He hated the suit.

So gaudy, so shiny. A circus outfit to dazzle the bleating crowds – no function, all form. What was the point of a cape? To get pulled on, to get trampled. A misused relic of a long-dead age – once, a blanket for a travelling warrior, now the hallmark of an adult’s body lumbered with a child’s mind. A child’s morality. Good and evil. Black and white.

Pathetic.

The man who wore the face of Captain Dawn stood silently in his parlour, in the study of the fool he’d killed – inspecting himself, turning his broad body slowly in front of three long, adjacent mirrors. The symbol, the insignia on the chest – that was the one part he liked. Klaus Heydrich knew the value of symbols, their effect on lesser minds. The breaking day – new beginnings, a reprieve from the dreaded, primal darkness. He was almost tempted to co-opt it as his own. But there was no need for that.

Slowly, his face changed. His cheeks narrowed, his hair drew back. His eyes returned to their natural brown – their sockets shrunk, ever so slightly. His mouth spread out into a hard, firm line, his skin almost unnaturally smooth. His chin and neck were hairless, and finally devoid of that ridiculous jut which on Captain Dawn was so prominent. A smaller body, a proper body, with a young man’s face – a strong man’s face. A face he’d only allowed himself to view for sixty fleeting seconds, once a day, for ten long years. A single, sweet taste of the truth.

And now, once more, that truth could be reality.

He held out his palms and the long dead Captain’s rags undid themselves from his body. They fell to the floor, discarded, forgotten – as from the depths of his sanctuary, from within a wooden panel sealed and hidden in a forgotten wall, his true colours emerged. Black. The black of his father, of his people, of their strength, their pride – what had once been, what would be again. The black armour, the synthetic, silken fabric, covering neck to ankle, flowed over him first – then the uniform, the black collared shirt, pants, and high boots of an officer. Then the coat. The long, flowing coat, gleaming and leather, the colour of charcoal. The buckles on his boots, the straps around his chest, the buttons on his gloves, all laced and pulled and pressed themselves – as he stood there, thrice reflected, marvelling.

He was a symbol. Far from any crest, his sign was all that he was, his entire being, a living, breathing symbol of truth, of superiority, of indomitable legacy. He was as he had been, as his forefathers had been – unfaltering, unchanging, unapologetic. The irresistible pull to betterment. To perfection. To a united, stronger world.

Only the weak feared the dark. The strong ruled it.

*****

There was nothing they could have known, nothing that could have told them they were about to die. This day was no different to any other, save for a strange power outage that minutes ago had knocked the electricity offline. But to the Acolytes, the optimistic young minds of the Academy, this posed more inconvenience than threat. The sun was shining, the sky was bright. Their needs were not so pressing to warrant panic, not after barely a quarter of an hour. So they went about their business. Eating, laughing, talking about whatever pointless irrelevance momentarily captured their desires. Trusting. Oblivious. Unaware.

It was almost a shame, the man they called the Black Death mused. They all had such potential. But the inescapable truth was that the legacy they had brought into was a legacy opposed to his own, the latest growths on a slate which needed wiping clean. It was not their fault, but the world was not fair. And a symbol created was equally as powerful as a symbol destroyed.

His boots made no noise as he stepped slowly down the stairs. His coat brushed no wall or carpet. Like a phantom in a theatre, he walked down the solemn spiral staircase connecting the parlour to the Hall, out the discreet exit, the unassuming doorway pressed back against the shadows of the stage. He surveyed the sea of shining faces before him – it was midday, the Hall was packed. Two hundred ‘heroes’, the last infection of the Legion – grinning, laughing, conversing as they fed. Not watching. Not aware.

It only took an instant.

Time seemed to stand still as the man in black took a single step forward, a lone foot over the threshold, a minute, invisible intrusion. He removed his glove and raised his left hand, held out his index finger, the tip wisping energy, beginning to glow. To pulse. A twisted, sickening, electric violet – raw atomic power, compressed and infused through flesh. The air sliced – and the Black Death smiled to himself. He closed his eyes – the wound already healing – and vanished.

Leaving behind only a glowing, pulsating shred of skin where his finger had been, falling slowly towards the floor.

The work of a moment.

Unseen by the Acolytes.

Save one.

Giselle Pixus. The girl who stared at nothing, but who today alone saw everything.

Her eyes widened.

Her face hardened.

And she ran.

Faster than a bullet, faster than a blur. She grabbed the nearest person and raced with them outside. Then back. Another girl, another boy, out, then back, another, another. Acolyte, Ashes, rival, friend. Faster than sight, faster than sound, the girl ran with the Legion on her back.

And the bomb kept falling. And the girl kept running.

Faster, faster. In the space between heartbeats, as her legs burned and her feet bled and her muscles screamed under the weight of people twice her size, as one by one the Hall cleared, as she pushed, harder than she’d ever pushed in her life, as the tiny scrap of glowing flesh fell, inches from the ground, still she kept running, up into the halls, through every room and corridor, carrying them out, carrying them all before-

The bomb exploded. A ball of white light, for a microsecond no bigger than a fingernail but then growing, erupting, consuming everything in its path-

And still the girl ran.

Up into the dormitories, the gymnasium, the labs, wherever people lay, up stairs and out windows and back in again, around the swelling, burning ball, the growing explosion, until it was too big to go around, and so she went through. Through the fire and the flames, through heat and death, her skin blistering and her hair burning, still she ran, carrying, clutching, roaring a defiant soundless scream. Faster than thought. Faster than anyone.

Giselle Pixus ran. Leaving no one behind.

*

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM

James tumbled through the grass, suddenly thrown, suddenly falling, suddenly stumbling with enough momentum to send him skipping like a stone through the dirt. He rolled, coughing, skidding to a stop, his thick fingers digging tracks through the wet earth. His head snapped up – his senses assaulted by a shockwave, a sudden blast of heat and sound hot enough to smell, close enough to feel reverberating through his ribs. He looked up, his eyes wide, at the flaming, billowing explosion. At the smoking ruins of Morningstar.

He yelled, a strangled, wordless yelp, half anger but whole confusion as all around him people stirred, staggering to their feet, thrown like he was thrown, a sudden, inexplicable crowd, hundreds of Acolytes, gasping, winded, crying out. What was going on? How were they outside? They’d been in the foyer, he’d been walking, he’d been-

A cry – a mangled, whimpering sob. James looked to his left – and there, blackened, red, hairless, her skin dripping off, burnt almost beyond recognition, was the body of a girl.

“Giselle,” he whispered.

And then he roared.

“MEDIC!” He scrambled to his feet, racing to her, his feet tearing up the ground, sending chunks of dirt flying with each step. In that moment, he didn’t care about anything else – not himself, not the explosion, not the Academy. Nothing mattered except she lived.

“MEDIC!”

The crowd was parting, someone was running towards them – a woman, he thought, one of the healers. He looked down at Giselle, red and charred, her breathing coming in stiff, shallow rasps, then up at the hill where flames flickered through the ruins of the place he’d called home – at the clouds of ash raining down upon them, the pillars of smoke billowing upwards, blackening the sky. Hell on Earth.

A sudden ‘pop’ twenty feet away and James looked up to see Will the teleporter and Jane the empath appearing from the ether.

“Oh my God…”

“What the hell happened-?”

“WALLY!”

“Giselle?!”

Will was off and running through the survivors, shouting the psychic’s name. Jane pelted towards them, staggering to a halt three feet away from Giselle’s corpse.

“Oh God,” she whispered, a hand going to her mouth. She and James exchanged glances. And then a healer shouldered past and was on her knees in the grass beside Giselle, her hands flinching from the heat as she forced them onto the speedster’s burning flesh. Giselle moaned.

“Here sweetheart, come on, it’s going to be alright,” the small healer soothed. She looked up at James, her face hard. “She needs a hospital.”

“Take her,” James commanded. He didn’t need to think. “Will!” He snapped his head round, through the chaos and the carnage, gritting his teeth. “Where the hell is that god damn teleporter?!”

“I’ll find him,” shouted Jane and she was off, sprinting through the crowd, who were pulling each other to their feet, shaking, crying, trying to account for lost friends, trying to understand what had happened, what was going on.

She was back in less than a minute, Will and Wally and tow. James had never seen the psychic’s face so white.

“Giselle,” he cried, “Oh no, please no, hang in there baby, hold on-”

“Get her to a hospital!” James barked, climbing to his feet, his eyes wild, “Go, now!” Will nodded.

“I’ll go too,” said Wally, choking back tears. The three of them, him, Will and the healer, locked arms around Giselle’s body. Will gave James one final, frightened look.

And then they were gone.

Leaving James and Jane behind, in the shrieking silence – the sky still black, Morningstar still burning. Phones were starting to ring, people were clustering around. Some looking at the empath with suspicion, a few even hostile, like this was somehow her fault – most just looking scared or blank. Shell-shocked.

He turned to Jane – her arms wrapped around her shoulders, her hands shaking. “What happened?” he demanded, “What the hell is going on?”