Training with Cass and Amelia is very different from doing it on my own. Mostly, it involves a lot more fighting, both in a free for all or on random teams.

  It is important though; otherwise, we wouldn't be able to improve as a team. And it’s a good warm-up before suiting up and heading out.

  “You two going to do a team patrol? Or move about separately” I ask as I check over my suit to make sure everything is situated right.

  A chill runs through the air as Amelia ices over her mask to make her helmet look the way she wants it to. “Not sure, I just want to make sure people know that there are heroes about, so if it’s better for us to be together, then we’ll do that?”

  “It’s a great PR opportunity if we do it as a fire and ice duo,” Cass agrees as she checks her phone. With powers like hers, she doesn’t need to bother at all with getting ready, so checking social media it is.

  “Yeah, too bad Jason doesn’t want to be a hero with us; instead he’s going to sneak off somewhere and try to fight criminals in their own lairs,” Amelia teases.

  “Once I pick a name, I will, I promise.”

  Once my helmet is clicked into place, I marvel at the screens lighting up with information. It’s mostly in my peripherals which is already ruined by the mask, so I don’t particularly mind the information streaming by.

  “Systems all online and functioning.” I say, giving a thumbs up.

  Asher breathes a sigh of relief in his mic, causing me to recoil at the sound. “That’s good. I was worried that some of it would be off.”

  Once both Cass and Amelia are fully suited up and have relayed their readiness, we split off the two of them, planning on doing a simple patrol around the city and meeting people, and myself to try and hunt down Andromeda.

  The tunnel the drone had gone down collapsed not even an hour down it, leading us with mostly dead ends though both Asher and I have been aiming our search in the direction the tunnel had led to.

  The big problem is that it was aiming out of town, and I’m fast, faster than a car at least in the city mostly but not on the open highway.

  If I really want to explore that way, I either need to do it in my civilian persona or I need to get a super-mobile and use that to explore.

  Unfortunately, I don’t think the team has the money for me to buy a supercar, so I’ll visit tomorrow.

  My first visit is to the safe house that criminal Lance had used when kidnapping the kid. We had just brought the kid straight home, so it’s not like anybody besides me and Amelia would have been able to know about it.

  If this doesn’t work, I have some other ideas about what I can do to make sure that this all goes off without a hitch, but some days I have to try the easiest option.

  Though the easiest option would have been hunting down the supers, and we imprison and interrogate them but that seemed like a step too far even for me.

  Or is it?

  I hate all of this. Why do I need to think about all of this stuff? Why can’t it be like the movies and comic books where I’m just at home and suddenly a monster attacks and once I punch it unconscious I never have to deal with this kind of stuff again?

  With as much force as I can muster, I charge forward, plotting my course, hoping I can run faster than the demons that are in my thoughts.

  With judicious use of my phasing and the tunnels beneath the city, I climb up inside the safe house without, hopefully, anyone being the wiser about my activities.

  “Alright, let’s see what we can do here.” I mumble to myself as I search the basement. There’s not much down here besides some furniture in storage and a gun safe that definitely has more than guns in it.

  My attention focused, I make out what’s in the bags at the bottom of my safe. I wonder if me being tangentially related to superheroes would mean that if I told the police about this place, they would raid it.

  Just to make sure there’s nothing I’m really missing, I open the safe and catalogue everything in there: the guns, the drugs and the things I hadn’t been able to detect.

  Wrapped in some sort of plastic, there’s a small box that I can’t feel with my mind. Now that I’m looking at it, I realize that my first pass wasn’t entirely true. It’s not as if my senses just pass over it none the wiser, but closer to that there’s a blur over the area.

  When focused on it, I notice it instantly, but with my normal senses just wrapped around the world around me, that little bit of obfuscation caused me to look over it entirely.

  Thankfully, it’s not immune to my powers, and I phase off the wrap to reveal a case that, now that I can peer inside, holds more of the enhancement doses.

  The whole place is surprisingly clean, so hopefully that means that they have had people here recently.

  “Miracle?”

  “Yes?”

  “At the first spot to investigate, no supers so far, but they had dealings with the lab; they have some enhancement patches in a gun safe.” I explain while putting it back.

  If I remember too, I’ll swing around to take it, but I don’t want to be distracted while trying to investigate.

  “Noted but unsurprising, nothing else?”

  “It could block my senses somehow wrapped in some kind of substance that made it hard for me to notice.” I say, picking up the substance in question.

  It’s not super interesting to me, but maybe Asher will have something he wants out of it he can use.

  “Please take it; I want to study it. Do you know if it’s blocking regular senses or just your spatial awareness?”

  “No idea?”

  “God, I wish I could be there to figure it out right now.” Asher grumbles as I put the fabric away in my belt.

  “I could run over and deliver it now?” I offer as I move towards the stairs. Moving through the place like a phaser might be faster, but moving like the people who hide here will hopefully put my focus in the right areas.

  Upon reaching the doorway, I wonder what exactly had tipped off the people on the other side that I had broken in and was searching the place. Could there be a camera that I didn’t notice? I’m still trying to teach myself that skill.

  Or they just heard me talking to Asher is always a possibility.

  I’m not sure regardless there are three men on the other side of the door, one of them brandishing a gun, one brandishing what looks to be a large bat and the final one seems to have fire dancing in their palms.

  As soon as a rough plan has formed in my mind, I phase through the door instantly, going for the gun.

  The gunman raises the firearm in response, but it’s already too late; my phased hand passes through the barrel as my fingers solidify.

  The bat slams into my shin as I wrench the gun out of the man's hand. The gun still fires before I can disarm him, but thankfully it doesn’t hit anyone.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  As the gunner collapses to the ground screaming about his broken finger, I spin, catching the bat with one hand as I slam my boot into the sternum of the man attacking me, sending him crashing into the fridge.

  “Firehands, would you please surrender so we don’t have to keep doing this?” I ask, turning my attention to the super with the still-burning hands.

  Throughout the fight so far, he has been too shell-shocked to move as the flames gutter out, rising in temperature as he builds to some big attack.

  He looks between his downed friends and myself before putting his hands to the side, the flames slowly dying out. “We don’t want any trouble boss we’re just.”

  “Part of a gang of criminals in your safe house? I’m well aware. My question is the lady who gave you your super powers. What do you know about them? Do you know where they’re hiding now?”

  Flame guy doesn’t seem that keen to be the spokesperson of the group, but with his two friends on the ground in pain and the other people in the house on higher floors, he is the only one left who can speak.

  “I know a few days ago they tapped a lot of us to have people run interference for something along with getting as many people off the streets and to some abandoned water place for something?” He offers, voice squeaking as I step closer.

  That tracked with what we already knew. The people Cass and Travis had been fighting in the city were different from the people that had been at the plant.

  The folks at the plant were nearly robotic with how they moved and responded to stuff despite the variety of powers.

  And from what Asher and Travis had relayed to me, most people that were captured at the plant no longer have super powers, anyway.

  Temporary super powers being a whole can of worms I do not want to deal with, I instead question him about if there were any potential safe houses the crazy people had made, but either they didn’t make any, which I considered unlikely. Or that he wasn’t told anything, which I considered substantially more likely.

  Once I have thoroughly questioned everyone else in the safe house I was once again running through the tunnels trying to ascertain the best way to figure this out.

  “Do we have any way that we can meet with Vertiga and the others in prison and see if we can make them spill?” I ask quietly. I am incredibly grateful that Amelia can’t hear this conversation, though I think she would also be on team torture them for information.

  “No, not that I can find. We could ask some of our connections, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere fast.”

  “And if I snuck in?”

  “I won’t say I haven’t considered it, but that’s a massive overstep and likely to get us very in trouble.”

  “Is it worth it?”

  “Almost certainly not.”

  “Yeah. Okay, I’ll come back to base and change back into my normal clothes.” I say, deciding my course of action as I start to run.

  “Decided that you’re done with patrol for the day?”

  “Nothing like that. I just want to go investigate toward the lab, and I don’t think the super suit is going to be the look for that one.” I explain.

  “It’s going to be more dangerous without you having any of the protections.” Asher warns.

  “Probably, but I’m pretty hard to hurt.”

  “So you’re not telling Fractal about it, are you?”

  “Of course not. I don’t want to get yelled at.”

  “Probably means I should stop you, huh?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I won’t, but I gotta switch channels. Fractal is asking for me.” Asher says before disconnecting with a click as I continue the run back to our base.

  Once there, I quickly strip out of the armor and switch into my normal though I throw on an oversized jacket and hat to hopefully in conjunction with the sunglasses disguise me properly.

  Now, all I need to do is drive out of town without accidentally crossing paths with Amelia.

  As I make my way down to the elevator, Asher dashes into view, breathing hard.

  “Came to see me off?”

  “Yeah, dude, we have no way to talk if you’re not wearing the helmet, so I had to give you this!” he says, breathing hard, one hand outstretched.

  Once it’s free from his hands I realize it’s a small Bluetooth earpiece. “Sounds good.” I agree putting the earpiece in place and shaking my head a few times seeing if it will get dislodged or stay secure.

  Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be moving at all.

  “Be safe, got it?” Asher says, grabbing my arm and looking me dead in the eye.

  “Of the three supers on the team, I’m the one who can always get out. It’ll be okay.” I say lying implicitly.

  There’s always situations that I can’t get out of, but it’s the lie both of us need to hear.

  “Good, now I gotta run back and help the others.” He says before running off.

  Maybe we should make Asher train with us as well, especially if he wants to load himself up with super powers.

  While riding down the elevator, I ponder how physical exercise works for Cass since my understanding is that her body is mostly composed of living ash she manipulates.

  How does doing weighted lunges help her build muscle?

  The distraction is a welcome rabbit hole to chase as I drive through the city this time not listening to music, partly so that Asher doesn’t need to listen to my choices and more so that driving while sensing everything is a whole new ballgame.

  I’m in some ways, moving slower, but my reactions are so much worse when I’m like this that it throws me off.

  Thankfully, there’s no accidents or accidental encounters with a superhero as I merge onto the highway and move toward the nearby mountains.

  Searching a whole mountain isn’t ideal, but it’s away from the city while being somewhat close to the water treatment plant, so if they needed the safe house close for Andromeda’s range, there’s a chance that it could be the place.

  Even more in its favor is that it’s in the direction the tunnel had been going in before it had collapsed.

  With ten minutes on the highway, I get off there and head to a hiking spot Amelia dragged me to a few years ago. There’s tons of trails that lead all over the mountain.

  With the snow, hopefully there won’t be people around to see me running around at top speed as I explore the trails.

  Upon reaching the parking lot, that’s where my first clue awaits me. Despite it being early December at this point and hiking season for the most part canceled till ski season is over, there’s evidence of a car having recently gone in and out of here.

  More than that, the car was currently out, though I could easily figure out which trail they had been nearest to.

  Drilling down my focus, I can’t tell if the trail has been recently used or not, but that’s not enough to deter me.

  The bigger question is if I park in the parking lot, risking them seeing me or noticing it, or do I drive? somewhere else and hoof it back?

  Not wanting to risk my civilian identity or my friends, many of who don’t have powers, I drive down to a gas station and park there.

  Once I’ve made sure that I won’t feel guilty about parking for at least an hour and the snacks are safely secured in the zippered pockets of my jacket, I begin jogging back towards the trails.

  I let myself run a little bit faster than I would normally, hoping that most people will think that the increased speed comes from me being one of those dedicated runners that run rain or shine.

  Target in sight once I reach the trail, I move to full speed, practically flying across the snowy landscape, my mind racing all around me as I case the area.

  I’m almost drunk on the speed I’m running at. The fact that the whole world is blurring past me as I run and leap through the snow it’s the sort of thing I imagined as a child, picturing myself with super powers.

  And more than a little bit of me takes the moment to bask in the joy that the younger parts of me feel.

  As I laugh to myself, I pick up the speed even more, aiming for a viewing spot I know near the very end of the trail that should have a breathtaking view with the snow in the air.

  Pausing at the viewing spot, I eat one of the protein bars I bought as I push my mind map out farther, looking to see if there’s something in the small valley below.

  The drop would be more than a little painful even for me, but it’s hopefully close enough I can take a look.

  “Are you stopping to break or look around?” Asher asks, distracting me.

  “You were watching me?”

  “Tracking technically.”

  “Fair. Little bit of both also at one of the better viewing spots on this trail, so I thought I would take a look.” I say partially distracted as I feel my map brush up against something oddly textured.

  Familiar but not something I interact with regularly, though I don’t know what it is just yet.

  “I know you and Fractal have enhanced physical ability, but is that as fast as you can go, or can you go faster?” Asher asks.

  “Haven’t you seen me move around in the city?”

  “Sure where you’re leaping and bounding across things. I just watched you fly up a mountain on my map,” Asher complains.

  “I can sprint faster, but that’s my top sustainable speed, I’m pretty sure.”

  “And how much have you not pushed yourself?”

  “Fair point…” I trail off as I realize what I’m feeling. It’s smoke.

  Spinning around, I try to find it with my eyes, but I don’t see it, though there could be a slight heat shimmer in the distance in the right direction of what I’m feeling.

  Not wanting to wait any longer, I throw myself over the side and begin sliding down the hill, making sure to not let myself get hit by anything too bad.

  “Did you find something?” Asher asks, not particularly appreciating my randomly trailing off.

  I move through the wooded area, my mind sweeping the area to make sure there’s nothing nearby that I need to be wary of before speaking.

  As I get closer, I can’t smell the smoke, but I can feel it more clearly.

  “I think we’ve got them.”

  Discord

  Patreon