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“Benjamin Logan Ross, you better not be standing me up again. I stole this dress from an heiress, and these rings, this necklace? I don’t even want to explain how difficult it was having to escape a guy who could quite literally turn invisible,” Katie said. “That isn’t even my Porsche outfront!”

“Listen, I know what I said about making sure things work out this time around—”

“You better not be breaking up with me, Ben. I know where you live, remember?”

Sometimes he wondered how he got himself in the kinds of situations that tonight yielded. Last he checked, he’d forgotten to submit about a dozen assignments this week, and oh, right, his girlfriend kept breaking into people’s homes in preparation for their anniversary. Any reasonable man would have tried to slow things down, accepted that the week was fucked, and gone on to try to fix things with everyone he’d managed to piss off in the last few days. But Ben wasn’t any man, and tonight wasn’t any night. He would deal with his problems like any rational nineteen-year old should: by stalking people through the night. His therapist (his sister) said it wasn’t healthy for him to stay out so long. Superhumans littered this city. Dangerous superhumans capable of pulling him apart, or infesting his body and killing him slowly over the span of weeks. Lucian was here, too.

He was always here, and anyone could see that in the blood stains left in the alleyways, and those sigils, those symbols, those murals he made people carve of himself into brick walls. Some were scorched into the concrete, and others just used red paint—but the intent was clear as day. Lucian might not be making people do this, but there were hundreds of people who thought he was God. Ben wasn’t a Christian, but burning a crown of thorns into Lucian’s murals was just bad taste.

He’d lost count of the number of upside-down crosses he’d seen in his hideouts now. The guy just screamed attention, or his deranged followers did. It didn’t matter. He was a target now.

“I’m just busy tonight, Kit,” he said, hands in his hoodie pockets, wired earphones snaking into the back of his jeans as he stood on the edge of decrepit apartment building number twenty. “But, on the bright side, I’m gonna grab you a gift, and you’re gonna love it so bad. Trust me.”

“Is it a tiara?”

Ben crouched, avoiding a strobing beam of light cutting across the night from one of the many nightclubs throbbing in Lower Olympus right now. The White Capes had a base around these parts that anyone normal would miss if they didn’t know what they were looking for. It was just a building, a regular old apartment building, apart from the barred windows, reinforced doors, the cameras twisting and turning in the dark, and Spectra—a superhuman who could faze in and out of existence, just like her name suggested, lurking around. This was just one of their hideouts, just one of hundreds popping up around Old Town. It would be a hell of a lot easier if they had a big sign saying where they were hiding. But one stronghold down equaled one less cult cluster down here.

And a lot less dead humans around these parts. Lucian wouldn’t be happy with some kid screwing with one of his main sources of income, but who the fuck cared about what he wanted?

“I mean, sure,” he said quietly. “I could make you a tiara.”

“Yeah, with what diamonds?”

“The ones I’d buy with my ten bucks an hour wage.”

Katie laughed just a little bit. “Mama always said I should marry someone rich, and yet here I am, stuck with two bottles of empty wine, a fucking rediculous tab, and an AWOL boyfriend.”

“Hold on a sec,” he said, pausing his surveillance. “Did you just say mar—” Ben froze, remaining silent as he felt him coming before he even heard him standing directly to his left. It was the feeling you got when someone was standing behind you, close enough to make you feel uncomfortable, on edge, and he would have been if he didn’t know it would be pointless fighting his case. “Hey, Kates? I’ll call you back. Keep the wine cold and the table ready, I’ll be there.”

He slid his hand into his pocket and shut down his phone, muttering a silent “Yeah, yeah, I love you, too,” under his breath before doing so. The man beside him grunted, maybe chuckled.

“Got something to say?” Ben asked.

Lucas said nothing, because it wouldn’t be a normal night otherwise. The man crouched beside Ben, getting on one knee and pulling out a small tablet of sorts from one of the many pockets he had on his black trousers. The tiny screen nearly blinded him, such was the darkness. Lucas handed him the tablet, and Ben flicked through several camera feeds, each and every one of them showing room after room filled with White Capes. Some were smoking and watching a football game, a few others were stacking crates in what might have once been a bedroom. Dozens of fliers advertising their ‘sermons’ were being printed in a dimly lit room. A few dozen speedsters or teleporters (it was a little hard to tell sometimes, go figure) would blink in and out of view, as well as a slim girl covered in scars guarding a room, maybe in the basement, that just looked like a jail cell full of Kaiju. And right there in the largest main apartment, was their target for tonight.

Each White Cape sect had their leader, their preacher—their pastor.

This one seemed to be a simple skinny white dude in slacks sitting behind a rickety table, going over documents under the flickering light coming from a single naked bulb above him. It was only a little bit underwhelming, considering the monsters he’d met with before, but it was the silent types, the normal types—the types who liked to drink their coffee black and cold and looked like they were meant to be in an office—that you should be most worried about, because you couldn’t guess what they could do until your organs were laced around your throat like a noose.

“What’s his schtick?” Ben asked, handing back the tablet. “No sound, either?”

“Negative,” Lucas muttered. His cowl was down, but that wouldn’t have made him any more talkative. “Only good for eyes. Echo must’ve come around, made sure the site was clean.”

Of course he did. “So we’ve got no idea what their big man can actually do?”

“He’s the man we’ve got to neutralize and interrogate. Plain and simple.”

“Yeah, well, I’d prefer not to get turned into paste, I’ve got a bio-chem test next week.”

Lucas looked at him as if yes, finally, he realized Ben might have gotten one too many whacks against the skull in training after all these years. “Gear up. Fourth floor, second window.” He pulled the cowl over his head, the fabric hugging his entire face, making him nothing but an outline made from black and deeper black apart from the stark white eagle head on his chest. Lucas had twin scarlet desert eagles tucked away on his thighs, knives on his belt and calves, tiny explosives, a rifle on his back, and the hard-as-steel knuckles on his gloves. Was it overkill? In Ben’s opinion, maybe, but he was a human. Special forces, sure. More than well-trained, yes. But that wouldn’t matter against superstrength. Besides, this part always made his heart race a little, because the White Capes were nothing but superhumans. Angry, violent, hateful superhumans that would much rather strip the skin off their bodies than consider why two vigilantes just broke in.

He had tried the lost pizza guy trick on them once; it wasn’t going to work again.

Shrike stood up, and Ben did as well, but unlike the man beside him, he couldn’t vanish into foul-smelling smoke, as if he’d just burnt to nothing. It wasn’t a superpower, just a long story.

And all he ever left behind was a tiny white feather, singed at its tip. Ben caught it on his palm, and a few moments later, he heard the first thud as something hard hit someone’s skull.

Well, he thought, stretching his arms over his head. You know what to do, Blue.

A shudder ran down his back, followed by a sudden (slightly jarring) spike of pain as the thing attached to the length of his spine burst out of his skin. It hurt, it always did, and he’d given up washing the blood out of his hoodies by now, but the pain was gone just as quickly as the sticky, liquid, worm-like substance crawled over his skin, under his shirt, down his torso, his legs, up his chest and around his throat until it covered his entire face. When it was done, he shuddered a little, rolling his shoulders as the creature in him finished layering his skin with what might as well have been another layer of deep navy blue flesh. The mask went up to his hairline, leaving his hair buffeting in the wind as he jumped up and down, getting the creases out of his now thicker soles.

He glanced down at his chest, then cleared his throat.

A strip of tiny yellow worms (he hated calling them that) appeared, bending into a circle with an arrow lancing through it pointing toward the sky. Better. Ben slid off his hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, kicked them against an old air vent, turned toward the apartment building, and leaped.

Did Lucas say second floor, fourth window? It was too late to wonder about that by the time he landed on the apartment’s grimy wall with a grunt. He stuck to it like he’d gotten superglue on his hands and feet as he kneeled against the bricks to peer through the filthy stained glass. The bars over the windows made it nearly impossible to see anything through them, no matter how hard he squinted. He could sense about a dozen people in the room beyond. Going in blind, then. No idea what was hiding behind the glass, the wall, or his senses, because he wasn’t picking up all that much from the window beyond. Nothing he couldn’t handle. The stink of Lucas’ smoke was flowing out of the rooms above him, followed by the explosive sound of gunfire, and soon by the sound of a body thudding against the floor. He wasn’t killing anyone; Ben couldn’t smell blood.

Not yet, anyway.

Ben spread his hand, forcing five hooked claws to erupt from his fingertips. He cut through the steel bars, leaving the window exposed, naked, as he flipped backward onto the opposite building, and flung himself forward, smashing through the window and rolling along a filthy carpet littered with cigarettes, ammunition, and wooden crates. Still crouching, still low, he looked around himself, counted four other superhumans in the hallway with him. Nothing visible, except for one girl who had been sliced by the glass shards Ben had sent her way. A ball of metal was floating on her palm, liquid sometimes as it flowed around her fingers, then hardening seconds later. She glared, shouted something in a language he couldn’t understand, and the four others charged him.

He leaped over a cone of blue fire that gushed out from one man’s mouth, bouncing off the wall and landing on his feet. One. A fist appeared from the wall behind him. He felt it coming before he even saw it. Ben ducked, flipped backward, and watched a woman faze through a wall, a flicker that he barely caught in the darkness of the room. Two. The next came in a pair. A woman flung out her hands, and this time, he got caught mid-flip. He hung suspended in the air, and the man beside her snapped his fingers, and holy hell, the air around him twisted, shook and heated, seething and shrieking until he was blinded by a flash of brilliantly terrible white heat. The explosion smacked him back outside the window and against the alleyway wall like a bug and hard onto the fire escape railing. He groaned, shook his head. Three and four. He tasted iron, maybe because his mouth smacked into the catwalk, or maybe because of internal bleeding, who knew?

At least now he knew what each of them was capable of, so now came the fun.

Ben picked himself up, shook himself off, and looked up at the window. The woman with the metal was staring down at him, her bare foot on the window ledge. “Kinda rude, you know.”

She glowered, her stark green eyes glittering in the flickering security light above the window, and then it exploded, drenching them in darkness. Ben could still see, see enough to—

Apparently, so could she, because she swiped her hand through the air, sending shards of metal darting toward him. He swore, vaulted over the railing and slammed into a dumpster. Move. So he moved, his body jerking on its own as dozens of whistling little needles thwacked into the alley, the dumpster, and rained down like hellfire that just didn’t stop. He ran. Ran hard to the end of the alley, leaped over a pile of rags, and bundled the man he’d seen cowering at the foot of a pile of trash into his arms. Ben rolled into the dark, smashing into the garbage. A bottle shattered. The needles paused. He breathed hard, grabbing the homeless guy before he could run back into the alley. He was gasping, reeked of alcohol and sweat and greasy meat. Ben patted the guy down. Not bleeding, at least, not from any needles. He looked up, panting, at the woman now on the catwalk.

She was pulling metal into the tiny balls hovering over her palms. Spoons. Forks. Shards from the same fire escape she was bending to her will to make a staircase directly toward him.

“Hey, I know this might not be breaking news to you, but you need to run right about now.”

The homeless guy didn’t need a second educated guess to bolt, staggering and hobbling his way out of the alley and away into the night. Good. Hopefully there weren’t any others around.

Ben didn’t want to scar them with the mental picture of a villain’s spine being broken,

Before he could move, the woman paused. Her hands lowered, dropping the liquid metal. He glanced over his shoulder at what she was staring at, because what could have been that…

Zeus was hovering above the alleyway, a glowing golden silhouette. His stark white cape snapped over his shoulder as if the wind wanted nothing more than to make him larger, bigger, but the universe didn’t need to do that—he was a mellow spotlight, like a lantern that was only making the shadows underneath him darker. Ben cursed mentally, because he knew damn well Zeus could hear it if he said it. This wasn’t part of any contingency plan, he thought, because Shrike loved his plans, loved them so much that Ben was forced to memorize and adapt them during lunch hour every day. Zeus was meant to be busy tonight, busy doing anything else around the world tonight.

He would have rathered Ares, Heka, hell, even Cleopatra!

Because Zeus wasn’t supposed to find out about Benjamin Ross.

“Holy shit,” the woman muttered, raising her arms toward him—not to attack him, but as if to hug him. “You…you’re him. I didn’t ever think you’d come here, but you’re actually here.”

Why the hell is she so excited? Why the hell am I more afraid than her?!

The man and the woman who’d put Ben back out into the alleyway peered into the night, and like moths, their heads snapped upward, turning to look at the glowing golden light above them. Two other men came next, clamoring for a view of him, of this man wearing gold, blue, and white that shone like a spotlight. Of the symbol on his chest that, Ben just realized, was carved into their flesh, arms and necks and faces. His eyes were the scariest thing about him, not his abnormal size, not his almost too perfect face that kinda looked like some creature impersonating what the ideal human male would look like after years of training. His eyes were pure gold, just that. Not his irises, not the whites—everything, as if even his soul was just this shining ball of bright light.

Unfortunately for Ben, there was a reason he only ever worked the night shift.

“Please,” Zeus said, and when he spoke, Ben was sure the Earth itself shook with his voice, “don’t let me interrupt you, Apollo. We’ll speak once you finish here. Impress me, young hero.”

He blinked, even though he knew (maybe?) that Zeus couldn’t see it. He didn’t wait.

Ben extended his hand, and the flesh on his forearm responded, crafting a large bow that he drew back and fired in three quick yanks. Thin white spindles of bone shot from the bow, whistling through the air and smacking the woman in the thighs, their barbs ripping through her jeans and spitting blood out onto the catwalk. She screamed, fell. Ben lunged and caught her, then slammed his fist into her nose to make her pass out. The others reacted. A blast of fire from the window melted the garbage into a heap of burning trash, making his stomach leap into his throat (don’t puke, don’t puke—this mask just got cleaned, Ben). They were still above him, with the man who could phase (not a man, a woman—Specter) phasing out of view and flickering at the end of the alleyway like some ghastly pale apparition. He had to be careful with her. She could phase right through him and spill his guts out, or just use him as a meat puppet until his mind melted, too.

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Neither of which were things he really wanted to do tonight.

He’d have to stay active, stay away from anything solid she would be hiding in.

Ben leaped onto the dumpster, bounded off it and grabbed onto the catwalk, flipping himself onto it in a crouch before exploding away. He ran and ran hard, jumped upward, flipped over the railing, and threw himself across the gap. He landed on the wall, then sprinted directly upward, right toward the window. The woman spread her hands. Ben did the same, and a wild violet tentacle shot from his palm, latching onto her wrist. He stopped on the wall, turned his hips and twisted. The woman flew out of the window, screaming like she was, well, flying through the air. Ben jumped off the wall, caught her, and smashed into the opposite apartment’s boarded up window. He quickly wrapped her in a writhing tentacle, meaning her powers weren’t going to be working properly until he said otherwise. But she’d smacked her head against the floor, half-dazed and lucid, mumbling words that made no sense at all. He checked where all the blood was coming from that was matting her blonde hair—just a cut along her scalp. Bodies bled a lot when cut.

“Get your hands off her!” a man barked.

He didn’t spin around, he just didn’t have the time—an explosion of searing hot air sent him crashing through an old couch and dinner table, beating the air right out of his lungs. Ben groaned, littered with heavy wooden shrapnel, thick dust that filled his lungs, and fluttering little moths as the two superhumans still standing slipped into the apartment. Specter was somewhere, anywhere. Panic was in his blood, mild panic, but fear nonetheless. Ben got up, heaving the dinner table off his chest and blowing dust into the air. He remained crouched, panting, as the man who could breathe fire breathed deeply, sending plumes of smoke spiraling above them. The other man had his hands at the ready, and Ben didn’t want to know what would happen if he clapped them.

“So this is what a guy gets for making sure a girl’s skull isn’t fractured.”

“You’re not allowed to touch her, touch any of them,” Fire Mouth (dragon was cooler, but he was a supervillain, so Ben wasn’t going to waste the name on him) said. “You’re uncleansed.”

“I’m pretty clean. I mean, I showered right before I came to kick your teeth in.”

Zeus was still watching, Ben could see him just over their shoulders. Hovering outside, a silhouette so large that his shadow made the room impossibly dark. On my own in this, then.

Fire Mouth belched, and this time, flames splattered onto the floor and launched through the air, burning gaping holes into the carpet and right through the wood. It stuck to the ceiling, to the walls. Ben tried to run, to grab the girl still on the floor before the flames caught and began a blaze, but the explosive guy was already on him, slamming his palms together and creating a sound so shrill it felt like his eardrums had been blown out and his mind torn shredded by painfully hot knives. Then the explosion happened. Not a large one, but one that shot right for his chest. It lanced through the air, a missile of agony and white hot fire that smashed him against the wall so violently that his head smacked against the bricks. Ben slumped, tasted blood. The world whined as he shook his head, but when he did that, vomit rushed into his throat, burning as he swallowed. The flesh on his body was in pain, not his, but the one he was wearing. The one that was shuddering and moving, its tiny tendrils slapping against his skin and reaching for the air around him. It was angry, frustrated—wanted blood. He could feel it, taste it, sense it and smell it. Ben breathed.

He breathed in deeply, so he could still smell the gum Katie had put in his mouth from two hours ago. He shut his eyes and waited, but another blast put him through the drywall and into the hallway, spiraling and smacking and tumbling against the carpet. Ben struggled to stand, to get off his chest and push off from the floor. Dust. Debris. Darkness all around him and a lasting silence.

The thing wanted to kill them. To gut them. It was forcing itself into his body, into his blood; he could feel its worm-like tendrils soaking through his pores and reaching for his muscles.

It wanted control, to take over. It wanted to protect itself.

Ben Ross wasn’t a killer, though. Just wasn’t his thing.

“The little blue bird stopped movin’,” Fire Mouth muttered over him. Liquid-fire dripped from the corner of his mouth, burning the carpet and making his face glow red. “Burn him.”

The other man raised his hands, as if about to bless Ben.

“You know,” he said weakly, “I don’t want to see any of you dead.”

“The innocent hero schtick,” one spat, kicking him in the ribs.

“No,” he grunted. “I just like beating you guys senseless every week. It’s fun.” Ben angled his head to look up at them, and then they stepped back a little, stared at the tiny worms flickering over his arms, his shoulders, grasping for their bodies. “This thing, though, wants you dead.”

“What the fuck?” Fire Mouth whispered, disgusted. “What the fuck is that thing?”

Ben felt a presence behind him, and Specter flickered out of the wall. She was the silent type, maybe couldn’t even speak. It didn’t matter. She wore a white mask, a dark hood—and her hand grabbed onto his calf, latching onto it like a shard of ice that just slammed through his leg. Her fingernails sank into the meat of his leg, deep, deep into his flesh and around his bones.

He screamed, screamed till his throat was raw, then kicked out, rolled backward, got onto his hands, and spun onto his feet, then slammed the top of his head into Fire Mouth’s jaw. Blood gushed out of his maw, followed by teeth that skittered onto the floor. Ben smacked the side of his hand against the man’s throat, making him gag. He followed with an elbow, taking dozens more teeth, planted his fist into his ribs and left him gurgling on the floor a gasping, mumbling mess. Ben lunged at the other man before he clapped, grabbed his arm, flung his leg over his forearm and slammed him onto the carpet. Ben yanked hard. The man’s arm snapped. He cried out, and a foot to his head knocked him out. Ben breathed hard, kneeling beside him, checking for his weak pulse.

Still alive. The flesh reached for the man’s throat. Ben clenched his fist and stood.

Ben searched for Specter, tried to sense where she had gone.

He didn’t have to keep looking for long. A heartbeat, and then blood gushed onto his face.

Blinking, even though his mask stopped it from getting into his eyes, Ben staggered away, sure (very, very sure) that he hadn’t done anything for that much to spill down his chest. He had promised Lucas that he’d gotten over the hate in this thing, the survival instinct and the blood it so deeply wanted to drink every other day. He had controlled it. Hadn’t had an accident in years.

And he was right, it wasn’t him.

It was the glowing hand protruding through Specter’s chest.

The woman glanced down, then she flickered, vanishing from view. Zeus grunted, flinging his hand once and spreading the blood all over the apartment wall. He stared at Ben, smiling. “Let’s talk, me and you, because we’ve got a very interesting conundrum between the two of us, yes. As for these men and women…” Another fling of his hand, and a gust of wind put out the flames and cleared out the smoke. “Good. Your partner should find them long before law enforcement, too.”

Ben stepped backward, shaking his head. “I’m–I’m good. Gotta go help the old man.”

Zeus kept smiling, and in a blink of an eye, they were both standing atop a skyscraper. Ben gasped as Zeus let go of him. He landed on his feet, his suit absorbing the gust of wind that had punched the air out of his lungs. He gasped for air, more out of shock than anything, and then backed up toward the large neon sign blinking away in the night sky. The man in the white costume hovered just over the gravel littered rooftop, his cape still flowing and his arms behind his back. Upper west side, somewhere south of Olympus U. He had a good internal GPS, and an even better stomach that was telling him to get the hell out of there. Katie was close, about a block away in one of those restaurants that he’d usually be busting tables for on a normal night. But Zeus didn’t know that, and besides, he wouldn’t mention that. Supervillains threatened, and Zeus was not that at all.

He was just a murderer, one that didn’t really care at all about the blood splatter on his cape.

“Take off the mask,” he said to Ben, floating a little closer. “Let’s talk face-to-face, Apollo.”

“I’d love to, uh, sir,” he said, backing away, his body brimming with nervous energy, with the need to jump right off this hundred-story monstrosity. “But I kinda have a secret identity.”

“Oh, please,” Zeus said. “I know who you are, Benjamin.”

Well, there’s person number five to guess correctly who I am this week.

“That’s the thirtieth most common name in New Olympus, so pretty good guess, but—”

“Your sister is Bianca and your mother’s name is Carly. Your father was a marine turned chef, and you’re in your, what you humans like to call, sophomore year in Olympus West, correct?”

Well, guess there’s only one kind of Ben Ross like that, sure.

He sighed, and the mask slid upward from his face, forming a bandana around his forehead that kept his hair from whipping into his eyes because of the wind. Zeus smiled even wider at him.

“Am I in trouble?” he asked. “I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?”

“Not that I know of,” Zeus said. “Unless you’re keeping another secret from me.”

Ben chuckled uncomfortably. “Great! I, um, should really get back to Shrike right about—”

Zeus tilted his head, then said, “Your target for the night has been captured. Good work.”

He intends to kill, the suit said in his mind. It had spoken a lot during the fight, but Ben had gotten good at ignoring it. This creature will terminate you before you so much as move, boy.

“I like your costume,” Zeus said slowly, his golden eyes scanning him. “Creative.”

“Thanks,” he said cautiously. “My mom made it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your mother.”

“Yep,” he said. “Good old mom.”

Zeus floated toward him, stopping a foot away. “Benjamin, how do I put this? I can hear almost every single person’s heart on this planet with enough focus. I can smell them. Each and everything about them fills my mind from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep.”

“I heard a rumor that the Lord of the Sky doesn’t need any sleep.”

He paused, then laughed—a sound so deep it shook Ben’s bones. “Yes, that’s true, but I just enjoy the activity. It’s so very human. So very…boring, normal, that I can’t help but indulge in it.”

“You sleep because it’s fun?”

“No,” Zeus said. “I sleep because who else will look over my wife when she does?”

“Groovy.”

Zeus tilted his head, as if confused, then shrugged. “All things considered, I am aware of all that happens on this planet, even to the minute details. Of course, that comes with its limits, as everything does. If I focus too much on sight, I hear too little, and vice versa. I’m limited by my own bodily functions. Although it’s quite frustrating, and I would much rather bolster my abilities tenfold and beyond, for the sake of your species’ survival, I won’t burden your small planet with that amount of possible chaos that the true extent of my power will cause to this small wet stone.” Ben was about to say something again, something stupid to buy enough time to figure out how he could escape a man who was damn-near faster than light. “I cannot, however, even see you.”

Ben, at that moment, wanted to vanish into the night. He remained silent, staring at Zeus, at his golden eyes that never seemed to blink. How much can I say without him wanting me dead?

He’d gone over this with Lucas, and enough of it with Lady Kami—Ben was a secret. The night was his friend, and the day was his enemy, or whatever. He saved lives during the day, sure, but he would wear a ski mask and do that, not this costume; not as Apollo. He was a fable, a ghost, a thing that came and went, and the story your neighbor told you over dinner because they got saved from a mugging one night by a talkative shadow. Ben wasn’t after the money, or the fame, or the pictures, because his family was okay, all things considered—he played baseball for his college, got in enough papers, and hell, he was happy with things to stay like this. Shrike might be a hardass sometimes, but he was getting old. He joked about it, but it was true. A body couldn’t take that much damage for that many years. A human just wasn’t meant to last all that long in this game.

It would be him one day who’d be the one doing solo trips, fixing bugs into buildings, gathering information from local politicians and mob bosses with a tongue as sharp as any knife.

Ben, in all honesty, just wanted to be like that grumpy old vigilante. Why?

Because saving people without them knowing was kinda cool. Why do anything apart from just wanting to do it, you know? He could go to Gabe’s house in Lower Olympus and have dinner with his family knowing they would be safe. Katie never understood why, but that was just Ben.

But Zeus knew him, and knew something was wrong with him.

He knew about Ben’s suit, and what it meant for the Lord of the Sky.

“What do you mean?” he asked, spreading his arms. “I’m, like, right here, dude.”

“That word, ‘dude.’ What does it mean?”

“Uh, I guess it means….someone, like indicating their name without saying it.”

“Well, I am certainly a dude who is very interested in your costume,” he said quietly. “In just two seconds, we got here, and in that amount of time, any human would have disintegrated.”

One point seven seconds, but who’s counting? “It’s just a really special—”

Zeus appeared in front of him, the gust so strong that it nearly blew Ben backward. “And now you don’t even budge. I know you don’t possess any powers, Benjamin. You’re a Normal.”

“Just a really talented guy, sir.”

“That costume is living,” he said, looking down at Ben’s symbol. “It’s a creature.”

“It’s…just really talented fabric?”

Silence, the kind that lasted far too long for someone like Ben to stomach. The wind swept his hair over his eyes, the messy brown frock far too frantic compared to Zeus’ very stiff hair.

Then Zeus smiled and patted his shoulder. “Would you like to kill me, Benjamin?”

Stiff as a board, he said, “No, sir, not at all. I’m sure it’ll be some federal crime, anyway.”

He tilted his head, inclining it toward Ben. “You never said you couldn’t.”

Ben swallowed, pulling saliva down a dry throat. “I just believe in myself a lot.”

“Do you, now?” Zeus said, his voice like gravel.

“Yes, sir,” he said, standing a little straighter, leveling his voice. “Shrike taught me that.”

“Lucas, yes,” he muttered. “A plan for a plan wrapped in a contingency. Tell me, do you have a protocol for, say, my death if I took part in a planetary-wide spree of violence perhaps?”

“That’s a very specific protocol to have, sir,” he said, but yes—yes they did.

“Good.”

…good?

“Would you want to be more than just a sidekick, Benjamin?” he asked, and the speech about greatness, about aspiring for more (he knew it all; his other sidekick friends had told him all about it) got cut off when Ben shook his head. “Ah…Well, I suppose you’re comfortable now?”

“Yep,” he said, taking two steps backward and onto the skyscraper’s ledge. The hardness in Zeus’ voice had vanished, and so had the blood stain on his cape—possible because of the heat he was radiating right now. “Look, this was really fun and all, sir, but I’ve got a date to catch soon.”

“It really was a pleasant conversation,” he said. “Broke the ice, as you say all seem to enjoy saying so much. I could offer you help in getting to this date of yours, considering I stole you.”

Ben smiled as the mask rushed down his face, then he somersaulted off the ledge.

Zeus flew upward, just in time to catch the boy soaring through the sky and darting into the night, webbing underneath his arms aiding his glide through the illuminated streets below. What an odd boy, he thought. Then again, almost every human on this planet was odd in their own right. But this one was…different. Special. Lucas had hidden him from the rest of the team for as long as he could possibly have managed, but Zeus eventually knew everything. There had been rumors, yes, of a boy by his side—yet another boy by his side in just the past few years. The previous one had unfortunately succumbed to the wounds of being gutted by Bloodforge for his organs. A tragedy, but Bloodforge would have been mopped up (as the humans say) off the floor if Ares hadn’t found him before Lucas. This boy, however, was nothing like the previous one. Better, if he would say.

A boy who would be willing to kill Zeus himself. He could see it in Benjamin’s eyes. A hard set determination, a line that should not be crossed. Murder. He could do it if pushed, no questions or queries or moments of hesitation. That boy could slay a god without wondering if his sword was sharp enough or if he had enough courage. What a boy that Lucas had found himself.

It was just a shame his own daughter lacked that same look in her eyes.

“Interesting what the shadows in this city can birth,” a whisper of a voice said.

For a moment, he thought Cleo had appeared by his side, but she was currently busy in South America. “Clementine,” he muttered. “A pleasure as always. What’s so interesting?”

A girl in her early twenties walked out from the darkness and stood beside him, her short burst of blood-red hair luscious and fruitful in the wind, as if she was making it so on purpose. “Nothing in particular,” she said, her black dress billowing. “Just a boy who will change fate.”

“For the better or worse?” Zeus asked, glancing at her.

“Time will tell, sir,” she muttered. Her solid black eyes looked upward at him, feeling as if his very soul was being stared at. “Let’s hope we come to see it. However, I came for you, sir.”

“Another emergency to attend to, I’m guessing?”

She shook her head. “My team, we wish to access the Olympian’s bank account.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For what reason?”

“Dominion wishes to buy pizza.”

Humans, so very odd—especially the young ones.

Zeus waved his hand. “Go on. I’ll be taking leave for the night, so make sure the rest of the Young Olympians are on standby. We don’t want any other internal incidents again, do we?”

“Noted, sir,” she said, those eyes, those rouge lips, so passively cold. “May I ask why?”

“Why I’m taking my leave so early?” Clementine nodded. Zeus smiled and began to hover slightly above her. “It’s my anniversary, and being late is something I am physically incapable of being.”

“Enjoy your night, sir,” Clementine said quietly. “Say hello to Rylee for me.”

Summarized transcript concluded. The categorized events of the month and year [REDACTED] can be accessed if specified with reason. Names, both realized and hidden, must remain private.

Both Benjamin Ross and Zeus have been classified as deceased.