I still smelled the smoke. It was more psychological than anything else, smelling the fire that had symbolically taken my life, while I was emerging from the flames, like phoenix from its own ashes. A few hours ago, I had set a fire, burning my old life, faking my own death in the flames. Now, I was standing in my bunker, my hideout and thought about the path that had led me here.

Less than a year ago, I had made my plans, with the help of my “daughter”, the artificial intelligence I named Galatea. Built a base, built a power-armour with enough strength to establish myself as an independent powered, get noticed by the Guild and join them. Once I was a guild-member, I could register myself as a powered, become a legal powered operator and most important, get out from my father’s long reach. And when it came to his daughter, the reach of one of the, maybe even the, wealthiest men alive was long indeed. Oh, and I wanted to get out of the marriage he arranged for me to Clark Greene, the scion of another wealthy dynasty and an incredibly unpleasant human being.

The original plan had worked quite well in the beginning, the bunker I was now in was my base and a few rooms down, my power-armour was stored. With it, I could go toe to toe with a lot of powered and emerge victorious. But once I had donned the armour, things had gone a little off the rails. During my first field-trial, I had a run-in with a member of the Heroes’ League and lost, almost getting taken in. I had been saved by another powered, someone I would later get to know as Anath. Both had been humiliating. The fact that I had lost badly enough to need saving and that I had been saved by a snarky pixie. I wanted to get even with both of them.

My chance to get even came months later, Battlemaster, the guy I had lost to, cornered Anath, the one who saved me, with the help of another hero. One on one, neither of the two heroes stood a chance against Anath, but together, they clobbered her. My daughter had to give me a figurative kick in the behind to get over my trepidation of another fight, after I lost my first fight so hard, but I went out and helped Anath. Thanks to new weapons-tech I had built for my armour and the element of surprise, I was easily able to beat, or rather shoot, down the two heroes and save the girl.

Well, Anath fled during the fighting, only to break down due to injuries a few blocks down. Galatea tracked her and made me help her, saving Anath’s life in the process and giving me an inkling who she was under the mask. I managed to actively ignore the hints I had to her identity, nothing good could come from investigating her real identity.

After a rocky start, the two of us teamed up some more and during one of those team-ups, I was injured, or that was what we thought. It turned out that my injuries were purely psychosomatic, probably inflicted due to a combination of my opponents power and the fact that my armour blocked a lot of my senses from telling me the truth. But I was out of my armour and my identity exposed when we found out. I hope that Anath, or Sophia as she is called in her normal life, never finds out just how close I came to tying up loose ends that night. But I had felt strangely drawn to Sophia ever since I saw her the first time and decided that I had to start trusting some people. Well, trusting and verifying said trust.

We pledged friendship to each other, and over the next two weeks, we got to know each other better. I learned that she was highly motivated to take out one of the biggest street-gangs in New Brunsburg because of some history with her brother. I told her about my wish to free myself from the shackles placed upon me by my father and heritage. The two of us agreed to work together to achieve both our goals.

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Last Friday, was it really only four days ago, last Friday Sophia made me go to the mall with her. In hindsight, I can easily see the whole thing as a date, but at the time, I was clueless. We had fun, tried on clothes, watched a movie, the whole shebang. And at the end of it all, she kissed me and left me standing, shellshocked, or is that kiss-shocked? So, I was kissed by a girl. I kissed a girl. My first kiss at that. And I liked it.

On Saturday, I visited her, and we talked some more. I learned that she had been attracted to me since the start of the year but Clark had warned her away from me, putting pressure on her. She accepted it due to my aloofness, as she called it, and her certainty that nothing could happen between us.

Then, on Sunday, just yesterday, we went out together in our costumes, checking out a gathering of the gang she wanted to take down. When I noticed the vast armoury they had in the warehouse they had gathered before, I set the thing on fire. I still don’t know if I became a murderer that night. It was too late in the night for the morning-paper to cover it and I have not dared to look at the TV-News.

And the longest day in my life, today. Monday. I once heard a song about someone’s hatred of Mondays. Today, I could understand it. Little sleep due to feeling guilty and nightmares, followed by school. And at school, Clark once again made a nuisance out of himself. Something in me snapped and I yelled at him and cursed him out. I never swear, but it felt good to give him a piece of my mind. He definitely needs it, his own is just too lacking-

He reacted like any good primitive would react to a challenge, with physical force, smacking me into the next locker. Luckily, Sophia had the self-control to let it happen and not step in and use her powered strength to beat Clark up and down the hallway. We reported the whole thing to the principal and I was promised that he would help me press charges, tomorrow.

Or today, depending on your definition.

At that point, I wanted the day to be over. Sadly, it was not to be. I retreated into my bunker with Sophia, and while I really, really, wanted to close the door and ignore the world outside, we got a message. The guild itself staged an operation in the area and we were asked to join in. Feeling that it might just be the big break I needed, I forced myself to agree and Sophia stood with me. We learned that the operation was an anti-scourge operation and we were assigned to the reserve-group due to our lack of experience.

At first, the operation worked great. That is, it worked great, until the trap the scourge had laid for them was deployed. The attack that the main-groups were defending against was just a distraction, the true attack was at a different point. In addition, they jammed our coms, leaving only the reserve-group to engage. And engaging we did, fighting and winning against a small scourge-pack. I managed to snipe one of the leaders, which may or may not have been a good idea. It caused the scourge-command structure to break down, causing a brutal and lethal melee, killing multiple heroes in the process.

As the scourge leaders managed to regain control, I set up a desperate gambit, using some of my gear and the help of an hero to cause a massive explosion above the scourge-staging ground. As far as I could tell, it worked but the stunt cost me almost all my energy forcing me to retreat. Anath helped me back to my bunker, drunk on our success.

But being drunk is dangerous. Both of us had to head home and lo and behold, my father just had to choose to be home that night. Well, I want to call it coincidence, but it is far more likely that he was home because Clark whined to his father and his father to mine. Or maybe he talked directly with my father. And my father, my dear father, proved his true colours. He didn’t even want to listen to me. No, I was just shouted down and sent into my cell.

That was my breaking point. I would no longer just take it. I activated a plan that I had mentally toyed with for months and prepared for weeks, just in case I had to use it. I thought I would have to use it because of Sophia. Now, the preparations came to fruit and I used what I called the Pyre-Option. Setting a fire that, to all outward appearances, killed me and left a very good semblance of my corpse.

Now, early in the morning, I was standing in my bunker’s shower, and thought about my path forward.