I was running Princess through her first agility course... well, I was working on it. Her highness wasn't responding to treats, so I had to get personal, using her small husky plushie instead. Apparently, huskies aren't as food-motivated as other breeds, but her husky plush she carried around the house like a baby. That at least got her attention, but instead of directly following through the posts of the agility run, she tended to go around it, cause apparently, they're also generally smart enough to use a degree of lateral thinking.

It was while I was doing this that the doorbell rang. We had one of the Ring doorbells, and I checked my phone to see who was there since I wasn't going to the door to deal with someone trying to tell me about Jesus. Nope, John Cox. Great, H.A.A. bullshit here we come.

I gave Princess her baby back (She had a bad reaction the one time I'd tried tossing it to her, and wouldn't deal with me for like an hour), and closed to the front door just ahead of Mom, who'd been absorbed in her book. I pulled the door open, "What is it?"

John was no-nonsense, launching straight at the point, "We need to talk about Anna. Can I come in?"

I stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind me, "No."

He sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. When a guy starts going bald, there are generally two initial reactions that I've begun to notice. Either the balding man tries to replace it with fake hair one way or another, or they take John's cue, and fully shave it off. John had also apparently decided to grow out a goatee... I'm pretty sure this one's called a Van Dyke. I was considering facial hair, and I might think he's a prick, but he pulled the look off. In any event, I motioned over to a small seating arrangement. Mom and Dad tended to sit out here together when they wanted some time to themselves.

John went over and sat down, "Look, I'm essentially on board with what you're doing, but Anna has a contract with us. She can't just wander off any old place."

"Right, that contract she signed on the day of her eighteenth birthday after the one her parents signed her into on her fourteenth?." I took a seat on the loveseat and leaned back. I imagined this would take a while back, but it was here, and I was ready for it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on trying to keep his temper, "Aegis, I swear, I'm not trying to fight you. She's AWOL- Absent Without Leave. There are steep penalties for this. I don't want to see her ruin her life and career over this. We can call it here, she comes back to work, and we just don't talk about it again. I haven't called it in yet, but I'm at the end of my timeline. I have to report it if she stays gone, and she's giving me the cold shoulder."

I analyzed and spared a glance at the Ring doorbell. Right now, we were still in the camera's range, and it did record. I had an H.A.A. branch head sitting on my porch talking, "John, she's happy. We've had her start working with some guys, putting together a team, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've seen her genuinely happy with her job itself, and not just that 'power of positivity' smile she usually has."

He rubbed his fingers just above his right eye, "I get that, really I do, but you can't just walk off a contract because it feels good. She's doing important work, whether you understand that or not, Aegis."

"And I'm not? Have you even read that contract?" I was trying to keep my own temper in check. We had a history of getting hacked off at each other, and I couldn't blow this chance. Not only was the camera recording, but John had activated it when he rang the doorbell, he'd acknowledged its existence. This being my home, he had no expectation of privacy in the legal sense. Whatever he said next, it would be court-admissible.

"What? No! Do you have any idea how long those fucking contracts are?!"

The floor dropped out from under me. "Three-hundred and fifty s- You didn't read the contract?! It's your job!"

He gestured somewhat widely, "No it isn't! My job is to run H.A.A. affairs in Portland, and greater Oregon if it comes to it since it's the only branch office. It's legal's job to read the contracts, and really, that's just so they can break it down to parents. It's not like my team even writes the contracts. Those're written up in DC."

My brain kind of clicked off for a minute there. I was just staring, mouth agape, my hands sitting motionless like I was trying to catch some imaginary ball. He wasn't lying, he had never actually read the contract Anna was under.... how the fuck do you even do that?! I mean not do that?! Jesus fucking Christ!

While I was having my little mental implosion, John worked something out, "Wait... have you read the contract?"

I could've equivocated, but- Literally, in all my considerations of the whole affair, moves, and counter-moves, it had never even occurred to me that one of the guys running the show had just never bothered to actually read the contract that his supers would be operating under, "YES!"

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"Anna trusted you with her contract?", he inquired.

Wait.... inquired. It wasn't accusatory, it wasn't asked as a question pertaining to something I shouldn't have done, like when a teacher would ask a kid something when they knew they'd done something, but needed to hear the kid say it. Oh my God, he doesn't know anything! How in the fuck did we get here? What sort of operation did they think they were running? I had a whole goddamn plan, and they're just fucking ignorant?!

Know Your Enemy. I had simply assumed the enemy to be fully up on what was going on, on the contracts... because they're adults, and as a kid, I just assumed the adults generally knew what they were doing. I hadn't thought past that point. Of course they knew. Of course they would have done the obvious thing and read the contracts, "John, do you have anywhere to be?"

"No, an AWOL super is kind of the top of the priority list right now."

I nodded, "I'll be back. Stay."

I went inside and had a moment of freak out, calmed myself, and grabbed copies of the now three contracts. I now had: Anna, Blacklash, and Tim, who had been kind enough to donate a copy of his from his Google Drive. I diverted on my way back and grabbed drinks for us, and as I sat down, got John's pizza order. This was going to take a while, but at least John liked Dr. Pepper, so he wasn't a total bastard.

I'd left the original contracts as is, making copies that I could highlight, and make notes on. It was essentially there to preserve the chain of evidence, while still being able to go over them, "We've got a long night, but you don't have to read the whole thing. I highlighted the relevant bits."

"You're building a case," He observed. It wasn't a question.

At first, he seemed pretty disinterested. I mean, they're contracts. It's adult homework for lawyers, so who's out there like, "Aw yeah! I get to read huge contracts!"

However, I saw it when he found the sections further in, and he suddenly shifted, whipping over to Blacklash's contract, then Tim's, ripping through the stack to find the same clauses. I was tipping the pizza guy when he finally said something out loud, "That's insane!"

"Uh, thanks, Toby. This is for you. Thanks again, and drive safe!"

I handed off most of the stack to my mom, only taking the pizza for us, a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and my garlic parm wings. I sat down to John, red-faced and shaking, and he launched up out of his seat, pacing, before slamming back down in the chair, "It's backdoor slavery!"

I was busy wolfing down wings, answering around my food. It was a bit odd seeing one of my rants from the outside, "Well, technically it would be indenture, but still fucked, yeah."

Y'know, it's starting to occur to me that letting people just come to the conclusion themselves was really just the better way to do things. Every time I tried to explain things to people, I had to do these huge long runs of explaining, while if I just let them get there themselves with a couple of nudges here or there, it went so much easier. It took longer, yeah, but I didn't have to fight as much.

John was running through an app on his phone, referencing back to the contracts. He was searching for something, much as I'd had to research the clauses myself. Whatever he found only pissed him off more, and I realized I had to step in, shoving a slice of pizza on a paper plate into his hand and putting my hand over his screen, "John, breathe."

John halted, set his phone down, and ate his pizza. I decided it might perhaps be time to extend an olive branch, "I get it, dude. Ever since this started, the more I've learned about how things work, the angrier I've gotten. I was sure you knew about this, but clearly, that's way off base."

John said nothing, he just... ate and looked vaguely into the middle distance. He was shell-shocked, unable to reconcile the evidence now in front of him. I might dislike John, but I was watching his belief structure crumble in real-time, so he had a degree of sympathy from me. Words didn't seem to be reaching him though, until he suddenly spoke, his voice going completely monotone, "Hanlon's Razor."

"Um, o-kay..."

"'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity'. It's an adage, that most of the bad things in the world that happen aren't because of some mustache-twirling villainy, but just people being idiots," He was still staring off into the distance, but he was talking, so that's a positive sign.

The adage explained so much of what I'd seen. I'd been imagining vast conspiracies, counter-productive rules, and regulations by a nebulous they. It could seem like that, but applying the adage, it was much more likely that everyone was just a fucking moron, and being short-sighted. I wasn't immune to it, either. We sat there together, eating, until John came to a decision, and started back in on his phone, something obviously occurring to him, and satisfied, he finally looked to me, "Okay, in order: With the addition of the powers that Reaver grants you, and by my position and authority under the H.A.A., I do hereby upgrade Aegis to D-Tier. Follow the link I'm sending you to acknowledge this change.

I was mid-chew, so I just used the Technopathy to do it on my phone, while John continued, "Second: Contingent with the authority of the greater Portland Metro Area's declared State of Emergency, and according to federal guidelines, I do hereby recognize the homeless situation in Portland as an emergency situation. D-Tier hero Aegis stands as witness."

Oh God, he's recording this!

John didn't stop, "As an emergency requiring direct heroic intervention, I am enacting Crisis Protocols as established in H.A.A. guidelines. In keeping with regulations, Aegis is hereby granted emergency status in Portland, and the Greater State of Oregon, pursuant to the handling of the homelessness emergency, and is as of-" he noted the time and date- "activated as a full Hero, with all commensurate authority and responsibilities until the crisis is contained."

I couldn't move. I registered what he was saying, but it was so far out of pocket. It was like watching the sun rise in the west. I just sat there holding up a wing I was about to eat as John just kept plowing through H.A.A. regulatory precedent into his phone, "Finally: As the senior hero of the Portland Metro Area and the Greater State of Oregon, Aegis is hereby granted full command authority of all necessary forces and requisitions until such time as a special Congressional committee can be convened to determine longer-term solutions should they prove necessary or warranted."

The fuck?!

John stood up to leave, "Kid, you have ninety days from this moment. Anna's your sidekick."