“So let me get this straight as succinctly as possible.” Risk said, having listened to my explanation. “Greenflame is doing business with the Beastmasters, and that business involved Bad Valentine making a debut fighting the four remaining Collectors and then Yearn as well, and he won?”

“He did.” I answered.

“And there’s no trace of them because of Boss. The business with Greenflame involved retrieving a flail that ‘bled’, is that right?” Risk continued. I nodded. “You know, Forsaken, when you said there would be ‘bleed’, I wasn’t expecting it to be so literal.”

“She has begun to influence the world.” Forsaken said gravely. “That she is in the hands of villains bodes ill. There will be a repeat.”

“I don’t like when she does that.” Glitter Bomb agreed.

Aand both of you are crazy. “And my friend and I were forced to tag along.” I added, again. “He was coerced, and I came to stop him from doing anything stupid.”

“You didn’t succeed.” Risk said.

“I tried.” I shrugged. “But yeah, don’t get close to those three. Partymaster did something to them.” I gestured at the three non-powered beastmasters. “That’s Nancy, Nick, and Joe.”

“We should pursue the Beastmasters.” Forsaken told Risk before he could respond to me. “Time is of the essence, now.”

“We’re staying here.” Risk told him, leaving no room for argument. “When Toil gets here he can make the call. This is the scene of a supernatural conflict, we need to contain it until the Regulation gives the clear.”

Forsaken didn’t look happy about that, but accepted it.

“You missed the part where this is an Entrepreneur storehouse.” I belatedly realised as Forsaken and Glitter Bomb moved back to the van.

“We already knew that.” Risk replied. “Glitter Bomb and Forsaken have been looking for that flail since the Racketeers stole it. We knew it was here, but the safest path was too long and thin to be traveled. Ambushes abound and so on.”

“What’s this about paths?” I asked.

“Glitter Bomb’s power.” Risk explained. “She’s Smart. It lets her know specific routes to anything she knows or has sufficiently interacted with. Works on people too, and can be dangerous or safe paths. Very useful.”

“I… don’t see how that fits her name.”

“She can also make glitter.”

“Oh.” Yeah, that would make sense then.

“Though, Lock.” Risk said, taking a more serious tone as he turned to the three people lying on the ground in front of the church. “Weren’t you mingling with these people today? They know who you are.”

“Shit.” I turned the mask off and glanced at Nick, Nancy, and Joe each. None of them seemed to be paying any attention. I knew I was tired, but I thought there was enough adrenaline going through me that I at least had reasonable judgement. “Yeah, that one goes to school with me.” I was referring to Nathan.

“He doesn’t seem to be paying attention.” Risk commented.

“What are the chances of him outing me?” I asked, remembering that he had that power.

Risk shook his head. “Not how it works, Sentry. I can predict the outcomes of a situation, but not situations themselves.”

“Then…” Gears ground painfully in my head. “Then how about the outcome of this. Here and now, outside the church, do I get outed?”

The blue and red superhero thought for a moment. “It isn’t part of the two most likely outcomes. I’d say you have up to a sixty four point nine percent chance. That’s not necessarily the number, mind you, it would be anywhere between that and zero.”

I considered the information. “Small mercy.” I decided, then turned the mask back on. “And now?”

“Unchanged.” Risk told me. “Now stop playing with my power. Toil’s here.”

“Risk, you’re impossible to sneak up on.” A cheery voice spoke up from right behind us. It was so close that my shoulders flinched up as I ducked away. I nearly missed what he said next. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the practice. But you could let me win once or twice. Who’s this? Lock?”

Toil was wearing a white half cape over one shoulder and had a staff that I found myself eyeing warily. His blue, toned with white costume revealed in asymmetry, not unlike Yearn’s did. But Toil’s had the same theme on both sides, just expressed in different ways. The cape was flamboyant, and made for showmanship. Under the cape, however, I could just see a shoulder pauldron that was sturdier than what was on his other shoulder. Similar expressions of utilitarianism underneath showmanship repeated themselves all the way down.

I was close enough to see how he was altered as well. It was subtle, but it was definitely there. The blood red fingernails, the bloody sclera, and the one ear facing towards me being pointed enough that it stood out. Like an attempt at a blood elf or something.

Risk sighed. “You guessed correctly.”

“And why haven’t you started investigating this scene? Did you know I was coming?”

“Again, you guessed correctly.” Risk was rolling his eyes enough that it showed through the mask. “The two most likely scenarios involved starting the investigation without you and getting told off for doing so, or to not and get told off for not starting. Both telling offs happened at around the same time, and they were sixty and thirty nine point five percent respectively. You’ve settled into a pattern.”

“I’ll need to practice on being unpredictable again. I always hate it when I get two proficiencies that contradict each other. But that’s moot. Start the investigation now, take Sacred and Wall Walker with you, start inside the building. There’ll be a door that's been ruined, and probably with glass. Go through that first. I’m guessing that we can’t approach these three because of a Whisper effect right now. I’ve handled Forsaken already.”

“Monarch.” I muttered as Risk moved towards a second van and met with another hero in a yellow costume that had fire motifs. Wall Walker was just getting out to join them.

Toil hummed, realising I was there again. “There’s always something. Partymaster, I’m guessing.”

I nodded as Joe screamed again.

Toil winced. “That one got touched by Agent Orange on top of it. That’s a Disrupter affect I never want to experience again.”

“Shouldn’t he get tranquilised or something? To stop the screaming.” I asked.

Toil shook his head. “I’ll put it this way, that poor boy is out of sync with where he’s supposed to be. It’s a very painful divergence that doesn’t do much to the body, but hurts the mind severely. Right now he’s experiencing a life in twain, you could say.”

I frowned, and Toil elaborated.

“Agent Orange gave him a light push most likely, and the action caused a new timeline to be split off from our own. We don’t get to experience it, but that boy does. All it accomplished was changing where he fell over, but the disparity is causing him immense pain, as you can clearly see.”

Joe was still screaming.

“Not much to do except to wait for the laws of the universe to reestablish themselves. Until then, he’ll still be physically reacting to the pain because the other him is fine and experiencing things too.”

“What if he got tranqed in both timelines?” I asked.

“He’s in thousands, one new one for each instant where he’s made a decision.” Toil shrugged. “Statistical improbability he gets proper treatment in all of those, and we can’t even get close right now. It’ll sort itself out in a day or so.”

“I’m staying away from Agent Orange, then.” I muttered to myself.

“You should be staying away from all villains right now, Michael.” Toil said.

It took a moment for me to realise he just used my real name. I stared at him. “Why does everyone know my goddamn name?”

“To be fair, it’s just Risk and I that know your name here in the HoY. The leader has to supervise all cases, even if I don’t take an active role in them.” Risk gestured at my face. “I caught a glimpse of your honest visage just now when I was approaching, and I recognised the look.”

“What look?” I demanded.

“You’re running ragged, haven’t slept enough, and you’re haunted.” Toil said succinctly. I didn’t really have a rebuttal for that, so he continued. “It’s common enough in the business, we all have our demons.” His body language darkened for a moment. “But normally the Regulation steps in before things get too bad. That you’re even on your feet right now is amazing. How much sleep have you gotten recently?”

“I…” I thought for a moment. “Today? Half an hour, probably.”

“What about yesterday?”

I had to think about that one too. “I don’t remember.”

“If you were on my team, I would be sneaking sleeping pills into your meals until you caught up on that sleep deficit.” Toil said matter of factly. “That kind of sleeplessness leads to bad calls unless you have a power like Sacred’s that stops you from getting tired. Literally burns the melatonin out of his body, that one. You clearly don’t have that, going by the bags under your eyes that I caught a glimpse of. Actually, let me see your face.”

I blinked.

“Unless that’s overstepping my bounds.” Toil followed up.

I shook my head and checked to see where the other heroes of Yesterday were. Blinking red and blue lights from down the street distracted me and I made my decision and stood with my back to the heroes in the church.

Toil hummed as he inspected my naked face. “Yup, you’re quite the open book. Have you talked to anyone about Salt Lake City yet?”

I squinted, not appreciating the comment. “That’s why I can’t sleep.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“Myself,” I said cryptically. “And a twelve year old girl.”

“One of your family members, or...” Toil asked. I shrugged like it didn’t matter. “I wasn’t there, personally, at Salt Lake. The teleporter in Seattle didn’t deem the Heroes of Yesterday important enough to make the journey. Which, fair, we can’t fly. That being said, I was present when Scathach and Railerrunner made a crater and a mountain out of Fairbanks, wiped it out, same as what you went through. I don’t have the civilian experience, but I have that.”

“And you’re point is?” I demanded frostily.

“Go see a therapist.” Toil said. A void of quiet fell between us as I stared at him. The reason I didn’t want to do that was because I would break before I got better. Since Fail had made me open the box, that argument was weaker.

“It won’t cost you anything.” Toil eventually continued. “The Regulation subsidises that stuff for all their Sentrys and Sentinels. And I can tell it’s something you’ve considered before.”

“There are reasons I’m not doing that.” I said. The conspiracy against me, for one. Doctor-patient confidentiality was supposed to be a thing, but I wasn’t entirely confident Zephyr would respect that given how often my name was slipped to people without my permission.

“Do tell.” Toil said, leaning on his staff and making it very clear that he was waiting.

I squinted at him as angrily as I could muster, given my state. No excuses were forthcoming.

Toil waited.

“The nightmares.” I eventually sighed. “Talking won’t stop them. Sleeping pills would just put them on a schedule.”

“They would pass in time.” Toil said.

“They weren’t a problem.” I snapped. “Then I talked about it, and now they’re a problem. How long would it take, anyway? A month? A year? How about ten?”

“It would take as long as it needs to.” Toil said. “Though, there may be a way to cheat around that time.”

“No.” I said, already knowing what he was about to suggest.

“Sondor would let you choose what would take its place.” Toil continued.

“Sondor would obliterate the final memories of me before my brain got fucked up.” I rebuked. “I know what she does, rehabilitating villains and all that. Giving them fake memories and fundamentally rewriting who they are. I don’t want that. What happened in the sunlit city was me. Whatever she puts in its place wouldn’t be me.”

“At the very least, it would no longer be haunting you. Maybe working with Forsaken has made me too candid about this kind of thing… Regardless, you are still your own person, Michael. Sondor would never do anything without your permission. If you see her as the devil, then I’m her advocate.”

“Thanks for caring.” I bit through my words.

“It’s my pleasure.” Toil said in a way that I couldn’t hear as sarcastic. “You’re going to need to give a statement to the police, which is why I really asked you to put your power down. Come, I’ll introduce you to a nice one.” He started moving towards the policemen just getting out of their cars.

“A nice police officer?” I asked. “Right…”

“Hey. You work with those people as much as you work with Lucidity. And the one I’m introducing you to is nice. I’m a very proficient judge of character.”

“That’s the second time you used that word.” I commented as I followed. “You’re Smart right? Got a power that involves getting better at things?”

“The more I do something, yes.” Toil answered, then pointed. “That person there is Constable Greggory Chambers. He won’t push too hard, since you’re going to be forthcoming, and will probably offer to drop you off somewhere. Tell them everything you told Risk and you’ll probably get home before the leftovers get too cold in the fridge. You foster mom cooked up meatballs tonight, but one of your sisters burned the spaghetti. There should be lasagna in the freezer that’s more your speed, though if you cook up that you’ll want to find a way to heat up the middle.”

“It’s uncanny, how you do that.” I said, taking in Constable Chambers. The policeman was freakishly tall, but didn’t have the broadness to match, making him look a bit like a stick. As someone who eternally looked like a stick, I could empathise.

“I’m a very proficient guesser.” Toil said, smugness embedded in his voice. Then, much more loudly, “Constable Chambers! How are the kids?”

Toil had a silver tongue, I realised. The way he changed tact so suddenly. It made sense, though. If he got better at something the more he did it, then he would be incredibly good at talking to people, given how much people liked to talk. As he exercised his sudden charisma on the constable, I found myself wondering how much he practiced listening.

He was definitely proficient at extracting information, going by how much he made me admit to. Was he doing subtle therapy under that? I didn’t feel any better, but parts of our conversation were hanging in my head. His suggestion regarding Sondor present at the forefront of it.

Actually, how good would Toil be at manipulating people? I found myself squinting at Toil. Completely unprompted, he looked at me and cocked his head, simulating a wink under his mask. That meant he knew where my thoughts had gone and had reacted appropriately.

Yeah, he was manipulating me.

Pretty quickly, Toil was finished explaining my situation to Constable Chambers and clapped me on the shoulder as he went to join the other heroes investigating the church. In that time, other police and Regulation personal had shown up to the scene and were cordoning it off. Constable Chambers took me to a police car and had me sit in the passenger seat.

“Alright.” He said after getting into the driver’s seat. His voice had positive energy to it, but it didn’t sound like he was putting it on for my benefit. It was just how he spoke. “Michael, was it? Toil tells me you have quite the story.”

“Uh…” I blinked repeatedly to get my head in the game. Since Toil had started speaking to the Constable, my mind had been left to wander places I wished it wouldn’t. “Yeah. So do you know about Greenflame?”

~~~

“I’ll shout you the money for the phone.” Constable Chambers told me as he put the car in park.

I looked at him with a frown. “Shout?”

“I’ll give you the money. Lend it. However you want to put it, it’s on me.” Constable Chambers elaborated. He had his wallet out and was pulling a ten dollar note from within.

“I have the money.” I said. “It’s just a phone.”

Constable Chambers held the note between two fingers and thrust it in my direction. “You had a rough night, and I don’t think Rainbowfish is going to follow through on that promise to pay for your phone.”

I considered arguing further. Becoming a charity case wasn’t something I was striving for, but this much was inconsequential. I grudgingly accepted the ten dollar note and pondered spending twice as much as I normally did as I moved over to the Vphone vending machine.

These things were everywhere, and had been for at least a decade. Not just in the states, either. Vphones were a worldwide phenomenon. They became popular when an Adept called Voice appeared and started selling his tech commercially, taking a different stance on using his power than most did. Instead of becoming a hero or villain, Voice became rich. A mascot for his business, which sold the tech he specialised in.

Voice’s adept specialisation was telecommunication, so he made things like phones, and variations on phones. If it had a wifi or data connection, he could do it. The cherry on top was that he sold most of his stuff for dirt cheap prices. I had been too young to really register what was going on, but the time where Voice was spreading his technology across the world was a time where the people of the world got a big case of whiplash from the sudden advancement in technology.

It wasn’t the first time an Adept had revolutionised technology, but it was the first time anyone in Africa could connect to anyone in Europe at the press of a button. It opened up the gates to a flood of communication, or so the experts liked to say. It also went a great way towards getting education to the farther to reach areas, at least until the telecommunication companies that supplied broadband put a throttle on that little area of advancement.

The open secret to Voice’s success was that he designed his technology- phones, routers, broadcast towers, etcetera- to be easily manufacturable to anyone that wasn’t him, which was where most other Adepts failed in their business practices. There were still phones that could only be made by the man himself, but they were expensive and hard to acquire for obvious reasons.

That, combined with completely original trademarks and copyrights, cheap base materials, and an easy to assemble production line lead to me looking at an old vending machine with half its lights not working, trying to decide if I wanted a four dollar Vphone, or a twelve dollar one. The big difference between the two being the Vphones’ durability, general shape, with the more expensive one being larger, and a very subtle difference in processing speed.

Both had 48 megapixel cameras, a zoom lens that ranged between 22mm and 70mm, and could rotate between prime lenses that were 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm. They also had video calling, audio calling, and texting capabilities, eight terabytes of data storage with room for more, and the capability to recover all my lost data from the one Bad Valentine destroyed.

After some deliberation, I went with the twelve dollar one, reasoning that it basically cost me two dollars with the money Constable Chambers had given me and was therefore half the price. That it also had a 38mm prime lens was icing on the cake. Plus I liked the shape more. It had curved edges that I enjoyed dragging my fingers across, and accommodated how loosely I tended to handle my Vphones.

I couldn’t imagine living in a world where these things cost more than pocket change.

Constable Chambers didn’t ask for the change as he started driving me back to the house I was living in. During the drive I connected the Vphone to the number that was connected to me and spent most of it trying to recall the passwords and security questions that I set up four months ago.

The process involved confirming my email address, so I had to use the internet app to navigate to my email page, which required more passwords and security questions. But eventually I had all my old apps, numbers, and conversations loaded onto the Vphone.

“Get some rest.” Constable Chambers told me before I closed the door on him. I paused, unsure if I should close it now, and he started lowering it from his side. So I closed it and leaned down to listen. “It’s a school night.” He elaborated.

My brows furrowed. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” I lied. “Thanks for dropping me off.”

There was a moment's hesitation as the police man looked at me. Then he said, “It was a pleasure, Michael. Stay out of trouble.” I couldn’t pin down any sarcasm or dishonesty in that statement. It was hard to deny him living up to the reputation Toil had given him.

I nodded and stepped back. The police car pulled away from the curb. When he rounded a corner I pulled out my new Vphone and called a number I’d been itching to call ever since the device had entered my possession. It rung for long enough that I was expecting to not get an answer when the other end was picked up.

“Michael?” Nathan said, his voice sounded weak. “Fucking hell, you scared me.”

“What’s happening?” I asked. “Did the Beastmasters let you go?”

“Yeah… Yeah, they did.”

“And I’m guessing they’re not too happy with me.”

“Yeah. They aren’t.” Nathan breathed a sigh. “Why’d you stay behind, man?”

I flashed back to the moment. I knew exactly why I didn’t move. “Can’t say.”

“They told me to tell you to keep quiet.” Nathan said. “Apparently Rainbowfish tried to do something to you, but it didn’t work.”

“Oh. Okay.” I didn’t know how to respond to that. “What happened with that bleeding flail? Green- uh… the green woman?”

Nathan took his sweet time coming up with a response. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Seriously?”

Again, Nathan took a while to respond. “Yeah. Let’s find somewhere else to hang tomorrow, so Nick doesn’t find us again.” He sounded about as tired as I felt.

“Nick got jailed.”

“His lackey, then.”

I breathed heavily, holding my Vphone where it wouldn’t pick up on that before responding. “Alright, but you got home okay, at least?”

“Yeah.”

There was a poignant silence.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I said.

“Yeah.” Nathan responded, then I ended the call.

With nothing more keeping me outside I jumped the gate onto the lawn, using my power to have my clothes keep me up a little. I couldn’t do that to the extent of keeping me aloft, because then they would break, but I could finagle things to make me jump higher than I maybe should, and come back down slower than most. The problem was all the seams digging into me. It wasn’t that high a gate, anyway. It only came up to my waist.

Right before I reached the door, the interior lights turned on. I didn’t let it interrupt my momentum, but the door opened away from me moments before I could get my hands on it. The swinging door revealed a woman with stress hairs who was trying to get me to call her mom.

“Hi Kathrine.” I said as I pulled my hand back and put it in a pocket.

“Just where have you been?” She demanded, keeping her voice down.

I listened and realised that the house was quiet. The girls were asleep, or at least had been put to bed. “Do you want to have this conversation inside or outside?” I asked.

Kathrine considered that for a moment, then stepped out to join me on the porch. When she spoke, her voice was still hushed. “You didn’t tell me anything tonight, and you were out later than you usually are. After that night where you didn’t come back at all, you’ve been acting strange. I’m not consenting to you being a Sentry again until you tell me what is happening with you.”

I blinked. It was true that I was acting strange, but Kathrine hadn’t done any more than brush the surface. “I got in trouble.” I told Kathrine honestly. “I’m not allowed to be a Sentry for another five days, anyway.”

Kathrine seemed taken off guard. The last time we spoke on the matter, she had been holding this hostage, and had assumed she could do that again this conversation. She recovered quickly, though. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

So I did, leaving out all the parts about Fail and the conspiracies surrounding me, which was a lot. “I’ve been going to the SRT anyway to keep up with my fitness, because otherwise Zephyr will get on my case again.” I finished.

Kathrine seemed a little stunned. “You should have said something. That kind of treatment isn’t okay.”

“I assaulted a hero. Does that sound like something that’ll end well for me?”

“You’re a minor.” Kathrine stressed. “No wonder you’ve been acting so strangely. I was wondering if maybe you-”

“Hit puberty?” I guessed.

“No, Michael. That’s more the realm of Marie right now and Sofiya in a few years. I was thinking you got yourself a girlfriend, or maybe you met a villain without your costume and were getting blackmailed.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I did meet a villain.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Kathrine breathed out. “I meant with the knowledge of who you really are and your…” She gestured at me.

I knew what she was trying to say. “No villains know about my powers and call me Michael.” I said truthfully. That was the most honest I could be about that. It ended the conversation pretty decisively, and Kathrine tried to mother me by ushering me inside and preparing today’s leftovers.

She was a little shocked when I vetoed burned spaghetti and asked for the lasagna in the freezer. “How did you know it was burned?”

“Lucky guess.” I answered.

“How in the world would you guess that?”

“It wasn’t me.”

~~~

Nathan looked better than I did when I looked in the mirror. Given the state I was in, that wasn’t saying much. Nathan looked terrible. When we met up for break, we had only really exchanged greetings, but hadn’t started talking because what we were going to talk about wasn’t something we wanted anyone else to hear.

At least, that’s how it was for me. Nathan wasn’t really engaging much. Either way, it left me with a little relative peace and quiet, which was nice in contrast to the hellscape that was paying attention in class. All that was really said were suggestions as to new places to hang out, since Nathan didn’t want to go back to the old one.

There had been a spot that was deserted and relatively out of traffic, but was in the sun. Several more that were in the shade and already occupied or too close to general traffic for us to want to settle. We got close to giving up when we passed by our old spot and saw that three girls had taken up residence there.

“Library building?” I suggested. “Not inside it, around from the entrance. Might be a corner.”

“May as well.” Nathan spoke, his voice hoarse.

We found the corner I had recalled, but not remembered well. It was a wedge between two buildings, the library and a class block, and went in quite a way. A bench had been built into the library side of the wedge and a girl was sitting far in the back of it, her boots drawn up onto the bench itself.

“No dice.” Nathan said. “Parking lot?”

“One minute.” I said, squinting at the blonde girl. She was wearing jeans and a black shirt, and had a book open that was pressed against her knees harder than I’d seen others in that position. The girl was crouched, but only made contact with the bench where her thigh high boots made contact with the wood.

She looked up at me and I saw something flash across her face. I was still squinting to get a better look without seeming creepy by going into the wedge, then just turning around without saying anything.

“Michael?” She said in a familiar voice. “I didn’t know you came here. I thought you were in Bi- the other one.”

“You know her?” Nathan asked. “I didn’t think you talked to girls that weren’t Sonya.”

“I talk to people.” I shot back at him. “The Greenflame thing can wait a bit, I guess. Hey, Madeleine. This is Nathan. Nathan, Madeleine.”

Madeleine bookmarked where she was and put the book down as she lowered her feet to the ground one by one. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing important.” I waved my hand dismissively, a horizontal movement with my palm facing down. Trying to get across that Nathan wasn’t privy to my secret identity, or that it wasn’t something I wanted her to ask about. “Can I sit?”

“If you’re sure…” Madeleine trailed off as she watched us sit down. A moment passed before something flashed across her face. “And don’t use my full name, please. Just Maddy is fine.”

I halted, the request digging into me. “I liked saying it, but okay.”

“Hold on.” Nathan said, suddenly sounding more focused than he had been all day. “How did you know that she was called Greenflame?”