The door to the lounge swung shut like a gavel. It was a well maintained place, cleaner than it normally was. There was a TV against one wall with couches placed for watching, not that anybody was doing that for the moment, while another part of the room was a dedicated kitchen with an island. Most of the rest was open space, probably more than was necessary for the number of people that frequented the room, but there was a dining table that doubled as a desk for bookwork most nights.
Also in the corner was a desk covered in technology, used for keeping track of police activity and reports, and for keeping in touch with others that happened to be elsewhere at any given time. It was the one part that hadn’t been cleaned. It had been gathering dust for a week. None of the heroes had had reason to use it with patrols suspended.
The sound of the door clicking shut would normally have been ignored, or drowned out by the buzz of activity from within or without the room. This time the sound was like a hammer driving in the final nail in the coffin, sentencing the hero that was supposed to be there to their fate.
That was probably why the room had been cleaned as well. They weren’t normally pulled from school at this hour either. Normally they were in costume when they were here, even if they did slack on the masks. The announcement had been that special.
It took a while for anyone to find their voice. The first to speak stood from their chair without pushing it back, tipping it backwards to the floor where it wasn’t picked up again.
“This is bullshit.” The three, technically four others in the room should have agreed with him. Instead, he got an admonishment.
“Please, Fletch. Not now.”
“Then when? Come on, you know just as well as me that this isn’t right. I could see his fucking eyes looking at me, calculating. He wanted me to help him and decided not to. He’s going to do it anyway. How is that not bullshit!?”
“Please calm down, Fletcher.” The words were pleading, but the tone was absent.
“I am calm! If I was angry, I’d be going down to the press office with all of my fucking gear and using it to give that sick fuck of a human being a living nightmare! I’m not doing that! I know that’s not fucking productive! I want to be productive, but there’s nothing productive to fucking do!”
“Fletcher.” Olivia cut in. “Shouting isn’t helping. Listen to Thea.”
Fletcher turned and pointed a finger at Olivia. He barely recognised the heroine without her colourful masquerade mask in place, so it was surprisingly easy to think of her without the hero name attached. “You, have done nothing! But sit! And act! Like nothing is Fucking wrong!”
“You know that’s not fair.” Thea said, almost whispering. Her head was laying down on the table, and her voice was twice quiet, both muffled and weak.
“How are you guys just sitting!?” Fletcher demanded. “I only knew Liam for like half a year. Months! We only spoke on the job. I Liked him though, he was funny. What about you, huh?” He snapped his head towards Danny. Fletcher tended to forget what his real name actually was. “What about you?”
Rather than answer, Danny activated his power and vanished from sight. His sister didn’t appear. She was already somewhere else, who knew where.
It wasn’t satisfying. Fletcher was still frustrated. He kept pacing.
“I joined Slip when he went back to the spot.” Thea said after a while, speaking into the table. “I thought maybe my power would pull some strings and something would come up.”
It obviously hadn’t. Slip had found a patch of puke that Fletcher had missed on the day, but beyond figuring out whoever threw up didn’t eat much it hadn’t been very helpful. It also wasn’t the time Thea was talking about. The older adept had gone to the spot three times with new inventions and inspiration.
Still nothing, though.
“Sunshrieker wants to keep the investigation private.” Olivia said. “And imagine what would happen to us if it was common knowledge that Jumpspark simply vanished. There would be no confidence. We wouldn’t be allowed to work. I, for one, need a place to release my power and this allows for that.”
Fletcher bristled. She was right and he hated it. The genius’ urges only got worse when he didn’t tinker or invent, to the point that it eventually became overwhelming. He needed to spend a decent amount of time doing that stuff, and was only able to do that because he had funding. Without a budget… Fletcher didn’t want to think about not having a budget. His fingers were twitchy enough as it was.
“Furthermore, my power is entirely useless for delicate matters such as finding others.” Olivia continued. “Thea’s is useful, but should not be relied on. You on the other hand were able to track him to a last known location, only twenty minutes after he was there. Many missing person’s cases are not so lucky.”
Fletcher stopped pacing and turned to the older girl. “Why are you going along with this so easily?”
Olivia gave him a quizzical look. “I don’t understand.”
“Liam is gone and you’re just fine with it. Why? Is it because he’s not competing with you for most senior hero anymore? Because Jumpspark is retiring apparently, Sunshrieker would have asked me to make a hologram of him saying goodbye if he could get away with it. Instead it’s just going to be announced that he’s stepping down. So now what, you finally get a chance at being captain?”
“Fletch.” Thea warned, finally looking up.
“Because if you are, congratulations! There’s five of us now!”
Olivia didn’t move, but the temperature in the room suddenly rose ten degrees as an orange light appeared on the floor around the frustrated boy. Sweat started forming all over Fletcher’s body as he realised how badly he had just fucked up. The temperature kept rising, but this wasn’t the way Olivia really attacked with her power. It was just a warning, and Fletcher wouldn’t back down.
“That’s enough!” Thea shouted. The next moment she was out of her seat and pushing Fletcher to the side where the room returned to a more normal temperature. His feet tripped on each other and he tumbled to the floor, cracking his head on the kitchen’s island. “You’re way out of line, Fletcher. That is not how a hero acts, no matter how much he might be hurting. And you.” She turned and stalked up to Olivia. “You should know when the time to escalate is, because this wasn’t it.”
Olivia stared back at Thea, but said nothing. Then a sharp slap turned her head to face the side.
“Get rid of the heat.” Thea told her. “What were you thinking? He’s just a kid, you’re supposed to be the role model.”
The orange light dimmed and eventually went out. The heat that came with it stayed, however. “Apologies.” The word came out as a whisper, then Olivia’s feet were hurrying to the door.
“Fuck.” Fletcher grit his teeth when the door slammed shut. “Fuck!”
It all sucked so fucking much. A flash of rage made him strike out at the wall he was leaning against, but all that got him was pain. He cradled his hurting hand with the other and screwed his eyes shut, as if that would make this a dream he could wake up from.
“Hey. Hey.” Thea’s arm reached around Fletcher’s shoulders as she settled down next to him, somehow managing to do it without disturbing him. “It’ll pass. The shitty feeling inside.”
“It shouldn’t.” Fletcher croaked.
“But it will. That’s the thing about emotions, they never stay the same. Not for long.”
Fletcher wanted to ask about what would happen if they got worse instead of getting better, but his throat choked up.
“So you, and Olivia, and Danny, and Tammy, and even me. We all feel shitty right now. But tomorrow that’s not going to be true. We’ll feel different. Maybe even more shitty. Maybe less. Maybe one of us will manage to forget about this horrible situation for a moment and feel something completely different. But the truth of the matter is… he’s gone.” Thea’s voice cracked. When she spoke again, her voice didn’t hold the strength Fletcher was used to.
“But he might still be alive. So we’ll keep an eye and an ear out. If something comes up, we’ll know about it. We’ll investigate it. And, in the end, we’ll figure out the truth. Once we know the truth, we’ll dispense justice where it’s needed. Because we’re heroes.”
“And that’s what heroes do.” Fletcher murmured.
Thea squeezed him briefly. It was a show of support that made the fourteen year old realise that his crush was hugging him. Him, a spastic, nerdy, sideshow when half the people his age would have killed to be in his position.
Fletcher started laughing. It was too absurd. For some reason his crazed outburst didn’t signal the end of the hug.
He started crying soon after that.
~~~
“Yo, spine,” Hanna started as Lucy walked past. She was waiting by the school gate Lucy normally used, and Hanna had somehow arrived there well before she did.
“Not today.” Lucy told her, not slowing down. The other girl had to fumble with her overstuffed bag, which had been resting by her feet to catch up to the fast walking girl.
“What the hell do you mean, not today?” Hanna demanded.
“I said not today.” Lucy repeated herself. “As in I don’t have the house to myself today. As in you can’t visit today.” She took a breath and glanced at Hanna. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
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“Bullshit, you said I could come over after school.”
Lucy stopped and bodily turned to face the brusk girl. Hanna wasn’t dressed the same way she had been the day before. Today she was even more colourful, with a vaguely familiar green button up shirt that looked as though it was fresh out of the store, but worn with the buttons misaligned. Lucy had seen it before, on the day she met Hanna for the first time, and the colour hadn’t been that vibrant then.
The hygiene emitter, as Lucy had taken to calling it in her head, was evidently more effective than Hanna had painted it out to be. For as clean as that was, Hanna’s hair hadn’t received the same level of attention. It was just as messy as the day before, but in a different way.
“That was before I received news of a family emergency. Dad’s going to be home if you come with me. He’ll want to know everything about the first friend I’ve ever brought over.” Lucy said rapidly, hoping that rushing through the lies would paint them as a frantic truth. “Do you want that today?”
Hanna made a face. “The only reason I left your rich place is because I didn’t have anything to work with.” She hefted her bag. “Now I do, and I Need to work.”
“Then I’ll message you when it’s safe.” Lucy said back. “Not today though. Tomorrow, at the soonest.”
“How do I know another ‘emergency’ won’t come up.”
“Because they don’t happen that often, and I can’t believe you’re that insensitive.” Lucy didn’t like being trapped in the conversation. She needed an out, and it wasn’t like outpacing an enhanced was within her ability. “Give me your stuff then. I’ll store it downstairs for when you come over.”
“You serious?” Hanna asked suspiciously.
“Yes.” Lucy gestured to give her the bag. “Now I gotta run.”
In the end, Lucy was given the bag as a whole. The thought to ask if anything inside was meant for school, since that was where they were and the bag was the only one Hanna had, did cross Lucy’s mind. But in the end it got her away from the overly clean genius quicker, so Lucy didn’t protest and swiftly walked away.
When she arrived back at her empty house, she kept her word by delivering the bag to the basement, not caring too much about where it ended up, and then she made for her room. Lucy closed the door behind her, but now that she was there a sudden nervousness took a hold of her. She swallowed it down, pulled out her phone and unlocked it, still on the same page that had popped up in her feed just an hour ago.
“Today Cameron Sunshrieker, the Director of the Central Streamrock division of the SRA made an announcement.” She read out loud. “The subject was not reassurement regarding the night of violence last Thursday, but a farewell to one of the city’s last remaining Sentries. Jumpspark, who has served as a model Sentry for two years and seven months, has recently turned eighteen, and so has aged out of the Sentry program.”
Lucy stopped, her voice trembling. She had no idea how Liam would react to this, but he definitely needed to know.
“is that real” Liam’s hissing voice sounded in her ear after several seconds. Lucy nodded. “is there more” Another nod. “keep going”
Lucy cleared her throat before continuing. “It is with great pride that Director Sunshrieker- um. His name is in brackets, so I think it’s a quote. Ahem. Director Sunshrieker says farewell to the esteemed young hero, now a man. While many Sentries choose to simply become Sentinels in the cities where they live, Jumpspark has chosen not to do this. Nor has he elected to join Control, who Director Sunshrieker- it does the brackets thing again- believes would have certainly been welcoming to the hero.
“Instead, Jumpspark has chosen to spend some time as a civilian, to better determine his course in life and spend time with his friends and loved ones. As much as Director Sunshrieker- brackets again- has become used to Jumpspark’s capable work as a hero, he does not begrudge the decision that has been made.
“The text changes about here, so I think they stopped quoting him. Um.” Lucy briefly lost her place and had to find it again. “Although the press conference was made regarding the status of the Sentry Jumpspark, the hero himself was nowhere to be seen during the event. The reason given is that Jumpspark has already begun his recess from the hero life, and the specific dates are being hidden to protect the hero’s identity. Although the hero’s absence from his own farewell event was strange, past events of Sentries graduating in the same manner has set a precedent for this behaviour.”
Lucy paused and looked around for any water that might be in her room, but no cups or water bottles were in sight. Jumpspark being in her room most of the time had done a lot to motivate Lucy towards cleanliness. In the end she continued, her throat dry. The article had seemed so much shorter in her head.
“The latter parts of the conference turned to matters regarding personnel.” Lucy read out. “With Jumpspark no longer counted amongst the Sentry, their numbers now total at four heroes. Best Friend, Heiress, Lowlight, and Tip Top may be powerful heroes, but in Streamrock city they are incredibly outnumbered. Questions regarding how the underaged heroes will fare against villains such as Agni’s Aatma and the Courtesans were answered, but revealed no new information.
“There’s more.” Lucy said. “But it’s just… more of the whole ‘glad to see him doing well. Sad to see him go. What about the rest of them?’ angle.”
Liam didn't say anything for a while. Lucy sat at her desk to wait. She would have moved him to her desk, but somehow she felt like Liam didn't want to be touched right now.
“they always count best friend as one” “what about the search for liam” He asked.
Lucy quickly navigated to the appropriate tab on her phone. “Um. No updates since Tuesday.”
That had been when Liam's parents had made a public plea for information. Lucy had had to leave the room when she realised what it was. That had been the afternoon she painted her mask as well.
“i need to think about this” He said. Lucy didn't blame him. She needed to think about it too.
~~~
Friday brought with it a still contemplative crossbow, and a twitchy clean Adept in Lucy's basement after school. Hanna had made an over the top show of being surprised when Lucy had told her she was allowed to use the basement that day. It was a little insulting, especially because Hanna had found and filled another bag with stuff to tinker with, and was acting like her being invited was a given.
Lucy spent some time watching Hanna work, but wasn't able to make much sense of what the genius was making. When it was five Lucy told Hanna it was time to leave, and eventually convinced her to leave so that Lucy's dad wouldn't find her. Once Hanna was gone, Lucy spent twenty minutes in her room, packing and otherwise killing time before making to leave for her own nighttime activity.
“take me” Liam hissed as Lucy pulled her door open.
Lucy paused and listened, not entirely sure she heard that right. “I'm sorry?” She asked.
“take me” “to wherever it is you're going” Liam requested. “i need to get out of this room”
“Okay.” Lucy said, unsure. “But I am going to the Bad Dogs. To a fight. I thought you were angry with me because of that.”
“you going there is just more reason to take me” “they are dangerous” “and far worse than you”
For some reason that came across as honest, and it made Lucy hesitate. “I don't know if that's true.”
“what happened to me is the result of an enigmatic power” Liam reasoned. “you aren't taking me back to your family because you're scared” “anyone killed or kidnapped by them was planned, or done drunk” “they actively look for opportunities to do more of that stuff” “and if you get on a fight I may be able to help”
“But I'm going to them explicitly so that I can fight.” Lucy pointed out. “Is this because of Jumpspark retiring?”
A telling silence dragged on.
“Okay, I'll bring you.” Lucy caved. “But don't expect any fights from me tonight. I'm going to be part of an audience rather than the main attraction. That's tomorrow. Part of tonight is getting the exact details from Cerberus.”
“it still baffles me how organised these fights are” Liam hissed at length.
“You're telling me…” Lucy murmured as she opened her bag to find space for the crossbow.
~~~
“So tell me, what did you think of the fights tonight?” Cerberus asked her newest fighter.
The young girl across from her didn't answer right away. Issey was no less skittish than she had been the night that the villain had scouted her, and her eyes were darting around Cerberus' office as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She wasn’t the first to react like that to the villain’s office.
“I think Land Squid lost on purpose.” She said at length.
Cerberus raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. “Oh?”
Issey elaborated much faster than she answered the first question. “Well you put him against the winner of last week's last fight, and Popstop lost there because his power couldn't be used as fast as Kara's. But he was able to drag out the match by deflecting her projectiles. That tells me Kara's power can be deflected by other powers, and Land Squid didn't do that even though his power is much faster. So when he got hit by the bola, I knew it was staged.”
Cerberus' eyebrow settled as she contemplated the teenage girl's reasoning. She hasn't fought against Kara herself, so she didn't know that for sure, but Cerberus always preferred to figure out those kinds of interactions during fights. The joy of realising mid battle how much of an advantage one had was rare enough as it was.
There was also the fact that she hadn't told Land Squid to sandbag the fight.
“If I had a power, I'm not sure if I could beat Land Squid.” Issey continued. “But I guess that's not in the cards. And it, depends on the power.”
“You're quite observant, aren't you?” Cerberus teased.
Issey scratched her cheek, trying and failing to hide her embarrassment. “I think it started when I watched Tyr beat the Hellrider Angels.”
Cerberus' mood, which had been lukewarm, plummeted into the deep. Issey seemed to notice and stiffened her back.
“As your debut is tomorrow, you're going to be in the first fight. Your opponent is going to be a girl called Selene.”
Issey seemed to find that funny. Cerberus thought she heard her mutter, “rhymes with latrine.” Then she cleared her throat and said properly. “Are the boys and girls always segregated?”
The villain narrowed her eyes, but ultimately let the strange comment pass. “Not always, but catfights are good for betting. We don’t have enough fighters to do that regularly. Why?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Afraid you’ll be pitted against a boy too much stronger than you?”
“Just the opposite.” Issey said, bringing a small grin to Cerberus’ face as the villain’s take on the girl’s character was confirmed. “And I do have another question.”
She waited for permission to ask, so Cerberus waved a hand for her to get on with it.
“Is it really going to be just one fight a week?”
Cerberus’ small grin grew a size. The girl had heart, but it was far too early for her to be delving into the private side of the underground fights. “That’s something that will depend on how well you perform. Do well, and things should start moving in your direction.”
The girl’s eyes shone hollow. It was a look Cerberus was well familiar with. “I’ve heard those words before.”
“Well what do you fucking want with me?” Cerberus spat. “That’s not a promise from me, it’s a promise from the system. People like watching fights, that’s what you’re betting on here. Fight bloody, and you’ll get your bloody money. If it’s not money you’re looking for, fight bloody, and it’ll come around, whatever it is.”
Issey seemed to accept that after some thought, but when she made to open her mouth again the girl had the makings of a question coming out.
“Just fucking ask.” Cerberus snapped.
Issey clicked her mouth shut, but promptly gave voice to her question. “Could I wear a mask when I fight tomorrow?”
That made Cerberus give the girl another look. She’d forgotten that the mask had been included when she asked Issey about the contents of her bag. It seemed Issey was cautious. Or stupid. Any mask would become a target in a fight put on for show, no matter how seriously she took it..
“Show me the mask and I’ll think about it.”