by R. J. Ross
"What just happened?" I ask, but it comes out funny. I start laughing, just because I feel like it. I try and take a step forward, only to trip and fall flat on my face.
"Compensating for gas," I hear from my arm cuff. Something changes and I take a deep breath as the world goes back into focus. I seem to be the only one that's fixed, though, because most of the kids around me are either on their back or their face, sound asleep or giggling like idiots. Even Max is lying on the ground, singing a little song to himself with a strange, unsettling smile on his face.
I look around for Taurus, seeing him in the distance watching with an amused look on his face. He must have run when Zoe said to.
I start forward, still not used to the whirling noise that came with each step, and stop at the sight of the black cat from earlier. It doesn't look like a house cat, I realize, crouching down next to it. In fact, it looks a lot like a panther cub. It turns to me as I get closer, staring at me with slightly crossed eyes and going, "Myowr?" It--no, SHE--paws at me a bit wildly, then glares when she doesn't hit me, moving into a sloppy crouch before leaping forward--and missing again. "Ryoowr!" she says.
"'Daannnaaa," Sunny says, crawling over to us. "Stop attacking the cyborg." He grabs for the panther, missing just as badly as she missed me.
I hear two girls giggling and look over to the right, seeing Emily wrestling with... herself? I had no clue she was a duplicator! But it's really funny when you realize that Trent is half-heartedly trying to break them up. "Stop fighting," he says, tugging at one only to have her pulled away by the other. "Noooo fighting," he says--then promptly falls onto his back and starts snoring. Then he jerks awake again as they bump into him and it starts all over again.
"Brilliant... yet terrifying all at the same time." I glance over as Taurus walks towards the group. "He's figured out a laughing gas that works on capes."
"It worked on me before his suit fixed the problem," I admit. "Where's Zoe?"
"Waiting for the smoke to clear," Taurus says. "You could take out the entire Hall with this thing," he says almost to himself as he heads for the now empty canister on the ground. He pokes it, sending it rolling a few feet before it stops on a rock. "Ace, you realize--" he starts out.
"Yeah, I know," I say, looking at the tommy gun that I used. "We need to get rid of that thing."
"Not necessarily," Taurus says quietly. "It would work against us, sure, but it could also work for us. He's already created the counter-drug, obviously."
You know, before we started this conversation I had thought it was funny, watching them react to the gas. Now I feel a little worried--until Jack and Aubrey sit up, yawning. "Well, that was fun," Jack says, getting to his feet. "You okay, Aub?" he asks, helping his girlfriend get up.
"I'm fine, it just caught me off guard for a little bit," she says, straightening her hair and blushing slightly.
"What--how--" I say, pointing at them. Even as I say that, Sunny catches Adanna and hugs her happily.
"You're still so freaking adorable in this form," he says cheerfully before yawning and getting to his feet.
"Fast metabolism and regeneration," I hear my suit say. "Gas is effective for two point five minutes, tops."
"So it only works for a few minutes?" I say.
"On supers with regenerative abilities," it tells me. The next one up is Carla, who heads straight for Morgan, pats her on the head, then goes to Vinny and stares at him for a second. She disappears in a blur, appearing again with a marker in her hand.
"Carla--" I start out, earning a brilliant grin and a finger to her lips. Then she proceeds to draw all over Vinny's face, only to yelp as his hand grabs her wrist.
"Carla," he says in a warning tone.
"Morning, Vinny. You sleep well?" she asks innocently.
"I give you odds she actually fell asleep," Taurus says next to me. "Because if your suit is right, she should have been the first one up." We watch as she squeals with laughter as Vinny starts chasing her with the marker. I glance around, seeing if anyone's still asleep--to my surprise, Morgan's out like a light. I can't help but walk over, crouching down next to her.
"She's fine," one of the other kids says, looking at me with an almost scary expression. "Get away from her."
"Ward," Justin says.
"She's FINE," Ward snarls. "She doesn't need a stranger!"
I look at him, wondering when he grew so large.
"Ward, I warned you," Justin says coldly.
"You aren't the boss of me, Justin," Ward snaps.
"He isn't doing anything," Justin snaps back. "He's just checking her with Nico's machine."
Ward blinks, his eyes widening before he grows smaller. "Oh," he says.
Can I do that? Well, it's worth a shot. I reach out, touching her shoulder. "Hey, suit, is Morgan okay?" I ask. A beam comes from my arm brace, running over her still sleeping form.
"Checking database," the suit says. I hear a faint whirling sound before it speaks again. "Morgan is fine. Without taking another's powers she has the basic regeneration of a D class cape. She'll wake up soon."
"Good," I say, wondering why I feel so relieved. "Wait, is she a D class?" I ask.
"Negative. Morgan is a specialized class. It's impossible to appropriately rank her until her powers have grown to full strength."
"What WILL she be?" I ask.
"At this rate of growth, Specialized S class."
"Oh." I stand as Ward comes over and picks her up in a protective manner. "I wouldn't have done anything," I tell him.
"Don't get any bright ideas. Morgan is ours," he says coldly before walking away. Ours? What the hell? It must have shown on my face, because Justin walks over, standing beside me silently for a lone moment.
"You ever seen Peter Pan?" he asks abruptly.
"What?" I ask.
"Peter Pan. There's a group of lost kids on an island and Peter Pan kidnaps a girl named Mary--to be their mother," he says in a conversational manner. "They grow attached to her, have her fix their clothes, read them stories, act like their mom, because they don't have one."
I see myself watching Ward a little more closely. "So she's their Wendy?"
"She's their Wendy. It took me a while to remember the story," he admits. "But when I did, I just kept seeing it more and more."
"She seems... tougher than Wendy ever was," I say, trying to put it in perspective.
"In a group of teens with super powers, she has to be." There's a tone in his voice, one that makes me glance over at him curiously. Does he... like her? He grins at me, breaking the mood entirely. "That gun--let's try it again!"
"NO!" half the group shouts.
***
"I thought you'd totally ditched me," Jetta says, leaning in closer to Ace. The place they're in, well, honestly, it's creepy. It's an abandoned warehouse of some sort, but there's not much light at all. She swears she heard bats or something up in the rafters. It's just so Ace, though, she thinks as she looks around. It fits his creepy super villain vibe.
She feels like SUCH a bad girl right now, she thinks, fighting the feeling of glee. Bad girls don't glee.
"He's my dad," Ace says, holding out a hand. An image of Blackjack floats above it. "He's import to my future, right? I can't exactly go around getting in his face."
Jetta stares in wonder at the illusion. "It looks so real," she says in wonder. "What else can you do?"
"All sorts of things," Ace says, turning those creepy, swirling eyes on her and smiling wickedly. He leans forward, kissing her on the lips. For a moment she feels shocked--she'd never thought he was the type to make the first move! But he's really good at kissing, she realizes just as quickly, kissing him back. "Jetta?" he asks after a moment.
"Yeah?" she asks in a dazed tone.
"I'm skipping their stupid school. I bet the capes are out looking for me."
"Oh," she says. "That's okay, though. I mean, I skip school all the time. I'm skipping it right now, actually." She leans forward, planning on g
etting another kiss, but he lifts a finger to her lips.
"But you don't have this type of cape looking for you," he says. "I need you to go look for them for me."
"But--I mean--" she stutters.
"Please Jetta? If you find out where they are, we'll be able to avoid them. I wanted to take you on a date."
"A date?" she asks in a tiny voice. Just the idea of going somewhere in public with Ace--she can picture the mixed expressions on people's faces, fear, amazement. Somehow he seems so much more... MORE than he did the last time she saw him. "Can we go to the amusement park?" she asks.
"I'd love to," he says, touching her chin and kissing her lightly on the lips. "Now, go look for these people," he says, waving a hand in front of him. A handful of supers fill the room, including one she's only seen a few times, and another that looks just like him.
"Is that Technico? He was on TV," she says, getting off the boxes they were sitting on and walking over to the man in question. She looks at him curiously, noticing how much taller he is than she. "Then who's that?" she asks, pointing at the white clothed man.
"Superior," Ace says.
"He--what? Like his son or something?" she asks. Because everyone knows that Superior's dead.
"Something like that," Ace says. "You have my number, right?"
"Oh--um--yeah," she says, tugging out her phone and showing it to him.
"Call me when you see them," he says, lounging on the boxes, still. "Then we'll go on that date."
"Okay!" she says, racing out the door. The illusions of the capes disappear--as does Ace. Mimic steps out of the shadows, still in Ace's form, and looks at the empty warehouse. He couldn't have risked being that close to her. Not when it's taking almost all of his concentration just to keep Ace's powers in check.
It's amazing, he thinks with a laugh. Just amazing how powerful this kid is. He's almost as hard to handle as Nico had been.
***
We spend almost three hours running an obstacle course based on rooftops. The only thing I had going for me was a grappling hook gun that I had to shoot at least twice each time to get right. I'm so exhausted right now, even with the suit, that my eyes are starting to cross. I almost don't notice that I'm pushed into a room that no one else is going into.
I do when I see Dad sitting on a mat in the middle of the floor. I jerk awake quickly, looking around. The room is empty except for the two of us.
"Come sit down," Dad says, patting the mat in front of him. "We've got work to do."
"It's a waste of time," I mutter, turning back to the door.
"It's not. Nico's going to find Mimic sooner or later, Ace. I promise."
"Yeah? Well I couldn't even use illusion abilities before I lost my powers," I snap, the frustration suddenly rising to the surface. "All I had was a bit of extra strength and speed--and look, this stupid suit makes me like that! It's not even special, Dad! A stupid suit can do exactly what I could do before he stole my powers--why in the hell should I train for something I don't even have?"
"Nico says differently," Dad says.
"Nico this, Nico that--what's so special about Nico, anyway? I've never even heard of him before this stupid school came up, and I'm obsessed with capes!" Wait, probably shouldn't have admitted that.
"Nico is Superior's son," Dad says. "You don't get more dependable than that--although I questioned it at first, too. I looked up his past, checked out all the things he did as a super villain, thought about it for a long time before I decided to take the job. He's hard to deal with sometimes," he admits. "He's a genius, they usually are."
I stare at him. "You're still not answering the biggest problem, Dad," I say. "What if, when I get my powers back, I STILL can't use my illusion abilities?"
"Oh, that won't be a problem," he says, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket. "This is your reading," he tells me as he hands it over. It's a computer line drawing of me, with the various lines in different colors and a grid next to it. "The red is power lines, the silver blue is specialized abilities that are illusion based. You're eighty eight percent silver blue. Your specialized abilities are almost ninety percent of your cape levels. Ace, you ARE an illusionist. You promise to be a more powerful illusionist than I am. I'm not ego stroking or lying to calm you down this time," he says, watching me as I stare at the paper.
"Oh," I say quietly.
"So, we're going to start training you--and since your mother still hates the sight of me, we're going to do it here."
"She... she doesn't hate the sight of you," I say, reluctantly putting the piece of paper down. "I don't think," I add honestly.
"She does," he says. "Not that I can blame her, looking back. If I didn't even notice my own son being a super, how many other things have I missed over the years?" he asks quietly.
I look at him. "You notice tiny details in your work, but are completely blind in your personal life, right?"
"Yeah... yeah, I told you that earlier," Dad admits.
"I hate you for that," I tell him. He flinches. "I kept waiting for you to notice--it's not like I was really trying to hide. Not like I COULD hide it. But you were completely oblivious, and Mom--"
"Mom what?" he asks.
"Mom... I don't know what she's thinking," I admit. "I think she knew, she just never said anything. Maybe she doesn't want me ending up like you."
"Wow, that's a real ego stroke," he mutters.
"Yeah, good thing I'm being kind, right?" I say, a grin escaping me. "I could be telling you the truth."
"I'm an illusionist, I don't deal well with the truth," Dad says. "Now, seriously, let's get started on your training. If Nico catches Mimic too soon, we might be dealing with more than we can handle. You know your paint room?"
"Field," I say, the dream from the night before coming back vividly. "It's a paint field."
"Focus on that," he says. "Close your eyes and picture the field the same way you saw it last time."
I sit cross my legs and close my eyes, imagining the empty field from my dreams. It comes, quickly, but something's wrong. I jerk around, looking at the people standing in my field. That's Mega, Technico, America's Son--
And that's ME.
"Dad?" I say, feeling a bit panicked.
"What, son?"
"It's not empty anymore." I watch in shock as they start to get fuzzy, then fade. A single tree appears where they stood. "I've got... um... a tree."
***
The bird flutters above my head. It's tiny, sure, but it's visible, and when it lands on my finger it's solid. I can't help but stare at it in wonder--not because I've never seen an illusion before, but because I've never seen one of MINE before.
"You've got a mental block," Dad says, watching the bird as well. "It's the only explanation I can come up with. A part of you has been holding it back." He looks worried, so I glance at him.
"What's the problem?" I ask.
"If something had happened to break that wall down all of a sudden..." he says slowly. "Man, it would have been nasty. I need to thank Double M--YOU need to thank Double M for sending Banshee."
"Yeah," I say quietly, reaching up and petting the bird with a finger. I stop as Dad reaches forward, gingerly touching the bird and letting out a curse. "What? What did I do wrong?" I ask.
"It's solid," he says. "It's SOLID!" he bellows, jumping to his feet and racing to the door. "Taurus! Get in here!" he yells.
"What?" Taurus demands, appearing in the door. Dad moves to the side and points at my bird.
"Touch it."
"The bird?" he asks, crossing over to me. He reaches out gently, barely running a finger over its head. "It's solid," he says, looking astonished. "Is it an illusion?"
"Yeah," I say, watching as the bird disappears. It's hard to focus right now with all of the shouting.
"He's operating on another level already," Dad says, looking stunned. "He's tapping into the senses with his illusions."
"How did he do it at all?" Taurus asks. "I thought he
didn't have any abilities at the moment."
I look at Dad. Dad looks at me. "I... have no idea," he admits. "You said there was a tree in your field, Ace. Was that all?"
"No," I say. "There were a lot of supers there at first--Technico included, and then they went fuzzy before turning into a tree. Oh, and there was me, too," I say.
"Were they doing anything?" Taurus asks.
"Just standing there," I say. "In a group."
"I wonder," he says. "Did you picture them?"
"No, not at all."
"Then... think it was Mimic?" Dad asks. "And when he released the illusion... it must have gone back to where it really belonged. To Ace. In other words, the more he uses your abilities, the more power goes back to you," he says, looking at me. "You're going to get your power back, Ace, regardless of what we do, just as long as Mimic keeps using it."
"We can't just assume he will, though," Taurus says.
"Oh, he will," Dad says. "He wouldn't have broken character just to take them and not use them."
"But what is he after?" I ask. "I mean, what is he after that he needs my power for?"
"We don't know," Taurus says. "You can never tell with Super Villains, especially ones as strange as Mimic is. It might be he just wanted to be an illusionist for a while."
"I don't think so," Dad says. "If he wanted just that, he would have grabbed me. I was right there where it was easy to get me. No... there's a reason he waited for Ace."
Wow, that's nice to hear. Not. "How does he know to pick me over you?" I ask.
"Because he's from the future," Dad says. "At least the one we're dealing with is."
"Oh... wait, what?" I ask.
"Long story. We need to start practicing again, who knows how soon you'll have the majority of your powers back?"
***
This wasn't as good an idea as it had sounded, Jetta thinks as she creeps behind a building. HOW had Ace talked her into this? Wasn't it supposed to work the other way around? With her talking Ace into doing things for her? She'd had it all lined out in her mind! But noooo, a couple of kisses and she's doing some seriously dangerous things--all for a date! He's not even that cute, okay?