Paragon

by Riley Tune

Back to the house. It even came with a built- on two- car garage. The downside, and what caused me to almost need a fresh pair of underwear were the cars parked in the garage. Both of Jen's parents were home. But why?

  I looked at my phone once more. It was only five minutes to twelve. Why were they home so early? Mr. Reid was a full- time hero. He usually didn’t get home until late. Karen Reid was the breadwinner, since being a hero didn’t pay. Another reason villains have more fun. She was the lead engineer for some space tech company called Nimcor.

  She was an Icon who decided to go the way of just getting a job. Her powers weren’t usually needed for hero work anyway. She was able to fix, understand, and build, all things tech. Because of this, she demanded a salary double what usually was paid for the role. She pulled in six figures a year for only working part time hours. Yet still, she wasn’t due home until around four.

  Well, I could always just leave, right? It’s not like anybody had seen me yet. As if on cue, that was when the door leading from the garage to the house opened. I don’t know if it was the shock, but I couldn’t remember the door opening that fast before in all my years here. It was like it wanted me to get caught. Coming through the door was Mrs. Reid.

  She was a nice woman, and she looked like she was in her early thirties even though she was almost fifty. She had long black hair, a pointy nose, freckles and wore glasses. She always joked that she was destined to work with computers, because she already looked like a nerd.

  She saw me standing there clutching my backpack and tilted her head somewhat. “Hey Hunter. Short day?” she said as she moved to her silver BMW and grabbed some bags out of the back seat and put them on the ground.

  “See you inside, dear,” she said as she slammed the door shut and moved to the trunk. From how she was tossing stuff around and grunting, she was clearly looking for something, so I headed on into the house. Maybe I could get inside and up to my room without being questioned.

  As usual, I had no such luck. I felt my brow raise as I walked toward the house and entered through the same door that Mrs. Reid had used moments ago.

  “So, let me get this straight.” I heard the booming voice of Mr. Reid through the house as I got inside. “He insulted your sister, and called her a baseball cap- wearing smartass? To which you replied by hitting him?” I made it to the kitchen and saw two people.

  Sitting on a chair, with a scrape on his head and a black eye was Jen’s little brother, Junior. He had his head propped up in his hand and was looking down at his red shoes, avoiding the man standing above him.

  The man stood about six feet tall, had a stern jaw, and a brown buzz cut. His outfit was gray and covered his body from head to toe, and he had a green cape on. Naturally this was Mr. Reid, aka Life-Line. “The funny part about it,” Mr. Reid said as his left hand began to glow in the same color green as his cape. “That is an accurate description of your sister, and wasn’t worth getting in a fight over.”

  He raised his glowing hand to his son and moved it near his face. Instantly, as if time sped up, the scrape healed, and so did the black eye. Mr. Reid wasn’t a powerhouse, but he was one of the most popular Icons in the city.

  For the longest time, he didn’t even know he was an Icon, until he was about thirteen, and his friend cut himself. From the stories he told us, the massive cut on his buddy’s hand was bleeding so badly, that his friend fainted from the sight of it.

  Mr. Reid then went to cover his friend’s hand to slow the blood, but just then his hand began to glow, and in seconds, the cut healed.

  He later found out that he was able to heal others. An extremely rare ability for Icons. As a result, he was scouted by almost all of the major Icons of that day and age, but he decided to go with the most famous group around, when his time came.

  Even though Life-Line was powerful, some things he simply couldn’t heal on others. Shot by a bullet, he can heal that. Head chopped off, on the other hand, there was no coming back from. He found that out the hard way, when a team member was killed two years ago.

  He turned and looked at me. “What are you doing home so early?” He looked at the clock on the stove and then back to me. Junior sat up and glance at me. “Oh. I.” I let out a sigh. “Honestly, Santos was coming down on me hard today. That and the anniversary of the battle just weighed down on me so I left.”

  Sometimes, honesty really was the best policy. Mr. Reid twisted his mouth as he shook his head. “Yeah, that Santos always was a dick.” He said with a smile. Junior laughed out loud. “Don’t get too happy, you’re still grounded for fighting,” Mr. Reid said sternly. Junior’s smile faded away as fast as his wounds had moments ago.

  “Throw your ice pack away and go help your mother unload all that techy crap she loves to bring home from work.” Mr. Reid said casually as he rubbed his son's head. Junior looked at the icepack still in his hand.

  It was clenched tightly in his fist. He opened his hand and the ice pack began to float in the air. Quickly it zoomed across the room, to the trash can, which in response opened its lid and then shut as the ice pack landed inside.

  Mrs. Reid walked in. and dropped a bag of rocks on the table. “Junior, come with me I need your help,” she said to him casually. Mr. Reid smiled, “Didn’t I tell you she would?” Junior removed one of the rocks from the bag as I sat down at the kitchen table and removed a cookie from a center dish.

  “Go ahead and transform it. I’m working on a device that, in theory can mimic powers similar to yours and Icons like Gem. Junior shrugged and held onto the rock. It went from rust and dirty, to gold and shiny in an instant. He now held a rock in his hand of solid gold.

  Like many, Junior had two abilities in his powerset. His prime power was telekinesis on a supreme scale. He could move anything of any size as long as his body could hold up to the pressure. In this case he was lucky.

  Some Icons could only move things with their mind if they could lift it with their own hands too. His secondary power was that he could turn anything inorganic to gold. It seems cool, but the power isn’t as uncommon as one would think. So, by default, gold didn’t have as much value as it once did, but still could fetch a pretty penny.

  Mrs. Reid smiled and walked off through the kitchen, stopped to give Mr. Reid a kiss on the cheek and left the room, as her heels clicked through the house. Junior, and his bag of rocks followed.

  “Those two will be in her lab for a while.” Mr. Reid said as he sat down at the table with me and ate a cookie. “You’re home pretty early, too.” I said two him as I downed my fourth cookie. “Yeah, but only for a little bit. I had to pick Junior up, and wanted to grab some food before the transport takes me back to base.”

  He chomped on his cookie some more as crumbs fell on his costume. “You know I hate the food there. It’s that meatless meat that they use. Meatless meat! It’s worse than turkey bacon. Don’t even get me started on that,” he said as he made a face and continued to eat the cookie.

  “Well, I better be off,” Mr. Reid said as he grabbed a bag from the counter and headed to the door. Just then Mrs. Reid came back into the kitchen. She had her shoes off now, so I couldn’t hear her coming.

  “Marcus, they just reported on the news that another dead Icon was found,” she said as she raised her brow and put her hand on her hip. “Anything we should worry about?” I looked at him and he avoided every eye in the room. “Honey, the Lords are looking into it.” “Well the Imperial Lords, mighty as they might be, don’t run this house, so if there is something your family should know, secret or not, promise me you will tell us. For Atlas’ sake Hunter and Jennifer are out her walking around like everything is fine.”

  Mrs. Reid was breathing heavy now as she used her last breath to finish her statement. Mr. Reid let the door knob go, and moved to place his arm around his wife. “You guys will always be my first priority.” He kissed her on the forehead, and walked past me, then stopped.

  “Hunter.” I turned to him with m
y fifth cookie in my mouth. “First, easy on the cookies.” I shook my head as I continued to chew. Mrs. Reid turned and walked out of the kitchen. Mr. Reid lowered his voice. “When you and Jen are out, keep your eyes open. If you see anything off, and I mean anything, make those eyes blue. You got me?”

  “I got it.” I said as I straightened up in my chair. Whatever was going on must have been serious for him to pretty much give me the go ahead to use my powers if need be. For an Icon of his status to tell another Icon who hasn’t taken his vows yet that, said a lot.

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Good man,” and then left through the door, letting it slam behind him and leaving me alone with nothing but cookies to keep me occupied.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE PONY SHOW

  J

  en and I arrived to Purgatory on time the next day, believe it or not. Naturally she was ready to show her powers off. She did it all the time and now she had a legit excuse. Myself, I was in no hurry to do my thing.

  I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn’t want to be late to see the others who were going to perform alongside me. I had no intentions of showing off, but I damn sure wasn’t going to be shown up, and unless they had been keeping it a secret, nobody else in the school had four powers. So, in theory, I had nothing to worry about, but there were some Icons in the school who, although they only had one or two powers, they were impressive powers.

  We were among some of the first students to find seats, Jen and I. What was to come was only for people who were old enough to participate, but most of the school still turned out to watch the older Icons, and it was a great excuse for teachers and students alike to get out of class early.

  The auditions took place in the campus’ power training building and this building had everything. I looked around and then heard the sound of a bag rattling. I instantly looked at Jen. She was eating a bag of chips and leaned back on the bleachers we were sitting on and propped her feet up. “Well, this should be an interesting morning.” she said as she tossed a chip in her mouth. She crunched on it loudly, and rubbed her stomach before plunging her hand back in the bag.

  “I just hope I go last, or at least close to the end.” I said casually. “That way I can know how thick to lay it on.” Jen pulled another plate- size chip from her bag, ate it, and then wiped her crumb- filled hands on her blue Purgatory sweats. “What do you mean?” she asked me as she chewed.

  “I can see how well the other people do and gauge it. If everybody sucks, I don’t need to put on a show and flash all of my powers.” “Yeah whatever, you just don’t want to flex your force field?” Jen said to me. I sighed. “Please don’t say that word.”

  “What? Force Field?” She asked. I casually replied, “No, Flex.” Jen laughed as I rolled my eyes and smiled. “It has nothing to do with that, though. I just don’t like being told what to do, like I’m some dog in a show.” Jen simply eyed me.

  “Maybe I’ll just say screw it and destroy the place. Or freak some people out and have some fun with it.” Jen shook her head. “I vote no. Was hard enough for dad to fix the last mess you made. Damage done in here will likely be three times worse and more expensive.” I gave her a wave of my hand. “I can afford to cover damages.”

  “Just do your part, and then come sit back down beside me. For once, go with the flow. And don’t throw your money in my face, rich boy.” Jen said as she snorted. “Fine.” I said as I looked the entire building over.

  The facility was broken into various different stations. For example, let’s say you had strength- based powers. If you had super strength, you went to the station that had this larger than life platform connected to a machine that came from the ceiling. Once your hands were placed in the proper spot, the machine began to press down on you, measuring your strength as you pushed back against it. At some point I would make it there. Flex, actually had broken the machine when he went up against it.

  This put him in an elite class that, outside of a select few, most didn’t fall into. Then there was the test for people with speed- based powers. The entire facility was outlined by a large circular track to test their speed.

  There were areas designed to test elemental powers and had roaring waters, rock debris, and raging fires. Floating rings that were suspended in the air for the flyers, a targeting range for people with projectile abilities, and a projectile range for people with defense style powers. The list went on.

  In total there were about fifty different stations set up and covered all four floors of the building. Each station was manned by a Purgatory representative, and had cameras sending live video to all the supergroup heads that couldn’t make it here today.

  In the area above it all, was a private viewing station where some high- profile Icons came to see the talent. First hand and in person. It was the equivalent of a scout coming to see a sports star play. I looked up at the viewing station. It sat in the middle of the building and for all purposes looked like a ball that had been sliced in half. Naturally, the bottom was flat and the roof was dome shaped. How else would a ball cut in half look?

  This domed- shaped roof was surrounded by glass on the sides, so the viewers could see anything going on in the building at all times. No matter the floor or station, it could be seen from here. Jen continued to eat the last of her chips and adjusted her hat as more and more people came into the building.

  Our section, the area restricted only for people participating for the day, had slowly begun to get crowded, too. While Jen and I were relaxed, many others weren’t. Some students seemed twitchy, a few were biting their nails, while others had sweat rolling off of them as if perspiration was their prime power.

  Finally, in the next ten minutes or so, the place was packed tighter than a hero in a phone booth. Jen and I were sitting close now as we had to make more room for people who came in after us. In unison, various projector screens were lowered and began counting down all around us.

  “Showtime,” Jen said as she sucked the chip remainders from her fingers. “Good luck when you go,” she said. I snorted. “Thanks. You, too.” I replied as I extended my fist to her. She bumped it back and grinned.

  After the large screens around the inside stopped counting down, they all were displaying an open area on the ground floor. In an instant a large man made his way to where the cameras were aimed.

  As he floated casually to the center, several students booed as he landed on the ground. He promptly ignored the booing of the crowd and casually waved his hand in all directions. A silent I don't care about you or your booing gesture.

  Principal Griles, was a large black man, with curly hair, a round nose, and glasses that were so large that they had to be a few decades old.

  He wore a hideous brown suit, with an equally ugly tie. He couldn’t fly, only hover, and it was his normal means of transportation. I found that funny because he was so large. Let me explain, had he actually walked around he would have likely been slimmer. Not by much but smaller but calories burned, are calories burned.

  While his hovering ability was laughable, his secondary power had its uses. Principal Griles was effectively a human lie detector. He could literally tell when a person wasn’t being truthful to him.

  Is it a pointless power? To a degree, but as a Principal of a school, it had made him a disciplinary legend, and served him well. Teachers respected him, and students hated him. By that logic, he was likely doing his job well. Griles and I had bumped heads several times, but none like when the fight between Flex and I took place. I thought he was going to try and kill me that day, he was so angry.

  He looked around and held up a wireless microphone to his mouth. Per usual there was no fancy speech, no introduction, or anything else that some people in normal schools had. There was no need for it. We all knew why we were here, and if the booing crowd didn’t give it away, many people didn’t like Principal Griles, and he likely disliked each of us just as much if not more.

 
“Members of Up, Up, and Away, and The Imperial Lords will be onsite watching today. First up is Kasey Morrison,” Griles said as he read his first name from his sheet of paper. “Please report to your assigned station.”

  A slender blond girl had stood up a few people over from us and made her way to where she had to go. Like all of us, she had been given her testing location last week when the sheet went out to students giving details about their stations.

  Downside of having multiple powers was that you have to visit each station, before you could be finished. When Kasey would start her demo, a second name would be called shortly thereafter. There were so many screens that up to nine people could do their demo at the same time, as long as they had different powers, and didn’t need the same station.

  “Did you know an Imperial Lord would be here?” I asked Jen. She shook her head casually as she yawned. “Pops, didn’t mention it to me,” she shrugged. “Maybe it was a last- minute thing.”

  “Maybe so,” I said as I glanced up to the half- globe viewing area. Up there, looking down below on us like we were kids at a playground, was a member of the Imperial Lords, and Up, Up, and Away, I just couldn’t see them. I knew a good amount of the Imperial Lords already because of Mr. Reid, but all I knew about the latter was that they only allowed people in who could fly.

  Flight was a requirement. The clapping around me brought me out of my mind. I looked around and found Jen kneeling over with laughter. “What happen,” I asked. “Seriously?” Jen asked while she still laughed. “Kasey passed out. Nerves got her, I guess.”

  I looked up at a screen and saw Kasey slowly getting to her feet. She shook her head some as her peers kept clapping to cheer her on. “Let’s hope she can get the job done this time,” Jen said, as she watched Kasey on the screen.

  “Hunter Monroe,” Principal Griles called out over the microphone. An eerie silence fell over the crowd. I looked at Jen and then back to where Griles stood. I could see on the screen that even Kasey had paused to look up at the screen near her to see me go to where I needed to be.