“Now remember, it’s heavy. Very heavy.”

Standing before me was a suit of armour, if it could even be called that. There were no plates, but there were lines around the shoulders, elbows and legs. Basically anywhere there would be movement. It was mostly one piece, with exception to the boots, which were neatly arranged next to the suit. The dull grey thing was on a mannequin that was apparently my exact proportions, which worried me because I’d never given them. The designer had run off excitedly before they had the chance.

Over the head of the mannequin was a hood, and a mask that was also part of the costume covered its face. There were lines on the mask, separating the eyes from the forehead and cheeks, and leaving a vertical segment between the two sides of the face. The effect made a T shape with glass rectangles marking the top line. It was the mask that had been made for me.

The person responsible, Charlotte, had just delivered my costume and was telling me all about it.

“It took a while to get it done because I had to move it three times. Each time involved clearing the workspace and getting a forklift into the workshop. Put me way behind schedule ‘cause the strops kept snapping on me.” Charlotte rapid fired as I took in the design of the costume.

“Then they asked me to move it here in time for your debut. I said ‘not possible. It’s too damn heavy’, and they said ‘We’re sending Orcus’ so you can thank him for letting me get this to you on time, if slightly behind schedule. We’d have never gotten this thing in the building without that strapping lad’s super strength. It was still a very stressful drive over in the truck.

I noticed the costume had two pockets around where my jacket did. The openings were positioned where two aesthetic lines went down the sides of the front, so they had eluded my initial look.

“The whole thing is made of valuar.” Charlotte continued, grabbing my attention again. “It’s a techo material made by Mega originally, used in the Sunken Cage. Every techo under the sun was trying it out after that. Only thing is, while the damn stuff is durable like nothing you’ve ever seen, it’s also the heaviest thing you’ve ever seen. Most adepts made some only to find it wouldn’t mesh with anything they were trying to do.”

“This stuff was used in the Cage?” I curiously asked. “It looks like textured latex.”

“It was used as an insulator for the facility, if memory serves. Did a hell of a good job of it too, until it didn’t. If you don’t like how it looks,” Charlotte leaned closer and continued in a whispered tone. “Use your power on it.”

“That’s not selling me on the valuar.” I deadpanned. “Is this costume going to just break on me?”

“Not unless you find someone with a power to get around it.” Charlotte shrugged. “I think one or two of the villains in Graceland could do it. But those ones could theoretically get around anything.”

I thought back to my fight with Killer Kage and how the staff had vanished from my grasp. “Still.”

“Back to the pros.” Charlotte slapped the shoulder of the mannequin, hard. It barely moved. “Valuar absorbs impacts with the same effectiveness as kevlar. Don’t use that as an excuse to let yourself get shot.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Similarly, I wouldn’t go out of my way to take blows from anything sharp. An ice pick would go straight through valuar. The sunken cage worked because it was five inches thick and didn’t need to worry about that stuff. You do. Stay away from stabby things that are long and thin as a general rule, and try not to get slashed either. The costume will stay intact for the most part, but two or three cuts in the same spot could result in an opening. And who's to say how well it would hold up if it was an enforcer doing the slashing?”

“It’s like you're telling me not to use my armour.” I commented.

“The best way to use armour is have it and stay away from danger anyway.” Charlotte shot back. “This stuff is thin, not even an eighth of an inch thick when it’s at its thickest, which is your chest, legs, and head. I couldn’t make it any thicker or your flexibility would be reduced to nothing. Point is, it’s bulletproof, which is more than most villains get from their costumes.”

“What about it’s thinnest?” I asked.

“Point eight of a millimeter.” Charlotte immediately answered. I blinked, trying to imagine how small that was. “I took the liberty to put a steel plate in the mask of the costume. It kept flopping around otherwise. Helps you against stabs there too.”

“Are there any other pros?”

“One more.” Charlotte tapped the eye holes. “I cut two holes in the mask so you could see.”

“Uh-huh.”

Charlotte gave a cheeky smile before going back to business. “That’s not glass as you know it filling that space. The lenses are shatter resistant, but in the event that they do shatter, they will go in the same way windscreens do.”

“Oh, safety glass.” I nodded.

“Indeed, but finer. Much finer.”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t that get in the eyes?”

“Would you rather some dust in your eyes that you can cry out, or a glass shard in your eyeball?” Charlotte pointedly posed.

“The first one.” I shrugged. “Can I try it on?”

“No, I’m here to show and tell, and take your costume away.” Charlotte told me sarcastically, then pointed to the next room. “Change in there. You move the costume.”

I stepped over to the costume and touched it, feeling the physics of it flowing into my awareness. My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Four of these would weigh as much as a car.” I hadn’t expected it to be that heavy

“-T‘s why no one ever uses it.” Charlotte replied distractedly, having opened her briefcase and rustling around inside. “Costume weighs a half-tonne when you add a number and do some generous rounding. It got me some strange looks when I was asking for the raw material.”

Heeding that knowledge, I reduce gravity’s effect on the costume to the other side of zero and handily picked it up. I lifted the mannequin over my shoulder and easily walked to the next room, picking up the shoes as I went. They were similarly heavy, so I had to take a moment to give them the same treatment as the rest of the costume.

The costume had a zipper that went from the collar down the front of the torso, and ended at the waist. Covering the zipper was a small flap that concealed the entire thing, leaving another line that ran down the front of the costume, making it asymmetrical. I had to unclasp a number of buttons that held the flap in place to get to the zipper. The valuar itself was rough, and when I ran a hand across it, there was about as much pull on my skin as there would be running a hand across a concrete wall.

The neighboring room was used for storage, so there weren’t any windows. I had privacy, but I was curious to see if I could, so I tried to get into the costume with my clothes on, sans shoes. It was a tight fit, but that was likely intentional. The only problem I had was that my clothes were wrinkled and pressing into my skin. Though, that wasn’t anything that was I was about to die over.

Of course, the sleeves ended when it reached my fingers, like fingerless gloves that also wrapped the rest of my body. The collar of the costume came all the way up to my jaw. It was suffocating at first, having my neck hugged like that, but I forced myself to get over it. The mask was attached to the inside of the hood, and there was a wide hook that had a pair underneath my chin. I pulled it over my face, the hooks caught on each other, and the image was complete.

My vision was limited when I was seeing through the mask. The borders of the mask pulled a tighter limit on my periphery than what I normally had. Even so, I still had most of my sight unimpaired. It was just like looking through snowgoggles that were a touch too small.

Movement was stiffer than what I was used to, as the valuar was less malleable than anything I’d ever worn. I experimentally tried to reduce the costume’s friction to half and found that solved the problem. Maybe I hadn’t actually reduced the costume’s friction. When I ran a finger across it my finger still felt like it was moving across concrete. Then I put the boots on and gave them a similar treatment. I was a little surprised to find that the boots had laces.

I don’t know, maybe I was expecting something a little more high tech. The laces were made of Valuar as well, though.

“How do I look?” I asked the room as I stepped out.

Charlotte gave an impressed whistle. “I saw you lugging that thing out of the room, but this?” She shook her head. “It’s ridiculous.”

“There a mirror in here?” I looked around the space.

“No. Strike a pose.” Charlotte told me.

I looked at her in confusion until I saw the Vphone. Figuring I may as well humour her, I placed my fists on my hips, looked past Charlotte to my right. Doing my best to take a heroic pose that didn’t feel stupid. I felt like I partially succeeded and waited for the snap.

“That’s lovely.” She smiled as the phone snapped a picture. “Hold that pose.”

In my periphery I saw Charlotte put the Vphone away, then pull something out from under her jacket and hold it out towards me. Curious, I broke the pose and looked to see a silenced pistol in Charlotte’s hands.

She pulled the trigger before I could react.

I’d experienced pain like that before. I hadn’t been shot until just now, but there’s more than one way to feel pain. What I didn’t expect was the push from the impact that sent me sprawling to the floor. One hand went to the middle of my chest, where a bullet was lodged inside my costume. My touch disturbed it, sending it clattering to the floor. A circular dent remained where the bullet had impacted.

I shook my hand and gripped the finger that had touched the bullet. It had been really hot. Which made sense, given what just happened.

Charlotte pointed the gun upwards and looked at me on the floor. She shook her head. “God damn valuar.”

I pressed where the bullet had impacted and winced. That was definitely bruised. “What the hell?”

“Most young heroes run headfirst into gunfire when I tell them they’re bulletproof.” Charlotte told me. “After this, are you going to run headfirst into gunfire?”

“Fuck no.”

Charlotte smiled. “Then my job is done. All that’s left for you to do before your public appearance is paint. Oh, and here’s how you look.” She showed me the picture on her phone.

“Right.” I was still getting over being shot. It had wiped all thoughts of the fact that I had a televised debut after this from my mind.

I looked almost exactly like how the mannequin had with the costume on. The mannequin was stuck in a pose, sure, so that was different. But other than that the only difference was what could be seen through the glass of the mask. The mannequin was white plastic, while my face had my mask activated. My silver eyes were less impressive because they were obviously behind a mask, but that was kind of the point.

The dull grey latex colour would have to go.

Charlotte picked up the bullet and started disassembling the gun. “Remember how much the valuar weighed, Lock.” She reminded me. “That’s how much it will weigh again when you put it down. I’ll leave the mannequin with the Regulation.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

That was a very good point. This wasn’t something that a typical coat hanger could handle.

“I made some concepts you could reference.” Charlotte continued, placing some papers next to her briefcase. “Other than that, it’s been a pleasure.”

I stood and looked at Charlotte’s outstretched hand. I sighed as I took the hand. “Wish I could say the same. The costume is awesome though.”

“Until next time.” Charlotte said with a mischievous smile and a wave, and then she was gone.

I got out of the costume and put it back on the mannequin. When I released the costume there was the sound of bending metal as the mannequin took the load. For a scary moment, it looked like the mannequin might fall over, but it passed.

Charlotte had left a stack of paper behind, which I checked before getting to work. They were sketched designs, suggestions for how I should colour the costume. I like some of them, but nothing clicked. In the end I just did what I was going to do anyway.

~~~

“How are you feeling?” Madeleine- no, Slingshot asked. We were in costume.

“Distracted.” I replied. The fact that if I jumped then reset the weight of my costume, I’d probably crash through the floor kept repeating in my head. Then there were the implications of Greenflame being in Graceland. “You?”

“Um…” Slingshot was floating next to me. Her costume had been spruced up since the events earlier in the day. A replacement pair of sunglasses had been acquired to replace the pair Clothesline had broken, and served the double purpose of concealing the wounds on her face. “I’m feeling… vertigo?”

“A deep pit in your stomach?” I asked. “Feels like it could turn over at any moment?”

“Yip.”

“Do you feel like that when you’re flying normally?”

“No.”

“Hmm…” I hummed, trying to think up something that might help.

“As you are all aware, there was an altercation between the Sentinels and multiple groups of villains earlier today.” Theo was standing behind a podium on stage, addressing a room full of reporters. He went into a speech detailing the official version of what happened, which wasn’t that different from what I experienced.

Once he was done, Slingshot and I would go onstage and be introduced. Then there would be some time for questions, then we’d go home. In all, it wasn’t that complicated, but it was the first time either of us had been in front of a camera like this.

“Have you had any dairy?” I asked Slingshot.

Slingshot tilted sideways. “Dairy?”

“Milk, chocolate, anything like that.”

“No.” Slingshot righted herself, then looked at me quizzically. “Why?”

I shrugged. “That’s good then, dairy is bad for the voice. It coats the voice box and stops it from vibrating properly. A glass of warm water would be the best thing to have before doing something like this, if you absolutely have to drink something.”

“Do you think there’s enough time for me to go get one?”

“No. Too late. Sorry.”

Slingshot drifted downwards in a slump. The way she floated around made her really easy to read.

“Why aren’t you using your boots?” I blurted.

“They’re low.” She said.

“Okay.”

I congratulated myself on that spectacular display of conversationalism.

“There is potentially a new Transhuman working with the Rising Sun.” Theo was saying. “They have been designated 'Mantis' until more information comes to light.”

It hadn’t been more than twelve hours since then, so the scene was still fresh in my mind. The name was fitting, I felt, given the sheer amount of spattered blood I’d seen. Except for the fact that they’d given the name of an insect to someone outside the Beastmasters. Although it could be that they were trying to play them against each other. Regardless, it was way outside of my ballpark.

Slingshot quivered at the memory. As Theo moved on I debated with myself as to whether or not I should give her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. Honestly, I was going to slap Collage the next time I saw him. These pink beam shenanigans were not funny.

“Now.” Theo said as he tapped his papers on the podium. The projected display behind him changed from a purely informational one to something a lot softer. The entire wall was split into two halves. The far side was a light orange while the closer side was silver. They were colour coded to fit Slingshot and my themes.

“You go out to Theo’s right.” I whispered. “I’ll stay on the left.”

“Okay.” Slingshot said as Theo turned towards us with one arm extended.

“That’s when we’re facing the audience.” I added as he started announcing us.

Theo made sure to lean closer to the microphones in front of him. “I give you Slingshot, and Lock!”

I stepped out in front of the crowd on cue and Slingshot flew past me a moment later. Immediately there was a barrage of flashes that nearly blinded me entirely. I let myself squint since they couldn’t see my eyes clearly behind the mask and waved at the crowd as I moved closer to Theo.

My costume, which previously looked like textured grey latex, was now a soft but strong green colour I’d spent a long while trying to get right. It wasn’t bright, but it wasn’t too dark either. Initially I’d wanted to have the whole thing black, like I had been doing with my face, but there were two problems with that.

The first was that I was a hero, so sinister costume designs were off the table. Orcus was an exception to that rule for reasons I didn’t know, but he had a reputation to match. He was the brutal Sentinel in Graceland, no one disputed that. The second was that Voidling was also a Sentinel that existed, and black was kind of his thing already. I’d still considered going black regardless, but decided against it when it occurred to me that I’d be seen as a little Voidling-ling.

That all being said, I’d seen pictures of me sliding around Graceland circulating on the internet. People had commented on my face being a black void with silver eyes, so I decided to black out the mask. The interesting thing about my mastery over colours was that not every colour had the effect that the black I used did. Namely in the way it took away depth perception.

When I was trying to find the right green, I’d discovered two such greens that took away depth perception. I tried them out, but both looked way too weird to be acceptable. If I had gone with either, I would have looked like a strange green silhouette. The green that I ended up using granted depth, so all the little details where the costume thinned and thickened were still visible. Even the dent the bullet had left. There wasn’t anything I could do about that though.

The costume also wasn’t entirely green. For some portions of the costume, I elected to colour them the void-like black I used on my face. Those portions I decided to keep more space than the green. Just using it on elbows, knees, and the like. Mostly the parts that moved. I used the lines already separating portions of the costume to decide where to put the black. The effect was too good not to.

“I thought you were going with black and silver.” Theo whispered to me once I’d come to a stop near him.

I paused, but only for a moment. “I never said anything.” I said back, not bothering to whisper because it was lost in the noise of the crowd. Then I turned to Theo and offered to shake his hand. “No one asked.”

The Director of the Regulation quickly and enthusiastically shook my hand, showing no hint that he was perturbed by what I said, and we looked to the crowd as we held the pose. He had responded to that quicker than I thought he would have. Perhaps he was competent.

Slingshot, who had entered at a higher angle, was drifting down next to Theo. I released Theo’s hand and stepped away to let her repeat the gesture I had made. I tapped Cloud’s staff and surveyed the crowd. Since most of the focus was on Slingshot and the Director of the Regulation, I could focus on getting an impression of the crowd.

It was small, but still large enough for the faces to mix together. I hazarded a guess at around forty people in all, most of them reporters. There were some Regulation troopers guarding the entrances, and behind and around the crowd several cameramen were operating cameras. I watched two of them switch to focus on me while three others left to focus on Slingshot and the Director.

Forty people was all well and good. But I was all too aware of the fact that thousands, or maybe millions of people were behind those cameras. After all, how many people watched the news?

“Both of these young heroes were present at the situation earlier today.” Theo informed the audience. “I’ve had numerous accounts that they were competent and mindful of the duties they are responsible for.”

I resisted the urge to side eye Theo. Had he heard about Killer Kage and Clothesline? What about Waterlad?

Theo kept going. “They will be taking questions, for a short while, but they will be retiring for the day shortly. Both have been active since seven this morning, and they need their sleep.”

That time I turned my head and looked at the Director of the Regulation. I didn’t like how he was talking about us.

“Lock. Slingshot.” He gestured towards the crowd, then stepped away.

My first impression was that he expected us to go down from the stage and answer the reporters face to face. But I was feeling rebellious, so I stepped over to the podium and looked at the crowd. The forty people weren’t silent like the movies showed, each of them had a hand or two raised and was saying- no, asking something. I could feel Theo looking at the back of my head. He hadn’t liked that.

Slingshot seemed paralyzed for the moment. We had been given a run down of how this was supposed to go, but hadn’t actually rehearsed it. This was exactly why we should have.

I pointed at the crowd and just kept pointing. First, the half of the crowd that I wasn’t pointing at mostly shut the hell up. Then the ones closer to where I was pointing, but weren’t exactly there started quieting down. Eventually it was down to just one guy who pointed at himself.

The finger came down and I nodded for him to begin. The room had become quiet in anticipation. I didn’t want to be the first one to speak.

“L-lock? Was it?” The man stammered, breaking the silence.

“Lock.” I confirmed. My voice took me off guard as it echoed through the speakers, adding to the atmosphere.

“That staff you’re carrying. Did you take that from the villain Cloud?”

I raised an eyebrow that no one saw. That was the first question? Alright then.

“I picked this staff up off the ground.” I answered, tapping the staff in question. “Cloud may or may not have been nearby, I couldn’t see that far.”

Uneasy laughter rippled through the crowd.

I made sure to laugh into the mic with them. “But yeah, that’s right. I confiscated it from Cloud. He likely isn’t too happy about it, but he’s a villain. You.” I pointed at a random person in the other half of the crowd.

The person was a woman who seemed much more comfortable as a reporter. “I have questions about when exactly you fought with Cloud, since today was your debut.” She started saying, but paused to check her notes.

That was a better start. Even though I didn’t know how much of the Racketeer’s attack on the SRT was public knowledge, I fully intended to talk about that.

“But first, are you and Slingshot friends out of costume? Is that why the two of you are debuting at the same time?”

The momentum I had going crashed and burned as I stared at the reporter dumbfoundedly. Since my mask masked my expression, it probably looked like I was glaring at her. I had no idea how that was more important than me being active before my debut. This was going to be incredibly tedious.

~~~

“You missed dinner.” Sofiya stated.

“Yeah, I figured.” I shrugged off my shoes as the door drifted shut behind me. Regulation Director Theo had kept me back after the debut to lecture me on the specifics of how to address a crowd as a budding hero. When I asked him why he wasn’t giving Slingshot the same lecture, he told me she had already heard it.

Pretty typical, really. And it kept me at the SRT until it was dark outside.

“Had a big day. Did you catch the news?”

Sofiya crossed her arms. “What was the news?”

I looked at her with her arms crossed, holding a forcefully blanked expression. Then I glanced at the TV that was still on. It wasn’t showing the news, but it was on the right channel for it. Sofiya was holding the pose, but whatever tension she had built by acting so standoffish was fading fast.

“New heros in Graceland.” I said once she was faltering in her steadfastness. “Did Kathrine leave any leftovers for me?”

“In the fridge.” Sofiya answered, dropping her arms. “She was complaining about how you eat so much nowadays.”

Well, I was working out daily now, courtesy of Blinker. It gave me an appetite. I wondered if I had been on screen at the time.

“What happened today?” Sofiya weakly asked.

I paused as I was setting the timer on the microwave. “Where are the others?”

“They all went to sleep.”

“And Kathrine?”

“Went to sleep.” Sofiya repeated.

I pushed start on the microwave. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

We sat in the lounge and I ate as I followed through doing just that. Sofiya asked questions other people had asked earlier in the day. Like if I’d really broken the bones of two villains, was Dreadnaught really in Graceland, and one question I hadn’t been asked before.

“What would Greenflame would offer you?” Sofiya asked. She was hugging a pillow.

I had to think about that. The green villain had used a formula to sell her power to Samurai and Boss, if unsuccessfully to the latter. How would she describe my past and present? More importantly, how would she describe my future. “I-...” I stopped, going down the metaphorical rabbit hole.

What did I want?

I became a hero because I wanted agency, the ability to do something. I’d done something today. Great. What now? To continue being a Sentry was the obvious path to take. That would put me in situations where I had to do things to survive, and then more to do some good. Should I just keep doing that forever? Now that I had agency, should I stop?

Moreover, why hadn’t I become a villain? Villains had plenty of agency. So much so that heroes banded together to oppose them and their agency. By taking agency for myself, was I taking agency away from others. Maybe- No. I’d lost the point of it.

“Greenflame,” I started again. “I think she works by offering you something you know you want, but you don’t know that you know.” Decade old memories started rising. I pushed them down. “She might offer me my family, from before. Would you take that offer?”

Sofiya nodded, then paused and frowned. “Wait, didn’t you say she gave Samurai a knife and fork when she offered him a hero’s end?”

I nodded. “I did.”

“So if she offered me family, she might just give me a set of russian dolls?”

“Or she might reveal my identity or do something to remove me from this house.” I followed up. “Boom, family from before. Specifically from before I showed up.”

“What would you say if she offered you a family from before?” Sofiya turned the question around.

“I would ask her ‘which one?’”