SRA Streamrock Central Director Cameron Sunshrieker dealt with a lot on any given day. His city was falling apart at the seams, and his task forces, both supernatural and not, were criminally understaffed. In contrast, Streamrock had the second highest crime rate in the entire state. Countermanding that fact was the silver lining that said state was actually one of the better places to live in his glorious country, which was conveniently ignored when it didn’t serve to sooth his bitter mood.

Today was one such day where silver linings were ignored in favour of being bitter. Sunshrieker wasn’t canadian anyway, and he didn’t want to ever set foot in that cold country.

On a typical day, Director Sunshrieker’s responsibilities managing two associated but not attached organisations in addition to his own kept him in the office after hours. That things needed to be done according to code didn’t help, but the director always made sure that he never cut corners. It was an unforgiving approach to his work, but it was better than leaving things falling to the wayside.

On this day, however, Sunshrieker wouldn’t be seeing his home until well after sunrise on the next.

“Thank you, Best Friend.” The director said and lowered the phone receiver onto its stand. He leaned back, steepled his hands, and considered the best approach.

One of his Sentries was missing. Jumpspark had failed to make it to a checkpoint on tonight’s patrol and left a junior hero wondering where he was. Worse, there was little to no obvious trace as to where he had gone. That Lowlight had allegedly tracked the missing hero’s last known location was a godsend, but Director Sunshrieker couldn’t rely on the judgement of a fourteen year old.

A more reliable investigation was required, one that involved a trained detective. Then, people needed to be told. He would pass down the responsibility of telling the family to a more empathetic character. The director had a manhunt to organise. He would need to pick and choose who was told to reduce the chance of this reaching the news.

As the lists of people he needed to contact grew, the director let out a grimace of distaste.

It would have been easier if the missing person had been a Sentinel, rather than a Sentry. The gravity of one of the director’s valuable workers going missing wouldn’t have been any different, but if the public caught wind of a seventeen year old going missing under his watch, Director Sunshrieker’s head would roll. The Superhero Regulation Accord wasn’t viewed well by the public to begin with. Any excuse was good enough to change leadership, and Streamrock would be worse off for it.

And that was ignoring the disaster of losing five power bestowing vials, nearly losing a reputable member of Control, and having countless open fights occur on the streets, all in the same night. The incident reports alone were going to bury a desk or two for the next week, and he’d already received more than one angry phone call from the SPD’s side.

Burying those thoughts, Director Sunshrieker lifted the receiver once more. If anything, it was good that so many crises had happened tonight. The people that would be searching for Jumpspark were already out there. A few of them would even be able to work through until morning.

The first person Director Sunshrieker called picked up halfway through the first tone, as he tended to.

“This is Slip.”

“Slip, there is a situation you need to tend to.” Director Sunshrieker informed the hero.

He didn’t hear the sigh, but had worked with the adept long enough to know when one happened. “Haven’t there been enough situations tonight already?”

“A Sentry is missing.”

The director heard a crash on the other side of the call. “A Sentry!?”

“Yes. Jumpspark was on patrol-”

“I thought they weren’t part of tonight’s job!” Slip cut off the director, talking over him in a moment of outrage. “We knew it was going to be serious if something happened, and something big did happen!”

“As I was about to go on to say, Slip.” Director Sunshrieker said firmly. “Jumpspark was on patrol in the generally safer parts of this city, specifically on the eastside where events were unlikely to occur. This is different to what we have already been dealing with tonight.”

“Fuck.” Slip swore, causing Director Sunshrieker to frown. “Not at you, just- this. Alright, what do you have for me?”

“I will be forwarding you and others information sent to me from Best Friend, who took the original call.”

“Alright?” Slip questioned. “Whereabouts should I be heading in the meantime? I’ve got to get my costume on. Ugh, I just got it off, too.”

“The Jessica Domain.” Director Sunshrieker recalled. “I’ll be directing others that way. Lowlight was the one who tracked Jumpspark there, and I expect you will want to speak with him?”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to the squirt. Where is he now?”

“The Sentinel Tower, I believe. The code states that no underaged hero should be out on their own, so his patrol ended early. His shift is yet to finish.”

“He’s downstairs? Alright, that’ll make things easier.”

The call abruptly ended, which grated with the underappreciated director. It would take the least of effort to say goodbye before hanging up. However, there was little time to waste and Director Sunshrieker was quickly keying in a new number.

“Yo. Last Card.” The heroine greeted brashly.

“This is Director Sunshrieker. There is a situation you need to tend to.”

“Another one?” She questioned, exaggerated tiredness clear in her voice. It evaporated rather rapidly when Director Sunshrieker explained the reason for his call.

Hopefully when he got around to alerting more mundane authorities, the people taking the calls would have less exaggerated personalities.

~~~

Lucy stopped in front of her school and actually looked at it for what felt like the first time. The main building was old enough to have been originally built using asbestos. There was a well documented scandal where the corner shaped building had been shut down while the renovations were done, which caused no small amount of disruption during the exams it interrupted. But that had happened twelve years before in 2009, well before Lucy’s time.

The walls had come down to be replaced by new ones, but that had revealed more structural issues and the renovations had been extended. It had taken more than a year for the school’s face to resume being used, but when Lucy looked at the building now, it just looked old.

There is merit in maintaining a facade, oh student mine. Weather a thousand blows, remain standing tall, and your enemies will respect you. The admission will bring them pain.

A frown tugged at Lucy’s eyebrows as she wondered exactly how much money had gone into the building in front of her. It had to be in the millions. From where she stood, the right hand part of the corner shaped building was the assembly hall, while the left was three floors of classes, offices, and staff rooms. For all that money and renovating, the hall still had terrible acoustics, and the classes on the third floor were always stuffy and hot.

The rest of the school buildings were newer and more air conditioned. There were two of them that completed a J shape, while the rest of the land was dedicated to a courtyard and fields for football.

Lucy was shaken from her thoughts when another student shoulder checked her. It was a tall boy that quickly turned and shouted an apology before hurrying away. Lucy watched him go, then turned her attention back to the facade of Eaststream Grammar School. It bothered her, though she didn’t quite know why. Placing a metaphorical finger on certain feelings had been difficult recently.

When Lucy finally sat down in class, surrounded by other students, one particular feeling finally made sense.

Any one of her classmates could be a Sentry. Lucy had woken up to find nothing different about the crossbow on her desk, and the door hadn’t been kicked down by superpowered teenagers screaming vengeance. The girl had gone through her morning routine on autopilot, and only remembered why that was weird when she realised she was going to need more concealer than usual.

Strangely, Lucy didn’t feel nervous about being found. Since they hadn’t found her yet, they either never would, or it would take a long time. So the girl picked out a long sleeved shirt for the day and moved on.

She could use this time to plan tests for her new power. And revenge. From what Lucy had seen from her power, there was no reason the two couldn’t be done together.

You are not a warrior yet. Pride must be shown, but not carelessness.

Lucy clenched her fist as she watched her calculus teacher walk in. He was the old, boring kind of teacher. Well into balding and with a belly that extended beyond his belt, and who always wore blue dress shirts with the only variation of his wardrobe really being his assortment of ties. For some reason, he always pointed out the significance of the specific tie he wore as if a room of thirty seventeen year olds would be interested. The problem there was that he quite liked Lucy as a student. He’d notice if she stopped paying attention in class.

That was fine. The rest of Lucy’s teachers were paradoxically more interactive with their classes but noticed Lucy less than this one. The teenage girl’s first hour of classes was boring, but the rest were less so. Lucy even sat further to the back and got her phone out to surf the internet during some classes. She checked the news feeds she normally did not, and didn’t find anything about a missing Sentry.

Throughout the day, Lucy also kept an ear out for attendance, and took note of the people that were absent. She didn’t notice anything strange. In her school year, every class had different students in it, and there were always at least one or two people missing from each class. The difference now was that Lucy had a bunch of names written down.

When it was lunch time, Lucy sat where she always did. Normally she was approached once or twice to see if it was okay to sit near her. This time nobody approached the girl. But Lucy didn’t care, more interested in surfing superdogwatch.com trying to find a link or post providing current information about the Bad Dogs.

The best part of it being Friday was that Lucy didn’t have physics and so didn’t have to deal with being in the same room as Gracia. Or that’s what Lucy thought. She was proven wrong when she shouldered her bag over her twice burned shoulder and made to walk home.

“Lucy!” Someone called out from behind her. “Lucy!”

It was Gracia. Lucy looked back to see the other girl flanked by two faintly familiar girls. She was trying to get Lucy to wait, but Lucy didn’t much care for her company anymore. So she turned her back on Gracia and continued walking in the same direction she’d been before: Away.

But since she was only walking while Gracia was hurrying, it was clear that the other girl would catch up quickly. Lucy considered speeding up to avoid a confrontation entirely.

Do not run.

The girl decided to keep pace in the end. She had resolved to cut ties with Gracia, so Lucy would be betraying that if she did anything other than ignore the other girl.

“This is the bitch you wanted to see?” One of Gracia’s hanger on’s complained.

“I wanted to see her,” Gracia shot back, “alone, mind. Could you give us some space, darling?”

“Yeah, give us space.” The other hanger on deadpanned.

“What did I do to deserve getting ganged up on?” The first girl demanded, affronted.

“Both of you, give us space.” Gracia insisted. “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“Yeah, about that-”

“Loner here is power walking.” The second girl said. “And I don’t like walking that fast.”

“Then stay behind.” Gracia requested tiredly.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I refuse to walk that slow.” The first girl stressed ‘I’.

“No, stop.” The second girl was still deadpanning. “We’ll slow down… just enough to still listen.”

“If I catch you gossiping…” Gracia told her.

“This is loner girl we’re talking about. Who the hell is going to be interested in gossip about this?”

“The only gossip I’ve found so far is that You’re approaching her, Gracie.” The first girl added.

Lucy could all but feel the flicker of irritation coming from Gracia. “Well shove off then you skank. I can deal with a rumour about being interested in a loner.”

“Could you say that again?” The second girl asked, barely raising her voice to indicate the question. “I didn’t catch that specific wording with my camera.”

A moment passed.

“Alright.” The second girl sounded amused. “I won’t poke the lion’s den. Come on, Tiffany just posted something about her ex.”

“Which one?” The first girl asked, immediately distracted. The two’s voices started retreating as Lucy continued walking as she had been that entire time. “If it’s Brad, I’m going to hit her. She’s like, So bad about Brad boys.”

“Ha.”

Lucy stopped listening to the two as Gracia started to say what she had come to say. “Lucy, about last night…” She received no response. Lucy didn’t even clench her fist, since it was hard to be angry about losing a power when that very event had caused her to manifest. Or, it was very easy to be angry about that, but more in a cold, calculating way.

Oh vessel mine, you must control yourself.

A breath escaped Lucy as she forcefully relaxed every part of her body. Gracia took that as a cue to keep talking.

“First thing to say is I’m sorry.” She started.

Lucy couldn’t help it, she glanced at the other girl. Gracia stared back, her face giving little away. Not even sincerity. It was impossible to tell what that meant, so Lucy turned her eyes back to the front.

“I had no idea that he would walk in.” Gracia continued. “I didn’t even know he was involved with the plan, and I’m going to confront P about it tonight. If you… still want that, or something like that, it’s not like the door’s been shut entirely.”

Lucy kept her eyes forward, but it was getting harder.

“What you said about having your reason to live just die in front of you… it’s not something I could say I have experience with, but it’s not like I’ve had an easy life myself.” Gracia seemed to realise she was getting nowhere and sighed. “Us girls need to stick together.”

Lucy stopped. Gracia did too.

Control yourself.

Lucy kept walking, heedless of the chatter from behind.

“Look, last night was shitty. Nobody is arguing that. If we stick together and persevere, there will be another, better outcome. But Lucy, you have to talk to me if you want that-”

Gracia was interrupted as Lucy turned on her and picked up the other girl by her neck. The more mature girl’s feet lifted to her toes as Lucy stared deep into her eyes.

“Gracia.” Lucy said. “I said I was done with you.”

The other girl gasped for breath and grabbed at Lucy’s arms. She didn’t struggle to escape, however. It struck the girl as odd. Didn’t Gracia have a power?

This one is beyond you for now, oh broken child.

Lucy dropped Gracia and looked at her hand, then back to the other girl. Had she gone up on her toes to play along? Or had that been raw strength? Whatever it was, Lucy wasn’t about to ask.

“Lucy…” Gracia halted when Lucy glared at her eyes.

“Do you want me to say it a third time?” Lucy demanded, though her words were loaded with tiredness rather than vitriol.

“... No.” Gracia eventually decided. “But you have my number.”

“If I ever want anything from you, you’ll be the first to find out and the second most surprised.” Lucy shot back and turned away. This time she wasn’t followed.

The piercing sound of the first hanger on’s voice did ring through the noise, however. “That was a cute moment. I got a picture!”

“Please delete that.”

“Whoops! I hit the upload button instead.”

“Hilarious.”

Lucy hunched her shoulders and hurried away from the popular girls. There was an air of danger surrounding them that Lucy hadn’t felt before. Or maybe she’d just ignored it in the hopes that they’d include her. The best move was to leave at that moment. The saying once burned, twice shy seemed appropriate.

The girl’s feet carried her home in what seemed like the blink of an eye. No tiredness assaulted her the moment she sat down, like it had in every other day she’d lived through so far. Lucy wasn’t hungry either. She just fell down in the chair in front of her desk and spared the crossbow still sitting on her desk a glance before turning on her laptop. There she continued the research she’d been doing all day.

Superdogwatch hadn’t been as helpful as Lucy had thought it would be. It was a forum website, and trawling through the threads only yielded information that was days old at the time of posting. The most recent post had only been posted the night before and concerned the many fight’s Lucy already knew about. She glanced through the thread anyway, and found it half filled with Bad Dog sympathisers.

Nobody knew about the real reason the fights had broken out, but there were several theories. Lucy left them to their conspiracy theorising and checked other threads. One was pinned and listed all known fighters for the Bad Dogs and what their suspected powers were. It yielded some new information, but there was too much variety and it wasn’t what Lucy was looking for. Nothing in that thread detailed where the information came from, only that it was posted by a moderator called GenuineBlackCat.

The only other pinned thread detailed the rules that moderators only sometimes enforced. There was nothing readily available about where fights occurred, leaving Lucy wondering where Gracia had gotten her information about Saturday from.

That was a question that would remain unanswered.

Fortunately, there was a thread that appeared to be consistently bumped called Dog Fighting Rinks WHY ARE THERE SO MANY AND WHAT ARE THE PIGS DOING?!?1? The first post was the original poster echoing the complaints of many citizens in Streamrock. The second post mocked the first for grammar and pointed out the typo in the title of the thread. Underneath that things started actually being useful.

GenuineBlackCat had posted a map of westside Streamrock and had labeled the addresses of old fighting arenas that the cops had swept through. Other users posted about more arenas that they had missed, resulting in an updated map being posted shortly after. That was the end of page one of twenty.

Lucy didn’t check every page, skipping to the end instead. Then she clicked back since there was only one unhelpful post on the twentieth page so far. She soon found another, far more updated map of a more zoomed out Streamrock with many more abandoned arenas than Lucy thought possible. Most of them were on the outskirts to the west of the city, but some of them were even located in downtown, and more alarmingly, eastside, well outside of established Bad Dog territory. One was even within walking distance of Lucy’s house.

After taking a moment to blink away her surprise, Lucy counted twenty three abandoned arenas on the map, each with an address or name that could presumably be put into any maps app for directions. Written just above the map in all caps, GenuineBlackCat had typed ‘REMEMBER THAT THESE ARE ONLY THE ONES THAT GOT BUSTED BY THE AUTHORITIES. THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE MORE UNKNOWN FIGHTING RINGS.’

It was good enough. Lucy found the page on her phone and downloaded the image for later use. Before moving on to start a hunt, Lucy went back and checked the various news feeds. It was the typical doom and gloom that reminded the girl why she’d stopped following these things in the first place, but a missing person did jump out at her. A seventeen year old boy that went to a private school. His picture wasn’t very flattering, or in focus. Lucy passed it over because the circumstances of his disappearance didn’t match what she was looking for and went to get changed.

She wore dark but not black clothing, pausing before passing over the clothes in the separated blue section of her wardrobe. The mask Gracia had bought her was damaged beyond use and Lucy would never touch it again. That was fine. Lucy wasn’t planning on picking any fights tonight, and she’d buy a new one if the opportunity arose. She did have a power now, after all.

Do not depart unarmed when entering hostile territory.

Lucy glanced where the crowbar was leaning against the corner before closing the doors to her wardrobe. She didn’t see it on account of the clothes in the way, but after a moment of hesitation, Lucy went back and picked it up. It would be carried in her bag, much like the crossbow would be. The only reason it hadn’t been taken to school with her was because it wouldn’t fit in her bag with all of her school supplies.

When Lucy looked back at the crossbow, however, it was different. The weapon hadn’t moved, but there was something about the movement of the power sourced lights that indicated agitation. Lucy approached slowly, wondering if something had actually changed, or if she was just more crazy now.

It turned out that she wasn’t crazy at all.

“that’s me”

A whispering voice trailed off, having imparted those words without having actually spoken in the traditional sense. It was vaguely familiar, as if Jumpspark’s voice had been run through a few voice modulators to be soft spoken and sibilant and then entered Lucy’s mind through means that weren’t her ears.

Lucy had to take another look at the bespeckled blond boy on the screen. If she was connecting the dots correctly, then Jumpspark’s real name was Liam William Hellmoore.

More importantly, Lucy’s crossbow was talking to her.