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As the sun set over the city, 16-year-old Kamala Khan stood atop the rooftop of the warehouse, the freezing rain falling over her deep brown hair. She gazed out at the humming giant of concrete and metal that was New Jersey, taking in the twinkling lights and the distant hum of traffic. This was her city, not that space wasn’t cool, specially in company of The Captain Marvel, but it wasn’t home, it wasn’t this, Kamala took a deep breath before stretching her arm, she expected that tonight was going to be a very long night.
On the other hand, tonight being a very boring night was more of a surprise to her, she always thought that superheroes posing in the middle of the night on top of the ceiling while rain fell was really cool, but it was not until an hour in her stakeout that she realized that it was literally cool, as in hypothermia cold, Kamala sighted, took out her phone and checked the time.
Something has been robbing warehouse all over the city for a month now, all ending with the whole building being trashed and burned, the police think these were just random crimes, but Kamala knew better, it was hard to notice at first, burning the place was a brilliant way to erase your footprints, but a pattern emerged, every attack was on a warehouse safeguarding some type of high-tech component.
Nothing too flashy, a few kilos of microchips here, a industrial generator there, nothing flashy enough to make it obvious what exactly they were building, only that they were building something, and if she was right their next piece was going to be in here, she just needed to wait, and wait, and wait.
That wasn’t the only weird thing happening, only the guards of the very first robberies had a reason of why they didn’t stop them, being beaten and chained to nearby trees, for her part Kamala hadn’t seen a single guard since she started her stakeout, before she could continue with her train of thought the rain started falling harder than before,
“Should have said yes,” thought Kamala , five hours after she arrived to the building, thinking back at her own mom ordering her to take out a sweater, “and when I come back sick she will 100% tell me that she told me so.”
Before she could continue figuring out how much of her current suffering was her punishment for being a lousy daughter she heard a van coming through, it was black, with a white Ouroboros symbol on the sides, quickly a muscular woman in a wife-beater with tatted arms got out, she had a weird machine on her left hand, the size and shape of a volleyball, and with a giant grin on her face she raised the thing as high as she could and then violently threw it to the floor, the second the sphere clashed with the concrete street a purple explosion started, consuming everything.
Ms Marvel quickly covered herself with a force field, for once grateful that the guards where not there, she felt her life pass through her life, everything suddenly darkened, and then…
Nothing, the mutant quickly grabbed her phone, trying to create some light, it wasn’t working, like how the street lights weren’t working, and something told Kamala that the cameras also suffered the same fate her phone had, “so that’s why nobody had any photos of them” murmured Ms. Marvel to herself, there was never a mention of this happening, as far as she had read in the newspaper, so hopefully her phone would revive after a couple of hours, with a sight the young hero fell to the ground, the moon the only source of light in place- At least she finally nailed the superhero landing!
The lightning marked hero took the first punch, knocking down the woman before she could take out her gun, before she knew it she was barraged with bullets, a quick shield stopped her from being shot, but she sure didn't want to figure out how much more it would take, Kamala expanded her fist with energy, trying to punch as many of the bad guys as possible.
She was doing better than she expected, at the rate she was finishing them she might actually sleep more than four hours tonight.
Before she could congratulate herself more a ray broke her force shield, "take what we came from, I will finish the girl," commanded a deep booming voice, there was a metallic sound to it, Ms. Marvel tried to get a good look with only the moonlight at her side, he looked as if he was wearing a half finished iron man suit, covered in head to toe in some sort of deep blue armor, except for his bare right arm, sparkles flying from the glove on this arm, faintly illuminating him, he looked like, well, a super villain.
Ms. Marvel wished she could have thought of a snappy one liner right there, but she was too busy trying to not get hit by Mr. Badguy electroshocks, for some reason her powers were weird with electricity, not that the bullets helped, this guy was good, bu she was better
The fight lasted a long time, too long, Ms. Marvel knew he was just trying to waste time, but even then a single slip-up could be her last, an explosion knocked her out of her thoughts, the warehouse was burning, she lifted herself and threw her body into the action, Mr. Badguy was faster that a guy wearing so much armor should have been, he danced around the field, the smoke covering what little light there was, "he must have thermal vision on that helmet," thought the young hero.
Wait, smoke, burning warehouse, fire… They got it! Kamala quickly turned, in the chaos of battle she failed to notice the car speeding away, crap, they got what they wanted, but at least she would get answers
"Who are you guys anyway, Cobra? Got tired of fighting the G.I. Joes?" screamed Ms. Marvel, hoping to prove for something, but Mr. Badguy said nothing, and she was sure he was smirking under the helmet, he threw out a bomb, knocking her into the freezing water of the bay.
"The name is Discord, and the next time we see each other will be the last," screamed the guy, at least she had a name now, Discord... On the plus side, the sweater would have been ruined if she had wore it, so her mom wasn't right after all, if only victory wasn't this cold and wet.
Kamala sighted, she could have used the win now more than ever, but there is always tomorrow, or today, being awake after 2 A.M. always made her confused about which expressions she should use, if she speed up she may actually sleep four hours this time, a personal best this week, she might actually passed her exam for once, an exam that a few months ago she would ace with no problem, the rain finally stopped, not that it changed thing much when you were in the middle of the ocean.
The house was silent, although Kamala had the nagging feeling that her mother knew she wasn't home yet, there was nothing she hated more than worrying her mom, she would rather her just be disappointed or angry at her, but alas.
she got there twelve minutes before 3, at last, she was going to sleep a full 4 hours tonight, she fell in enjoying what little time she had to respite, and waiting for thee sun to come.
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Mist covered the town, it was too cold for everything, Kamala thought, specially since she got sick from last night adventure, unfortunately for her she had used the sick excuse too much for people to still give her the benefit of the doubt, she was too tired and too sick to study, but nevertheless she tried to finish the chapter she knew was going to be in the exam.
She checked her phone, still dead, Kamala was not sure if it was the water or if it was the weird bomb from last night, not that it mattered either way, ever since she convinced Zoe to use her mouth instead of her texts there was only one person who actually called her anymore, Bruno.
He always called her before school started, Kamala was tempted to ask Aamir for his phone, but she didn't want him to get the wrong impression and start his overprotective older brother speech, specially not when not even she knew what they were now, not when she was too scared to ask Bruno or to ask herself for that matter, Kamala grabbed a small empty jar and filled it with rice, if it was the water maybe this would fix the phone.
Kamala sighted, today was going to be a long day.
School started decent enough, Nakia had bought her a coffee cup with enough sugar and cream to start a small cardiac arrest and enough caffeine to awake the death, that was what a good best friend was supposed to do, Kamala thought, being there with her in New Jersey and not in some stupid overpriced college in the other side of the country, Nakia even managed to look interested whenever Kamala tried to explain to her the recent crime wave, something Zoe didn't even attempt.
Is not that Zoe wasn't trying to be a good friend, is just that she hadn't quite understood the severity of having a super hero friend, for her calling the police was always the obvious answer no one else ever thought about, and Kamala was just too stubborn to do it and actually spend her time productively, like helping Zoe make tiktok with her powers.
Kamala sighted, AP Physics is the first class of the day, and she still hadn't studied a single page, the concepts were simple enough, Kamala was sure she and Bruno had made an experiment la year using more complex variations of the topics, but she was just too tired to think, another F and her parents might actually kill her.
Thankfully Doctor Marconi called her during her free period, so at least she wasn't going to spend the entire week wondering what she got, a C-, something that wont help rise her grade, but wont lower it either, Kamala had grown to appreciate these small miracles.
"I would lie to say this is not disappointing Ms. Khan" Dr. Marconi said with a deep sigh, Kamala hadn't quite figured out why someone as overqualified as her would be teaching high school students.
It would be a lie to say that her words didn't cut Kamala deeply, Kamala and Bruno were her favorite students, which in practice meant they were the students she was the hardest with, Anna Marconi had a certain reputation among the other students, despite her small stature her dominating personality and quick wit always made her feel like a giant ready to devour her dumber students, a reputation she seems to enjoy cultivating by being by far the hardest teacher in the school.
Kamala gulped, "I am so sorry Dr. Marconi, I promise it wont happen again, it just has been a hard time for me."
"I get it Ms. Khan, but please think it from my perspective, the brightest apprentice I ever had has abandoned me for greener pastures, while his twin light of ingenuity has dulled to the point of needing extracurricular to survive my rather basic class" said Marconi, failing to contain a smirk, "without you, why am I even wasting my time in this place? What am I supposed to do? To act like anyone else in here actually cares about anything I say?"
"Please Dr. Marconi, I will do better."
"You already said that already Ms. Khan, please don’t waste our time repeating yourself," Marconi grabbed a file from her desk, "you want a second chance? Great, as you may know by now the Starkatron will start soon, and now with our star student gone I need a replacement, I will die before I let those snobs from Midtown win this year."
"The Starkatron?" Kamala tried remembering what Bruno told her about it, "it is in less than two months, I cannot make something good enough from scratch in only two months."
"Thankfully for both of use you wont need to, before departing Bruno made me the favor of reminding me of the other easy-to-bribe prodigy in this school, Joshua Richardon, you know him, right?"
Unfortunately she did, not that she ever talked to him for more than a sentence, but Bruno loved complaining about him, to this day Kamala wasn’t sure if Josh was Bruno’s bully or friend, Bruno used to say that he was his Zoe, whatever that meant.
"As long a I don’t have to do all the work..."
"The work is halfway done, and quite well done for what I have seen, please just met with him after football practice Ms. Khan, I am sure he would prefer to explain you the project directly." Marconi ended with an air of finality.
Kamala knew this was the bet she was going to get, "thanks for the opportunity." And with that Kamala Khan had another job she needed to finish, another thing to a list that grew every time she crossed something as done, at least she still had thirty minutes before her next class.
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The cafeteria was almost empty, Kamala quickly recognizes Nakia's head from behind, she had been recently using a deep grey hijab to fit her old, brownish jacket, Nakia seemed to be studying, and once again Kamala missed the days she would ask her for help before a big test.
"Stop brooding," was the only thing Nakia said when Kamala sat down, that may be the weirdest thing Kamala missed about Bruno, he would exaggerate with her, eventually he would help her fix it, but at first he would let her be overwhelmed and tired and like the world was going to end.
"I need to work on the Starkatron, need to finish it in two months"
Nakia didnt raise her eyes from the book, "you know I never liked playing with robots like you and Bruno, I cannot help you with that."
"The teacher already gave me a partner," Kamala answered, a bit hurt about how quickly Nakia would have turned her down, "Josh."
"Which Josh? Cosplay Josh, Chess Club Josh, ant colony Josh, Be specific, there are a lot of Joshes here."
"Football Josh," and finally Nakia showed what Kamala considered the correct amount of disgust.
"Douchebag Josh? Didn't know he was even in AP Physics."
"I am a surprised as you are, apparently he almost finished, maybe I wont need to do anything."
"Don't raise your hopes, Kamala Khan, you have never been that lucky, I think he and Zoe used to date, if you need some blackmail."
"What I need is good old fashioned denial, please lets talk about anything else."
"Great idea," said Nakia with a smirk plastered on her face, "why don't we talk about Bruno then, he called you this morning, right? Did you figure out what you are now?"
"My phone is doesn't work, a stupid villain in a dumb helmet broke it." Kamala complained, trying deviate the conversation, she needed denial, not an interrogation, luckily for her the second Nakia heard the word villain she lot all interest in continue the conversation, superhero talks always exhausted her, before she could finish her thought a oft ringing noise came from Kamala's backpack
"It worked!" Kamala screamed, he quickly took the jar from her backpack as quickly as possible, it fell from her hands into the table with a THUD sound, if Kamala had being slightly less excited she would have noticed that she had almost broken a giant piece of glass, but she was too busy to notice how grateful she should have been, she put the phone to her ear, ignoring the rice now stuck to her hair.
"Hello Bruno, did you tried calling me earlier? I am so sorry, is just that this new bad guy tried to kill me last night and..."
"And so it is a bad time to call you then?" Asked a deeper voice from the other side, a laugh hidden between each word, Kamran, with everything happening at once she forgot about him, "should I call you later then? Maybe give the news directly to Bruno so you two have more to talk about?"
Kamala felt her cheeks redden, she suddenly felt too aware of her own self, come to think of it, she never quite broke up with him, he must have been scared, without his family, because of her, and here she was worrying about Bruno, "Sorry, there is a lot we should talk about."
"Then this are good news! You are not the only one with people trying to kill you Kamala, now that things calmed a bit me and Kareem will make a visit to America to fix some things, except to see us in a week." and with that the call ended, they were coming back? Kamala only hopped she would be ready when they came.
Kamala didn't even try to explain what happened to Nakia, too exhausted for even that, for her part Nakia managed to deduce enough to know that Kamala needed time to figure out what to do.
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School finished quickly after the call, Kamala completely submerged in her own thoughts, but now it was time to finish things, she took a beeline to where she was supposed to meet Josh, hoping to end today session quickly.
"So you were the best Marconi could give me" Kamala heard a deep voice say behind her, "how disappointing."
Kamala quickly crashed glares with the larger boy, his blue eyes trying to get a rise from her.
This was going to be a long day.