~~~

If Gerald were to tell any of his men that he and Matilda were alone in a dark conference room, he’d probably get a few wolf whistles. However, this meeting was strictly business. Not that it could ever be anything else with Matilda. Just as he’d told Arthur yesterday, it hadn’t even taken a day for Matilda to find out everything there was to know about the little maggot that had stumbled into their plans.

“Joseph Pines. Age 22. Graduated from John Ulik High School at age 18.”

Gerald hummed thoughtfully as the image of a pimple-faced teen was projected on a white screen. The kid had one eye half-closed, and his mouth was twisted in a weird way, like he was fighting back a sneeze.

Oh, driver’s licenses. How is it that they consistently managed to capture a person at their worst?

“He entered PSU through the Erik Blake Scholarship and-”

“Wait, hold on a sec!” Gerald held out his hand. “You are saying our thief is a scholarship student?”

Gerald had dropped out of high school, and the only reason he had a GED was that Arthur, nag that he was, had insisted on it. However, he had heard enough college stories to figure out where this was going. Honor students either flew high or dropped hard after leaving the safety net of high school.

“Was a scholarship student,” Matilda corrected him, narrowing her eyes. Somehow, she could always make the room colder by doing that.

It wasn’t even her power.

“His grades were stellar all through high school, and he was a regular volunteer at a local soup kitchen. The reports from his teachers are glowing. By all accounts, he was a natural choice for the Erik Blake Scholarship. However, his behavior grew erratic during his second semester at PSU. Pines began missing classes. His grades dipped. During his third semester, he was twice suspended for violence. His scholarship was rescinded after that.”

“And now he’s a petty thief. Hardly an inspiring story.”

“It gets worse.”

With a click of a remote, Matilda changed the slide to one showing a picture of a red Audi S8 driving away.

“One of the Squires shadowing Ms. Collins saw Pines getting into this car for his getaway. Searching its license plate through the police database revealed it belongs to this man.”

Another click. Another picture. This time of a man on the younger side of the twenties. He had a big bruise over his eye and an unrepentant grin on his face.

“That’s not an ID picture.”

That was a picture from a police lineup.

“No, it is not,” Matilda agreed. “Meet Brett Graham. Age 25. He has been detained for five suspected counts of possession and drug-dealing. The police suspect Graham of having ties with the Rough Diamonds, a local drug-dealing gang. However, they were unable to find enough evidence to convict Graham at all times.”

Gerald let out a low whistle.

Heroin, cocaine, meth. Those things could ruin the life of a bright-eyed college student who didn’t know any better. Though if Pines had managed to come clean out of Ulik, it was hard to imagine he’d fall prey to those things so easily. Gerald wasn’t a Port Stanley native, but even he knew of that school’s reputation. It was surprising enough someone as bright-eyed as Tim came from there.

“So, what type of drugs are we talking about? Cocaine? Meth?”

“I am not sure.”

That gave Gerald pause, both the admission and what it implied. For all that Morgan had complained about the task being beneath her, she had gone all out to grant them access to the police’s database. She had even offered to give them access to CHEM’s database, but Arthur had declined, saying it’d be too dangerous.

If Matilda hadn’t been able to find out anything, it meant either the police didn’t know or…

“The police are hiding the information?”

“That is one possibility,” Matilda agreed.

“Interesting.” Gerald leaned forward, his elbows coming to rest on his knees. “So we have a local whiz kid. He falls in with the wrong crowd. Picks up a couple of bad habits. Loses his scholarship. Life goes south for him. He needs money. He goes to Waynesville Mall because why not? When that fails, he goes to his old stomping grounds but picks the wrong target.”

“A possibility, but you neglect the important part.”

“Which is?”

“A man with connections to a local drug gang has seen Mr. Lewis in action.”

“It was dark,” Gerald immediately countered. “Pines was either high or going through withdrawal. What are the odds anyone will take him seriously?”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Gerald set his lips in a thin line.

“I still have a squire on him. If I wanted him dead, he’d be dead.”

“I recommend against it.”

“Why?”

Matilda raised an elegant eyebrow. “Are you not interested in seeing what the boy is made of?”

~~~

“What would you do if you had powers?”

Amanda blinked at Tim’s question. The two were at their usual table. It should probably worry her that having lunch together had become so common they now had a usual table, but Amanda preferred to focus on the positives. For example, Tim being on some sort of self-imposed quest to try out every single food item in the food court meant she only had to see him eat frog legs that one time.

“I guess it would depend on what type of power I got.”

“Huh.”

“What?” She asked before taking a bite out of her hamburger.

“I was so sure you were going to answer with something lame that now I feel bad.”

Amanda threw a fry at him. Tim caught it with his teeth and swallowed it like a seal would a fish at an aquarium.

“Eh? Eh?” He grinned. “Was that cool, or was that cool?”

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She rolled her eyes. “Shut up. What I mean is that not all powers are created equal. History has taught us plenty of powers have a high level of utility despite not being useful for combat. Healer types, for example. IF I were to get a power like that, I think I’d be okay with using it publicly.”

Tim stared blankly at her for a couple of seconds.

“...I want to take back my apology because it sounds like you’d only be okay with getting powers if they were the sort that wouldn’t be immediately useful for hero work.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Amanda shrugged. “Heroes are glorified police that spend most of their time dealing with minor crimes except for the times when some other Exceed decides to go crazy.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t the sort of thing that happened often. In the United States, there were only a handful of so-called “Supervillain” attacks a year. While groups like the Raiders and the Circle existed, their appearances tended to provoke an immediate response from the government.

“That’s so not romantic.” Tim groaned and slumped down, letting his cheek touch the table. “What about the fame? The glory? The action? Hell, what about the money?”

“You can get just as much money by being a doctor or a lawyer, and I don’t care for all those other things.”

“You so need an adventure.”

“I like my feet firmly on the ground.”

“Well, of course, you would. I’m guessing that means you wouldn’t be lining up to sign up with CHEM unless you had a power you could make non-fun money out of.”

“Legally, every Exceed is compelled by law to come forward and register.” It was one of those little compromises where people gave away a few liberties for the greater safety of all. Unfair as it may sound, it was important to keep an eye on Exceeds. Even the seemingly harmless ones. “Registering doesn’t mean anything other than registering.”

“So you totally wouldn’t, huh?”

Amanda scoffed. “Not even if you paid me.”

~~~

The seat next to Tim was empty on his way home. Usually, sitting without having to scoot all the way to the side would have been awesome, but Tim had deep thoughts in his head this time.

Oh, who was he kidding?

Having the two seats all to himself was still awesome.

Tim understood there was a need for buses to fit in many passengers, but would it kill the designers to add three inches per seat. That’d be like… twelve extra inches total? Plus some extra? Maybe? He didn’t know how bus construction worked, but he did know he wanted wider seats. They didn’t even need to be cushy, just a little wider. A guy needed room sometimes.

Aaand he was rambling again.

Had his rambling been a defense mechanism all along instead of a quirky charm point?

Nah.

This was… different. New. Tim giggled as he recalled what had happened the other night. It made the guy to his right look at him weird, but bah! What did he know? This was public transportation. He should be used to weirdos by now.

Bus Guy #34 didn’t have powers. Tim did.

Tim giggled again. He’d been doing that all day. Bad as finding out Joey was kind of a complete dickbag had been, realizing he was an Exceed more than made up for it. He was… what? One in a million? Something like that? Tim had never paid the numbers much attention. Some people got powers. Most people didn’t. Some people used them for good. Others decided to be dickbags.

There were also those who didn’t use their powers at all, but they were boring.

Kind of like Amanda, except she threw fries at him, so she was cool.

Anyway, Tim had powers now. That meant he could be a hero. He could actually earn money by saving people and fighting bad guys! That was all the bueno! He just needed to go to the Disk and introduce himself. Sure, CHEM wouldn’t put him in the Supreme right away, but the Yonders were a thing that existed. They were everyone’s favorite teen team in the USA.

Tim was more of a Furious Furies kind of guy, but he could settle.

As the bus came to its next stop, a woman and her baby got in. Tim groaned mentally when he realized the seat next to his was the only empty one. Still, he stood up and waved at her so she’d take the seat.

His stop was just ten minutes away anyway.

He could deal with being near a baby for that long.

~~~~

He couldn’t deal with a baby for that long.

But it was fine. It was all over now. The baby was far away, so Tim could finally focus on what was truly important.

Figuring out his powers.

Tim was doing some light stretches on the roof of his building. He’d thought of doing this in his room, but there wasn’t a lot of space to move around there. Too many potential damages if it turned out he was a blasting-type or whatever.

A knife had broken against his skin the other night. Cool as that had been, it wasn’t necessarily his Exceed power. All Exceeds had boosted physical attributes by default. It was their thing. It was part of the reason why Steadfast had made such a big impact during the Great War. It wasn’t just because he had been a flying guy. He’d been a flying guy who was immune to most infantry weapons. Tim may have slept through many history classes, but even he knew that much.

There was no way he was going to show up at The Disk without even knowing what his power was. That wouldn’t make an impression. He needed to figure it out first, train a bit, get some experience under his belt and stuff.

It was like resume-building!

Tim took a deep breath as he readied himself, lightly bouncing on the soles of his feet. He was wearing an old tracksuit and had one of his mom’s scarves wrapped around his face and secured with duct tape. Not exactly dressed to impress, but tonight wasn’t about impressing anyone. It was about figuring out what he could do, and Tim had the perfect way to get started.

Three yards.

That was how big the gap between his building and the next one was, far from an unreasonable distance. Tim had been tempted to make the jump several times over the years, but each time, that silly common sense thing stopped him.

Well, common sense didn’t get a vote now! He was super.

With a totally manly yell, Tim rushed to the edge and jumped. For one terrifying second, there was nothing below him but a four-story drop.

The second passed.

A gleeful cry left his mouth as he landed on the next roof. He stumbled, but not enough to break his stride. Tim quickly found his footing and kept going. This time, it was a five-yard jump that separated him from the next building.

He made that one too.

Tim’s laughter grew louder, his steps bolder. Tim ran and ran, with the wind fluttering against his scarf, jumping from one building to the next, and all he felt was that he could go faster. The rooftops of Petersburg had suddenly become the world’s largest hopscotch field, and Tim was the only one playing. Joyful laughter ran through the rooftops as the young lad became the wind.

No wonder he had no trouble moving all that stuff at Regum!

More than a few people probably heard him, but who cared? It was nighttime, and his face was covered. Tim whooped and cheered as he kept running.

Tim’s mom had drilled him on which parts of Petersburg were safe and which ones he should avoid. However, that only went for the old, powerless Tim.

New Tim needed to go there.

Couldn’t be a hero if you didn’t fight crime and all that. Tim couldn’t just show up at the Disk and tell them he was really good at parkour. No way. It’d look more impressive if he showed up with some bad guy fighting experience under his belt.

It said something about the bad side of Perterburg that it didn’t take Tim long to find a crime in progress. A scream cut through the night. Tim zeroed in on it with blinding speed. Down below, a man was making off with a woman’s purse held in his hands. Not stopping to consider his night vision was surprisingly good, Tim sprung into action.

He jumped.

It was a four-story drop, yet it barely tickled.

The thief tried to move out of the way as Tim suddenly appeared in his path, but it was too late. Even though Tim was far smaller than the thief, it was the thief who was thrown to the ground by the collision. Tim barely felt it.

Hesitating only a little, Tim kicked the thief a couple of times and snatched the purse from his hands before sending him off running.

It was a brief scuffle, short and uneventful, barely worth mentioning. However, it was the first crime Tim stopped, so it was automatically bueno.

“Here’s your purse, ma’am. No need to thank me,” Tim said, handing the purse back to the surprised woman. Not giving her a chance to reply, Tim dashed to the nearest fire escape and took to the rooftops once more.

Crime had one answer that night, and that answer was Tim, Real Hero Name Pending. Tim figured it was best to wait until he knew what his powers were before settling on one.

Three hours later, five crimes stopped, and seven bad guys beat, Tim was returning home with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. He’d taken off the scarf (it had started to itch) and was walking along the sidewalk. A satisfying warmth had spread through his body like a glass of warm milk.

It felt like he’d come back from an adventure.

Naturally, it was at that moment that a couple of guys came up from behind him, put a rag full of chloroform over his mouth, and dragged him into a van.

~~~