Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The streets weren’t empty, they were far from it actually. For some reason — one that made Aaron feel guilty — was that it irked him people were out so late when they knew who lurked the streets at night.

It was a particularly gloomy night in Magista too, skies filled with clouds that covered the gleaming moon, and damp air hung around them. But still, the streets weren’t empty. The people were armed with umbrellas and hoodies that they hung tight to their bodies, and when they saw him, they started whispering.

“That’s him!” Someone says.

“Billboard boy!”

“Our savior!”

“Golden Defender!”

It wasn’t that Aaron hated the attention, no, he felt a burst of selfish pride whenever someone stopped him on the street; asking for a photo, his signature, thanking him for his service. Sometimes, it just got in the way of his patrol. He had to weave through people with their phones out, awkwardly trying to make eye contact and appease them whilst also trying to get his patrol done. His make shift costume of black dress pants and a white button down that was halfway undone to reveal a spandex shirt with the initials “GD” in golden sparkles with a mask adorned with royal blue and golden shine was more than enough to get people to notice him walking past. It made him recognizable, easy to spot, and easy to yell for when trouble swung by.

So, he sucked it up and waved politely and dodged people as he trailed throughout the city during the night. The buildings loomed over him in industrial and modern glory, and the static from his earpiece was his background music  as he tuned his emotion reader in.

It was only part of his superpower. To sense emotion, and then all he had to do was follow it. To him, it was easy picking out which fights needed to be interviened — they came to him in a crushing headache and an overwhelming emotion, just something akin to panic or desperation (and in the villains cases, sometimes glee).

The other part, the one that was displayed on TV and billboards bought against his will, was his telekinesis. It wasn’t anything special, compared to his teammates at least. Blaze was a one woman show 70% of the time, when she lit fires that danced under her control you had to get out of her way fast— and when her job was done, they flickered out without a speck of damage. Insight had his clairvoyance, he could scale, plan, and then based off his findings— attack. He was the meat of their team, with Blaze being the soul that kept them alive, and Aaron was just someone else on that team.

Yes, maybe it was a little selfish to be moping over having freaking telekinesis. But to him, he was just guilty he got all the credit when he didn’t do half the work! Yeah, he apprehended the bad guys by flinging things at them and taking them down with his agility and boxing skills. Yeah, he knew it was sort of cool. But, it was so hard for any of his friends to get a separate headline without the words “Golden Defender” in it. To be frank, Insights whining about it had start to get on his nerves.

He bristled as a cold wind shot through the air, Aaron whipped his head around, observing the dirty streets with the occasional plastic wrapper flying in the air. But Aaron’s heart become to rattle beneath his chest as he picked up on something. Intense, intense with a capital I, malice was being sensed. This meant one thing, because as soon as he felt it— it wouldn’t go away. He leaned against a lamp post, cradled his head as the yellow light above him whirred softly and flickered. Something became lodged in his throat, a lump he couldn’t swallow.

Aaron managed bring a shaky finger to his earpiece, he was afraid to tune out of the emotion because if he did, he might not be able to follow it, “Team, do you copy?” He tried to keep his voice strong and steady, but he found it impossible.

“What’s up?” A female voice replied into his ear.

He thought fast. The malice was being sensed on East Broadway, from where he was at that was less than a half mile away (no wonder he was writhing in pain). Aaron was starting to pick up on other emotions as well, panic, fear, desperation. He knew just from the sheer emotions that were being radiated he could expect more than one bad guy or girl. It was a cold water shock when he tuned out, and the silence startled him. He didn’t know where Blaze or Insight was, but he prayed they were close.

“Trouble on East Broadway.” Aaron’s head finally stopped reeling as he picked up his feet and ran. He hopped onto fire escapes and tumbled past fences into alleyways where he cut across heaps of trash bags that were haphazardly thrown by shop owners who clearly did not know their superhero alleyway etiquette, “Insight, we need exact details. Where’s the fight located at?”

There was a beat of silence that Aaron took as him focusing his energy, he rounded East Broadway and his skittering heart started to become involuntary and he wasn’t sure if it was nerves or his senses.

“We’ve got two evil doers trying to break into the banks vault, the real shiny one. It's so cartoonishly evil.” He said at last, “I cant seem to spot one of them, he’s in hiding and we don’t have time to dwell. Unfortunately, we’ve got Obscurity there and he’s starting to stirr up lots of trouble.”

Blaze cursed over comms. Aaron wanted to do as well but he bit his tongue. To say they hated Obscurity was an understatement. They loathed him. He was a mutant, and incredibly annoying. Obscurity talked up a storm whenever they met him face to face, he morphed his arms as black tendrils of darkness that whipped around; and if— not really if, it was really when because he had incredible accuracy— they hit you, it stung like claws sinking into skin.

“Golden Defender, how close are you?” He asked.

Aaron assessed. He could clearly see smoke rising out from where the bank was located, which wasn’t far, so it had started to cloud the streets. He begun climbing the fire escape to the adjacent building, now he could clearly see the bank in all its smoking glory.

“I’m to the left of it, something’s definitely on fire. Blaze, what’s your status?” Aaron said.

“Behind you, dimwit.” Came a voice from behind his back.

Blaze had leapt from the smaller, tailor shop beside the building he was on and was climbing onto the roof where Aaron stood. Her dark brown hair was up in a high bun, but it was made up of two braids. Not one stray hair was found. She fiddled with the pouch on the side of her black leggings, it held a flask of lighter fluid if she was ever in a pickle and needed a way out. Her top was a practical tight red tank (she reminded Aaron vaguely of Kim Possible sometimes) with a fanny pack that slipped across her chest and every time Aaron saw it, it was completely dirt free and wrinkle free.

Until, of course, they leapt into oncoming trouble. Sometimes they tripped into it. Other times they flipped. Maybe even dove into it, if they were feeling brave.

“Right.” He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Insight said we’re dealing with Obscurity, again, isn’t this the third time in this month?” She said.

Aaron hopped from the building he was on over to the blazing bank. He pondered on why Obscurity was so active lately. Well, whatever it was, he made his point that he was a menace to society. Blaze threw out her hands and the smoke started to clear a bit.

“It is.” Aaron replied as he yanked open the metal doors. They were hot to the touch.

Flames were licking up the side of the building and smoke was heavy in Aaron’s lungs. Blaze was doing damage control behind him, calming the flames and trying to clear the smoke enough so Aaron could get by.

His footsteps clattered down the staircase, and the lower he went the hotter it seemed to be.  Blaze was following him, close by. He heard banging, for a moment, he thought that it was gunshots. But he thought wrong. At the end of the staircase, he peeked his head over the corner. Obscurity was there, and he looked furious. Well— as furious as he could look with black goop covering the left side of his body.

Obscurity’s fist was hitting the wall over and over and over and. . . It made Aaron dizzy watching. He was screaming in frustration.

“Where the fuck are they!” He spun around and kicked a black trash bag, Aaron figured it was jam packed with cash.

Blaze leaned over Golden Defenders shoulder, “I think he might like fighting us. Maybe he’s a masochist.”

He fought the urge to heave a heavy sigh.

“What’s the plan?” Golden Defender half asked it to himself and half asked it to Blaze and Insight, who appeared to be back on comms.

“He wants into the vault, but his mutant power is barely making a dent.” She said, not needing to whisper because the sound of Obscurity screaming and hitting things like a toddler was loud enough.

“Hmm. . .” Insights voice broke through to Aaron’s ear, “He can’t get in with brute force.” He sounded a little lost, “But I’ve got a feeling he’ll try and use Golden Defenders telekinesis against him on the vault.”

“But I can still use it?”

“Yeah, just be careful where you aim it.” Insights voice crackled out.

He looked over at Blaze, who simply nodded. That was enough of a cue for Aaron. Pulling from inside him, he ripped two heavy metal chairs off the ground and flung it at Obscurity with incredibly accuracy. It nailed him in the head and he stumbled.

Aaron rolled towards him, shooting out his leg to knock Obscurity down. He fell to the floor with a dull thud. In hindsight, Aaron thought, he should probably keep handcuffs on him. Not that they would stop him.

An oily black tendril snapped out from where his arm should be, but was just oozing black slime. It sent pulsing, white hot pains up Aarons spine, lodging it into his back. He eased off the group and reached out his human hand to choke him.

Before he could lunge further, Blaze hit him with a wall of fire. She aimed for his human side, where he screeched in pain— dropping Aaron and seizing the pain in his back.

He reeled, “You motherfuckers! This isn’t what you were supposed to do!” Obscurity whined, holding his human hand over his human half.

Blaze didn’t listen. She threw out a spinning side kick, that had 100% unnecessary spinning but was 100% cooler than a regular side kick. Obscurity caught her leg as he morphed his mutant half and hung her from the ceiling, cackling wildly.

From where Aaron was standing, he could tell she was gritting her teeth trying to not cry out in pain.

“Golden Defender!” He announced, dangling Blaze a little and she yelped, “I have your partner. Now open this vault right now, or else I’ll make her feel pain unimaginable!”

It was a compelling argument if not for the metal pipe Golden Defender had been silently wiggling down from now exposed wall of the bank. The pipe flied free, knocking Obscurity forward.

Good news? He let go of Blaze. Bad news? He fell forward into directly into Aarons path.

Golden Defender kneed him in the gut as he growled (yes, he literally growled at him) and stumbled back. He began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Blaze asked, getting to her feet. She molded the fire around her into a ball, and she was pointing it at Obscurity. He inched away towards the wall as she inched forward, fire in tow.

Obscurity’s mutant form was melting away, the black slime dripping onto the tiled floor like candle wax. Pretty soon, all that was left of it was the goop that covered half of his face. What looked like a genuine smile was  spread across it, and it dawned on Golden Defender how absolutely normal he looked.

Aside from his cliche wannabe super villain costume and the obvious mutant goop(? Aaron wondered exactly what it was) he used as his mask, he was borderline on handsome and his hair shone brown with light streaks of blonde— and Aaron never noticed his eyes. Shockingly blue. And they were looking behind him.

Whip fast, he turned his head— only to be sharply kicked in the floating ribs. The other cronie Insight was talking about had finally come out of hiding. Clad in all red, he looked like a villain straight out of Kickass. Aaron was trying to not laugh, but he heard a snicker from Blaze. And he looked like he was itching to fight.

“Hit it!” The cronie yelled, and an alarm begun to go off.

Lights began blinking and flashing as a horrid screeching sound filled Golden Defenders ears, making it almost impossible to focus on anything. Then the sprinkler system went off, extinguishing any fire that Blaze had.

He swung a punch at Aarons head, he ducked under it as he felt the air tickle the top of his head. Placing one hand on the ground, he swung out his left leg— trying to trip him. The cronie simply jumped over it and tugged Obscurity by the hem of his shirt.

The two of them tumbled over a counter, and the bad guy was a blur of red from their costume as they moved, quick as a whip,!and fog began to spread. Damp, humid moisture stuck to Golden Defenders costume as he squinted through the fog.

Blaze began calling for Insight, “Where are they headed? Where did they even go?”

“Give me a second!” Insight barked over comms, “Crap. They’re running down Broadway now, Obscurity is knocking down some telephone poles so watch for them. The other cronie. . . they’re both looking for something.”

Golden Defender was already out the door, despite his ribs aching a bit and his back stinging from where Obscurity grabbed it; he ran as fast as he could— pacing Blaze. He could spot where he knocked over the wires, and street lamps were fizzling out.

“On 14th!” Insight suddenly yelled, “Cut across the alleyway near the ice cream parlor, you’ll meet them as soon as you round the corner.”

Blaze had the flask of lighter fluid in her hand already, and she bounced from the dumpster and latched onto the fence. Aaron was quick behind her, scaling the fence and onto the ground.

He heard shouts.

“Oh fuck me!” Obscurity yelled, and he shot into view from the alleyway.

The second cronie didn’t seem impressed either, falling short of Obscurity’s dramatic ‘oh fuck me’ but didn’t stray far, “Damn. How did he manage to even tie up those guys? They’re wolves.”

Aaron stalled in the alleyway, he turned to Blaze. She was already unscrewing the flask and had a lit match in her hand. Then, she threw the lighter fluid at Obscurity’s head. She flicked the match as he summoned his mutant form, it took the brunt of the fire as it lit up the street in orange and red hues— embers flying. While he was a flaming mess, Golden Defender sprinted out from the alleyway. He pulled on his power, knocking the loose street lamp over and onto cronie #2. He grunted and dodged— failing onto the ground and into a pile of broken glass.

Blaze was behind him, ogling at something. There was a part of him that didn’t want to know what it was. Past the flickering street lamps and broken poles, wires that were fizzing and sending sparks out, was two giant wolves hanging upside down from a street lamp wrapped into heavy chains. The kind you’d find on government property stopping anyone from entering, right next to a “Trespass and Die” sign, probably. One of the wolves was conscious and wiggling, trying to get free of the chains— it’s eyes were swirling in so many different colors. It was enchanting to look at. Next to the wolves, on the street wall spray painted in dark, black, dripping letters was “LOSE YOUR PUPPIES? —BLACK MAGIC.” Next to it was his (also spray painted) insignia, a dove with an arrow through its heart.

Black Magic was a known vigilante in Magista; he worked in the night and was known for skulking around and apprehending villains before Golden Defender and his crew ever got the word that they were there at all. Technically he was  only known as a vigilante because he probably wasn’t the most upstanding citizen. And slightly because he tended to vandalize the crime scenes, as seen with the wolves. He always took down the bad guys. Aaron had never met him, he didn’t know it he wanted to meet him either.

Up until a few weeks ago, nobody knew his name until he was spotted taking down Anti- G, another whiny cronie with a power easy to counter for Golden Defender. Anti gravity vs telekinesis, place your bets on who would win. And besides, Black Magic wasn’t the talk of the town just yet. No one could determine what his superpower even was, or where he was located, all that existed of him were blacked blurred photographs of him creeping around like some cryptid.

“Let’s get out of here!” Aaron heard behind him and the two cronies scrambling. Atleast Obscurity managed to put himself out and not get anything else on fire.

Luckily, Aaron also heard the sirens of police and fire trucks blaring down Broadway— someone had half a brain and called 911 for the fire, even if most of it was put out by the sprinkler system being triggered. What really irked Aaron was how delayed it had been, weren’t sprinkler systems supposed to be smoke detected? Why did it only go off after Obscurity hit the fire alarm?

Before the no good, bank robbing, wolf ogling, evil doers left though, a sharp blade shot out from the cronies hand— the one who was clad in all red. It snapped the chains with ease and the wolves skittered to the ground.

He picked up the knife off the floor and turned to face them, fighting stances at the ready, “Oh and,” The cronie has a wicked grin on his face. Obscurity was whipping the wolves into submission beside him, “You all can call me Crimson.”

Golden Defender was leaning forward again, ready to attack but the wall of fog had come up again and when it dropped. . . there was no one left for him to chase. Obscurity and Crimson were gone. Aaron was already thinking back to when he found it impossible to look away from the wolves eyes. The colors encapsulated him, swirling and speaking to him. It pulled at his emotion sense, fear, panic, giddiness, joy; it was all so contradictory and it pained him. Not in the way it was earlier, it rooted into his brain and the pain thudded dully. Blaze shook his shoulders and was snapping at him.

“Golden Defender? Earth to Golden Defender!” She annunciated each word more than necessary. It was enough to clear Aaron’s brain fog and snap him back to reality, “You totally zoned out on me, was there more trouble out somewhere? Insight should be here any minute now.”

“No, no.” He replied, trying to not let his voice go flat. But it was impossible, he found it was impossible at least, “It’s the wolves. . .”

“Yeah. Their eyes.” Blazes eyes went a little glassy as she turned to look back at them. She was staring at the empty chains with determination, “Somethings up.”

Rapid footsteps approached from behind, and Insight rounded the corner. He was heaving massive breaths, as if he had full on sprinted. There was a part of Aaron that always felt guilty when he saw him. He found Insights costume ridiculously unnecessary, he essentially flocked around like a peacock with jewels and feathers strung about his costume. Another part of Aaron didn’t feel too bad considering Insight had a habit of getting on his nerves.

Insight stopped in his tracks as he saw what was in front of them, “Wolves?” Blaze said at the same time Insight said, “Black Magic?”

She glared at Insight, “Black Magics been radio silent ever since his battle with Anti- G a few weeks ago, why show up now? And why not help us at the bank?”

“He seems like the lone wolf type.” Insight said. He seemed impressed with his unnecessary pun.

That much was obvious. Black Magic hadn't made his move to try and contact the team and this message obviously wasn’t left for them. But the cronies were looking for the wolves, and Obscurity obviously was shocked to see them tied up.

“Maybe he was helping us.” Aaron said, the pieces were slowly clicking together in his mind. Black Magic may not be up for partnership deal but it was pretty obvious he tied up the wolves for their benefit.

“You’re too nice, Golden.” Insight glowered at the sign Black Magic left, ghosting his fingers along the still wet letters, “Black Magic could be a S list criminal at this point with all the vandalism he’s done. Not to mention the chains, who carries chains like those around? No one! He definitely stole them.”

Insight was a little bit of a Black Magic hater. He hated how he never stepped into help them (if Aaron was honest, he was starting to hold a teensy weensy grudge against Black Magic too because sometimes they could really use an extra hand).

Aaron sighed. Insight somehow always got up on his nerves, “You said the bad guys were looking for something? Maybe the wolves were their backup,” Blazes eyes lit up as he said that, and she nodded in agreement, “He took out the wolves and forced them to flee. It probably wasn’t meant for us, but it still technically helped us.”

They probably should call animal control and try and see if they could find them. The wolves looked a little rabid and dirty, but then again, almost all wolves look rabid and a little dirty to Aaron. Insight was already walking over to where the wolves had been. There was an obvious sign of struggle, scratch marks all around and the chains were haphazardly tied. No wonder the cronie— No wonder Crimson was able to easily snap them. The spray paint on the wall was still wet and dripping, most likely sprayed only minutes before Golden and Blaze busted in through the alleyway.

“They sure scurried off quick, you know.” Insight mumbled to himself. “I could try and see where they went off to, but thats a lot of work.”

"It wouldn't be worth it anyway.” Blaze sighed. She was examining the chains as well, but she ended up just shaking her head, “Finish patrol, meet back at you know where tomorrow.”

‘You know where’ was a rundown abandoned shop at the skirts of the city, they had all claimed it as their headquarters— but it was hardly that. It was practically falling apart with boarded up windows and beams that were made of rotten wood. As of yet, though, no villain or evil doer had yet to find it. That was enough of a win for Aaron.

Golden Defender walked the rest of his patrol with his hands on his head, leaning back and paying almost no attention to the world around him. He though back to the fight. Obscurity was hardly a new foe for Aaron, he was a nuisance and a pest. He was powerful enough to become a supervillain yet stuck to crimes like bank robbery’s, and it really made him wonder if he was planning something or if he was just scared to go full berserk on the city. However, Crimson was new. His power was obviously water based, considering he never came out of hiding until he had the upper hand when the sprinklers came on. And the fog, most likely a result of vapor manipulation. He was a good shot too, he nailed the chains off first try and he could keep Obscurity on a little loose reign.

Golden Defender tried to make the most of his solitary before having to return back home to his father, whom he had just gotten out of prison. His life as Aaron Stewart could wait just a little bit longer.

— —

Even though he was a model student, that didn’t mean he didn’t dislike school. He wouldn’t say hate, because hates a pretty strong word and it seemed too heavy to apply to something as simple as school. Plus, he got to see his friends during school— or, his friend really, Tamara Rajavi. Everybody else he hung out with was just an extension of her. She certainly had a strong, fiery soul and managed to attract friends like moths to a lamp. And school was an escape to him, where he could soak up all that academic validation. Yeah, he said it. Aaron was a sucker.

Tamara— because she just so happened to be in his Biology class—  kicked him with the toe of her sandals, she had certain nervous ticks as so and sometimes Aaron got the brunt of it, but she kept her complete and utter focus on the biology teacher (who just so happened to be the coolest guy ever, in Aarons mind atleast. Aaron thinks that whoever gives out free candy and had a good sense of humor was A-Okay in his book; kidnappers and villains would take notes if they knew Golden Defenders one true weakness was underpaid, funny science teachers). Splayed out in front of her was her notebook which displayed her superb note taking skills, she had the handwriting of a robot. Everything was neat and organized into columns, and it satisfied Aaron to look at. I guess one picks up on these organization skills as head of the yearbook club, he thought privately to himself.

The seconds on the clock seemed to tick along like minutes. The fluorescent was certainly going to give him a headache. And his back was already aching from his right with Obscurity. And he couldn’t focus on the words on the board without his mind drifting back to the wolves eyes or Black Magics message. One downside of being a superhero was some super major time management issues too, because he was trying to do his APUSH homework while taking notes for Biology. He hadnt come back till later in the night, after he prowled the streets for any villains that dared cross Golden Defenders path (and admittedly he had even searched the area around the wolves for Black Magic. He was getting desperate to be in the Need To Know with him, and he certainly took back any previous statements of being wary of him).

A book slamming onto the floor with an incredibly loud thud was enough to snap Aaron back into focus and alert.

Mr. Hawkins, the biology teacher, had his hands out in front of him as if he had dropped the heavy biology textbook like dead weight to the ground, he retracted his hands and crossed them to his chest. He was staring down a student with his hood up and head down on the lab desk, whom of which slowly picked up his head off of it to stare at him back. Was that drool on the desk?

“Awake, Mr. Hunt?” Mr. Hawkins said and a few kids snickered.

Call Hunt was a thin (down-right concerningly thin, Aaron contemplated turning him into the counselor at times) guy with long(ish) inky black hair that rolled past his ears and was threatening to go onto his shoulders next. Aaron thinks he was going for a punk rock look because Holy Piercings!  He had an obvious eyebrow piercing that you almost couldn’t see cause of all his hair, and a plethora of jewelry on his ears. If Aaron squinted from where he was sitting he’d see a small nose piercing as well, he wondered if that was new. He constantly sported clothes too big for his body that hung past any of his edges, most of which Tamara would dub “emo”.

Call only rolled his eyes and sunk low into his seat, “Sir, yes, sir.” He grumbled out, “Couldn’t you have taken more of a passive approach, though? I downright almost had a heart attack in your classroom, now who’s fault would it be if I died from it?” He had plenty of snark in his tone.

“The only thing that’s threatening you when you sleep in my classroom is your grades.” Mr. Hawkins picked up the book and slid it onto his desk, “You’ll be needing that for your saturday school if you keep using Biology as nap time.” A few kids let out an ‘oooooh’ and giggled. Poor boy looked like he was about to rip out his hair, if he could sink any lower in his chair, Aaron bet he would.

Aaron bit at the end of his pen (yes he wrote in pen, Aaron believed it made his handwriting 10x better) and looked over at Tamara, she was pursing her lips and staring at him with a glint in her eye. This could go two ways, he thought, option A) she stares at him so intensely like she’s trying to mentally project a lecture into his brain and explodes or option B) she invites him to our lunch table, as she’s done with other odd balls like Kai and Charlie. Aaron knew the rational answer was B but secretly hoped that A might happen. She turned away when Mr. Hawkins tapped the board and it switched to his next slide of notes. She began furiously scribbling words down as the teacher began speaking again.

And just like that, he slipped back into his previous thoughts. Crimson. Where to begin with him? His superpower had to do with water manipulation, that was for certain. He knew that much. Yet, instead of choosing to fight with it back at the bank, or better yet, using it to break into the vault; he chose to flee. Some powers have drawbacks, perhaps his power may have a big one— but they hadn’t seen any sign of distress on his face except when, of course, they saw the wolves tied up. Which begs another question. How on earth did Black Magic manage to tie up two wolves? Especially wolves with freaky glowy eyes that Aaron saw every time he blinked. Everyone was clueless as to what his super power was, hell, they were clueless as to who he was in general. The fact that they were hanging from a street lamp makes Aaron think his power could potentially be similar to Golden Defenders, but then again he had nothing to go off of.

Plus, Aaron had zero idea when Obscurity or Crimson would be back again. He had zero idea who the hell Black Magic was. He had zero ideas about a lot of things.

He was slouching a little when he left Biology. Mostly because all of this knowledge and unknowledge was weighing him down, down into the ground. Aaron admittedly was gripping his bag until his knuckles were white (it had been such a long time since something superhero related bothered him so much) and he admittedly may have full body collided with Call trying to exit and he may have admittedly sent him flying into a lab table that was thankfully empty.

“Dude.” Call gasped out after recovering from being sent into a metal table at a high speed, “Was that on purpose or are genuinely that much of a klutz?” His brain short circuited a bit because, oh my god was that a tongue piercing?

Tamara was lingering in the doorway, she was halfway out of it when she turned around— dark braids swinging and eyes wide open with curiosity and alertness of the sound of body meets table.

“I, uh, no I’m sorry.” Aaron stammered out.

Call raised an eyebrow. “No to which statement?” He was now leaned up against said table, arms crossed and scowling.

“No to I didn’t do that on purpose.” He said apologetically and rubbed the back of his neck. Aaron tried to not use his superpowers in his regular life, but sometimes a slip up happens here and there, especially when he’s drowning in thought and sending people flying into furniture. He read Calls emotion, and immediately felt a wave of skepticism and distrust. Man, this guy was one heck of a mess today.

Calls (shockingly) grey eyes looked Aaron up and down. It would have left Aaron a little more shaken if he didn’t have four inches on Call but it still left him feeling weirdly exposed; like he was being read and deciphered like a book. Very thick tension

“Uh huh.” He mumbled out, and that was that.

Call limped out the door, sliding past Tamara and taking a sharp right turn. He was acutely aware that his backpack was almost completely empty and a pouch on the side was halfway open. Aaron would have to make a mental note to find and apologize to him later. Tamara snorted at him from the doorway.

“I think we have a new member to our lunch table slash museum of odd balls and misfits.” She said the words elegantly, as if she was mimicking their drama teacher Ms. Alma.  Despite her exterior posh and prim demeanor, she was a raging dork with a passion for teaming up to write killer anonymous blog stories with Aaron and Jasper (he’ll explain more about the blog and Jasper later) and pursuing her dream of graphic design with her yearbook club.

Aaron grinned and slung his bag further on his shoulders, he followed Tamara out of the classroom and trailed her to the lunch room— it was only the end of fourth block but the school insisted on force feeding their students lunch at 10:30. They claimed their spot near the back of the cafeteria, where Celia (a girl with an attention span of a goldfish but a puppy dog demeanor) and Jasper (a brooding asian boy who seemed to only know two emotions: up in the clouds lovey dove-y with celia and teen angst) were sat already. Jasper was already in a very animated conversation with her, waving his arms in frantic movements as she nodded along and shoved pecans into her mouth.

“I don’t know about him.” He finally said to Tamara as they sat down, unzipping their bags and pulling out their lunches. Aarons was beat down and definitely had seen better days while hers was a light pink insulated bag.

She pulled out a container of yogurt and unclipped it, sliding a spoon in. “What’s there not to know?” Tamara said after a big bite of yogurt, “He seems like a chill guy, well, atleast chill until he gets shoved into tables.” The tips of Aarons ears turn red when she mentioned that.

“Exactly. Wouldn’t you find it weird if the guy who sent you barreling into a lab table suddenly came up to you and said ‘come sit with us at lunch because I have a friend that likes to collect people with odd personalities like souvenirs’.” He finished off and Tamara got a look in her eyes.

Jasper and Celia had stopped talking, and were eyeing eachother— Aaron guessed they were trying to piece together the tale of the little boy who got catapulted into a metal table. Next to them Rafe (a boy with light brown skin and floppy dark brown hair who seemed to be high 23/6), Kai (w book nerd, pink hair, glasses), Charlie (there wasn’t much to be said about him actually, Aaron didn’t know him too well; he knew he played baseball though), and Gwenda (Tamara’s yearbook assistant who shouldn’t be left alone for too long with cameras or else people’s personal space would be throughly violated) sat down next to them— equally engrossed in their own conversations.

“I don’t collect people with unusual personalities,” She said to Aaron, her voice dropped a notch, “they’re my friends. And it just so happens weirdos are a lot more fun than normals.” Tamara shovels two more bites of yogurt into her mouth. She looks at Aaron weirdly, “You seem stressed.” She said through a mouthful of yogurt.

He sighed. “I know, homework overload. I’m sorry for saying that.” She nodded as if she were forgiving him, so Aaron pressed on, “Anyway, let’s say that we all agree he should sit with us; where do we even find him? I’ve never seen him in the cafeteria before.”

Celia cocked her head at them, poofy blonde curls swung around as she did. Her blue eyes looked between Tamara and Aaron.

“Who’s sitting with us?” She gave a hesitant smile.

Before Aaron could answer, Tamara butted her head in, “I want to get this boy Call Hunt in. He seems really chill and it’s going to be lieu of an apology for Aaron; he accidentally sent him flying into a lab table.” She was eating saltine crackers now, popping them in her mouth.

“Oh Call! Yeah I know—“

“Nonononono, no!” Jasper threw out his hands dramatically. It sort of startled Aaron, but he was used to his displays of emotion. He ran a hand through his spiky gelled hair, and then he scowled, “Call is a dickwad! I don’t think he’s ever said anything that wasn’t sarcastic, and next time Aaron pushes him into a table—“ (He doesn’t comment and say, “I didn’t push him, I got distracted and ran into him because there’s a new evil doer on the loose and Black Magic is back. But whatever, man.”) “—Make sure that he stays down. He’s just all around no bueno.”

Tamara is already halfway out her seat. She was throwing her empty yogurt and saltine cracker container in her lunch box and licking her spoon clean. She wiped invisible crumbs off her blue skinny jeans and grey sweater. Tamara has a glint in her eye that Aaron knows means, Nothing You Say Or Do Will Change My Mind. He knew better to test Tamara when she got like this, so he held his tongue.

“I’ll be the dickwad judge, thank you very much.” She said, then turned to the rest of the table, “Any of you know where Call Hunt eats lunch?”

Gwenda looked up at her and shrugged, she adjusted one of her dark blue box braids in her phone camera— using it as a mirror. Kai had his head in a book, literally, he was sleeping in a book, Charlie was turned around talking to someone from the table next to him, and Rafe was scrolling on his phone. He looked up, his eyes red rimmed— of course they were, if Aaron had half a brain he’d report him but he didn’t want to lose what little friends he had— then he scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“Call?” He said, his face twisted a bit and he looked as if he was trying to remember something, “He goes in the woods by campus during lunch sometimes, sometimes he straight up leaves campus. I dunno,” He looked back down at his phone, “‘Think I bought off him once.” He mumbles.

Tamara grinned, “Thank you!”

She grabbed Aaron’s wrist and tugged him out the cafeteria and into the courtyard. The difference in volume definitely soothed the headache that was on the constant cusp of appearing. People lingered on table, some threw things— courtyard was a lawless land with no lunch monitors daring to go out there lest they face the wrath of the jocks x class clown gaggle. She was humming a jaunty tune as they stepped onto the green grass of the schools lawn. The school wasn’t surrounded by woods per-say, rather there was an unusual amount of trees in one spot and vegetation around it that made it vaguely resemble a forest.

Sun was threatening to peek out from clouds when the two entered the forest, a cool breeze fueling their bodies.

“Do you think he’ll want in on the blog?” Tamara said lightly as she stepped around a plant with thorns surrounding it, “I mean, not as moderators and editors. But, do you think he has or wants an account?”

The blog was Tamara, Jasper, and Aarons thing that they all ran anonymously. They had full access to the site and often posted about the latest superhero fight or newest supervillain. Jasper wrote the stories, sometimes he even went around interviewing people under the guise of the name ‘Caine’ and gathered juicy details to craft the perfect story. Aaron was the editor, he picked out spelling mistakes and reworked the story bit by bit to make the article better than perfect. Tamara ran the site, she paid the fees to keep it running, she coded and created it, she designed it, and she’s in charge of who gets and account and who doesn’t.

See, while not everyone can post full articles and stories, they can still post comments and videos. Tamara limited who gets an account by invitation email only, after an incident with the school left them scrambling to stay in service. And that was the best part, nobody knew Aaron was in on the blog, hell— he didn’t even have to say anything on there either. He just has to polish and make everything look good. They were all anonymous. It was his perfect not-a-crime. It turned out to be super popular too, Tamara was swarmed with requests for accounts and she had even started up forums and tags to sort posts.

“Hmm. . .” Aaron thought, he didn’t think Call would be the type. But he didn’t know much about him at all. “Maybe. And you’re jumping into conclusions. What if he doesn’t want anything to do with us?”

“Now you’re jumping to conclusions.”

“To be fair, I sent him spiraling into a lab table. I’d see why he wouldn’t want to be friends with this.” He gestured to himself and Tamara chuckled lightly.

As they got deeper into the forest, vines hanging down lowly from trees, and wind bristling up against leaves, Aaron wondered if he was here at all. Bugs and animals scuffled around as they made their own makeshift path through the woodlands, wild flowers and dandelions grew around them and he felt a little bad crushing them to walk through. Aaron tried to not recoil in disgust at the amount of mud that got on his shoes. Even if they were beaten and old, he tried to keep them as white as possible. All this kid wasn’t helping his case.

They were going to turn back, until lo and behold, there he was; perched against a log, smoking a cigarette was Call and he did not look happy to see them.

Tamara walked briskly over to him and snatched the cigarette out of his hand, she stomped on it with the fury of a thousand suns.

Then, she smiled. “Call is it? We’re in the same biology, I believe you know Aaron as well,” He did a little wave and gave a timid smile, “I was wondering if you wanted to sit with us at lunch?”

Calls eyes looked her up and down, as he did with Aaron. She wasn’t as easily swayed, a little of his tension deflated as he stood up to stare at her. Tamara’s eyes were set and stony on him.

“How did you know I’d be out here?” He said instead of answering.

Tamara was starting to look a little annoyed, “A friend told me.” She furrowed her brows and pursed her lips, “Answer the question, we’ve still got 30 minutes of lunch block left.”

Aaron didn’t mean to do it. He really, really didn’t. But he caught up on feelings of guilt from the black haired boy when Call replied with a, “Yes.” And the feelings of guilt turned and flipped into feelings of dread in Calls mind as Tamara dragged him back into the lunch room.

Aaron’s superpower just did that sometimes, where it turned on randomly at inconvenient times and read random people’s emotions. Usually, it happened in public, crowded spaces when he was overwhelmed and lost his control over it. Fortunately for him, it has only ever happened to his emotion reading power and not his telekinesis. But still, there was something about Call that rubbed Aaron the wrong way so bad that his subconscious flicked on his superpower whenever he was nearby. It was on the tip of his own tongue, yet he couldn’t figure out what about him set him off.

Call and Tamara has already plopped into a seat into the cafeteria, she was sat in the dead was in before they had left but Call flopped down into the spot next to her as if he’d been sitting with them all year. Aaron sat to her right as she cleared her throat, dark eyes going wild.

“Everybody! This is Call.” She said, and they looked over for a moment. Aaron had expected some sort of greeting at least, but as quick as they all had looked over, they looked away and returned to whatever conversation they were having before. “Guys?” She said, irritation creeping into her voice. Aaron didn’t need his emotion sensing power to know when his best friend was upset. “Guys!”

Jasper was crossing his arms and scowling at Call, “They know who Call is.” He rolled his eyes “He’s got a reputation for being a massive jerk!” He jabbed his finger at Call, he took it as an opportunity to flip him off and smirk.

“Right.” Call said simply, an eyebrow raised. Aaron could sense something was irritating him too but this time he needed his power to know that. Either this guy was a pro at bottling emotions or he was a forced to be reckoned with.

“Why do you hate him so much?” Aaron asked, he had turned off his power again. And as soon as he saw Jaspers eyes light up and his posture stiffen, he knew one of his infamous long stories was about to play out.

“We have english together. Just so happens, my seat is next to him. One, he never is even awake and the teacher is always coming up to bother him and I get majorly annoyed by it. He snores! Two, he has never, ever said anything that wasn’t sarcastic. He’ll insult you! To your face! Three, when we were assigned a project together in English. I did majority of the work! And he still took credit for my superb writing skills.” Jasper huffed out.

Call looked borderline amused, “My bad, so that means the overall C we got on the project was pretty much your fault? I don’t know about you, but Ms. Milagros pulled me after class and told me she was throughly impressed with my storytelling skills.”

“Oh shut it!” He hissed, then his eyes got all wide and wild, “Didn’t you plagiarize your half of the project anyway?”

“Uh,” he bit on his lower lip, “Well, I didn’t get caught.” Call said it so matter a factly that it caused Jasper to fume, “And! And, I atleast changed some of the words to be my writing.”

“You shouldn’t be plagiarizing in general.” Aaron tried to not intervene, but something about school and crimes (even though this technically wasn’t a crime, it was plagiarizing on a project that wouldn’t be worth anything in five years time) really got his blood jumping. Besides, he could take down a mutant, what was an angsty teen with an attitude problem and an apparent nicotine addiction? “I could report you to for that.”

Calls lips quirked downward. He ran his chipped, black polished, ring adorned fingers through his hair; he brushed his bangs to the side and puffed them out as he groaned in frustration. Wait. Was that a freaking lotus flower tattoo on his left hand? Everything about this guy was sending Aaron major red flags. Even if this was hardly the first time seeing him, for starters he was in his Biology and Spanish (both classes he was confused as to how he wasn’t failing). He technically saw him in P.E. sitting on the bleachers because Aaron spent his study hall with Coach Kent down there. But nothing about him ticked off any boxes for Aaron. He was just another kid who had a penchants for acting out with his sarcastic quips he shot back to teachers and his frequent habit of cutting class.

“Anybody ever tell you that you look like an emo band that got ran over by a bus then shot up heroin?” Jasper said abruptly when Call had opened his mouth to say something to Aaron. His face twisted into a scowl and he narrowed his eyes.

He stood up from his seat to get in Jaspers face a little, he put his arms on the table and leaned over so that Call couldn’t be more than a foot away from his face. Celia was giggling and even Gwenda, who was usually too busy fixing herself to notice the world around her, was even laughing a little.

He huffed, “Anybody ever tell you that you look like if Sonic the Hedgehog ditched his running career and tried to start up a punk rock band in his basement only to get shut down cause they sound like nails on chalkboard?” Call said it all in one breath, it was a little endearing to Aaron because no one really bit back to Jasper like that. Except maybe Tamara, who had been oddly quiet during the exchange; just eyeing the two of them.

She caught Aaron’s eye when he had looked over at her, and leaned over with her whole bodt to whisper in his ear, she had her lunch bag in her lap and her arms cradled it, “The sexual tensions so thick right now. I could go swimming, really.” Aaron snorted, then put a hand over his mouth to muffle what was already done.

Jasper stared, and even Call turned his head and leaned back away from him— oh my god, was he wearing eyeliner? Aaron was getting weirdly really distracted by this guy, and not matter how hard he tried to get the train of thought back on track; it derailed and sent its passengers of Aaron’s brain cells into the void of his mindscape— Jasper borderline pouted his lip, but Call looked thrilled and his face read mock victory.

“So you agree?” Call asked him, he was assuming because he snorted at Tamara’s joke not his. He had to hand it to him though, his joke was pretty incredible. Aaron did secretly agree with him though.

Jaspers eyes widened again, he needed to stop doing that unless he wanted them to pop out of his head, “Are you kidding me? You’re agreeing with a sewage rat gone emo?”

Call sat back in his seat and loudly gasped, a hand over his heart, “Sewage rat gone emo? You should see yourself!” He smirked, and folded his arms over his chest, “You’re if  a naked mole rat got ahold of a wig and robbed a department store with those clothes.”

“Oh yeah? You look like you dumpster dived before school with that outfit.”

Tamara finally put a stop to their bickering. She shook her head in disappointment, dark braids swinging with elegance despite her reaction. “Not your best work Jasper,” She muttered. She raised her voice for the rest of the table to hear, “Save the dirty talk for the sheets you two,” Aaron snorted again, Call and Jasper both equally looked disgusted. Rafe barked a massive laugh. Even Kai giggled alongside Celia and Gwenda. “Anyway.” Her voice was clipped, “It’s official! Call is sitting with us from now on!”

“Woah,” Call shot her a look that she ignored, “I never said that.”

Jasper groaned and slammed his head onto the table, “No one cares!” He yelled, but his face was eating table so it was muffled.

Obviously he did if he had just spend the past five minutes insulting him, Aaron thought, mentally groaning. Not that Call looked too shaken, he already had his elbow on the table, arm straight up, head on hand as he scrolled through his phone. His lips were pressed together in a thin line as he read, eyes narrowed and focused on what was in front of him. Aaron had to full body lean past Tamara to get a good look at him, she was staring at him as well. Aaron figured she was looking over his shoulder at what he was reading on his phone.

Call was certainly an odd duck. Aaron racked everything he knew about him into a list in his head.

For starters, he knew Call was in two of his classss, he also knew that he slept through most of his classes, hardly did his work, and was a nicotine addict; or atleast opted to smoke instead of facing feelings. See, when Aaron’s power flicked on he was swamped with repressed emotions. I guess that’s why he came out there then, Aaron thought to himself, to escape everyone else and be alone with his non thoughts that he was shoving to the corners of his brain. Another thing was his guilt and dread that Aaron felt, dread wasn’t too usual for him. He knew that Call was relentlessly bullied by some jerk faces on the football team (Aaron’s teammates no less, yes, hes a football jock) and he hadn’t taken kindly to getting thrown into tables. He could understand were dread was coming from.

But guilt? Guilt was something else. Was he breaking some unspoken rule he applied to himself and felt guilty about it? Or was something else, something more sinister eating at Callum Hunt?

Soon, after minutes of scrolling, Calls eyes kept flicking over to them, he was side eyeing him and Tamara. Call was definitely aware that they were watching him and reading over his shoulder. He caved, sighing and blowing a strand of black hair out of his eyes with a long breath. He scrolled rapidly on his phone, presumably to the top of what he was reading. Call set his phone down in front of Tamara so that they all could read it.

It was an online newspaper service, specifically the most popular superhero covering news outlet in Magista. They documented everything, took pictures and welcomed people to send in videos of skirmishes around the city, in fact, this was how Golden Defender even found out who Black Magic was. The news reporters and interviewers were damn good at their job too. They sort of swarmed Golden Defender and Insight once on patrol. They pried and pried until they got an interview that everyone would be talking about for months. It was the real deal, whatever was said on it. Aaron thought for a brief irrational moment that the thing about this guy that rubbed him the wrong way was that he knew he was Golden Defender— he immediately shook that thought away when he read the article title.

“Is this Magistas newest hero? Friend or Foe, who is Black Magic? This is everything you need to know about this mysterious cloaked new vigilante.”

Inside the article was a clip of Black Magic (reused from a video published on the CSA from over three weeks ago, even if Aaron knew he had been around for much, much longer than that) fighting Anti- G, his cloak swished in dark elegance as he dodged a table that was flipping in the air due to his gravity manipulation. His hood was over his head tightly, and he couldn’t even make out a vague silhouette of the dude. That’s all it was, a four second blurry, shaky video that was enough to rock Golden Defenders team. When it first came out, it was all Insight ever talked about for a week straight: “Can we trust him? Just because he’s fighting Anti- G doesn’t mean he’s a good guy! His insignia is corny. . .” And it went on and on and on and. . .

That wasn’t all though. Also in the article was his all known sightings of his insignias painted around Magista, a lot of them resided in alleyways spread around town. None of them had messages like the one last night, but all of them were found near apprehended, bad guy beat scenes. They even talked about all known sightings of him, leaping from building to building, someone that they couldn’t be sure was him lurking in the far corners of the dusty alleyways, and the boy who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. The article ended with the author putting in their two cents as to what would be different in the future due to Black Magics message, they commented on what the message could have meant, and what information would be said by the three current superheroes in town later on in future.

Tamara looked weirdly stoic when she read the article, like she tried to keep her face completely straight and emotionless. Aaron tried to not go stiff at the mentions of Golden Defenders handy work in the stopping of the band robbery last night, and he always felt a low lump in his throat come on whenever he caught photos of himself in these articles. But Call— he looked strangely amused. The corners of his mouth were quirked up slightly as he gauged their reactions when they read it. When Tamara was finally finished reading, he snatched up his phone and clicked it off, setting it in his pocket.

Then he smirked, “I knew I pegged you two as the superhero type.”

Aaron knew what he meant, but the words ‘you’ and ‘superhero’ in the same sentence was enough to make his own blood run cold.  He shook it off.

“I guess you could say that.” A slow smile creeped onto his face as him and Tamara made eye contact. Dark brown eyes meet deep green ones. “I didn’t peg you as one. Are you just joining the new Black Magic hype or are you genuinely interested in what they have to offer for saving the city?” Aaron asked, genuine.

Call looked as if he was mock contemplating, with a finger to his chin feigning fake thinking and a hand to his hip to add dramatics.

“A little bit of both.” He said finally, dropping his hands and his posture deflated, he shrugged, “Personally I’d like to keep our city not filled with dangerous criminals running amok and,” Call paused his words, his voice shook as he involuntarily smiled and laughed, “puppies— apparently.”

“I’m still milling over what it could mean too,” Tamara smiled. He knew exactly where she was leading this conversation to, the mischievous glint in her eyes as she met Aaron’s once more, “Say, have you ever heard of the website Civilians Superheroes Anonymous? The CSA?” Pride was evident in her voice. She was really proud of her website and the hope it brought people, along with it brought theories and discourse as well. But she also advertised it whenever she could, and that was a lot. Aaron got a kick out of reading it sometimes, partly because he found it interesting and partly because he was Golden Defender and he wanted to know what the people thought of him.

“No, I can't say I’ve ever heard of the CSA—“ Call started, then his eyes lit up with recognition, “Wait! Isn’t that the website that published the article with the Golden Defender interview? And the Black Magic video!" A smile tugged up at his lips.

Okay, so maybe Aaron had caved and finally let Jasper have the interview he begged Golden Defender for. And maybe he humored him and his fake alias “Caine”, and maybe he gave a little more info on the cronies around than he was supposed to, and maybe the interview reached no. 1 on all streaming platforms, and Maybe it lead back to the CSA.

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him,  “That’s the one! You need to make an account on there if you’re interested in Black Magic, people are coming up with these crazy theories on the forums there. I’ll let you borrow my account that I don’t use,” She had multiple accounts to see how the website looked from different perspectives, “but only if you keep sitting with us.” Tamara finished with a charming smile. This led directly where Aaron had thought it would go. Call also, thankfully, looked intrigued with her offer.

A ringing filled the lunch room as kids started to weave out, heading to their fourth block. Tamara and Call made eye contact.

Call opened his mouth, then closed it. He scowled (wow, Aaron was surprised he didn’t have a permanent scowl etched on his face) and sighed. He stuck out his hand, “Deal.”

They shook on it and Call was officially welcomed to the lunch table / museum of misfits and oddballs.

——

Insight was perched on a worn, dusty old sofa in the abandoned building alongside Golden Defender and Blaze. From a messenger bag, he pulled out his journal and pen. Insight wrote everything down, whatever he saw in his clairvoyant visions, whatever he knew about the current foe, or whatever he saw in his occasional premonition dreams that happened few and far in between. Today, he spun the pen in between his fingers as he opened the journal to a clean page and laid it on his thighs.

Aaron felt stress radiating off him in waves. It wasn't like, I forgot to study for a math test stress. It was more so, this building is on fire and I need to choose what to save, kind of stress. And frankly, it worried him. Anytime his friends had bursts of emotion that overwhelmed him, it worried him.

They had only gotten here moments prior, and for once Insight was early and he was pacing the room in circles. Blaze had to forcibly shove him into the couch to get him to stop. He had print outs of Black Magic spotting and the photo from the day prior all strewn about the room haphazardly placed. His eyes darted from piece to piece as he continued to fidget with the pen. Aaron wished he’d stop and sit still.

Blaze, who was leaned again the side of the couch peering over Insights shoulder, met Aaron’s eyes and raised her eyes brows as of saying, ‘he’s crazy’.

Finally, Insight stopped and exhaled. “Okay. Let’s make a what we know vs what we assume list, alright?”

“You’re obsessed with him.” Blaze said as a way of agreeing with him, she sat down next to him and brought a knee to her chest. Aaron followed suit and sat on the arm of the small couch.

“So here’s what we know,” Insight began to write in blue ink as he spoke, “We know that Black Magic is connected to someone who has wolves in the city. We assume that this guy is an enemy to us, given that Crimson and Obscurity looked to the wolves for backup went things went south for them yesterday.” He stopped speaking and finished writing. Insight flicked his pen on and off a few times before continuing, “Because Black Magic fought off Anti- G, publicly mind you, this could potentially mean that Anti- G could be working with Obscurity and Crimson. Which would be a major issue, considering we don’t nearly have enough of a team to defend against all three of them.” Blaze nodded along as he spoke.

Aaron hadn’t considered the possibility that Obscurity and Anti- G might be working together. It would be a nightmare for him if he ever had to face both of them at once. There were criminals in the city, thieves and robbers, then there were what could only be described as villains; people with superpowers who used it for ‘evil’, committing crimes that never went past kidnapping. There weren’t any supervillains, and with the development of Crimson and Obscurity working together, it was alarming. Villains didn’t listen to anybody, they did what they wanted when they wanted. But now there was a possibility of a higher threat above them, a supervillain. A supervillain with killer wolves to be exact.

“Doesn’t this officially mean that Black Magic isn’t a threat to us?” Golden Defender asked and his mouth was twitching up into a small smile. Insight groaned.

He ran his hands through his hair, which was uncharacteristically not gelled and spiky as it usually was. This whole thing must have got to him pretty bad. “We can assume that. It’s not official.” He closed his eyes and sat back, but he didn’t write it down. “If he was fighting Anti- G and Anti- G may he potentially working with Obscurity. . . well I guess it’s safe to assume what side he’s on.” Insight said it more to himself than any of us. He reopened his eyes and scribbled something down on his page. “Alright, what else?”

“Black Magic knows something about the hierarchy of villains that we don’t.” Blaze said.

Insight raised an eyebrow at that. He wrote it down under the ‘What we assume’ column, Blaze glared at him when he did that.

“We know that! It’s not assuming if it’s true.” She declared, snatching the pen up from Insight she drew an arrow over to the first column.

Insight matched her glare and stole his pen back, “We’re only assuming that Obscurity’s  and his buddies are working for a higher power. For all we know we could be totally wrong and there is no hierarchy.”

Aaron sighed and the two of them looked over at him. This was usually how it went, they’d bicker, Aaron would come up with a plan to appease both of them, then they’d go on their merry way. He thought fast.

“Hierarchy or not, somethings changing with the villains,” He paused, thinking if he should say what was on his mind. Aaron caved. “Black Magic definitely has something to do with it, we need to find him. Only after that can we confirm our suspicions and make an action plan.”

Insight nodded in agreement with Golden Defender, his emotions of stress were starting to melt a little. Blaze pouted a little, huffing and leaning back against the couch again.

“What else before I put this away?” He asked.

“Crimsons power has something to do with water manipulation,” Aaron said, Insight cocked his head slightly. He wasn’t at the battle and didn’t see the mounds of fog that rolled down the street, “He only used his power after Obscurity tripped the sprinklers in the bank, and even after that he chose to make fog and run instead of use the water to fight.” He explained.

Insight bit the end of his pen and sighed. Blaze looked troubled, his superpower drew concern from deep corners of her brain. If this was true then Crimsons power would be eerily similar to hers, water manipulation vs. fire manipulation. But something about sticking the water manipulation label on Crimson felt wrong, the story felt too incomplete to do anything. This was the first time they’d ever seen Crimson and the first time they’d ever run into someone with similar superpowers as them (they didn’t count Anti- G as similar to Golden Defender, just because they could both float things didn’t mean they were similar).

Blaze hummed then spoke, “His power might not be water manipulation then. What about vapor manipulation?” She asked the question more to Golden than Insight.

It provided an easy explanation, but it certainly didn’t calm Aaron’s uneasy nerves about him.

“I guess that makes sense. Write it under what we assume.” Golden Defender told him, he gave a thumbs up and scribbled it down.

“Anything else?” Insight asked. He didn’t let anybody respond before flipping to another clean page and said, “Nothing? Good. Let’s find Black Magic.”

Turns out, finding a cloaked vigilante that seems to be invisible (Blaze said there was a potential that was his superpower, Aaron didn’t think so) was almost physically impossible. Aaron had tuned up his police scanner to see if anything was there to draw him out, but all they got was a cat stuck in a tree (he doubted Black Magic would respond to that) and an electrical fire that was dealt with by the fire department. There was nothing, no mysterious cloaked figure spotted or no crime big enough for him to show or for any of them to show. Blaze dug into her bag and got out a laptop, it was small in size and looked really cheap as if she had purchased it specifically for her superhero endeavors. She booted it up and scoured the internet for sitings of him.

There had to be something different about the Anti- G fight that drew him out enough for him to actually be seen, Aaron thought. And, he had never gone after a villain before Anti- G. Black Magic only went after criminals, stopping thieves from the shadows. The girl, who had originally posted the video to the CSA website, had gone completely radio silent. She gave zero statements as to what he looked like or where he went afterwards. Tamara had thought about reaching out to her to get an inside scoop, but she figured Magistas news outlet got to her already. Things were changing within, and they all had to keep up.

It didn’t hurt to try, though. “Have you tried the CSA website?” Aaron asked Blaze, he scooted closer to her laptop. She was looking at an article posted on some random blog, it didn’t say anything that they didn’t already know.

“Uh, no, I haven’t. Good call, I’ll do that.” Blaze said. She went a little stiff at the mention of the website but Aaron wasn’t looking at her.

She typed in the website name as Insight walked over behind the couch to see over her shoulder, they were all quiet with the police scanner providing white noise from time to time.

“Isn’t that where the video originated?” She asked after she pulled up the website. Blaze went straight to the forums and typed in the keywords ‘Black Magic’. Over 800 posts and comments popped up, Aaron tried not to smile. He’d have to tell Tamara later about all the new users and posts later, even if he was sure she already knew. Man, she would flip if she knew the superheroes were using her website.

“Yeah.”

Her face was illuminated by the screen of her laptop, she clicked on a thread that was talking about Black Magic and a girl named G0Ld1LocksD3f. She was the one who uploaded the video. Blazes face scrunched up in thought when she started reading it and she angled it so that Insight and him could too.

—Where is G0Ld1LocksD3f?

{maidsofjustice} So we all know abt Goldis disappearance from the forums and ik were all sad rn because of but have we thought to ask why she left? This was easily her ticket to fame, could Black Magic have threatened her? Could he not be the hero we all thought he was?

{insightsleftfoot} ikr! this was really unusual for her to just leave like that. she was always trying to get her posts and vids to blow up and as soon as she reached NUMBER 1 SPOTS all around the country she dipped

{maidsofjustice} I hope she’s okay.  I’m gonna say innocent till proven guilty though. I’m not giving up on him till we can even find him….

There was more to that thread, but it got off topic quick and was old— dated to right after the Anti- G fight. It wouldn’t do them good to dwell on it considering it didn’t take the new information into account. He angled the laptop back to Blaze and thought. Aaron wanted to doubt the possibility of him threatening someone, but it was hard not to. He didn’t know anything about Black Magic, so how was he supposed to accurately assess if he was a threat or not?

Aaron couldn’t read emotions from across a screen, and he certainly couldn’t read emotions in four seconds either. He heard Insight quietly write something in his notebook.

“We still sure that he’s on our side?” He asked it smugly. Blaze scowled and sighed.

She kept going. Her eyes flicked rapidly as she read around the website, she filtered the forums into recently uploaded. That sped the process along faster. Some of them were obviously click baited titles like ‘GOLDEN DEFENDER AND BLACK MAGIC SPOTTED TOGETHER??????!!!!!!??’ but some were intriguing, ‘Black Magic breakdown and analysis’, and ‘potential new street view camera footage of BM’.

Neither held answers. Everybody knew as much as they did about Black Magic, except— except when they came across a different forum. One that Blaze and him ignored but Insight leaned across the couch to click on.

“What?” She asked and looked up at him as he took control of the mouse. His mouth was in a thin line and his brows were furrowed.

Insight took the laptop from her and propped it on his lap instead, “I just got whipped with Deja Vu.” Just like Aaron, sometimes his power slipped and he used it subconsciously. Aaron swallowed nervously, him and Blaze looked at eachother. “What the hell. . .?" His face scrunched up in concentration. "You guys should read it, it doesn’t make sense to me.” He angled it towards them.

—Black Magic & Anti- G

{SocksAnd_Scribbles} This is such a long shot but I was wondering if anybody had been to the warehouse since Anti- G vs. Black Magic, the police dept refuses to release anything except some suspicious photos that look horribly staged and they’re not letting anybody in or out. Not even Golden Defender!! Or any of the other supers

{strangemoonlightnights} Now I personally haven’t ever been to the warehouse but even looking on google maps shows that the  layout of the warehouse doesn’t match the one shown in the police photos they’re definitely keeping things from us

{HuckleberryH1tch} Yup yup! The warehouses are completely different, the rafters on the police report one are way too low to be the warehouse they fought in based on the camera angle from the videos. My husband is an architect btw and could probably get the blueprints to confirm

{halfbrainhalfheart} RE [SocksAnd_Scribbles]: i’ve been to the warehouse since then.

Aaron stopped reading. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t have been. Halfbrainhalfheart was definitely not one of Tamara’s test accounts. She definitely hadn’t swapped account details with Call after lunch. This post was definitely not dated to a few hours ago.

But it was, it was really, really real and Call wasn’t lying when he said he went there. But how did he even get in? The Chief-Of-Police refused the superheroes access to the building, something so unusual because they were their heroes. Could they even trust the police now? Aaron eyed the police scanner sitting on the table. He kept reading with a sour taste in his mouth.

{SocksAnd_Scribbles} RE [halfbrainhalfheart] Really? Do you have any photos? This would be such a big break in the case.

{halfbrainhalfheart} [ATTACHED THREE PHOTOS]

(Photo ID: Image one is two walls are caved in on eachother, debris are strewn about the room. Image two is a shattered window, next to it is a spray painted insignia of a dove with an arrow through it. Image three is taken from the rafters where the video was shot, etched into the ground says ‘Goldi was here’ and half a hand with painted nails is seen pointing to it. Photo ID end.)

{SocksAnd_Scribbles} HOLY SHIT DUDE!!!!! Can @strangemoonlightnights or anybody else confirm if this is real??

{strangemoonlightnights} I was @? And yes, this definitely seems real. It matches up directly with the photos on Maps taken a few months ago. Halfheart how did you get in?? They’ve got that placed guarded to the max

{halfbrainhalfheart} they didn’t right after. it was a solid forty or so till the cops got called to the scene afterwards and anti-g + black magic left. also goldi is perfectly fine imo she just might be under contract w a lawyer to not speak on it after the vid

{SocksAnd_Scribbles} You were with Goldi? Did you see Black Magic???

{halfbrainhalfheart} no and no. i went after because anti- g was running like a mad man on rooftops near 16th street where i was at

{HuckleberryH1tch} You don’t know how much this means to us!! You’re a real saint also btw why were you on rooftops lol

{halfbrainhalfheart} ;)

Blaze blinked and Golden Defenders mouth was hung agape. They all were stunned into silence. Insight grabbed the laptop and set it down on the table in front of them, his face was grim.

“So we know this,” He said, flipping the page in his notebook back to lists they made prior, “The police lied to us. What we can assume? Someone within the force is teamed up with Wolf Boy or Anti- G or someone.” He wrote hastily.

"Don't call them Wolf Boy." Blaze rolled her eyes. "It could be a Wolf Girl."

Call had been to the warehouse, he wanted to say, Call had seen Anti- G. But he couldn’t, there was a potential to reveal his identity if he did.

“If anyone is teaming up with the villains, it’s Police Chief Jericho.” Blaze said, “He was the one that made the call to not let us inside the building.”

She leaned forward and squinted her eyes to get a better look at the laptop. Aarons sure he looked the same right then, his head had started to throb as he read it. Note to self, don’t trust suspicious emo boys who sleep during Biology, he thought to himself. 

But there’s something else nagging at him, like he’s walked into a room and can’t quite remember what he’s in there for. Itching at the edge of his brain. It’s his— his power. He's getting worse at recognizing it. 

Alarms go off in Aaron’s head as he tries to look deeper into his brain, someone’s in danger, someone needs help, someone is scared and confused. Someone needs Golden Defender. His head pounds more, pressure building up in the back of it. He gulps and looked over at the rest of the team, Insight was pacing and Blaze was rereading it again.

“Maybe let’s get in contact with this mystery boy.” Blaze said.

”Why are you always assuming that they're guys?”

”Oh, shush.”

”Guys?” They look over at him, the action of simply speaking was enough to make his jaw hurt and ache, ”Guys. There’s something happening.” 

The police scanner in front of them went off, different voices, some male, some female starting to fill the void of empty noise. Blaze snatched it off the table and turned it up. It didn’t matter because Aaron didn’t need it, he simply picked up his feet and ran. As fast as they would take him. He ran quick past the farmers market and down under abandoned bridges where teenagers went to smoke and drink. It wasn’t his head taking him, no, now it was his whole body. He couldn’t stop the onslaught of intense fear and confusion flooding his veins. He hoped the team followed him as he ran onto the streets and near Old Colonial Bridge.

Aaron was out of breath and the overwhelming sense of fear was nauseating him, he knew why now. Blaze and Insight weren’t too far behind him, both panting and looking frightened by Aaron’s sudden run out. 

Anti- G.

Cars floated on the bridge and the people in them dangled out, screaming. If that wasn’t enough though, bits and pieces of the street hung in the air as the gravity around it was flipped. The road flung and twisted, smashing and destroying things around it. The partly cloudy day made it all seem even more sinister, the setting sun blocked by angry gray clouds.

In the center of it all was Anti- G himself, floating and bouncing in his stupid neon green cape. He looked chipper and was laughing as he dangled a screaming girl out from her car by changing the gravity around him. Aaron felt sick. He lunged and grabbed the civilian who fell out of the car, he set her on the ground. She looked frightened, and she was shivering.

From beside him Blaze struck a match against the pavement and morphed the fire that formed from it into a ball. She shot it outwards into a flurry of red and yellow, and it hit Anti- G in the back. Aaron felt a sick feeling of happiness as he squirmed, falling to the floor and twisting in pain.

After making ash angels on the pavement he stood up, fury was burning in his eyes as he whipped around to face the heroes. 

He sneered, “Look who’s finally here.” Anti- G was floating in the air again, the things around him were floating as well,  and bounced aggressively towards them. He stuck the landing dramatically on a car, when he made contact the metal under him screeched. He looked up, satisfied. “I’m making a scene!” 

“We see that.” Insight grumbled and stuck out his fists.

Just like that, Anti- G sighed boredly and flicked his wrists summoning his power again. Blaze tried and failed to get out of his line of power, but it was too late. Aaron felt his stomach rise to his throat as he was lifted off the ground, unwillingly his limbs flailed a bit. Insight yelped. The car Anti-G had landed on and the ones around it were in the air too, he laughed as he watched them scramble around.

He kicked the car and it went flying towards Insight, he rolled as it went full speed at him.  Blaze lit a match against her teeth and swam through the air with a new ball of fire towards Anti- G. Her lighter fluid would be useless right now, it would all just float in the air like oil in water. Since her power was controlled solely by her, it wasn’t effected by his attempt to flip their world upside down. This time, he was smarter and jumped out of the way before she could hit him, in the process he dropped his bubble of anti gravity and Aaron tumbled to the ground. He winced as he landed on his shoulder, then rolled to dodge a dislodged street sign falling to the ground.

Aaron jumped up from the ground and swung a left hook at Anti- G’s jaw as soon as he got close enough. He stumbled back and put a hand to his face. He had an incredible power that he had incredible control over, his weakness, however, was physical contact.

Anti- G was skinny and looked malnourished, Aaron could tell he had little combat training and the combat training he had wouldn’t be adequate to fight against him and win. Especially since Aaron had atleast 20 pounds of muscle on him.

Still, in a dazed rage Anti- G flung himself at Aaron. He landed two good punches as he swung, trying to kick his knee in as he punched wildly at his head. Aaron ducked under his punch as he tackled him to the ground, rolling on the hard pavement. As he had him pinned by his shoulders to the ground, Anti- G took the opportunity to knee him in the stomach (ouch) and flip gravity again (uh oh).

Aaron felt himself stumble back and get lifted off the ground. Anti- G kicked him in the teeth with a hard boot, but Aaron caught his leg and air tackled him. Which was admittedly pretty awkward, it was less of a tackle and more of a prolonged hug that was too aggressive.

He heard a loud war cry and screeching metal thumps as someone hopped from car to car towards them. Anti- G was whacked upside the head by Insight with a steel bar that looked as if it was stolen off a street sign. 

“Let him go!” Insight seethed. Next to him Blaze floated down from where she had been flying earlier, another ball of fire danced between her hands. 

“Augh—“ Anti- G groaned, and then his face twisted into anger, “Now why would I do that? Imagine around the city, how many people would watch their precious hero dangle from a bridge?” He pointed with his head, not taking his eyes off them, “You’ve got your fans to watch.” A news van was positioned at the end of the bridge, two cameras were pointed directly at the battle. Aaron sighed.

Dangle from a bridge? Aaron thought nervously as he looked at the mischief in Anti- G’s eyes. Someone was telling him that he definitely would follow through on his threat. 

The gravity fell again and Aaron tackled (really tackled this time) Anti- G to the ground. It shocked Aaron, considering he was expecting to be hurtled off a bridge. He wasn’t unconscious, just dazed and confused. He fell with a loud, dull lump against the concrete.

Aaron pinned his arm behind his back and Anti- G squirmed under him, Blaze put her boot on his neck and he squirmed even more. Alas, he was unable to break free of his grip and he heaved a very heavy sigh. 

Then he laughed.

It was an odd sound and it sounded cracked and strange considering Blazes boot was on his throat. But it was definitely a sound. Insight was creeping over, fists at the ready. Blaze looked throughly confused and put more pressure on her boot, it caused Anti- G to cough and choke.

”You’re all—“ He coughed and coughed, Aaron felt his bony body twitch from under him. He was getting kind of worried he might choke to death. Aaron motioned for Blaze to let off some pressure and she did so with a scowl. “You’re all idiots.” Anti- G rasped out, “I have you right where I want to.” He looked over his shoulder, well as much as he could, with cold blue eyes.

When Aaron felt glee and anticipation radiate off him, he knew he messed up then. He knew he messed up real bad. 

The gravity flipped again, abruptly and quickly. He lost his grip on Anti- G as he pushed off the ground and got punched. Aaron felt himself get spun upside down and kicked in the stomach. He was soaring through the air, and though he couldn’t see, he assumed towards the edge of the bridge. 

“Golden Defender!” Blaze screeched, she was running madly towards him, but she could barely dodge the onslaught of debris that Anti- G was throwing at her. 

Anti- G caught the edge of Aaron’s costume , his heart was beating wildly in his chest as his legs dangled off the edge of the bridge. The water below him was deeper than deep, and it hung almost completely still. If he were to drop then it would be like falling 7 stories onto straight concrete. He may as well jump off a building. If the fall from the bridge didn’t kill him he was sure that the drowning that came after sure would. 

“Now, now Golden Defender, what will you do now?” Anti- G smiled wickedly, he kept the gravity flipped around him still, “You’ve got two choices, fall to or death or. . . nevermind, only one choice; fall to your death.” 

“What do you want from us?” He choked out, his throat was constricted with fear and hie eyes kept darting to the water below him. 

Anti- G looked as if he was going to laugh, but he didn’t. He just pushed Aaron further and let go of the collar of his shirt, letting him float over the water. “What do I want? I want fame and attention. I want to be a supervillain. I want to see you dead!” 

“Anti- G, please. You can do this—“

”Shut the hell up!” He spat, “You talk too much.”

"That can't be all you want." Aaron coughed and tried to fight back. Which Anti- G quickly shut down, loosening his grip on Aaron. He felt himself fall a little.

He was still flinging things around him, but Insight and Blaze were gaining on him fast. Anti- G bit his lip and seemed to put his hand to his ear, as if there was something in it. Like a communication device, an ear piece, something that the team used themselves. He made out a few ‘uh huh’s and ‘but dad’, and even one ‘i’ll do it’. Then he smirked and dropped hie hand away from his ear.

Anti- G turned to him the and gave a sickly sweet smile, “Bye, bye; Golden Defender.” He waved.

Aaron felt the air around him go thin and flat, he knew at that moment, Anti- G was flipping the gravity again. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then he fell. Air was loud in his ears as he soared towards the water, his heart returned to his throat as butterflies entered his body. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t use his stupid power because he couldn’t levitate himself. 

This was it, he thought, this is how I die. 

The murky blue water was approached fast, he tried to move his body so he would land in a position  that might not kill him. But it didn’t matter, he was panicking and he knew he couldn’t move fast enough to do that.  This was it. Thiswasitthiswasit— 

. . .

Hands grabbed at his waist and he heard someone skip across the water like a stone. Aaron opened his eyes a crack to see gloved hands holding up his legs and supporting his neck. Someone— whoever it was because it certainly wasn’t a member of the team— was holding Aaron bridal style and soaring through the air again and up towards the bridge. He didn’t care who it was, he was just happy to be alive. It could be a damn supervillain saving his life right then and he would still be grateful.

He opened his eyes wider and saw the great blue water below him, getting farther and farther and— was he flying? Aaron tilted his head up and didn’t see much, only a hooded half face with one half being covered with a bandit style mask. 

When they reached the ground level of bridge, he resisted the urge to leap out of his (he assumed the person carrying him was a guy because of the way his arms felt, but he could be wrong) grip and kiss the ground. He didn’t do it, he just stumbled out of his grip and wobbled over to Blaze would looked deeply frightened and furious at the same time.

”He did this, all this— and just, just,” She threw her hands up into the air and gestured around her. It was desolate with no people, but the bridge was practically destroyed and looked as if it was going to fall any minute. Aaron really didn’t want to go through all that again. Anti- G was gone and all he left was a mess. “Who’re you?” Blaze asked finally after a beat of silence, then her eyes narrowed and she stepped back, taking Aaron with her.

Insight wasn’t too far behind, he scowled and leaned forward, ready to attack at any moment. “You’re— you’re—“ 

Aaron couldn’t tell if he was mad or if he was confused, because Aaron was a little confused. The guy in front of them was no taller than 5’8” and looked as if he was starved, he was wearing a floor length cloak and even though that covered most of him, skin tight clothes and leather pants (Leather pants!) peeked our from underneath it. His eyes were killing him, pale, moonlit silvers eyes bore into Aaron’s skull.

When he thought about him like that, some scrawny kid, he didn’t seem all that threatening, but then again, if he had seen Anti- G or Obscurity on the streets he definitely wouldn’t have seen them as threatening.

Aaron tuned in his powers, he felt annoyance radiating off the mystery guy and lord, that was a lot of fear he felt coming from Insight. If he had looked over, he would’ve seen risen, shaking fists. Blaze lit a match and had her lighter fluid in her left hand, Aaron shifted his weight from one leg to another but it was no use; even if he tried to fight he was too shaken to do anything.

Mystery Guy held up his hands and backed away as Blaze stalked forwards, he stood precariously close to the edge as she pointed the match at him and held the lighter fluid close. 

When he reached the edge, he stood up straighter and looked Blaze in the eye. A thrilling stand off.

”My name is Black Magic.” He said.