“And they do that sort of thing after every patrol?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

Carol didn’t even bother looking up towards me. “Quite likely. If it's a quiet patrol I’m certain it takes less time, but the PRT certainly loves its paperwork.” She meaningfully indicated the terrifying piles of papers scattered across the table.

I groaned and let my head fall to smack soundly against the table in front of me. Going out on patrol with Velocity and Triumph had been pretty great. We’d wandered around, chatted, and then ended things with a nice easy fight––just enough to get the blood humming, but not really a challenge.

I’d thought that would be the end of things. I’d done my best to follow the lead of the Protectorate heroes with me and what I knew of their organization. Instead of turning them into red smears I had barely hurt any of the three supervillains we’d apprehended, even catching Rune after I knocked her off her floaty manhole cover and making sure she didn’t break anything hitting the ground..

And wasn’t that a doozy! I, Percy Jackson, was a real superhero now! I’d gone out and beat up three supervillains, nazi supervillains even! The mere idea of it brought a grin to my face, even if I’d never really cared about all those comic books and movies my classmates often talked about.

But no. That hadn’t been the end of things at all. No, after that fun distraction came the much, much less fun followup. Debriefing I could do. I’d done a bunch of it over the past few years every time I came back to camp, though we didn’t really call it that. But the paperwork. The paperwork.

Oh Hades, I’d had to fill out like, thirty different forms and write down everything about the fight. It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. I’d rather hold up the sky again than spend another minute behind that green plastic abomination of a desk.

I groaned again, louder this time, and turned my head towards Carol. “So, purely out of curiosity, is New Wave looking for any new members?”

Carol hummed softly and tapped her pen against the table. “I think that is something to discuss after we finish here.”

“And that is going to be…when?” I asked hopefully. I didn’t mean for it to come out as a whine, but it really did.

Carol graced me with a small smile. “Soon. This is the last of it. The PRT is offering to provide you some temporary housing but that sort of thing takes a few days to set up, so it's best to get everything moving as soon as possible.”

I definitely remembered her saying something about that right after I’d come back from the patrol. I think I’d agreed with her at the time, but the paperwork monster had completely wiped that from my short term memories. “You’re probably right.” I sighed heavily, remembering that I hadn’t actually paid Carol anything yet and that she was working on the weekend to help me. “Thanks Mrs. Dallon. I really, really appreciate all of your help.”

Carol nodded sharply. “I’m happy to help a new hero get on their feet. You did a good thing today. Because of you there are three less villains on the street to endanger the people of Brockton Bay. Now, I do believe we are just about done. I’ll need you to sign here, here, here, here…”

I picked up a pen, my hand already dreading the coming torture. If not for the Curse of Achilles, I probably would have worn a furrow into my purlicue by now. I could do this. I could do this. Oh Hades, I could do this.

I did manage it. Eventually. Carol really was a godsend. For all that Crystal had told me that her aunt was a bit abrasive and uptight, and she really was, I was very glad to have someone like her with me to face this enemy.

An hour later I was finally free of it all. The PRT offered me a room in their building for the night, but I much preferred Crystal’s offer to stay with her family and the PRT seemed fine with me leaving so that was good. From there, Vicky and Crystal both independently invited me over for dinner and one thing led to another and I eventually ended up here, sitting at the Dallon’s dining room table with the entirety of New Wave.

“And then I picked up the telephone pole Hookwolf knocked over and smacked him clean across the street into Menja’s ankle! So then she trips, flails around, and boom! You should have seen the look on her face when she accidentally punted him right into the bay!”

Vicky, Eric, Crystal, and I all laughed as Neil Pelham, Crystal’s dad, finished his story. Neil, Manpower when he was in costume, was a massive, well built man. I was pretty tall for a guy my age, but Neil absolutely towered over me at a colossal seven-feet. It wasn’t often I had to look up at someone who wasn’t half-horse or a god. He also had a great sense of humor and could cook a mean steak.

Sarah Pelham––Lady Photon in costume, Neil’s wife and the leader of New Wave––sighed in amused exasperation and gently patted her husband’s shoulder, though she had to reach up quite a distance to reach it. “Fenja, love, it was Fenja. I’ve told you a thousand times and it seems I’ll have to tell you a thousand more before you remember.”

Neil laughed boisterously and leaned down to peck his wife on the cheek. “Of course, Fenja, how could I forget!”

I looked away for a moment and my eyes met Crystal’s, who was sitting beside me. She smiled at me and rolled her eyes, shrugging slightly at her parent’s antics. I smiled and shrugged back. They seemed quite happy together––I was glad they’d found each other. Too many marriages I’d seen looked like the one between Zeus and Hera and, for a goddess of marriage, Hera’s was not a very happy one.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“So Percy!” Neil boomed, and I turned back to look at him. “I hear you’re interested in joining New Wave! It's been many years since we’ve added a new member, outside of our children of course. Why the interest?”

I floundered for a moment. “Uh, I guess it just seems like a good option, you know? I’m new around here and Vicky and Crystal, and Mrs. Dallon, of course, have been a huge help to me. I’m a hero, it's what I’ve been doing and training for my whole life, but I don’t know if I’ll really fit with the Protectorate very well and you guys, well, you guys do some good work! I did some research before reaching out and the area around here is one of the safest in the city. Plus there’s all the patrols you do, Amy’s healing, and it's not like you don’t also coordinate with the PRT so I don’t think I’ll be missing out on much from that angle.”

“Those are all reasonable points,” Sarah told me with a smile, her voice at a much more reasonable volume than her husband’s constant half-yelling. “But are you not worried about some of the issues that come with being a member of our movement? We may have stalled out some years ago, but my family still strongly believes in the accountability of capes. We’d need you to unmask if you do end up joining.”

I shrugged. “Honestly the whole mask thing you guys do here doesn’t really make that much sense to me. I didn’t grow up with it and I’ve never bothered to hide my face back home. Basically everyone knew who I was and what I looked like.

“And anyway, it's not like there is a huge difference between me having a secret identity and not having one. Officially Percy Jackson didn’t exist here until like, a few hours ago. He doesn’t have any friends or family that could be in danger. And I guess I’m just not too worried about people going after me either––I’m just as invulnerable in my pj’s as I am in my armor.”

That prompted another round of laughs, and even Mark Dallon, who was sitting silently on one side of the table poking a lone brussel sprout around his plate, cracked a smile.

“True enough. But you know Percy, New Wave is a family team! You seem like a fine young man. You know my daugh––” he cut off when a blast of red lasers from Crystal smacked him in the chin, rocking his head back but not leaving any visible signs of damage.

“Dad!” she exclaimed loudly, her cheeks almost matching her lasers in color.

“No powers at the dinner table,” Carol snapped, but there was no real heat in her words and there was a hint of a smile on her face.

Eric, who was sitting on Crystal’s other side, cackled widely and Crystal spun around in her chair to scowl at him too. “Eric! Don’t think I won’t blast you too!”

“You wouldn’t!” he called out between peels of laughter.

A nimbus of red light appeared around Crystal’s upraised hand and a moment later a bright-blue forcefield appeared between the two of them.

“Eric!” Carol said sharply, and the boy pouted dramatically but stopped laughing and dropped the shield.

Neil turned to me and cupped one hand in front of his mouth. Then, in a whisper that was closer in volume to a smaller man’s yelling than any actual whisper said, “I guess that team tradition is going to have to wait. Crystal––”

He fell silent as his wife placed a hand gently on his arm. “You’re embarrassing her,” Sarah said softly.

Neil pouted, the expression looking completely out of place on his massive frame. A moment later it vanished. “Fine, fine. Well, who's ready for dessert? I picked up a cheesecake on the way home!”

“From Miller’s?” Crystal asked in excitement, any trace of anger at her father vanishing in a fraction of a second.

“Of course! Where else?” Then he reached across the entire table and ruffled Crystal’s hair. “I know it's your favorite.” While she was distracted he turned to me, wiggled his eyebrows, and very deliberately jerked his head towards his daughter.

I nodded slowly and he grinned at me. I could be oblivious at times, but I was pretty sure I could see what he was going for, even if I wasn’t sure why he was doing it.

As I got up to help everyone clear the table, Vicky elbowed me in the side. “You know, I usually go patrol in the afternoon after I’m done with classes. You should join me tomorrow!”

“You won’t make me fill out a post-patrol report, right?” I checked.

Vicky laughed, “Nothing like that! Though even us independents sometimes have to deal with some forms, especially if we want to hand off any captured villains to the PRT. But you don’t have to do most of it if you don’t want to.”

“That’s just the two-page one, ten-seven-fifty-three or something?”

“Uh, something like that? I think it might be ninety-three? It takes like, ten minutes max, and only one person needs to fill it out even if a bunch of people are part of the action.”

“Oh thank Poseidon,” I mumbled dramatically.

Crystal appeared beside me a moment later. “Percy, do you want anything to drink with dessert? Mom’s making tea but they have a bunch of other drinks down in the basement.”

“Anything blue?” I asked hopefully. There had been a tragic lack of anything blue with dinner.

That seemed to stump her for a moment and she turned to Vicky questioningly.

“I think we still have those Japanese sodas, the ones with the glass balls, somewhere? There were a couple of blue ones in the box.” Vicky looked around, then called out to her sister who looked poised to slip out of the dining room. “Amy, do we still have any of those clicky sodas in the basement?”

“The ramune ones?”

“Yeah, what you said.”

“We should.”

“Could you grab Percy a blue one please?”

Amy’s eyes flickered between me and Vicky, who was standing very close to me. Then she frowned, nodded, and disappeared through the doorway.

“So Percy,” Vicky began loudly, “when we go on our patrol tomorrow, do you want to stop by the boardwalk with me? That cafe we met outside of smelled really good, but I’ve never been.”

“Buns 'n' Roses, you mean? Yeah sure, they have some great food!”

There was a loud clatter as Crystal set the pile of plates she’d been carrying down on the table. “Percy, I was meaning to ask. I don’t have any classes at BBU until the evening tomorrow. I’d love to show you around the city a little. Brockton has its problems, but there are some real gems hidden around the city.”

“That would be great as long as it's not too much trouble and we make it back before Vicky heads out for her patrol.”

Vicky and Crystal scowled at one another and Eric, who was still sitting down in his seat and staring at his cellphone, began to cackle again. I just felt slightly confused. At least the cheesecake was good. And I got to try another blue soda I’d never had before! That was two in a single day!