He ran his fingers around his collar. A phantom feeling buzzed beneath his skin. Henry thought they had narrowly avoided Fleetfoot’s hand. But that had been according to his perception of time. He wondered if the hand had reached him after all, but did not curl into a vice grip in order to save his life. If only heroes showed this much care all the way back then.

He looked around the garage. It was in a sorry state. They had holed up in one of many abandoned buildings in this godforsaken city. Morale was low. Henry clasped his savior’s hand.

“Thank you for responding,” he said.

The teleporter nodded. His name was Jason Quwave. A timid young man. Teleportation was one of the most dangerous gifts out there, and Jason was talented, stretching the limits of his category. He hesitated in its application. It could be mistaken for slowness, or lack of skill.

Henry sat on the floor. It smelled of old oil stains and gasoline.

“Why did you join us?” He asked. “You could have made a name for yourself in any rescue team.”

Jason was expressionless. He sat down beside Henry and seemed to think.

“I hated my gift,” Jason said.

“Why?”

Jason’s brow furrowed.

“Ever hear of quantum field theory?”

“Not really,” Henry said honestly.

“Well, a standard fact in QFT is that all elementary particles are indistinct from each other. They’re not even discrete, just blips in their respective fields, set relative to each other. That’s what we are. It’s what all matter is.

“That’s how teleportation works. A collection of atoms there is functionally the same as the same arrangement of atoms here. I saved you by putting those blips from that roof to this garage. My gift gives me a sense. They call it the teleporter’s ennui. Nothing is important. Everything is the same sum of the same atoms. It’s how I used to think.”

“What happened?”

“The same thing that happened to everyone older than seven,” he said dispassionately. “I tried rescuing people from underneath those collapsed buildings after the meteors fell. But I wasn’t thinking. Just wallowing, wanting to get it over with. Saving lives was a chore. When I started paying attention, I realized I had brought people out with bits of building material in them. I didn’t count how many died.”

Jason’s expression curled. “They told me it wasn’t my fault. That my gift is among the hardest to master, that a lot more would have been dead had I not done anything. They gave me support packages, psychotherapy. I could have my feelings altered by a psychic, my guilt absolved, if I wanted.

“That’s what’s wrong with heroism. They protect each other more than people. They care about results like a mathematician. It’s wrong. Everything matters. The details are important, no matter how identical or indistinct they seem. People aren’t a statistic.”

Jason left him there to ponder. Henry rested his chin against his balled fists.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He admitted to himself that a part of him had wanted to give up, to concede that M.A.G.E was impenetrable. Whitworth had had decades to build it up. The Director would continue to work long after they had gone. But why did that matter?

“Everyone,” he said, standing up. The others turned their heads. “We’ve had very little time to get to know each other. But I think we’re all connected by common grievances, connections which transcend all else. Our pasts define us; history is ours for the making. So long as we don’t feel defeated, we will always be the heroes of our own story. I say we make one last play, straight to the king of the board.”

He retrieved his weapon from the floor and slung it over his shoulder.

“Who’s with me?”

“What’s the point?” Sarah Delange asked. “You people have thrown everything you had at them. There’s been a ‘supervillain’ every decade or so ever since heroes were a thing. People like Whitworth have cast them all down. It was dumb to think we were any different.”

“That’s our problem,” Henry said. “The people who don’t know what they want are comfortable with the status quo. What if get rid of the person enabling it?”

Bella Fitzgerald crossed her arms.

“You want to assassinate Whitworth?” She said incredulously. “You think no one’s thought of that? It’s impossible. The man’s a psychic powerhouse. Who’s to say he hasn’t felt your intent already? There could be a platoon of dudes in blue rappelling into this garage in minutes.”

“Why are you still here then?”

“Maybe I’m done, and want to turn myself in.”

“We all know that’s not true.”

“It is!” Bella said loudly. “It’s all been a trap. Don’t you see that? How easily they let us blink an airship right above their school’s grounds. We only took what they wanted us to have. Your little final showdown against them was never supposed to work.”

Henry didn’t have a counterpoint. The stadium fight was well-planned. It was supposed to have gone in their favor. How did they lose? Why had the shield gone down so quickly?

“What happened with Isabel?” He asked. Their team had one job. To protect the shield bearer.

“Oh so you’re blaming us?” Bella began to shout.

“I’m not blaming-”

“Why don’t you plan things out better before sending us goons to-?”

“It’s not any of our faults,” Oscar said. He was sat in an old office chair, massaging a sore that had developed over days of sleeplessness. The recent events had made him look ancient.

“What do you mean?” Henry asked.

“The data our hired mercs stole on their heroes,” Oscar said, “did not include a particular hero. No, a student. A youngster. She had multiple gifts. Could use them all at once.”

“A multi-gifted?” Henry said. He wanted to slap himself. The games. He could have sworn he had seen such a woman. He had been so preoccupied, distracted. Based on what he did remember she seemed unstable. “She took on all of you?”

“Actually, I don’t even think she used all of them,” Oscar said. “She thinks she’s in control. She’s a powerful psychic too, but has no idea what she’s doing. She repeats a phrase to herself subconsciously, over and over. It goes beyond mantra and obsession. Repetition is the only thing keeping her together.”

“What phrase?”

Oscar thought hard.

“It’s difficult,” he said. “Mental gifts don’t translate easily into words. And her thoughts repeat in many voices.

“‘I am my own master’.”

“Fucking Christ,” Bella said. “We got beat by a lunatic.”

“That’s it,” Henry said. “We-”

“No,” Oscar said.

“I haven’t said it yet.”

“I know what you’re thinking without reading your mind. We can’t.”

“We’ve done far worse.”

“I’m saying I don’t have the power. Her best defense isn’t even her psychic ability. It’s her turmoil. In the state that she’s in, she’s keeping the worst of herself at bay.” He laughed to himself, rubbing his face with his hands. “I don’t even know how she managed some semblance of control on her own. Somebody must have done something. Helped her. I don’t know.”

Henry could guess.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If it isn’t stable, then we can use her against them.”

“Kid, we’d be releasing a Tazmanian devil into their school.”

“And?”

“What happened to the plan? What happened to being better than them?”

“It hasn’t worked!” Henry lost his calm. He reined himself in. “We can’t make a new system by playing the old one. We need to break our rules before we can follow it.”

“Young man…”

“We need you. You’ve been through multiple villain events. You’ve seen heroic misconduct time and time again. We can’t let it continue. This is our last shot.”

Oscar sighed.

“Alright,” he said. “‘Do not go gentle’, and all that.”