There was an irony in where I was and what I was doing.
I was dressed in my hero uniform, holding the black domino mask in my hand. When I put it on, I’d be Moros. Fully and completely. Alex would be buried under him. At least until I took it off.
I was completely alone, waiting for Amir Saidi for our first tutoring session. I clenched the mask tighter. I had been standing in the same track field I’d been in when Admed and I were training with Madame Where and Beatrice. Beatrice. I put on my mask.
I thought about her. About William and his friend Manos and the whole of the Secret Society.
I flexed my fingers. They were nowhere to be seen. They were seniors, sure, so they were out in the field actually working as sidekicks for heroes. But why did that have to mean we practically never saw them anymore?
Why did that mean they had to leave us to deal with everything alone? The tournament was coming up in a couple of weeks. A deadline we’d set for ourselves to figure everything out then. After reading that article it seemed close but also very far away. There was a code hidden in it–words that were emphasised in italics which couldn’t have been an accident.
“Mr Adamos?”
I turned around to the sound of my name being called. Amir was standing there, dressed in a hero suit as well.
It was a dark green and black suit, something that even barely looked like a turtle with a shell and armour on his back and a lighter one on his front, with a helmet and visor covering the top of his face.
“Never call me that again.” I put on a smile. “What’s your hero name?”
“The Shell!” He stood up straighter, clearly proud of his name.
I did my best not to cringe at it. It wasn’t bad necessarily, it just-it was just, well, bad. Then again, I didn’t have much room to talk about. Especially when we saw just why I’d picked the name I did.
I stepped closer to him. Thought back to my first lesson with Beatrice. To what I saw when Amir was being beaten up.
“You want to be a hero. You want to do things the right way,” I said as intensely as I could. “That’s an admirable thing. Unfortunately, not everyone here is like that. The whole world is full of bad people. And they-they’re in here as well.”
With a flick of my hands, the gloves had retreated. Wind brushed by my exposed fingers. They trembled. My cape fluttered in it. It was a new sensation but also familiar.
“I don’t want them to hurt me again,” he said in a small, trembling voice.
He looked down at my hands. It was a look I was used to. My power wasn’t exactly pretty.
And he’d seen me in a bad moment. A moment a part of me was still itching to recreate when I heard the fear in his voice. A fear I’d known. Inflicted on people.
A fear you should inflict again. That is the way to order, Moros. The way to stop those wastes of space from doing anything like that ever again. Let me out and this will not be an issue anymore.
No matter how much you tried, Paragon, you’d fail. To pop out in a moment like this? You had to be desperate.
No response from him. I barely managed to keep myself from snickering. As long as he was far away. As long as he was wherever they’d imprisoned him, I was safe. We were all safe.
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“They’ll try,” I said. “You’ll be ready. But you won’t search them out. A hero helps people. A hero fights only when it’s absolutely necessary. Who’s your private tutor? Madame Where must have assigned someone.”
“Well, you are?” He said it like a question but I knew it wasn’t. “I talked to Madame Where about it. Didn’t she tell you?”
I froze. My first response was to say that no, she didn’t. She probably did though. When we sorted out the secret identities. When Paragon’s voice echoed in my head for the first time.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I put on the best smile I could. “I’m just–I was just disoriented a bit. That’s all.”
“So? What do we do first?”
“Hit me.” I thought back to what Beatrice had told me. “Hit me using your power.”
“Hit…you?”
“You won’t hurt me.” I got into a battle ready position. That wasn’t arrogance speaking. One of the perks of remembering two lives was the experience I’d gained.
Tens, if not hundreds of battles, to draw from.
He clenched his fists. A blue shield formed around each forearm. Slightly bigger than them.
He lunged at me. A large, strong hit. One I’d dodged. Again and again. The hits weren’t bad. It’d been a couple of weeks since the first time I’d seen him fight. It wasn’t much, but it was an improvement.
A couple of minutes later, I decided to end this. As I sidestepped his last attack, I turned, while his back was turned to me. I opened up my arms, touching on his shields, expecting to destroy them.
But nothing. The feel of styrofoam on my hands, a surprisingly hard but also soft material that didn’t react at all to my power.
My eyes widened to the point where I could feel them stretching my face.
He shrugged off my hands. I stepped back barely dodging his next attack. The edge of his shields grazed the side of my face. It was barely a sting, but there were a few drops of blood on the edge of his shields.
Even Paragon was shocked. I could feel it. I hated the fact that I could feel it.
Low. I had to get low. The glove of my left hand wrapped back around as I grabbed him by his whole body, bringing both of us down.
And I brought my right hand down next to his head. The ground burst, dirt flying about.
“You lose,” I said between breaths.
I was breathing heavily. This was the first time I’d seen anything like this. The first time my powers hadn’t worked on something.
We got back up and my right hand was also covered in my glove.
“You should be more comfortable with offence,” I said to him. “The bullies, they attacked first. You’re a shield, so you’re more comfortable defending. But you can attack too.”
“Except I can’t! I couldn’t even land a hit on you!”
“Because you don’t know how to yet. What are your shields made of?”
“Nothing,” he said with a small laugh. “It’s energy that hardens air. But it doesn’t quite become solid. I can’t really explain it.”
“It stopped my power. Put on another shield.”
In a second another one was on his forearm. He put it forward and I touched it with my bare hand. It felt odd to touch. But also strangely good. I felt my shoulders drop. A tenseness I didn’t know I had faded away as I touched something freely for the first time as far back as I could remember.
“I didn’t realise it,” he said.
Silence for a few beats. I looked at my hand. At five fingers touching a single thing.
“Yeah, yeah.” I shook my head to snap myself out of it. I stepped back, trying to get myself in focus. “People’s powers–well, most people’s powers–have limitations. Powers like yours are more–what’s the word in English?–στοιχειώδης, uh, rudimentary! That’s it!”
“I don’t get it. If it’s so basic, then how can I-oh!” His eyes lit up at the realisation. “I don’t have as many limitations.”
“Exactly! Someone that controls the elements, that can change their body, or do what I can only describe as magic? They have costs that they have to pay. Be they physical or mental.”
“But they have much more potential.”
“No they don’t. Some of the greatest heroes don’t entirely rely on their powers. It’s in your character. In your head. Because a hero is someone that uses their every talent, every tool in their arsenal to help people. Even if-even if their power or their past doesn’t reflect that.”
I smiled. I hoped he couldn’t see the sadness in my eyes. Because the weight that left my shoulders suddenly returned.
Their powers…it was a bit hypocritical of me to talk like that, wasn’t it? When I still didn’t see myself as someone worthy to be a hero because of my power. Of my past. But Amir smiled when I said that.
He smiled and looked genuinely excited to explore his power. He even told me not to give him any recommendations. He wanted to figure everything out himself.
And my smile became just a little happier.
For the first time in my life I truly felt like a hero.