Slowly, January shifted into February. The snows began to recede, which the wind made up for by howling with renewed bitterness – an excellent modifier said Mac and several of the other range instructors, to help those who still didn’t understand that sometimes you had to lead your target. For no amount of wind, hail or snow could halt or impede training at the Academy – those that complained about the conditions were politely informed that they were most welcome to take their leave, and the Legion would call upon them to serve only when the fighting was taking place somewhere weather didn’t exist.

The new year seemed to have brought with it new vigour to Morningstar – a renewed tension and excitement once the small hiccup of Ed’s death had been passed over. This year would mark the fifth anniversary of the Academy’s re-opening and speculation was running high that this would finally be the year when the Legion of Heroes would be officially reformed. Thus, the Acolytes were in nothing short of a frenzy. Throughout the ranks, from juniors to seniors, every person of every power was pushing to be harder, better, stronger. It was commonly accepted rumour that the new Legion would only be taking a limited number of members, so competition was fierce – to the point where Daniel Winters had to take to the podium one morning and forcefully remind all present that any Acolyte caught attempting to sabotage another in any way would be immediately and irrevocably removed from the Academy program. Ironically, the effect of this explicit ban was a sharp increase in training-related injuries – to the point where the Infirmary healers were getting almost more practice than anyone else – as everyone’s focus and frustration funnelled into the permissible violent activities.

“It’s like they’ve all gone mad,” Matt commented to Wally – seemingly one of the few people immune to the mania – over breakfast one morning, as news trickled through that a supervised battle between Hannah McKillop and Mohammed Abdellmessiah had resulted in an earthquake devastating a nearby town, “Anyone that messes with this new Legion is going to get steamrolled.”

“I think that’s the point,” Wally replied quietly, sipping his orange juice and thumbing through a text from Will.

There was, however, one exception to the redoubled enthusiasm: Giselle. For weeks after Ed’s funeral, the speedster had barely left her room, and when she did, it was obvious that something inside her had changed, and not for the better. Her spark was simply gone. The new Giselle spoke very little and looked perpetually like she’d been crying – never joking, never laughing, spending most of her time simply sitting, shoulders slumped, staring off into space. She’d lost all interest in her appearance – stopped doing her hair, wearing make-up – and wore the same, thin black cardigan every day while she sat in the Hall at meal times, barely touching the food on her plate or talking to the people around her. Worst of all, she’d stopped running. Before New Years, there’d been talk of her attempting to break the human land-speed record. Now, she simply shuffled from place to place, staring at the floor, her soft, muffled footsteps making her seem almost invisible. More than a few Acolytes tried cheering her up – invitations, compliments, reassurances that what happened wasn’t her fault, but none of it did any good. After a few weeks, everyone, even her hordes of once‑admirers, just sort of gave up – and so Giselle Pixus sat in the same spot in the Hall, day in and day out, her hair limp and her eyes puffy, gazing numbly at nothing.

There was talk amongst the Ashes of sending her home, Celeste quietly told Matt one lunchtime, for her health and wellbeing, on the face of it. But everyone, Giselle included, knew the real reason was crueller than this – the Academy simply had no place for a speedster that didn’t run.

When Matt mentioned this to Jane, Jane – maybe feeling a sense of commitment and comradery, or seeking to repay Giselle in kind – went immediately after practice to the speedster’s room to offer her strongest support and motivation, which essentially involved yelling extensively at Giselle through her door. Despite giving a prolonged and particularly curse-heavy rant about how Giselle was ‘better than this’ and ‘needed to get back up and stop being (a bunch of expletives)’, to no one’s surprise but Jane’s this somehow did not have the desired effect.

“Well obviously that wouldn’t have worked on anyone but you,” Matt said bitterly the next morning, when Jane informed him of her failure, “And I’m telling you, she doesn’t want to listen.”

“I don’t care what she wants,” huffed Jane, “She’s too good to waste away like this. She needs to snap the hell out of it.”

“And yelling at her is going to help?” Matt responded, “All you’ll do is make her angry.”

“Better angry than miserable,” declared Jane bluntly, slicing butter across her toast.

In a way, had it not been for his desire to find Ed’s killer, Matt would have been in a similar state to Giselle. More than at any other point in his life, the so-called clairvoyant felt despondent and uncertain about his future and increasingly, profoundly alone. With Ed gone and Jane spending so much of her time training, Matt was by himself more and more – researching, for a large part, to the best of his ability, but once his eyes grew bleary and the words on his screen started to repeat themselves he often found himself just sitting, staring at the ceiling, mulling over the general hopelessness of his life. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, chasing ghosts doing things for reasons he didn’t understand. He hated this obsession with the new Legion everyone had around him, and he hated how they were all fixated on becoming stronger, as if strength was the only thing that mattered – hated that this was what ‘heroism’ had become.

“Why is there no morality training?” he asked Jane one evening, when they were sitting together in the library, him trawling endlessly through dates and last known addresses while she powered through The Art of War, “What’s the point of being strong if you don’t know what’s the right thing to do?”

“Captain Dawn says being a hero is about being strong,” Jane replied, glancing up from Sun Tzu, “Strong enough to forge the right path when no one else has the guts to.”

“That’s not heroism,” countered Matt, “That’s domination.”

The empath shrugged. “History remembers the two as the same thing, if the person’s strong enough,” she said, turning back to her book.

Matt shook his head bitterly. “It shouldn’t matter what history thinks. It shouldn’t matter if what you’re doing gets remembered, or succeeds, or fails. Only that it’s right.”

“The only problem with that,” said Jane, “Is it’s hard do what’s right if you don’t have the power to achieve it.”

“Failing at something doesn’t change the truth,” Matt said stubbornly, “Doing what’s right, even when you know it’s not going to work, even when you know it’s not going to make a difference doesn’t make you any less of a hero. I’d even say it makes you more.”

Jane sighed, snapped her book shut and turned to look at him. “I know you’re wrong,” she told him, “But you’re better at words than I am, so I can’t explain why. Just take my word for it. Captain Dawn says there’s no such thing as a weak hero.”

“Well that’s gospel then,” Matt muttered sarcastically under his breath, turning back to his endless list of names.

So far, assembling a list of people Ed might have wanted to invite to Captain Dawn’s reunion was proving as fruitless as it was frustrating. Matt had managed, after some weeks of trawling through the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, to accurately account for all of the superhero’s extended family – but unfortunately, this had turned out to be completely pointless.

“Because they’re all dead,” he swore to Jane the morning after he’d finished, eyes so red and dry and tired from staring at a computer that he wanted to pull them out with a blunt spoon and throw them in the sink. Yes, through a combination of the Year of Chaos, a family history of heart disease and a run of bad luck stemming from what he could only assume was a potent and lingering gypsy curse, the man known as Captain Dawn did not have a single living relative. It would have been impressive, if it hadn’t meant weeks’ worth of effort culminating in absolutely nothing.

“Because they’re probably not killing anyone if they’re dead,” he added bitterly, after he was done kneading his head into the table and swearing profusely.

“Zombies?” suggested Jane.

“Not helpful,” suggested Matt.

In keeping with Jane’s suggestion, Matt had been taking care while doing all this to keep up the appearance of normality, to avoid making anyone who might be watching him suspicious. He continued his daily sessions with Selwyn – also one of the few seemingly unaffected by the growing excitement – and continued with his fortnightly assessments, which were admittedly easier now. His past successes seemed to have inoculated him against most of Cross’s scepticism, so long as he kept up a steady stream of stuff that could one day come true. Even so, he began making predictions of great change and upheaval within the coming months. Matt the clairvoyant foretold a rush of new trials and challenges for the Academy, renewed interest and observance by the media, the coming of ‘a new dawn’, the great cheering of a crowd and ‘a mighty eagle, spreading its wings wide.’ Unbeknownst to Cross, these prophecies were based less on second sight and more on what Jane had confided to him in strictest confidence (and with uncomfortable enthusiasm) about her conversations with Captain Dawn, mixed with good old-fashioned extrapolation, showmanship and common sense.

To anyone watching, in addition to making breakthroughs with his future-seeing skills, Matt Callaghan also appeared to be spending his free time knuckling down and working diligently on the project his senior, James Conrad, had assigned him – namely, organising a surprise party for the beloved Captain Dawn. He’d printed, embossed and mailed out several dozen ‘Save The Date, But Be Discrete’ cards to appropriate celebrities, politicians and figureheads; had a long sit-down with Daniel Winters (who’d been very impressed with Matt’s newfound ‘maturity’) regarding seating and catering budgets; and now possessed several folders full of package deal advertising for party decorations. To an outside observer, Matt looked to be doing a thoroughly meticulous job – because he was. That was the point. Putting in a lot of effort researching people from Captain Dawn’s past made sense for someone going to a lot of effort in every aspect of organising a reunion. The best deceptions, Matt knew, were founded not on lies but on truth.

And, Matt admitted ruefully, also so if it turned out Captain Dawn actually had nothing to do with Ed’s death after all, he wouldn’t get in too much trouble. And the Captain would get a nice birthday party. There was that too.

*****

While Matt was working hard, Jane was working harder. Day in and day out, Jane Walker trained, ate, studied and somehow even slept with a level of single-minded intensity that bordered on psychotic. From five in the morning until nine at night, she was an unwavering, unstoppable force, rampaging through exercises almost faster than the trainers could come up with them, seemingly untouchable by injury or exhaustion. She sprinted through obstacles wreathed in searing flame, unleashed storms of lightning powerful enough to level city blocks, and channelled a maelstrom of ice so cold it temporarily froze a portion of the Firedome. She burned without thinking, flew without slowing, and blasted separate bullseyes down range so fast and so reliably, with every one of her powers, that even Mac stopped criticising. Nothing stopped her – not pain, not opposition, not a hundred feet of solid rock and five times normal gravity or weighted clothes and a category five hurricane. Jane’s powers hadn’t just improved, they’d evolved, and everyone knew it. She was no longer targeted in free-for-alls or picked last for teams – not from any newfound love or tolerance, but because there wasn’t a single Acolyte who would voluntarily go up against this one-woman wrecking ball of thermo-electric destruction. If the effortless strength of Jane’s powers made them nervous, then her flawless free-flowing between them made them terrified. Fear might not have won friends, but it sure as hell brought respect.

But for Jane, it wasn’t enough.