“So, what kinda pizza can you make? I saw the chicken, can you do other meats too? And pineapple?” the driver asked Quinton.

  “No one’s gonna eat pineapple pizza, Frank. That’s disgusting,” the gunman spat out.

  “Sucks for you, Joe. I love pineapple pizza. Probably better than any other pizza,” he responded, offended.

  “Fruit does not belong on pizza!”

  “Tomato’s a fruit, and it's all over pizza.”

  “That’s not the same—”

  “What gang are you a part of? Is it even a real gang? You’re holding a gun. How did you get that in Hammerton? You’re not a part of EUE, are you?” Quinton asked as he looked over their black goggles.

  The two teammates looked at each other for a moment.

  “Found your voice again, huh?” Joe tapped his small energy cannon lightly with two fingers. “Lotta questions too. You’ll find out plenty of answers soon enough. They’re excited to meet you. You won’t be back at HUE anytime soon.”

  Quinton made a face as he found the note odd. Did they think the shelter was associated with HUE??

  “And the gun?”

  “Who said it’s a gun?”

  Quinton narrowed his eyes, unamused. Then he pushed a little harder, using a question to mask his next move.

  “What if I’m gone before we get back to shelter? Would they get mad at you?” Quinton asked, using his power simultaneously.

  “Please. What are you gonna do, throw—” Joe flinched and physically cringed in shock as he realized he wasn’t holding a weapon anymore, but a slice of pizza. He looked at it in a daze before he began yelling.

  “Hey! What? What is this? Where did my gun go!?”

  So it was a gun.

  Frank slammed on the brakes, throwing Quinton forward by the momentum of the stop. The vehicle swerved in a crazy spin before smashing into a traffic light, bringing them to a sudden stop. As he fell forward, Joe grabbed onto Quinton with an armbar to the neck, threatening to strangle with a tightening of his arms.

  Tossing aside his replacement weapon, Joe looked up to his companion, but saw that there was no one in the driver’s seat. Slices of pizza hung where the door and windshield used to sit. With no seat belt on, the car ejected Frank when he hit the pole.

  Joe panicked and squeezed tightly, choking Quinton. Quinton struggled to pull free, but Joe seemed intent on making him pass out before deciding what to do next. If not going straight for a kill. Quinton closed his eyes and prepared for something he’d never tried before, much less under this kind of strain.

  A moment later, Quinton slid easily from Joe’s arms as he looked down at them in horror.

  “Why... Why are my hands pizza?” Joe whimpered.

  “Pineapple pizza,” Quinton corrected, pointing to the yellow rectangles on his arms’ slices of pizza.

  Staring at his moist, triangular arms with a trembling lip, Joe’s face went white. Eyes rolling into their sockets, he passed out from shock.

  Cautiously, Quinton poked at Joe’s cheek to make sure he didn’t come to, then gave another glance to the bleeding Frank on the pavement. Satisfied he was safe from the two men, Quinton took a moment to satisfy some morbid curiosity and stared at Joe’s pizza arms. This was the first time he’d done anything like organic transformation. He didn’t know whether there was blood circulating in those arms, or if it was just sauce after transformation. Regretting taking the time to think, Quinton felt sick at the thought of the answer. He wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  Checking to see if any more gang members were following the van, he snuck out and walked back toward the shelter. He hadn’t finished feeding everyone.

  * * *

  Pinn watched everything unfold from behind a parked car. With a mix of fascination and mortification, he understood Quinton’s “breakthrough.” He could manipulate non-foodstuffs into pizza as well. Scary.

  Out of sight, Pinn let Quinton pass by before rushing to the van. Frank lay unconscious a few feet back, his head hit the pavement hard. Placing a hand on his neck, Pinn lit up his nervous system and determined nothing was in need of immediate repair. Picking him up effortlessly, Pinn placed him back in the driver’s seat. Then he pulled out the car keys and tossed them behind his back.

  Clicking the seatbelt into place, Pinn took a step back to assess his next move. The kidnappers had crashed on an empty road, and the surrounding buildings had no open windows. The traffic pole had completely fallen over, cracking the pavement on its landing. Their car wouldn’t recover, visible damage and bends on the exposed engine through the popped hood.

  Turning in a slow circle, Pinn made sure he wasn’t being watched. By a stroke of luck, the coast was clear. Not even rubberneckers from the nearby roads. But come rush hour at the end of the day, there would definitely be traffic in the area. No time to waste.

  Popping the collar on his button up for a shred of privacy, he kneeled back into the car and placed his hands on Frank’s seatbelt. Frowning intently, he welded the buckle to the fastener to prevent it from being opened. Simultaneously, three tires went flat, leaking air fast.

  He turned his attention to poor pizza-armed Joe. Terrifying, large slices of pineapple pizza splayed out to the side. He had fainted in his seat, his face pale. Again, Pinn looked both ways around the van to ensure he was alone. Feeling somewhat secure, he took a deep breath and touched Joe’s arms. Gritting his teeth in alarm, he could feel the state of his body. Joe was in shock, but blood was still flowing normally through his body.

  Including his arms.

  Feeling a pang of sympathy for him, Pinn searched to see what he might be able to do to help the pizza man. With some intense confirmations, he felt like he could reduce the burden. Sweating, he was unnerved to have to decide on his own. With a slicing motion of his finger, he reshaped the pizza slices into the form of human arms and hands.

  Spontaneously imploding, a hole tore open in the van’s ceiling, letting the sun in. Pinn ignored the side-effect, making sure Joe was still breathing and stable. He would live. Without pain, too. But his arms would remain pizza, unless he found some Awakened means to resolve that.

  Pinn looked around for a loose gun, but found nothing. Seemed Joe had to have been Awakened to have pulled something like a handgun from thin air. Either teleportation or summoning from invisible pocket spaces. Or maybe something with invisibility? Either way, Pinn would have to tell the police they weren’t normal guys, and they’d have to deal with it from there.

  Pinn placed Joe upright in the passenger seat before also securing him in with a fused seat belt. The van’s final tire exploded. Taking Joe’s cell phone from his pocket, Pinn turned on the screen intending to call the authorities to the scene. Just before dialing, a notification at the top made him do a double take. “EvilBoi” had attempted to contact Joe and left five missed calls as well as a message that read, “Craving pineapple and olive pizza. Please make it quick.”

  Something about that name nagged at the back of Pinn’s mind, but he didn’t want to place it. It was better to be in ignorance than confirm.

  Pinn made the emergency services call letting them know the Awakened state of the criminals, then tossed the phone out of reach of the two kidnappers, leaving before anyone showed up. Quinton would be waiting. He’d have to make up a story before he got back. Maybe come in breathing hard to pretend he was chasing after van the whole time. That could work.

  Pinn jogged down the street at a brisk pace, determined to look out of shape by the time he returned.

  * * *

  Keys jingled as Pinn dropped his keychain into the bowl at the entrance of his parent’s home.

  “Pinny? That you?” Serena called from the kitchen, above the sound of pots moving around the stove.

  “Yeah, Ma.”

  “Your father was watching the news, and he saw that there was a kidnapping at the shelter. Did you resolve that?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “It resolved itself.”

  “Oh. Good,” she said, clearly disappointed. “What about the fire at the jeweler?”

  “I didn’t hear about it.”

  “But you were at the shelter today?”

  “All day,” Pinn confirmed.

  “All right, good to have you home.”

  Pinn was happy to work at the shelter, but it also worked as a means to decrease the hounding from his mother. She constantly insisted that he should go back out and be Lightcrown again, and providing free assistance at a shelter was a good close second for her. But that didn’t stop her from asking him about every petty crime that showed up on the news. Especially those involving the Awakened.

  Pinn plopped down on the couch after the unusually eventful day. Quinton hadn’t stopped retelling the story of his triumph to every person willing to lend him an ear, and the shelter had no shortage of those looking to hear about the escapades of the Awakened. Tom gave Pinn a proud, conciliatory pat on the back, just for trying to help.

  Pinn had used the extra time serving food to think about which group those two thugs served. Why was he letting the name bother him? Was it because it sounded so ridiculous? Or because he knew there were very few people it could reasonably be? It was such a simple name, but it rang back to his time as a solo hero in the city. Before the Silent Scream. Or perhaps the cause of it.

  He tabled questions for later and turned off his brain for a bit. Glancing up at the TV, he checked what his father was watching. As much as Pinn tried to convince him, Rockwell refused any streaming services. Everything had to be live. Despite the phone-to-screen pairing system already being hooked up, Rockwell showed no interest.

  With a descent of eyebrows, Rockwell gestured to the remote, barely a foot away from him. Pinn smiled to himself and grabbed the remote for his dad. Pinn hopped down in his usual seat right beside Rockwell, prepared for some decompression and downtime??.

  Click.

  “Today is the grand opening of the water filtration plant funded by Timaria Burr! Join us as we peruse the opening ceremony and partake in the festivities the generous Miss Burr has prepared for us!”

  “Ugh, a reminder of why I hate the news. All entertainment, no actual news,” Rockwell lamented.

  “At least it’s filtration for the city. Indus could use that kind of help,” Pinn replied.

  “This is more public relations philanthropy dressing itself up as a feel-good story to try and make another millionaire look good. A public works project, built by the sweat and work of the public, but directing all the credit to some schmuck and her company. I’m not interested in propaganda today.”

  Click.

  “Stay tuned for Monday Movie Night with… Megabrain!”

  “Unrealistic. That isn’t what a retired hero would do. Just look at you,” he quipped to Pinn. Pinn rolled his eyes, but had to suppress a smile.

  Click.

  “We’ll be back with more Boku No Super School after this commercial break!”

  “Even less realistic,” Rockwell muttered. “No one is leaving the fate of the world in the hands of a bunch of high school students. Where are the generations of heroes from before? And don’t even get me started on that ending…”

  Pinn’s father had the habit of opening up when he watched TV. He couldn’t help but criticize all the nonsense he came across. And it was fun to hear his father’s criticism when they weren’t directed at him. It was something that brought them close for years, since Pinn retired from hero work.

  Click.

  “We bring you this exclusive interview with Unhurtable creator, Bob Mankirk.”

  “A show that was better than its source material,” Rockwell stated matter-of-factly.

  Click.

  “Y-Guys: First Class will be right back, after this break!”

  “Not the worst take on how random supers might appear to the world,” Rockwell admitted. “Though now, knowing what we know, I’m not so sure. It’s so much more mundane. And local.”

  Click

  “Time for a family classic, The Amazings! Will this superhero family be able to stop the evil superhero killer, Symptom?”

  “Sometimes I wonder if this movie inspired your old nemesis. You ever reject a youth that was trying to be your sidekick a decade ago?”

  “Are we gonna watch something or are you gonna spit at the entire TV station?” Pinn asked, not giving his father’s question any weight when he knew Rockwell was joking.

  “Maybe the TV should try giving me something not worth spitting at,” Rockwell mused.

  Click.

  “Welcome back to Heavenly Order! Jordan Bambsi is on a search for the world’s first world-class Awakened Chef!”

  Rockwell immediately put the remote down. Their guilty pleasure. Pinn settled himself into his seat, and his dad restored his stoic look. There were a few shows they shared a love for, but this was the most important one by far. Chef Jordan Bambsi had flown into Hammerton county just to film a season with Awakened chefs. Bambsi’s screams gave Pinn a strange comfort, ever since he first discovered him.

  “Where are the scallops!?” Bambsi screamed into the red kitchen.

  Kristen, wiping sweat off of her forehead, looked numbly into her pan of scallops as they burned.

  “Kristen!” Wendy screamed at her.

  Kristen continued to stare, completely oblivious to her surroundings.

  “SCALLOPS? Why is no one communicating in here!?” Bambsi screamed as the veins on his forehead grew veins.

  “Kristen!” Wendy screamed, stretching her arm five feet across the stovetop and shoving her shoulder.

  “What? What? I need two more minutes. Stop trying to butt in on my station!” Kristen screamed back automatically.

  “They’re overdone!” Wendy huffed, pointing into the pan with her hand still outstretched.

  “No, they’re—” Kristen looked back at the food and gasped. Then she closed her eyes and rolled back time on the scallops, bringing them to where they were a minute earlier.

  “Scallops coming to the pass!” Kristen said, rushing to the front.

  “Finally,” Bambsi groaned, throwing up a hand in the air to shoo her off. Poking at one with a finger, he gave them a cursory glance before his head erupted in wrinkles.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no,” he said to himself, then crescendoing. “Oh, no!”

  Kristen looked up furtively from her station. Bambsi’s famous dramatic violin sound effect played on screen.

  “Young lady, come here,” Bambsi said, slapping the pan on the counter. “In fact, everyone on the red team, come here. Just touch that.”

  “It’s cold,” Wendy said as soon as her extended fingers came into contact with them.

  “Not just cold, they are ab-so-lute-ly raw!” Bambsi exploded, slapping the dish down as his face glowed a deeper hue of red. “Kristen! Did you turn back time on your food, you mule!?”

  “No Chef,” Kristen lied, eyes trembling.

  “You did not reverse time and render them raw?” Bambsi said in disbelief, his eyes squinting as he folded his arms.

  “N—No chef,” she stammered even less believably.

  “Then why can I smell an overdone scallop from this pan? I don’t even have power and the scent is clear as day!” he said, his temper rising.

  “I don't know chef, I—” She couldn't complete her sentence when his face went sour.

  “Get out,” he hissed.

  “No, please chef, I—”

  “All of you, get out of my face! Don't come back until you have two nominations for elimination—”

  “But Chef,” Wendy protested.

  “OUT!” he ordered, marching back to the second team’s kitchen.

  Inhaling deeply, he smelled the food brought to the blue-side pass. He looked at the plate of spaghetti and scrutinized it just before he took a taste test. Disappointment washed over his face, head wrinkling.

  “Oh, come on guys,” he said, turning around with the pan while groaning. “Gerald! Come here!”

  “Yes, chef!” Gerald came running over, his lips flipping between hopeful and fearful.

  “You see that? What are those black flakes in the lobster?” he asked.

  “It’s pepper,” Gerald said without an ounce of confidence.

  Rockwell grunted, amused.

  “Really? Pepper? Taste it.” Bambsi challenged, slapping the pan on the counter with a menacing clang.

  Feigning confidence, Gerald picked up a flake and placed it on his tongue. A confused face later, he spat it out.

  “What was it?” Bambsi asked angrily.

  “I—I don’t know! It wasn’t pepper!” Gerald said, panicking.

  “It’s broken pieces of a pan! Your Super Strength crushed a pan, and you didn’t even notice when you were cooking the food! You want me to serve that!?” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at it.

  “Of course not chef—”

  “THEN WHY DID YOU BRING IT UP!?” he exploded.

  “Sorry chef, it won’t happen again,” Gerald promised.

  “That’s right it won’t happen again because you're going back to the dorms right now,” Bambsi said, seething with rage.

  “But Chef, I…”

  “NOW,” he commanded. “Harold, handle that station.”

  “Yes, chef!” Harold said, his body duplicating into two versions of himself, one remaining on the garnish station and the other rushing to the spaghetti station. Both versions of him slouched and limped, the process of cloning taking a toll on each body.

  Bambsi went back to the pass with new food on it.

  “Who cooked this meat!?” he blared, turning to the blue team.

  “I—I did chef,” Sonny said, raising his hand which he had transformed into a spatula.

  “Well done, Sonny, this meat is cooked perfectly,” he said, handing it off to a waiter.

  Sonny nodded to himself, looking proud to be the last of seven chefs in this kitchen. Especially since four of them were clones of Harold.

  “Boys!” Serena called out, interrupting their TV hypnosis.

  Neither of them replied, hoping that she’d leave them be.

  “Boys! The wedding’s tomorrow!” she urged. “Did you get your suits cleaned?”

  Rockwell gave Pinn a sideways glance and turned back to the TV. Pinn knew his father well enough to understand the entire sentence behind those eyes. They said, I’m not moving, and I’m watching without you.

  Pinn sighed and hurried to his mom, quickly needing to drop his and his father’s clothes at the dry cleaner before they closed.