by Logan Jacobs
I had to agree with the part about her being too nervous, and she definitely lacked confidence, but it annoyed me to hear them disregard her abilities. She mostly just seemed untrained and like she was hesitant to hurt anything. If she trained, practiced, and got over her fears and unwillingness to cause harm for good reasons, she could probably be very strong, especially if her powers were used correctly.
“Your power doesn’t suck,” I said. “The Wardens are only looking for flashy powers. Something that’ll help them show off more. Just because your power isn’t a big explosion cannon or superstrength or something doesn’t make you useless.”
“You’re just being nice,” Penumbra said with a sad smile. “I wasn’t ever good enough for the Shadow Knight, either. He always told me I was useless, too. He yelled at me all the time, and he even made me cry once. I was super surprised when he called me out to help you guys, but I guess it’s a really big deal! He never would have let me join, otherwise, and I had a lot of fun.”
I glanced around the ruined mall because I didn’t think this was the kind of thing she’d consider to be fun at all. In fact, she had seemed afraid and miserable the entire fight.
“Have you ever tried to levitate something other than yourself?” I asked.
“No,” my blonde partner replied. “I’ve never tried anything like that.”
I looked around at the remaining pieces of the Golem that were scattered around the mall, and I pointed to the closest one.
“Here, try lifting this,” I suggested.
“What?” she exclaimed. “Like, with my powers?”
“Yeah, just try it,” I said again.
Penumbra took a hesitant step forward and reached out to try to touch the rock arm. She brushed it with the tips of her fingers and closed her eyes to focus. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then the rock arm started to twitch and shiver. It shook against the ground until the blonde pulled her arm back. She stared down at the now-still pile of rocks in shock, as though she couldn’t comprehend what she’d nearly managed to do.
“I’ve never done that before,” she gasped as she looked down at her hands. “I think-- well, maybe I’m not just capable of making something’s mass lighter, but I can make it heavier, too.”
“See?” I had already guessed that might be the case. “You aren’t useless. You just need to practice learning what your powers do and how they can help you.”
“Maybe I can make myself heavier too,” she said. “That way, I could punch like you do!”
“Or take a punch,” I agreed. “It’ll make you a lot less fragile in a fight, so you won’t need to be so nervous.”
It was like it hadn’t ever occurred to her to try out her powers like that, but I couldn’t blame her since her superhero idols so far had been the image-obsessed Wardens and the self-absorbed Shadow Knight, who didn’t have powers and definitely didn’t have the patience to train anyone with a method that wasn’t his usual one.
“Miles could probably help you,” I said after a brief moment of hesitation, since I didn’t really want her to spend any time with my playboy lover. “He builds suits that help boost superpowers. He built mine, and I bet he could figure out something for you, too. It’d be better than, uh...”
I stopped myself before I could comment on her completely pointless costume and offend her, but Penumbra just laughed.
“It doesn’t really provide a lot of protection,” she admitted. “It’s just for show. The Shadow Knight wouldn’t let me use any of his cool stuff because he didn’t want to bother making anything new to fit me-- but do you really think Miles would?”
She sounded hopeful, with a starry-eyed look that made me half-regret bringing up Miles in the first place. Still, there were still more supervillains out there to capture. If we were teamed together to go up against more than just barely sentient rock monsters, I needed her to be a capable partner. And if anyone could help turn her into a real hero, it was Miles.
“Yup,” I said. “We can ask him after we drop this guy off.”
I bent down to pick up the rock arm that she hadn’t been able to lift successfully and placed it into a nearby shopping cart. Then I dusted off my hands and looked around the destroyed mall so I could see if we’d missed anything. I’d piled more pieces of him on top of the main body, so he wouldn’t move or crawl away before the prison staff could come collect him.
Of course, I made sure to keep the core from breaking. I didn’t think I would be the one to break our promise against the Shadow Knight, even if I couldn’t see the point in keeping a practically mindless rock golem alive. I hoped Miles was still holding up his end of the bargain. He worried me, but I trusted him.
“Alright, ready?” I asked Penumbra.
“Sure thing,” the blonde said cheerfully.
I contacted Aileen over our earpieces to alert her to our successful capture, and she said she would send a truck over to pick up the Golem’s pieces. If Penumbra couldn’t levitate him, I wasn’t about to push rock-filled shopping carts all the way back to the overflow prison. There was a limit even to my strength and stamina.
“Hey, um,” Penumbra giggled, “so can I ask Miles about that threesome, or--”
“No,” I cut her off immediately.
It was going to be a long wait for the truck to arrive.
Chapter 5
By the time we arrived back at my mansion, Elizabeth and Penumbra were already situated on the couch. They seemed to be deep in conversation as we entered, still clad in our damp supersuits, but their attention immediately turned to us.
“Wow, you guys must have had it rough,” Elizabeth commented, and her turquoise eyes turned sympathetic as they locked onto mine.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” I smirked.
Norma headed over to greet the two on the couch since she’d avoided getting soaked, and Beacon hopped up to sit on one of the bar stools in front of the built-in bar.
The main living room of my mansion was spacious and open, with several couches, multiple screens, and a bar in the corner that I made sure was stocked with the highest quality whiskey. There was nothing like a good drink after a solid day’s work, and I, of course, had exceptional taste in whiskey. After we’d cleaned up a few more supervillains together, maybe I would consider pouring a glass for Beacon.
Provided he continued to prove himself as a decent asset to the team, anyway.
“How’d you guys do?” Norma asked.
“Badly,” Penumbra sighed as she leaned her face against her hand.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Elizabeth said. “We did fine, really. Penumbra had a bit of a hard time at first, but she got over it.”
“I was so useless!” Penumbra cried. “If only someone could help me learn to use my powers better, maybe with a special suit…”
I met Elizabeth’s exasperated gaze and tried not to grin back at her. It was now obvious to me what she’d suggested Penumbra do, but the poor girl was terrible at being subtle about it.
But hey, I’d bite.
“Levitation powers, right?” I asked as I approached the back of the couch and rested my arms against it.
Penumbra immediately turned fully around to face me so she sat with her knees up on the couch and her hands on top of mine. She rubbed her thumb idly in circles against my arm.
“Yes!” she chirped as she lowered her eyelids and fluttered her lashes. “You remembered.”
Elizabeth exhaled in a low, restrained groan as she raised a hand to rub at her temples.
“Of course, I did,” I purred just so Elizabeth would roll her eyes at me.
“We learned that she can levitate not just herself, but also objects if she comes into contact with them,” Elizabeth said as she shifted herself to sit sideways so she could watch Penumbra and me. “We also learned it’s not necessarily levitation, but that she can manipulate the mass of herself and anything she comes into contact with, so she can make anything lighter or heavier.”
“But I
can’t do it very well,” the blonde admitted. “It’s kind of hard for me to control, but Dynamo said you could help me with your technology. She says you’re amazing.”
“I am,” I snickered, “but what about the Shadow Knight? Didn’t he give you any technology to enhance your abilities?”
“He only gave her basic training,” Elizabeth replied. “No technology specific to her powers.”
It still amused me that the Shadow Knight kept his technology so close to the vest. If he wasn’t going to use it to help his allies fight crime, what was he ever going to use it for? Slade Technologies wasn’t even that advanced. Sure, they were better than the average tech company, but nowhere near my level. He had no reason to keep everything so secretive beyond his obsessive paranoia.
“Nothing specialized, huh?” I asked as I thought over my leftover tech experiments and old suits that I’d long since made upgraded versions of. “I think I have something that could work for you. Let me go check.”
I left the three girls on the couch and headed down into my basement to dig through the old renditions of my suits. Based on what I already knew of Penumbra’s powers and Elizabeth’s explanation, I thought she would benefit from some strength enhancement gauntlets. A slight adjustment to an outdated pair of Elizabeth’s gloves would probably do nicely. They were a basic pair of power-up gloves that boosted my superpowered girlfriend’s punches, so they could easily be adjusted to do the same for Penumbra.
On their own, her powers were already incredible, but she didn’t have nearly enough confidence to utilize them properly. If I had time to train her, she could probably be quite effective, but even just gloves that gave her a bit of super strength might make her more confident. I was interested to see if she could unlock her own potential that way.
I made a few basic changes to the gloves that took me no time at all, and then I headed upstairs to rejoin the girls and Beacon.
By the time I got back upstairs, however, the Shadow Knight and the Silver Squire had finally arrived. The Shadow Knight still had his mask on, even though I thought it was ridiculous that he insisted on wearing it even inside the privacy of my mansion, but then again, it wasn’t like he seemed at home in my place. Both he and his apprentice still lingered in the foyer rather than joining the girls on the couch or Beacon at the bar.
“Bit late to the party, aren’t you?” I joked as I shut the door to the basement behind me.
“We stopped to make sure the new prison’s security system was up and running,” the Shadow Knight responded with a gruff voice as he glared at me through his mask.
“And how is it?” I asked, since I was curious how much he’d tell me about it.
“Working as intended,” he replied, and then after a moment’s pause, he continued, “I also began the necessary arrangements for you and your assistant to improve it as you deem fit.”
“Norma?” I called out to her to get her attention from the living room. “How are those plans coming?”
“Just perfectly,” my mousy assistant said as she came into the foyer to join us with her tablet clutched to her chest.
“Are the upgrades to Slade’s security system ready?” I asked, and I saw the Shadow Knight tense at the implication that I was “upgrading” his tech rather than just “adjusting” it.
Wait till he saw what it would really do.
“Of course,” Norma said with a confident smile. “Everything is ready to be implemented. We might need to make some minor changes when we get there, but nothing too crazy.”
“Good,” I said and then turned back to Slade. “When can we access it?”
The Shadow Knight ground his teeth together. He still clearly didn’t like the fact that I was allowed to look at his systems at all, but that had been part of the terms of our agreement. He couldn’t break his side of the bargain any more than I could splatter the skull of an escaped villain.
“Shortly,” he replied in his forced gruff voice.
“You’ll have to let me know when,” I said.
“I will,” Slade grunted.
“And you made sure to capture the Toxinator, too, right?” I demanded.
“Obviously,” the Shadow Knight growled.
“Yeah!” the Silver Squire chimed in. “We actually caught up to him real quickly. I mean, after we went to the right place, since we started off--”
“There was a minor mix-up with directions,” his feathered mentor cut him off before he could say what their issue had been.
Of course, I already knew what the issue was. The Shadow Knight had gone to the corporate lab he’d assumed the Toxinator would be at based on his past heists, but Aileen had used a prediction algorithm to calculate a much more likely location, based on his trajectory away from the prison, the location of his past heists, and the coordinates of any chemical laboratories in the area.
But even though it was a waste of time to assume he’d just go back to the same place, the Shadow Knight had rejected Aileen’s coordinates out of spite and decided to go somewhere else first. I could only hope that it drove the point home that my methods worked way better than his did, but I doubted it.
“Um, yeah,” the Silver Squire said finally. “It was pretty easy for us, other than-- other than that, I mean.”
“I’m sure,” I replied.
Then I pushed my way past Slade and back to the couch to deliver the gauntlets to Penumbra, while Norma followed along right behind me. The knight and his squire followed us, too, but I knew it was only because we still had to pick our next targets together. We might have all been successful this time, but there were still plenty of supervillains still out there.
Still, I figured we could afford to take a short break.
“Here, try these on,” I told the thin blonde.
Penumbra clapped her hands together and accepted the gloves that I held out to her. She started to float a few inches above the couch as she slipped my technology over her slender wrists, and since her arms weren’t as toned with lean muscle as Elizabeth’s were, the gloves were a little loose despite my hasty adjustments. My girlfriend helped the other woman secure them around her wrists, and I figured it was a good enough fit, at least for a test run.
“So, what should I do with them?” Penumbra asked me as she fluttered her eyelashes again.
“These will give you improved strength,” I explained, “so you can be a little more like Dynamo. Why don’t you try to lift something you wouldn’t normally be able to?”
Although her powers should allow her to do that without the need for super strength gauntlets, I hoped that an extra boost of strength might help her to realize her own potential.
I looked around for something she could test out the gloves on that wouldn’t destroy my new living room. A pillow was obviously too light, but the entire couch would make a huge, annoying mess if she dropped it, or worse. My eyes settled on a basic marble statue that was a much smaller replica of a Greek sculpture. It had been part of the original mansion’s design that I’d chosen to keep rather than get rid of. The marble statue would probably break if she dropped it, but I wasn’t too attached to it.
Of course, I also didn’t want her to fling it accidentally into my cache of whiskey next to the bar, but I guessed that she had to start somewhere.
“Try that,” I gestured toward the statue. “See if you can lift it up over your head.”
I could feel the Shadow Knight’s eyes on my back as Penumbra headed over to the statue near the foyer. She stared at it for a moment and then glanced hesitantly at me. With a cocked smile, I gave her a nod of encouragement. She sure needed a lot of validation, but I figured that was probably a side effect of being trained by the surly Shadow Knight.
“Go for it,” I said. “Just be careful not to fling it around. If you break any of my equipment, you’re paying for it.”
The blonde gave a nervous laugh in response, breathed in deeply, and then began to focus.
Since I had no superpowers of my own, I had no
real idea what it felt like to use natural-born powers. My powers were created by me, specialized personally for me, and I knew exactly how to make them work, so it was mildly interesting to watch Penumbra struggle with powers she should be used to. Even Elizabeth’s abilities came to her as naturally as breathing, but Penumbra seemed like she had only learned about hers that morning.
“Are you sure about this?” Penumbra asked as she ran her fingers across the marble statue. “It seems pretty expensive.”
“Nothing I can’t replace,” I shrugged, because even if I had cared about the statue, a replacement wouldn’t have even made a dent in my funds. “Give it a try.”
The blonde bombshell breathed in as she flexed the gauntlets’ fingers again. She seemed focused, so I let her have a moment to work up her confidence first. Although she seemed to hesitate on where she should pick up the statue, she knelt down and grabbed it by the base. The gauntlets enhanced enough of her strength to allow her to pick it up with only a slight struggle, and I knew that was a feat all on its own, considering her lack of muscle mass.
With several adjustments and a lot of focus, she was able to lift the entire statue over her head.
“Amazing,” Penumbra whispered in awe at her own newfound strength.
“Congratulations, you now have super strength,” I said with a smile.
“It feels amazing,” she said as she blushed deeply. “But what if I…”
As she trailed off, her brows knit together as she focused, and then the blonde adjusted her weight to one side and slowly repositioned herself so that she held up the statue with only one hand.
“I can manipulate it like this, and make it even lighter,” she said as she adjusted her footing again. “Super strength is really useful.”
The gauntlets had allowed her to pick up something she wouldn’t normally have been able to, so they had already boosted her confidence and allowed her to think outside the box, so I considered the equipment to be a moderate success for now. I’d have to ask Elizabeth later how her own gloves helped her perform in battles, but I was feeling optimistic about Penumbra’s abilities.