A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 55

“Ouch…shit!” Anna Fletcher fumed as the red, semi-solid ball hit her hard in the boob. Someone on the other side of the court laughed at her pain, and she gave them the finger.

Becca winced at the sight of her teammate being eliminated. That left Team 3 with only two other players remaining. Team Two was methodically picking them off one by one. It was sweet revenge for the other team, and mildly embarrassing for Becca’s team.

To get the sophomore class back in the swing of things the instructors had immediately planned another team event for three days into the semester. Becca and the rest of the sophomores were still busy finding the optimum route to their new classes when they were unceremoniously thrown into a classic game of dodgeball.

The game had been outlawed at most public institutions throughout the US because people said it allowed the strong to pick on the weak. They were probably right, but sometimes people need to have their ass handed to them to motivate them to do better. It was better to have a relatively-benign ball do that than fists and feet. For members of West Private University’s HCP, a red ball was a welcome change of pace from fists, feet, and super powers that routinely were thrown around the place.

Becca deftly dipped to the right as a ball missed her by inches. For a person that was used to being faster and nimbler than anyone else, this game was more than frustrating. Coach McMillian had laid out the rules before they started, and rule number one was no powers. For some, like Mason and Casey, that was impossible, but most people in the class could control their abilities. The close combat coach was keeping a close eye on the strongman types to make sure they didn’t throw the ball too hard and hurt someone. The students might not be able to use their abilities but he could, and he would be able to get to the person before the ball could.

Becca backpedaled to increase the distance between her and the four remaining players from Team Two: Anika, Teresa Shaw, Liam Garrison, and Emilia Scarborough. Anika had just tried to take Becca out, and it wasn’t to dinner and a movie.

Winter Break had been great for them. They’d split the time between Becca’s family, and Anika’s adoptive parents. They’d laughed, loved, and enjoyed their time to the fullest while still doing occasional training. Still, the first couple days back demanded that they get back into fighting shape.

Becca clutched her ball and considered whether or not to throw it. It was useful to have one to deflect shots. If she knocked away and incoming throw with her ball then she wasn’t out, and giving up that advantage when Team Two had two-to-one odds against them was tough. On the flip side, she needed to give up the protection if she wanted to even those odds. It was interesting how life’s challenges of being stuck between a rock and a hard place were exemplified in such a simple game.

Finally she decided to take a chance. She raced up to the line and looked like she was prepared to return fire against Anika. Her girlfriend backed up, but watched Becca intently. She bent her knees, lowered her center of gravity, and prepared to make the split-second decision of trying to catch the throw to eliminate Becca, or dodge. Right when Becca reached the line she quickly pivoted forty-five degrees and launched her ball diagonally at an unsuspecting Liam Garrison. The toxic obfuscator was busy trying to read what Team Three’s only other remaining player, Carson Long, was going to do. Carson was normally an ass, but his smack talk did the job of distracting Liam perfectly.

Liam still caught the flash of red in his peripherals, and tried to get out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The dodgeball hit him in the shoulder with a loud SMACK.

“Garrison, out!” Coach McMillian yelled as Liam started to slouch off the court.

Becca started to back pedal again when it was her turn to see a flash of red in her peripherals. <Stupid rules!> If she had her speed she would have been able to dodge easily, but without it, it became clear she wouldn’t get away. Even worse…

SLAP! The dodgeball hit her square in the cheek. Becca felt the sting immediately, and was sure it would be red for at least an hour.

“Whitfield, out! Scarborough, no head shots, you know that. You’re out too!” The Coach ordered, and they both complied.

Becca swore she saw Emilia grinning as they both walked off the court. Becca didn’t condone the nickname assigned to Emilia and her group of friends: stuck up bitches (SUBs), but she sure thought she was one at the moment.

Back on the court, it was now two on one. Carson was facing off against Anika and Teresa. Carson still had a ball for defense, but that virtually eliminated his ability to make a catch, which would remove one of Team Three’s players from the game while bringing back in one of his teammates.

Virtually was the key word there as Anika made a throw and Carson went for the long shot. Instead of dodging, he slid into the path of the ball. He maneuvered his own ball to one arm and tried to catch her throw. It would have looked awesome if he succeeded, but Anika was a virtual strongwoman herself, and even though she was backing off her strength, it still meant the ball had some zip behind it.

Carson misjudged the slide and the ball hit him high on the shoulder and rebounded at a bad angle. He reached for it, and got his fingertips on it, but it wasn’t enough. It hit the ground and Coach McMillian called the game for Team Two.

“That’s two-two. It’s the best of three, so next win takes the cake.” Becca was surprised when told there was an actual welcome back cake waiting for them after this training session. She’d be careful when she ate it though. She wasn’t a freshman anymore. There could be a ‘surprise’ training even just when the cake was starting to settle in their bellies. That was something the instructors would do.

The whole dodgeball tournament just seemed too nice.

 

***

 

Mason had dipped, ducked, dived, and dodged around for twenty minutes. People would think at six-nine, with the body of a bodybuilder, he’d be one of the first to go. They’d be wrong. He thought part of it was because people thought they could leave him to deal with later while they tried to get rid of his teams more deadly players. Rowan had proven to be a maniac, and since he was still a relative unknown to the class, he’d been vigorously targeted until finally being knocked out of the game. Likewise, Lorelai Gilford had proven clever and resourceful. She been the last to be knocked out, and left Mason alone to face the remainder of Team One.

Team Four hadn’t gone down easy though, and they’d been allowed for one player to remain in the game after being knocked out because they were down to six instead of seven members. No one talked about how they’d lost their seventh member.

Angela’s team was a worthy opponent, and Erin had made sure to knock out the angelic shifter as quickly as possible. Alex Webb had been tough, along with Natalia Romanoff, but when it came down to the endgame it was the last person Mason wanted to be playing against. It was a battle of the class giants, and most respected couple in the class, Mason versus Kyoshi.

“Don’t get beat by your girlfriend, dude,” Simon Skylar yelled from the sidelines. “You’ll never live it down.”

Mason ignored him and slid to the side to avoid Kyoshi’s throw. She missed, and he immediately returned fire, but she was already moving at the expected counterattack.  Despite all appearances, he knew she wasn’t using her power. It was just common sense. She knew him, she was thinking tactically, and she knew he would try and immediately take advantage of her vulnerability. Mason had even tried to foresee which nearby ball she was going to go for, but he must have telegraphed his move, because his throw was embarrassingly inaccurate.

“Come on, Mason.” Rowan groaned as Kyoshi grabbed another ball and they returned to the stalemate that had already lasted close to five minutes.

It was getting old, and Coach McMillian seemed to be thinking the same thing. The winner of this best-of-five match was going to face off against Team Three in a one match sudden death for victory. Mason was about to commit to another assault when Kyoshi beat him to it.

She surprised him by charging the center line, but more importantly, she brought her arm back to make the throw very early, and exposed her chest. Mason didn’t hesitate and stare at the chest like some love-struck idiot. He took action. He half-cocked his arm and threw. He felt a little guilty that he might have put a little extra zing on the throw since he didn’t wind up all the way, but McMillian didn’t call him out on it. There wasn’t any need to.

At six-seven, Mason didn’t think his girlfriend was capable of the maneuver. She had jumped, and while airborne, twisted so that she would not be able to land on her feet. She was going to land hard on her shoulder, and would feel it in the morning, but she clearly wasn’t thinking about that. The gutsy twist-leap made it so Mason’s center-of-mass shot passed in the space between her armpit and hip. That left him totally exposed, open for a counterstrike, but more importantly flat footed. He flexed his knees to dive away, but Kyoshi’s ball was already rocketing toward him. Of course, due to her aerial acrobatics, and her naturally uncoordinated nature, her shot wasn’t completely on target either.

The red ball flew in at a respectable speed and made solid contact with his junk. If Mason was a lesser man he probably would have gasped in pain, groaned, and fallen dramatically to his knees. However, anything short of a .50 caliber round hitting him in the nuts wasn’t going to elicit that reaction. Instead he rolled his eyes and looked at his girlfriend as she landed hard on her side and skidded to a stop.

“Really?” he asked as Team Four groaned in defeat.

She just shrugged, which included a small wince, as Team One rushed the court to help her to her feet.

“Team One wins!” Coach McMillian announced. “Why don’t you walk it off, Jackson.”

“I’m good, Coach.” Mason replied.

“Not that.” McMillian shook his head. “I’m talking about your dignity, man. You just got righteously outmaneuvered by your girlfriend. Go take a lap to earn your man card back.” The Coach’s good-natured smile accompanied the ribbing, but that didn’t stop the rest of the two teams from laughing at their class’ biggest and physically strongest member.

Mason took it all in stride, and even laughed a little himself. Kyoshi would make it up to him later.

 

***

 

“Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?” Mason finally broke the silence.

All the original inhabitants of Townhouse 117 were sitting in a mostly-deserted corner of the Student’s Center. It was the first chance they had to gather together as a group since the start of the semester. The get together had started with some light bragging from Angela. Team One had gone on to win the face off with Team Three. Teams One and Three had become the two top contenders in the team competition; followed by Team Two, and lastly Team Four. That bothered Mason, and he knew Seth’s absence had something to do with it. It was hard for a future group of Heroes to grasp that they’d been teammates, and even friends, with someone who’d gone as far astray as Seth Abney.

“If by ‘elephant’ you mean traitorous, backstabbing asshole, then sure,” Anika replied. She had never liked Seth, and his recent choices only validated her position in her own mind. The voice of moderation, Becca, remained silent.

“Call it what you want,” Mason could quite bring himself to rebuke Anika. “We need a plan.”

“There is no plan. There’s only the truth,” Becca stated. It didn’t sound like much coming from the good-natured speedster, but everyone present realized she was putting her foot down.

“We’re not saying to lie, or do anything like that,” Kyoshi stepped in since she had a better idea what was on Becca’s mind. “What Mason is talking about is how we move forward from this.”

Everyone had been interviewed several times by the HCP staff, the DVA, and other law enforcement agencies. They’d milked every bit of information out of the small group that they could, but since the events of Winter Break, there was a new schedule of interviews lined up.

“We don’t know anything. We know that, they know that, but they need to keep pressing. When you fail to catch the bad guy sometimes you need to go back to square one and start over again with the investigation. Unfortunately, we’re square one.” Angela laid it out clearly, and everyone nodded.

“There’s a stigma attached to us now,” Kyoshi added, which surprised some of the group. “Not necessarily from our classmates or the HCP staff, but anyone outside our immediate acquaintances comes into our discussions with jaded thoughts and preconceived notions.”

“It’s human nature.” Mason knew a little something about preconceived notions growing up as a Super in NYC after Seif al-Din’s attack.

“It’s wrong,” Becca frowned.

“But it’s reality,” Anika countered, but put her hand comfortingly on her girlfriend’s shoulder.

“It’s meaningless,” Angela put her foot down. “We go into the interviews and tell them what they want to know. We don’t leave anything out and we give them anything that could help them track down Seth. He turned his back on being a Hero, and instead of just chilling as a civilian, he became a villain. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We help them catch him. He shouldn’t be coming to us as character witnesses when it comes time for his trail anyway.” With her piece said, Angela got up and walked away.

“What she said.” Anika followed behind her. Becca didn’t say anything, she just waved goodbye.

“Well, that went well.” Kyoshi leaned her head on Mason’s shoulder and watched the few students who remained in the building go about their business.

“Things aren’t the same as freshman year.” Mason stated plainly, but Kyoshi felt the conflict inside him.

She knew he didn’t think Seth was an evil villain, but that was hard to believe after everything that had happened. Still, it wasn’t her place to judge. People were entitled to their thoughts, and she shouldn’t be prying anyway. She withdrew from her boyfriend’s mind and closed her eyes. The rise and fall of his chest coupled with the thumping of his heart lulled her to sleep.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 51

“Bad boys bad boys…whatya gonna do…whatya gonna do when they come for you…” Lilly sang along to the song as she drove down the dark country rode. Only her two headlights pierced the blackness as she kicked up dust in her wake. That was a good thing because it showed no one was following her. It was bad because it was only her headlights. “Shit!” she didn’t see the road drop off until she was right on top of it, and she was not obeying the posted speed limit.

The bronco went airborne for a few seconds until it hit the ground hard enough to grind her teeth.

“Jesus!”

“What the hell!” The two passengers made themselves known as they braced for further impacts.

The car fishtailed, and sent bits of gravel careening into the woods, but she got control, and continued their retreat.

“Sorry. It’s tough to see anything out here.” She leaned forward and tried to make out anything beyond her high beams directly in front of her. Her biggest fear right now, aside from Heroes descending to kick her ass, was hitting a deer or something.

“Do you want me to drive?” Seth asked, but she shook her head. She needed to control some aspect of this situation.

They didn’t have a lot going for them right now. The police knew where they’d been, but not where they were heading. That didn’t matter a lot when you were able to pull the resources they were able to pull. Lilly had almost run into a checkpoint twice while navigating these backroads with nothing better than the map in the bronco’s glove box. Beyond that, she didn’t know the area, and she could feel the noose tightening around them. Worst case scenario…she took the risk of teleporting them all away, and hoped Seth didn’t burst something internally. She’d give him the choice to stay, obviously, but she doubted he wanted to be in prison any more than she did. He was just too pretty for that.

One bright point in this dark situation was the piece of machinery sitting below the center dashboard. She had an idea, grabbed it, and didn’t see any downside to trying.

“Breaker…breaker…this is BubbleGumBooty. What’s with all the hold ups. I’ve got some priority cargo I need to get to New Orleans. Anyone got a way out of this mess?” Lilly didn’t know the procedures for talking over the radio to truckers in the area. Only what she’d seen in the movies.

“I hear ya, BubbleGum.” A frustrated voice answered her in other a minute. “BigDogBilly here. I’m stuck on the 20 at a standstill. I’ve heard from a few other weary travelers that the 55 is backed up too.”

“Hey, BigDog and BubbleGum, RandyDandy here, if you can make it to the 10 on the coastline it’s smooth sailing.

“Thanks, BigDog and Randy, next drinks are on me if we cross paths.” Lilly cut the transmission and brought the car to a stop to look at the map.

If cops were watching the 55, then she was going to have to head east, back the way she’d come, to get on the 59 and down to the 10. The cops would probably be focusing their attention to the west, especially if the Heroes were involved. No one would expect her to head back toward Orlando, but navigating the fifty plus miles back to the 59, on the backroads, in the dark, was going to be a pain.

<Better than jail.> She considered as she did a quick three-point turn and headed back the way she’d come. <This could work.> She shrugged.

Seth and Morina didn’t asked any questions or try to debate the decision. As it stood, Lilly had successfully broken both of them out of prison before, so they figured they owned her a little trust at this point.

<I’ve got this.> Her headlights cut through the night as she drove on.

 

***

 

“How about this one?”

“Nope.”

“This one?”

“Getting warmer.”

“This has got to be a winner!” Mason hefted up the pineapple to give it a good once over.

He and Kyoshi were standing in the middle of the supermarket’s produce section. Mason was much more used to the cramped bodegas in Brooklyn than the spacious Californian Whole Foods, but he couldn’t argue with the food quality.

“Let me see.” Kyoshi took the fruit from his hands and proceeded to pull out one of the spikey leaves at the top. It came out easily; she nodded, and put the fruit in her basket. “That’s how you choose a pineapple.”

It was a weird thing for a couple of HCP trainees to be doing the day after Christmas. Just about everyone else was hitting up the stores for the deals that always occurred, but Kyoshi’s family had a different tradition. They were gathering up a feast of foods that were out of season, as a reminder that the warm weather was right around the corner; because it was not warm in San Francisco in the winter. It wasn’t New York, but it was in the mid-forties and raining. It was like all the happiness of Christmas went right out the door a day later and allowed the gloom to come sweeping in.

<Speaking of gloom,> Mason saw the Breaking News bulletin flash across the bottom of the TV hanging from the ceiling. There wasn’t a lot of volume, and that made it impossible to hear in the crowded store, but the closed captions were going, so he could read along.

Some reporter was outside a police station in Mississippi. Mason only had to watch for thirty seconds for his whole day to be ruined. <Hey,> he thought, and gave Kyoshi the equivalent of a mental poke in the shoulder.

She turned up to the news report just as mug shots splashed across the screen. Two of the three they knew very well.

<Oh, Seth, what had you gotten yourself in to?> The couple’s thoughts echoed each other, but there was nothing they could do.

 

***

 

“Can you believe this shi…stuff?” Anika fumed as she watched the same news coverage from Becca’s family room. Most of the Whitfield clan was out and about, but Becca’s youngest sister wanted to stay with the ‘cool’ girls at the house instead of going with mom shopping.

Becca watched the news coverage with the same frown, but not as much venom, as her girlfriend.

“Who’s that? He’s hot.” Becca’s sister stated plainly.

“You better not say that around Momma!” Becca chided.

Despite the long drive, Anika loved it when they came home to the Whitfield’s for holidays. She loved her own adoptive parents, but there was something so natural about being with her girlfriend’s family. Although, someone thinking Seth Abney was hot, instead of a steaming pile of no-good shit, was something new.

“It’s not all about looks.” Becca was trying to impart some wisdom on her sister. “You see that he’s wanted by the police. It says he’s done a lot of things wrong. He’s…he’s a bad guy.” Becca choked up a little bit, so Anika walked over to put her hand on her shoulder.

Becca might have trouble getting accustomed to this, but Anika wasn’t. She’d know Seth was an arrogant, egotistical ass from the beginning. She never thought he’d go this far, but she never thought he’d make it as a Hero. He just didn’t have what it took.

“You know what will help…ice cream.” Anika smiled when Becca’s sister immediately lost interest in what was on TV.

“It’s not even noon yet.” Becca frowned.

“Do you want ice cream or to continue that conversation?” Anika was already following the little Whitfield into the kitchen.

“Point taken.” Becca got up and joined them, while throwing one last look over her shoulder at the pictures on the screen.

<Oh, Seth, what had you gotten yourself in to?>

 

***

 

<One…two. One…two. One…two…three.> Angela said the combinations in her mind as she threw punches at that heavy bag. She followed up with some punishing knees and elbows, dropped back for a final kick, and then needed to wipe the sweat from her eyes. She’d let her hair grow out since earlier in the year. Now, she’d need to get it cut.

The HCP was virtually empty, but a few students and instructors still roamed the halls. Most everyone went home for the break, but Angela wasn’t everyone. She was top of her class, and needed to stay that way. Plus, both of her parents were gone on assignment, so her going anywhere else was a waste of time.

“Martin!” Coach McMillian walked into the gym where she was practicing. “What are you doing here?”

“Training, Coach.”

“Geez, you’re never not here, Martin. Go out, buy something, and have a hamburger.” The Close Combat instructor approached with a frown on his face.

“Heroes don’t shop, coach.” Angela continued with her next set of combination.

“Tell that to my bank account,” Craig mumbled.

“What?” Angela’s frown deepened.

“Nothing,” he waved away the statement like a bad smell. “The point is that you need to get out. There is going to be plenty of time for you to be unavailable to do anything but eat and breathe because you’re a Hero. Take a second and live a little while you’ve got the chance. Everyone needs the opportunity to decompress.”

“I can’t, Coach.” She continued with her training.

“Why not?”

“That’s why.” Angela pointed at a TV hanging from the ceiling. During the school year, and designated workout with coaches, the TVs were off, but during off time, and during the evenings, they were turned on to let everyone keep up with what was going on in the world. Today, that meant Seth Abney’s face plastered on national TV as a criminal.

“Oh.” Craig was momentarily speechless.

“We’ve got one of our own who’s gone rogue. Better yet, he’s gone rogue with a teleporter. He knows the layout of this place like the back of his hand. If they come looking for a fight. I want to be ready.”

“Security procedures have been changed since Abney got the boot. He’s not going to be able to get back in conventionally, and if he tries unconventionally, we’ll be ready for him.” Craig gave Angela a closer look. “Does this have anything to do with Wraith being the one who set off the bomb that nearly killed your dad, and forced you to see things no teenager ever should?”

“No.” Her answer was too quick, and betrayed her real emotions.

“You know Doctor Johnson is…”

“I’m fine,” she shot back and started hitting the bag faster and harder.

Craig took that as his cue to leave. “Just think about it.” Were his parting words as he left the sophomore class’s top student to work out her anger on a punching bag, which was better than Seth Abney’s face.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 41

“Single file everyone.” A police woman in a reflective yellow vest was waving the group of survivors forward. “Don’t push or shove. Everyone will get through.”

Standing on the other side of the line was a Hero Kyoshi didn’t recognize, but she felt the man probe her mind.

<HCP.> She informed the Hero, who was only mildly surprised to get a reply from someone.

He gestured at her and two burly men in Army uniforms approached her.

From the average person’s perspective, the terrorist attack that disrupted Mr. Morningstar’s funeral was largely over. There was still the occasional gun shot, but that was the police using non-lethal weaponry to disperse looters. A large five block radius of Orlando was in a state of martial law, and the Governor had called in the National Guard to assist.

Small contingents of soldiers started arriving by teleporters outside Force Fields energy barriers. They quickly set up large concrete barriers as the foundation for checkpoints. Barbed wire was strung over them to deter anyone from trying to leap to freedom.

<No one is getting out of here without getting thoroughly checked.> She let the rest of her friends know.

She was keeping them informed of the errant thoughts from the hostage situation a quarter-mile away, but with her being singled out she needed all of her attention on the present.

The line parted for the soldiers as they approached her. “Ma’am, can you please come with us.” The soldiers were polite but tense. The Hero hadn’t given them anything but bare-bones information.

“Sure.” Kyoshi tried to relieve their anxiety by agreeing and smiling.

“I’m coming too.” Mason stepped up next to her. The soldiers might be big, but he was bigger.

“I don’t…” the soldier started, stopped, looked behind him at the Hero, and then nodded. “Fine. Follow me.” One soldier fell in behind them so they were sandwiched between two M4s.

The Hero didn’t come with them. His attention was refocused on the line of people exiting the area. The cops were checking IDs and he was checking thoughts to make sure they weren’t releasing any terrorists back into the city. Orlando couldn’t afford another hit today.

There was a small camouflage tent set up to the side. It had some hastily piled sandbags around the entrance, and two more soldiers were standing guard. They gave Mason and Kyoshi neutral looks as they passed. Inside the tent a curtain cut it in two. One side was filled with plastic tables holding computers and coffee. A quick looked showed they had predator drones circling the city and were doing a collateral damage assessment on a building surrounded by cops. A man with a golden leaf on the center of his uniform was yelling over the phone at someone, but the Mason and Kyoshi didn’t get to stick around. They were hurried into the other side where several people sat at desk opposite soldiers who were asking questions.

“Take a seat.” The soldier pointed at two empty tables in the corner where people were waiting to talk to them.

<It’s ok,> she told Mason.

Mason nodded and led the way. His interrogator was a small guy with a reassuring smile that he turned on the moment he saw Mason. Kyoshi’s didn’t smile. Her interrogator’s eyes narrowed as Kysohi took a seat across from her. Kyoshi had a full view of the room and everyone in it. She recognized some of the people sitting around talking.

“Name?” The interrogator wasted no time getting down to business.

“Kyoshi Schultz.”

“That’s an interesting name.”

Kyoshi wasn’t sure if that was a statement or question. “I’m half Japanese and half German.”

“Parents’ names?”

“Wilhelm and Sakura.”

The soldier had a laptop in front of her and started entering information on it. Kyoshi wanted to know what she was looking at, but the soldier’s mental guards were up, and after reading the room she knew it wasn’t a good time to pry. Motion near the flap caught her attention and another soldier brought Becca in.

The petite speedster’s emotions didn’t need deeper reading. Kyoshi’s friend was upset and hurting. Anika was still unconscious, but the doctors said she’d make a full recovery once a healer got around to see her. Whatever Becca had seen during the explosion, it was clearly weighing on her. Kyoshi wouldn’t ask until her friend had a little time to digest it all.

A second later the flap opened again and Angela was escorted in. Unlike Becca, the angelic shifter’s expression was just slightly better than pissed.

The realization hit Kyoshi a moment later. <They’re interrogating all the Supers.>

“Why are you in Orlando when your residence is in California?” the interrogator continued questioning.

“I go to West Private University.” Kyoshi stayed calm and didn’t let the growing unease show on her face.

“What are you studying?”

“Psychology.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m good at it.” Kyoshi bit her tongue as some of her irritation leaked out. “And I think the world needs good people to help others when they’re struggling.”

“How very noble.” The interrogator didn’t make it sound like a compliment.

“Did you have anything to do with the terrorist attack today?”

“No.”

“Why were you here?”

“To pay my respects to a fallen Hero. Mr. Morningstar was a great man and I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Were you going to speak at the podium?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t going to wait hours and hours in line.”

“So, you wanted to pay your respects but weren’t willing to wait to say anything.” The interrogator raised an eyebrow.

“I was being realistic. I have homework and other things to do today that preclude me from spending hours out here.”

“Like what?”

“School stuff.” More irritation leaked into Kyoshi’s tone. She didn’t have a problem talking about HCP stuff with the Hero, but this unknown soldier was a different deal. If the woman had the authorization and access to know about her HCP status then she would know. If not, then Kyoshi wasn’t going to violate the SI clause of her contract.

“Can you be more specific?”

“Group project.” It wasn’t a lie. Her team was prepping for the next team competition.

The interrogator jotted more notes down.

“It’s none of your business.” Kyoshi overheard Angela giving the soldier a piece of her mind. She couldn’t blame her friend, this whole thing just felt weird.

Whatever the interrogator saw on her screen it seemed to satisfy whatever other questions she had. “We have your address. We’ll contact you if we have any follow up questions.”

To Kyoshi that sounded at lot like “we know where you live, so don’t leave town”. She got quickly to her feet and another soldier waved for her to follow him. He led her out the back of the tent to another check point. The guards here were carrying bulky machine guns instead of the M4s the other soldiers carried. They checked her license carefully and scanned the barcode on the back. There was a soft ping, and they handed it back to her.

“Have a nice day.” They didn’t sound like they meant it.

Kyoshi stepped past them into chaos. People were everywhere trying to find friends and loved ones. Cops and more soldiers were trying to keep order, but it was tough with so much emotion. Kyoshi looked up when she felt thoughts above her, and saw several soldering with weapons perched on rooftops and scanning the crowd.

“Hey,” Mason showed up a second later, and Becca and Angela not long after that.

“What was that all about?” Becca was hugging herself protectively, and Kyoshi knew it wasn’t because of the cold.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Angela was still a little worked up from everything. “Supers perpetrated the attack, so they’re scanning the crowd for anyone with powers, singling them out, and interrogating them.”

“Makes sense,” Mason shrugged. “They’re just making sure no one else was involved.”

“We’re HCP students, the Hero watching the check point knew that, and those interrogators sure as hell had the information from the DVA. I don’t know why they hassled us.”

“I do.” Mason nodded toward the frantic crowd. “I lived in New York just after Seif al-Din’s attack that took out half the Heroes in the city. It didn’t matter that Supers tried to stop the attack. The attack was a Super in the first place, and people resented all Supers for that. Same goes for the end of last semester. I was glad we were gone for the summer because it gave the city’s anger a chance to simmer, but after this we’re going to see hate crimes skyrocket and a lack of tolerance.”

“But we didn’t do anything?” Becca’s tone was confused.

“Doesn’t matter. We need to keep our heads down.” Already, a few heads were turning to judge Becca’s blue hair and Kyoshi’s clearly Super features. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Their hair and eyes might be drawing attention, but Mason’s mass made sure no one did anything about it. They called an Uber and got a ride back to campus, where they reported directly to the HCP. The staff was going to want full accountability of all the students before the end of the day, and they’d want to prepare them for what came next.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 30

It felt good to be back in the suit. This wasn’t some emergency situation thing while the latest shitstorm was passing through town. Daisy was legit back in the show now, even though her Hero certification hadn’t been technically restored yet. There were more tests for her to take at the D.C. office when she got the free time, but the Protectorate was able to get around that right now by having her temporary status extended indefinitely until her certification reactivated. She was in team’s rotation part-time for the time being, and right now that meant she was the Hero on call.

She’d had customized fatigues ordered and delivered within twenty-four hours. They were a hell of a lot better than the crap they’d issued her for Mr. Morningstar’s detail. The fabric was lightweight and breathable while still being made of a ballistic material that would stop most small caliber ammunition. It was nothing like her old uniform that could hold together under artillery fire, but things were different here in Florida. She’d die of dehydration in that material down here, and it didn’t matter much for a kinetic absorber what caliber round it could handle. What did matter was them being top-grade fire-retardant material. She’d nearly been burned alive once in the last year and she wasn’t planning on going for two.

She’d dug her old domino mask out of her things, strapped it on, and immediately discarded it. It didn’t fit the circumstances. Shit was sliding sideways fast, and she didn’t need something to convey that. Her full-face shield came in with the rest of the uniform. The designer, a go-to for any serious Hero, had styled some red accents onto the metallic-black material that gave it a little devilish flair. On top of it went her black patrol cap. She’d had to slap it against her leg half a dozen times to get all the dust off of it, but it fit just right, and she wasn’t willing to get a new one. Her short hair went into a ponytail and through the open space at the back, and she was Reaper again.

Despite that, it had been a long time since she’d been on a call like this. <At least ten years.> She thought as she lifted the thin, yellow caution tape that made a horizontal barrier across the door of the apartment complex.

Even when she’d still been an active Hero, Daisy had usually been brought in for scorched-earth missions or things deemed serious by Iron Giant or the DVA. John was well aware of her short temper back then, so he didn’t waste her time with minor league shit. She was a different person now, and KaBoom was a different leader, so she got the same assignments as everyone else.

The neighbors were out in the hallway and their eyes went wide as she strode confidently down the hall to the gaggle of whispering detectives. She didn’t know if they remembered her from a decade ago, or if they just thought she looked bad ass. She didn’t pay them any attention other than a quick scan to classify them as non-threatening. What she was trying to figure out was the lead detective’s name. She’d seen him around the precinct before, and Topher had even introduced them once.

“Detective Martinez,” she gave herself a mental high-five when the man turned to regard her.

The next few interactions were crucial. Even though she wasn’t a new Hero in Orlando’s scene, she was new to the routine calls, and that meant she needed to carefully cultivate a relationship with the rank and file of the OPD. How she acted here with Detective Martinez was going to be spread around through the force. She was pretty sure the SWAT guys and a few uniforms that worked on the raids might have some stories, but Martinez was going to be the first to interact with her like this.

“Reaper.” He acknowledged her with a head nod and a look that said ‘I don’t really need you here, but I’ll take the help I can get’. It was a hell of a lot better than ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, and why do you think you can walk right into my crime scene and run the show?’.

“What have we got?” She decided to play it business-like for now.

“Nothing.”

She did a double take and got confirmation when Martinez shrugged.

“I’m not even sure why we’re here.”

“You’re here because I asked,” Daisy turned to see Debora striding down the hallway. She had her pant-suit jacket pulled to the side to show her DVA badge to the officer who looked like he was going to move to block her.

“Agent Phillips.” Reaper gave her the same tone and nod she did Martinez. Local vs. Federal beef was something she did not want to get in the middle of.

“Reaper.” The DVA agent returned the nod and strode past her and the detectives to the room where a man with CSI in big letters on his back was taking pictures of a perfectly clean apartment.

Too clean.

<Badge and gun on the table…no sign of forced entry…nothing looks like it’s been taken…> Daisy might not have done this in a while, but she remembered the basics.

“Do you mind telling us what the hell is going on?” Martinez asked as he followed Debora into the living room. Daisy brought up the rear.

“This is the apartment of DVA Agent Simmons. She didn’t report to work this morning, she didn’t call in sick, and no one has been able to get a hold of her since she left the office last night. This is atypical behavior from an agent with stellar reviews and perfect attendance.”

“So…she went on a bender and hasn’t crawled back out of the bottle yet.” Martinez suggested as he accepted a pair of gloves that Debora was handing to everyone. Daisy’s outfit came with gloves, so she walked into the kitchen to take a look around while everyone pulled on the latex.

All Daisy could think of was butt inspections when she heard the snap of the plastic and the weird squeaking sound of them being adjusted. She quickly pushed the thoughts aside and looked around the kitchen. She opened the fridge and found a dedicated agent’s contents: half a carton of eggs, milk that was about to go bad, and take-out that was either fresh or had been in there way too long judging by the noxious fumes wafting into the air. It didn’t tell her much about the agent other than she was a workaholic.

“Agent Simmons is a young, talented agent. She did not go on a bender. She is missing.”

“Unless things have changed, someone usually has to be gone at least forty-eight hours to officially be classified as missing,” Daisy said her piece and didn’t bother looking at Debora. She could feel the heat of the DVA agent’s glare on her back.

“Normally, yes, but there are exigent circumstances in this case.”

“Which are…?” Martinez asked as the group made its way into the bedroom.

Daisy scanned the living room before following. The bed room looked just as clean, but the bed’s comforter was missing. <Weird,> she wondered if anyone had checked the washer.

“Agent Simmons was part of a two-person team that captured an individual assisting the supervillain known as Wraith yesterday.” No one needed any further explanation.

They all split up and started to do their detective thing, and Daisy went over to the CSI guy. He was a little star struck and stumbled over his answers. It was what she’d already surmised. They’d dusted for prints and everything, but so far they’d come up with diddly. The evidence was pointing more and more in the direction of the bender theory.

“Do you mind?” she asked as she grabbed the UV light from the CSI guy’s kit of tools.

He didn’t, but he said he already took a look at everything and didn’t find anything. It didn’t matter. She had a hunch. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but she couldn’t buy that the breakout from the supermax prison and anything Wraith did from now on was coincidental. There had to be a reason, and so far every prisoner except one was accounted for. She’d read the file and knew what to look for.

While everyone else poked around the bedroom, she shut herself in the bathroom and closed the door. She flipped on the UV lamp and watched as the blueish glow washed over everything. The tile was clean, too clean, and the CSI guy probably noted that in his report. She also bet that aside from the food in her fridge, Agent Simmons was a classic neat freak. The orderly apartment suggested it, so that cleanliness would be written off.

Daisy wasn’t willing to assume that. She waved the light and looked into all the nooks and crannies. There was nothing behind the toilet, anywhere in the back of the closet, or under the lip of the sink where someone’s foot might accidentally leave residue. She waved it over the tub and it was just as immaculate. She was about to move on when a momentary shine caught her eye.

“Someone get me a screw driver!” she called out. Less than ten seconds later Debora had one, and had squeezed into the dark space with Martinez.

Daisy unscrewed counterclockwise and the drain cover popped off. The top of it didn’t show any residue, but the underside was shining like a beacon. The drain itself wasn’t too bad, but there were still some flecks of brightness. Normally, they would be swabbed and sent to the lab with the lowest priority since there still wasn’t any real indication that Agent Simmons was missing, but the bottom of the drain cover was the smoking gun.

“I’d bet you a month’s pay that if you swab and test this blood you’ll get a positive DNA test for Agent Simmons.” Daisy wasn’t happy she’d made the discovery.

“Shit,” Debora cursed and seemed to deflate in front of her.

“How the hell did you know to look there, and how do you know it’s blood?” Martinez was squinting at the bright underside of the cover.

“Bloodhound.” Daisy replied.

“What?”

“The only prisoner missing from the prison break in Colorado was a woman named Bloodhound. Her MO is to kill people, drain their bodies of blood, and bathe in it. My guess is that some of it leaked out while she was bathing, or she tried to drain some of it, or maybe she even forgot to put the stopper in when she cut her victim’s throats. I don’t know, but I do know that blood is thicker than water and doesn’t drain like it. She cleaned up after she was done, but she missed this bit.”

“Victims?”

“It’s just a gut feeling, but judging by the level of cleaning that went into this, and the amount of blood the human body has in it, I’m guessing two or more people were drained into the tub. I suggest we canvas the neighbors and see if anyone else didn’t show up for work this morning unexpectedly.” Daisy felt the weight of guilt settle onto her shoulders.

This was the part of the job she didn’t miss: the feeling that she could have prevented this if she was here or had done something different in the past.

<You didn’t do this. Wraith and Bloodhound did. Concentrate on that.> She took a deep breath, composed herself, and got to her feet.

“Get CSI in here and get the evidence. Then you can make this an official homicide case and get the resources that you need.” She looked at Debora. The DVA agent couldn’t see behind the mask, but Daisy’s face was pained. “Sorry for your loss, Agent Phillips.”

Debora didn’t say anything. She threw open the door and started yelling orders to everyone.

 

***

 

The last few freshman of West Private’s HCP shuffled into the auditorium just before the scheduled start time. The rest of the classes watched them without judging. They knew everything those first semester freshman were going through, and the last thing anyone wanted after a workout session with Coach McMillian was to sit in the auditorium for an announcement from the Dean.

Mason, Kyoshi, Becca, Anika, and Angela were sitting together and all hoping this would be quick. The grumbling of stomachs in the room was nearly as loud as the side conversations.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming on such short notice.” Dean Ditmar stepped out onto the stage with a hurried look on his face. The stress was something his students were not used to seeing. “I just wanted to gather everyone together this evening to discuss what has occurred and will be occurring.”

Several people in the crowd – mostly freshman – shifted uncomfortably. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this conversation was going.

“Not long ago, the Hero community and this city lost an icon.” The Dean’s tone was somber. “I have personally known Mr. Morningstar for more than half a decade, and his reputation preceded him long before that. He was a good man, a great Hero, and an asset to this city. As all of you know, he lost his life fighting against people who have attacked our city and our nation. Due to the media coverage, it was a very public death. Most Heroes who die in the line of duty do not get the moment captured on national television, but how his death was broadcasted does not affect his relevance as a Hero and guardian of this city. If anything, it shows everyone: Hero, civilian, and HCP student just how important the daily battle for peace and justice really is.” The Dean stopped to take a sip of water from the bottle on the podium.

“Most of you also know that his murderer is still at large, and once masqueraded as a student at this college.”

All of the eyes in the room pivoted in Mason, Kyoshi, Becca, and Anika’s direction. A few then moved down toward Isla in the front row, but none of them found what they were looking for.

“The public funeral and private ceremony for Mr. Morningstar are being held tomorrow starting exactly at noon. The city is pulling out all the stops. A funeral procession of Heroes and local law enforcement will escort Mr. Morningstar’s body through the city to the church. Once there, only close friends and families, transported by teleporter, will be present for the actual service. Members of the public may be inclined to stay and follow the procession to the cemetery where Mr. Morningstar will be laid to rest.”

Becca’s hand shot up the moment the Dean finished and he pointed for her to ask the question everyone was thinking.

“Can we attend?”

“That’s why I called this assembly.” The Dean smiled back with a hint of sadness. “Members of the West Private HCP are more than welcome to attend as civilians. The secret identity clause of your contracts still applies. You may not reveal what you are or what you are doing at West Private, and that is important because the threat level for tomorrow is high.” The Dean’s face grew serious. “As I mentioned, Wraith and the others who attacked the prison are still at large. If their goal is to continue to hurt this city then attacking the funeral will be at the top of their agenda. The DVA and over a dozen Heroes are tasked specifically with security, but no defense is perfect. That is a good lesson to take away from this meeting today. Several very powerful people will be there tomorrow, and there is still a chance for things to go very wrong. I can’t stop you from attending, but you all need to keep that in mind if you do go.”

“Are you on the security detail?” An overzealous freshman asked.

“No, but I will be attending the funeral and will do my duty if called upon. I’m an asset in reserve for the authorities to utilize.” The Dean looked around for any more eager question askers. “As the Dean of the HCP, your safety is my top priority and we will be ensuring accountability of all students throughout the day tomorrow. The whole city, including the school, has established tomorrow as a half-day in honor of Mr. Morningstar. It is as much a security concern as anything else, but I encourage all of you to take advantage of this time to train and learn.” The Dean looked around again for any raised hands. “If you are planning to attend tomorrow, please see Professor Livingston and she will give you the relevant information.”

The Dean stepped away from the podium and the classes took that as a sign of dismissal. Everyone gathered their things and started to either stream out of the auditorium or to the Focus professor. Surprisingly, despite the danger, more students headed to the teacher than to the door, but a few made a beeline straight to the Dean.

“Dean Ditmar,” naturally Becca got to him first, “have you seen Seth? He wasn’t in any of our classes today and we’re worried about him. He’s been a bit off lately, and with his probation we just wanted to check in.” Anyone who didn’t know the petite speedster would have thought she was giving the Dean puppy-dog-eyes, but it was just her natural expression.

“Mr. Abney has been temporarily removed from the program until the criminal charges against him get sorted out. How the issue is resolved will determine if he returns to this program or not.” The Dean didn’t elaborate before leaving the stunned sophomores.

“He’s gone?” was all Becca was able to say.

“Oh man,” Mason sighed as his face fell.

Anika kept her mouth shut and Angela just shrugged. Their eyes met briefly and they could both tell the other Super thought Seth was better off somewhere else. Neither thought he had the current mindset to be a Hero.

“Hey, have you guys seen Seth?” Isla walked up to the small group with the same concerned look on her face. The look only deepened when she heard the news. “I don’t understand?”

“It’s not difficult.” Angela started off, but softened her tone when Becca shot her a withering look. “Seth is obviously going through something, and with his legal problems the staff is probably correct in assuming he’s not ready to be a Hero now, so why would they waste resources training him?”

“It’s just…” Isla stopped and struggled over what to say. “Nevermind,” she sighed and walked away back toward the rest of the freshman who were gathered around Professor Livingston.

“What should we do?” Mason asked once they were alone again.

“Nothing,” Anika replied. “If he’s out then the HCP is going to wipe his memory so he can’t expose the rest of us. The Dean gave us the whole spiel last year. For all we know, Seth doesn’t even remember who we are right now.”

That sent Becca over the edge. She sniffled and headed for the door with Anika following after her apologizing. Angela agreed with the sentiment with a simple nod and followed the two other Supers out. That just left Mason and Kyoshi.

“I can’t sense him in the building, but we can drive by his place if you want?” She could tell Mason was taking it hard. It was always difficult to see someone you’d fought beside gone like that without even a goodbye.

“Sure.”

Kyoshi intertwined her hand in Mason’s and the two large Supers carved a path toward the exit. They’d both get with Professor Livingston tomorrow morning to confirm they’d go to the funeral.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 18

“Whoever it is, I’m going to whoop some major ass.” Anna Fletcher boasted loudly in the corner of the women’s locker room.

If it was anyone else making such outrageous statements the other women of the HCP sophomore class might take offense, but they all knew Anna, and they also knew she could cash the checks her mouth was writing.

“It will be interesting to see what the matchups are.” Erin answered from her corner in a rare moment of coherence.

Several of the other women around the room didn’t take that as a good sign. When Erin was sane, she was there to play. Angela and Kyoshi watched the friendly banter and minor trash talking from their lockers. The school had changed it so that people on the same team were stationed next to each other. It gave a small semblance of privacy to discuss strategy or any other team related business without the whole locker room overhearing you.

“We have contingency plans for dealing with each team.” Angela spoke softly to the three other women on her team. “But I’m sure we won’t have to wait long.” Her eyes were drawn to the entrance which had just swung open.

“Yep, it’s me again.” Coach Meyers stood in the entryway with an all too familiar grin pulling at her lips. “You’ve got two minutes to finished getting your shit together. Starting NOW.”

All idle chitchat ceased as the women rushed to get into their gray uniforms. It was harder for some woman than others, and Angela knew for a fact it was during time like these where several in her class wished they were a little smaller in the breast department. Sports bras could only do so much against the tight, durable, fire-resistant fabric of the standard HCP uniform.

“Are you ready?” Angela turned to Kyoshi, Fiona, and Natalia individually to gauge their mindsets.

All of them looked confident, determined, and ready to kick some ass.

“Let’s move!” Coach Meyers spun on her heel and marched off. Everyone scurried to follow. She took them on the same path toward the large underground city they’d done multiple scenarios in the previous year. The key difference being that last year was an every-man-for-themselves scenario. This year was all about teamwork.

“Keep your hands and feet inside the elevator.” She scolded when they reached the massive lift that would take everyone down to the subterranean levels. “I’d hate for someone to lose a hand before all the fun starts.”

No one lost an extremity, and the lift slowly descended down…and down…and down.

<We’re definitely below the city.> Angela thought as they finally came to a halt.

The lift opened into another waiting area with big screen TVs scattered around and a large wall sized projection that showed a rough map of several arenas. Angela only got a couple of seconds looking at it before it winked out of existence.

“About time, I thought you got lost.” Coach McMillian was standing with the boys in the center of the room.

They all looked determined, but Angela could see the extra sweat on their brows that had nothing to do with the air temperature.

“Everyone team up. You’ve got five minutes to make any last preparations. Once that time is up the scoreboard will show the matchups and where you need to run. You will have three minutes to get to your starting points. If you don’t make it to that stating point in time you lose. You win as a team and you lose as a team.” Coach McMillian’s eyes were serious. “That is how it works in the real world, and that’s how it works in here. Take care of each other, get the job done, and as always don’t kill your fellow HCP students. You guys have promise, and I’d hate to see you behind bars.”

The teams started to gather when he finished his remarks, and Angela got her full contingent together. “Anything?” She directed her question at Kyoshi.

“Everyone is wondering the same thing we are. Who are we facing? How do we beat them? How does this effect our rankings? What happens if we lose?” She could have gone on and on.

“We aren’t going to lose.” Angela declared, and as far as she was concerned her word was law. “We’re going to be smart, aggressive, and get the job done. Just like Coach McMillian instructed. We all know our roles for a multitude of scenarios. We are a talented and competent team. I have no doubts we’ll have a win under our belt in the next few hours.”

Angela’s pep talk had heads nodded around the group, and Alex Webb was even pounding his fist into his other hand. His body was already starting to swell with excitement. Angela did her best to keep the team focused over the next five minutes. She quizzed them on what their roles would be in difference scenarios they may face, but she’d been too on the nose before. Everyone answered her questions flawlessly. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do. Now, they just needed to know who they were going to be going up against and what role they would actually play in their first team challenge.

At five minutes on the dot the scoreboard illuminated and showed the matchup and where they needed to go. It didn’t give the team a lot of time to think. The starting points varied from a hundred yards to half a mile away.

Angela only needed a glance to get the information she needed. <Team two it is, and we need to go down C corridor for a quarter mile.>

“Plan A, everyone.” She let everyone know just before she took off down one of the four hallways that had just illuminated themselves.

She watched as Jason’s team went down D corridor. The two captain’s eyes met for a split second, and they nodded to each other. If this was going to be a fight, it only made sense for the class’ numbers one and two to go at it again, and it was a fight Angela was determined to win.

A quarter mile in three minutes wasn’t taxing for sophomore HCP students. They made it with a minute to spare, so they started to separate into their assigned roles. Jason’s team was tough, and he’d designed it in a similar way to Angela’s. She’d have her hands full just with Jason if they ever came across each other. Without her to back up the rest of her team they could be in some real trouble. Anika had the traits of Kyoshi and Webb. She could give advanced warning as well as put up one hell of fight. Angela would have to get in the mix, or detail two of her team to take down the multifaceted Super.

Teresa Shaw was also going to be a problem. Her shifting made her versatile, and Angela didn’t know if Webb would be able to take her alone. Liam Garrison and Emilia Scarborough would be a little easier to deal with. She knew Oliver had some surprise in store from the tech department, and if Natalia was able to get either of them in eye sight then it was game over.

Danny was the obvious counter to Natalia. His duplicates could be sacrifices to get close and take her out while the real Danny was nowhere nearby. It would be up to Kyoshi to find Danny and maybe even take him out.

Angela wasn’t overly concerned about Janet Ibsen and her light rope, but she didn’t want to dismiss the girl. That rope had a lot of strange properties that could come back to bite them in the ass.

No matter what the matchups, the linchpin in Angela’s plan was always Fiona. Having a teleporter who could take direction from a telepath and offer unparalleled movement around the battlefield was priceless. That was why Angela had jumped down the rankings to grab her. Knowing her father, and having fought against a monster like Wraith, Angela knew the true value in a good teleporter. Although, Fiona was limited to carrying two people at a time right now, those two people could make all the difference.

“Everyone ready?” Angela took a deep breath as the large steel door opened in front of them. It was ominous enough that she thought a swarm of bats was going to fly out any try to suck their blood.

Nothing did, so Angela took the first step into the waiting darkness. Once everyone was through the opening the doors closed behind them, and they closed a lot faster than they opened. It also swarmed them in total darkness.

<I can fix that.>

Angela reached with herself, grabbed the burning warmth of her power, and pulled. The whole room illuminated for a second as Angela vanished in the brilliant white light and was replaced by her angelic shifted form. Her form had a soft glow to it that helped, but it didn’t penetrate like the white burst of her transformation. Not that it mattered.

“We’re in a giant box.” Fiona sounded nervous at suddenly finding herself trapped.

Angela couldn’t hide her own confusion. It was humid in the confined space, and she thought it was some sort of tunnel leading to a tropical landscape where they’d have to fight dehydration as much as the other team. However, her transformation had clearly showed they were in a large steel box with no exit except the one that had already closed behind them.

<Is this a test?> She wondered.

“What’s that?” Blake was the first to notice the change in the room.

Angela had been so focused on trying to figure out the professors’ tricks that she didn’t even notice water gradually beginning to rise from the floor beneath them.

One of the scariest things her team could imagine was drowning to death in a dark underground chamber, and she didn’t blame them. They scrambled for the walls as the water level continued to rapidly rise. Fiona was screaming as the water reached knee height and it became more difficult to run. Webb and Angela were able to power through it, but when they reached the walls it didn’t offer any relief. They were smooth metal just like the door into this death chamber was.

Angela jumped up and flapped her wings to gain some altitude. The whole room was starting to fill like a giant bath tub, and her team had nowhere to go.

<What’s the point of this.> Angela summoned an energy mace and flew toward the door at the back of the room. She hit it a few times, but it was thick and made of solid steel. It didn’t budge, and she wouldn’t be able to make any headway before the water consumed them all.

“Fiona, can you get us out of here?” Angela asked, but got no response. “Fiona?!”

“She can’t swim.” Webb shouted back. He’d transformed into a creature of white bone and red muscle. It looked like something out of a horror movie, but Fiona was scrambling up onto his shoulder like he was her guardian angel. “What the fuck is going on, Angela?”

For the first time in a long time Angela had no clue what the hell was happening, and that didn’t help things as the water continued to climb.

<They won’t kill us.> Fiona might not have reached that mental point yet, but Angela knew it. <The worst thing that’ll happen is we fail something, but we’ll live.>

Of course, those words offered zero comfort when the water was high enough that they all needed to start treading water to keep their heads above it. Everyone except Angela.

<They’ve got to be feeding the water in from the lake.> It was the only thing she could think of that would allow this much water to be pumped in this quickly.

It only took a few minutes to completely fill the room, and soon even Angela wasn’t able to avoid it. The team huddled together at the center of the room with their faces pressed sideways against the steel top of the room. Angela was still waiting for it to stop before they ran out of breathable air, and they figured that out in the next ten seconds.

Everyone took a deep breath, and water completely filled the room. That was when Angela started to panic. Her energy weapon blazed brightly in the murky water as she bashed it against the ceiling. Like to door it didn’t give, and for a split-second Angela felt a hopelessness she’d only felt once before: when she thought her father died.

That momentary pang of incredible sadness vanished as Angela and the rest of her team were violently sucked through something by some unknown force. She tumbled head over ass against a hard surface for a few seconds. She tried to hold in her final breath, but her head was spinning and she was pretty sure she was about to puke.

Then she felt the greatest sensation in the world: air. She took a gasping breath as she flew through the air, and in that second and a half it took her to realize she wasn’t under her own power she splashed back into the water.

Her eyes adjusted and she looked around frantically to see where she was and if the rest of team had lived. Heads started to surface from the water and she counted off her whole team before she took a breath of relief.

“What the fuck was that?!” Fiona disappeared from the water and reappeared shaking on the shore lined with a small rock beach and beyond that thick coniferous trees.

It looked like the team had been deposited in a pond roughly the size of the room they’d been trapped in. <They refilled the pond and we were just along for the ride.> Angela had a strong urge to punch Coach McMillian in the face, but she’d knew she’d never tag him. The speedster was way too fast for her.

“It was a test. An underhanded and sadistic test, but still a test.” Angela kicked with her feet and took to the air. She stayed low, just above the pond’s surface, to avoid giving away their position.

“Correct Ms. Martin, but I’d hardly say it was sadistic.” Professor Willis’ voice spoke from all around them. “It was a test to see how you handled yourselves under pressure. You did fairly well, better than some but worse than others. Now it is time to focus on the game.”

“Game? What game?” Kyoshi had just reached the shore, and her normal serene face looked pissed.

“The best game ever.” They could practically see the Subtlety teacher’s smiling face. “Capture the flag.”

Out of the ground next to them rose a green flag, about the size of the American flag, but with a big black 1 on it.

“This is your flag. Team two has one just like it. Your objective is to defend your flag while capturing the enemy’s flag. You have three hours to complete the game. Any questions?”

“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you?” Webb finally got to the shore carrying Natalia on his back. The woman was clearly shaken.

“Nothing, Mr. Webb. The real question is why are you busy asking me questions when the other team is already on the move.” There was no click of the line closing, but Angela was sure the old spy would want to end things on that note.

“Ok,” she controlled her tone to make it neutral and leader-like, but she fully agreed with Webb. “I’m going up to get a lay of the land. Fiona, climb on my back and start memorizing some locations. Everyone else, guard the flag. We’ll be right back.”

It took a little more coaxing to get Fiona onto Angela’s back, but when she did the shifter didn’t hesitate. She sprang into the air and rose above the tree before zipping away from the pond. The last thing she wanted to do was give the enemy team a location on their flag.

From their elevation, Angela was able to make out the boarders of the arena. The sky overhead was some type of screen that displayed blue skies and a slowly setting sun. There was even enough artificial light coming off of the golden ball to make it feel real. The rest of the arena was quite large, more than a mile long and just about as wide. It made a circle from what she could tell, and contained mostly trees. There were a few clearings here and there, along with another two ponds, but other than that it was all trees.

<So much for me being able to scout ahead.> Jason and his team weren’t stupid enough to sit in a clearing and wait to be seen, and it was more than likely that their flag was in the forest somewhere.

“I’m good.” Fiona still looked a little green from almost drowning, but she was quickly pulling it together. “I’ve got enough locations that I think we’ll be…”

A wave of pressure hit Angela light a freight train and tossed her backward. Miraculously, Fiona hung on as they were flipped through the air.

“Go!” Angela called over her shoulder. “Take Webb and Blake with you to the farthest point opposite our own. That’s the best place to start looking.”

Originally, Angela didn’t think much of the muscle mimic’s ability to contribute to a stand-up fight, but after a look at the environment she’d reconsidered. It was going to be tight quarters for this challenge, and although he might not be able to take out a heavy hitter, Blake was skilled at getting around. Angela knew the muscle mimic had thoroughly studied parkour and rock climbing, and she wouldn’t be surprised if tree climbing was in there too. The other Super might very well turn out to be a critical asset during this challenge.

<They’re testing us all in our own way.> She understood as she felt Fiona’s weight disappear from her back. <They take away some of our advantages and make us use our heads. My flight would be the key to this fight without all the foliage, and they want to see how I handle the change.> She was pretty sure she was doing the right thing, but only time would tell.

She regained control of herself and stopped the spin. She dove low to avoid any more blasts from Jason – there wasn’t anyone else who could have hit her that hard from that far away – and discretely make her way back to the flag. Her contribution to this challenge might very well be on the defensive side of the game.

“Oliver, do you have any type of advanced warning sensors on that thing?” She asked when she landed.

“Sure do,” he smiled and produced several camouflage balls from the weird contraption on top of his uniform.

“Take Natalia and set up a perimeter of them a few hundred meters out. I want as much advanced warning as possible.”

“I can do that.” Kyoshi stated as the two Supers rushed into the forest.

“I know you can, but when one Anika jumps us and Jason starts blasting away, I don’t want you to have to worry about keeping track of someone trying to sneak around behind us.” Angela’s request for Oliver wasn’t because she didn’t think Kyoshi was capable. It was because she didn’t want the class’ most powerful telepath have to split their attention six ways when the fighting started.

Kyoshi’s most powerful gift was still the ability to possess a person, and she needed complete concentration to pull that off.

<I just hope Fiona, Webb, and Blake find something.> She was putting a lot of faith in her scouting team.

Twenty minutes passed with nothing happening. Oliver completed his sensor perimeter and returned to watch it on a tablet built into the tech suit he was wearing. He had to get permission to wear it into the trial in the first place, and then they’d been dunked in pond water. Amazingly, everything still worked. It was metal, but not sleek and shiny. It looked like he’d raided a junk yard and cobbled together something. Angela saw hydraulics, pistons, and oddly placed pieces of metal all over his body. She knew better than to ask what all of it did and get dragged into a techie conversation she couldn’t understand. She knew all that she needed to know, and Oliver was no stranger to giving suggestions or showing off his tech; especially to the ladies.

“I’ve got…” Was all the heads-up Angela got before a woman-shaped blur put her shoulder into her stomach and launched her backward.

It didn’t quiet knock the wind out of her, but it certainly caught her by surprise. <Anika.>

Becca’s girlfriend skidded to a stop just short of the pond and rounded on Kyoshi, Oliver, and Natalia. She kept her eyes down to avoid the Natalia’s paralyzing power, which opened her up to an attack. Surprisingly, it was Oliver that ran up and punched her.

Angela instinctually flared her wings to stop her backward movement, and beat them furiously to get back into the fight; so she got to watch it all unfold.

Oliver reared back like they’d been taught countlessly in class. He put his weight behind the punch, rotated his core to maximum effect, and let loose. At the last second before his fist hit Anika’s face his suit reacted. The pistons fired, driving forward some of the mysterious bars on his forearm. By now Angela was close enough to see that Oliver’s fist was wrapped around a small perpendicular piece of metal welded to the bars, and on top of that were some of the most ghetto, badass looking brass knuckles Angela had ever seen; especially since they were probably made of steel instead of brass. With the power of the hydraulics he’d developed into his suit, Oliver hit Anika with machinery-enhanced strength. It caught the other Super by surprise, picked her up off her feet and tossed her a couple of yards into the trees.

“Fuck yeah!” Oliver pumped his other feet as Anika laid there stunned for a moment.

Unfortunately, the victory was short lived. A wave of gas floated over the area as Liam Garrison appeared at the tree line. Kyoshi knew what was coming and dove into the water to swim away, but Oliver, in his super suit wasn’t quick enough. The gas overtook him, and after a brief choking noise he collapsed.

Teresa Shaw stepped up next to Liam as he ended his gas attack. She looked like some type of bear-wolf hybrid. Her jaws dripped saliva as she sniffed the scene. Angela didn’t wait for anyone else to arrive, they were already down a man, and she had a feeling things were only going to get worse. She rocketed back toward the gathered enemy team, but pulled up short. A few flaps of her wings blasted the toxic fog back toward them. Liam was unaffected by his ability, but Teresa’s animal form whined and beat a hasty retreat. Angela made sure Liam did the same by throwing an energy spear at him.

She made sure to blunt the ends, but it would still hurt like a bitch and break bones if he got hit.

“They’ll regroup and be back soon.” She called out to her dispersed team.

Oliver was down and out for the count. There was no word from the scout team, Natalia was coughing like she might have gotten a small whiff of the fog, and Kyoshi…

<Where’s Kyoshi?>

<HELP!> Rang out in Angela’s head just as she felt a chill pass over her body.

She looked over her shoulder and saw a big chunk of the pond was frozen over, and a hand was stretched toward their flag. Emily Scarborough had snuck around to some side of the pond, out of the range of Oliver’s sensors, and taken a swim. Apparently, she’d run into Kyoshi at some point because the advanced mind was half frozen in ice. The pond was not the place to be facing a cryokinetic.

<I can’t hold her much longer.>

Angela took a look closer as she leapt toward the Super trying to steal their flag. Emilia was struggling to reach it, but shimmering air seemed to surround her arm. Kyoshi was holding the cryokinetic for as long as possible. Judging by the pain on Kyoshi’s face, and what Angela knew of how her telekinesis worked, it was a living hell for her friend.

So she put an end to it. A punch to the gut doubled Emilia over, and an arm wrapped around her neck choked her unconscious in a few seconds.

“Good work, Kyoshi.” Angela offered the visibly exhausted telepath a hand as she used an energy spear to break the ice.

“Th…th…th…thank y…y…you.” Kyoshi’s teeth chattered from the cold.

“Guy’s we’ve got incoming!” Natalia shouted before they could even catch a breath.

Angela heard it as much as she felt it. The ground was rumbling beneath them twice a second, and it was getting closer. Angela jumped into the air to get a better look and didn’t have to go far. The trees were parting about a fifty yards out and moving quickly toward their position.

“Everyone clear out!” She waved as she looped around and back over the pond.

<If somebody wants to try and charge us then let’s see what they’re made of.> She beat her wings furiously to gather speed and summoned a shield in front of her.

She guessed where the enemy would attack and shot toward it like a bullet. She was on target.

Theresa Shaw emerged from the tree line – actually it was more along the lines of destroying the tree line – as some type of elephant-dinosaur mix. She flung the final trees out of the way and charged into the small clearing around the lake. She was headed right toward the flag – with Liam ridding on her back – when Angela hit them.

The concussive blast tossed dirt, rocks, and broken tree limbs outward. Oliver’s prone body ever rolled a few feet from the shockwave.

Angela felt the hit reverberate through her body. She felt her shoulder break, and she lost the mental capacity to retain the shield. She was thrown to the side and ended up taking out a few trees of her own in the process.

Teresa didn’t fare much better. She staggered backward from the hit, shaking her head side to side, before collapsing in a heap. She quickly began to shift back to her normal state, but she was out cold.

Liam fared worst of all. He was thrown from Teresa’s back by the impact. He nearly cleared the whole pond, but landed just shy of the far bank. Professor Livingston appeared out of nowhere to grab him and drag him out of the water before he drowned. Angela wasn’t sure if that was going to count against them because she was seeing stars and having trouble concentrating much less moving.

She had enough wits about her to realize that the only combat capable person they had defending the flag was a frostbitten Kyoshi, and she was huddled in the fetal position of the flag’s base, as Anika advanced on her.

<I’ve got to get back there.> Angela thought, but no matter how much she wanted it her legs wouldn’t obey. She started to crawl, but it was a solid hundred feet, and more people appeared before she made it even halfway.

Thankfully, they were friendly and carrying a big flag with the number two on it.

“What the hell happened here?” Webb had a bit of a limp and looked like he’d been pummeled recently, but he was still up and moving.

“It doesn’t matter.” Fiona stated proudly as she took the other flag, teleported to the opposite side of Anika before she could react, and put it into a second slot. “We win.”

The professors confirmed it a few seconds later and white-clad medics descended on the scene. Angela just transformed back to her human form and walked over to the rest of the team. She wished she could have done more than to charge headfirst into some mythological beast, but it had given the scout team enough time to grab the flag and get back here. Just as she expected, the teleporter made all the difference.

A win for the team was a win for all of them, and that was something Angela could live with.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 16

“Again.” Angela walked among her team watching them with a critical eye.

She was in her angelic shifted form today for training, and her armor threw streams of artificial light in different directions when it hit the gleaming metal. Something she was using effectively in the training session. Coach McMillian had given the team captains the training time again today, and Angela was taking full advantage of it.

Kyoshi charged and struck. The air shimmered around her where she wrapped herself with telekinetic energy. It was a good force multiplier, but it didn’t put her in league with a strongman. That’s where Alex came in. He barreled in like something out of a child’s worst nightmare. He was all red and white – muscle and bone – as he charged in. Bone darts flew from his knuckles fast enough to pierce light metals, and he leapt at the target. Blake mimicked Kyoshi’s martial art’s grace and converged on the target with the team.

“Halt.” Angela stopped the exercise and gave some pointers.

Blake had moved too slowly and left an opening. The entire point of this exercise was to trap someone and beat them into submission. Kyoshi had pointed out a flaw when the teams were selected. Angela had not selected the strongest team. She and Alex were the closest thing to the strongman category while the rest were versatile. Theoretically, if they were able to keep someone contained long enough Kyoshi should be able to possess their bodies, but that was more of a last resort than a common tactic. Possessions took time, and time was something in short supply in scenarios the instructors would throw at them.

“Next group.”

Alex, Kyoshi, and Blake walked off a short distance while the rest of Angela’s team took center stage. Oliver Carpenter had a variety of mechanical gadgets attached to his uniform. Angela recognized some of them from previous sessions as offensive or defense countermeasures, but other things were new. Natalia Romanoff walked with him. She looked alert and bored at the same time. She had no physical power like most of the first group. All she was her eyes. Granted, those eyes could paralyze the strongest person in the class, but it was still a limited ability. Lastly, Fiona stepped forward with a determined look on her face. She was the key to a lot of the team’s strategies, and she’d been working hard to get where Angela needed her to be.

“Begin.” This time Angela didn’t just watch. She participated.

A bow and arrow made of energy appeared in her hand, she drew it back and fired toward the center of the group. Fiona grabbed Natalia’s shoulder and they vanished with a pop. Oliver rolled away from the strike with a surprising amount of speed for someone who looked like he spent all day laying on the beach. Angela dismissed the arrow when it hit nothing but air, and jumped into the sky. She’d sensed movement behind her and didn’t want Fiona and Natalia to be able to take their shot. Normally, the two couldn’t hurt her, but Oliver always had some tricks up his sleeve.

One of those tricks popped up when Angela fired a second arrow at him. This time he didn’t run. A large contraption on his chest started to grow as the arrow drew nearer, but when it was only a foot away it hit resistance. The arrow exploded into a hundred tiny fragments and an energy shield flared red around Oliver. The technopath and apparent genius inventor smiled at the success just before Angela dropped out of the sky with a large war hammer. Fiona appeared in the nick of time and teleported him to safety.

“Good looking out for your teammates.” Angela nodded as she dissolved the war hammer and turned to face the rest of the team. “You’ve all got a good handle on that configuration.”

That was what Angela had been drilling into her team for the last few weeks. She’d organized them into different two-team configurations. Today was a power team designed to take out opponents and an evade and surprise team to take down with alternative methods. Oliver’s bag of tricks, Natalia’s power, and Fiona’s maneuverability were perfect for that.

<It all comes down to our opponents.>

“Take five,” she instructed the team. Who were more than happy to grab some water.

Angela spent the time staring across the giant gym. The four teams had taken up training positions in the four quadrants. It was harder to see exactly what the teams on the far side of the gym were doing, but it was clear as day what the nearest team was up to.

Angela wanted to be prepared for any situation and had drilled different tactics for different scenarios. Close by, Kimberly Goodman didn’t seem to be thinking along the same route.

Angela knew better than to underestimate the blaster. Her minimal strategy wasn’t due to lack of intelligence, she just knew what her people were good at and let them focus on that. Her team doing what they did best was going to put up a hell of a fight against whoever they came up against.

 

***

 

Becca’s perception was heightened as she darted around her opponent. She’d let Rich grow too much and now it was coming back to bite her in the tushy.

<Crap on a cracker.> She let out the dirtiest curse word she was willing to think as she darted in for another strike.

Rich got stronger and more durable the more he grew. Currently, he was twice the size of Becca – about ten and a half feet tall – and he seemed to think that was good enough to beat her.

<Not beat me, but make me fail to accomplishing my mission.>

Kimberly had them rotating from team member to team member to fight for short bouts. There wasn’t more than thirty seconds of rest between the fights, so it forced them to adapt on the fly. It was good thinking, because even Becca realized they didn’t have much else going for them other than the ability to beat the poop out of people.

Becca darted in and peppered Rich’s knees with blows. She hit stronger than a regular person, and training had taught her where to hit, but there was only so much damage she could do. Rich swiped at her in response, but she was long gone. She circled around behind him and lashed out at the back of his knee with a vicious front kick. He actually stumbled a bit on that one.

<Got you now.> She’d figured the best way to deal with Rich was hit him low until he started to anticipate that and then hit him high.

“Switch!” Kimberly’s voice cut through the gym.

“Come on!” Becca grumbled. “I almost had him.”

“You wish.” Rich grinned back as he marched off and met his next opponent three strides away.

Becca stayed where she was and waited for the next challenger to show up. <Oh no.>

“Becca…Becca…Becca…this should be electric.” Anna Fletcher walked over. Static electricity already coursed across the body of the volatile electrokinetic.

The two women had engaged in a few sparring matches already. Becca didn’t particularly like them. After all, who liked to be electrocuted. Anna loved them. She viewed Becca as the ultimate opponent. Most other people she just had to get the voltage right to take them down, but not Becca. Becca was someone she had to struggle to hit in the first place. For someone who wanted to win as much as Anna, Becca was her ideal training opponent.

“Go!”

Becca started running and didn’t stop through the entire fight. The air tasted funny and her hair was going crazy through the entire fight. It felt like it was fighting to break free of her head. It had been easier dealing with it when she wore braids, but the pixie cut was too short to tie it up with anything. Her hair wasn’t her only problem. Unlike Rich, there was no way for Becca to get close to Anna.

The electrokinetic was set to stun for the training, but much more powerful crackling energy forced around her in a quasi-energy armor. She’d been perfecting it over the summer, and finally had enough control to attack while simultaneously defending herself.

Becca had even overheard Professor McMillian talking about her possibly being able to completely transform into the element by graduation, if she made it that far.

<Sure feels like she could.> Becca barely dodged a small lightning bolt a second before a wave a pressure made her stumble.

She slowed to maintain her balance and that was when her whole body seized up.

“Fuck yeah!” Anna announced triumphantly as Becca face planted at moderate speeds. “Finally got you.”

“Healer.” Kimberly called out calmly as she came to check on the progress. She’d already finished off Rich.

The big guy might be tough, but the different energy blasts Kimberly was capable of had overwhelmed him.

A white-uniformed senior trotted over and gave Becca a quick exam. “Broken jaw and some pretty bad road rash.” He diagnosed. “Hold still.”

Becca stayed still because her face hurt like the dickens. There was a momentary burst of pain as her jaw was snapped back into place, but it was the itching that hurt the most. As the skin on her cheek and chin mended itself it felt like a million mosquitoes were attacking her face. For about three seconds it was nearly unbearable. It was a lot more painful than actually getting hurt had been.

“Let’s keep working, people. Show’s over.” Kimberly stepped in and shooed everyone away. “Rotate and start again.”

Becca was no exception. She got up, tested her neck and jaw mobility, and then moved on to face Carson Long. She took out the frustration of the loss on him. He was too slow to hit her, and tough enough to take the hits. His thinly veiling offensive comments didn’t help. She might have accidently kicked him a little too hard a little too close to the groin.

<But that’s what we’ve got that healer for.>

She looked around as they waited for the senior to get Carson to stop wailing in pain. She could see Angela’s team doing different drills with different groupings of people nearby. She knew Angela was smart and cunning, but Becca didn’t think she’d selected the best team; especially when Seth had been available to be picked multiple times.

Becca could understand why no one wanted him. His performance in class was inconsistent since they got back from summer break. Then there was all the mess with the DVA and Wraith. There was even a rumor spreading about how he’d attacked some random guy. Unlike everyone else, Becca was willing to look past that. She saw a powerful Super who could be an asset to any team who gave him a chance.

<It also would have been good for one of his friends to give him a hand.> Becca wished Angela had been the bigger person and reached across the aisle to him, but she hadn’t. He’d been picked last, and she was sure that was affecting him.

“Hey, Becca, focus.” Kimberly was right in front of her snapping her fingers.

“Sorry.” She blushed and turned back toward the team practice.

She also felt a bit guilty. She’d been thinking about how Seth was holding up without giving any thought to her own girlfriend. Anika’s team was on the far side of the gym, too far to see exactly what they were doing. She wished she knew. It would make facing her and beating her team that much easier. Becca might love Anika, but she was still competitive and wanted to win.

They all did.

 

***

 

Anika was doing her part for her team. She was watching everybody else closely.

“What’s everyone else thinking?” Jason Cook stepped up behind her and whispered.

“If Kyoshi is paying attention then she is going to hear this conversation whether you whisper or not.” Anika stated as she continued to scan the room for anything interesting.

She’d been working on her telepathic abilities all summer, and she was starting to see the benefits. Spending time in a town where a portion of the people fundamentally hated what you were was good motivation to know what they were thinking before they could do something stupid. That was the primary role of her telepathy when she thought about how it integrated with the rest of her abilities. Her strength and speed were still her greatest assets, her telepathy just allowed her to pinpoint where to use those abilities to their fullest potential.

It was that same thinking that led Jason to pick her in the first round. He got someone strong, fast, that was able to throw down, and who could help him direct his forces. She was his number two, and they were already figuring out how to win.

“Kimberly has been drilling primarily offensive techniques, but that’s not a surprise. Her team is probably the strongest. Angela is taking a more varied approach. She’s trying different scenarios and seeing how her team reacts. Then she’ll change it up, keep them guessing, and make adjustments when necessary.”

Jason nodded. He was taking a similar approach. His team had already finished their physical drills for the day and had moved on to the mental ones. To any outside observer it would look like they were just sitting or lying on the ground with their eyes closed, but nothing could be further from the truth. Half of fighting was mental. His team was war gaming in their heads. They were matching themselves up against members from other teams and playing out how those fights would go with what they’d learned from being in the same class with them for over a year. It allowed his team to rethink their strengths and weaknesses and where they could possibly get help from their teammates.

Anika knew Jason had been thinking about a possible third match with Angela. So far, he was one for two against her, but now he was thinking about getting another heavy hitter like her or Teresa in on the action. That would tilt the fairly even odds in his favor. Even having Danny Mason’s duplicates distracting and harassing Angela was enough for him to get the win.

“I think we should hope to get paired off against Angela’s team.” Anika stated as she continued to listen and learn from the thoughts around her. “I’d be worried about Kimberly’s team overpowering us with all their blasters and Casey bringing up the rear. She’s tougher than hell and neither Teresa or I could take her alone. We’d need to double up, and that would leave us vulnerable.”

“I could take up the slack.” Jason insisted.

“Anna would probably keep you occupied alone.” Anika countered. “Do you know how close she is to transforming into a pure energy form?”

Anika did, and it was going to happen a lot sooner than the instructors realized if Anna kept gaining the ground in training that she did.

“Even having Jacqueline and Becca double teaming you from the land and air is going to require your complete concentration.” Anika had to respect Kimberly’s picks. She really did have a powerhouse team.

“I guess we’ll see what happens soon enough.” Jason shrugged.

“I guess so.” Anika nodded. The month was almost over and everyone was just waiting for the inevitable.

“Hey,” Jason stopped before walking away. “What’s going on with Erin’s team?”

<That’s the million-dollar question.>

Anika looked at him and shrugged. “Hell if I know?”

 

***

 

“What the hell are we even doing here?” Seth fumed as he racked the bar and sat up.

He was about fifty pounds off his normal bench press weight, and he’d been forced to do four less reps. He felt winded and his whole body hurt after the run at the beginning of class. Erin didn’t make them do five miles, but she set a grueling pace for the shorter distance. Hardly anyone else did any running during that physical training period, which already put Seth in a bad mood.

The running was just the beginning. The worst part came next. Once they were done with the run Erin just told them to work out on the machines in one corner of the room. There was no combat training, there were no strategy sessions, there was just weightlifting while Erin sat alone and starred off into Neverland.

“What the fuck is she thinking about?”

“Chill out, Seth.” Mason put a big hand out in a stopping motion. “Erin’s different, but she’s stayed number four for a reason.”

“Yeah,” Seth scoffed. “That reason is that she’s coocoo for Cocoa Puffs and nobody wants to fight a crazy person. They’re too unpredictable.”

“Maybe that’s what she’s doing. Maybe she’s being unpredictable.” Mason shrugged as he leaned back on his own weight machine and started to bench press a hundred times what Seth had been doing.

<Show off.> Seth knew Mason wasn’t showing off at all, but he was already pissed and when that happened recently things just started to snowball.

Seth added another plate – making it six total – and was determined to fuel that anger into something mildly productive. He heaved the three hundred and fifteen pounds off the rack and brought it all the way down until it touched his chest. He got the first rep done fine. The second he struggled a little at the end, but it was the third that was the real ball-breaker. He got stuck with it just a few inches off his chest, and no matter how hard he pushed it didn’t budge.

“Spot.” He grunted, and Mason was there in a flash to help.

Despite the serious physical exertion, Seth was only more pissed. He used to do double the reps at this weight and Mason had grabbed it like it was nothing. <He probably could do pinky curls with this weight.>

“God damnit!” Seth jumped up.

A gust of wind blasted through the section of the gym knocking heavy dumbells off the rack by a mirror and sending lighter ones flying nearly fifty feet out into the track.

“Whoa!” Mason jumped in front of Seth. “Jesus, man. Calm down.”

Lorelei and Simon Skylar were paired up not too far away. They shot warning glances at Seth before moving away. Ashley Bates just gave him a glare and moved farther away. Only Rowan, who didn’t seem to know any better, walked up to them.

“You good?” he asked Seth with an annoying amount of earnestness.

Rowan was still the new guy, but he was already more accepted than Seth. That only pissed Seth off more.

“We’re good.” Mason smiled. “Just burning off some of that excess energy.”

“Cool. Let me know if you need a spot.” That was directed at Seth not Mason, and Seth didn’t know if it was a good-natured request or the new guy rubbing in Seth’s weaknesses. It was tough to tell the difference now-a-days.

“You ok?” Mason asked after Rowan walked far enough away that he wouldn’t overhear.

“I’m fine.” Seth answered stubbornly.

To that, Mason just waved his hand at the scattered dumbbells. “Doesn’t look like that.” He gave Seth a serious look. “Is this because she called?”

<Yes.> Seth wasn’t going to admit that though.

The DVA had been all up in his business since the phone call. The lawyer his family had hired had just decided to rent an apartment in town and stay because of all the crap that was cascading onto Seth. The DVA had confiscated his phone, was monitoring all of his communications, and they had a tail on him twenty-four-seven. Seth was pretty sure the guy would stand in his room and watch him sleep if he could get away with it.

His lawyer just told him to fully cooperate because he had nothing to hide. <I do have nothing to hide. Not that anyone gives a shit.> Seth was so close to dropping all of this Hero shit and telling everyone to suck a dick. It was so tempting, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet.

“I’m fine.” He eventually answered Mason’s question. “Come on, we need to keep going or else our fearless leader might notice we’re talking instead of working.”

They both glanced over at Erin. Her gaze was still staring off into the distance, but now she looked like she was muttering to herself. Mason didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much he could say to paint a better impression of their leader, so instead they got back to work.

It was all they could do until it was go time.

 

***

 

Daisy and Craig were not present in the gym while the sophomores practiced. Daisy wouldn’t normally be there anyway, but Craig definitely would. They weren’t there physically, but they were there electronically. Like every room in the facility, the giant gym was wired with cameras so the professors could watch their students work.

“So, you’re thinking Team Two versus Four and Three versus One?” Daisy had her feet up on her desk as Craig ran the plan by her.

“I’m toying with it.” Craig scratched his chin and looked down at the pad of paper he was making notes on. “I want the first match to be as even as possible, but I want them to slug it out. I want to teach the lesson that no matter how smart or cunning you are sometimes you just can’t make up for the difference in raw physical strength.”

Daisy agreed that was a good lesson to learn. “Then I would have Three face Four.” She put in her two cents. “That’ll match up the two strongmen. Abney, despite his current predicament, is a powerful Super. Erin can bring a lot of force to bear in a fight if she’s engaged. Gilford’s blasting doesn’t match Goodman’s but it still has a hell of a kick to it. With a couple of supporting people on either side I think it has the makings of a good fight.”

“I’ve considered it. I’m putting a lot of faith in Martin and Schultz from Team One to make it a decent fight against Three, but the matchups just might not be there for the knock-down drag-out fight I’m looking for.” Craig’s sighed as he put down the pad and rubbed his eyes.

His baby was just starting to sleep through the night, but he was still trying to catch up on sleep. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and it was showing. Burning the candle at both ends had that effect on a person when they couldn’t drain the life out of someone and stay young theoretically forever.

“So, Three versus Four and One versus Two?” Daisy asked with a grin.

“I’ll sleep on it,” Craig shot back.

“Better think fast. The match is tomorrow.” Daisy reminded him.

“That’s the beauty of being the person in charge.” Craig flashed his mischievous grin. “I make the rules.”

Daisy just shook her head and let the speedster have his little power trip. She had other things on her mind.

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A Chance of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 12

“Target acquired.”

“Moving into position now.”

<A phone.> It was almost comical how the DVA had caught back up to Wraith. <A find my phone app. Wow.>

Seth watched it all unfold from his seat in Dean Ditmar’s office back in Florida. The DVA agents still flanked him, and occasionally shot him looks, but everyone’s eyes were on the large screen on the Dean’s wall. They’d been able to set up a VTC with the operation’s tactical operations center across the country.

They weren’t the only ones. Most of the HCP deans and half of the players in Washington were watching the operation unfold.

<Geez, she’s just one woman.> Seth knew it wasn’t just that, but still the amount of resources being allocated seemed extreme.

He knew Liz needed to be caught for what she’d done. She’d killed people, helped with a terrorist attack, and done a bunch of other stuff he didn’t want to think about. He also knew that the Feds needed to place all of the bad shit that had happened at someone’s feet. Without Seif al-Din, it was Wraith’s burden to bear.

That was why local and state police, SWAT, DVA, and a full Hero team stormed the apartment building when the signal was given. Seth wouldn’t be surprised if God himself was piggybacking on this assault with the amount of firepower that was being shoved into a single apartment.

They had access to the body cams the Hero team was wearing for the op, so they saw it all unfold in high definition.

“Breach in three…two…one.”

Some Hero with a type of explosive power put his hand on the exterior of the building. One second the wall was there the next it was like someone had glued TNT to the exterior. Plaster, drywall, and smoking wood obscured the footage while the assault team burst into the apartment.

There were three people inside, and Seth heard the Dean’s breath catch at the sight.

Some guy was wearing old OD fatigues from the Vietnam era and an obscuring mask. It would have looked ridiculous if he wasn’t a walking arsenal of guns, knives, and even a freaking sword were visible through the rapidly clearing debris. The second guy was short and looked like some type of tech villain. He couldn’t have looked more like a computer as fear flashed across his face.

But Seth lost focus on everything else when he saw her. She was standing in the middle of the group. The other two villains had a hand on either of her shoulders. Despite his best efforts, Seth could still remember those chocolate brown eyes staring into his after one too many drinks. Those perfect lips kissing him. Those hands doing all sorts of stuff that he didn’t want to tell the lovely DVA agents about.

She looked…harsh though. He features were more defined, she’d lost a bit of weight, but none of it where it counted. Her eyes were blazing though, and as the Heroes moved into the room a smartass grin formed on her lips, one that he’d seen on her more times than he could count.

She raised a hand, extended her middle finger to the swarming Heroes, and then was swarmed by darkness. The camera feeds went black and calls for SITREPs and for members of the team to sound off flooded the radios. Slowly the darkness leaked away, and when it was gone there was nothing there.

“Target’s vanished.”

“Son of a bitch.” The DVA agent who brought Seth in growled, while the Dean just shook his head sadly.

Seth didn’t know what to think. Emotions rushed though him that he had trouble understanding. He was angry. Angry that Liz had escaped after everything she’d done, but he was also impressed. She’d taken on a full assault by a Hero team and everything the local law enforcement could throw at her, and she’d literally vanished right in front of them. Underneath all of that was a speck of happiness that conflicted with his anger. No matter what she’d done, she’d been the first girl Seth really considered committing to. That was a big deal for him and those feelings didn’t just go away.

Those feelings were rearing their ugly head at the worst possible time. Seth’s heart ached a bit after seeing her. She looked different. Prison had done a number on her, and she might even be a little unhinged from the experience, but she was still Liz and he couldn’t help but have an ember of love for her.

All of that played across his face and he wasn’t able to hide it. He looked over and saw the female DVA agent watching him closely. He tried to school his features, but it was too late. Whatever she was going to take away from that brief show of emotion she’d already done it.

Really, Seth didn’t have anything to hide. He hadn’t helped Liz at all in her escape or at all since she’d been captured. The DVA would find no connection between him and his ex, but that hardly mattered. The look in that DVA agent’s eyes said that they had a suspect, and that suspect was him.

“Are we done here?” Dean Ditmar seemed more tired than usual.

“Are we, Seth?”

“Lawyer.” He stated simply for the hundredth time. After what he’d just witnessed he wasn’t saying jack shit to anyone about anything without legal counsel present.

The powers that be were going to be searching for another scapegoat and that sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.

“We’re done. For now.” The DVA agent drove that point home with her eyes. “This goes without saying but don’t go anywhere, Mr. Abney. We might have some follow up questions at some point.”

“You know where to find me.” Seth stood up, shouldered past the two agents guarding him, and headed for the door.

He needed to get out of the HCP. He needed fresh air, and above all he needed a drink. It was close enough to the end of classes that he didn’t think the professors would care about him skipping out early. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They would care. He just didn’t, so he changed out of his uniform and headed out.

The lift came quick since he was the only one using them right now, and it took him up to the student’s center. It was packed, but he ignored the throng of people moving around him. He needed a quiet place to think. There really wasn’t a quiet place on a big campus like West’s, but he found a free bench out on one of the school’s many quads. He gave a quick looked around for campus police before removing a flask from his backpack and took a swig. The liquid burned pleasantly on the way down. It was a little uneasy settling in his empty stomach, but he didn’t care. He took a quick second and third swig before hiding the flask back in his bag.

Then he shut his eyes, turned his face up towards the setting sun, and tried to relax. The booze helped a little, but it wasn’t enough to dull his thoughts. He remembered when he’d first met Liz. He’d just beaten up a drug dealer at a party – he hated drug dealers with a special passion – and one pulled a gun on him. Liz came out of nowhere and knocked the guy the fuck out.

It was instant attraction. Not just because of the tight yoga pants she was wearing, but because of how confidently she took out the piece of shit. Confident people being attractive worked for guys just as much as for girls, and Liz had confidence coming out her ass.

<Such a nice ass too.>

The memories made him smile, but there was a dark tinge to them now. He saw them all through the scope of someone trying to worm her way into his life. It made him feel upset and violated. That was where the booze helped a bit to numb those feelings. He only wanted to remember the good times.

Seth didn’t know how long he’d sat there, but when the warmth of the sun left his face he got to his feet and went to grab something to eat. The dining hall wasn’t as packed as it was during lunch, so he grabbed his taco and found an empty table in the back of the room. The shell was soggy and the meat probably had been a different type of meat at some point, but it helped settle the booze in his stomach and that was all that he cared about.

He ignored everyone, didn’t make eye contact, and stewed in his own thoughts and memories, which was why it was such a surprise when someone walked up and sat down at his table.

“Hey,” the short freshman girl he’d met at the party had triple the number of tacos he did along with all the fixings.

“Um…hey, Izzy right.” Seth felt annoyance tinged with curiosity shoot through him.

He was definitely giving off a “do not disturb” vibe, so either she wasn’t that smart or she didn’t give a shit.

“So I learned all about you from your friend.” She started devouring her taco with the exuberance only possible after an HCP physical training session.

Seth mood immediately soured. “Becca needs to keep her nose out of other people’s business,” he snapped.

Izzy recoiled slightly, but shook it off. “She’s just worried about you.”

“She should still mind her own business.” That left them in an uncomfortable silence as they both munched on their tacos.

“Um…I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.” Izzy began hesitantly.

“Which rumor is it this time that’s making it through the freshman class?” he scoffed.

“They said you got pulled out of class and arrested by the DVA today. That true?”

Seth could tell she was trying to be cool about this, but there was a burning desire to know that was clearly visible in her body language.

“Not arrested. They just wanted to ask me some questions.”

“About Wraith.”

The emotions threated to overwhelm him when Izzy spoke her villain name. He gritted his teeth and gripped his fork tightly as he tried to bury and lock it back inside himself.

“Holy crap.” Izzy looked around wide-eyed.

Seth didn’t even realize it, but the ground was shaking slightly. <Shit.> He took a few deep breaths and the tremors faded from the ground and himself. <I can’t lose control like that.>

He knew he couldn’t, but he really wanted to at the same time. A vision of him bringing down the whole building flashed through his mind, which he immediately suppressed.

“Weird.” Izzy looked around without making the connection between Seth and the mini seismic activity.

“So…”

“Yes her.” Seth cut her off, and his tone indicated that was the end of the line of discussion.

Izzy might have missed the use of his power, but she didn’t miss the look on his face.

“Cool, no problem.”

She tried to act relaxed, but he could see the nervousness building inside her. He could tell she was going to ask him something else.

“One more question and I swear I’m done.” She crossed her heart like she was seven and making a promise to her BFF.

Seth took a deep breath in through his nose, slowly let it out through his mouth, and steeled himself. “What?”

“What’s it like to have money?”

Seth couldn’t stop himself. He busted out laughing. If anything, that seemed to piss Izzy off.

“I’m sorry.” Seth could feel the tension leaving his body as he continued to chuckle. “That’s just a really random question, and if you want an honest answer it’s kind of a pain in the ass.”

“Wow. Money equals a pain in the ass to you. Spoken like a rich guy I guess.”

“Hey,” Seth glared back, his anger rising again. “You asked a question and I gave you an honest answer. When you have money that’s all anyone seems to be concerned about in my experience. That or getting more money. People stop thinking of people as people. My family isn’t even a family. My dad’s more worried about the family name than the people that actually have the name. My mom self-medicates herself into a coma, and my brother and sister are world class dicks. Money hasn’t done anything for my family except ruin it. It’s more like we’re a group of people that share chromosomes than people that care about each other.”

It all came pouring out in a rant that took Izzy and him by surprise. By the end of it Izzy was looking at him slightly differently.

“But at least you have a family.” She said after a few moments of silence. “I’ve never known my parents. I never got new clothes, a car for my sixteenth birthday, or even a going away party for graduation. I got legal documents saying I was now an adult and to take care of myself.”

It was Seth’s turn to be thoughtful for a moment.

“I’d still trade you.” He ultimately concluded.

“You wouldn’t say that if you were in my shoes.”

“And if you’d been in my shoes you wouldn’t want to be in them anymore.”

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”

“I guess we are.” A smile played on both of their lips.

“But if you want to live the good life so bad then I’ll give you your dream.” Seth blindsided her.

“What?” Milk practically squirted out of her nose as she caught something Seth tossed underhand across the table.

Seth laughed as she looked down and her eyes bulged.

“These are keys to a Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet.” She cradled the keys like they were made of gold.

“So.” Seth shrugged.

“This is a two hundred thousand dollar car.” Her eyes continued to bug out.

“So.” Seth repeated with a smug look.

“So…SO!” She suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands. “So…I can’t drive this.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

Seth sighed, but he enjoyed seeing the look on her face. “Do you have a license?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it suspended in any way that would legally restrict you from driving a motor vehicle.”

“No, but…”

“Then let’s go.” Seth interrupted her as he got to his feet.

She didn’t move as he walked away.

“If you don’t come with me I’m going straight to campus police to say that you stole my car.” That got her moving.

“But…but…” She was at a continued loss for words as he led the way out of the dining hall and down the street to where the car was parked.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he hopped in the passenger seat and reclined it back to a lounging position.

“You said you never got new clothes, so we’ll hit the mall.”

“You’re letting me drive your super expensive car and you’re going to buy me clothes.”

“It’s only money.” He replied simply as he shut his eyes and waited for the car to start.

It didn’t, so he cracked his eyes to look up at her.

“You’re drunk aren’t you.”

“A little bit,” he smiled.

She nodded her head like everything was falling into place. “You want me to be your chauffer.”

“You drive me around tonight and in return I’ll let you drive a car you seem to be salivating all over, and I’ll buy you clothes. Seems like a pretty good arrangement to me.”

“You’re an ass.” She said, but started up the car anyway.

“Glad you finally see the light, Iz.”

“I’d prefer you call me Isla or Izzy.” The engine rumbled as she put it into drive and pulled into the street. It jerked forward as the powerful engine took her by surprise.

“And I’d prefer if you kept it down, Iz, I’m trying to sleep off a bit of my tipsiness before we get there.”

He couldn’t see her with his eyes closed, but he could feel her eyeroll as she finally reached an open road and opened it up.

Her scream of delight was a welcome change to the toxic feelings and constant suspicion that he’d been enduring from everyone else today.

 

***

 

Kyoshi stifled a yawn as she took the lift down into the HCP. It was finally Friday, and she couldn’t wait to be finished. This first week had been wearing her down from the beginning, and it wasn’t just the academic and physical rigors. Seth’s meltdown and drama was beginning to get around. People were starting to notice what was wrong with her friend.

<Then the DVA hauled him in for questioning.> She shook her head as the soft chime announced she’d arrived. <All anyone is doing is pushing him away. He needs us, he needs his friends, we need to bring him back.>

She tried to put that aside as she walked down the sci-fi-esque corridors and toward the locker room. Today was a big day, without having to deal with Seth.

Kyoshi was beginning to get a feeling for the classes she was taking, and all the extra work she’d have to put in this semester. The above ground classes weren’t really a concern. She’d always been good at school, and she was confident she could maintain a 3.5 or higher GPA this semester. It was the HCP classes that were going to consume her energy.

Focus quite literally did that. It was mentally brutal work. The exercises that Professor Livingston started putting the class through on day one were harder than anything she’d personally given Kyoshi to work on last year. Every day she left that class with her brain feeling like it had spent five minutes in a microwave.

Close Combat was basically an extension of physical training, and a continuation of what they’d started last year. Although, the previous year had been all about learning to fight. For someone like Kyoshi who had multiple martial arts backgrounds it wasn’t too difficult, but that wasn’t the focus this year. This year’s goal seemed to be to put the class in the most unpredictable or shittiest scenarios possible. She understood that Coach McMillian wanted to make them ready for anything, but showing up to a two-on-one fight where your power doesn’t work on one of the people isn’t exactly fair.

<Fair has nothing to do with it.> She remembered the Coach’s words perfectly. <It’s about you saving civilian lives and continuing to breathe. The rest doesn’t matter.>

Focus left her mentally exhausted and Close Combat left her physically bruised, so the healing class with Dr. Sanderson was actually one of the best parts of her day. He’d jumped right into it without waiting any time. They were in the middle of getting CPR certified with plans to move onto operating AEDs next. She really took that class to heart – literally.

She smiled to herself and she pulled on her gray uniform and entered the gym. Before she could get on to those specialty classes she had to go through good old-fashioned physical training, and that always started with pullups.

She grabbed the bar and knocked out ten easily. They were up to doing twenty every time they entered or exited the gym, but she hadn’t done as much upper body training as she should have on summer break. The last ten were a struggle, and she had to throw her legs up on the last two. If Coach McMillian had been watching he would have yelled at her for poor form.

She quickly joined the rest of the class that had already arrived. A quick peek at the clock on the wall and the Coach started.

“I told you all it was coming so I hope you gave it some serious thought.” He scanned the crowd trying to get a read on if people pondered his statements from the beginning of the week. “This year’s focus is teamwork because Heroes often work as a team. Sure, people work solo, but you can bring the full resources of a team to bear on a problem and solve it more quickly and efficiently. Heroes and the DVA both promote team formation for Heroes to combat our lack of numbers and to better coordinate with state and local agencies where we operate. Your training in this starts today.” He looked down at his clipboard.

“We will have four teams of seven. Today team captains will be announced, the teams will be picked, and the workout will be a team one decided by the captain. You can do whatever you want for the remainder of class, but I suggest you use your time wisely. There will be monthly exercises to test each team, and we’re already a quarter of the way through this month. Your first trial will be in a matter of weeks, so if I were you I’d start preparing today.” He cracked a smile that made Kyoshi nervous.

It was never a good thing when the close combat instructor was excited about something.

“The four team captains are: Angela Martin, Jason Cook, Kimberly Goodman, and Erin Fisher.”

<That makes sense. They are the top four in the class.> The rest of the class seemed to agree because not many people commented on the captains. Although, having Erin as a captain was a bit weird. She’d always been a bit off.

The captains stepped forward and spaced themselves out in front of the rest of the class. They all kept a straight face, except Erin who looked like she was in her own little world, but Kyoshi saw their minds calculating the best picks. Just from a basic surface read, Kyoshi could tell that Angela and Kimberly were better at this sort of thing than Jason and Erin.

“Captains, you have five minutes to think then you will choose in the order I selected you. No longer than one minute can pass for you to make your selection. We will continue until everyone is picked and then you’ll get to work. Time starts now.”

Kyoshi listened in while the captains looked over team possibilities. Once the five minutes was up Angela didn’t hesitate to make her first pick.

“Kyoshi Schultz.”

<What?!> Kyoshi didn’t move at first. <That’s got to be a mistake.> Angela hadn’t been thinking about picking her at all.

In fact, it was literally the first time she’d been picked first at anything. She was a giant, clumsy girl who also happened to be an easily identifiable Super. Back in high school that didn’t win any popularity contests.

“Move it, Ms. Schultz.” Coach McMillian pointed for her to fall in with Angela.

<I picked you because you’re the best advanced mind in the class. Not only does that give us a tactical advantage on the battlefield, but it gives me an advantage here and now. What are the other captains thinking?>

“Anika Kemps.” Jason made his selection.

<He kind of had the same idea you did. Anika is still learning her gift but she’ll at least be an early warning system and she had the added power of her speed and strength. She was probably the better first pick.>

Angela ignored the last part and asked for info on Kimberly.

<She wants a power team.> Kyoshi could easily decipher the blaster’s motivations.

“Anna Fletcher.” Kimberly made her pick, and Anna strutted over to her new team.

<Erin… it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking.>

“Mason Jackson,” Erin called out in her far-off, detached voice.

Despite the slim chances of being on the same team, Mason getting picked by another captain still hurt. Their time was going to be a commodity in short supply and it would have been nice to see him during team activities.

“Alexander Webb.” Angela didn’t hesitate.

She’d wanted Mason, but Alex was another good person with superior strength she could leverage.

Jason didn’t hesitate to snatch up Teresa Shaw. Kimberly added to her powerhouse team with Casey, and Erin went with Lorelei Gilford to complete the second round. The selection went pretty quick after that. Teams got picked roughly going down their rankings depending on what the captain was looking for. Angela did make a surprisingly big jump down to grab Fiona the only teleporter in the class. After their dealings with Liz, they knew not to underestimate or undervalue a teleporter.

As time went by it became more and more obvious that one student high in the rankings was being left out. Seth, who looked like he’d been in a decent mood, got surlier and surlier as the selection continued. Kyoshi was willing to bet the man was not used to being picked near the end for anything. It surely didn’t help when he was picked dead last by Erin.

“Those are our teams.” Coach McMillian pointed to a wall when they were done and everyone’s names appeared on it. “The rest of the class is yours, and please take the time to come up with an interesting name. There might be some extra credit in it for most inspiring.”

Kyoshi wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth so she went back to studying the board.

 

Team 1

Angela Martin, Kyoshi Schultz, Alexander Webb, Fiona Richardson, Natalia Romanoff, Oliver Carpenter, Blake Rhodes

 

Team 2

Jason Cook, Anika Kemps, Teresa Shaw, Liam Garrison, Emilia Scarborough, Danny Mason, Janet Ibsen

 

Team 3

Kimberly Goodman, Anna Fletcher, Casey Williams, Rebecca Whitfield, Jacqueline Eton, Carson Long, Richard Gibson

 

Team 4

Erin Fisher, Mason Jackson, Lorelei Gilford, Simon Skylar, Ashley Bates, Rowan Michaelson, Seth Abney

 

<I hope Angela has a plan.> Kyoshi frowned, because just by looking at the board she didn’t think her captain had picked the best team.

If anything, Kimberly’s looked like the team to beat.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 8

Sleep didn’t come easily that night, and that was probably the point. The instructors left the sophomore HCP class with two homework assignments. Have their lists of classes ready to go tomorrow, and start to consider teams.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that sophomore year was team year. They’d heard snippets from the former sophomores and Kyoshi’s dad had based the summer training around that. Still, it was hard to pick and choose your dream team when you didn’t know how teams would even be selected.

“They’re screwing with us.” Angela sat with her feet pulled up under her. “They want us to overthink the situation. We need to get into a flexible mindset about these types of things. We need to take what’s coming and roll with the punches.” The angelic shifter was scribbling on a sheet of paper.

“You’re definitely going to be one of the team captains. You’re the top of the class. They have to pick you.” Becca was looking at her own sheet as she laid back so her head rested in Anika’s lap. “Ani would make a great captain too.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I lost to Mason in a two-on-one. I don’t think they’ll be picking me anytime soon.” She glanced over her shoulder. “No hard feelings.”

“We’re good.”

Mason and Kyoshi sat at the kitchen table reviewing their own sheets of paper. Everyone around the room was concentrating on that while making mild chitchat. The papers themselves were plain unordinary things that you could find in any day planner. It was what they represented that had everyone so focused.

They represented the future. These were their schedules for the year, and it would determine their Hero careers moving forward.

Of everyone in the room Angela’s looked the cleanest. She was booked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from eight to noon with regular classes. It was the opposite method from a normal college student. Normal students avoided early classes like the plague. They needed enough time to recover from a ride on the booze train or a trip to pound town. The normal college student loaded classes up in the afternoon. But not Angela. She was determined to get her morning classes out of the way so she could spend her afternoons focused on what really mattered.

They didn’t have an ethics class this year, much to their relief. They all understood the necessity of being ethical, responsible Heroes but the class could be incredibly boring at times, and people spent a lot of that time worrying about what fresh torture awaited them in physical training.

The first real surprise of the year was the cutback on physical training. The class, which used to take up most of their afternoons, was now only an hour and a half from noon to one-thirty. Kyoshi, Mason, and anyone who wasn’t a speedster secretly hoped that it meant they wouldn’t be running five miles at the beginning of each session anymore, but no one was willing to get their hopes up.

It was what happened after that training that they were all trying to figure out. Whatever their decisions, none of them thought they were going to get off light in the working out department.

“I’m finished.” Angela announced first. Making some final notations and giving the sheet of paper a small nod. “What have you all decided?”

“You show us yours we’ll show you ours.” Anika replied without looking up.

“Close Combat, Weapons, and Focus.” Angela announced.

“Really?” Kyoshi head popped up. “I would have sworn you were going to choose Ranged Combat.”

“Why, because it’s one of my weak points?” Angela replied a little harshly and Kyoshi blushed. “No. It is a valid question.” Angela realized her social faux pas and tried to put the advanced mind at ease. “While Ranged Combat would possibly be beneficial, I simply lack the power set to be truly successful in it. I’ve got counters to deal with ranged combatants, but I ultimately think Focus will be better for me in the long run. With how my ability works, Focus will teach me more skills to deal with ranged combatants than Ranged Combat.  Close Combat and Weapons speak for themselves. How about you Kyoshi?”

“I’m still deciding, but Focus is for sure.”

Everyone around the room nodded. An advanced mind not take Focus was like a fish not swimming.

“I’m thinking I’ll stick with Close Combat as well and maybe taking the healing class.”

“Really?” This time it was Mason who was surprised.

“Yeah,” Kyoshi only sounded more confident after Mason’s confusion. “I’ve got skills but I’m not a front-line combatant. In the event of an emergency I think me being able to step in and provide first aid will be just as valuable as the punches I can throw. My mind is my weapon, not my fists.”

The two smiled at each other.

“Well my fists are my weapons.” Mason countered. “So Close Combat it is for me. It’ll try out Weapons to see if I can leverage anything to be useful, but I’m a strongman and strongmen tend to be Close Combat specialists. Lastly, I was thinking about trying Subtlety.”

“You…Subtlety?” It was Kyoshi’s turn to be surprised.

“Like you were implying. Sometimes a mind can be a powerful weapon. Subtlety might shake loose some new ideas with my ability. Fight smarter not harder ya know.”

“That’s wise.” Angela chimed in as she studied Mason a little too much like an opponent for Kyoshi’s liking. “Becca, Anika?”

“Close Combat, Focus, and Subtlety.” Becca replied with a satisfied head bob. “I think I could learn a thing or two just like Mason.

“I’m leaning towards Close Combat, Ranged Combat, and Focus.” Anika was still frowning at her paper.

“Ranged Combat?” Everyone chimed in.

“Yeah.” There was a slight blush under her olive skin. “A lot of people in our class have ranged powers. If I’m spending three more years with them I’m bound to pick up something. I’m already feeling an…I don’t know how to describe it…an itch?”

“I hear you can buy a cream for that.” A voice said from the front door.

Everyone but Anika and Kyoshi jumped a little as Seth made his presence known.

“Can I come in, or is this a special invite only study session?” His S’s slurred considerably as he pulled open the patio door and stumbled inside.

“We’re just looking over schedules for the semester.” Angela answered, her tone neutral and her face watching him closely. “You are welcome to join us.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He plopped on the couch next to Anika and Becca and pulled out a bottle of amber liquid. “So, what’s everyone taking this year?”

“A little bit of everything.” Becca tried to bring a little cheer back into the room. “What are you thinking of, Seth?”

“Ehhh.” Seth waved his hand dismissively which sloshed a little of the pungent liquid onto the couch. “I guess I’ll do Close and Ranged Combat, but I don’t know about the third one. What do you think?”

“I think a little Subtlety would be wise.” Anika barely stopped from glaring at Seth.

“Whoa. Ok. No need for the stink eye.” Seth caught her intent anyway. “But no Subtlety for me. I’m tired of people lying and sneaking around. If you’re going to do something, get up and say it to my face. That’s my motto now.”

“Ok.” Angela got to her feet. “Seth, you’re drunk and making everyone uncomfortable. Please come with me. I’ll get you some water and find you a place to sleep it off.”

“Really…REALLY?!” Seth got irrationally loud. “I’m making your uncomfortable?” He was on his feet now with the bottle’s contents doing even more damage to the upholstery. “I come over here to see everyone together having a grand old time, and I didn’t even get a text. Some friends you are.”

“Hey, buddy.” Mason stepped up and put a comforting hand on the shorter man’ shoulder. “How about we head up to my room?”

“It ain’t your room, Mason.” Seth shrugged off the hand, spun, and the bottle clipped the strongman tricep. It shattered and spilled the whiskey everywhere.”

“Jesus, Seth.” Becca blurred into the kitchen to grab some towels, but Seth wasn’t paying attention to her.

“It ain’t your room.” Seth continued without missing a beat. “It’s your room.” Seth pointed to Kyoshi. “She got you whipped man. You couldn’t come out and have a drink with me even if you wanted to. Forget about playing video games or just hanging out.”

Mason bristled at Seth’s words toward his girlfriend.

<He’s drunk, hurting, and doesn’t mean it. Don’t take any offense.> Kyoshi’s comforting words in Mason’s head helped him relax.

“See!” Seth practically exploded. “There she goes again, man. She’s getting her little tentacles in your mind. Taking you over bit by bit. Soon you won’t even remember what you liked to do by yourself. It’s all about what you do together. Soon you aren’t even going to remember what it’s like to hang out by yourself. Then what? Huh? Then you’re hooked…you’re addicted to her.”

Everyone could tell the conversation had veered away from Mason and Kyoshi and toward a third party not currently present.

“Seth.”

“Don’t even start with me!” Seth pointed the broken bottle threateningly at Kyoshi. “It’s you that did this to me…him.” Seth didn’t seem to notice the slip, but everyone else did.

“Buddy.”

“Fuck you guys. I’m outta here.” He stumbled toward the door, dropping the bottle to complete its destruction, and threw open the door before vanishing into the humid night.

Everyone else just stood there for a moment not really knowing what to do.

“Do we go after him?” Becca had reappeared and was trying to soak up the whiskey that was everywhere. The whole common area smelled like someone had thrown a kegger.

“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Kyoshi concentrated and found Seth’s mind.

It was a whirlwind of emotions within a glass case of despair.

“Maybe we should follow him, but stay back until he needs us.” Mason suggested.

“Maybe.” Kyoshi frowned as she heard a car door open and close and the rumble of an engine. “No, definitely.”

 

***

 

“Stupid fucking assholes.” Seth spat as he hit the button to start his sporty coupe. It roared to life, he threw it in gear, and peeled out. “Clean that up off your street cocksuckers!” The car went from zero to sixty in under four seconds and he put that to the test as he screamed past the line of apartments opposite the student center.

“Call Butch.” He told his car, and the car did as instructed.

The car was good like that: loyal, obedient, and simple. He didn’t have to worry about the car stabbing him in the back.

“Was up?” A voice was barely audible when it answered. There were a lot of voices and music in the background.

“Yo, Butch, it’s Seth.”

“Seth…S-Man. Holy shit, bro. I haven’t heard from you in months.”

“Just busy man. What you up to?”

“Party at my new digs. Checking out the new talent. You want in?” The big lacrosse jock was nothing if not reliable.

“Text me the address. I’ll be over soon.”

“Sure thing, bro, but what about your old lady. She was a ten, bro. Don’t throw an ass like that away.”

Seth stomped on the brakes as a light turned red. Smoke and the smell of burned rubber filled the air. It was the perfect metaphor for his mood.

“I’m through with her. See you soon.” He hung up and a second later an address came through.

He punched it into the GPS just as another car started honking. The light had changed when he was entering the information. The car honked again. Seth stuck his middle finger out the door and stayed still.

“Hey, asshole. Move!”

Seth heard the guy slam his door as he walked up toward Seth’s car. Seth opened the window.

“Hey are you…” The guy leaned over to look into Seth’s car but never got to finish.

Seth grabbed the guy by the scruff of the shirt and pulled. The guy’s head rebounded off the top of the door. Seth felt the satisfying crunch of nose cartilage crumbling just before he fell to the ground crying.

“Nobody fucking tells me what to do.” Seth opened his door but didn’t get out. He put a foot on the ground and felt the earth around him rumble with his power.

He flexed his ability. He remembered it being easier, but he didn’t relent. He pushed until he got what he wanted. There was a slight crack and the sound of leaves rushing through the air before a final CRUNCH. The cherry on top was the wailing of a car alarm as one of the palm trees that lined the road fell and crushed the front half of the other guy’s car.

“Well will you look at that.” Seth felt a burst of relief rush through him. “I’ll let you take care of that.” He shut his door and hit the gas.

The light was red now but he didn’t care. He peeled out again leaving the injured man in a cloud of smoke. Five minutes later he was pulling behind Butch’s new place. It was a large frat house with Greek symbols prominently placed on the front. It was surrounded by other frat and sorority houses on Greek Row.

His sports car got a few appreciative glances from some ladies on the porch, and their expressions brightened when they saw who was driving it.

Seth walked into the house like he owned the place. Judging by the way female heads turned when he entered, he’d have no trouble forgetting a certain someone tonight.

 

***

 

<So this is a frat party?> Izzy stood in the middle of the action.

She’d seen the raunchy comedies from the 90s and early 2000s. She’d laughed along with the other moviegoers and imagined herself all grown up and attending one of those. Now that she was here, the contrast was stark.

First off, no girls were getting drunk and flashing all the guys. Secondly, there were no model/actors here. No one had professionally done makeup. These were real people. That meant the girls that were drinking kept a hand over there drink most of the time. Even the drunkest ones weren’t flashing the crowd. The most flirtatious might pull a guy upstairs for a little no-pants action but they were discrete about it.

The other difference that the movies never quite hit right was the smell. They were in Florida in late summer. It was hotter than hell, which made the whole frat house smell like balls. Cheap beer and BO reeked from everything. Every new entrant into the house got that momentary face pinch of the odor before they powered through it to the keg. Eventually, you got drunk enough not to realize it.

“Yo girl, you havin’fun?” A big hairy man walked up to Izzy and leaned casually against a wall.

She felt slightly trapped next to his considerable bulk, and none of it looked like fat. He was cute in the classic strong jawline way, but the scent of cheap booze and something a little more illegal coming off his breath was a total turnoff.

“My name is Isla.” She replied. She didn’t like being called “girl”.

Unfortunately, the guy took that as an invitation to move a little closer and smile a little wider.

<At least he’s got nice teeth.> She tried to look on the bright side.

“I’m Butch.”

Now was about the time she looked around for backup, but all of the other girls were nowhere to be seen. Izzy had only gone to the party because one of her roommates had grown up locally and her boyfriend was on the lacrosse team and going to pledge the fraternity. So he had to be there, and she wanted to be there to support him. Plus, it was kind of their last night being regular college students. Tomorrow they had their ranking fights and then it was off to be a Hero.

She couldn’t imagine what the next few months held. She was still sore from the short fight, running, and pullups.

“So where you from?” Butch had drawn closer while she was lost in her own thoughts.

“Here and there,” she replied noncommittally as she looked for an exit.

“Sounds hot.”

She stopped what she was doing and gave the large man-boy a level stare. <What?>

Even in his drunk state Butch was able to figure out he’d said the wrong thing, and his drunken thoughts allowed her to find an escape route.

She scanned the room and found a familiar face.

“Excuse me.” She lithely slipped through a small opening. “Seth!” She called out, remembering the sophomore’s name from earlier.

The sophomore was leaning up against a wall talking to another girl. She was blushing and giggling nervously as he whispered something into her ear. As Izzy approached she couldn’t tell if it was gratitude or annoyance that flashed across the other woman’s face. Seth was clearly putting the moves on her, and Izzy was totally cock-blocking him.

“Sorry, I gotta…” the other woman untangled herself from Seth and vanished back into the throng of people gyrating to music on the impromptu dancefloor. If clothes weren’t involved then in nine months there would probably be a few bundles of joy arriving into this crazy world.

“Fuuuuuuuck.” The word was drawn out as Seth slowly turned to regard her. “What?” He snapped.

Izzy took an involuntary step back, but then straightened her spine and stood her ground. “What? A girl can’t come up and talk to you?”

“There’s a difference between talking and twat-blocking.” Seth mumbled back as he lifted a red solo cup to his lips and drained the last of whatever was inside of it. When he finished he tossed it to the side and studied her. “I know you.” He cocked his head to the side in a classic thinking motion.

“Yeah, I’m Isla. But most people just call me Izzy.” She replied finally smelling the whiskey all over him. “And you’re drunk.”

“How observant of you.” He didn’t seem to care about her criticism.

<Why should he. He’s a sophomore. I’m a freshman. He’s already gone through what I’m about to go through. Why should he care about my judgment?>

“Sorry to break that up.” She motioned to the crowd behind her where the girl had gone. “Just needed an exit from an over enthusiastic frat boy.”

“Butch is actually a pretty good guy. Always there for a friend.” Seth countered, lifting his glass to the big man across the room.

She didn’t even see where he got a new one from.  “Well he kind of smelled like a urinal cake. Women don’t usually like that.”

“Then what do they like?” Seth crossed his arms and leaned back away from her against the wall. “Please enlighten me.”

Izzy frowned. “Judging by what I just saw you’ve got a pretty good idea.” She pointed a thumb at the crowd.

“You’d be surprised.”

His reply took her totally be surprise. His casual arrogance was gone. It was filled with pain and regret. Without even thinking she took a comforting step forward before stopping herself.

“Well,” she was nervous now. How does someone reply to that? “I’m not really one to talk. I’m not like most girls.” She didn’t mean for it to come off sounding superior or entitled, just different.

“Now you’ve got my attention.” The sadness was gone replaced by that cool confidence that was a little intoxicating. “What’s your story Izzy Perko?”

“Not really much to tell.” She shrugged. “Didn’t know my mom or dad. I got left on a church’s steps as a baby. I know it’s a little cliché but it still happens in some places. After that, I bounced around foster homes for eighteen years: five different elementary schools and three different high schools before getting accepted here. Some of the foster families were good. Some sucked balls, but I made it through. Now I’m here and going to make the most of my life.”

Somehow during her little biography Seth snagged a beer and handed one to her. “I’m sorry.” He lifted his glass to hers and took a sip. “That must have been tough.”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, sipping tentatively at her own drink. It tasted about as good as it smelled. “But the past is the past. I’m focused on the future.”

That made him smirk, which made her smile.

“Enough about my sob story. What about you?”

His smile vanished. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he replied with a sourness that made her beer look sweet. “I’m the spoiled rich asshole who’s made all the mistakes.” The ending was mumbled into the cup as he drained its contents again.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.” She reassured him.

She hated seeing people in this much pain. That’s one of the reasons she wanted to be a Hero. She’d seen that look on orphans’ faces too many times. The look when a person thought they were a failure.

“Don’t…”

“There you are.”

Izzy got cut off by a woman with short blue hair suddenly appearing next to him.

Seth face went from sad to sad and pissed off. “What do you want, Becca?”

“We all want you to sleep it off.” Her tone was bubbly despite the seriousness of the subject.

“Can’t you see I’m having a conversation. Fuck off.” He spat back, which seemed to hurt the blue-haired girl a lot.

“No, you need to sleep it off.” Izzy’s voice was firm. “I’ll help get you home.”

The blue-haired girl, Becca, gave her a suspicious look.

“Don’t worry, I was there earlier today. Got my ass kicked and had to run five miles in thirty-five minutes.” Izzy tried to be vague, and Becca got the intended meaning immediately.

Becca’s face softened and she thanked Izzy for her help. “Come on, let’s get him out of here.”

Together they were able to guide Seth out the back door and into the back of a sporty car. Judging by Seth’s rich boy quip, it was his. They used the GPS to get him home, which was a swanky place not too far away. He was silent the whole way and didn’t bother to thank either of them when they hauled him up to his room. He just grumbled something unintelligible and slammed the door behind him.

That left her and Becca all alone in the hallway. Izzy didn’t know what to say and Becca just looked embarrassed.

“He’s not normally like this.” Becca replied after an awkward silence.

“It’s ok. I’ve seen worse.” More than one of her foster fathers had trouble with the bottle. Luckily, they never did anything.”

“Still. His behavior…” Becca trailed off. Her eyes darted back and forth like she was looking for something, and when she didn’t see it she leaned in close.

“Last year there was this girl,” she started in a conspiratorial whisper.

When she was done, Izzy knew the barebones of Liz and immediately understood were Seth was coming from.

It only made her want to help him more.

Previous                                                 Next

A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 6

Kevin was waiting for Daisy when she walked into the infirmary. Dr. Sanderson had healed the former Hero up lickety-split, but there were some things even Sanderson’s healing couldn’t fix. Namely, Kevin was just plain old, and getting shot in your mid-nineties wasn’t good for your health.

“I’m fine.” Kevin took one look at her and waved off her concerns. “I just need to get back on my feet, get some fresh air in my lungs, and walk a couple of miles in this Florida sunshine. Then I’ll be as right as rain.” He smiled, and Daisy couldn’t help but echo it.

“Sanderson will release you when he thinks you’re ready, but until then do you mind if we talk about…”

“The old team,” Kevin finished her thought.

“Yeah. I still don’t remember much about them, or what we did, or anything besides us being a team. And I only know that because you told me and showed the very beginning.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about that. All of those memories are buried so deep even I’d have trouble bringing them to the surface. The recruitment memory was simple because we hadn’t done anything yet, everything else is going to be rough.”

“Well I’ve got classes starting today so I’ll pass on the lobotomy.” Her grin didn’t hide her unease at not being able to access memories from the advanced mind sitting across from her. “How about you give me the cliff notes version. In your own words.”

“Hmmm, well you and I were on the team. I filled the advanced mind role, and you, despite your many talents, were the team’s ranged combatant.”

That made sense to Daisy. Her electrical attacks and reaping were ranged attacks.

“Our close combat specialist was Fedor Kowal, codename Berserker. Fedor’s parents survived Stalin’s takeover of Poland and the accompanying gulags for all political rivals. They immigrated here where they instilled a love of country in young Fedor. Our teammate tried to get into the HCP in the late seventies but they wouldn’t take him. It wasn’t his power but his personality that didn’t make the cut. The HCP might have not been willing to take a chance with him, but the Army was. They trained him, molded him, and then released him with us on strategic targets.”

Daisy had the whisper of a memory of a giant man, with flaming red hair, a great bushy beard, and a battle axe that looked like it could split a steel beam in half.

“Yep, that’s Fedor.” Kevin chuckled when she mentioned the imagery. “He was a classic strongman with a twist. The longer he fought the stronger he got. When he was at the height of his power there were very few people in the world that could stop him. The only one he knew he couldn’t beat, and respected, was you.”

“So, I was his leash and the ranged combatant.”

“Partially. You two had a brief fling in eighty-two.”

“Ugh…come on man. I didn’t need to know that.” If one thing stood out about the Berserker in her memory it was all the hair. Too much hair.

Kevin laughed, and those laughs turned into hacks. “Don’t worry I’m fine.” He reached for the water and sipped generously from the straw.

Daisy didn’t like the pallor look of her old friend, but she deferred to the healer’s superior judgment.

“So you handled all the mind mumbo-jumbo, I handled ranged, Fedor handled close combat; that only leaves an intel expert. Who was are secret agent Hero?”

“Her name was Night. Beyond that I don’t know.”

Daisy tried to pull anything she could remember, but came up with nothing.

“She was completely average, like any good infiltration specialist. Your eyes could pass right over her and you wouldn’t even notice. That might have been a part of her power set, the ability to go unnoticed, but her tactical gift was what she called shadow whispering.”

“That sounds ominous.” It might have been Daisy’s recent experience with shadow manipulators, but she didn’t have a warm and bubbly feeling in her gut when talking about Night.

Kevin picked up on that. “Yeah, the two of you never got along. Her shadow whispering wasn’t much more than listening through shadows at anything going on within her range. The prevailing theory about her power was that she created miniature wormholes in the shadows that allowed sound to pass through.” He shrugged. “She wasn’t HCP trained either, so we never got the full scoop on her. If I’m not mistaken I think her deal was some type of work release program.”

“Wow.” Daisy scratched her head. “So our team was two Heroes, a soldier, and a criminal. It sounds like the beginning of a bad walking into the bar joke.”

Kevin smiled. “Maybe, but we got the job done. You’ve got to remember that this was the height of the Cold War, Krezic was deep into their experiments, and there were new rogue Supers or puppet states popping up monthly across the world. Someone had to go in and clean up, and that someone was us.” Kevin’s face was serious now, and Daisy remembered how all of this started.

<Someone put a bullet in him.>

She put her misgivings about Night, the only flash of memory she had so far was a figure wrapped head-to-toe in black like a ninja, and concentrated on the real issue.

“So where are they now?”

Kevin just shrugged. “We all got cover identities when we left. You and I went back to Heroing. Berserker stayed in ForceOps for a bit, and Night just up and vanished for all I know.”

“So not only do we need to find them, but we need to find whoever tried to give you a new asshole.” Daisy did not like how this was going to add to her workload. “Any idea who could have done this?”

“Ex-KGB, rogue Krezic agents, what remains of the Sandinistas. Take your pick. They’ve all got resources, an axe to grind, and nothing but time on their hands.” Kevin gestured to his face. He looked old and tired, and he should be.

Kevin had been fighting his whole life. Before the Russians it had been the Nazis, and there were dozens of smaller factions in-between. If anyone deserved peace and to not be hunted, it was the Hero Mastermind.

“As we move forward you’re going to be working in a support capacity.” Daisy used her “this is not open for negotiation” voice. “You can use all of your old contacts, gather intel, figure out what the fuck is going on, and why they’re trying to off you; but any and all hands-on work gets done by me. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kevin’s grin was infectious.

“Good. Now the first thing you need to do is get better. I’ve got classes today so we’ll talk when I’m done.” Daisy gestured for a white-uniformed senior healer to come over.

“Take care of this man, he’s a fucking legend.” She walked off leaving the senior unsure of what to do.

“Don’t worry, young man.” Kevin put the student at ease. “Just bring me one of those delicious Jell-Os. Cherry if you have it.”

Daisy barely succeeded in smothering her laughter as she went off to the beginning of the year introduction.

 

***

 

Isla Perko, Izzy to her few friends back at the half-dozen orphanages she’d grown up in, found it easy to move through a room without being noticed. When you were barely five feet tall you could slip in and out of tight spaces, but no matter what she did she couldn’t shake the two students who’d come to help her move in.

She briefly wondered if they were part of an anti-Super group and had found out who she was and were going to blow her cover, but it didn’t look like that was right. The girl seemed determined to help, and had helped haul half of her boxes into her new room in record time.

<There was no way I’d have gotten it done by twelve-thirty, and then I’d be late for my first day at the HCP.>

She knew the importance of a first impression. When you were an orphan looking to be adopted those first few minutes could be the difference between being chosen or passed over. Since she’d never found a family willing to take her in she knew things not to do, and common sense dictated that not showing up when you were supposed to was one of those things to avoid at all costs.

The problem was that now she was going to be late because she couldn’t get into the secret elevator because they were still following her.

<At least the guy is cute.> Hot was probably a better term, but she didn’t want to start drooling over the first boy she saw on a college campus. She was here for a reason and that needed to take priority. <Still…>

The guy, Seth something, had that brooding “I’m too cool for school” attitude that always seemed to push all the right buttons with her. His athletic build, chiseled jaw, and stunning green eyes didn’t help.

<Pull it together girl!> She shook her head. <Lose these two and get to the introduction.>

She threaded through the people crowding the students center and headed for the fake wall at the back. She stopped casually next to it and pretended to check her phone.

“The polymorphic mesh should be coded to your DNA.” The girl leaned next to her while the boy casually walked backwards through the wall.

“What! You’re…!” she hissed, cutting herself off before she drew attention to them.

“We were your welcoming committee. But now we’re going to be late, so come on.” The girl, Angela, grabbed her and pulled her through the mesh.

It was a weird sensation, like passing through a waterfall, but she didn’t have time to contemplate it. Seth was holding the door to the elevator, and he didn’t look happy that she was holding everyone up. But then again, she hadn’t seen him look happy at all since they met.

“Follow us when we get down into the HCP. We’re going to need to jog to the locker room. Once there find the locker with your name on it, it should open to your palm-print. Put on your black uniform and head to the auditorium.” Angela gave Izzy step-by-step instructions.

“And if you can find a moment I’d  stretch out, because you’ll need it.”

Angela shot Seth a glare, but he didn’t seem to care.

The HCP’s sci-fi halls were empty when they arrived, but they got more crowded as they got closer to wherever they were going.

“Here.” Angela practically pushed Izzy through a door with the classic sign for female on it.

The room was packed with what felt like fifty plus girls all slipping out of their casual clothes and into variously shaded uniforms.

“Freshman section is over there. Change and meet me back here in two minutes.” And just like that Angela was gone.

<Ok, you can do this. Just say hi to the person at the locker next to you.> She looked until she found the locker with her name on it and let it scan her hand. It popped open, and inside was a black uniform. She pulled it out and got to work changing.

She could tell from a quick look around that the uniforms varied depending on the person. Her uniform was skin tight, and reminded her way too much of fetish ware. Intellectually, she knew it wasn’t there for her to show off, or because whoever had put it in her locker was playing an S&M joke on her. It was so tight because of her power, but that still made it a pain in the ass to get in to.

<I’ll need to wear a thong and sports bra in the future.> She jotted down mental notes as she pulled up the tight fabric and felt stuff scrunch uncomfortably. <At least there’s extra padding around the important bits.>

With her new uniform on and zipped up she turned to the girl next to her. The girl was a solid foot taller than Izzy, had bronze skin, bronze hair, and striking blue eyes. Eyes that regarded Izzy as nonthreatening after a momentary glance. On top of all that, even though the girl’s loose uniform, Izzy could see she was shredded. Her body said “I punch things a lot and I look good doing it” loud and clear.

“Hi, I’m Izzy.” Izzy shut her locker and extended a hand in greeting.

“Martina.” The girl gave a brief shake before heading out without another word.

<I’ve had worst interactions.> Izzy followed her and met back up with Angela.

Unlike all of the other freshman, Izzy had been changing with, Angela’s uniform was gray.

Angela started to walk and talk, and Izzy had to half-jog to keep up. “When we get to the auditorium you will sit in the front with the rest of the freshman. There’s going to be little placards with assigned seating. Sit there, be quiet, pay attention, and be ready for the rest of the day.”

Izzy absentmindedly started to stretch out her shoulders as they fast-walked toward a bottleneck where everyone was funneling into a room.

“The freshman instructors are good, really good. Do what they tell you and you’ll learn a lot.” They reached the doors and separated. “Good luck.” Angela headed up the elevated seating toward a group of gray-uniformed students.

<Well here goes nothing.> Izzy went off to find her seat and start her HCP career.

 

***

 

<It’s the same old recycled bullshit.> Seth slouched in his chair as the Dean spoke in front of the entire HCP.

The differences between what he’d heard last year and what this year’s freshman were being told were minimal. There were only forty-nine newbies this year, down from his class’ fifty-seven. Being in the middle of a terrorist attack probably had to do with the recruitment decline. That probably carried over to every college and university in the city.

But the “only ten of you will make it to being a Hero” bit was the same word for word, so was the “one of you will die on your two-year internship, and of the remaining nine half will be lucky to see retirement” part.

<We get it. Heroes don’t have a great life expectancy. Move on already…OWWW!> A large foot came out of nowhere and collided with his shin.

“What the fuck, Mason?” Seth glared at the big man sitting next to him.

Mason just shrugged and pointed at Kyoshi, who was glaring right back at him.

<Yeesh, sorry.> He mentally apologized for his attitude and went back to focusing on the Dean.

Their educational leader had just introduced Coaches Meyers and McMillian, and Seth reigned in all his catty remarks. McMillian had his fake belly on and was breathing a little hard during his speech. Most of the freshman seemed to be buying into the act. One person wasn’t. A silver-haired girl was rolling her silver eyes as the close combat coach gave his little speech.

Then Coach Meyers stepped forward.

Seth had never liked the woman, and that hadn’t changed with his summer of misfortune. She might look like athletic coach Barbie, but he knew the snide, pretentious, asshole underneath it all.

<Yeah…yeah…fine.> He cut off his train of thought when he saw Mason’s leg start to cock back for another strike.

“Sophomores, juniors, and seniors, thank you for being present. You are dismissed.” The Dean was back at the podium and wrapping things up. “Freshmen, if you wish to leave no one will hold it against you.”

Surprisingly one freshman did get up with the upperclassmen.

<One down forty-eight to go.> Seth wanted to give the young man a high-five. That was the smartest decision he was probably ever going to make.

“Thank you, Sir.” The Dean motioned to the leaving freshman. “This path is not for the faint of heart, and if you are not one-hundred percent committed then it is better you take your talents elsewhere.”

Seth made it out the set of double-doors clogged with students in gray and white uniforms only to come face-to-face with more professors.

“Sophomores, with us. Juniors, report to your chosen specialties for your first session. Seniors report to the viewing centers. MOVE!” The orders were backed by a mean looking guy that Seth hadn’t seen before.

The juniors and seniors skedaddled, leaving just the twenty-eight sophomores.

“Let’s move sophomores.” The angry man led the way toward the main gym, but took a right before they got there. They went down several flights of stairs and emerged in another large space. It was only about a quarter the size of the regular gym, but that was still enough to fit in everyone with considerable extra room.

The sophomores immediately fell into a line in front of the new professors, who took a moment to study the students.

“We are the West Private HCP specialty professors.” The angry man was still the only one talking. “Today we will evaluate you, and determine if you are a good fit for our specialty. You all were supposed to put considerable thought into selecting three specialties to study this year. If you haven’t done that then tough shit. You have to stick with what you pick. If you haven’t done your homework, then you probably won’t make it in this curriculum. One of these specialties will be your HCP major, and will determine your career as a Hero, so you should have chosen wisely.”

“Brief introductions before we begin.” A woman stepped forward cutting off the angry man’s tirade of the students’ perceived inadequacies, which in Seth’s case where totally justified.

He hadn’t given a second of thought to what he would be studying this year.

“My name is Professor Livingston, and I am the Focus instructor.” The professor looked over and gave Kyoshi a smile. “I’ve worked with a couple of you before and look forward to teaching any who wish to learn the Focus discipline.”

A small raven-haired woman with striking amber eyes, which only added to her bird-like, fierce appearance stepped forward next. “I am Professor Huerta, and I am the Weapons instructor.”

The well-built, angry man shouldered forward next before anyone else. “I’m Professor Kirk, and I’m the Ranged Combat instructor.”

“I am also Professor Kirk.”  A slim woman with bleach-blonde hair followed the angry man, who visibly softened when she spoke. “And I am the Control Instructor.”

<Maybe try controlling your husband’s temper a little more.> Seth commented freely now that he was out of range of Mason’s kicks.

But not Becca’s pinches.

<Owww, motherfucker!> He turned and glared at the pixie-haired speedster, but it was hard to stay mad at that face.

“Good morning students,” the second to last professor moved forward gracefully. “I am Professor Miles, and I will instruct any who are willing in the arts of subtlety.” The slim, brown-haired man could have been mistaken for anyone on the street, and Seth knew that was a good thing for his profession.

The last professor to step forward was someone everyone already knew, and saw as a vital part of their HCP training. “Most of you know me already. I’m Doctor Sanderson, and I’m the chief healer for the HCP. I also instruct beginning healers, as well as teach basic medical techniques and first aid. There are no healers in this class, so if you are willing to sacrifice one of your specialties I will train you up to the equivalent of a certified EMT in the next year. Having the training to save a life on the job is sometimes worth more than being able to punch through solid concrete and blow stuff up with your eyes.”

Seth saw Mason and Lorelei Gilford blush at the comment.

“As you already know,” Professor Kirk  took charge, “Coach McMillian is the Close Combat coach, and while he can’t be here he’ll see the results of today’s evaluation and make his determinations.”

<No more Coach Meyers!> It was the best news Seth had heard all day. <Maybe Sophomore year won’t be so bad after all.>

“On to the evaluation.” Professor Kirk smiled, and Seth’s elation evaporated.

“I suggest everyone spread out and prepare yourself.”

The six professors didn’t move as the twenty-eight sophomores quickly dispersed throughout the room. They all suspected what was coming next.

“We are here to see if you’ve made any progress since the summer, and which of you have kept in shape. None of us like slackers who took months off when they could have been getting better. A person like that is a waste of time and won’t make it.”

<Tell us how you really feel why don’t you.> Seth took it personally, even if he consciously knew that none of the professors knew he’d slacked off for months. His only training had been of the alcoholic persuasion with a side of getting his knob polished by professionals. <Or maybe they do know.> Either way it pissed him off.

“So what? Are we going to fight all of you?” He couldn’t hold his tongue anymore.

He didn’t expect Professor Kirk’s smile. “No. You’re going to fight eachother…without powers.”

<What the hell?>

“Anyone with innate abilities please step out. You’re heading down to a special combat cell. Same rules as ranking challenges applies. The match will begin in thirty seconds, and will only conclude with an acknowledgement of surrender or incapacitation. The use of lethal force is not authorized. Any use of such force will result in your expulsion from the HCP and possible criminal charges.  Good luck.”

All the professors walked out of the room followed by Mason, Anika, and Casey Williams. Everyone else had the ability to more-or-less regulate their powers. Seth looked to his left and saw Richard Gibson. The guy was a good four inches shorter, with a much shorter reach, and a physique that had been honed by HCP training, but was still pretty average. Without his ability to grow and strengthen he would be a good first target.

Seth looked to his right and saw Janet Ibsen. The five-five athletic girl with blonde curls didn’t strike a frightening figure without her light-rope. But still, Seth wasn’t down for beating on a girl this afternoon.

<Rich it is.>

He focused on the smaller man, which telegraphed his move, but to Rich’s credit he didn’t look away. He looked determined and ready to fight.

“Three…two…one…begin.”

 

***

 

Angela wasn’t surprised about the challenge, and she was prepared to deal with it. As the currently number one ranked student she knew she would be a target. <I’ll just have to convince people that targeting me is bad for their health.>

Angela was the best with her powers, and losing that advantage was going to hurt, but she was still a competent fighter. She was more than willing to take on her classmates powerless, especially when they didn’t have their abilities either.

She scanned the area around her and saw several people glancing her way. She stared them down with confidence and dared them to come at her. A few accepted the challenge.

“Three…two…one…begin!”

Carson Long was the first to reach her. Normally his kinetic and thermal-powered punches needed to be treated with respect, but without them he was only a misogynistic, moderately capable boxer. He charged in headstrong and paid the price.

Angela caught him in the face with a roundhouse kick. To his credit, it didn’t knock him out, but he staggered like a drunk, and she moved in to finish him off. A quick combination and she broke his nose and KO’d him. He fell like a downed tree, and smacked his head hard against the ground.

She didn’t have time to think about him though, she turned around and barely got a block up in time to defend against Emilia Scarborough. A normal hit from the cryokinetic would lead to frostbite at a minimum, but as a normal fighter it just sent a slight sting through Angela’s arm.

She caught two more people coming up behind her, so she had to deal with Emilia quickly. Her hand lashed out and caught the other girl in the throat. A hideous choking sound escaped Emilia’s mouth as her hands retracted instinctually to the damaged airway. She collapsed a moment later in severe pain and would lose consciousness soon.

The people charging her from behind made the critical mistake of stopping when they saw how Angela had ruthlessly taken out the competition. Blake Rhodes and Simon Skylar were pretty nice guys, even if Skylar was lazy, and they weren’t sure how to come at her now that she was ready for them.

Angela didn’t hesitate. She jumped on them like a wrathful spider monkey. She got tagged a couple of times during the exchange, but she was faster than the two guys. She got a split lip, and an eye that was starting to swell from getting punched by Rhodes, but the guys weren’t so lucky. Skylar was on the ground crying from a nut-busting shot to the crotch, and Rhodes was screaming in pain from the knee she had savagely kicked. Just looking at it showed she had jacked him up, but the healers could fix him up just fine. They could fix everyone already on the ground. She could even see the golden mist reaching out to the more seriously injured already.

But that was not her concern. Right now, she needed to show the professors that she was as good as that ranking board said she was. She looked around, selected her next target, and pounced.

Oliver Carpenter went down screaming until a savage punch to the back of the head silenced him.

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A Change of Pace – Season 2 – Chapter 5

The apartment was half a mile from the campus, which was for the best. Seth needed space. He needed space from all the judgment he knew was coming. He needed space from the sights and sounds that reminded him of her. He just needed fucking space.

Monday was a federal holiday, Labor Day, so classes didn’t start until Tuesday. Your schedule was what determined when you moved in. Classes tended to break down into Monday – Wednesday –  Friday classes, or Tuesday – Thursday classes. The two-class per week breakdown led to longer individual classes, but psychologically it seemed to a lot of students that they weren’t going to class as much; which gave them a chance do other collegiate activities. Like partying.

Seth had been in a bit of a funk when he signed up for classes. He did it late and got stuck almost exclusively with Monday – Wednesday – Friday classes, but that helped him with the first day of school. He didn’t have anything to do but move in on Tuesday.

<And the first day orientation at one.> He reminded himself as he sat up in bed fighting a hangover.

Seth got in late last night, stumbled out of his Porsche coup that was poorly parked in its assigned space. He kicked the beer off the floorboards and into the parking lot as he did it, but he was too drunk to notice. The cops had, but since they didn’t have any proof he was driving, and the alcohol was out of his system, they went for a littering fine.

<Three hundred dollars my ass.> Seth almost crumpled up the neon orange ticket sticking out from beneath his windshield, but he didn’t.

He wasn’t ready to commit HCP suicide just yet, so he threw it in his glove box and tore off toward campus. It was only ten, but Angela had called a class meeting. Since she was still the number one ranked student in the class, she thought it gave her the right. Truthfully, Seth didn’t give a flying fuck about whatever Angela had to say. He was just holding out hope that everyone in the class didn’t hate his guts.

Nothing about the students’ center had changed. The floor looked like someone had polished it thoroughly in preparation for a semester’s worth of scuff marks, but aside from that nothing had moved more than an inch from where it had been in May.

It was packed though. People were streaming through it to get to classes. Those who didn’t have class until Wednesday were moving in, just like Seth had done, and among all that no one cared or noticed a small group of sophomores that were filing into a signed-out room.

“Seth!” Becca bounced over and gave him a hug.

It felt good, better than he’d remembered, but he didn’t let it last too long.

“Whoa, look at the hair.” He put on a façade of cheerfulness.

“I know right.” She moved her head back and forth modeling it for him.

“She always looks great.” Anika walked up beside Becca with a stern look on her face.

He expected to get the most hostility out of her. After all, Liz had kidnapped her, locked her in a hole in the ground, and was prepared to give her over to the asshat that had torn apart the city. All for a payday.

“Hello, Anika.” He couldn’t do more than stand his ground and see what happened.

“Hello.” She held out her hand, making the first move, and Seth took it. “You smell like a sewer.” She released his hand, and he could have sworn her saw the corners of her lips pull up a bit.

“Seth.” A deep voice announced as two human giants walked up behind him.

Mason and Kyoshi looked just as chummy and in love as they always had. It sent a spike of pain lancing through Seth’s heart, but he didn’t let it show. Not that his neutral facial expressions fooled Kyoshi, but at least she didn’t call him out on it in public. Her face did droop a little as she registered the negative emotion, but then Angela interrupted them all.

“Welcome back everyone.”

<Maybe I’m the only one, but does Angela look…fierce?> Seth couldn’t think of a different way to put it.

The teenage shifter had a rich tan going, she was as thin as her naturally muscular body type allowed, which meant she looked ripped.

<She looks like she spent the whole summer training while you spent it killing your liver.> He chided himself as she moved on.

“Some of you might remember from last year that when you first moved in you had a little help. You didn’t know it at the time, but that help was HCP sophomores helping the freshman get settled in. It’s a tradition at West, and the Dean has allowed me to coordinate it this year.” Angela smiled, and her teeth looked exceptionally white against her sun-kissed cheeks. “Since today is the first day we’re all here, and a lot of the students are already moved in, we only have a couple students to help. Actually,” she looked down at her list, “there are exactly fourteen freshmen we’re going to help. That, works out perfectly. Break up into groups of two and I’ll give you each an assignment.”

A year of working, fighting, and bleeding together made that quick and easy…for everyone but Seth. Anika, Becca, Mason, and Kyoshi grouped together, that much was a given, but what also seemed to be a given was the rest of the class avoiding him.

Seth had been reasonably close with a few other classmates. Close enough that they could spend a few hours helping a freshman move in. He’d hung out a few times with Alex Webb, who had the ability to augment his bones and muscles into a creature with enhanced physical attributes. They’d even gone to the bar once or twice when Liz was out studying.

<Studying…> It hit him that every time she said that she was off doing something nefarious.

The hesitation made him lose out partnering with Webb, who paired up with Fiona Richardson, the class teleporter.

<They look pretty cozy together.> He’d missed most of what happened at the end of last year and the beginning of this one dealing with his own emotions.

Next, he tried to grab Oliver Carpenter, a technopath with an affinity for surfing and flipflops. But the sandy-haired, laid back dude sidestepped him and joined up with Danny Mason, a duplicator.

Everyone was pairing up quick, leaving him with only a few options.

“Emilia?” He asked the ice blue-haired, cryokinetic Southern Bell who his parents tried to set him up with. “Want to…”

He never got to finish before Natalia Romanoff grabbed her BFBF, best friend and bitches forever, and walked her away. He didn’t look after them. Natalia could paralyze with a look if she wanted too.

<I see how it is. FUCK ALL OF YOU!> He gave them the mental finger loud enough for Kyoshi to take notice and come get him.

“Angela still needs a partner.” She offered, trying to keep the pity to a minimum.

“Great,” he grumbled, his cheery façade gone as he returned to the small group of people who weren’t treating him like a leper.

“Excellent.” Angela watched from the front of the room. “Now have one of you come up and grab a name and address.”

Seth watched as she tore off sections of the paper that was on her clipboard, and waited for her to finish.

“Seth.” Angela’s tone was flat as she approached him.

Aside from Anika, Angela had the most reason to be pissed with him. After all, his girlfriend had blown up her father. She just hadn’t blown him up enough to kill him. But the degree of blowing a person up didn’t matter much when Angela had thought her father was dead for several months.

“Angela.” He replied, his tone matching her.

Irrational as it was, he was a little pissed at her. After all, it was her father who caught his girlfriend and shipped her off to a maximum security Super prison where she couldn’t have any visitors or interaction with the outside world aside from her lawyer. Seth would know, he’d tried to get a call through when he got over the sea of emotions raging through him. Not being able to connect hadn’t helped things.

“Let’s get moving.” The brief tension was gone as Angela turned and marched out of the room.

“Really. That’s it?” Seth followed hot on her heels, while the rest of the class exited and dispersed to the four corners of campus.

“What were you expecting?” Angela didn’t even turn around as they exited the student center and headed down the line of townhouses on the opposite side of the street.

“Oh…I don’t know. A little cursing at a minimum, maybe a shot to the nuts.” Seth threw his hands in the air.

“And why would I do that?”

“You know why.” His statement caused her to stop and turn to face him.

“I will kick you in the nuts if it makes you feel better.” She replied seriously.

“Why would that make me feel better?”

“I don’t know, but you are projecting your anger and hatred onto others, and expecting to be driven away. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Cut the psycho-babbly bullshit.” He scoffed.

“That bullshit helped me through at a tough time and it might just help you too.” Angela remained stoic, which only pissed him off more.

“Fuck that,” he spat. “Let’s just do this stupid move-in thing so I can get back to what’s important.” The image of a bottle of bourbon appeared in his mind.

“Ok.” Angela shrugged. “But when you’re ready go find Dr. Johnson. He’s really good.”

She led the way down the row of townhouses lining the street, and for a brief second Seth thought he knew where they were heading.

<One-twenty…one-nineteen…one-eighteen…> He stopped before he crossed the threshold in townhouse 117’s property. <I can’t do it.> The memories were just too painful.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to. Angela turned up the walkway for townhouse 118. The front porch was covered in brown boxes stacked three high in some places.

“Hello?” A voice asked tentatively and a girl emerged from behind a stack.

Seth thought girl instead of woman for a reason. The girl couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. The stack of boxes she was walking inbetween dwarfed her. She was cute as a button though, her face reminded Seth of a kitten’s. Her black hair was cut short and her black eyes stared out at them with a bit of fear in them. Her features weren’t Super enough to draw immediate attention, but if you looked at the black irises for too long there was definitely something Super in them. She seemed like she was deciding between fight and flight for a moment before Angela spoke up.

“We’re here to help move you in,” she consulted her slip of paper, “Isla Perko?”

“That’s me, but I don’t need any help.” She lifted up two big boxes with ease. A little more ease than was common in a girl who was five foot nothing and a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“We know you don’t, but the school gives us volunteer credit if we do. So, we can either help you or we’re going to sit here until you’re done.” He shrugged trying to move the conversation along. “Your choice.”

Isla looked between the two of them, the mountain of boxes, and her watch. “Ok, my roommates are all in class and I need to get this all in and unpacked by twelve thirty.”

“Which room is yours?” Angela picked up a box helpfully.

“Ground floor on the left.”

“Cool, I had the same room last year.” Angela smiled and turned herself sideways to fit the box through the door.

Seth didn’t know what was weirder. Angela saying “cool” or smiling.

<This is going to be a weird year.> He grabbed another box and followed Angela and little Isla.

 

***

 

“I think this is it.” Mason looked down at the slip of paper just to make sure.

The dorm in front of them was easily ten stories tall, had people streaming in and out of it, and half of those people were students carrying boxes. There were even a few parents milling around. Mason only knew a few other HCP students who lived in the regular dorms, and he knew they could be problematic when it came to getting into the HCP. Some of the large residential buildings had hidden elevators down into the subterranean facility, but not all of them. As far as he knew, this wasn’t one of them.

“This is it.” Kyoshi had her eyes peeled and was watching the people. “Aiden Murphy is this way.” She grabbed him by the hand and dragged them through the front door.

The lobby was a masterpiece of linoleum, cork boards with advertisements, and rundown furniture. People were streaming in and out of the stairwell, waiting in line for the elevator, or just milling around talking.

“There.” Kyoshi located their target and cut a path through the other students. It wasn’t difficult, people just tended to move out of the way if you were twice as wide and a foot taller than them.

“Aiden Murphy?” They stopped in front of a guy waiting by the elevator.

He wasn’t what Mason expected. He was nicely dressed compared to the rest of the students in the area, including Kyoshi and Mason. The unofficial uniform of West Private University was t-shirts, shorts, and flip flops. Murphy had on a nice button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows, khaki slacks that weren’t going to last in the Orlando heat, and a pair of leather loafers that had to be accumulating a respectable amount of sweat. His brown hair looked like it had been recently styled and a pair of glasses made him look older than eighteen. He was also big, not Mason big, but a respectable six and a half feet tall. Despite the height, Murphy wasn’t muscular. He looked pretty average underneath the nice clothes.

“Yeah that’s me.” Murphy turned around and Mason and Kyoshi saw intertwining tattoos running down both of his forearms. If they had to guess they assumed he had two full sleeves, which was a bit of a contrast to the business casual outfit he was wearing.

“Hi.” Kyoshi smiled at the freshman. “We’re here to help you move in.”

Murphy gave the two larger sophomores a once over. His eyes immediately went to Kyoshi’s white hair, golden eyes, and Mason’s size. Mason saw him put two and two together. It wasn’t exactly rocket science.

“Sure thing.” Murphy smiled back. “This is actually my last box, but you’re more than welcome to help me unpack.”

“We’ll wait for the next elevator.”

The most recent ride was here, and there was no way it could accommodate Mason’s size and all the other students waiting to haul their belongings up to their new rooms.

<Interesting guy.> Kyoshi sent his way as the elevator closed behind the freshman Super.

<What do you mean?>

<His whole look is a ruse.> She scratched her chin in thought. <He’s putting on an act so everyone around him will associate him with that preppy façade, but that doesn’t mesh with what I felt and heard from him.>

<Anything I should know about?>

Supers didn’t always come from a good home life, and this wouldn’t be the first time Mason got burned by someone who appeared cool on the outside. Liz had rattled everyone she’d been around with her deception.

<No, nothing like that.> Kyoshi picked up on his thoughts. <He’s just really anxious, which is normal, and he wants to perform well today. He’s got a few ideas about what is coming, and he’s right about some of them.>

Mason remembered his first day. He met Kyoshi, and it was a strong attraction at first sight. Then he got the speech from the Dean after stepping into an HCP for the first time, before promptly getting stomped on by Coach Meyers. He couldn’t blame Murphy for being nervous if he had an idea what was coming.

<Any idea what his power is?> If he was ever going to have to face Murphy it was better to have all the intel he could.

<It’s something to do with his tattoos but I can’t tell exactly what?> Kyoshi sounded frustrated. <He’s not trained to deal with telepaths, but he knows not to be thinking about his power all the time.>

<Tattoos…hmmm…> Mason didn’t know what to make of that, but he was sure he’d get to find out sooner or later.

“Come on.” Kyoshi pointed to the stairs. “He’s on the third floor. It’ll be quicker to walk.”

 

***

 

“This can’t be right.” Becca looked down at the address, up at the building, and back down at the address.

When they first got the slip of paper they didn’t have any idea where it was, so they went to the car and plugged it into the GPS. The apartment, more accurately the penthouse apartment, that Scarlett Vaan was renting was a solid five miles from the school in a brand new building overlooking a small lake. The doorman at the front stopped the two young Supers, who were dressed in casual sundresses, because they looked like they didn’t belong.

<We don’t.> Becca kept looking up at the building, which only made the doorman more suspicious.

“Just call up to Scarlett Vaan,” Anika was on the verge or arguing with the man. “We’re representatives of the school sent to help her move in.”

“I assure you Ms. Vaan is being well taken care of. By The Lake Properties is a full-service establishment. Everything that Ms. Vaan needs she receives.”

“Please just call her, Sir.” Becca added her Midwestern innocence to the conversation. “If she says she doesn’t need our help then we’ll be on our way, but we need to hear it from her.”

The doorman’s iron demeanor cracked, and he reached for the phone by his little podium.

“Ms. Vaan…yes ma’am…right away ma’am…” the man tried not to looked upset as he put the phone back in the receiver.

“Ms. Vaan will see you now.” He led them inside to the elevator, swiped his ID card, and hit the button for the top floor. “Have a nice day, ladies.”

“That was weird.” Becca looked at her girlfriend who was frowning.

“Not really, Ms. Vaan is a little brazen with the use of her abilities.” Anika took a step forward. “And not nearly as good as she thinks she is.”

The elevator dinged open and they emerged into luxury. Plush furniture was everywhere. A kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances bordered a giant main room that was set up with a giant 4K HDTV smart TV. At least three bedrooms shot off of the great room, and from one of them emerged a very pretty woman.

<Thanks.> An unknown voice accepted Becca compliment.

Becca immediately put her mind on lock down and pushed the intruding presence out.

“I’m going to tell you right now it is not polite to go snooping around in other people’s minds, Scarlett.” Anika crossed her arms and frowned at the slightly smaller woman.

Scarlett Vaan was very pale, with silver hair that was pulled into a tight ponytail, and matching silver eyes. Those eyes studied Anika and Becca carefully. She fell between the shorter Becca and the taller Anika on the height scale, and had a body that looked like she did yoga regularly.

<She looks tight.> Becca couldn’t think of a better word to describe the woman, who did not look anything like the average eighteen-year-old. Scarlett seemed relaxed on the surface, but just below that Becca could feel the tension. It was like Scarlett was coiled and ready to spring at a moment’s notice.

“Well, first off I’m not eighteen.” She smiled, and Becca couldn’t hide her surprise. “I’m not at West to get my bachelors in whatever, so don’t think of me as a freshman. I’m a doctoral candidate here working on my Ph.D. in neurology and psychology.”

“And you’re an advanced mind, a strong one.” Anika added.

“Thanks.” Scarlett smiled back showing perfectly straight and white teeth. “You have no idea.” The smiled seemed downright predatory.

“Enlighten me.” Anika didn’t back down.

“Fine.” Scarlett shrugged, plodding down on the large sofa in lotus pose. “Every heard of psychic surgery?”

“No.” Becca scratched her head absentmindedly.

“Don’t feel bad. Not many people have, and not many people are capable of it.” Scarlett sounded slightly full of herself. “It’s not a skill that advanced minds can learn, except maybe a few beginner’s steps. It’s a unique power all by itself,” she continued. “I don’t have any telekinesis, so I can’t throw things around. My telepathy is ridiculously strong, but only in a small area, and really for a specific purpose.” She smiled. “Your little mental attempts to keep me out are pretty weak, no offense.”

<Tough not to take offense.> Becca grumbled, and only succeeded in getting a wider smile from Scarlett.

“I won’t bore you with all the details, so I’ll just say I’m a little more hands on than your regular advanced mind.”

Becca felt a shiver pass over her at that tidbit.

“I’ll be working a lot with Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Johnson instead of with the other freshman coaches. So thanks for the offer to help the new girl move in, but I’m good. You’re welcome to stay,” she added. “But I’m just going to watch Netflix until I need to head over for my first day.”

“No thanks.”

“We’re good.”

Becca and Anika quickly backtracked out of the apartment, into the elevator, and back down to the lobby.

“We’re out of range.” Anika took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’s only got a couple hundred-foot range, and the closer to her you are the stronger she is.”

“I don’t know about you but I got a creep-tastic vibe from her.”

“Yeah, me too.” Anika shook her head like she was warding off bad memories. “But that’s not our problem. Dr. Johnson will straighten her out. He’s a good man.”

“Good.” The last thing Becca wanted was some girl rooting around in her mind that wasn’t as nice and controlled as Kyoshi.

Neither of the Supers knew what psychic surgery was, but it sounded pretty self-explanatory, and not pleasant at all.

“Let’s get back.” Anika led the way to the car. “We have just enough time to grab a bite to eat before we head down to our first day.”

“Eat light,” Becca reminded her girlfriend. “You know what they like to do on the first day.”

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