Mom and Dad weren't precisely thrilled with the fact I was clearly training to fight Reaver, but I mean, there was no point in the argument with them. The fight was going to happen whether adults liked the idea or not, so the only answer was getting prepared for the showdown. Anna hated it, but being a counselor to supers specifically, she got it. She hated it, but she got it, and she did get us the H.A.A.'s file on Reaver. Two years of Reaver killing superheroes, there were eight kills, and pretty much all followed the same basic methodology: Isolate the hero, introduce yourself, get them concentrated on you, then port behind and kill (Anna had mercifully thought not to include the pictures of the dead bodies). So far, he'd killed eight heroes, and while that might not sound like a lot, given the rarity of supers in the world, it was a strong number. That also meant eight powers, plus the scythe's own abilities. Obviously, some sort of control over a body wielding it, and some sort of ability to cloak the scythe itself so it wasn't constantly visible.

The list of victims were all E-Tier heroes, never any higher, so I was able to semi-confirm a working theory: Reaver had access to the H.A.A. since only the A- and S-tier heroes were widely remarked upon by their tier ranking. Anything under that, and you needed more specific knowledge. It wouldn't stand out as odd that Anna had brought up his file, I mean, why would it? She was a counselor working with someone who had just survived an encounter with Reaver, looking up the file was pretty much standard procedure. It would be like finding it odd that a barista had looked up a particularly complicated drink order to make sure they had it right.

If Reaver knew about Darryl, and I had to assume that he did, then there were now strictures on just what Darryl could do, and what we could talk about. Same for Mackenzie, since she was my regular sparring partner. Both were almost assuredly bugged by this point. But due to a Burn Notice marathon on Amazon (Dad's favorite show), I'd learned something- If you uncover a spy, if you know you're being bugged, the key is to not destroy the bugs and/or spy, or call attention to them in any way. So what do you do? You get your buddy to go to school, and talk to your former bully, to bring them into the fold. Direct eyes would be on me, somewhat on Darryl, but not on the former bully that I saved and didn't really hang out with. Brad was now an unrealized lynchpin in the plan going forward, essentially dead-dropping stuff for all parties involved.

I divided everyone in my life into victim categories, focusing protection on Mom and Dad, since Darryl pointed out that the number of dead parents in comics was kind of insane. People complain about Disney parents, but they have nothing of comics, so we had a dead drop to Brad, and at some point, Bard got information to Mom and Dad, not sure how, but the messaging was pretty straightforward. They, Princess, Merida, and Mackenzie went to the H.A.A., which did offer temporary housing (Usually this was for heroes that were operating in a city temporarily, but some folks in the organization had apparently been obsessed comic nerds at some point, so safehouse for relatives of a hero was also on the books).

Removing everyone from the field was a problem, that would trigger a Rule Break, so the key was focusing on a single weak point, and that's where being an utter bastard came into play: Aimee. Right after "Kill parental figures/close family" in comics was "Put The Love Interest In Danger". Darryl did point out that I would need to loop Aimee in, as one of the biggest red flags in the history of comics was "I lied/kept my secret to protect you", but I couldn't do so directly. I would like it noted that you can get away with a lot in a Minecraft text chat. No one's checking that thing, heck, a lot of server mods don't even check the chat that close, and that's one of their jobs.

For his part, Brad was awesome at this. We had him at, "Hey, we need you to do something the adults won't like you doing". It was easy enough to get the bug temporarily away from them in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicion: Darryl got 'pinched' playing Fortnite in class. Yeah, he got detention, but more importantly, he got his phone taken away. Brad, similarly, got himself thrown into detention as well, and also stripped of his phone, though his trick for it was a bit more M-rated. They had Tuesday afternoon locked in a classroom with no electronics to get their Spycraft 101 put together.

Anna was in charge of getting the order out to pick up my family and get them into the H.A.A., which she had no objection to other than me not going into custody. I mean, what was she gonna say? "How dare you ask me to put your family in protective custody?!" She did mention she could order me into custody as well, to which my response was to ask how long she thought it would take me to 1% escaping the H.A.A., and if she really wanted to add that to my inherent skills list right now. She opted out of that idea but did place extra security on the house on the in-case side, which was fine.

So what's that leave me? A couple of days to steer the fight to where I wanted it, and train without distraction. Steering the fight was pretty straightforward, cause Reaver is a fan. That would mean Reaver was watching my channels, and that gave me an open opportunity to put the thought in his head. Darryl and I started running narrations of comic book fights. In specific, fights where the villain set up a public fight, and without fail, they were always linked to something the hero cared about. So, I made a thing of talking with Aimee about how basketball was going, missing seeing her play, and how sorry I was I had Scouts on Thursday night, but that it wasn't too far from Scouts to the school, so I would run over after the meeting let out. Darryl broke the news to me that he wouldn't be able to get to the meeting on Thursday, as he'd been enlisted to run A/V for the game, and I said that it sucked, but to make sure he got some good pics and video for me.

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Tuesday, I went out to a local country club up in North Portland, ironically placed out by the bus yard for the folks that drove us to and from school. The club had a golf course, and more importantly, it had tennis courts and equipment. So I got "permission" (a.k.a. Bribed a tennis pro) to use the pitching machine for tennis balls, and started firing at myself. I started on low speed, blocking as best I could until I started being able to fully block everything coming my way, then stepped up the speed gradually, until I was going as fast as the machine would allow for. From there, I switched the settings to random speeds, so I wouldn't know how fast any individual ball was traveling. The object lesson of the training was to be able to reactively block at both high and low speeds, and account for variance of angle. It had the added bonus of teaching me how to tell general speed, direction, and angle by visual approach. After that, I hit up the parkour gym Darryl mentioned, and that was pretty fun actually, as well as being educational for me. My chat put up that I should also find somewhere I could work on actual gymnastics to train flexibility, speed, and agility. I kept training with my foam scythe, making notations about swing arcs, the timing of swipes, and the width of the blade. I worked on fundamentally understanding every regular attack pattern the blade could use.

Wednesday, I did indeed head out to a gymnastics place. I got trained in backflips, front flips, and other areas to add to the rolls, jumps and such that got covered by the parkour gym. I worked the pommel horse, parallel bars, balance beam, and floor routine. I had to get used to moving my body around fast, being able to change direction with as little telegraphing as possible. This was actually most likely overdoing it a bit, but I had to be ready. Thursday was the Rock Gym, getting myself to speed ascent, descent, and repelling (I did take the time to register this on the Troop Website, cause I mean, this actually covered a number of merit badges.). By the time my watch went off to get changed out and meet up with Aimee, it looked like I was speed-crawling on the floor, rather than vertically.

I had assigned one last task, this to Anna. While she was generally known for reading the mental broadband, she could try to pull information more forcefully, but this was not considered ethical in practice, and unconstitutional by law. Unfortunately, given the current situation, it was a necessity, and Anna did understand the reason why, that I could learn to push out an invading mind. That was the task I assigned her after the gym on Monday and getting the fam to safety, to put my mind under attack, to keep trying to get in as much as she could, whenever she could, whether I was aware she was around or not. There was more I could've learned to do, but time was up.

Showered, shaved, and changed into my Scout uniform, I swung by the school to wait for Aimee. We'd had a date at Salt & Straw on the books, and we were taking it. I knew when I saw her that she definitely knew what was going on, but she was still super-happy to see me, and I got to make out, so yeah, if today's the end, it felt kind of worth it on that end. We got our ice cream, had some time sitting together, and Aimee took a moment, "You know, I actually kind of like the uniform. It's weird, but like, you seem more comfortable in it than I usually see you."

I shrugged, leaning my head on hers like when we'd had that moment at her apartment. I loved this, "I mean, Scouts has always been my thing. I read to Merida, and martial arts is really Mackenzie's thing, and Scouts is me. Also, it's terribly comfortable. I think one day, everyone will be wearing one."

She giggled, "How do you do that?"

"Make references to stuff? It's really about committing fully to the Dork Side."

Aimee slapped my chest playfully, giggling again, "No, I mean... how are you so calm? Like, you're being hunted by a madman, and you're doing all this stuff, and you're still just... you."

I nodded, "Chronic Peter Parker syndrome."

"Who?", She broke away to look at me.

I wished she'd stayed put, "Right, uh, comic nerds kinda died out a decade ago. Peter Parker was known as a superhero in comics, Spider-Man. He has the proportional strength, speed, and reflexes of a spider, and had these devices, called web-shooters that he could use, along with 'Spider-Senses' that let him detect danger even if he wasn't aware of what the danger was, or where it was coming from. What he was even more well-known for was being a complete and utter smartass in a crisis. He'd be fighting a half-dozen supervillains, and just roasting the lot of them the whole time.

"Also, he got married to a supermodel, so hey, at least I'm following in his footsteps on more than one count."

That one got me some more time making out, and eventually, Aimee headed back for the game, and I headed off for my Scout meeting. Darryl was texting non-stop about website stuff, which was actually just him letting me know he was in place, and confirming his phone would work in the A/V booth. Also, unless I missed my guess, a junior girl- I want to say her name is Missy- in A/V was starting to take an interest in Darryl, but he was completely missing it. I mean, like, I'm not one to talk, but I'd need to talk to Darryl after this was over... y'know, assuming there was a later.

Okay, so off to Scouts. I pretty much just ran things as a normal meeting, helped set up Russ's Eagle service project, and got our Tenderfoots going on some knotwork when my phone pinged. Darryl texted: "Boss Battle, Phase Two."