Moonstryker was a hero without compare. At a time when Chicago was struggling with all of the worst excesses of Humanity, he stood tall and fought them all. He was not born a hero and had no special gifts to fight the meta menaces that owned the streets and neighborhoods, but even refusing to carry a badge and without any metahuman abilities he helped clean up our streets, using fearless detective work, constant vigilance, and unending courage to show that a lack of superpowers was no barrier to being a superhero.

He helped our citizens to have the courage to stand up for themselves and fight corruption, greed, and vice in their neighborhoods. His strength, brilliance, and willingness to work with the CPD set an example and helped end the terror of dozens of supervillains and hundreds, if not thousands, of brutal and violent criminals. I was proud to call him not only my most important contact but also my friend.

Speech by Detective Charles ‘chuck’ Martelli, now Mayor of Chicago, at the awarding of a posthumous registered hero decoration, two years after Moonstryker’s mysterious disappearance.

I wasn’t being strictly truthful with Provisional Special Agent Andropolis. My creations worked with a person’s energy to actualize potential. I was not going to tell her how it worked, though, since I wasn’t completely sure myself, and just letting my brother have a hint of it had been enough that he had sold me into slavery to a Cartel. I felt a bit like a fake Tony Robbins since actualizing your potential was a fancy way of saying sacrificing things for something else you need.

I didn’t have nearly as much energy as your average metahuman. I had to make big sacrifices to get even small results, but those sacrifices were not always material in nature. I had sacrificed short-term freedom for the chance at getting revenge on my captors, which was why I had spent the last two years in prison. I had sacrificed my clothing and personal comfort for the ability to protect myself physically, which is why it seemed like such a great idea to keep me naked in a cell with nothing around me, even though I was not considered a dangerous prisoner. Because of my low energy, I was able to build muscles and coordination faster and more effectively as well as being able to regenerate, but I still had to do the work of building my body up the hard way. If I had the same kind of energy levels as a meta, I could have used more energy and less sacrifice, and maybe not had to use my clothes as a symbolic ingredient.

Of course, I used to be slow to hit, and now I wasn’t. Some sacrifices are worth it.

There was a reason I called myself a supervillain, though. The more effect I built into one of my concoctions, the more sacrifice was required. I knew that my efficiency was kind of crap, but if a meta wanted to enhance their superpowers, they would have to sacrifice something really big, like an arm, or the potential to have children, and they would still need to have the energy potential to support both the change and the newly enhanced ability. I had learned about the sacrifice component while I was working for the cartels, but I wasn’t going to share that little tidbit with them. Can you imagine what they would do if one of them got the idea to sacrifice lives to boost my potions? There are lines even supervillains shouldn’t cross.

The elixir was a pretty benign exchange. You gave up whatever dangerous future awakening you had to activate them now. Of course, since normal people had no energy to awaken, it had terrible effects on them. In some ways, I considered my ability utterly and completely evil, which is why I was not going to let Proteus know how they worked. All they had to know was the few benign exchanges I had discovered, like a drug that sacrificed 24 hours of constant sex into a half-hour of bliss. Or a formula that shortcuts future power growth for immediate results. Shortcuts required sacrifice, but sometimes becoming bulletproof now would keep you alive a lot better than training your powers to make you bomb-proof years from now.

Finding symbolic chemistry that worked for each individual was the hard part. If you were a meta that was already strong and tough, a simple tincture made of baby oil, Kevlar, and a few other ingredients would work fine as long as you had the potential to get tougher. How do you enhance a guy who can shoot lasers from his eyes, though? A lens might help, but what else, cyanide? Sure, my abilities might make the substances harmless to consume for the intended recipient, but if I wasn’t incredibly careful with my analysis of what they needed, I could make a poison that would kill someone instantly, or force a sacrifice they weren’t willing to make, like the ability to see. Supervillain stuff. Elixir could brute-force power growth, but it not only tended to make crap go bad around the Meta that used it but sometimes what it chose to sacrifice was worse than the power gained was worth.

We pulled into an underground parking garage near the docks. Prior to the industrial rejuvenation in the 80s, Chicago had been almost a ghost town, with nothing but gangs and drugs and cheap property values to entice any growth. In the last 40 years, however, it had become the center of the Canadian trade equity deal and the huge port. There was still plenty of crime and gangs and drugs, but Chicago was proud of its growth and wealth now that both raw materials and finished products were flowing across Lake Michigan regularly.

Chicago didn’t have a registered super team, but since the work Moonstryker had put in in the 90s, the CPD’s relationship with local vigilante groups was far less antagonistic than most major cities. It probably helped that it was not considered a hot location for overpowered villains or heroes that could drop skyscrapers or wanted to blow up a city for some weird political reason, but it was no surprise that Proteus would look to the city as a potential showcase for a legally recognized vigilante team.

I intended to be a gentleman and open Agent Andropolis’ door for her. She was cute and blunt and seemed to tolerate me, which was right up my alley. Okay, she was cute and tolerated me. Err… tolerating me was kind of the only thing on the list for female interests. I knew it was a little pathetic, but my prior existence hadn’t been exactly overwhelmed with female attention. Looking like a cross between Big Bird and Napoleon Dynamite and avoiding human interaction whenever possible wasn’t a formula for boyfriend material, not even the ‘pity date’ kind.

She was out of the car before it had even completely stopped in a well-lit parking spot, scanning for threats. The parking garage had a cage entrance that required Baldwin not only to punch in a code and state his name for voice recognition, but had even laser-scanned his eyes before opening, and nearly clipped the bumper when it closed. Security aside, I guess it’s better to be ready for trouble.

Baldwin turned to look at me as I was fumbling with the seatbelt and handed a steel briefcase to me. “Put that on.” He said in the same gentle tone of voice a career cop in a bad neighborhood would use when politely asking a 3 strike perp to lower their weapon and assume the position. “You are supposed to be a paroled vigilante helping to set up the new teams, so you should look the part.”

I clicked open the attache and looked inside. Dammit, I should have made costume a part of the parole deal. The thing was armored, sure, but it looked like something a Hollywood studio would put the handsomest man alive into to make him look like he had muscles and superpowers. The dark green color was alright, but the muscle-shaped armored plates and faintly glowing green alchemical symbols tracing lines around the armor’s borders, gloves, and the large cape and hood made me look like a villain from some a wizard high school movie rather than an accomplished vigilante. Imagine trying to sneak into a shipping yard to watch a drug deal go down with neon piping?

I went ahead and pulled on the mask and the hooded cloak. The mask was fairly nice, little more than a thin dark green balaclava made out of some resistant material with a built-in armored cap. Over it went a pair of silver armored ski goggles. Of course, the practicality of having a mask that would prevent me from imbibing the substances that were my namesake was abysmal, so I detached the armored cap from the mask via its convenient snaps, and wore it and the ski glasses. I was willing to wear the over armor, but it would be a cold day in hell before I put on the green tights that went on underneath it. Jeans and my teeshirt were more than enough, I’d rather walk into the headquarters naked.

When I slid out of the car, Baldwin was scowling at me. “Where’s the rest?” he asked.

I pointed back into the back seat. “I won’t wear it. Call it a sticking point, but I won’t dress up like a stripper at a superhero-themed bachelorette party.”

“You look like a football player pretending to be a vigilante with stuff you found in your closet.” He remarked. “Not like a professional. Yeah, the costume is a little over the top, but you are supposed to be impressing some people who have been doing this for years.”

I shrugged, “If Proteus asks, tell them that that outfit will interfere with my abilities. It’s quite true. I need skin contact to read anyone and to concoct, and with that mask, if I need a special brew for something, I would have to take the time to take off half my costume.”

Baldwin shook his head. “Look, I am just a secret service guy loaned to Proteus to help Agent Andropolis keep an eye on you. I don’t care about your identity or the costume, but you are supposed to wear that.”

I glanced over at Antonia and she was smirking. She said, “From my experience, I think that what he has on will be just fine, but you are the senior agent.”

Baldwin sighed and shrugged, “It’s your funeral.”

I hated to admit it, but even the chunks of costume I was wearing made me look a little overdressed. I was met, first, by a mid-twenties blonde in business casual with a skirt. Fairly cute, but she looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine instead of in a group of superheroes. “Hi, my name is Grace Petty, and I am the Great Lake Defender’s new manager.” She said quickly as I shook her hand. Human, no meta potential, no glaring recessive traits that would likely cause cancer in her near future. Assuming that she didn’t get hit by a car or work herself into bleeding ulcer and heart failure, she should have a nice long life, as well as kids. She had, at some point, broken her elbow, probably as a child. She had a Penicillin allergy and was excited and a bit overwhelmed, plus kind of turned on. I hoped it was me, but for all I know she could be scoping out Antonia.

“Hi, Grace. I’m Louis.” I said as I shook her hand. At an elbow from Baldwin, I added, “I mean I am Alchemyst. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am hoping for great things from your new team.” I smiled at her and then said, “I’d like to meet your new team individually and privately if that is possible? No one but each person and me.”

We stepped into the elevator. The garage was fairly old, a single layer, underneath a 3 story building that looked like it used to be a small warehouse of some kind. The building had several sets of scaffolding around it and looked like it was being upgraded, and we stepped out onto the top floor which was half-finished. The new flooring was nicely tiled, but the walls were bare drywall, and I could see several unfinished walls with some of that expensive impact-resistant foam and chicken wire frames inside of them. Someone was building this place to be tough.

Grace led us towards several unmarked reinforced wooden doors and started talking like a tour guide. “This is the headquarters for the GLD now. The meeting and assembly rooms will be up here, but we are keeping the living quarters, armory, and labs off-site for safety. Upstairs we have an area that has suites to show how the new heroes live, but those are mostly for tourists and guests. We don’t want to let any bad guys know where our team sleeps.” She said with a beaming smile. Antonia was nodding along, and I suppose she agreed with the precautions.

“Downstairs we have the kitchen and mess hall, the trophy museum which really doesn’t have anything in it yet, and my office. We also have a CPD substation for handling the parolees, as well as holding cells. With Proteus’ help, this place should be a decent superhero headquarters in no time, but let me take you to meet the teams.

“Parolees?” I asked curiously.

“Well, yes. About a quarter of the new team are here as part of their agreement for early parole. A lot of what vigilantes do is illegal, and busting a carjacker’s head is just as much assault and battery as doing it to a random person. A citizen’s arrest is a legal right, but vigilantes often go well beyond what is legal for self-defense or property protection. We won’t have anything to do with killers or really powerful meta threats, but vigilantes are a special breed… If we screened them out just for breaking some jerk’s arm for beating his girlfriend, we wouldn’t have any volunteers at all. Most of our teams have run afoul of the law at one point or another, that’s why a lot of them couldn’t get registered as heroes by Proteus or attached to law enforcement, but in my opinion, every one of our new members are good people that want to do the right thing. The fact that we can legally pay them to do it and protect them from a lot of legal fallout is just icing on a very delicious cake!”

Well, it was nice to know she was really behind what she was doing here. I was also well aware that class D or lower metas couldn’t go to work for Proteus, and a lot of them felt that whole great power great responsibility thing. If you’d ridden in a hotwired car and got caught as a teenager, and then later awakened as a meta, your chances of getting a job that allowed you to use your abilities were hosed. Yes, metas were relatively rare, but in a city the size of Chicago, you could still have dozens.

Class C and higher were very rare, and usually involved both offense and defense abilities or the kind that could be used for both, or abilities that were so far powerful and outside of the ordinary that most normal people could barely understand them. Class C and higher heroes were, of course, the elite, and were reserved for giant terrors, alien invasions, country-threatening supervillains, and the occasional extinction event. That’s why Proteus only had a team with 5 members and a few solo acts, like Commander Freedom and Galactica. Many cities also had a sponsored class D and lower team on tap, but for, say, a class E fire controller that had a job as a fireman or a class F chef that could only summon salt and other spices, you generally would never even bother to get registered. If you were caught using your abilities in the commission of a criminal act you might be screwed, but if your gift was the ability to control the color of your spit, how many felonies were you likely to use it for?

“We are still missing a few. Not the parolees, except for Girder. He decided to slip his cuff the moment he was out of the suppressor fields, but we have the Marshalls looking for him and when he’s caught, he’ll get extra time for power-assisted escape.” Miss Petty continued, leading us through another door into a large area with a sandwich buffet and a big-screen TV that had over a dozen people hovering, talking, watching TV, or playing the antisocial game and looming in corners. “Miss Katonic and Speedburn said that’d be late due to family issues, and Windfall will be here when she is here. Her abilities make it sometimes difficult to predict when she will show up, but she’s one of the first people requested by the CPD to join our teams.”

I had heard of Miss Katonic, although I didn’t know she and Speedburn were together. Her gift was the ability to create light illusions out of someone’s worst nightmares, which was the closest to an actual mental power that anyone had ever discovered. Metahumans, despite their comic book similarities, didn’t have mental powers. They could create illusions that could convince you that they were your own mother, create pheromones that would make you babble like you were filled with sodium amatol, tell the truth from microscopic bodily clues, or create fields that could mimic all the effects of telekinesis, but no meta that could read minds or memories, control emotions, see the future or any of the other traditional psychic gifts had ever been discovered. If they had, either Proteus or an alphabet agency had snapped them up so quickly that nary a word had ever been spoken. Miss Katonic came close, though, but as near as I could tell her abilities involved projecting energy at a target and letting their own consciousness form the images, and they were visible to everyone, not just the target.

To be honest, Miss Katonic’s powers scared the shit out of me, as they should just about anyone. She wasn’t particularly tough and her powers didn’t have any physical effects, which was why she was considered a class E meta, but I was just glad she chose to use them as a vigilante instead of as a supervillain. Just a hint was enough to make hardened criminals wet themselves and surrender, and the one time she had unleashed her full power on a well-known serial rapist, he went catatonic for months, and I think he was still in a rubber room someplace drooling and begging them to stop.

“Speedburn is that speedster, right? The one that can manipulate friction?” I asked curiously. “I had no idea that he and Katonic were an item.”

Grace shook her head, “No. I mean, yes, Speedburn can manipulate friction but he’s not a speedster. He moves fast, but he’s only class E because he doesn’t really speed up, he can just move fast due to a lack of resistance. If he weren’t able to use it to create fire as well as just send people sprawling he would be considered a class F. He and Miss Katonic are not an Item, I think they are either really good friends or family or something. They work together occasionally and hang out together, but there’s never been any PDA’s and both of them have dated other people. Both of them being late due to family issues implies they are related somehow, but the feds have clamped down pretty hard on identity investigation with Proteus’ new chief, so it’s best not to speculate.”

I asked, “Did they tell you what I would be doing here?”

She nodded, “I am not totally clear on the details, but you are supposed to be some kind of a healer, right? Screening them and suggesting ways to improve their abilities, but you aren’t a professional cop or hero or anything, right?”

I nodded, “Right. Umm. I guess you could consider me like a physical therapist or something. I am also here to let you know if one or more of them are likely to have or be, a big problem in the future. I am not a psychologist, but if someone has a chemical imbalance I am pretty good at figuring it out. To do it, though, I need to have physical, skin-to-skin contact. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Like a handshake or something?” She asked. “That shouldn’t be much of a problem, although I should warn you that Fractal over there will probably try to make a big deal out of it if you give him the chance. His heart’s in the right place, but he’s a huge fan of practical jokes, and I wouldn’t even use the phrase ‘skin to skin contact’ around him.”

I nodded, grinning. “Yeah, I know the type. Hell, I am the type. Give me a room and a list and make sure he’s the last one.”

There were a few girls here I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest having closer personal skin-to-skin contact with. Metas burned a ton of energy using their powers, and some of them, especially the long-legged, well-endowed South American girl talking to a muscular guy dressed in cammies by the buffet table, were nothing short of spectacular. Especially when their hero outfit consisted of what looked like a low-cut one-piece blue swimsuit with occasional sequins.

Correction, her skin occasionally sparkled with what looked like sequins. Possibly scales? A hint of skin between her fingers and three small scars on either side of her collarbone that could be gill slits suggested an aquatic of some sort. Still, she looked amazing.

I was here to do a job, not get phone numbers, even if she had a waterproof phone. Appearances were also not everything, and with metas, you could never be certain. Maybe she had an aquatic gift, or maybe she could swim through stone like a fish and breath fire. I wouldn’t know until I touched her.

“Okay folks!” Miss petty said loudly. “We have someone here that is a medical specialist. He will help you deal with some of the issues you may have, and try to help get us all ready for prime time. He is not a superhero but he is a meta protecting his identity. His suggestions are suggestions, but according to Proteus, he knows what he is talking about. He will be with us for the next week and will answer any questions that don’t violate privacy laws. Please welcome Alchemyst.”

A couple of desultory claps let me know that more than one of these poor bastards had spent some quality time in a cube farm, or were spending it there. I felt like an efficiency expert that got to interview people before deciding whether or not the company needed them. This might be less stressful than making drugs while someone put a gun to my head, but not by much.

Grace offered me the floor, and I suddenly realized she expected me to say a few words. I looked around, adjusting my goggles, and shrugged, “Harpsichord. Agnostic. Souffle. Ritalin.” and then slipped through the door she had indicated as my interview room.

I was trying as hard as I could, but I had spent most of my life as an introvert. Some habits were painfully hard to break. Inside the room, there were 5 chairs, a desk, and a small potted cactus. I could tell how things were expected to go, reinforcing the corporate culture concept, and I stuck my head out of the room again to ask Grace, “Hey, is there a better room? This one looks like it’s supposed to scare lawyers. Something with a couch might be nice.”

Grace looked at me somewhat accusingly about the way I had left and then pointed to the room two doors down. “That’s the office for whoever gets assigned as the team psychologist. It has a couch already, I think.”

I nodded and walked over to the other room, stepping inside to be followed by my two shadows. There was a desk but no chairs, as well as a couch that looked like it had seen better days as a feature in an auto repair shop. I went and grabbed one of the chairs from the first room and dragged it into the second, and looks at Baldwin, “Hey Casey, You are a bit more frightening than Sarah here, could I get you to keep an eye outside?”

Baldwin looked confused for a minute and then chuckled. “You are lucky I’m not Casey, I’d probably have already put a bullet in your ass. Good call on the team dynamic, though… except, in this case, I’m Sarah and she is Casey.” he waved at Antonia, who was just looking more confused.

I shrugged, “It’s an old TV show called Chuck, I am pretty sure you can catch it on Netfix if you get time.” I glanced at Baldwin, “You do know that Casey’s actor…”

Baldwin nodded, “Yeah, His name was Baldwin too. He also played Jane in Firefly. No relation to the Baldwin brothers, fortunately. For a while, I wanted to be like him, but in the end, he’s just an actor, and I am a real Secret Service agent. There were worse actors I could have picked as a role model though.”

I nodded, “This is true. Hey, could you get a list or something and a notepad from Grace and then start sending them in? Make sure you get that fractal guy last, and I am going to need a bathroom break before you send in Miss Katonic.”

He laughed, “Oh, you’ve heard about her too? Yeah, if she pops I don’t want to be on the receiving end.” He carefully closed the door, and in a few moments returned with a legal pad and pen. I was a little surprised that he was willing to run errands, and then I remembered Secret Service. Those guys would go out and pick up hookers for you if that meant you stayed in a safe and controlled location.

I glanced at Agent Andropolis, “Are you secret service too?” I asked her, honestly curious.

She shook her head, “Nope, provisional for the DMA. Proteus asked them to send an agent to keep an eye on you, but you are considered low priority and low escape risk, so they sent me and someone with experience in protection details as my trainer. Thus agent Baldwin. This is not my first assignment, but it is one of my first solo missions. Baldwin is the senior agent and has oversight on policy, but I am the specialist and have oversight on metahuman affairs and tactical considerations.”

Ahh, DMA. The Department of Metahuman Affairs. They were the ones sent to deal with meta threats that were not big-ticket Supervillains that were a little too hot for normal cops or feds to handle. They had several Class D or lower metas on their teams, and the DMA teams got special weapons and gear that most local cops could only dream about. When someone took hostages or made a bomb threat, you got SWAT, but when those threats involved metahumans, the DMA was usually involved if a local team or the Protectors weren’t. Oh, while I was underground and in prison, Proteus had officially expanded their roster. The Prometheans were still their go-to group for global threats, but many countries had allowed them to sponsor secondary teams, called protectors, to deal with national threats.

I sat down on one end of the couch, taking off the Halloween Costume except for the chest armor. It wasn’t that I wasn’t worried about someone taking me out, it was more that extra stress, like me looking like gay Skeletor, would make my job a lot harder. At Antonia’s raised eyebrow I shrugged, “I doubt very much that the cartels managed to insert their people here already. When I go out I will wear the chicken suit, but in here it makes things just a ton more stressful and stress makes my job a lot harder.”

I was right about being overdressed. The first one to come in the door called himself Ballclub, and was wearing a set of football pads and carried a very nice titanium baseball bat. The rest of his outfit was similar to mine, a pair of jeans and a Gorillaz tee-shirt whose black set off the paleness of his muscular skin. He wore a hockey mask, and I refrained from mentioning that Hockey didn’t use balls as I shook his hand.

He had a decent density increase, which gave him higher than normal strength and good damage resistance, and he was in his mid 30’s. He was clearly a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but his brain had a fairly normal chemical balance for a guy that never outgrew high school. It was good that he was a meta, as he had very small aortal arteries and if he ate the usual diet as a guy his age, he’d be looking at a heart attack in the next twenty years or so.

Richard Brock Michelin (Ballclub)

Metahuman 9%, class E(C)

Aspects: body, nature, electricity, air, water

Power: 118

Conditions: circulatory issues

Projected lifespan: 25 years barring mishap. Current age: 36

healthy, excited, guarded

Powers: moderate density increase (involuntary, permanent)

no current abnormal infections

What made a meta a meta was a very hotly debated subject. I had a suspicion, because of how my abilities worked, that it was not so much a gene but a weird sort of connection that metas had to a…. place. I called it the dark zone because it was hard to explain. Their mental connection to that place was how they performed their tricks. Most powers pulled matter or energy from that place, temporarily, or sent it to that place as well, such as being able to shrink down to the size of an ant.

In my case, I had conscious control over what I pulled or sent to that place, through the medium of my gift. It was not very good control, but it seemed to use something different from what metas used, as I was able to influence it using people’s conscious and unconscious assumptions. I couldn’t directly sense those influences, but I could feel them well enough when I was creating something custom for an individual. If a meta had a true belief that mustard greens helped her to think better, I could use mustard greens as one of the ingredients in a potion that temporarily improved her mental processes. That’s why I didn’t register as a meta, I think, because whatever I did intentionally manipulated the bonds to that space rather than a talent that allowed me to access it for certain specific functions.

Ballclub, with his talent, could easily be a class D or even C metahuman, but he had no control over the mass he pulled out of the dark zone. It was permanently part of his physique, and thus it was severely limited to avoid harming him from too much weight. He seemed legitimate, though, and I took his hand and asked a couple of questions about where he saw himself in a team, I didn’t detect any hints of major chemical imbalances in his brain or excitement over the idea of hurting them.