Let's Go to Justicon!
Chapter 19 [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/chapternum/chaphead_19.jpg]
Time passed and Quinn, Sarah, and Leona all went back to school.
Goonie spoke with Leona and Quinn’s Principal in advance about special provisions Leona might need now that she was a High School freshman. Thankfully, he cooperated and agreed that he and any of the other staff who knew would keep Leona’s transgender status a secret. In other words, the Principal had granted Leona some privileges to help conceal it.
Quinn took it upon herself to introduce Leona around the campus. As a result, she got some borrowed social credit from her sister’s reputation which was nice to have in a new environment.
Leona’s most recent friends wouldn’t be going to her new high school except for Sarah so if it weren’t for her sister’s help, she’d have had to start from a completely blank slate, having no friends all over again.
Speaking of, Leona and Sarah’s relationship remained delicate and had felt odd since the confession.
Sarah, being the good little girl she was, had informed her parents about Leona and they maintained she should keep a proper distance between herself and Leona from that point on. They were still best friends in name, but there was now a distance that belied how Sarah embraced Leona in the backseat of Quinn’s car at the drive-in. She couldn’t visit Sarah’s home, nor the other way around. The whole situation left where the two stood with one another very murky.
Leona knew things couldn’t continue on as they were and so directly asked her one day, “Hey, why have you been kind of avoiding me?”
Sarah sighed and tugged Leona into the girl’s bathroom with her. She checked around to see if it was empty before locking the door and looked Leona directly into her eyes as she apologized, “I’m so sorry about this. My parents told me they don’t want me to get a poor reputation… They’re just thinking about my future. I mean, you know how they forced all the details out of me when I was a little late getting back—but no matter what happens now, please remember that you’re still my best friend and I still love you.”
Leona sighed, satisfied with Sarah’s answer—but a fraction of a second later Sarah seized Leona’s shirt with a serious look, yanked her forward and thoroughly kissed her.
With wide eyes and knocking knees, Leona turned into melted butter. She wouldn’t have expected this from Sarah, particularly not after what she just said!
This girl said and did some pretty contradictory things. Seriously, did ‘best friends’ make out with each other like they were?
After breaking the kiss, Sarah smiled warmly at Leona. “I’d love to sneak some more kisses with you soon. But even a nice hug now and again would be nice.” Sarah flushed and smiled.
Leona didn’t know what to think except she had feelings for this girl, no matter the circumstances.
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To fill the gap in her heart, Leona decided to take a step forward on her own and make some new friends beyond Quinn’s circle. This was going smoothly until Sarah noticed Leona was now spending so much time with others, at which point she affably inserted herself into the freshly formed group.
The worst thing Leona had to face from these new friends was that, for a reason Leona couldn’t understand, they were constantly trying to fix her up with interested boys, of which there seemed to be a never ending supply. She gently turned them all down and her friends eventually caught on and instead began acting as her protectors.
Being in a group with them more often meant fewer incidents.
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“Justicon!? Are you kidding? Really?” Leona practically exploded with enthusiasm she hadn’t expressed since she was small. She bounced up and down.
Back in the day, what would become Justicon hadn’t started out called that. It started as a small in-person get-together of people who the first-generation superheroes had saved. The first organizers were those who wanted to express their thanks to the heroes who had saved either them or a family member and to help the heroes better connect with the people.
But, as with so many other things, the little get-together didn’t immediately take off and grow into the juggernaut it would become until a visionary came along.
In this case, that person was Geoff Keensley.
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Geoff had been a young go-getter in the world of advertising and marketing. He started out concerned more with working his way up to partner at his agency until one day disaster struck.
An earthquake had struck his city and caused a landslide that trapped him and the rest of his agency under the dirt and debris. A first responder superhero named Granite, a gen-one hero with terra-kinesis, saved Geoff and his coworkers that day, but there were at least a half-dozen other heroes present who’d chipped in and saved lord-knows how many other people.
Geoff was, of course, incredibly grateful to the heroes, but it wasn’t until he saw how the whole disaster was being covered by the media afterwards that Geoff discovered a golden opportunity. A chance to both give something back and to grow his own name.
Back then, heroes were comparatively aloof. They usually, and sometimes literally, just swooped in to save the day before taking off again without saying a word. This left the public with countless questions, as these mysterious people with such great power weren’t giving the public any opportunity to get to know them. It was only a matter of time before various groups and individuals stepped up to take advantage and filled the vacuum with fear-mongering for their own gain.
It did not surprise Geoff that there were people out there who would try to drag down the good names of the heroes for their own gain, but he wasn’t about to let them off the hook.
Geoff reached out and made contacts within the hero-loving community and used his considerable marketing talents to fix up the heroes’ public image.
It’s fair to say that the things Geoff did in those years had a major impact on the way modern heroes interact with the public. Geoff, in turn, got rewarded for his efforts by getting in on the ground floor of the hero-celebrity trend; needless to say, he did well for himself.
The “SoCal Hero’s Tribute,” as it was once known by everyone, was a reaction to negative drivel that was being put out about heroes. A reminder that the heroes had done well and that their good deeds hadn’t gone unnoticed. When Geoff came along, he transformed the gathering into Justicon, a chance to meet and get to know your favorite hero and interact with them in ways you never otherwise would be able to.
Sure, there were always those secretive, mysterious types like the Midnight Avenger, but there were plenty of gregarious heroes who loved the spotlight and shone ever brighter than they otherwise would have. It became a virtuous cycle that saw heroes become celebrities that in turn led to more people wanting to get to know the heroes, which led to more celebrity appearances.
Fast forward a couple of decades and although plenty of things had changed about the cultural landscape and the heroes’ place in it, today’s Justicon was still one of the bigger Superhero fan conventions and Sarah had serendipitously scored a couple of tickets for them.
“Yeah!” Sarah smiled. “Seaside isn’t too far off, and I saved up… I also didn’t exactly tell my parents I was inviting you, so don't tell them, okay?” Sarah laughed.
“Of course I won’t! I normally have to watch things like this remotely! I just didn’t have the money and even though Goonie makes a decent amount for us, my healthcare and hormones aren’t exactly cheap. It wasn’t certain that we’d be able to afford a ticket for me. Does this mean you’re going too?”
Sarah nodded slowly. “Yeah, I decided I wanted to go to something like this with you, knowing what you like. I like superheroes too, just not as much as you seem to.” She giggled but her tittering faltered as she asked, “You know... How I’ve been treating you lately—does it hurt you? I’d understand if you didn’t want to go with me.”
Leona shook her head and quickly snatched the ticket, but she took Sarah’s hand and said, “I wouldn't go there if you weren’t going too! I’d have taken you, too!” They blushed together, but after a moment, Leona wrenched her hand away, remembering Sarah’s prohibition.
Flustered, Leona turned her eyes down to the ticket and her eyes widened as the blush faded as she realized what she was holding. “Oh gosh, these are—”
“Yes!” Sarah bounced and giggled, announcing what she’d gone and done. “GAMMA TICKETS! They’re the ones that last all weekend and come with all the extras!” Leona blushed far more, touched by Sarah’s gesture. With a fidget, she looked down, smiling serenely.
Uncertain, Sarah leaned forward and whispered, “I mean, it’s exactly what you’d want, right?”
After a moment, Leona straightened and hopped, showing her joy more visibly by breaking into giddy giggles that Sarah joined on the spot. An emo and kinda dark-looking girl pushed her way into the bathroom and stared at the two bouncing, looking queasy. She ducked into a stall and slammed the door behind.
Leona and Sarah stopped, blushing, and moments later, the two were quietly giggling and Leona added more quietly, “Are you kidding? This’ll be my first time going to a convention, let alone to Seaside City!” Leona couldn’t help letting out another squee. “I’ve ALWAYS wanted to go in person!”
“Aughhh!” The retching noise coming from the stall sounded purely forced.
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When she was younger, despite her deep love for superheroes, Leona spent a fair chunk of time at the time intrigued by supervillains. She always wondered why they existed and how they could be so bad. Young Leona asked many questions of her parents, primarily about the villain's motivations and even asked if they’d take her to go to various conventions, but her mother was always busy with work and her father was never interested.
What little Leona remembered before coming to live with Goonie was fading with every passing day, though she’d never forget her mother’s sparkling smile, but there was another stark image that stood out in her mind aside from the inside of her mother’s old dress chest. Her father never seemed to like superheroes, but one moment with her father stood out most and stuck in her mind even as everything else began to blur: the moment he destroyed her Vanguard action figure.
She still had that figure too, long since having been salvaged from the old house by Goonie along with her precious possessions and his mother’s mementos, but it was a little melted from her father’s having thrown it into the family’s cheap CRT television set with enough force to break through the glass.
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Leona swallowed hard. “I—I just don’t know what else to say—”
“As long as you say ‘yes’, that’s all I want to hear,” Sarah said, grinning. “So, it’s the first week in December and, this being a dry-ish year in California, I’d guess we’re not going to get any snow, so I think it’ll be fun—at least I hope so and by then I should have a little more allowance saved up for some goodies!”
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