick, what about mozzarella sticks as an appetizer?¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Now that is something we can all agree on as I settled in.  Everyone really was here; kind of a miracle considering our conflicting schedules.  Cindy sat down on my left, and Jason was too my right. Jason was a pretty regular guy with blonde hair and glasses, and to his right was Mark; Mark was tall, thin, had long brown hair and kicked my fucking ass in cross country all the time.  Also, despite the fact he was so thin that people worry if he is anorexic, he would probably eat as much as any three of us.


    Then there was Jacob, brown hair and fat, but smart and with great humor; Mira, who somehow managed to make long and poofy hair look good, and, honestly, was a goddamn bombshell.  Tall, lithe, and with curves that are flat out sinful for people our age. She also had one of the coolest tattoos I had ever seen, white ink vines over the dark skin of her left arm from wrist to shoulder, it was striking to say the least.  We dated for a while, but our personalities didn¡¯t really mesh, she was too nice. I still looked though.


    To Mira¡¯s right was Sarah, who was in some ways her complete opposite.  Only five feet tall and so pale that we joked she would start sparkling any day now.  Her black hair went all the way down to her hips, and she dressed way better than the rest of us.  She looked like she had walked out of a fashion magazine, whereas most of the guys were in jeans and Mira was actually wearing yoga pants.


    I say most of the guys because Eric was also dressed up.  Dark button up shirt and tie, pants with a belt, his brown hair cropped short, his parents forced him to wear clothes like that.  Honestly, it might not be the most comfortable, but he had never had a problem finding a girlfriend.


    Case and point, his current girlfriend, Anne, was sitting next to him.  She was a quiet girl with long brown hair and glasses, except for when sports were involved, in which case she was a fucking maniac.  But she did have the best parties.


    We called our group, ¡°the group.¡±  No, it wasn¡¯t very imaginative, but we needed a way to refer to ourselves collectively considering how often we did things together.  We were all mostly good people. Sure we had our quirks, but we got along and had fun and that was enough for us.


    ¡°Jokes aside,¡± I say as things calm down slightly.  ¡°Order whatever you want, I am paying for all of you.¡±


    ¡°You don-¡± Eric started to say, but I interrupted him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even bother arguing Eric, I¡¯m not giving anyone a choice today!¡±


    ¡°Your funeral,¡± he shrugged.  ¡°I guess I¡¯ll get a steak for lunch then!¡±


    ¡°I keep saying we should go somewhere that serves seafood,¡± Mira gave a sort of vague gesture that seemed to be trying to indicate a different restaurant.  ¡°We could have all ordered lobster or crab or something else that is horribly expensive.¡±


    ¡°I think that new sushi restaurant downtown that caters to doctors probably has the most expensive food in the city,¡± Cindy contributed.  ¡°Next time Max says he is going to pay we shouldn¡¯t spare him!¡±


    ¡°You ladies are just cruel,¡± I laughed.  ¡°Mira, dear, I thought you liked me enough to not slide the knife in!¡±


    ¡°Sushi is great,¡± Jason elbowed me in the side to emphasise his next comment.  ¡°I¡¯m all for knifing Max for sushi, anyone against it?¡±


    Anne was about to raise her hand, and saw that no one else was, and put it down.  Ah, teenage appetites; only one of my friends wouldn¡¯t want to stab me for food, but she would since everyone else was going to anyway.  My only response to that was an obscene gesture towards the group.


    ¡°Fuck you guys, I know the place you are talking about.  Fifty bucks for a plate is robbery! Mira might be able to convince me to pay for her but the rest of you are on your own.¡±


    ¡°It''s not just Mira, Max.¡± Jason had a mischievous smile, ¡°Your pretty damn week to girls, you know that man?  You¡¯d probably pay for all the girls at the table if they asked you to take them there. Frankly, as your best friend, I¡¯m hurt that you wouldn¡¯t for me!¡±


    ¡°When you look half as good as they do, I¡¯ll consider it.¡±  Under assault from all sides like this, there wasn¡¯t much I could but riposte as best I could.


    We ordered, we talked, and we had a good time.  I didn¡¯t get anything complicated, just a burger, but damn it tasted good.  Eric was joking that food always tastes better when bought with other people¡¯s money, and I think I have to agree.  The burger tasted sweeter when I knew that it was purchased with money grabbed from drug dealers who were now rotting in jail.


    ¡°So what are your plans for break?¡±


    That question made the rounds for the table and I had to think about my reply.


    ¡°Well aside from visiting the new art gallery, it is mostly boring work around the house that I have to do.¡± I am going to need more things to do to fill my days; sure, the way time felt last night seemed to speed up and slow down whenever it wanted to, but the actual amount of time I actually spent out was just a couple of hours.  An obvious mistake in hindsight.


    ¡°Oh?  You are going to visit the art gallery too?¡± Mira seemed interested and so did Sarah.  ¡°I was thinking of visiting, but I hadn¡¯t found someone who wanted to visit. I forgot to ask either you or Sarah because you two are generally gone for break.¡±


    ¡°Heck, my afternoon is free.¡±  I said, leaning back. ¡°If you want, we could go after lunch; if you don¡¯t have plans with whomever gave you a ride here.¡±


    ¡°Eh, I can¡¯t go with you.¡± Sarah sighed, ¡°I am here today, but after this I am heading to the cities to visit my cousins.  I won¡¯t be back until school starts.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mind though,¡± Mira answered.  ¡°Sarah gave me a ride here, but she was just going to take me home.  If you¡¯ve got time, that would be pretty cool.¡±


    And of course, because all of our friends were such delightfully juvenile individuals, the two of us got a chorus of suggestive comments and snickers.  Mira and I just rolled our eyes; we were friends for a while, dated for a time, broke up and stayed friends. Now, anything we did as a pair got us a bunch of waggling eyebrows from the group.  No one else seemed to buy our words when we said that we were just friends. And we really were just friends. Extremely close friends true, but there wasn¡¯t any romance there.


    The bill came, a bit over two hundred dollars, which wasn¡¯t too bad given our numbers.  I had the waitress hold on a second when she brought it, took three hundred dollar bills and handed it all back to her saying, ¡°keep the change.¡±


    That certainly seemed to make the waitresses day, and seeing that is always a good feeling.  We sat and talked for a while, slowly peeling off alone or as pairs. I left with Mira, opening the door for her to get into my car.


    ¡°You always do that Max,¡± she noted.  ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen you open a door for Jason or Mark, but you always do for us girls.¡±


    ¡°Blame my grandfather,¡± I said as I started up the car, turning back to make sure I didn¡¯t slam into anyone as I backed up.  ¡°He drove the idea of opening a door for a lady so hard into my head that it is just habit now.¡±


    ¡°I think you are just a pervert, honestly.¡±


    ¡°How does that even-?  Nevermind, I only touched your ass once!  We were dating, and you remember the mood we were in at the time, I did nothing wrong!¡± I defended myself with humor and a bit of exasperation.  Unfortunately, the exasperation was probably the point.


    ¡°I know, but that won¡¯t stop me from teasing you with that for years.¡±


    Exactly as I thought, she is doing it just to exasperate me.


    ¡°Fuck it, even knowing that I regret nothing!¡±


    ¡°And that, right there, proves that you are a pervert.¡±  She said smugly, and I could only sigh and cut my losses while admitting her victory there.


    Downtown Rochester had traffic that was heavier than its population would generally imply, probably because such a huge percentage of the population actually worked in this area.  And of course, that also meant that parking was a pain in the ass, but I managed to find a parking space in a parking garage that was only a short walk through the sky way to the gallery.


    It was a new building, like many of the buildings downtown, and was intended to be part art gallery and part art museum; it was intended to help expand the cultural scene of the city.  But after we entered, I honestly had to say that it had failed horribly.


    ¡°They call this art?  Fuck me, why am I bothering going to school?  If all it takes for art is a blank canvas and then I am a millionaire then I am wasting my time!¡±


    I had Mira giggling at my frustration, it probably was quite funny to see from the outside.  I, on the other hand, found this horrendous excuse for modern art to be offensive. It was literally just a fucking blank canvas; that isn¡¯t art!  How could you call it art!? Fuck me, and I thought that the best way to get rich was to rob villains. Apparently, I was an idiot and the so called artist of this so called work was the real genius.


    Thankfully, the rest of the gallery was filled with real and interesting art.  Everything from beautiful glasswork and statues to very traditional paintings and more were here.  It really was an impressive collection, I might have to take back my initial condemnation.


    Mira seemed to be enjoying herself as well.  Most people would see the yoga pants, tattoo, and skin color and think she was not a very cultured individual.  That could not be further from the truth, she enjoyed both music and art and could speak about the former at length.  Hell, even the yoga pants were worn because she actually does yoga. I tried to join her once and pulled a muscle; I swear she is a fucking contortionist.


    ¡°Max,¡± she sighed.  ¡°You are checking me out again.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, but you know-¡± I stopped when she put a finger to my lips.


    ¡°Max, if you say you are just admiring art in an art gallery I am going to have to hit you.¡±


    ¡°Even if I meant it?¡±


    ¡°Yup.  I¡¯m hitting you for the pun after all, not for the sentiment.¡±


    I have to sigh again.  I swear this woman can read my mind.


    ¡°No, you are just really easy to read sometimes.  In certain situations, your thoughts are simple.¡±


    No!  You are a mind reader!  Oh god, forget the fact that she would know I was a vigilante, I would be far more embarrassed if she knew all the thoughts I have had about her.  A teenage boy seeing a beautiful girl? Yeah, just because it is obvious that I had the thoughts doesn¡¯t mean I would want people to know them. There is a reason people learn to be polite enough not to say everything that they are thinking!


    ¡°And now you are thinking about tacos, because of that one cartoon.¡±


    ¡°I know you can¡¯t read my mind,¡± I laughed a little too loud, lowering my voice again when other viewers at the gallery glared at me.  ¡°I remember telling you what goes through my mind when people manage to guess what I am thinking, and I know you remember it.¡±


    ¡°And even knowing that, you still partially fall for it.¡±


    ¡°I have to admit,¡± I answered ruefully.  ¡°It has reached a point that I am partially convinced you are a cape with mind reading powers.  It isn¡¯t impossible, but I feel like you would hit me more if you knew what I was thinking all the time.¡±


    We walked under a skylight, having an enjoyable time, and the skylight shattered behind us.  We spun around as a mutant landed on the floor, I pushed Mira out of the way just in time for her to avoid getting hit.  Myself, on the other hand, got a fist to my solar plexus and flew ten feet and into a wall. I slid down to the ground, my hands wrapped around my stomach, throwing up my meal.  I could have blocked that, but I wasn¡¯t thinking. My instinct was to protect Mira first, but I could have done both if I used my power.


    Mira scrambled over to me, kneeling down beside me as minions came down on ropes from the skylight.  No gangbangers or drug dealers these, we were looking at professionals.


    ¡°No one move!¡±  The mutant bellowed, his voice like a megaphone.  He wasn¡¯t that tall, but he was covered by chitinous plate armor and looked incredibly intimidating.  ¡°Everyone just sit still for a few minutes and let us do our jobs, and we can all be on our way.¡±


    Then why the fuck did you punch me in the stomach you asshole!?  I knew why though, I was too close to their point of entry. Still, fuck him.


    ¡°Max!¡±  Mira put her hand on my shoulder, ¡°Max, are you alright?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I lied, fucking shit my ribs hurt.  My shoulder that hit the wall to, fuck! ¡°Just stay down and stay behind me and we will be fine.¡±


    Wincing, I managed to get into a sitting position in front of her.  Had we somehow walked into a heist? I couldn¡¯t believe it, city hall and the Fellowship headquarters were a mere two blocks away!  This wasn¡¯t brazen- it went far beyond that- it was reckless and insane.


    The Rochester branch of the Fellowship was home to sixty some heroes and there would be somewhere between twelve to twenty four heroes there at any one time; The greater Rochester area never had less than forty heroes to remain parity with the local villains.  The remaining twenty heroes patrolled further out, even if they were based in Rochester. The entire bottom third of Minnesota, as well as parts of Wisconsin and Ohio, were part of the Rochester heroes patrol.


    It wouldn¡¯t even take five minutes for this place to be flooded with heroes, which was probably why this location was chosen for the gallery.  All this expensive art was a magnet to villains, but this location should have been safe.


    I knew these guys were a higher class than the local crowd, but I soon realised they were more than just a cut above.  All the non-mutant minions were outfitted similar to I would be in my costume, just minus my trench coat. They wore body armor, helmets, gas masks, held rifles in their hands and they weren¡¯t the semi automatic variety.  Hell, even the mutant who had slugged me was wearing a combat vest! He lacked a lot of the equipment that the other minions had, but mutants never had an easy time finding equipment that would fit them.


    My thoughts stopped as a man dressed like an old time plague doctor walked by.  I didn¡¯t recognize the costume, but the quality screamed supervillain. Behind the plague doctor, there was another masked man and two more hulking mutants.  The second masked man wore a suit and a faceless black mask that covered his face; he was another villain I did not recognize.


    They didn¡¯t even glance at the pair of us cowering on the floor as they walked briskly towards the stairs, but they didn¡¯t make it that far.  Someone leaped up the stairs, bounced off the ceiling, and landed in front of the villains. Now this kid I recognized. He wore a skintight red bodysuit, with white stars outlined in blue running from his right shoulder down to the left side of his hip, getting bigger as they went down.  His mask covered his entire head, and his face was covered by another white star.


    Honestly, the stars and stripes color scheme and design was overdone, but this hero did have something that distinguished himself from the rest: his bodysuit only went down his legs and arms halfway over his thighs and biceps respectively, so that most of his arms and legs were bare skin.


    And he definitely was a kid too.  Younger than me, although I had no idea by how much, his age was not public.  His voice and height gave him away to a certain extent though.


    ¡°I¡¯ve no idea what you hoped to accomplish here,¡± Whipersnap spoke with confidence.  ¡°But you aren¡¯t going to get what you want.¡±


    ¡°You should just surrender peacefully,¡± another voice said from behind the group, a woman with a purple suit that was covered in twisting black arrows.  Flipside, she had probably came through the skylight. ¡°But villains never do.¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± the plague doctor replied evenly; his voice was collected, calm, and cultured, with just a hint of a foreign accent.  ¡°I feel that surrendering to the pair of you would be awfully premature; really, it is you who should stand down, I prefer not to kill kids and I am rather unsure how much I can hold back.¡±


    ¡°The others will be here soon enough,¡± Whipersnap declared.


    ¡°Hmmm,¡± the man seemed amused by that.  ¡°Now, now, we both know that is a lie. My coworkers will be entertaining them elsewhere; your bluff cannot even be called empty.¡±


    ¡°Hey, Mira,¡± I leaned back to her and whispered into her ear while the standoff continued.  ¡°When the fight breaks out we are going to crawl back to the skyway, okay?¡±


    She was shaking, I was shocked to see that she was crying silently.  Unfortunately, this wasn¡¯t the time for tact, I gave her a light shake.


    ¡°Listen, we are going to be alright,¡± I whispered urgently.  ¡°We crawl, hands and knees. If you see me start to run, follow me.¡±


    That got a nod, and just in time too.


    ¡°Well, here we go then.¡±  Whipersnap spoke as his arms stretched.  That kid had won the lottery when it came to powers.  First off, he was a mutant, but one of the rare few that looked completely human on the outside.  His mutations made his bones stronger and flexible, gave him strength comparable to low class powers, and even minor regeneration.  On top of all that, he had a power too. Whipersnap¡¯s power gave him increased strength, made him more durable, and allowed him to stretch his limbs to quite a length in an instant.


    It doesn¡¯t sound very impressive listed off, but Whipersnap took all of those disparate tools and turned it into something special.  His arm blurred, and the tile where the plague doctor had been standing a moment ago shattered to dust. Whipersnap¡¯s other armor lashed out at one of the mutants, sending it flying into a wall just like I had been a moment ago.  Harder than that even, because the mutant slumped to the floor and didn''t move after that.


    ¡°Crawl!¡± I pulled Mira after me, ¡°Come on!¡±


    The minions raised their guns to shoot at the two heroes, but no sooner than they had the rifles flew out of their hands and stuck to the ceiling.  Flipside had disarmed them with a glance, as befitted a woman whose power allowed her to change the direction and strength of gravity for any target she could see.  Supposedly, there were limits to her power, but those weren¡¯t publically available details. Her information page only noted, perhaps for the humor value, that Flipside did not really fly.  Rather, she fell in the direction she wanted to go.


    The fight had begun in earnest now, but I didn¡¯t sit around and gawk.  Mira and I crawled, sometimes over the bodies of unconscious minions, and used the pedestals that had held pieces of art as cover from the fight around us.  As for the other visitors to the gallery, besides Mira I didn¡¯t spare them a thought. They could find their own way out. I had enough trouble trying to focus on the fight and escape while making sure that if something came our way I was ready to block it.


    Thankfully, no one paid even the slightest attention to us as we left the room.  We crawled through another room, and we were out of sight of the fight. Not far away from it though, the crashes and the occasional gunshot were loud and clear.


    ¡°Ok, we run the rest of the way to skyway,¡± I grimaced as I got up, fuck my ribs hurt!  It didn¡¯t help that I had to help Mira to her feet. She might have been physically more healthy than I was, but her panicked shaking was making it difficult for her to keep her feet.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve got you.¡± I tried to be soothing, but honestly I don¡¯t think I managed it.  My own state of mind wasn¡¯t much better, even with the knowledge that I had the extra security of my power and I probably needed to see a doctor about my ribs; I don¡¯t think I managed soothing, but I think I did manage to not sound panicked and hurt.  I would take what I could get, I pulled her arm over my shoulder to help her balance and we did some approximation of a hobble and a jog towards the skyway.


    ¡°Freeze!  Put your hands in the air!¡±


    There were already police in the skyway, guns drawn and shouting commands.  Which one was I supposed to obey? Do I not move or do I raise my hands? I had to remove my hand from Mira¡¯s waist to do it, but she was able to stay on her feet as we both stopped and raised our hands.


    ¡°Don¡¯t shoot!  We just want to get out of here!¡±  I shouted, realising after the fact that shouting at cops responding to a villain is probably a good way to get shot.  Thankfully, I didn¡¯t get myself shot and instead Mira and I were able to pass through the police cordon to be bustled into an ambulance that had just arrived.


    Mira had insisted that I go to the hospital, and honestly I had to agree.  I didn¡¯t feel like I was seriously hurt, but I didn¡¯t feel great either. My thoughts were wandering, and I found myself debating whether or not I would feel like I was injured after the adrenaline wore off.


    ¡°You may, but if you would please lift your head up?¡±


    Had I been talking out loud?  Who was tal- No, it would obviously be the EMT.  A hand gripped my chin and tilted my head up, shining a light in my eyes.  I had never thought about how loud the siren was from inside an ambulance before.


    ¡°Confusion, dilated eyes, he¡¯s in shock.  Was he injured?¡± The EMT wasn¡¯t asking me.


    ¡°A mut- mutant punched him in the chest.¡± Mira answered, stuttering a bit at first.  ¡°Max was hit so hard that he was thrown against the wall.¡±


    ¡°Where was he hit?¡±


    ¡°His chest, will he be ok?¡±


    ¡°Hopefully,¡± the EMT said, and I certainly hope so too.  She started talking to someone else, neither Mira nor myself.  ¡°Call ahead to radiology, were coming in with a chest injury and the doctors will need imagin-¡±


    She was still talking, but I couldn¡¯t really understand the words.  Someone was gripping my hand, but the world was blurring; Darkening.  I blacked out.

 Beginning 1.03

    Loud.  It was so loud.  The roar of fire and steel and the breaking glass; the screaming and the crying that came before the whimpers and groans.  The noise made it all the worse, even though the world was dyed grey. Everything in grayscale, except for the blood which was bright red.  Too bright, just as the noise was too loud. He stepped through the glass and the man raised a gun towards Mira, he raised his hand but his power did not come to him.  He tried to move towards her, but an elegant cane barred his path and the hooked mask of the plague doctor hovered over his right shoulder. One shot and Mira fell, the grey world splashed with red.  The man aimed at me and-


    I woke up and tried to raise a hand to rub my bleary eyes to clear their blurry vision, but I found myself pulling against something slightly.  I blinked, started thinking that my bed should be more comfortable than what I was lying on, and then looked around at the room; it wasn¡¯t my room!  Panic hit me like a mallet, but it didn¡¯t take me long to realise I was in a hospital room. The tug I had felt at my wrist and hand were IV¡¯s and it stood to reason that a hospital bed wouldn¡¯t be nearly as comfortable as my own!


    How long had I been out?  I shifted slightly and winced.  My chest still hurt so it could not have been too long a time.  There was something on my chest actually, and I had to awkwardly use my left hand to shift the sheets and hospital gown to see an absorbant pad taped there.  I didn¡¯t remember bleeding - though to be fair I had difficulty remembering much after meeting the police - so did that mean I was in surgery? It couldn¡¯t have been too terrible if I got out of it with this.


    On the bright side, having lived in Rochester my whole life, and being the son of a pair of doctors, I had more than a passing familiarity with hospital rooms; finding the ¡°call nurse¡± button didn¡¯t take long.  It wasn¡¯t a long wait for the nurse either, but during that time I noticed that the sunlight through the window seemed brighter than it should. Had I been here through the night? Mom was going to kill me; I probably had a couple dozen missed texts and calls on my phone.


    ¡°Ah, your awake.¡±  The nurse interrupted my train of thought when she came in, moving to check the monitors I was hooked up to.  ¡°I¡¯ll let the doctor know; is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?¡±


    ¡°Wha-?¡±  I croaked, before realising that my throat was painfully dry and coughing.


    ¡°Here, let me get you some water,¡± the nurse said kindly and I nodded thankfully.  Being able to drink water after a procedure meant it couldn¡¯t have been too bad either.  I mean, it had obviously hurt when the mutant hit me, but in the back of my mind I was worried I had been hurt worse than I had thought.  Adrenaline can keep people moving through some pretty horrific injuries and not all injuries are instantly lethal either, still, I should probably just wait for the doctor instead of guessing.


    The nurse came back with the plastic mugs - with lids and straws - that the hospital used filled with water and ice.  Once I had become aware of it, my dry throat was hellish, so I gratefully accepted. Idly, I wondered why I felt this thirsty; in theory, and often in practice, a saline drip could supply all the hydration the body needed.


    ¡°Doctor Karl will be coming in shortly,¡± the nurse said as I took a long drink.  ¡°You woke up at a good time, he was just doing his morning rounds.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for the water,¡± I replied with a smile.  First rule for being in a hospital: always be polite and kind to the nurses.  ¡°My mouth was so dry I couldn¡¯t even talk! Can I ask what happened to me? I don¡¯t really remember much; I think I got into an ambulance¡­¡±


    Wait, wasn¡¯t Mira with me?  What happened to her? I had a short moment of panic before realising that she really hadn¡¯t been hurt, so her parents had probably picked her up and taken her home.  If the doctor was doing his morning rounds, it was at least the next day.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I really don¡¯t know,¡± the nurse was slightly distracted by the brief spike in my heart rate on the monitors, but sounded apologetic as she replied.  I should have known better, the nurses would know my condition and what they could and could not do to make me comfortable, but they were rarely informed why or how a patient ended up in the hospital or what the prognosis would be.  ¡°Doctor Karl will have all the details when he comes in. Is there anything I do to help you get more comfortable in the meantime?¡±


    ¡°Well, if I could have my phone that would be good,¡± I grimaced slightly, hoping that it still had a charge.  ¡°My family is away right now, and my mom is probably worried sick.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± she replied, handing me my phone from a basket on a nearby table.  ¡°And here, let me help you sit up.¡±


    When I was younger I wanted to have a hospital bed for myself at home.  Sure, they were not quite as comfy as a proper mattress, but the bed controls allowed the top part to sit up and young Max thought that was awesome.  They had a couple of other interesting features as well, one example was the built in speakers on the side bars. The nurse had also put the television¡¯s remote within easy reach.  Assuring me that the doctor would be in soon and that I could use the call button if there was anything I needed, I thanked the nurse again and she left the room.


    I sighed, my polite smile fading quickly.  I really was not anxious to check my messages, but sitting in silence, even for a few minutes, was not something I could do.  I turned the television on and put the news on in the background; a commercial for the latest Eternity action figure was playing.


    I sighed again, it was time to bite the bullet.  My phone was sitting at a nineteen percent charge, so I could get some use out of it if I did so sparingly.  I checked and was surprised at the sheer number of messages I had gotten, even my mother wouldn¡¯t have texted and called me this much¡­


    Indeed she hadn¡¯t; Mira must have let the group know, because I had well wishes from all of them, even the extended members.  I had a few worried texts from Mira as well, but first things first, I had to text my mom and let her know I was ok.


    ¡°And we are back, with more breaking news about the attack in Southern Minnesota yesterday.¡±


    I sent a text to my mom letting her know I was fine and paused on a similar text to Mira when I heard the national news.  Heroes and villains were everywhere, what happened at the gallery to make it worthy of the national news?


    ¡°-and authorities are tight lipped, but local sources suggest a concerted attack by villains all over the patrol area of the Rochester Fellowship Chapter.  Villains from around the country participated, and now the latest breaking information is that the local Fellowship Headquarters was invaded during the attack.  Fellowship spokespeople have refused to comment, but experts suggest that the villains may have been after sensitive data on the Fellowship servers. With the next election only a few-¡±


    There was a knock at the room¡¯s door.  The door was open, but the doctor was being polite and letting me know he was there.


    ¡°Max?  I have to say I am a bit surprised to see you here.¡±  Doctor Karl wasn¡¯t an old man - late forties at most - but he was almost entirely bald and what little hair he did have was white or grey.  The glasses he wore contributed to him looking older, but I knew better. Doctor Karl was a friend of my dad, and had been over to our house for dinner and sports on more than one occasion.


    ¡°I am surprised to be here Doctor Karl,¡± I admitted.  ¡°I can¡¯t say that what happened was really what I had planned for yesterday, although I am not entirely sure what happened?¡±


    I used the tone of my voice to say the last part in a questioning manner, and the doctor took the opening provided.  After a bit of a chuckle, anyway.


    ¡°You know you can just call me Steven.  When your sister was younger she used to call me ¡®Uncle Stee!¡¯¡±  Doctor Karl said, but I felt it was very awkward to call him by his first name.  I know that my friends and family think I am strange when I argue this, but I feel that given his profession and age, calling Doctor Karl ¡®Steve¡¯ would just be too informal and rude.  Thankfully, the doctor didn¡¯t press the point and continued instead.


    ¡°You took a pretty hard hit,¡± he said as he double checked my chart.  ¡°It isn¡¯t too obvious yet, but you are going to have some large bruising on your chest and back.  It won¡¯t be very comfortable, but it shouldn¡¯t affect your day to day much.¡±


    Not great, but not terrible.  I had expected at least this much, so I just nodded along.


    ¡°Some small lacerations on your chest, but not much worse than you would get by trying to hug an angry cat.¡±  That explained the pad then, so I guess I hadn¡¯t been in surgery and was just a bit beat- ¡°When you came in, you were in shock.  It is difficult to be certain, but I am confident with the original diagnosis of having both psychological and physiological causes.  Normally, a minor hemothorax wouldn¡¯t result in shock, but given the situation it may have been a contributing factor.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, what is a hemothorax?¡± I asked, confused.  Sometimes I wish I had taken latin so that I could understand medical terms better, but I did know that ¡®hemo¡¯ meant blood.  Thorax, I was less sure about. It was a part of insect anatomy, and at a guess I would say it might be throat or chest.


    ¡°Sometimes, when someone takes a hit to the chest from one thing or another, there can be damage to the blood vessels allowing blood to leak into the pleural cavity.¡±  Karl explained calmly; although the only thing I understood about it was that I had been bleeding internally, which sure as hell didn¡¯t sound minor to me. ¡°You were unconscious at the time, but a pleural tap was performed to drain the fluid and was very successful.  Imaging shows that once drained, there was not a quick fluid build up again, which means that the damage was likely quite minor.¡±


    ¡°Wow¡­¡±  I was still trying to process everything, and I don¡¯t think I was doing all that well right now.  ¡°That is¡­ A lot to take in all at once.¡±


    ¡°Well, normally we would have to have a talk about your prognosis and after care,¡± Doctor Karl smiled as he put the charts down.  ¡°But you lucked out in some ways; you got a visit from Stitch, and aside from some nasty bruises you are good to go. We just have to handle some paperwork and you can be discharged.¡±


    If that was the case I really had been lucky, I thought to myself as I exchanged a few more pleasantries with Doctor Karl and he left the room to arrange the paperwork.  Stitch was one of the most famous medical heroes and his schedule was packed. He could do surgeries that no other surgeon or doctor would even consider, much less dare, and do them quickly and easily.  This meant that Stitch rarely bothered with anything that a regular doctor could do, only focusing on the cases they could not handle.


    According to Karl, Stitch had visited all of the injured from yesterday, my attention wandered back to the television as I wondered how many people had gotten hurt.  Then, with a start, I recognized the costumed villain on the screen. I quickly turned up the volume to catch what they were saying.


    ¡°-footage was just released and analysts confirm the supervillain Germ was present in yesterday¡¯s attack.  Appearing in Rochester, Germ attacked a recently opened art gallery and was intercepted by local heroes Whipersnap and Flipside-¡±


    On the television screen was the villain in the plague mask from yesterday.  Mercifully, the footage did not include the part where I got slammed in the chest, but it also very strangely did not include the other villain who I remembered being there.


    ¡°Germ¡¯s powers have never been confirmed, but they are believed to involve the manipulation of microbes.  With tentative ratings of Tinker 11, Enhancer 2, and Thinker 2, Germ is the most powerful villain currently identified from yesterday.¡±


    Tinker eleven!?  Fuck me, that is terrifying.  The Fellowship rating system for powers was not perfect, but it did allow people to ballpark how strong a super was in a way that can be easily compared.  Those comparisons don¡¯t always hold up in the real world, because of how different powers can be, but a difference of three ranks in the same category is generally considered insurmountable.


    I had the categories memorized; which was not impressive, really, most people did.  I know that I am a Manipulator, although I have no idea what rank. Probably something depressingly low, honestly.


    Manipulators were supers who could bend the rules and laws of physics around them.  Myself, with making the aether interact with matter and Flipside with her control of gravity, were Manipulators.  She was a Manipulator 7, if I recall correctly.


    Enhancers well, enhanced, themselves.  Enhancer powers are those that make someone stronger, faster, more durable, more regenerative; basically anything that made the human body better than before.  Whipersnap was an Enhancer, although I do not remember his rating. Mutants are automatically counted as Enhancer 0, and some of them can rate up to three, although that is extremely rare.  Enhancers are often considered the most common type of super, and they were generally the most well known.


    The second most well known, and in my opinion, the most dangerous, were Tinkers.  Tinkers gained a supernatural affinity for technology, but only in one field. They could learn other things, and were perfectly capable of understanding each others work, but getting a Tinker to work outside their specialisation is incredibly difficult.  A Tinker might like to work with plasma, and only plasma, or in Germ¡¯s case, with microbes and only microbes. They excel in their fields, and rarely care about anything else.


    Thinkers had powers related to intelligence and mental abilities.  They could be anything from precognition and clairvoyance to advanced strategy and mind reading.  Supers with a Thinker power as a main classification rarely were physically strong and also rarely had damaging abilities, but could often be far more terrifying.  A broken body can be far less horrifying than a broken mind.


    The Creator classification belonged to powers that could produce something from seeming nothingness.  Northernwind was a Creator; well, she was technically a Manipulator/Creator hybrid, but the water that formed her ice and snow had no source that anyone had been able to discern.  The Manipulator/Creator hybrid classification was very common, even more so than either Tinkers or Thinkers.


    Controllers could subordinate and command minions.  Several decades ago, it was believed that only living organisms could be affected, but the emergence of Controller/Creator hybrids revealed a far larger range of powers than previously believed.  It can be hard to tell the difference between a Controller and a Manipulator at times; a rule of thumb is that someone is a Controller if the thing being controlled is able to act on its own, but even that didn¡¯t cover all controllers.  Catspaw was a Controller, though not exactly a powerful one. She was Controller 4, if I recall correctly.


    Finally, there are Transformers.  Transformers change one thing to another, or the form of a thing to another form.  Transformers were a broad category, including both shapeshifters and a super that could change air to stone.  Unlike Creators, Transformers require some material to use their powers on and unlike Manipulators, they do not bend the laws of the universe so much as violate them outright.


    ¡°Whipersnap was reported to have been injured during the fight, however Fellowship spokespeople have stated that the Hero has already recovered.  However, many of the heroes hurt in yesterday¡¯s fight are still being treated at the Mayo Clinic. No official numbers have been released, but at least five heroes have been confirmed dead at this time, at least one of which was a minor.¡±


    Powers were rated starting at zero, although aside from rating mutants as Enhancer 0, it is extremely rare for a power to have a zero rating, or even a one.  If a power is expressed at all, it is usually two or higher and most supers floated around the four to six range. Seven to nine are powerful supers, often earning the moniker of superhero or supervillain, but Germ was even beyond that.  Anything rank ten or above was in the realm of monstrous; even Northernwind was only rank nine, and she was able to hit an entire city with her power! All I can say is that I am glad I got away from the fight as soon as I possibly could; I really do not want to know what a rank eleven of any category was capable of.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    My phone vibrated and I saw a text from Mira; she wanted to let me know that she was glad I was ok.  I let her know I was going to be released soon, groaning as I shifted on the bed. Almost immediately, I got another text back from her, asking if I would like a ride from her parents back to the parking garage where I had left my car.


    Honestly, I had completely forgotten about my car.  Fuck, I don¡¯t even want to know what the price for parking overnight was going to be; the parking prices in Rochester sometimes felt like pure theivery.  I gladly accepted, but it took a couple of hours before the hospital released me.


    Meeting an ex-girlfriend¡¯s father while wearing dirty clothes and without having a shower would have been uncomfortable- especially because Mira¡¯s father really had never approved of me in the first place- if I wasn¡¯t too sore and mentally tired to really care.  Still, I really was grateful for the ride. The whole family had come with him, Mira¡¯s father and mother in the front seats and Mira herself in the backseat.


    ¡°Thank you for the ride Mr. Thompson,¡± I said as I entered the back seat next to Mira.  ¡°I really appreciate it.¡±


    ¡°You are quite welcome Max,¡± it was Mrs. Thompson who answered warmly from the seat in front of me.  It was a bit awkward that I didn¡¯t know her first name, but I never would have used it anyway, so I guess it did not matter.  ¡°In fact, it us who should be thanking you. Mira told us about yesterday; I can only describe it as heroic.¡±


    ¡°It was,¡± Mira quickly agreed as I opened my mouth to downplay it.  ¡°And you even got hurt doing it. How are you feeling Max, are you going to be alright?¡±


    Sometimes I envied Mira¡¯s darker skin, as pale as I was my blushing was obvious.  Mr. Thompson had never really liked me, and Mira¡¯s mother had honestly been ambivalent, to suddenly be warmly praised by someone I had always thought of as a bit cold and stiff surprised me and caught me off guard.  It didn¡¯t help that I had Mira praising me and watching me closely as well; there might not be romantic feelings between the two of us anymore, but being praised by a pretty girl when I was off balance like this was a bit more than I could handle.


    ¡°It really isn¡¯t anything worth praising,¡± I protested, although I suppose it probably was to some extent.  They didn¡¯t know about my powers after all, so they didn¡¯t realise that my actions were far safer than they appeared.  ¡°Anyone would do the same for a friend!¡±


    I really had never thought about it before, but I really had no idea how to deal with such profuse gratitude.  Normally, someone would thank me and then I would give some sort of reply and that would be it, but yesterday seemed to overshadow today and the topic was hard to get away from.  I was desperate to change the subject, and the smoke I saw out the window was as good as anything else for that, but I quickly learned it was more serious than I initially thought.


    ¡°The gallery was not the only place attacked,¡± Mira sounded worried, and more than a little nervous.  ¡°Every hero in Rochester, even the ones patrolling out as far as La Crosse, were ambushed yesterday. Apparently, some of the fights inside the city itself got pretty violent.¡±


    ¡°Why though?¡± I was stunned.  Large scale fights just did not happen in cities like Rochester, but I guess I had just been complacent and reality had come to smash my chest in.  ¡°I guess there is money here, but there can¡¯t be anything worth this, could there?¡±


    ¡°The local news reported that many of the villains were not even locals,¡± Mrs. Thompson added from the front, as the car was waiting at a stoplight.  ¡°With the injured and¡­ and the dead, there might be twice as many villains as heroes in the city right now.¡±


    That was¡­  Terrible news.  I doubted that there were really twice as many villains as heroes, but even if the number of active heroes and villains in the city had just swapped it was not going to be manageable.  Local villains were going to try and spread their influence before the Fellowship could get back on its feet, and that was not going to be a long time. At first, it might seem like a good thing that the Fellowship would probably regain strength very quickly, but the villains would know that too.  That meant that if the villains wanted to make gains they were going to have to push hard and fast, and that translated to violent and bloody.


    At the parking ramp, the Thompson family brought me to my car and I thanked them for the ride.  I promised Mira I would text her as soon as I got home and keep in touch, and I left the car while fishing for my keys in my pocket.


    ¡°Max.¡± Mr. Thompson had rolled down his window, speaking for the first time since I had entered the car.  ¡°Thanks for helping Mira yesterday, truly. Take care of yourself heading home.¡±


    I was so surprised by this that I missed the chance to reply before he had driven off.  I had never thought I would hear thanks or concern out of Mira¡¯s father¡¯s mouth; he was a man I would more expect to break my kneecaps with a baseball bat than ever say something positive.


    I sat down a little too hard in my car and winced.  I winced again as I left the parking garage and ended up paying the man at the exit booth.  On the bright side, my annoyance at being charged fifty dollars distracted me for a time from my still aching chest and back as I drove home.


    Now that I was in the driver¡¯s seat, I noticed just how little traffic there seemed to be.  Downtown Rochester had fairly unpleasant traffic, but today the roads felt almost empty. I guess I can¡¯t blame people not wanting to head out unless they had to after yesterday.


    On my way home, I had to pull over twice for police cars speeding by with their sirens on, but the lack of traffic kept up the whole way.  There were few people on the sidewalks as well, and those that were had drawn faces and moved quickly. Everywhere I saw had a strange air about it; an underlying worry that seemed to soak into the very air.


    Still, I made it home just a little after one in the afternoon.  I plugged my phone in, first off, and sat down heavily on my bed.  Which turned out to be a mistake, I would have thought I would have been more conscious of how tender my back and chest were, but my mind was simply too busy to keep it in mind.


    In fact, I hadn¡¯t really been thinking when I sat down on my bed at all.  I groaned, but forced myself back to my feet and walked over to my computer.  The bit of news I caught in the hospital left me with more questions than answers.  First and foremost was why did this occur at all, but there were other puzzling questions like how that many villains had been wrangled into working together.


    Sure, it was probably related to the first question.  The easiest and most common reason that villains would work together was mutual gain, but the payout has to be enough to get past their mutual distrust of each other and the risk of fighting heroes.  Still, there were other reasons that could be in play. More powerful villains might be able to force lesser ones to do as they want or perhaps they had been hired as mercenaries for the task.


    I needed more information, and I needed to think about my own plans.


    Originally, when I had planned this week out, I had set another small drug den as a target for today.  Honestly, it wouldn¡¯t be wrong to call my first strike to have been a practice run for tonight, and I was loathe to give it up.  I was hurt, and there were extra villains running around, but on the other hand, this one was a personal target for me.


    I typed in my password and waited for my computer to log me in as I thought.  My extended family was large, and I got along fairly well with them even if I sometimes felt I didn¡¯t see them enough.  My parents and sister were visiting some of my cousins further away, but I also had more than a few relatives just twenty miles south of Rochester, in Stewartville.


    They were good people, but one of them got caught up in the wrong crowd.  Connal, who was a few years older than me, was a very popular guy and was invited to all the parties.  At one of them, he was introduced to drugs and it was downhill from there. Some people can handle using substances and then go on about their lives, but Connal was one of the ones who could not.


    The dealers in the house weren¡¯t hardcore gangsters themselves, but they paid the ¡°Dhiig ka badan biyo¡± gang for protection and product.  The Dhiigs were a Somali gang, although with how they terrorized the local Somali community in Rochester and their tendency to use non-Somali people to handle their dealing, it was sometimes hard to tell.  Their name roughly translated to ¡°blood over water,¡± and blood is what they dealt in.


    I doubt that the dealers in Stewartville would have much worth taking, but I hoped that they might know some choice spots if they were ¡°encouraged¡± enough.  Just a bit of vengeance wrapped into my business, I don¡¯t think it would be hard for me to tackle this job emotionally.


    Physically on the other hand¡­  Well, I¡¯m not sure if it is the best idea any more.


    Some searching and browsing had me trawling through news sites.  There wasn¡¯t a whole lot of information out there; quite a bit of the information was repeated from one site to another.  Maybe two dozen villains had entered Rochester yesterday and joined up with some of the local villains to draw out and ambush the heroes.  Among the villains that came to the city was an impressive number of supervillains, and speculation was rampant across forums about the reasons, but nobody knew why.


    I read through some of the theories, and I thought most of them were either unlikely or utterly ridiculous.  The only theory I thought might hold any water was that a superhero from elsewhere had gone to the Mayo Clinic for treatment, and that the attack was a smokescreen so that they could target the hero.  The only issue was that the heroes at the Clinic had repelled the villains that struck there; it wasn¡¯t a very powerful group of villains if that was their main goal.


    I pushed away from the desk and leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes.  So basically, no one knew anything and I was in the same boat. So did I stick to my plan or give up for now?  My own condition was¡­ Good enough, probably? Sure, I had massive bruises developing on my chest and back, but that only made them sensitive and tender.  If I just gritted my teeth and was extra careful I should be fine; I would be sore in the morning, but that was already guaranteed anyway.


    I ended up making my way to the kitchen for a meal.  A sandwich and soda, although the soda was the more important of the two.  I didn¡¯t take my medication this morning- on account of me being unconscious in the hospital- but caffeine had roughly the same effect, even if it wasn¡¯t nearly as potent.


    Actually, I was probably pretty lucky to have the bruises, I mused.  If it wasn¡¯t for the constant twinge, the withdrawl from my medication would have me in bed already.  I honestly found it completely incomprehensible why other people would want to take drugs, I¡¯d do just about anything to not take them, but I had been on them for so long I really couldn¡¯t just stop anymore.


    Today wouldn¡¯t be so bad, especially if I took the edge off with caffeine, but if I missed another dose tomorrow I would be incapacitated.  Without my medication, I would end up with splitting headaches and become incredibly exhausted. Even now, as I considered this, it occurred to me that this kind of tangent was probably my ADHD in action.


    I had to focus, and I needed to come to a decision.  Dithering was not going to be productive, I had to be decisive; I would do it.  Even more than Rochester, I knew Stewartville like the back of my hand. In particular, I knew the parks and woods in Stewartville very well.  I could pop out of the woods and into the yard of the house I was heading targeting and disappear back into it after I was done.


    The target was not even as well connected as The Devil¡¯s Boys I hit last time, they were just local pushers.  My only worry would have been a faster response from local police to the gun shots; Stewartville was a small town, most villains stayed in Rochester and so the police had a freer hand in Stewartville.


    In that regard, maybe the current turmoil worked in my favor.  The Fellowship was understrength and the police would be wary about their responses.  If anything, this was the perfect time to strike. I hoped that if I told myself that enough times I would even start to believe it.


    I cleaned up the kitchen- a habit my mother drilled cleaning up the kitchen after myself that it was just automatic at this point- and headed back to my room.  Most of the rest of my afternoon was spent answering texts from friends and family. I almost feel like I sent a hundred texts to my mother alone! I ended up having to tell the story to just about everyone who had my number; I have no idea how the news had spread so fast.  Having to retell and retell the story was exasperating, and I have to admit I ended up being a little short with some of my later replies.


    I had to convince my mother not to panic and come home early, and I also had to argue with my father who wanted me to stay with my nearby relatives while they were away.  I failed to convince him that I shouldn¡¯t, which really only left me with simple refusal. I felt bad about it, and I was going to catch hell for it later, but my plans would fall apart under the watchful eyes of my aunts and uncles.


    ¡°We will talk about this when your Mother and I get home,¡± was the last text my dad sent.  Honestly, that was the kind of text that scared me more than kicking down the door of a drug den.  Dad was pretty lenient about what I did- so long as my grades remained good- but when he did put his foot down, he really put it down.  I guess I had dug my own grave on this point, I suppose I could have just changed my plans, but I sincerely didn¡¯t want to.


    I sighed, putting it out of mind; checking the time, I got up and made my way downstairs and out to the shed out back.  I was certainly right that my armor was not going to be comfortable. At least the weight was mostly on my shoulders and not resting on the sore spots, but it still was unpleasant.


    I had a longer drive ahead of me this time, but it was not a very long one in the grand scheme of things.  Stewartville was roughly twenty miles south and I could take the highway the whole way, but I turned off a little bit before I reached the town.  The road was a bumpy- a consequence of many Minnesota winters and poor road budgets- but not unmanageable. I passed the bowling alley on my right and then a small cemetery on my left and after another couple of minutes of driving I saw the turn off into Bear Cave Park.


    I ignored it, and kept driving.  Another couple of minutes and I turned off onto a nondescript gravel road; one of the benefits of spending so much time with my cousins in town was knowledge of more than a few shortcuts.  In this case, the gravel road petered out into a dead end with nothing but a couple hundred feet dormant grass and melting snow between the road and the woods.


    My boots crunched on the gravel as I got out of my car; the only sound in the silent night.  Mask on and gun ready, I made my way over the field to where it intersected with a snowmobile trail near the trees.  In summer and fall, the grass was waist to chest high; in the winter, the snow was deep and treacherous; during spring days, the melting snow turned the ground into mud.  This small stretch was essentially impassable except for spring nights, and I had to admit a certain amount of smugness in knowing that.


    When I was younger, walking through the woods at night scared the crap out of me.  It didn¡¯t help that a few of the times I played with my cousins outside at night, Connal took a great deal of joy popping out from behind random trees and watching me jump out of my own pants.  Oddly, I was far more comfortable here in the woods now than I was the day before yesterday, walking on the sidewalk at night. Maybe because I was less worried about being watched from a house?  There was a certain amount of confidence that wearing body armor and having a rifle gave me, and this time I wasn¡¯t nervous that someone would call the police on me and I would end up arrested.


    I followed the trail for a while before breaking off through the woods and damn it was dark.  Between the clouds and woods and my mask I could barely see the ground. It made me want to use a flashlight, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of me coming through the woods in the first place.  Maybe I need to look into night vision goggles? I somehow doubt that would be easy to integrate into my mask; it would probably be impossible for me.


    The silence of the night, broken before only by my own stumbling, now was filled by the sound of running water.  The Root River really wasn¡¯t more than a stream really, but it wasn¡¯t easy to cross without a bridge. It was wide and deep enough to require most people to swim; I suppose I was tall enough to ford it most of the time, but the strength of the current would push me off my feet anyway.  With the snow melting in spring, however, it was at its highest point of the year and given the equipment I had on that wasn¡¯t an option. Still, that did not mean I had to take the bridge over to Florence Park.


    Instead, I followed the river upstream just a little bit from where I emerged from the woods.  Here, the river was far wider and shallower, to the point that a lot of rocks poked out of the water.  I had planned to walk over the rocks to the other side, and honestly now that I was here I thought that I might have underestimated just how difficult this would be.  The extra sixty some pounds of equipment pressing against my forming bruises didn¡¯t help either. On the bright side, it was shallow enough here that I would only get my boots wet, but that sounded like a good way to lose my toes to hypothermia.


    I took my first step out onto a rock, making sure to keep my balance before moving on to the next one.  There were a few close calls, especially when I made it to the other bank, which I had to climb up. I almost fell back into the river when a bit of the grass I grabbed onto tore out of the ground; I suppose it is my own damn fault for trusting dormant grass that had not even regrown from the winter.  I ended up having to crawl up, and it was way fucking harder than I thought it would be. Body armor and a rifle might be fairly easy to walk around with, but trying to climb or crawl while holding both was a hell of a lot more difficult. Is this what soldiers had to do? Fuck me, and I had thought I was decently in shape before!


    I took a minute to catch my breath before I struggled to my feet; getting up was another thing that was difficult wearing armor.  A few feet in front of me was a bit of a cliff, but that made it sound much larger than it was. Really, it was just a small hill, and this part next to the river was so steep as to be vertical.  But it was only a short walk to where it changed from a vertical face to a gentle slope.


    Another short, yet unpleasant, climb later and I was on the side of a street in a residential neighborhood.  The house across the street was my target, and all the little annoyances involved in reaching here seemed to merge with my original feelings; I was angry, furious even.  I hadn¡¯t been before, I was just a bit mad and felt they were a deserving target, but now? I wasn¡¯t nervous, no, I was looking forward to this!


    I strode across the street, safety off, and walked right up to the front door.  It was locked, of course, but I had a solution to that. Doors weren¡¯t exactly airtight, and I materialized the aether touching the lock and extending out a few inches from the door, where it became a little wider.  Against both the doorknob¡¯s and the deadbolt¡¯s locks it would act like a chisel; two gunshots shattered them and I pulled the door open and stepped into the dark house.


    I was in a small entry room, with jackets and boots in a half open closet beside me.  I moved forward, towards the shouting and screams that I heard ahead of me. I glanced over the living room but then a light turned on in a nearby hallway and a naked man rushed out.


    ¡°What the-¡± he started to say before catching sight of me raising my gun and his eyes widened.  ¡°Oh shit! Please don¡¯t shoot!¡±


    A woman had followed him out from a room that was similarly unclothed, and they both raised their hands in the air when they saw me.  Despite my anger, I was honestly a bit worried now, did I get the wrong place? This was nothing like the last place I had struck; just a quick glance around the living room proved it to be a decently nice space.  It really did not give off the look of a ratty drug den, it seemed like just a normal house¡­


    ¡°The fuck is this?¡± a feminine, if severe, voice came from the hallway.  ¡°I thought this shithole was supposed to be safe!?¡±


    At least, it seemed like a normal house until a woman in a costume and mask pushed the cowering woman aside and stepped out into the room.

 Beginning 1.04

    The woman was wearing a lab coat over a tight fitting costume with geometric designs.  She didn¡¯t have much of a mask, it was just a set of tinted safety goggles with hints of the same geometric designs as her costume.  She had her brown hair messily tied back and had a frown on her face.


    Time seemed to freeze for a second.


    ¡°HAN-¡± I began to shout but never finished, her right hand came up and there was an incredibly bright flash.  I ducked away and raised a hand to cover my eyes, I managed to make a slight gesture and materialized a shield of aether between myself and the villain.


    And thank fuck I did, because not even half a second later there was a splashing sound that was swiftly replaced with sizzling and an unpleasent chemical smell.


    ¡°Get your ass out of here and call your fucking bosses,¡± the super growled as I rubbed my eyes trying to clear my vision.  ¡°This shit wasn¡¯t part of the deal!¡±


    My sight was still blurred, but I was able to see the white blob of the villains lab coat at least and I raised my rifle to shoot.  A couple of pink blobs ran away, maybe through a back door? But the villain ducked back into the hall as I pulled the trigger and my shots went through the drywall.


    Fuck me, this wasn¡¯t good.  Should I just run? I¡¯d rather not wait for them to be reinforced, but I wasn¡¯t sure if I could turn my back on this villain.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who you are working for,¡± the woman shouted from somewhere.  ¡°But you won¡¯t be the first or last to try; if you need my work just fucking hire me!  You fuckers can¡¯t force me to do shit!¡±


    Until I knew what she could do, I couldn¡¯t risk it.  She didn¡¯t press the attack too much when I was blinded, even though now that my eyes had cleared I saw that the sounds I had heard earlier was from acid.  It was in a puddle at the bottom of my shield, but it quickly drained as it burned its way through the floor and into the basement. Probably not something healthy to touch.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t even know you were here!¡±  I shouted back as I stepped around the puddle, ¡°I was here for the two fuckers you let go!  Knock yourself out and I¡¯ll just leave!¡±


    ¡°Oh, sure!¡±  The woman laughed, ¡°here, just let me handcuff myself and offer you my ass on a silver platter.  What could possibly go wrong?¡±


    The house was now filling quickly with some sort of gas, but it didn¡¯t bother me.  This just illustrated that my preparations were good ones. I turned the corner and ducked back again as a ball of fire passed by me, what the hell was her power set?


    I¡¯d seen her create a flash, acid, what was probably a poison gas, and now fire.  Her costume included a lab coat and safety goggles, so maybe some kind of chemical manipulation?  But was she a creator, a transmuter, or a manipulator? Her range seemed to be touch based, whatever it was; she needed to use her powers and then toss whatever she made at me.


    I created a shield in the hallway and turned it again, and another glob of fire came at me.  It was some kind of liquid apparently because it splashed against my barrier and then fell to the floor.


    ¡°Fuck lady, are you trying to kill us both!?¡±  The couch in the living room was already on fire, and it was spreading.  I don¡¯t know how long it would take, but if nothing happened this place would probably go up like a bonfire.


    I quickly dismissed by barrier and raised it again further down the hallway.  I moved forward again, but she slammed the door instead of throwing another ball of fire or acid at me.  Smoke was starting to fill the hallway as I approached, kicking it down and materializing the aether in front of me as soon as I could; I didn¡¯t have much room and I was pressed up against my shield.


    Which turned out to be a mistake when the explosion hit.  The shrapnel of the blast was stopped by the barrier, but the force went through it and threw me back down the hall.  I cried out in surprise in pain, and even a bit of fear as I landed near the fire. Thankfully, my kevlar trench coat was resistant to fire and I quickly rolled away from the flames and back to my feet.  I had dropped my gun in the hallway and I ran to pick it up; my shield was still up in the doorway, but it seemed like the room past it was empty. A breeze came through an open window where the villain had probably escaped.


    Swearing angrily, I glanced behind me; it was an inferno.  Even with my gas mask, it was getting hard to breathe. Even if the smoke couldn¡¯t reach me through it, the fire still consumed the oxygen in the air and replaced it with smoke.  I couldn¡¯t stay here, and I couldn¡¯t head back through the living room.


    It could be a trap, but my only option was to go out through the window myself.  This bedroom was on the front side of the house, so it would put me back in the front yard.  I couldn¡¯t take the time to worry about a possible ambush, I went through it and my boots hit the ground with a splat.  I saw her strike a match and toss it to the ground and moved on instinct, leaping to the side. The place I had been standing went up like it was doused in oil, which it might well have been.


    She was already running as I got back to my feet.  Honestly, that might be just as well. I could head in the other direction and be out of here.  But the sound of an engine briefly preceded a car speeding around the corner and screeching to a halt not far away.


    The doors opened and a group of Somalis in Dhiig colors jumped out, already raising weapons.  I raised my barrier towards them and soon bullets were hitting it, two of them even had automatic weapons!  Still, it didn¡¯t matter, it just made a pile of bullets in the grass in front of the shield I had materialized.


    I kept my focus on the woman, shooting to try and keep her running or to incapacitate her altogether.  Trying to hit a moving target while I was under fire myself turned out to be much harder than I had imagined it to be and she managed to hide behind another car on the side of the street.  Lights were turning on in houses nearby, and I heard sirens in the distance, this entire night was turning out to have been a mistake.


    A point that was driven home when another car came barreling down the street from the direction the villain had ran.  It wasn¡¯t the police, but more Dhiigs, and worse another costumed person stepped out.


    The man didn¡¯t bother with a mask and wore a costume of patchwork metal with spikes on the makeshift pauldrons.  Fuck my shit, I recognized the guy, even if I could not remember his real name off the top of my head: Buzzkill, one of the Dhiig¡¯s enforcers.


    I realised I was simply standing still while being under fire and swore as I looked around for some kind of cover.  Maybe it was my inexperience, maybe it was the nature of my power, but I had a tendency to stop moving in fights. That was going to get me killed if I didn¡¯t fix the habit!


    I ran towards the neighbors yard, vaulting the small fence between the properties even as the henchmen Buzzkil brought with him opened fire.  Luckily, their aim was as bad as mine, because I wasn¡¯t able to form a second shield to block their fire. Instead, I ended up ducking behind a tree as bullets whizzed by.


    It was hard for me to tell, but it seemed like Buzzkill had gone to check on the female villain, but he was back now.  The gunfire stopped, and he spoke:


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who you are or why you are after Synthetical,¡± Buzzkill announced.  ¡°And normally, this is where I chop you up into little pieces and feed them to my dogs.  But if you were really after the two shitstains who dealt out of here and nothing else, I might be able to forgive you if you come work for me.¡±


    ¡°And if you weren¡¯t well known for killing idiots who accept your offers I might have considered it,¡± I called back, my mind racing.  I peeked around the tree towards the gang aiming their weapons at me; seven henchmen, two villains. ¡°Here is my counteroffer; all of your little minions drop their weapons, you all get back in your clown cars- taking Synthetics or whatever the fuck her name is with you- and we all go on our way.¡±


    ¡°Guess my answer,¡± Buzzkill lifted his hand and a metal disc grew in the air in front of his palm, rotating quickly.  A second later, the chunk of metal was launched at the tree I was hiding behind, like some kind of horrible circular saw.


    Not wanting to risk it, I threw up a shield in front of the tree and the saw stopped dead against it.  But Buzzkill merely flicked his wrist and pulled it back before sending it towards me at another angle.  The minions also started firing again and Synthetical seemed to be forming something in her hands.


    The approaching sirens gave me hope, but the first one wasn¡¯t the police, but a fire truck.  Buzzkill smashed the metal he was controlling into it headfirst and the driver lost control, driving over a yard and crashing into another house.


    I couldn¡¯t just sit here and take their attacks; Buzzkill would figure out a way to strike at me eventually.  No, I had to fight back. My heart was pounding as I whipped out from behind the tree, creating small gaps in my barrier for me to fire through.  The Dhiigs were using their cars for cover, but Buzzkill had summoned another giant spinning saw that he was using as a shield. Still, my shooting at least forced them to put their heads down.


    Until my clip ran out of ammo anyways; I had to duck back behind the tree to reload.  As soon as I did, Buzzkill slammed his flying saw into the tree I was hiding behind. It made an unholy screeching sound as it began to cut right through the trunk!  My hands were shaking so much it made reloading hard, and I just barely managed to materialize a bit of the aether against the rotating edge of the blade, stopping its rotation entirely.


    I popped up again, shooting as I stood.  I managed to catch one of the thugs in the shoulder, and instead of heading back to the tree I used my shield to help allow me to retreat between the two houses to the backyard.  The house on my left was completely in flames now, with fire peaking out from the windows and casting the fight in a hellish orange light.


    Synthetical took the opportunity to toss something towards me and another explosion occurred, behind which Buzzkill advanced.  They were pressing me back, but they were not able to really harm me, but I couldn¡¯t let my guard down.


    The police had arrived now, and the thugs were peeling away to fight them, but the two villains remained focused on me.  At least until a silver streak dropped out of the sky behind them! A man wearing a silver suit with a golden cape and glowing radiantly like a star landed, cracking the pavement where he hit the ground.


    He raised his hands, his right pointing towards Buzzkill and his left towards Synthetical.  Buzzkill managed to shield himself with his metal discs, but Synthetical was sent flying by a blast of silver light.  With heroes and the police here, it was my que to leave, and I turned to leg it out of here.


    I started running, planning to take a circuitous route back into the woods.  I spared some of my breath to curse; tonight had been one fuck up after another, a net loss for sure.  Shit, and I really needed to interrogate them for some more information.


    I burst through a few yards and into the next street over, and kept running.  Two motorcycles were racing down the road, and then they suddenly turned towards me!?  One of the riders jumped off their motorcycle towards me, still dozens of feet away. The motorcycle braked and turned away, seeming to park itself without a driver.  The driver meanwhile, was intercepted by a reflexive barrier on my part, and was stopped dead in midair. It was hard to tell the color, but the skintight bodysuit and mask screamed hero.


    My distraction cost me, the other motorcyclist- definitely another hero- had smoothly braked and slid by me, drawing some kind of pistol from his waist.  My eyes widened, but I was too late in trying to form a barrier; a flash of light caught me in the chest, and I stumbled back.


    ¡°Fuck me,¡± a young male voice called out, a Youth Fellowship member?  ¡°He¡¯s got body armor. I told Starstuff that limiting my kit just to non-lethal shit would come back to bite me!¡±


    The female hero dropped to the ground, and I realised that it wasn¡¯t the darkness that made her costume¡¯s color hard to figure out, it was that she was partially transparent and only becoming more so!


    ¡°Yeah, yeah.¡± She dropped down to the ground, landing in a low crouch.  ¡°Just leave this to me, ok?¡±


    ¡°Or,¡± I interrupted them before they could decide to attack me.  ¡°We could all just go on our way. If you want to go fight the Dhiig ka badan Biyo, you can be my guest.  I¡¯m no villain.¡±


    ¡°Sure you¡¯re not,¡± the boy snorted.  ¡°You are just a guy going for his nightly run who happens to be armed and armored to the teeth and wielding powers.  Clearly, we just made a mistake.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you did, because none of that is illegal.¡±  The girl was slowly shifting her position, and it was hard to keep an eye on her.  ¡°I¡¯ve got a license and I know my rights, you¡¯ll be lucky if I don¡¯t press charges.¡±


    ¡°Oh come off it,¡± the girl sighed.  ¡°You think you are the first villain to try and pull that shit?  Show us your license then for a start and I might consider what you are saying.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even bother Junglecat,¡± the boy seemed amused as he talked to his partner.  I didn¡¯t know much about Junglecat, but I did know she was from the Youth Fellowship, so that was one theory confirmed.  ¡°They always give the same response.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    ¡°I guess you¡¯ve heard people point out that Youth members don¡¯t have the authority to ask them to produce a license a lot, huh?¡±  I said dryly, it seemed like this conversation was inching towards a fight. ¡°But look, I don¡¯t really have non-lethal options here.  I can¡¯t say I mind popping a shot at Buzzkill, but I really am not a villain and I am not interested in shooting heroes.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯ll surrender?¡± Junglecat said in a fake hopeful tone.


    I sighed.  Well, there was no point in letting go of the initiative this time.  I swung my rifle around and put started putting rounds into the boys motorcycle as he jumped off of it.  He didn¡¯t quite hit the ground though, his boots seemed to have a glowing field beneath them that he was skating on top of.  Obviously a tinker.


    I kept Junglecat at bay with the aether as I forced the tinker to retreat by shooting near him.  My mind was racing, ending up in a fight with heroes was already bad, but Junglecat turned this into a worst-case scenario.  She was an Enhancer, mostly focused on speed and agility, but she was still strong enough to toss grown men around. The boy was probably either Springs or Blastron; they were the only two Youth Tinkers in Rochester, and since he wasn¡¯t using anything resembling clockwork that would make him Blastron.


    Escaping through the woods while running from Junglecat was an exercise in futility, and I wouldn¡¯t put it past Blastron to have repaired his cycle in a few minutes if I tried running through the streets.  This left me with almost no options. I had to disable these two if I wanted to escape, and now I was keenly feeling my lack of non-lethal options.


    Turning on Junglecat while moving and weaving to avoid shots from Blastron, I tried to hit her legs.  However, once she backed off from trying to get past my barrier I found that she was capable of dodging bullets!  How the fuck was that supposed to be fair!? I ducked as Blastron sent another shot my way; I couldn¡¯t use my barrier to block the shots because I needed it to keep Junglecat back.  If Junglecat got close to me, it was all over. Though I was not sure if the aether would stop his shots at all, if they were pure energy they would probably pass right through.


    I caught another hit in the shoulder and stumbled, I couldn¡¯t keep letting him shoot me.  I don¡¯t think his weapon even broke the ceramic plates in my armor, but leaving a tinker alone sounded like a good way to get my ass kicked.  Unfortunately for him, his armor was not nearly as effective as mine was, and he shouted in pain as a bullet went through his kneecap.


    ¡°Blast!¡±  Junglecat half screamed and half growled, and then leaped straight up over my shield!  She landed only a few feet away from me and lunged forward, grabbing me and tossing me like a sack of clothes.  I accidentally pulled the trigger as she did, and a second later I was hitting a mailbox, snapping it off, and rolling onto the grass.


    I was dazed, but I couldn¡¯t stay down!  I tried to get to my feet, staggering, and expecting at any second to get hit by Junglecat.  My head was spinning, and goddamn did everything ache! But I managed to get up, and saw that Junglecat was down.  That accidental shot when she threw me, I must have hit her!


    ¡°Fuck,¡± I said, as I limped a bit closer.  ¡°Are you ok?¡± God help me if I had killed a hero, I¡¯m not even sure I would forgive myself.


    ¡°What the fuck do you think you bastard?¡±  She hissed at me, ¡°You fucking shot me!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like I wanted to!¡± I started backing away, ¡°I warned you that I didn¡¯t really have other options!¡±


    ¡°Fuck me,¡± she groaned.  ¡°First all that bullshit yesterday and now I get taken down by some nameless fuck of a villain.¡±


    ¡°Well fuck you too!¡±  I started half limping away, ¡°If you are well enough to curse me out, you are well enough for me to leave alone.  And, for the last time, I am not a villain! The name is Aether and I am going to kick the villains and gangs in the teeth!  Remember this, because I am going to leave you, but any villain that crosses my path won¡¯t be so lucky if I have a chance. When I put a villain down I put them down for good!¡±


    I really was not able to run, but I did manage an undignified half-limping jog.  This part of Stewartville was basically right next to the woods and river, you didn¡¯t have to go very far to leave the residential area and be out of the town altogether.  I couldn¡¯t head back to where I had crossed the Root, but I could take a quarter mile slog through a field and reach an old bridge that wasn¡¯t listed on any maps I had seen.


    I normally wouldn¡¯t consider using it, it hadn¡¯t received any upkeep, probably for decades; if I wasn¡¯t careful I would not be surprised for a board to break and send me straight down into the river.  But beggars can¡¯t be choosers, and it wouldn¡¯t take the heroes long to get even more backup. That''s why heroes were so strong; if you start a fight with one, another two will be on their way over. They will just keep coming and outnumbering villains until they overwhelm them, because basically all heroes work for the Fellowship and work together.


    Hopefully anyway, I thought to myself as I stumbled over a protruding root hidden by the dark and the shrub.  My desire for non-involvement with the Fellowship notwithstanding, I really, really, did not want the villains to win.


    That would just be shitty.


    I found the bridge easily enough; it would have been far more difficult in summer when the grass and bushes had really grown.  Now, I just had to cross an officially condemned deathtrap that was maybe four times my age and abandoned for half that. It is happy thoughts like that one that really keep me motivated to move forward.  My cynicism and sarcasm on the other hand, that helped me deal with the fear that I would escape getting torn in half by Buzzkill only to die drowning in water I could stand in because I fell and broke my legs!


    It was an old wood and metal bridge; iron, if the rust was any indication.  It had either never been painted or the paint had worn off decades ago and the weather had done the rest.  The wooden planks were stained, not like a stained floor but rather like parts had succumbed to mold and time.  Well, I couldn¡¯t actually see that bit right now, but I knew it was there.


    I kept to the edges of the bridge as I crossed, trying to focus and test each step I took.  Honestly, having to slow down after all the earlier intensity was wreaking havoc with my ADHD; my thoughts were wandering all over the place.  I was about halfway across the bridge when I realised that I could have used my mask to look up who the villain I was facing was and didn¡¯t that make me feel like a monumental idiot.  Well, all things considered, if I had tried the camera probably wouldn¡¯t have been able to handle the mix of dark night and bright flames. Still, I could search now, I suppose.


    ¡°Info, display on, info search.¡± I paused half a second for the chime signaling that the device was ready and then said, ¡°Villain, Synthetical.¡±


    Funnily enough, it turns out trying to read a webpage while running from heroes and villains was a really shit idea.  My heart nearly stopped when a board cracked under my foot, but the bridge held until I made it to the other side. Still, with a few quick commands I was able to navigate to the supers wiki.


    ¡°Info, read page; info, display off.¡±  I commanded, turning off the image and musing that at the very least I would have something to listen to during my extra long hike.


    ¡°Synthetical.  Villain. Powers.  Synthetical¡¯s powers are not fully understood.  Based on altercations with the Minneapolis Fellowship, it is believed that she is able to create elements and chemical compounds and she generally manifests the substances with her hands.  It is also believed that Synthetical¡¯s power grants her resistance to damage from chemicals as well.


    In combat, Synthetical has been noted to use corrosive, flammable, and explosive substances.  She forms these substances in her hands before throwing them towards the person she is fighting, but she has been known to set explosive traps and to use chemical gasses.


    Outside of combat, she uses her powers to create synthetic drugs and medicines.  She is not able to create new chemicals by herself, but can replicate even Tinker designed compounds.  Synthetical is known to sell these substances in large quantities to gangs in the Twin Cities area.


    Warning: Synthetical is not known for attacking civilians unprovoked, but civilians are strongly advised to avoid contact; chemicals and substances around her may be highly corrosive or toxic, and may not always be visible to the eye.  If spotted, civilians should quietly and calmly leave the area and contact local police and Fellowship personnel as soon as it is safe to do so.¡±


    ¡°Fuck!¡± I jerked my head back and swore as a branch, invisible in the darkness, slapped against my mask.  Now that I was further away, I had less fear and anxiety and more anger. Tonight had been¡­ Eye opening, to say the least.


    ¡°Info, stop.  Info, shut down.¡±  I didn¡¯t need to hear more, and I had no reason to let myself get tracked.


    I really should stay focused, but I don¡¯t think I can.  My mind was in overdrive; tonight was a failure and I was feeling safe enough that I couldn¡¯t keep my thoughts away.  Was this stupid? Fuck yes it was, and I knew it. There was almost certainly heroes and villains that could be tracking me, or there could even be a precog sitting on my car¡¯s hood waiting for me to arrive already.


    I wasn¡¯t out of the woods yet, literally or figuratively.  And yet...


    I wasn¡¯t sure how close I had actually came to being killed.  In theory, because my costume was very literally made to take armor piercing rounds, the hand guns and submachine guns the regular gang members had probably couldn¡¯t kill me unless I took a shot to the head.  So as long as I kept Buzzkill from fucking me up, I might be too much of a turtle to really need to worry. But seriously being shot at¡­ I had really underestimated how much that would affect me; half the reason I was stumbling and tripping so much in the dark was because my entire body was shaking violently.


    Plans.  I made plans for how to do this, and because it had worked once I had trusted them again.  But it was obvious that I had been lucky. I had planned to avoid villains and mutants as much as possible, and I had never intended to ever to fight heroes at all, but what had made me blindly trust that I could even do that?


    By the time I made it to the edge of the woods, I was exhausted.  This was another thing I had failed to plan for: the accumulated fatigue of hauling my armor and rifle around.  Every part of my body ached, and some far worse than others, because I was a fucking stupid idiot and had decided to do this when I was already injured!


    I reigned my focus back in, I needed to take some time to scout out the area where I left my car.  Getting ambushed here would be bad, and my thoughts bouncing around would not help me in this.


    There was no one by my car, but I didn¡¯t approach yet.  I was paranoid enough to do a small circuit around the edge of the woods, checking to see if someone was waiting from some hidden vantage point to ambush me.  I didn¡¯t find anyone, and dragged myself to my car; even more terribly tired now that I knew my paranoia was unwarranted. My key was in the ignition, and I was on my way.


    I took a different way out, exiting onto a different highway and making my way back through a mix of back roads.  And again, my thoughts found me.


    My first mistake, first one that wasn¡¯t precipitated by my enemies actions anyway, was that I forgot to use my mask to identify Synthetical.  It wasn¡¯t hard to guess her powers, but knowing about her tendency to set traps might have made me more prepared when I jumped out the window.  However, while it had seemed fine when I was testing it at home, listening to the wiki page being recited after a fight made me consider what it would be like to do that during one.


    The information on a wiki page was arranged for reading, obviously.  But what I needed was more of a dry and concise list. Having to listen to a couple of minutes for information that could be relayed in a couple of seconds was a big issue.


    The second mistake: I hadn¡¯t brought my pipebomb with me.  I could have used it to push back or maybe even eliminate the groups that had come to reinforce Synthetical.  My power was purely defensive, I relied on tools and weapons to fight. Not having a way to deal with numbers could have killed me.


    And in my escape, I had realised my third mistake: I had no non-lethal options.  I hadn¡¯t really thought of it as an issue when I was preparing my equipment the first time.  I had thought I wouldn¡¯t have any trouble shooting the people I was going after, and while that was harder than I thought it would be, I have to say I was mostly right.  I¡¯m not nearly as shaken as novels and movies had made me think I would be, although I had a few nightmares.


    But the heroes¡­  Hell, they weren¡¯t even adults, just kids my age.  I might go to school with them; for all I know, I just shot someone I know personally.  And they didn¡¯t deserve to get shot at, which really made all the difference to me. Hard drugs destroy lives, so at the end of the day is there much difference between selling drugs and pulling a trigger?  And if so, does it really matter if I shoot a dealer? Even if they die, I¡¯ve saved more lives than I¡¯ve taken.


    ...I honestly cannot tell if that is sophistry or not.


    The main point is, I don¡¯t want to kill heroes and I need a way to stun people I want to interrogate.  So I¡¯ll have to look into my options, some kind of stun gun maybe? Can those knock people out or do they just knock them down?  I feel like I saw a video of a regular man being tased and not even reacting, but maybe there are other options.


    Those were my three main mistakes, but there were a lot of little issues as well.  Actually, I can¡¯t lie to myself and call them little, they just were not the kind of thing I would directly call a mistake.  The most obvious example I could think of, as I finally reentered Rochester, was the way I used my power. I have had my powers for a couple of months now, and I have gotten better with practice.


    When I first got my power, I could only make solid, contiguous, areas of the aether materialize.  It took a decent bit of time- and more than a few migraines- before I could make a hole through it that I could shoot through.  Experimenting with my power often caused headaches, but I needed to find out if I could do more than just produce one barrier. I knew I could do it on a small scale, but it was ridiculously hard to try and do it with anything large enough to shield me.


    And I feel that this part is a necessity, because currently I hardly moved when fighting.  I just stood or sat in place, hiding behind my barrier because I couldn¡¯t place another until I had dismissed the one I currently had.  In short, if I wanted to move to a new spot, I would have to get rid of my current protection and shield that area instead. With at least two shields, I could leapfrog them and move around without having to worry about getting shot before I made it to safety.


    Hell, I needed to make my power more instinctive overall.  Hindsight being perfect, I realised that I could have used my power to create a platform when I was trying to climb up the river bank.  Or I could have used it when going across the bridge, just to be on the safe side. I was treating it like a tool when I needed it to be an extra limb!


    I pulled into the garage and made my way back to the shed; a brief check revealed my armor to be basically undamaged.  Dirty, I would have to get it cleaned- which was another thing I had never thought of- but it was undamaged even by Bastron¡¯s shot.  I suppose that is a good warning for me as well about the limits of non-lethal weapons, he didn¡¯t even damage my coat!


    My net profit for the night was in the red.  Honestly, I hadn¡¯t lost too horribly much, but I was down ammo and a filter for my mask.  More importantly, I had the shit beaten out of me and God damn it but I felt like I could hardly move at this point.  Everything hurt, and noticing that it hurt made me notice that the ache had seeped down and was bone deep.


    I hobbled back to the house; did I even want to eat dinner?  No, I really fucking didn¡¯t, but I would anyway. One shitty thing about ADHD medication is that it suppresses hunger, so if I was feeling hungry, that often meant I was really damn hungry.  I had to remember to eat whenever my parents weren¡¯t around, and forcing myself to do it now was the right thing to do.


    Of course, this was an obvious example of my last issue: sticking to plans and ideas even when I really shouldn¡¯t.  ¡°I should just go to bed now,¡± I thought to myself as I robotically heated and ate the canned soup. ¡°But it would just feel so wrong¡­¡±


    This was actually a mix of issues, I suppose.  A tendency to follow previous plans even when it became a bad idea and the fact that I probably didn¡¯t have enough information to be making these plans in the first place.  My plans so far¡­ Well, I had essentially hoped that I wouldn¡¯t run into villains or mutants. Sure, I had assessed the chances, but that didn¡¯t mean I wasn¡¯t relying on luck.  There are always chances that something can go wrong, but a plan that actually relies on luck is a bad fucking plan.


    So I needed information, help.  But where would I even get it? I had no clue, and honestly I was hardly able to think now.  It took a monumental amount of effort to not flop onto the bed and instead to lower myself gently onto it.  The only benefit to my exhaustion was that I was able to fall asleep even with all the aches I had.

 Beginning 1.05

    The trees twisted, merging with the shadows as he ran.  They reached after him, caught on his clothes, but worse was his pursuer.  No matter how he ran, he could not escape; the shadow leaping from tree to tree was toying with him, letting him feel like he might have a chance¡­


    But there wasn¡¯t one.  She tired of his game as his stamina flagged.  The shadow landed in front of him, Junglecat, but maskless.  Her face changed as he watched; first it was Mira, then Sarah, then Cindy.  It flowed through people he knew, though it mostly stayed on those three. Each face twisted in a snarl and the eyes seemed to glow with hate.


    The wound in her side was bleeding heavily, but it didn¡¯t seem to stop her at all.  He backed up, tripping on a shadowy root and she sneered down at him.


    ¡°Running away from your responsibility?¡± Junglecat/Mira/Sarah/Cindy spat.  ¡°So you are a coward as well as a hypocrite and fool.¡±


    She picked him up by his collar, easily lifting him up to her eye level.  Eyes filled with hate, and disgust. So much disgust, as if just touching him made her unclean.


    ¡°This is nothing more than you deserve.¡±


    She slammed him down into the ground and it hurt.  It hurt so much! Everything seemed to-


    I woke up, with my heart beating rapidly and panting heavily.  The panic in waking must have prevented me from noticing at first, but the pain from yesterday was not only still there, but it was worse.  It felt like someone had taken a mallet to every inch of my body below my neck, or perhaps like I had been in a machine clothes dryer during its cycle.


    With how much I had been tossed around yesterday, that was not far from the truth.


    Getting out of bed took a monumental effort of will.  I only managed to lure myself out of bed with the knowledge that their was aspirin somewhere, maybe even ibuprofen.  I hated to take pain medication, but I feel like I could make an exception this morning.


    ADHD meds and pain meds down the hatch, and I very gingerly sit myself down to eat breakfast.  God, just lifting my arm hurts. Fuck me, I don¡¯t even want to think about last night, I just wanted to sit in this chair and swear.   I winced as I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. What a fucking mess.


    But I couldn¡¯t just sit here.  Well, I could, but sitting in the kitchen wasn¡¯t the most comfortable anyway.  I made my way back to my room and lowered myself into my computer chair; I might as well sit somewhere I where I can destress, right?  I had some invitations from my friends, but I doubt I could hide the fact I was pretty fucked up.


    I kind of wanted to play some of my real time strategy games, but I took the multiplayer too seriously and I wasn¡¯t in the right condition to play now.  That was stress I sure as hell didn¡¯t need right now, and the multiplayer was certainly stressful. Actually, it was a somewhat vaguely interesting situation for me; I didn¡¯t used to have such anxiety when I played, but as I got better at the game and was ranked higher and higher it demanded more and more perfection from me as a player.


    Actions per minute, or apm, was used to measure how fast a player was.  Better players could micromanage hundreds of units during battle; the highest apm confirmed to belong to someone who was neither a super nor a mutant was over three hundred forty.  People at my level of play often had around two hundred, but mine was a mere sixty. I only got by through superior strategy and cautious play, but I had to be nearly perfect in what I did.  I simply did not react fast enough that I could waste an action doing something that I didn¡¯t need to do.


    I just don¡¯t think well on my feet, even if my reflexes are fine my mind doesn¡¯t always keep up with what is going on.  Hence, my obsession with planning. I don¡¯t need to micromanage my units if my position is superior enough.


    But no mistakes means no playing when I have been beaten black and blue, so maybe a role playing game or a shooter?  I hadn¡¯t really touched them since I gained my powers, why would I? My life already had both in it! I¡¯d enough of that last night, so maybe something like a management or kingdom building game?  But I didn¡¯t want to devote a dozen hours into it right now¡­


    So I am not only hurt, but bored too.  Maybe I should just keep swearing at the ceiling, fuck it and fuck villains and fuck me for not planning properly.  On a whim, I materialized two small cubes of aether between myself and the ceiling. It was easy enough to do, but if I tried to expand them¡­  My head started throbbing and I dismissed them before I could get a headache to go along with the rest of my body¡¯s other pains.


    I sighed and opened my browser, I had successfully managed to kill twenty minutes of the rest of my entire day by thinking about a game to play and deciding I didn¡¯t want to play any of them.  ¡°The problem is that I don¡¯t actually want to do much aside from not hurt,¡± I thought to myself. ¡°And the only things I do want to do would be painful.¡±


    I checked my suggested articles with disinterest.  The attack in Rochester had been overshadowed by the actions of a group of hacktivist supervillains publishing the secrets of a few dozen important politicians overnight.  It wasn¡¯t anything to do with me, partially because I couldn¡¯t vote yet anyway, but mostly because none of the people affected were from Minnesota. They didn¡¯t represent me, so it wasn¡¯t my problem.


    I¡¯m not surprised that Rochester was already out of the news, the news cycle was almost spinning out of control.  What with all the supers and mutants running around there could be a dozen huge stories going on concurrently.


    When there are three different plots from three different supervillains to steal three different nukes, all on the same day, it is hard to know which story to cover.  I seem to remember the television news chose to cover the supervillain who had kidnapped a Fellowship tinker and forced him to build a giant doomsday laser and tried to extort a nuke out of the United States government.


    He was a pretty powerful villain, he almost made it through his entire demand before Titan beat him down on live tv.  Titan¡¯s plan to stop the villain¡¯s contingency for his defeat? When the laser began to fire, Titan just walked in the way of the shot and blocked it with his face.  The news probably chose to cover that particular story because they had footage of Titan being Titan, which was always good for ratings.


    Actually, I was somewhat interested in what the hacktivists had uncovered.  Some of the politicians seemed to have links to some pretty powerful groups of villains, even the Cabal.  I couldn¡¯t find the actual documents though, just reports on them. Apparently, the originals were hosted on a darkweb website and that seemed like it would be too much of a bother to deal with.


    Why should I go through the trouble of getting onto the darkweb just to read what would probably turn out to be some fairly dry technical documents?  Everything else on the darkweb was either sketchy or actually illegal. You could find and buy just about anything if you knew where to look; drugs, child porn, weapons, and mercenaries for investigating, roughing up, or straight up killing are all there.


    I had been curious enough to poke my head into that mess once a few years ago.  Aside from the fascinating experience of actually seeing such things being bought and sold, there really wasn¡¯t anything that I was interested in at the time.  Or now, I suppo-This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    No.  Wait.  That could be exactly what I need!


    I¡¯d have to be wary about making any kind of deal, but one of the things I needed most was information.  It wouldn¡¯t be cheap, but a Tinker or a Thinker might be able to find everything I need. I mean, I¡¯m not sure how organized Rochester¡¯s gangs really are, but aside from the groups that span multiple cities I can¡¯t see why they would have much in the way of computer systems.  Still, everyone has a smartphone these days and they must communicate somehow. I doubt they were proof against a tinker snooping through them.


    At the very least, I can take a look and investigate my options.  If things were too expensive or gave off the wrong vibes, I didn¡¯t have to go through with it.  It paid to be careful, especially because these were usually deals where the money was given up front.  I didn¡¯t want to give my money to someone who was just planning to walk away with all of it and laugh at me.


    Getting to the darkweb was a bit of a pain, I had to download an entirely different browser to do it.  It gave the impression that it was a separate entity from the rest of the internet but that really wasn¡¯t the case.  All of these websites were still connected to the internet, but they were delisted by search engines and often couldn¡¯t be navigated to using most browsers.  They also didn¡¯t have access to the big servers that most companies used, and so darkweb websites would go up and down all of the time.


    Those were the main functional differences, but the biggest thing to note was that it was a much less safe space.  I mean, it was obvious that if you were hiring a hacker that they could hack you as well. I had a virtual private network, something that most people tend not to bother with, so I should theoretically be fine though.


    Of course, that presumed I could get to the sites I needed in the first place.  Attempting to browse the darkweb gives an abject lesson on how important search engines are when using the internet because the darkweb has nothing so convenient.  Instead, I have to use my other browser to find sites off the darkweb that contain lists of darkweb addresses. And a recent and updated list at that, because these sites were often shut down by the government whenever the government could get their hands on them.


    The next few hours involved reading through forum after forum in an attempt to gauge the reliability of each website.  Honestly, my reading didn¡¯t fill me with confidence. In fact, I would say it drained me of the confidence and excitement I had built up.


    Sure, I could tell you where to go to buy hard drugs, but for informa-


    My train of thought was interrupted by the power suddenly cutting out.  A few seconds later, the lights were back on - though I would have to start the computer up again - and my phone was buzzing.  It was a push notification and text message saying: ¡°A Metahuman Conflict Warning has been issued for your area. Seek shelter immediately.  Do not approach costumed individuals. Do not approach active conflict zones. Comply with all orders from law enforcement and sanctioned heroes.¡±


    While that seems pretty dire, honestly it was a relief to me.  Considering what I had been researching, I had half expected to find a tinker villain had traced me and was going to blackmail me for all I was worth.  With a warning like this, I might as well just boot my computer back up and continue about my day.


    A Metahuman Conflict Warning was only issued when capes and cowls clashed in a big way.  My little scuffle in Stewartville didn¡¯t even come close to warranting such a warning. Collateral damage and swathes of destruction were generally a given, but statistically speaking, I was unlikely to be hurt at home.


    Now if I was downtown, I would be running for my life.  The best way to avoid getting killed was to not be anywhere near anything that could feasibly be a target.  Residential areas simply weren¡¯t worth the effort for supervillains and they often would go out of their way to avoid hitting them if they could.  Less unwritten rules and more like guidelines, there was a lot of practicality involved in how metahumans fought and acted.


    If, for example, you had a metahuman powerful enough to count as a supervillain, but all they did was rob gas stations and were always careful to avoid killing, they would be handled with kid gloves.  If that same villain did kill, but only ever killed heroes and law enforcement, they would still be handled relatively gently. The more a villain escalated, the more the heroes did. A supervillain who wipes out a residential neighborhood is basically asking to have a strike team backed by the full might of the U.S. military sicced on them.


    In short, the Fellowship is effectively threatening villains to restrain themselves to a certain degree by hammering down anyone who crosses those lines with ruthless and swift reactions.


    My phone buzzed again.  Another text, although this time it was from Mark, ¡°Are you safe to call?¡±  I didn¡¯t bother to reply and just called him instead, he picked up instantly.


    ¡°Shit man, are you ok?¡±  Mark was far more agitated than I was, although in fairness, my current calm was more than a little abnormal.  ¡°Got the warning and remembered you were alone, you think you can make it over here?¡±


    This is¡­  Surprisingly thoughtful, and now that I think about it, I am kind of an ass for not checking in with my friends.  Even if I am safe at home, they might not be. Shit. Mira¡¯s dad would be at work and so would Sarah¡¯s. Hell, most of my friends had family that work in the hospitals or something related to them.  Cindy¡¯s older sister, Jason¡¯s uncle¡­


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I spoke somewhat absentmindedly.  ¡°I think I would be fine to drive over. Not that you need to worry about me, I am more than safe here.¡±


    But maybe instead of being a selfish prick I should go over anyways.  After all, even if I can¡¯t personally protect everyone and I feel it is overall unlikely, if the worst did happen I could protect my friend and his family with my powers.


    ¡°Fuck man, this isn¡¯t the time for your calm and collected routine.  Get your ass out of your head and over here.¡±


    ¡°Fine, fine,¡± I agreed with a sigh.  The power flickered again anyway, so getting any work done was probably a lost cause.  And¡­ Mark wasn¡¯t wrong. My plans are too much theory and not enough practice; just because I am hypothetically safe doesn¡¯t mean I should be so relaxed.


    ¡°I¡¯ll drive over in a minute,¡± I say as I force myself to my feet.  Ugh, and to think I had hoped to stay home today¡­


    ¡°You aren¡¯t hanging up, stay on the line man.¡±  Mark preempts me. ¡°I can¡¯t even understand you sometimes¡­  Rochester could be a fucking crator tomorrow and you think you are safe because of statistics?  How the fuck can you be so anxious about minor things and hardly care about this?¡±


    ¡°If you are talking about the Splitter incident,¡± I said as I put Mark on speaker so that I could text the rest of my friends and make sure they were ok.  ¡°How many villains capable of inducing fission can there really be? Splitter killed himself when he blew up Zacatecas, so he is out of the picture. As to your other question, I honestly don¡¯t know.  I¡¯m having a minor existential crisis regarding my perceptions of risk right now.¡±


    ¡°Fuck man¡­¡±  Mark breathes heavily into the phone, ¡°You aren¡¯t even worried now¡­¡±


    Well, considering I was busy putting on a holster and checking one of my dad¡¯s handguns - it would cause way too many questions if I showed up with my rifle, and honestly I hoped that the gun would go unnoticed entirely - and that I had a defensive power, I still didn¡¯t really feel in danger.


    Oh, I can add that to the growing list of reasons why I need to change.  Because it is kind of idiotic to act as if I have my power to protect me while at the same time trying to keep my power secret.


    ¡°I¡¯m just heading out now Mark,¡± I talk, more to calm him down than anything else.  Car on, backing out of the driveway, he lives just a couple of blocks away so it will only be a minutes drive.  ¡°Anyway, I might be too calm, but you are on the opposite end of the spectrum. We will be fine, just chill ou-¡±


    I stop mid sentence.  I¡¯ve pulled out onto the street, all I need to do is move my foot from the brake to the gas pedal and drive. but I am stunned.  Mark is absolutely panicking now, but I don¡¯t even really hear him.


    ¡°Mark, can you see that?¡±  I ignore what he is saying entirely, ¡°Are you seeing this!?¡±


    ¡°Seeing what?  I¡¯m in the basement, I¡¯m not about to go looking for trouble!¡±


    It is like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, only terrifyingly real.  In cutesy animation, it almost seems silly, but when I see it with my own eyes¡­


    ¡°It''s a giant robot¡­¡± Fuck me, its taller than the buildings next to it.  It must be miles away, but by comparison I can tell the thing is over forty feet tall.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°It''s a giant ass robot!¡± I shout into the phone, ¡°That thing must be fucking huge!¡±


    The humanoid metal giant raised a hand and pointed at something, firing a huge beam of energy from its palm.  I couldn¡¯t see where it hit, but I honestly didn¡¯t want to. That display of power broke me out of my stupor and I floored the gas pedal.  Fuck my ass, Mark was right. Damn the stats to hell, it is better to be safe than sorry.

 Interlude 1 - Heroes

    ¡°Our initial plan was a complete failure.¡± The mood in the conference room was as grim as the speaker''s tone, and it only became darker as he continued.  ¡°Our first contingency is also compromised. We are scrambling for replacements, but the quality won¡¯t be the same.¡±


    ¡°And our own law enforcement?¡± Flipside asked, struggling not to adjust her new suit.  She would swear up and down that the new one didn¡¯t fit right, despite all assurances to the contrary, but this wasn¡¯t the time or place to fidget.


    ¡°Depends on what you are looking for,¡± the police chief was an older man with a large belly, but it was obvious that he still had more muscle than fat.  ¡°We all know how this works, we don¡¯t have enough officers to handle the city without heroic backing on the best of days. Now? Parts of the city are going to boil over and the more of my people we pull the worse that will be.¡±


    ¡°Any chance Visionary will wake before this comes to blows?¡±  It was Northernwind who asked that question, but it was obvious she knew the answer already.


    ¡°His coma is a result of the healing powers used on him,¡± the representative from the hospital spoke up.  ¡°The earliest Visionary could wake up is six days, but it is probable that he won¡¯t for up to fourteen.¡±


    Flipside couldn¡¯t stop herself from cringing at that, and the faces around the table - those that were unmasked - did much the same.  Ten days ago, the second strongest superhero in the United States - fuck political correctness, Visionary was arguably the second strongest hero in the western hemisphere - was grievously injured in a fight against the Cabal.  The fight happened over open ocean, and so the public at large had no idea. Afterwards, he was rushed to Rochester for treatment.


    For most heroes, that wouldn¡¯t be an issue.  Flipside herself had been in the hospital more than once, and she had never even considered that villains might hunt her down to finish her off.  It simply was not a thing that was done; it broke the unwritten rules that kept fights from escalating to apocalyptic levels and when it came down to it, the Fellowship and the military could escalate further and faster than villains could.


    But Visionary was not an ordinary hero.  True to his name, he was a hero, a detective, and an activist.  Where most heroes would respond to a villains crime, Visionary hunted them down.  Where most heroes would focus on villains and not bother over petty crimes beyond reporting it to the police, Visionary would personally take apart gangs from the lowest dealer all the way up to the superpowered kingpin.  Where many heroes would ignore smaller issues from rich and influential people to avoid causing trouble when there were villains to fight, Visionary would fly into a billion dollar company¡¯s board room to arrest the CEO in the middle of a meeting.


    And Visionary could do all of this without the consequences that would fall on someone as minor as Flipside because he was damn near unbeatable.


    Everyone knew the power classifications:  Manipulator, Enhancer, Controller, Thinker, Tinker, and Transformers.  But there was actually one more, it simply was so rare that it was almost never mentioned; why bother listing a category that, in the entire world, there are barely enough to force someone to use two hands when counting?


    Special.


    Even if capes and researchers could not tell how most powers worked, they generally were able to understand what they did.  Flipside herself, for example, had no idea how she manipulated gravity, but everyone was in agreement that was what she was doing.  Thinkers and Tinkers both agreed that her powers likely could be recreated with technology sometime in the future. Although Flipside was happy to know that time was far off and that she would likely always be able to use her power better than a machine would anyway.


    Special powers were incomprehensible.  Abyssal, a German Supervillain, was the go to example for the category.  She didn¡¯t just manipulate the scientific law of the conversion of mass, she violated it entirely.  Abyssal could truly destroy matter. She could make what existed stop existing, which should simply be flat out impossible.


    Visionary was on record as a Special 15,Thinker 3 and his power was just as baffling.  What Visionary could imagine, happened. There were limits, but it was mostly as simple as that.  If he imagined himself bulletproof, he was. If he imagined a wound healed, it would be healed. If he imagined his opponent defeated, they would be defeated.  If he imagined that a past event didn¡¯t happen, it would not have happened.  Even if his offense was limited by range and stamina, Visionary was de facto invincible and undefeatable.


    Until the Cabal beat him into the floor.


    Visionary was recovered from the wreckage of a facility thought to be a former Cabal base.  Anyone else with wounds like his would have been dead. Hell, calling them wounds was understating it, Visionary was recovered in pieces.  Those pieces were brought here to Rochester and the Mayo Clinic where medical masks were putting him back together.


    He was supposed to have been brought here secretly.  No one was supposed to know because there were many villains who would strike if they thought they had a real chance to stop Visionary once and for all.  They didn¡¯t put all their eggs in one basket though, the Fellowship was more than willing to deploy enough forces to Rochester as a first contingency in case of discovery.


    Flipside glanced down at the report in front of her and sighed.  Whenever the others at the conference looked at their own copy, their face would always form some difficult expressions.  Villains all over the country were active, whether it was minor gangs, terrorists, or sprawling international syndicates. Furthermore, the report detailed how false evidence had been laid down to implicate law-abiding mutants, but they only ever discovered the evidence was false after an arrest.


    Hundreds of mutants across the country had been arrested and revealed to be entirely innocent in the past twenty-four hours.  The news was impossible to suppress, all the Fellowship had been able to do was delay the major networks from running the story, but that would end soon.  After that? Civil unrest to one degree or another in every major city. Demonstrations in the best case scenario, riots in the worst.


    Aside from a few reinforcements from the Twin Cities, every hero was needed where they were to fight the villains and limit the possible damage riots could do.


    ¡°And our second contingency?¡±  Northernwind leaned forward, the temperature in the room noticeably dropping.  ¡°We got lucky with yesterday¡¯s attack, with every hero team ambushed, that both doctors were in Visionary¡¯s room at the time.  I don¡¯t think they expected to fight the medical masks - or perhaps that Stitch would be such an effective combatant - but we shouldn¡¯t rely on luck, and they won¡¯t make the same mistake next time.¡±


    Flipside watched as the heroine glanced around the room, her gaze severe as she finished with: ¡°And we all know there will be another attack, it is just a matter of when.¡±


    ¡°The Governor is leery of sending out the National Guard when we might be looking at mutant riots,¡± the mayor sounded tired and when he took off his glasses to clean them with a soft cloth, the bags under his eyes became apparent.  ¡°The army is mobilizing, but the generals are dragging their heels over the numbers. We can expect at least a batallion, but I doubt we will see a brigade.¡±


    ¡°Someone translate that for those of us who know nothing about the military?¡± Northernwind replied dryly.  Flipside agreed with the sentiment, how was she supposed to know how much a battalion was? For all she knew it would be forty eight men and a child!


    ¡°Maximum numbers would be a thousand troops for a batallion.  I asked for a regiment of at least three thousand; you should know this, you had to sign off on the paper for me to even ask!¡±


    ¡°Wait, you want the city to house three thousand soldiers?¡±  The treasurer, who had mostly stayed quiet until now, suddenly sat up and focused on the conversation.  ¡°The logistics of that! The cost! Not to mention the economic losses if we locked down a large chunk of the city, is that even remotely necessary?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±  Northernwind replied simply, and the treasurer turned an incredulous look at Flipside for a second opinion.


    ¡°In a fight where powered heroes and villains are equally matched, there is very little to stop the enemies minions using their number advantage.¡±  Flipside paraphrased a passage from one of the Fellowship¡¯s textbooks. ¡°In true, open, combat the villain¡¯s forces will almost always outnumber your own and will often make up for their comparative disadvantage in equipment by leading with mutants as shock troops.¡±


    Flipside took a breath and continued, ¡°this isn¡¯t our every day work; even if their total numbers are greater than ours, normally we have a local numbers advantage when we face off against gangs and villains.  We usually have better organisation, better information, and our capes outmatch their cowls in number and strength. None of that is true right now. Worst case scenario is that we end up wiped out and the city is at their mercy until the National Guard and the Army retake it.¡±


    Two hours later, Flipside was stretching as she and Northernwind walked through city hall to the Fellowship headquarters.


    ¡°I hate morning meetings!¡± Flipside complained, ¡°It¡¯s not even important, we accomplished nothing but wasting time.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t whine, we need all hands on deck for this,¡± Northernwind chided.  ¡°And honestly, I¡¯m more bothered that you never show this side of your personality in front of anyone else.  If I complain about your constant complaining, everyone looks at me like I¡¯m crazy! Even Mockingbird, and her powers should tell her that I am telling the truth!¡±


    Flipside just giggled at that.  It might seem odd to most that the heroes would be so relaxed considering the current situation, but veteran heroes like Northernwind and Flipside both knew when dealing with villains there was always some kind of pressure.  In a crisis, you still relaxed when you could or the pressure could snap you.


    Picking at her own costume again, Flipside lamented that she couldn¡¯t wear something like Northernwind¡¯s costume.  Well, she could, but it wouldn¡¯t make sense with her powers. A gravity theme makes it damn hard to accessorize, which just left her in a bodysuit.  Hell, it took years before she could ignore the shame for wearing something so tight fitting, but the techs made good arguments for it. Namely, that as she played around with gravity loose clothing and capes could and would get tangled in something.


    She left the tech who said that its tightness was an extra defense pinned to the ceiling.  She didn¡¯t accept, ¡®they will be too busy looking at your ass to shoot you,¡¯ as a valid argument.


    Northernwind, on the other hand, looked fabulous.  Sure, she also had a bodysuit - a blindingly white one with a light blue stripe running from her left shoulder to her right hip and then spiraling down around her right leg - but she also had a skirt, cape, scarf, and rounded out the costume with ski goggles.


    It really wasn¡¯t fair, but Flipside had to put it out of mind as she made her way through the security doors into the Fellowship Headquarters.  Normally, they would head through the doors and end up on a platform overlooking the various Fellowship workstations, but now it overlooked repair and construction.  The villains who fought here seemed to have enjoyed causing as much damage as they could, but much of the facilities were untouched.


    Flipside frowned and left Northernwind¡¯s side as she noticed one of the heroes going about their business.


    ¡°Whipersnap, what are you doing?¡±  Ignoring the stairs, Flipside stepped directly off the platform - which was missing its railing - and reduced the pull of gravity so that she floated easily down.  ¡°I didn¡¯t think you would be up so soon! The doctors said you¡¯d be down for weeks, even with your regeneration!¡±


    ¡°Mutant, remember?  I¡¯m a lot hardier than I look, if you had the same injuries I had right now, you¡¯d be dead!¡± Whipersnap smirked, before flinching and coughing hard.  She approached, but he waved her off.


    ¡°Yeah, you sure sound like you are doing fine,¡± Flipside remarked sarcastically.  ¡°I saw the hits you took yesterday, I¡¯m sending you home to rest. Can¡¯t have a kid dying on me.¡±


    Yesterday had been¡­  Harrowing. Germ hadn¡¯t even been trying to kill them, as far as Flipside could tell, but even that minimal effort had almost killed both of them.  The other villain and mutants had not even gotten involved, instead they robbed the gallery blind while Whipersnap and Flipside got batted around by Germ.  The supervillain almost put his fist through Whipersnap and then had the gall to apologize for ¡°trying too hard.¡±


    ¡°You know we don¡¯t have the manpower for me to do that,¡± Whipersnap straightened up with his face set.  ¡°I¡¯ll manage.¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t about what you can ¡®manage!¡¯¡± Flipside sighed in frustration.  Dealing with teenage heroes was always frustrating; they almost always wanted to do more than they could and were stubborn about being kept out of the line of fire.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Not that the Fellowship often managed to keep them out of the line of fire, as evidenced by the fact Whipersnap had a hole in his stomach, but Flipside digressed.


    ¡°Head home.  I do not need legal up my ass again, I already have an inquiry about yesterday coming down on me.¡±


    ¡°Listen to your Guardian,¡± Northernwind followed up behind Flipside.  ¡°Head home. Recover, and get back here.¡±


    Whipersnap muttered his agreement and discontent as he made his way to the lockers, and Flipside could only shake her head.  Mutants and Enhancers were sometimes just too tough. Whipersnap being both made it difficult for him to be healed quickly by medicine, but between his mutations and powers that hardly mattered.  If he was over eighteen, Flipside would likely have let him stay. Sure his wound would have instantly killed her, but he hardly cared.


    However, in addition to her status as the vice-commander of the Rochester Fellowship, Flipside was also assigned to Whipersnap as his Guardian.  Every underage hero had an older hero assigned as a Guardian to act as a mentor and protector. Not that Flipside was actually that old, she was one of the youngest vice-commanders in the country at twenty-nine.


    Northernwind and Flipside went the other direction, leaving the construction behind them and going through a second security door.  Flipside sighed again, but this time in relief as she pulled off her mask. She massaged around her eyes to get the blood flowing again, and tried to resist scratching despite the itch.


    Northernwind was doing much the same, her goggles left a rather humourous mark on the superheroine¡¯s face.  Honestly, Flipside would have thought Northernwind¡¯s identity would have been discovered with such an obvious tell, but it did fade fast enough she supposed.


    A short hallway later and they were at the CIC.  Fellowship Combat Information Centers were not much like military ones.  For one thing, it was part CIC, part ready room, and part lounge. Heroes on duty, as well as some off duty, rested or talked with each other while waiting for a reinforcement call from the CIC.


    The second difference stemmed from that.  A Fellowship CIC was a lot like a firehouse, it was also a living space.  In fact, some of the heroes actually lived at the Fellowship, although it was very rare.  On most days, it wasn¡¯t a very quiet place as a result.


    The mood today, however, was dismal.  Yesterday¡¯s defeat was hard on many heroes and harder on the ones still recovering.


    ¡°Flipside, Northernwind!¡± The man approaching didn¡¯t seem to be in costume, wearing jeans and a sweater, but not all heroes wear costumes that were more than just a mask, which he didn¡¯t have to wear inside the CIC.


    With his brown hair messy, his clothes wrinkled, and his eyes sleepy, Adam - better known as The Intuitive Man - looked like he had just rolled out of bed.  Which, despite the time, was a distinct possibility. Despite his sloth, The Intuitive Man was the most important mind behind the Rochester Fellowship¡¯s CIC; a Thinker 5 with a mix of precognitive and analytical capabilities, he usually was able to give the Fellowship the upper hand in all of their missions.


    Flipside frowned, for him to be rushing over to meet them he had to have some kind of information that they had to hear, and nothing good ever prompted him to action.


    ¡°Adam,¡± Northernwind greeted him with a nod and went straight to the point.  ¡°What have you got for me?¡±


    ¡°Its bad.¡±


    And that is the frustration of dealing with low strength or mixed power precogs.  They were often vague to the point of being useless. No shit it was bad, everyone and their mother knew that.


    ¡°No, no,¡± He didn¡¯t even let them respond, ¡°Worse than that!¡±


    The other problem with Thinkers: when they respond to thoughts you haven¡¯t even voiced.  It is incredibly uncomfortable. Flipside thought so, anyway, some people weren¡¯t bothered.


    The various team leaders had made their way over now as well.  Northernwind didn¡¯t bother taking everyone to a conference room, this information was for every hero, after all.


    ¡°I want everyone on alert for the next eight hours,¡± Northernwind announced.  ¡°Adam hasn¡¯t led us wrong before, and the army will be here in eight hours at most, so we can expect something to happen in the interim.¡±


    ¡°Can we get any more reinforcements?¡± One hero asked, nodding his thanks to the heroes who had already deployed from the Twin Cities.  ¡°Intuition Man is great and all, but I don¡¯t want to sit here and know that if we do nothing we are going to be in trouble.¡±


    ¡°Connect with the police and let them know, we should get every officer on duty we can.¡±  Flipside answered this, talking over Adam complaining about the hero mistaking his name, ¡°Other than that, we are on our own for now.  The villains have set things up to make it difficult for us; I am honestly thankful that the Minneapolis and St. Paul Fellowships haven¡¯t recalled our friends here.¡±


    She nodded to the capes who had come down from the northern cities.  Twenty heroes - twenty one if Whipersnap actually obeyed and went home - were injured and sent home.  Stitch and Amrita, the medical capes employed by Mayo, were powerful but because they never publicly revealed their powers, people tended to overestimate them.  While it was true that minor injuries could be immediately healed, and that Amrita could prevent someone from dying so long as they were alive when she used her powers, moderate injuries could only be sped up so much when it came to healing.  The earliest that Flipside could expect the injured to return to active duty was tonight. Extremely impressive healing considering some of the damage done, but not impressive enough to make a difference in time.


    The cities sent four teams down, two from each, before the extent of the Cabal¡¯s preparations became apparent.  With a Team Captains and four heroes each, it was an extra twenty capes in total, and they were desperately needed.  Rochester had a very high concentration of powered individuals; the normal complement of heroes for the city was sixty seven who worked to handle the forty five identified villains the area.


    Yesterday, an extra twenty four villains entered the city and twenty six heroes were either killed or incapcitated.  This left an unpleasant situation where sixty two heroes would have to handle sixty nine villains. Unpleasant, but theoretically doable because villains were not a united group.  Standard procedure for handling situations like this would be to handle the groups individually. The total number of villains might be more, but the various gangs and groups won¡¯t support each other and that allows heroes to have the number advantage during fights.


    But The Intuitive Man had told them that his gut feeling was that normal procedure wouldn¡¯t cut it this morning.  Based on that, Flipside thought, and Northernwind agreed, that the villainous powerhouses that had entered the city probably forcefully united the disparate factions and would strike with all or most of the villains in the area.  Which made the aid of the four teams absolutely indispensable, they would have to coordinate with the local teams well if the Fellowship was going to hold off the villains until the military made it.


    She looked around at the captains from out of the city:


    Trance, a Thinker with hypnotic powers.  His costume was hard to look at, the bodysuit and faceless mask patterned with optical illusions that could cause headaches if you looked too closely.


    Ramjet, a young woman who had just turned eighteen and left the Youth Fellowship.  An Enhancer/Manipulator, her costume consisting of an old fashioned flight jacket, helmet, and goggles was much tougher than it looked.  It had to be, because her favorite method of attack was to launch herself at incredibly high speeds and ram her opponent head on.


    Pulsepounder, whose costume included an animated electrocardiogram across his chest that displayed his heart rate.  He was a Manipulator, but his powers were not particularly well understood. He was able to fire blasts of power from his hands that would explode on contact and then would keep exploding in time with his heart beat.


    Technocrat, a reformed villain Tinker.  He didn¡¯t so much have a costume as he had power armor stylized to look medieval knight with a crown set into the bascinet.  A rounded visor, a massive greatsword, and a golden cape completed the image, but it was mostly theater. Despite his armor and weapon, Technocrat prefered to fight from a distance using energy weapons and robotic minions.  He was an older man, having spent seven years as a villain before being arrested and making a deal with the Fellowship twenty years ago.


    Roost, a powerful Controller who could control birds and see through their eyes.  His costume¡­ Well, if Flipside was honest, was hideous. Roost¡¯s costume was based off a bald eagle, or it might be more accurate to say he was wearing a bald eagle costume.  The less said about it, the better, but his powers were useful. At short range, he could control entire flocks of birds or he could focus on a single bird and control it from dozens of miles away


    Finally, there was Dryad, a Controller/Transformer who could transform trees into what can only be described as ent like creatures and command them.  She could also turn herself into a tree or insert herself into a living one, but her powers took time to work. Still, the creatures didn¡¯t die or expire so long as they were fed and allowed to grow and Dryad could send them into a hibernation that made them appear like normal trees.  Dryad had gone around the state years ago transforming trees in many locations so that she would be able to respond to problems everywhere, a decision that was paying off in spades now.


    As for the local Captains, two were recovering and one was dead, so aside from Northernwind and Flipside herself, only Grunt and Micro were present.  Which was a pain in Flipside¡¯s ass because despite their competence they were the two most difficult Captains to handle.


    Grunt, in his bulky red armor, was an Enhancer.  A pretty standard one too, with high durability and physical strength.  He rarely talked or made any noise more than a grunt, but when he did speak in a combat situation all of his orders were on point.  At all other times, conversations were about as easy and fun as pulling teeth.


    Micro was an arrogant asshole and had a somewhat unpleasant power.  He was a Controller and did not directly engage in combat. Instead, his powers worked through his teammates in a way that was almost, but not quite, mind control.  The short version is that Micro made his team do everything better, but his partial control was not a comfortable thing to be under. His costume was specially made pants, a jacket, and a visor.  Flipside didn¡¯t think the man cared much about his identity being discovered. He probably wanted to have it revealed so he could bask in the public glory.


    ¡°So are we just going to sit here and wait?¡± Micro ignored Flipside¡¯s silent glare.  Admittedly, Flipside glared at him so much that he would never speak at all if he cared about it.  ¡°I get that something is going to go down, but it would be nice to have patrols out there to see it coming.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we can risk getting picked off,¡± Ramjet responded, adjusting her flight goggles and shifting her weight on her feet.  ¡°I doubt you can be any more bored than I am, but even I know that much.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not bored brat,¡± Micro snapped, his lips twisting into a sneer.  ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind a bit of revenge for my comrades, but my suggestion is mostly practical.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you could convince me you have any comrades, and I barely know you.¡±


    ¡°Cool it Ram,¡± Technocrat intervened, Northernwind was taking a report from a staff member and had missed the exchange.  ¡°Local guys are under a lot of pressure, let¡¯s cut everyone some slack alright?¡±


    ¡°You probably just like that asshole because he reminds you of your villain friends,¡± Ramjet didn¡¯t back down.  ¡°You only chose to be a hero to avoid being thrown into prison, you aren¡¯t one of us.¡±


    ¡°Okay.  Micro, Ramjet - get along.  I hate doing this, but you can take that as an order.¡± Flipside had never wanted to be vice commander, but life was full of disappointments and that she had to step up and be responsible was one of them.  ¡°You two don¡¯t need to like each other, and I don¡¯t really care if you like Techno Ramjet, but I do expect professional conduct out of all of you. We¡¯re heroes, we can at least live up to the same standards sixteen year olds working for fast food joints manage to, yeah?¡±


    ¡°We had better, because we just got information from the FBI,¡± Northernwind regioned the conversation with her tone grim.  ¡°We can expect a couple more surprise visitors on the villain side. They don¡¯t know who, but the data suggests they are probably supervillains.¡±


    Shit.  They were stacking quantity and quality on their side.  As the impromptu meeting fell apart, Flipside drifted over to her own workstation but was unable to get any of her usual work done.  She¡¯d always known a situation like this could occur, but she had never really believed it would. The best she could do to relax was to idly levitate objects on her desk.  Flipside consoled herself that she was at least more put together than Ramjet, who was wearing a hole in the carpet with her pacing.


    An hour slid by, then another, and then just as it seemed a third one might as well, the alarm went off and every hero on the room scrambled to their feet.


    ¡°Call came in from the local police,¡± Circutbreaker, their local Tinker said.  ¡°I¡¯ve got drone footage now; putting it up on the main screen.¡±


    The large, wall sized, screen turned on and showed static for a moment.  When the picture cleared, Flipside thought that it had been tuned to some kind of kids show at first.


    ¡°Is that..?¡±  She wasn¡¯t sure who spoke, but she agreed with the sentiment.


    ¡°It¡¯s a giant fucking robot.¡± Ramjet¡¯s eloquence was to be admired, ¡°Seems someone let a Tinker have too much time.  That¡¯s going to come back to bite us in the ass when the higher ups get around to assigning blame.¡±


    Tinkers were probably the weakest of all powers.  If you threw two capes into an arena to fight, a Tinker would almost always lose.  They simply had no abilities that were useful without tools and materials.


    On the other hand, if a Tinker was given enough time, they were downright terrifying.  Doom lasers, satellite based disintegration rays, self replicating nanobot swarms, and yes, giant robots, were all examples of what could happen when a Tinker was able to get all the time and materials they needed.


    ¡°Actually, it looks kind of familiar¡­¡± Ramjet paused as the drone got closer and the image was more clear, ¡°It kind of looks like-¡±


    ¡°Hmph, well at least you aren¡¯t an idiot girl.  Unlike everyone else in this shitty organisation.¡±


    Technocrat drew the greatsword from his back and stabbed it into the floor.  Radiating silver light, he rocketed straight up through the ceiling. It would take him time to force his way through all the floors above them, but no one able to pursue him.  Sunk into the ground, the sword was starting to glow red, and it didn¡¯t take a genius to guess what was about to happen. People dove for cover and force fields went up just in time for the sword to explode.


    Unhurt, but stunned by the noise and force, Flipside stumbled to her feet.  The CIC was in ruins, but despite the damage, there was still a picture on the main screen, showing the giant robot raising a hand.


    ¡°Everyone capable of it, get in the air or to the motor pool!¡± Northernwind shouted as she took flight, ¡°turn your comms on and stick with your teams!  My team will be going to intercept that thing, everyone else head to reinforce the teams protecting the hospital.¡±


    Northernwind¡¯s team was all capable of flight, and followed her out through the ceiling.


    ¡°You heard the Commander,¡± Flipside shouted.  ¡°Team Captains, move out in groups of two. They are obviously more prepared for us than we thought.  Circuitbreaker, I don¡¯t care how you do it, but get the CIC up and running again! Hustle people, this is it!¡±