There are a scant few heroes that were famous from their first day—most of those who achieve S-rank on their initial evaluation are household names immediately. For the supermajority of superhumans, however, this is not the case. Contingency and Miracle, currently widely considered to be the two strongest living beings, famously both earned C ranks when initially registering and spent four years together before reaching even a hint of their current status.

- Excerpt from Behind the Mask, a memoir written by Skyrider, A-rank Mover and celebrity

#

“Thanks, Lyco,” Lachlan said, downing a glass of the brown-black liquid in a single gulp. He coughed as it went down, wincing. “You have some of the good stuff.”

“I don’t think that’s supposed to be going into your body,” Vivian commented. “Christ. Are you going to make it to 35, drinking that shit?”

Lachlan wiggled his eyebrows. “Who says I’m not that old already?”

Lycoris snorted. “Yeah, yeah, watch it. If you drink more than half, I’m charging you for the bottle.”

The two of them laughed, tapping their respective drinking vessels together. Vivian felt a pang of jealousy at that. Obviously, Lachlan wasn’t new to the scene, and it made sense that he had friends, but it just didn’t sit right with her heart that he barely noticed he was there.

Bad thought, she chided herself. Self-destructive thought. Stop it.

Vivian was reasonably sure that this wasn’t exactly what her therapist had had in mind when he’d been trying (and failing) to help her, but it was all of what she could recall from his diatribe on active thinking or cognizance or whatever it was called.

“Lachlan, this is Mantis Shrimp,” Lycoris said. “I think you know each other already, though?”

“We do,” Lachlan said, raising his glass. “Great to see you again.”

“Same,” Vivian replied, not entirely sure how to raise the question of how and why he was here politely. “Weren’t you supposed to be locked up at HQ? Is it because this place is a pre-approved Guardian meeting point or something?”

Well, that was one way to do it. I suppose the polite part matters less when we’re with friends. Lachlan was her friend, right?

Right?

“Yeah, basically,” Lachlan said. “Besides, they do let me out. I just have a tracker on and a nanny watching my eye cam so I can’t get into heroing shenanigans.”

“Has this happened before?” Vivian asked. “You don’t sound too broken up about it.”

“A couple of times,” Lachlan hedged. “I was alone, though. The other supers in this city around our age don’t really want to go out and—“

“Also, hold on. Eye cam? Is that a Guardian thing?”

“I’m a bit more chipped out than usual,” Lachlan said.

“He’s a super valuable asset,” Lycoris chimed in. “It makes sense, if you ask me. It’s just keeping an investment safe.”

“Wow, way to make me feel valued,” Lachlan said dryly. “You wanna guess how much I’d sell for at auction next?”

“You should read the comments my Insta posts get,” Lycoris shot back, equally dry. “Then tell me who has it worse.” Both of them chuckled.

They seemed more comfortable around each other than they did Vivian. It was a subtle change, but dealing with her brother had made her very, very good at catching those changes. They relaxed more. Their tones changed ever so slightly.

And though she was sure they weren’t trying to, they were pushing her out of the conversation—bad thought.

“You two have history together too?” Vivian asked, wincing at her own question. Duh, of course they do. “And how’s Lachlan going to help us if he can’t go out heroing?”

“I did a stint with him before the Guardians bought him out,” Lycoris said. “Don’t share that around, though! It got a few viewers, but they’ve done a great job of scrubbing it from the web.”

“I won’t be going out,” Lachlan said. “Eye camera, yeah? I spend most days just training or getting ferried to and from other Guardian facilities, and tomorrow’s empty. Barring a sudden unrelated emergency—“

“—which isn’t impossible,” Lycoris butted in. “The freezer super was trying to free another gang member, right? You can never assume they’re working alone.”

“Which isn’t impossible,” Lachlan acknowledged. “But barring another incident, I’ll have the day off. I can do recon.”

“Aren’t we not expecting another villain?” Vivian asked.

“Not necessarily!” Lycoris took another swig of her foul concoction before kicking her legs back over the side of the parapet. Even in the dim illumination provided by the lamps scattered around the roof, Vivian could see Lycoris’ cheeks growing redder. Is it safe for you to be doing that? “We’re going to be poking around gang territory. If we run into no trouble, I will donate a hundred gifted.”

Oh god. The heroine who saved my life is a goddamn Twitch streamer?

“Lycoris, what have we said about streaming?” Lachlan asked. “Say it with me.”

“Normal people don’t want to see girls dying,” Lycoris said, half a second behind Lachlan. “Yeah, yeah. Mantis, you should totally try running a channel. Your powers are way more suited to it.”

She wasn’t a streamer, then. Just… drunk, maybe? Lycoris had made a pretty hefty dent in her drink, and it smelled strong. Vivian shelved the streaming idea. It sounded interesting, but it was yet another options on an ever-increasing list of potential paths. For now, she was going to avoid any lofty ambitions. Just focus on what was next. That was wahat she was supposed to do, right?

“Anyway,” Lachlan said. “I’ll be on overwatch. If you want to back out now, you still can. No strings attached. No harm done.”

Well, the string was the seven and a half grand Lycoris was offering. Lachlan had done a lot for Vivian financially, but she doubted that he was going to just keep on tossing cash at her now that he was established, and she couldn’t very well just ask for money for no real reason.

“Nah,” Vivian said, trying to be casual. “I’ll participate.”

Lycoris cheered and raised her bottle so forcefully that alcohol sloshed out of the neck of the bottle. “Fantastic! Hey, want to see a trick?”

“Sure?” Vivian asked, very much not sure.

“Catch!” Lycoris threw the bottle at Vivian, who startled and plucked it out of the air with her telekinesis. Miraculously enough, nothing spilled.

And then she realized why. The flower she used as an anchor was perfectly preserved too.

Lycoris flashed her a peace sign and jumped off the parapet.

Lachlan put his face in his palms. “Looks like she’s still doing that.”

“What have I just gotten myself into?” Vivian asked, hoping the joke showed through.

“Welcome to heroing, Viv,” Lachlan said, clapping her on the shoulder. “Let’s do some good work, yeah?”

Lycoris returned a moment later, whooping and cheering. “Tomorrow’s going to be so fun!”

#

It was October 16th, and Vivian was skipping school. Technically only three lectures, all of which she could watch online later, but they were mandatory attendance. They wouldn’t tank her grade too much, but her GPA was slipping.

This was, she reflected, not good for her future. She’d done some Googling, and though the potential cap on superhero earnings was basically limitless—the Dyad made billions of dollars a year—but for her? A lowly D-rank? Average earnings were something like thirty thousand dollars a year. That, according to her dad, was less than a fifth of what she could expect from a decent job straight out of college.

It was stupid. She was going to be a hero, one way or another, but letting her studies fall behind wouldn’t help her.

Not that she was going back to the lecture. Fuck that.

“So why do you want to be a hero?” Lycoris asked.

Vivian blinked. That was not the small talk she’d expected her to open with. “It is too early in the morning for this.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“It’s eleven AM.”

“Like I said. Too early in the morning for this.” Their meetup point was a gas station in downtown Lafayette, which had taken Vivian a hot second to figure out a path to via bus, so the coffee was instant and burnt and bitter, but with enough artificial sweeteners, it was tolerable enough.

Once she’d gotten enough shitty caffeine in her, she joined Lycoris on a walk through streets that looked like they hadn’t been repaved since the 80s.

“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Vivian said, sipping her coffee. “That’s a pretty heavy question to ask, isn’t it? Lachlan?”

Lachlan was online and in both of their earbuds—a call for Vivian and the official Guardian comms network for Lycoris—but so far, he hadn’t contributed anything to the conversation other than a quick confirmation that he was here.

“Ugh,” his voice crackled in. “Shrimp is right. Too early for this. Lyco, do I need to remind you that I don’t get to regenerate myself to sobriety?”

“Sucks to suck,” she said cheerfully. “Well?”

“I’m not sure why this is important,” Vivian said. “And like I said, kind of a heavy topic. Aren’t we supposed to be clearing out old villain hideouts?”

“We don’t know exactly which buildings are—er, were—theirs,” Lachlan said over the phone. “Lycoris likes small talk when the mission isn’t a hundred percent clear.”

“This is pretty big talk.” Vivian frowned. “So why?”

“Dunno.”

“I like to know who I’m working with,” Lycoris said simply.

“O....kay,” Vivian said, drawing the word out. “Where are we headed, anyway?”

“Warehouse,” Lachlan said. “Abandoned for a decade or so, but it saw some usage in the last couple years. System flagged it.”

“I can start, if you’d like?” Lycoris said, completely ignoring both of them. “It’s a great trust-building exercise, y’know?”

“By all means,” Lachlan said. “Let’s take turns trauma-dumping. That always goes well.”

Why do I want to be a hero? She was a touch concerned that the first answers that came to mind were shallow. Getting rid of the buzzing. The money. Being special.

“Go ahead,” she said.

Lycoris took a moment to collect herself and as she did, Vivian’s mind drifted to the why again.

It was obvious that the other hero wasn’t all that she seemed. Nobody was that cheerful all the time without something being wrong with them.

Vivian had a friend—well, former friend now—who’d gone and become an “influencer,” which was to say that she had about a hundred thousand followers on Instagram, twice that on Tik Tok, and a nasty habit of spending every waking second and every single interaction of the day recording, taking pictures, or obsessing over her appearance.

Over the course of a few years, she’d gone from a relatively normal student struggling in high school to someone who lived and breathed their online life. Every conversation was framed as a potential avenue for content; planning outings with her was impossible.

She had to wonder if Lycoris was the same. The other heroine was far deeper into the hero scene than Vivian was. Was this exercise here just another part of life to her? Was this an experienced corporate hero trying to cheaply build trust to make connections that she intended to use and abuse?

Or is she just a lonely girl talking about her feelings?

“I got my vial about two years back,” Lycoris said. “I registered immediately, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? I was ranked C, back then. Then I spent a year with the Atlanta Guardians. In a big city like that, you get to see the worst of people, and you get to see how the system fails them. I joined the EHC once I realized why I do what I do.”

“And that is?” Lachlan actually sounded vaguely interested, which was surprising. Given their easygoing manner yesterday, Vivian had expected that the two of them would’ve had this conversation before.

“I want to make change,” Lycoris said, sounding more earnest than she had at any point before. “Real, lasting change. That’s not something I can do without money and recognition. My dream is that one day, they’ll talk about me in the same sentence as Contingency and Miracle and Iron Legion and all the other S-ranks, and then I’ll be able to do something real.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Impressive goal,” Lachlan said, surprisingly genuine. “I’d applaud, but I don’t think the mic would pick it up.”

“That’s… a pretty great goal,” Vivian said. She kept herself from saying the other half of what she wanted to say. Oftentimes, she found that honesty was absolutely not the best policy.

“Yeah, I know,” Lycoris sighed like Vivian had said it anyway, “I’m only a B, and the probability of someone who started at C-rank working their way up to A or S is near zero, even if I did get a third or fourth vial. It’s a pipe dream. Still, I won’t let that stop me!”

And there it was again, that endless fountain of optimism. And confirmation that she’s a double vial.

“So, that’s me!” Lycoris said, all smiles again. “Lachlan? Mantis?”

“I was in Anchorage when it got hit by Cataclysm 100,” he said shortly.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Vivian said automatically.

“It’s fine,” Lachlan said. “Statistically speaking, everyone knows at least one person affected by Cataclysms. I just got unlucky.

“Anyway, seven hours after it showed up, Contingency killed it. Or forced it back, whatever. He saved my life, so when I got my vial, I had a hero to look up to.”

That recontextualized his desire to be active in a big city. No wonder you wanted to go around fighting crime, Vivian thought.

“That’s all I’m sharing,” Lachlan said. “If you get me going, I’ll have to start paying for you to be my therapist.”

Vivian chuckled nervously, unsure if that was a joke or not. She’d gotten really, really bad at identifying at what was said in humor.

“And you?” Lycoris asked, prodding Vivian.

The two of them rounded one final corner and found themselves a hundred feet short of the warehouse lot. The fence surrounding it was old, rusty, and generally everything a fence shouldn’t be.

“Well,” Vivian said, unsure if the apprehension she was feeling was from the question or the appearanace of their target. “Um, I guess…”

“You don’t have to share with us if you’re not comfortable,” Lycoris assured her. “We can just move in.”

Except it was too awkward to turn her down now that Lycoris and Lachlan had both shared their motivations.

She didn’t have a good answer for them, though, which complicated things. Right now, the most accurate response was that she wanted to be a hero because all her other options looked worse and the incessant buzzing wouldn’t go away otherwise, but that answer wasn’t right. Both Lycoris and Lachlan had noble aspirations. Being the one who said “yeah, I don’t actually know” was an awful idea.

“No, it’s fine,” Vivian said. “I, uh, I guess my reason is pretty similar to Lachlan’s. After my family… well, we went through a lot of shit, and even though we weren’t being attacked by supervillains or anything, a hero from my hometown took time to help us through the worst of it. I guess I want to live up to being the person he thinks I can be.”

There. That sounded good enough, didn’t it?

And if I tell it to myself enough times, she added, I might actually believe it.

“I understand,” Lycoris said, nodding solemnly. Then she smiled. Again. How are her cheeks not tired. “Alright! Now that we know each other a bit better, let’s go into the spooky abandoned building. Hey Mantis, catch!”

This time, Vivian was actually ready for the anchor to be thrown at her. She caught the perfectly preserved lily with her power and plucked it out of the air.

Lycoris giggled, and they made their way forward.

#

“Careful,” Lachlan said. “I’m picking up power residue in the warehouse, though nobody’s active.”

“Speaking of your power,” Vivian whispered, which wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. “How did you miss the freezer?”

“His official designation is Whiteout now, by the way,” Lachlan said. “Two things. First, my power isn’t always on. Second, I didn’t miss him. The moment he started blasting, I caught him. It’s been cold as balls here, but that’s not because of Whiteout.”

“Oh really,” Vivian said. “Damn. I really thought that was power-related.”

“Eyes up,” Lycoris said. “I have four anchors, but only one that work with you. Don’t get ambushed.”

“I have eyes on both sides of my head,” Vivian replied. “I’ll be fine.”

This place was definitely not entirely abandoned. Vivian canvassed the area with her power, and though she couldn’t sense exactly what she was manipulating, the helmet camera assisted her in spotting little details she might have otherwise missed. Rusty needles, a lack of dust on what furniture remained, powders that definitely weren’t dust—nothing that immediately screamed “THIS IS A GANG HIDEOUT,” but tons of stuff that made it clear that someone had been squatting in here.

“Lachlan, do you know what powers were used here?” Lycoris asked.

The Esper was quiet for a moment, then sighed. “Maybe if I had my second vial. I can give you the broad strokes, but not much more than that.”

“By all means,” Lycoris said. “We’ll take what we can get, thanks.”

The two heroines continued their slow path forward. Twice, Lycoris paused to draw a perfect flower from her pockets and throw it aside. Setting her anchors.

“It affected a large area, I think,” Lachlan said, stressing the last word. “It feels like the entire building’s full of the residue, but that could also mean it was a small AOE that someone dragged across the entire warehouse. The residue’s recent, though. Less than a month old, that’s for sure.”

“Could it have been one of Killjoy’s group?” Vivian asked. “Cleaning up after themselves?”

“Not sure,” came the reply. “If I was on site, maybe I could tell, but as it is, nope.”

“Are you sure they won’t let you out? Stick an ankle tracker on, call it a day?” Lycoris joked.

“Focus,” Lachlan said. “Remember, I can’t see supers unless their powers are on. If someone sneaks up on you, I’m not going to catch them until you’re already fighting.”

“Wait, how did you find me then?” Vivian asked.

“You practice in your room,” he replied dryly. “And everywhere else.”

“Oh.”

“Rooms are looking empty,” Lycoris said. “Want to speed up?”

“Sure,” Vivian said. Any initial nervousness had worn off by now. There were only so many times you could see a broken-down wreck of a building and furniture that was alternately smashed or ransacked before it lost its novelty.

“Check the drawers and any suspicious openings you see,” Lachlan said. “I’m following you on Lyco’s camera, and it looks like it was a rush job. Killjoy was in a hurry for some reason.”

“Maybe the fact that the entire city was on his ass,” Vivian said.

“Maybe. Anyway, it’s possible that he left stuff behind. Check what you can. Make like Lafayette PD and do some property damage.”

Vivian snorted. They got to work.

#

Most of the warehouse was empty, just as they’d expected, but they struck gold eventually.

More accurately, they struck steel, aluminum, and paper in a corner half-hidden by a partial cave-in that must’ve been triggered by whoever had been cleaning this place out. Lycoris noticed it first, then asked Vivian to clear the debris away.

“I think you overestimate my power,” Vivian said. “You know my rank, right?”

“Pff. No way you’re actually a D,” Lycoris said, waving a hand. “Besides, I don’t want to get my hands dirty. We’re doing a photoshoot after this, and I don’t want to look too messed up for it.”

“We are?” Vivian asked, even as she started dragging fallen drywall away with her power.

“Of course we are! You want exposure, right?”

“Right…” Vivian trailed off. “Ugh. You’re gonna have to walk me through that one.”

“It’ll be great! Oh my god, I love your power,” Lycoris squealed.

Is it really that cool? All Vivian was doing was moving half a wall off a door piece by piece. She wasn’t even doing it fast.

Once she got enough of the collapsed wall off, Lycoris stepped forward and yanked the door open, careful to minimize her contact with the knob.

Inside, they found their first actual lead—a haphazardly placed desk, papers scattered across it.

“Evidence!” Lycoris announced.

“Can you bring those pages up to your eyes?” Lachlan asked. “Just do it real quick so we have footage in case they get destroyed.”

“Sure thing,” she said. “Mantis, could you TK them?”

“Yep.” The papers, at least, were trivially easy to carry with her power. “Hopefully there’s something useful in here.”

“Let’s pack these up and read them somewhere else,” Lycoris suggested. “I don’t want to spend more time here than we have to.”

“Yeah, alright,” Vivian said. “Let’s keep moving.”

“And don’t even think about splitting up,” Lycoris warned. “My power only works if we stick together, so—“

“Holy fuck!” Lachlan shouted, loud enough that Vivian physically cringed. “Sorry. Mantis, Lyco, we have a situation.”

“Jesus,” Vivian said, trying to massage her ears before remembering she had a helmet on. “What happened?”

“It’s Ephialtes,” Lachlan said. “She’s dead.”