Paul glared at the sidewalk, waiting for the police van to arrive.

It wasn’t his team’s fault. They’d done their best, and capturing an odormancer was no small feat. If Ethan hadn’t lost his sense of smell as a child they wouldn’t have managed that much. Fighting while being blasted with appeasement pheromones wasn’t easy, and when they’d gotten close to winning the bastard had sent out a smell that was somewhere between dead skunk and decomposing octopus.

The team barfing session had allowed the other enemy, a speedster, to get away. Paul hated that she’d escaped. Since officially forming Spade, they’d caught all their enemies. This was their first failure. The first failure with him as leader.

Paul heard a siren and turned his glare to the approaching van. Alex nudged his arm, breaking him out of his self-loathing. Everyone was watching him.

He stood, dusting himself off. “Good job, team,” he said half-heartedly.

“Yep, we failed,” Desarae said, slouching against a light post.

“We didn’t fail,” Paul told her. “We caught one of them, that’s good enough.”

Sally raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”

“I think it is,” Ethan said cheerfully. “Half isn’t bad.”

Alex patted his arm. “No offense, dude, but you’re an idiot,” they said.

“He’s the MVP of the battle,” Paul grumbled. “Without him we wouldn’t have done as well as we did. Let’s just hand the enemy over and go home. Forget about this fight.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sally shrugged.

“Is anyone worried about this being the fourth villain attack of the day?” Des asked.

“No,” Ethan answered.

Paul shot a warning glare at Alex before replying. “I’ll call Vines and see what they think. Other than timing there isn’t anything linking the attacks.”

The van finally pulled up to them and stopped. Chief Palo got out, holding a cup of coffee. Alex and Sally eyed the cup like it was the elixir of life.

“Spade,” Palo said, nodding at them as his men climbed out the back of the van. “One got away?”

“Yes, sir, a speedster,” Paul reported. “Female, wearing all black, and a cape.”

“Couldn’t get age or ethnicity?”

“Her voice was on the younger side; she was wearing a Darth Vader mask,” Paul said.

Palo blinked, frowning.

Alex grinned. “You’re lookin’ for a Sexy Darth Vader cosplayer.”

Palo looked at them, taking a long sip of coffee. Alex continued to grin.

“If it’s all right, we’d like to go home now,” Paul said, taking a step back. “Unless you need us for anything else?”

“Nah, go home, get some rest,” Palo said. “You did a good job. Thank you for your service.”

The team thanked Palo in turn, heading to the car.

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Shawn stared blankly at his phone as colorful bears ran across the screen, teaching him the importance of sharing.

Or something. He hadn’t been paying much attention. The colorful bears (was one of them a lion?) provided noise, so his ears didn’t ring, something to look at, so he wasn’t staring into space, and just enough of a plot for him to not reflect on how miserable he was feeling. It wasn’t something he would normally watch, but for the moment it was all he needed.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

As the credits started to roll there was a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called. He pushed himself into a sitting position, dropping the phone onto his lap.

Emmy opened the door, holding up a mug as she walked in. “How you feeling?”

“Like I have the flu,” he answered, smiling.

She smiled back, handing him the mug. “Hot apple cider. Straight from the instant mix package. Nick wasn’t even in the kitchen when I microwaved the water.”

Shawn started to laugh, but it turned into a cough. “Thanks. You’re awesome.”

“Want me to get rid of the stuff he made you?”

“Please.”

She picked up the cup of unidentifiable liquid Nick had left earlier, glancing at his phone. “Why are you watching Care Bears?”

“That… is an excellent question,” he said, sipping the cider.

Emmy hesitated, a worried look flashing over her face. Then she took a deep breath, smiling. “Nick is making something very healthy for dinner, to boost our immune systems so we don’t catch any horrible diseases from you. But I guess it’s too healthy for a sick person? So you get the leftover tomato soup.”

“I am very sad about that,” Shawn said, watching her. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she answered, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

“Emmy.”

She was about to say something when he had a coughing fit. He set the mug down to not spill anything, coughing into his elbow. By the time he could breathe again, Emmy was halfway to the door.

“Everything’s fine,” she told him. “Drink the cider while it’s still hot. Get better, ok? And have fun watching Care Bears.” She left, closing the door behind her.

Shawn frowned at the door. Something was wrong. That much was obvious.

But he was too exhausted to do anything about it. He had a capable team; they knew what they were doing. Nick was smart and Inez was strong. Together they could handle any problem. If they thought he didn’t need to know what was going on, he probably didn’t.

He trusted them.

Shawn sneezed, sliding back under the blankets. He picked up his phone, hitting the “next episode” button.

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Victor slowly grated a carrot, watching the clock. It was 5:59. Talking with Spade, they’d figured out that the attacks had happened at 2AM, 6AM, 10AM, and 2PM. If the pattern were to continue, an attack was beginning.

The clock beeped, changing to 6:00.

Nick looked over, pausing his stirring. Victor pulled the team phone out of his pocket, placing it on the counter. He pushed the home button, making sure it was on. The screen lit up, showing no new notifications.

Victor took a deep breath and let it out slowly, going back to grating carrots. Nick resumed stirring, softly whistling a random tune.

Inez pushed open the kitchen door. Her eyes landed on the phone. “Should we call Chief Palo preemptively?”

Nick stopped whistling. “That might not be a bad idea.”

“Do you want me to do it?” Victor asked, putting the carrot down.

Inez nodded, glancing at Nick.

“I might say something stupid,” Nick shrugged. “Where’s Emmy?”

“In the living room,” Inez said. She turned around, calling the speedster.

Instantly Emmy was in the kitchen, already dressed for a fight. “Is it time?”

“Not yet,” Inez told her. “Victor is going to call Chief Palo, so we know as soon as a report comes in.”

“Oh, ok.”

Victor rinsed off his hands before picking up the phone, unlocking it. He pulled up the contacts list, found Palo, and hit call.

Palo answered on the second ring. “Vines, how can I help you?”

“Hello, sir, this is Victor,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve spoken with Spade, but we have reason to suspect a superpowered attack is about to begin. Or has already begun.”

There was a brief pause. “You couldn’t have called me about this half an hour ago?” he asked, sounding annoyed and tired.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we aren’t positive about the timing yet,” Victor said. “We didn’t want to put the city on alert for a conspiracy theory. And honestly, we didn’t think of it. I apologize on both teams' behalf for that.”

“Ok, fair enough,” the chief sighed. “If a report comes in within the next ten minutes I’m declaring it not a conspiracy theory. I’ll ask you and Spade to hold a press conference. You aren’t the only ones to have seen a pattern. The people you and Spade detained today clearly all know each other. We’ve tried asking them how, what their connection is, but they aren’t talking.”

“What are they doing that indicates they know each other?” Victor asked.

“When the odormancer was brought in-” He stopped, and a voice spoke in the background. “Vines, we got a report. An augmentor and a flier are at the top of Stars Tower. Go.”

“Yes, sir, on our way,” Victor said, nodding. He ended the call, looking around. “We were right. Let’s go.”