SPRINTING, I GO THE WAY I WENT TO ESCAPE BOREAS. AFTER A FEW ALLEYWAYS, AND A LOT OF SHOUTING FOLLOWING ME, I SLAMMED INTO HIS CHEST.

“H-A!” I stuttered, “Run!”

Both he and I immediately started running again.

“I thought you weren’t a villain!” Boreas asked, voice loud as we ran, him pulling me along.

“They’re trying to take me to therapy because I have no sense of danger! Also I guess no one knew who I was for like ever!” I answered as I turned down an alley sharply, dragging him after a small moment of oomph, “If you want to split up, they’re after me.”

“N-no way, I’m not going to let you be taken by the H A,” Boreas gasped.

“They can’t keep me, I’m a civilian, and I live under those laws,” I managed to huff out, legs pumping.

The next alleyway, Boreas split off from me, and I continued running. Making it to a dead end, I glanced behind me to see it empty. Hiding behind a green trash bin, I put a hand over my mouth as I breathe heavily, trying to silence my breath.

After a long, quiet moment, I heard singular footsteps. Based on the stride, I recognized them as Savant’s. Remaining quiet as I hid, several minutes pass. Tense moments passed, my heart rate slowing as I breathe quietly.

A loud ring gave away my position, and I cursed at my phone, having a black heart as the contact that was calling, getting to my feet and scrambling to run, only to have his black gun leveled at my head. I look at it, then at Savant. He wasn’t even out of breath as his sharp gaze bored into me. I watched in aggravation as he hung up the call, my phone going silent.

“Why Can’t We Be Friends? War?” He asked, and I frowned.

“Didn’t the Beatles sing that?”

Savant looked pained, lips thinning, “Smash Mouth did, but War created it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Anyway. It was either “Where is the Love?” or “Why Can’t We Be Friends” so like, I figured you’d not embarrass me by refusing or rejecting me if I had the latter instead of the former.”

“Do you over think everything?”

I gave him an affronted look, “We’re two peas in a pod. You ask a lot of questions, I ask a lot of questions. You’re logical, I’m pseudo-logical. You’re smart, people think I’m smart.”

“Right, and we were good friends because of it, Punt. Now you’re on a villainy watch-list as Quantify and I’m here to take you in.”

I gave him a hurt look, not paying any attention to what he said after we were good friends, “Were?”

“You vanished. Four years ago,” Savant said, deep voice sounding tense. Flat. Angry. He was also giving me an angry look, for him. Eyebrows slightly furrowed down and lips with the barest of edges turned down, the hard look was difficult to ignore.

I swallowed, “I-I got kicked out. I was homeless, and I needed to get quick cash, so I did a night-time job until I could—”

“We have each others’ numbers. You could have told me.”

“You stopped answering. I was gone a week and you stopped answering,” I argued, giving him a look.

“You promised.”

“Life happens. I can’t plan seven steps ahead like you can.”

“You didn’t even plan two steps ahead. You will come with me and answer questions for the Hero Association, or I will shoot you and you’ll be dragged there.”

“I’m a civilian.”

“You stopped being a civilian the moment you started helping the villains.”

I gave him a bewildered look, “What? I don’t help any supers, let alone any villains!”

“You think the villains you calculate don’t watch your videos?”

“I had like three subscribers before my Surviving Villainy channel blew up,” I deadpanned, “No one watched my videos. My subscribers were all bot accounts. By the time anyone saw my videos, I was already finished doing the villain’s power estimations and theories and moved onto doing the heroes. My videos weren’t to help, they were just what I’d observed. They were so I could reference them when I argued with idiots online who thought Pyro would be able to beat Boreas of all people, or whether you would be able to defeat Poison or not.”

I frowned further, “I created the channel because of you, Savant. I don’t—why would I actively help…?” I shook my head roughly, eyebrows creased heavily, “I, I just don’t understand.”

Savant’s frown increased, now visible to the unobservant eye, if barely, and his gun lowered, though he didn’t holster it within his blood-soaked but fitted suit, tie loose and ragged around his neck, “Then you should have no problems answering questions for the Hero Association, Punt. Let’s go.”

I looked up at the thin, lean man, giving him a sad look.

“Why do you always do that? Even when you said you were my best friend, you, you always choose the H A over me. I… I honestly didn’t tell you for that week because I didn’t believe you even cared. When I texted to ask where you were and you didn’t respond, I just… Thought I was proven right.”

Savant shook his head, stepping forward and grabbing my arm, leading me with him silently. I remain silent, too, as I look at the ground. Whatever. I didn’t need Savant. We were kindred spirits, but that didn’t mean we had to get along.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any other friends.

That my only solace was probably going to be taken away by the H A.

My thoughts are static for a long time, no words forthcoming for seconds of long, quiet, emptiness. A small, quiet line of thought that I’d hoped had died spoke up for the first time in years.

Why wasn’t I worthy enough to have powers?

Why didn’t I get chosen by an elemental?

Why didn’t any being or concept think of me as enough?

Why wasn’t I ever enough?

My eyes unfocused even as I stared at the passing ground beneath my feet. The way my feet move. The way the ground looks like a treadmill moving by if my head is bowed enough. If my shoulders are slumped enough. If I’m curled into myself, enough.

Maybe I should move.

Take some random fully paid scholarship from one of the various colleges, and vanish. Stop making videos. Stop disappointing everyone I meet. Work towards some useless, empty lifestyle like everyone else had.

No ambitions.

No interests.

No ideas.

Just work. Sleep. Taking care of myself and the area I lived in. Get promoted, hopefully. Rinse, repeat. For the rest of my boring, normal, average life. Maybe one day life comfortably enough to go out and explore the world.

Go to Paris, alone.

Go to Tokyo, alone.

Go to London.

Yes. That sounded… Like my life. My future. I should—No. I will give up on everything. I would be fine, and eventually, maybe someone would like me. My mind stuttered at the thoughts. My legs stopped moving, knees giving out as I set my new path into my predicted future.

Right.

I didn’t notice how my breath stuttered. How I stopped breathing.

I’d be fine. My future was set. I’d live a productive, boring life. In a productive, boring world. I’d avoid villains. Heroes. Criminals.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

My vision started fading.

I’d just shut off all of my internal systems that required me to do what I do. That required me to have a dream. Hopes. Loves. Interests.

Normal people didn’t have those.

Maybe if I was normal, Savant would lo—

My vision returned, and I realized I was sprawled. As everything returned, I made a noise of pain, a hand reaching up and feeling my jaw. My breathing turned jagged, jerking my body as tears filled my eyes.

That would never happen. I didn’t want to give up what I did. I refused.

“Stop,” Savant snapped, shaking me roughly by the shoulders. A headache I didn’t realize I’d had pounded, and my teary gaze met his concerned one, “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. Christ, do you have to over-think everything? I’m taking you in for questioning. They won’t—They won’t force you to do anything. They won’t make you do anything, they won’t torture you, or prevent you from living your life the way you want to. So just stop. I don’t know how or why you’re able to just shut off your breathing without noticing, but stop doing that. You’re going to get yourself killed, Punt.”

“I don’t want to stop making videos,” I managed, my emerald-forest green eyes meeting his silver ones again, not knowing when I looked away, “I, I like what I do. I make dumb reports as a barely-paid intern, I get caught up in stupid fights where people with awesome powers wreak havoc, and-and I theorize and query and speculate on, on powers. Villain powers, hero powers, neutra powers. On the people themselves. I love what I do. I, I, I don’t understand why you hate me because I love, because I love theorizing.”

Savant sighed heavily, “I can’t promise your wishes will be well-received, but I know that the HA wouldn’t force you to stop, especially since, as far as I’m aware, that’s how you make your living.”

I frowned, “Not really. Not many people really donate, or anything, and most of my money I get from it is put towards it, because that’s what my viewers want. Better content.”

Savant sighed, shaking his head, “The details don’t matter. Let’s go to the HA, clear up the fact that you aren’t a villain, and then you can go back to theorizing about heroes, neutras, and villains.”

Standing up, one hand still on my throbbing face, I unsteadily walk. It’s quiet as we walk, but this time I don’t shut down in my panic, thinking about Boreas. He was much cuter up close, but he also was a blood-soaked evil dude. Not that I really cared about either. His powers were what I cared about.

Were they temperature-based?

How would he figure that out? Would he even be able to figure out the very base of his powers? What if they were cold-based? Would that be possible? What was the difference between cold-based and temperature-based power, and how could he exploit that to more effectively use his powers?

What if it was water-based?

Would he one day be able to contort people’s very blood? Would he be able to pull people apart by the very liquid keeping them together? Would he be able to dry them out? Dehydrate them? In turn, would he be able to rehydrate them? If they were water-based powers, would he be able to use them to heal people? Prevent them from bleeding out as doctors did surgery on them?

Control the very way their blood flowed?

If that was possible, could he control whether people blushed or not? Whether they were hard or soft? Whether their heart hammered when he was nearby or whether it relaxed to the point of lethargy?

Were his powers stuck as ice, or could he do more with them?

All things I needed to know. I needed to know.

Temperature-based would mean Boreas is a misnomer. He’d be able to boil blood, set anything flammable on fire, melt metals, and also be able to freeze the very air people breathed. Be able to turn the strength of the sun into cold, and create the next ice-age through rapid temperate change, if he could do it in a wide enough area.

Cold-based would mean he could do so much more instead of just ice. Dry ice was much more effective at giving frostbite, after all, with a lower base cold. What about absolute zero? He’d be so much more efficient if he simply lowered someone’s internal body temperature than created ice.

Water-based would be the easiest one to immediately utilize, as the world ran on water, and thus if he had control of it, he’d have control of 70% of all life, if not more. Even rocks had moisture. He’d be able to generate endless power, too, I supposed, if he really, really wanted to create a business where he’d work every day to make millions every day.

Was there any other things it could be based on? What if it was truly only control of ice?

Even then, he was using them way wrong, though I honestly didn’t have enough information to go off of.

Did he need to make the ice out of water? Did he have to form the ice outside of someone, or could he do it inside of someone? Could he freeze a heart without looking? Could he sense heat as well as cold?

“What are you thinking about?” Savant asked, interrupting me. I frowned at him. Interrupting my thoughts? My theories? How… crude.

“Boreas has three different ways he could use his powers, depending. Well, four, but… Eh. Three good ones. He could either boil blood and create absolute zero, blood-bend and kill through dehydrating people, or, well, you know. Freeze the very air people breathed, or just… you know. Freeze the ocean.”

“The ocean has salt in it.”

“It will take a lot more cold, but salt doesn’t prevent freezing, it just increases the temperature required to freeze it.”

“Decreases.”

“No, increases what is required. What is required is low temperatures, so it increases the low temperatures.”

“Thus decreasing the temperature.”

“But not decreasing the temperature required,” I argued.

Savant and I argue this the whole way back, neither taking much notice of our surroundings until two pale hands connected to a thin, tall man slam our heads together.

“Ow, what was that for?” We ask in unison, turning to see a man in a dark blue pinstriped suit with a metallic cobalt blue tie.

He was very blue. Blue, wild hair that was a mane around him, probably having the capacity to reach his shoulders without actually doing so. He had brown eyes, though, the only thing on him that wasn’t blue, aside from the iPad he was holding, his skin, and the shoes he was wearing. His socks were even a dark, dark blue.

“Hello, Savant. Quantify. I see you two are well acquainted,” The man spoke dryly, leaning against the wall of the van. The seats were cushioned and comfortable, we were not in an HA imprisoning van, “My name is Lawrence. I will, from here on out, be Quantify’s liaison.”

“Okay, but when did we get in a van?” I asked Savant, totally ignoring Lawrence. Savant frowned, looking around.

“I… don’t know,” He admitted.

“…” We stared at each other with exasperation, “You’re the one with mind-powers.”

“You convinced over half a million people that you have powers. People don’t even think I do,” Savant argued.

“A supposed savant, how can you be smart if you don’t even notice where we are?”

“Your neutra name is Quantify, why didn’t you notice when we’d arrived? You expect the world from me.”

“You have powers. I have as many powers as I did when I was Punt.”

“Powers aren’t everything!”

“Ahem!” Lawrence interrupted, raising his dark blue eyebrows at us when we both glared at him, “If you two would stop bickering?”

“Arguing,” I corrected.

“Debating,” Savant re-corrected.

“Arguing.”

“Debating.”

“Arguing.”

“ENOUGH!”

Savant and I didn’t even glance at Lawrence, frowning at each other.

In unison, we spoke, “You’ve changed.”

“What happened to you?” We said.

“You were so much better four years ago.” We frowned at each other after our third sentence.

“Why are you repeating my words?”

“Stop it.”

“No, you stop it.”

“Both of you, stop,” Lawrence tried.

We turned to him, “He’s copying my words!” I said at the same time Savant spoke.

“She’s repeating what I’m saying!” He cried.

Then we turned towards each other with a scowl.

“Stop it.”

“Stop it.”

“Seriously?” I asked after covering his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he glared at me. My eyes narrowed right back.

“I have… two tranquilizers. I also have a gas to neutralize both of you, if you somehow evade my sedation. I didn’t realize why I was given them, when you two got in, but I’m starting to,” Lawrence stated, voice flat.

I gave Lawrence an innocent look. Savant roughly shoved my hand away from him, crossing his arms with a harrumph as he remained silent.

His words made me frown, and I spoke, “We weren’t like this, four years ago.”

Savant nodded once, humming as he agreed, “We were inseparable.”

“Never argued,” I agreed.

“Not even once.”

“We were besties.”

“Partners in crime.”

“Of course, back then he was better than I was.”

“Still am. You’re the one who changed.”

“Says you, you’ve changed to be unrecognizable!”

Suddenly a video started playing, and Savant and I glanced over to see… Us. I was obviously much younger and in a bad vigilante costume, and Savant had a more youthful look as well, as we argued over whether adaptable meant easy to change to new environments versus easy to get used to new environments. I was the latter, and I was glad to say I was the one in the right, then. I didn’t remember it happening, but I was right, so it was easy enough for me to accept.

“… I don’t remember that,” Savant refuted.

“Salty because I was right?”

“No. Not salty, because it never happened. Our friendship was perfect, four years ago. We never argued.”

“Don’t,” Lawrence said, voice genuinely sounding venomous, interrupting me as my mouth opened. He glared at me until I closed it, then finished his sentence, “Start. Savant,” Savant, looking like a non-pinstriped, Asian, black-suited version of Lawrence without glasses and with much shorter black hair, looked to his thin-not-lean kind-of-copy, “You are a professional Hero with powers regarding the mind. You are also eight years Quantify’s senior. Act like it.”

I grinned at Savant. Ha, bastard. Get told off like a kid. Immature idiot.

“Quantify,” Lawrence said, and Savant’s glare at me turned into a smirk as my head snapped to look Lawrence in the eye, “You are an adult, as much as it pains me to say that. You are widely regarded by 500 thousand people to be a logical, intellectually mature person. How would they react if they saw you arguing like an elementary-schooler with your supposed best friend?”

“We aren’t friends,” Savant and I insisted in unison. Immediately my hand was wrenching him by the hair as he shoved his silver gun against the bottom of my chin, both of us snarling at each other, glaring, “Stop copying me!”

Lawrence sighed. Before either of us could react, we watched as the other got drugged, feeling a pinprick in our necks. Our eyes widened as we stared at each other. Vision starting to wobble around oddly, we observed each other with intense drowsiness. Savant fell. I barked out a laugh.

“Ha, I’m better at withstanding…” I managed before I, too, fell off of the bench, unconscious.