I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually gone clothes shopping. If I had to guess, it was probably around Christmas. Mom would usually take me out shopping and she’d end up buying far too many clothes for me.
I had never gone with a friend —even Lucy— before. It didn’t matter all that much to me but I had to admit, it was quite the experience so far.
“These are nice,” Sam said, removing a few shirts from the rack. I watched quietly as she panned through them with a sort of excitement that didn’t entirely make me feel safe. The shirts she had picked out weren’t exactly bad, they just weren’t my preference. “What do you think?”
I pursed my lips and tried to think of a good way to tell her no. “I think they’re—”
“Aw, you hate them,” Sam pouted, placing them back on the rack. “I thought this would be easy. I was convinced I had your style nailed.”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t really have a style, Sam.”
“Bah, sure you do, we just haven’t found it yet. Don’t despair Max, we’ll get there eventually,” she replied, taking my hand and pulling me further into the men’s clothing section. All around us, her friends and their partners were browsing, quietly discussing amongst themselves. “I was thinking we could be matching… sorta. Style and color ya know?”
“Matching…?” I gave a tired sigh. “Is that really necessary? I think you might be having way too much fun with this.”
“You’re damn right I am,” she smirked. “It’s rare I get to cut loose like this. Even rarer that I get to do it with someone I actually like.”
Whether she meant it one way or another didn’t matter, I still flushed at the way she said it.
“I suppose it could be worse.”
“Oi,” Sam playfully jabbed me in the ribs. “Don’t make me hand the reins over to Pink. She’s ranting about how I should force you into skirts and blouses for not playing nice.”
“How terrifying,” I drawled, not threatened in the slightest. “This stuff seems nice.”
“You think?”
She pulled the clothes off the rack and we both had a look at them. It was mostly plain with some subtle designs. I didn’t like the idea of wearing anything too flashy, so this was right up my alley. Sam, however, was looking between me and the clothes with a critical eye.
“Hm… I’m not so sure.”
“I can go try it on.”
She shrugged and we began to move toward the changing rooms. On the way, I bumped into Nikki on the way to the changing rooms. I knocked some things out of her hand by accident and the stuff fell harmlessly to the floor.
“Oh! My bad,” she laughed. “Should have watched where I was going.”
“Oh, no worries. I wasn’t paying attention either.”
I helped her pick up her stuff before going our separate ways. I didn’t miss the way her boyfriend’s gaze seemed to linger on me as he strolled passed, his hands buried deep in his pockets. I watched them disappear into another aisle, my mind going with them.
Seraphim…
It’s strange to think that anyone you pass on the street could either be a bastion of humanity or one of its darkest monsters. Here we were, out and about, having a good time, when in reality we were on opposite sides.
Abby had never gone into detail about her co-heroes in training, both out of respect for their privacy and because it was against the law. I was always a little curious about what their lives were like, away from the instant recognition and constant hounding that Abby ‘enjoyed’.
In the half-hour that had passed, we had visited a few shops and browsed. Sam kept to my side, only engaging in conversation when questioned and observing the rest of the time. Nikki was more talkative and eager to get along with the others, but her boyfriend was the polar opposite. I got a distant vibe from him and it made me uneasy. All the other guys were starting to get along, even trying to include me in some of their conversations, but they all gave Nikki’s partner a wide berth.
It was obvious; he didn’t want to be here and he didn’t bother to hide it. It was probably why nobody made a real effort to include him and let Nikki do all the talking. I couldn’t quite get over it. The two just didn’t seem like they fit and I found myself eyeing the junior hero with more scrutiny.
Did she force him to come along? Was she using her powers to influence him in some way? Maybe it was my own bias but there was something about Nikki that rubbed me the wrong way.
“Ease up,” Sam whispered, nudging me. She shoved the clothes we had picked out into my arms. “You stare at her any harder and it’s going to get awkward.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
“It is easy,” Sam shot back, doing her best to keep her voice low so our conversation couldn’t be overheard. “What’s got you so anxious?”
“You never thought to mention beforehand that we were going to meet a Rookie? That’s pretty important information.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, it’s hardly important. What exactly does it change? Just be friendly and don’t act weird, it’s not hard dude.”
“You know how I feel about the ECU. Hanging around one in public like this… well, it feels like I’m asking for trouble at this point,” I explained. “Especially one as powerful as her. If you’re able to figure out her identity, who else has? They could look into her friends and figure us out.”
Sam blinked, staring at me like I had completely lost my mind. With a grumble, she grasped my jacket and guided me away from the group before pushing me into a changing room. She took one look around to make sure nobody was watching before stepping in and locking the door behind her.
“First of all, what?” She laughed. “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re friends with Comet and hang out with her at school, anyone curious about the rookies would have already looked at you. Second, unless you forgot, Comet is also ECU, how is a day out with Seraphim any different?”
“Abby’s different.”
“Oh! Is she?” Sam drawled, not looking convinced in the slightest. “Enlighten me.”
“It’s comp–”
“No it fucking isn’t,” she cut me off. “Talk, and make it quick. We spend too long away and they’ll think I’m blowing you or something.”
I flushed at the mental image but banished it from my mind to focus.
“I knew Abby way before she got powers. We… we have history,” I fumbled a bit, trying to put it in a way that would make sense. I knew how hypocritical it all seemed, like a double standard. In a way, it was. “We crossed paths not too long after Mom was crippled. After we became friends, she opened up to me about how crap everything was inside the ECU. She had basically grown up inside it, so she had to know.”
“Had to know what? That there’s Internal corruption? Bad actors?” She shook her head. “Shit, Max, we’ve talked about this. Doesn’t matter what or where you are, there'll always be bad actors.”
“I know that now. At the time, I had no clue and hearing it from someone at the center of all of it was pretty shocking,” I explained. “Heroes aren’t really superheroes. A revolutionary concept, I know,” I said with all the sarcasm I could muster. “They’re just police with superpowers. They’re pushed into that position because it’s either that or being seen as a threat to the law. You said it yourself, those were my options.”
Sam was quiet as weeks of pent-up aggression at the unfairness of it all spilled over.
“Villain, or hero. Those are the options for people like us. If you're lucky enough, you might be able to walk the line for a little while, but eventually you're forced to pick a side. There’s no hiding or running for people like us, right?” I asked, parroting the words she had told me not so long ago. “I don’t trust heroes, because I don’t know what they were like before. Who was Nikki before she got her powers? Who was Sparrow, Lich, Ionizer? At least villains don’t hide that they’re pieces of shit.”
I paused to recenter myself.
“You’ve never said it outright but I know they’re responsible for your mother’s condition,” Sam said. The revelation didn’t even faze me. I always assumed she knew. I never had any doubt that Gold would’ve put the pieces together the moment she saw Mom. “It’s the reason your family distrusts them, isn’t it? But if they were responsible, they would’ve paid for your mother’s treatment.”
“She refused,” I replied, causing a frown to appear on her face. “You have to understand, after they caused her injury, Mom wasn’t willing to let an ECU biokinetic anywhere near her.”
“That’s…”
“Ridiculous?” I scoffed. “Maybe, but I get it a little. It’s spite, a reminder. She preferred to be put on the waiting list for an independent licensed one. It’s like… years long. It’ll be a long time before she ever walks again.”
“Unless you do something.”
I shrugged.
Sam hummed, leaning against one of the dressing room walls. “I’m not well versed in Bayside history, but something like that doesn’t get swept under the rug easily. Which Hero was it, the one that went crazy?”
I gave her a flat look. “Crazy?”
“Wild. Off the hook,” she waved me off. “Which one was it?”
“Some guy called Seismic Shock,” I shrugged. “He’s in prison now on the other side of the world. When he crippled Mom, he also killed a few people. No one knows why he did it, just that it happened,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Not the first time a Hero has gone off the rails and hurt people and it won’t be the last.”
“It’s certainly a stressful environment,” Sam agreed. “I wasn’t with them for very long but there’s a lot of pressure put on the Heroes to keep up appearances and most of them aren’t cut out for it. Powers or not, most people can’t handle the responsibility – and then they crack.”
How long will it be until the next? Who will it be?
For all I knew it could be Seraphim.
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Abby though… I trusted Abby.
She held a healthy dose of realism when it came to being a hero. She didn’t do it for power or fame. She was born into the ECU and her mother was a Hero. When she got powers, she was dragged along for the ride and had all the choices made for her. Like a trooper, she rolled with the punches. I think her most admirable quality is that she never changed.
Abby never let the fame or expectations get her down, she pushed back constantly and rarely ever let people boss her around. Despite being Bayside’s poster child Hero, she never conformed to the norms that people expected from ECU heroes. That’s what a lot of people liked about her. She was a breath of fresh air, both to me and to the wider public.
Seraphim, from what I knew, was just another cookie-cutter ECU hero with more power than usual. I didn’t trust that. They were the ones that tended to crack. All that added pressure, the expectations, the public scrutiny. Nobody our age would be able to handle that.
With new insight, Sam was able to glean the issue and managed to speak before I could.
“Max, Nikki isn’t about to fly off the handle,” Sam reasoned. “She’s out with friends and here to have a good time. If she was unstable I wouldn’t have introduced her to the other girls, and I certainly wouldn’t risk hanging around her. A hit from one of her wings would probably shred me like wet cardboard.”
It had distracted me for a moment but it was widely known that Seraphim had six giant golden wings, each spanning the length of a bus. After observing her, I had to wonder how her power stored those wings, because she certainly wasn’t keeping them inside her body.
Pocket dimension?
I dismissed the thought. It wasn’t important right now.
“Are we good?”
I refocused and met Sam’s gaze. She didn’t look angry, more concerned if anything. I was used to her looking annoyed but here she just looked… worried.
“Yeah,” I said easily. “Yeah it’s fine, really. I was just being cautious. You didn’t need to drag me in here in the first place. Bit of an overreaction.”
“Overreaction? You couldn’t keep your eyes off her, it was starting to get weird. Be glad I picked up on it before anyone else did otherwise the situation would’ve gotten really weird,” Sam snorted. “Just act natural–”
“I know how to act. I’m not stupid or some kind of shut in. I know how to socialize,” I drawled, giving Sam a cold stare. She wasn’t intimidated and just crossed her arms expectantly. I knew what she wanted, admittance. “Fine, I was a little spaced out and let my paranoia get the best of me. Thanks for the subtle reminder.”
“Great! Now change shirts.”
I blinked.
“Right now?”
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We gotta have an alibi and I don’t think you’d appreciate Pink’s idea.”
I didn’t hesitate to change the shirt.
With a story that I was confident no one would really believe, we both left the changing room to find Nikki and her boyfriend standing off to the side of another changing room. Neither of them saw us come out, which was a nice bonus, but they both seemed to be engaged in an intense conversation. There was an intense look on the boyfriend’s face and Nikki looked uncertain, uncomfortable even.
“Hey you two!” Sam called out, injecting herself into their private debacle. Nikki immediately brightened when she turned to us. The boyfriend, however, didn’t look too pleased. “Find anything you guys like? Max loves the shirt I got for him,” she gestured over her shoulder toward me. I met the boyfriend’s gaze and felt a shiver crawl up my spine. The dude looked pissed. “Need any help?”
“Oh, no we’re fine. Richard and I were just talking,” Nikki explained, shaking her head.
Richard.
Funnily enough, it was the first time I had heard his name. He didn’t bother to introduce himself and Nikki hadn’t said anything earlier when we all met. I just assumed everyone knew each other.
“Ooooh?” I heard Pink’s mischievous chirp slip into Sam’s tone. “What’s going on, anything you can share or is it really private?”
Nikki opened her mouth to say something but Richard was quick to interject.
“It’s nothing. Just some personal stuff,” he said.
“All good, I won’t pry,” Sam shrugged, letting a playful smirk cross her lips. “Or maybe I will? You never know. Can’t keep secrets from me.”
Nikki chuckled. “You’re too much, Sam. Really, though, it’s nothing to fret over.”
“If it was a problem, we’d say,” Richard added.
I felt like there was something wrong like the whole world just tilted a few degrees off its axis. Sam noticed it too, she took a slight step back, putting her weight on the back of her heel. She leaned away like she was trying to get a better view of the picture. I couldn’t tell what was wrong but I knew it was something.
One of Seraphim’s powers?
Not everything about her was known other than the obvious. She had incredible strength, those wings of hers, and the ability to fly but anything else was up to speculation. The ECU didn’t exactly tell the world what their heroes were fully capable of. However, that didn’t stop profiles from being built on online forums and having theory-crafting run rampant.
Of all the Rookies, Abby’s powers were the most widely known, to the point where she was an open book. Even knowing her powers wouldn’t make a difference to most villains. A seemingly impenetrable telekinetic bubble that she could shape at a whim, didn’t have many weaknesses many could utilize.
Sure something like a laser with no mass would go right through and gravity powers were an issue, but her suit was designed to take care of that. The only other weakness was hostile mentalist effects, but almost everyone was weak to them. It's why Mentalists were considered to be the most dangerous classification.
There was no real way to counter some of them.
No defense. No hope.
Seraphim was almost just as annoying to fight, except for the fact that she apparently had a weak spot where her wings emerged from her back.
“I believe you,” Sam raised her hands in an attempt to ward off any growing aggravation. She didn't like the look Richard was giving her and didn’t want to appear like she was going to be pushy about anything. “So, are you guys hungry? Why don’t we join the others and go get something to eat?”
Nikki smiled. “I was just about to suggest that.”
“Sweet! Let’s go find the others,” Sam scooted past the taller girl, making sure to keep her distance from the protective-looking boyfriend. “I think they were by the skirts when I last saw them.”
“Yeah, over there.”
Sam and Nikki moved off, the latter detaching from Richard. He stood his ground, watching carefully as the two girls walked ahead. As I moved, he reached out and placed an arm across my chest, barring me from moving out of the changing room hallway. The guy was an inch or so shorter than me and wasn’t all that strong. He was well dressed with short black hair. He had the frame of an athlete – maybe along distance runner – sharp jaw and piercing eyes.
My gaze met his and there was a jealous anger behind his eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“What?”
His arm pushed against me and he leaned in close.
“I asked you a fucking question.”
My first instinct was to shove him off and clock him across the jaw. I’d dealt with people like this before and his attitude reminded me of Pete. I was ready to put him on his ass but I didn’t exactly want to make a scene here. If I started throwing punches, Seraphim would get involved and then everything would go to shit.
“I was following them,” I answered evenly, pushing his arm away from my chest. “You mind?”
He glared at me harder. Any second I expected him to lash out and I was ready for it. Strangely, there was a part of me that actually wanted him to.
“I saw you looking.”
This fucking guy.
“Yo,” Sam’s voice called out before I could even think about which side of his face I wanted to cave in. “We’re starving. Come on, chop chop!”
“Richie, quit it,” Nikki’s voice was soft and lacked any sort of backbone to them. “Whatever the problem is, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Nothing, right,” Richard looked me up and down, sneering, before walking off back to her side.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. He then let his hand fall a bit to her backside, giving it a squeeze. They walked off deeper into the store to find the rest of the group, leaving Sam and I behind. We shared a small, bewildered glance. Neither of us saw that coming.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
Sam rubbed the back of her neck, looking just as confused as I sounded. “I was about to ask you that. What did he say to you?”
“He got angry and asked what I was doing.”
“And what did you say?”
“I just said I was following you and Nikki. You know, I didn’t want to get left behind. Then he said he ‘saw me looking’” I shook my head, trying to organize my thoughts. “Can we talk about what he just did? Is that something Nikki would be okay with?”
“No…” Sam murmured, twitching slightly as she switched to Gold. “The read I get from Nikki isn’t someone that would tolerate being groped in public – especially so blatantly. It borders on exhibitionism.”
“So, what does that mean?” I looked to her for an answer, only to receive a conflicted look. “Maybe she’s a thrill seeker?”
I knew they existed, but I didn’t expect it from a Rookie of all people.
“I… I don’t know,” Sam shook her head. “I don’t exactly use Gold to figure out people’s kinks, okay? It never makes any sense and I never know what to make of it. I… er,” I saw her cheeks turn a shade of red. “Maybe she likes that sort of stuff— no! No, I’m being stupid,” she rubbed her forehead in aggravation. “But, she could.”
I stared at her in astonishment. “Is Gold really having that much trouble?”
“There’s a lot of different threads to follow there. That guy though,” Sam shuddered. “He gives me the creeps.”
I had to agree. Normal people didn’t do those sorts of things. Maybe the extremely jealous, possessive kind, and they tended to come boxed with a whole cavalcade of issues.
“Abusive relationship?” I wondered aloud.
Sam nodded.
“Definitely a possibility. Ugh, probably not?” she paused for a moment and started picking at her fingernails. “Doesn’t feel like it really tracks. Someone as powerful as Nikki shouldn't be bogged down by that sort of stuff. That can’t be it.”
“Just because people have superpowers, doesn’t mean they can’t be emotionally manipulated,” I said, watching as the two move through the different aisles. This time, I was the first to move. “Come on, we’re going to get left behind.”
We followed, albeit with an ulterior motive. Nikki and Richard were now our prime persons of interest and while we got food and ate with the group, we made sure to be aware of what the two were doing at all times. Just like before, Nikki did all the talking while Richard just sat back and stayed silent unless he was asked a question directly.
I wasn’t sure what Sam was picking up because I didn’t have a chance to ask her until the group started peeling off as our outing came to an end. Hours later, we ended up back at the car, and from the looks of it, she didn’t have the answers she wanted.
“Well, that was interesting,” Sam said.
I unlocked the car and we both climbed in.
“I didn’t see anything too unusual, well other than the little episode back in the clothing store.”
“Gold believes Richard is a sociopath,” she said with a shrug. “But she’s also saying that dedicating too much time to thinking about this is a waste. We’re already back to thinking about Grim and Splicer. Seraphim’s problems are not our problems and we shouldn’t involve ourselves.”
I couldn’t fault her for that.
“Fair enough.”
“Whatever’s going on there, I’ll figure it out later. Maybe I’ll talk to Nikki about it at school when he’s not around. I might be able to get a clue there, but for now, I think the big strong hero can take care of herself,” Sam said. “Gold might not think it’s worth it but it can’t hurt to keep building the friendship. You never know if it’ll be useful down the line.”
Something about the way she said that made my skin crawl.
“Home then?”
Sam smiled. “If I recall, we have some groceries to get for your mom – and her prescriptions.”
“Oh yeah,” I murmured under my breath. I had forgotten about that. “We can detour.”
“I’m in no rush,” Sam replied happily. “Oh and before I forget; thanks for today. It’s… been awhile since I’ve been able to do something normal like this.”
“Then we should make it a habit,” I suggested, switching the car on. “Excluding that weird little instance we had, I had fun too.”
Fun was a bit of a stretch. Entertained was a better word but I couldn’t be bothered correcting myself. Really, they both meant the same thing.
“I…” Sam paused, her hands falling to her knees as a chuckle escaped her lips. “Yeah. Yeah I think I’d like that.”
My gaze dropped to the watch on my wrist and I felt a smile cross my lips.
It always paid to be prepared, even if nothing came of it.