“It doesn’t work like that big guy. Think of it like this, you have a scrape and need a plaster, but there are only two available. One is pink and girly, got a cartoon princesses on it, while the other just has a poop emoji on it. You can cover your booboo with the princess or the poo. Your scrape is equivocal to a big gaping void, or it’s about to be. What would you prefer to cover the void with? A princess or a poo?”

- Sondor explaining her power to Viscount Ryan.

_____________________________________________________________

“Felix-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

There was a moment before Terry let out a long sigh. “Felix, that’s fine, but you gotta be more careful.”

Something Felix knew already, but it was hard. Life was demanding and things were chaotic. Always speeding up, always complicating, always needing something more. He could stay slow and get left behind, or keep up and things like this would happen.

Another literal sword wound to add to the canvas.

“And you gotta see someone about that.”

Who? Felix thought sarcastically. An upstanding doctor? They’ll ask questions.

Felix continued to take his costume off. The base had a set of lockers in an out of the way room for them to store their costumes and equipment. Felix’s locker had the least in it. Felix’s locker had ‘THE SNAIL’ spray painted down the door. All the other lockers for the Verdant Crescent just had a picture of the gifted in costume. Or a logo.

There was the Snideman- fuck him, Bat Whisperer- an inaccurate title if there ever was one, Plantitude- more flora than fauna, and Wreckface- who ironically had the fairest face amongst them, even with the mask on. And then there was him. The Snail.

He found himself staring at the vandalised door. How had he let himself end up with such an insulting yet accurate name? Then he closed his eyes and opened the locker like he always did, wincing in pain as he moved.

Too fast. His power had failed.

“Come on, Felix.” Terry tried again.

“What are you expecting me to say, Terry?” Felix asked, not turning around. He measured the length of each word, else the wound would pump more blood out of him.

It had taken him so long just to get down here. All the others would have taken their costumes off and started celebrating the successful heist an hour ago. How long had Terry spent with them before coming to look? How long for the sword to get mentioned?

Terry’s answer was not forthcoming. Felix got his mask off, as intricate as the clasps were, before anything more was said.

“Look, I get that you guys are put on a pedestal and all, but you’re still human.” Terry said. “Transhuman, but still.”

“So?” Felix shot back, drawing it out so it wasn’t too snappy. “What are you trying to say?”

“You need to get anything off your shoulders?”

Felix couldn’t help it. He laughed and blood resumed flowing along its natural course, spilling out of him and splashing on the floor. His nerves began firing and pain overwhelmed the laughter, turning it into painful wheezing. The painful wheezing was slow enough on the outtake that Felix’s power kicked back into effect and the pain receded. He was left chuckling slowly. A strained and haunting sound.

His power was enhanced strength, enhanced durability, and constant healing. A standard Enforcer powerset, so strong that if he decided to, he could move anything and nothing could move him, making him both an unstoppable force and an immovable, invulnerable object. But it came with the caveat that the more quickly he moved, the less of an effect it had. And the drop off was ridiculous.

Running completely negated the power. Walking made it superficial. He couldn’t even stay as an immovable object because he needed to breath and that was considered moving.

Terry threw his hands up in exasperation and Felix only knew because when they came down, they hit his pants. And the exasperated sigh. Mostly the sigh.

Felix cleared his throat, to mild success. “I don’t know if you forgot, but I’m a supervillain. You don’t need to care about me. No one does anyway, not really. I’ll be fine. I heal when I sleep.” It was why no one bothered giving him medical attention for the fucking sword wound leaking blood from his side.

“Felix, you probably don’t think much of me because I’m normal. You probably don’t think much of me because you’re a villain. You probably don’t think much of actually talking to someone because you’re a villain.”

“Terry.” Felix’s voice scratched. There was blood where it shouldn’t be. When had that happened? Felix cleared his throat again. “Don’t call me Felix, we’re not that close. I don’t like being reminded that I didn’t have a choice. And you’re right. And you can go now.”

“Fucking fine.” Terry dropped all pretense and walked to the door. “If you’re just going to be a dick to everyone, then I’ll have to settle for ignoring you.” The door slammed instead of being closed. The sudden shift in character leaving Felix more stunned than he thought he would be.

That was honestly the nicest fuck off that Felix had received during his time in the Verdant Crescent, but it hit the hardest. It shouldn’t have, but Terry was the last one to spurn Felix. Every one of his teammates didn’t like being associated with someone the Regulation had dubbed ‘The Snail’. And the ‘The’ was warranted and capitalised because he was The Snail. All the unpowered hanger-ons reviled The Snail because it put them in better standing with the cooler supervillains.

As Felix slowly, cautiously took off his costume and put on a red shirt so the blood wasn’t obvious, he found himself wondering why he stuck around.

As Felix trudged out the door and measured each footstep, he found himself wishing he hadn’t been stuck with this stupid power he had. He could be amazing, but only at the pace of a snail.

He lived five minutes walk away from the hideout, but at the pace he was forced to travel, it was going to take him the better part of an hour. The thoughts turned in on themselves and extrapolated with nothing interesting to distract him. Words repeated in his head and poisoned themselves to the point that Felix felt sick when they came up in different contexts.

Slowly, he moved. All the negativity in the world with nowhere to go.

Felix was frustrated by the time he reached his apartment. He screamed mentally as he was forced to slowly climb into bed instead of just letting himself fall onto it. The darkness of the ceiling above continued to be dark as he failed at getting to sleep.

“I fucking hate this.” Felix let himself quietly admit.

~~~

Felix was making a terrible decision, but he truly no longer cared. In the end, the sponsor of the Verdant Crescent had jumped the gun and kicked The Snail off the team the day before he was going to walk out. It had come as an unpleasant surprise, which was a common enough occurrence with Snideman on the team, but walking out was something that Felix had wanted to own.

He shouldn’t have written the date on his calendar in his apartment. If he hadn’t then Snideman wouldn’t have had the thread of secrets to follow, but if he hadn’t he never would have had the resolve.

Still, at least he was out. Felix had been given a severance package so they parted on neutral terms instead of hostile ones. That it was going towards this instead of getting straight… Felix didn’t know.

“Name your price.” He said.

The woman in green pulled the pipe away from her mouth and blew smoke over the circular table between them. She took her time emptying her lungs, then just as hastily took a breath. “Why does everyone want to get straight to business? Come. Sit awhile. Let me get to know you. It’s the reason I have the chair.”

Felix glanced down at the wooden chair on his side of the table. They were in a dark room that was only lit by the crystal orb in the centre of the table. It was, Felix thought, pointlessly dramatic. That the light from the orb was flickering just a touch too sharply and regularly to be a power sealed the deal for him. It was just shitty lighting, and wasn’t even her trademark green. He sighed and sat in the chair, not bothering to pull it towards the table, letting the dim light envelop him as well as the woman, and crossed his arms.

“So tell me Snail, how are things between you and the Verdant Crescent?” The woman asked, using a tone like she was asking herself.

“We don’t talk anymore.”

“My condolences.” She took a long breath through her pipe and breathed the smoke out between them. The woman considered the pipe, then turned it around and offered it towards him. “Do you smoke?”

Felix looked at the pipe, then took it. His puff left him coughing. He hadn’t smoked before, much less through a pipe. Maybe he took it because he was feeling adventurous in new terrain, not having a team to tie him down.

“It’s good.” He lied as he handed the pipe back. The woman’s fingers brushed against his as she reclaimed her pipe.

Greenflame took another puff, uncaring of his opinion. “What is it that you want out of life? I understand that you are here to satisfy that desire, but outside of your wish, what is it you want?”

Felix considered the question. “I want to get taken seriously.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’ve been ridiculed pretty much my entire life. It’s why I manifested, in a way, and I’m pretty sure it’s why I got a public one. I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a hand in why my power turned out the way it did.”

“Now let’s not get into wish territory.” Greenflame smoothly butted in. “No power talk until I say so.”

Felix sighed, his shoulders dropping with the outtake of breath. “Words don’t come easily to me. I don’t defend myself fast enough. By the time I’ve come up with something to say, things have normally moved on.”

“You’re holding this conversation just fine.”

“Maybe. Since it’s only you and me are talking.”

“Anything else?”

Felix had had more to say, but he stayed his words and thought on the question. “I want to be lucky, I guess?”

Greenflame hummed with interest. “Your other desire was something you could act on. Work towards. This seems quite outside the realms of possibility, unless you believe the term ‘you make your own luck’.”

“I don’t.”

“Would you explain?”

Felix had to think of the words. “I don’t think I’m unlucky, really.”

“Even with the cards you’ve been dealt?”

“... Can I mention my power?”

Greenflame gave him a long look before inclining her head. “You may.”

“It’s a shitty power compared to all the others I’ve heard of. I honestly don’t think I’ve heard of a more useless power. But I don’t think I was unlucky to get it. I don’t think I was lucky to get it, either.”

“Being lucky to have a power and unlucky for it to be a bad one doesn’t mean it cancels out and your luck is even.” Greenflame said, some strength backing her words.

“It completely changed my life, and things were much the same before and after.” Felix argued. “If nothing changed, how could it be considered in terms of luck?”

“You had a power afterwards.”

“I didn’t do anything with it. Not really.”

“But you had it.”

Felix shook his head. “I went from school to a slum, but I still had a locker. My dad was still gone, and my mom still didn’t care. Someone cared enough to not be a dick, then they stopped pretending. None of that matters. What I mean by luck is by having something happen, and being able to do something about it, and to feel the consequences be they good or bad. My power isn’t lucky because it doesn’t enable me to act, but it isn’t unlucky either because of it. It’s not a me problem, since most of the time being able to act requires doing something I simply can’t do or be.”

Greenflame let out a puff. “Be?”

Felix had to think again. “Opportunities only available for girls. There were a few I wanted to take, before manifesting.” He stopped as Greenflame let out a series of unflattering guffaws.

She wiped her eyes demurely. “Oh, that’s precious.”

Her reaction made Felix want to change the subject. “Do you have anymore questions?”

The amused sparkle vanished from Greenflame’s posture. “Don’t rush me. I get catty when I’m rushed.”

Felix raised his hand. “I wasn’t trying to rush anything. Remember who you’re talking to.”

The sparkle reappeared with a chuckle. “I suppose you’re right. You have a very… dry way of going about things.”

Felix let his hand fall back to where it was. Then he crossed his arms. He didn’t say anything as Greenflame puffed again.

“Do you have anything you hate?” She asked through the smoke.

Felix had to consider the options to determine what to say first. “Swords.”

“After Keaton decided to be a hero, I can’t blame you.”

“Snails.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Greenflame took a puff.

“Snideman.”

“Tell me more about Snideman.” Greenflame decided. “And I appreciate the sibilance.”

Felix hadn’t realised all his hates started with S. He took another moment to think up what he was going to say about Snideman. “He’s the worst. From what he told us of his past, he was smart before he manifested, but he got a Smart power anyway. He was a gaslighter and a dick who suddenly had access to all these incorporeal threads leading from people to their insecurities. It’s a miracle he hasn’t unmasked anyone yet. I don’t count.”

“And why do you hate Snideman?”

Felix hesitated. “He took something that I wanted away from me.”

Greenflame nodded. “As good a reason as any. Is there anything else you hate?”

“Friends, I guess.”

“Oh, do tell.” Greenflame requested, kicking up her feet onto the table next to the crystal ball.

“This is another power one.” Felix said. Greenflame waved her permission. “Before I got my powers, no one bothered to stay near me. No one hated me, but all I got was indifference and the expected politeness. Now that I have powers…” Felix thought of Terry, the nicest one. Or the worst one. He wasn’t that good a judge of character. “They just want things from me. Things I can’t deliver.”

“Ah, the dilemma of wealth.”

Felix glanced at his bag that held the money. He decided against mentioning how poor he once was.

“Well in that case, I think I should begin. Remove two hundred and two dollars from the bag, the rest is my price.” Greenflame tapped the tobacco out of her pipe, hitting the tray three times. Each time she tapped a pillar of flame erupted behind her chair.

Felix sat up and retrieved the money. He put the bag on the table and pushed it over. This was what he had been waiting for.

“Your past.” Greenflame’s voice burned as she straightened her poster. She gestured to the card on Felix’s left. “The Peasant.” The pillar solidified into the shape of a card. An unmasked Felix amidst a crowd of faceless people was depicted.

“Your present.” Greenflame continued despite Felix’s hesitation seeing his own face. “The Peasant.” The centre pillar solidified into a copy of the first.

The woman in green pointed her pipe at the centre card. “And that’s despite you having a power now. Can you guess what your future is?”

“I can.” Felix deadpanned.

A smile spread across Greenflame’s face. “Good thing you came to me. You may have ended up on the lowest rung of the Sentinels if you continued as is.”

“Really? At my age?”

“Considering how long it would take you to get restless with mundane life, yes.”

Felix considered the implications.

“What is your wish, Felix?”

Felix hadn’t introduced himself, but considering she was looking at his future… “I had a wish walking in here, but you’ve made me second guess myself.”

Greenflame smiled green fire.

“There was one thing I wanted to wish for, and was content to work at the rest myself. You asked me those questions, and now I worry my wish isn’t worded right. And you have a reputation for being a monkey paw. There’s so much I want, but I can’t group it in a single sentence with a single point.”

“What do you want?”

Felix considered his words. “I want to be strong without being slow. That was all I came here to wish for. Now I want to be faster with my words and I want to be faster with my thoughts. I want to be able to act when luck decides to give me an offer. I want to be able to make sure that Keaton never cuts me again. I want more than that as well, but it’s harder to put into words.”

Greenflame reduced the flames at her mouth. “You were a member of a small time gang of teenage villains in Calgary. Sponsored, yes, but small. You were smart enough in class, but never stood out. Your problem, I think, is perspective. You have spent so much time as a Peasant, you lack perspective.”

It was a good point. Felix thought on that.

“I think I have my wish.”

“Then I can offer you a future.” Greenflame’s mouth spat fire. “What is your wish?”

Felix took a breath to reassure himself. “I want to be the kind of person that everyone takes seriously.”

He paused.

“I want to be powerful without being held back.”

He paused again. Thinking.

“I want to never be cut by a fucking sword ever again. I want to have the kind of presence that makes people shit themselves when I’m in the room. I want to stand shoulder to- no, on the shoulders of the world’s greatest heroes and to be able to choose if I help against a Calamity. Just so that when the people who walked all over me beg for my help, I can look them in the eye as I shake my head.” The word reverberated around him and pushed back the fire.

Curious. The green fires weren’t his.

He took a breath, and hoped that there would be no retribution for the words he said next.

“I wish for all that.”

Green fire smiled for the woman across from him. “I can offer you the future of a Titan.”

The third card depicted a Felix that had grown to a gargantuan size. So large that the mountains on either side of his image were dwarfed. The sun shone from a corner of the illustration and a ray of light protected Felix’s modesty. Greenflame raised her hands to both sides.

“Do you accept?”

Felix didn’t think on it. “I do.”

Green fire billowed out from the three cards and encompassed the room. The fire from Greenflame’s eyes darted down her arms and ignited her hands in a raging inferno. Despite being surrounded by fire, Felix wasn’t hot.

Hands enveloped in green fire were offered across the table and Felix took them. The fire spread slowly, and this time it burned. Felix stayed still, but still it hurt. He tried to stop his breathing to become invulnerable but it was fruitless. He still burned. Then it got worse because he had to scream, reducing the effectiveness of his power. He ripped his hands from Greenflame’s and watched as his fingers blackened and began to disintegrate.

The fire spread to his arms and Felix screamed much the same.

The fire spread to his torso and Felix screamed until his lungs burned away.

He tried to run, but the fire covered his eyes and burned those too.

He kept running into walls and eventually the fire burned away his legs.

When Felix finally felt something that wasn’t pain, he felt all his limbs exactly where they were meant to be and felt like he was in perfect health. Then when he opened his eyes he was much lower to the ground. At first he thought he was lying down, and he was. But when he stood up his eyes rose less than he was used to.

~~~

Felix decided to have a short break and listen to what he had just spent hours wroughting in this place. The first shouts came quickly. They graced his ears the moment he let himself pause.

“We need backup!”

“Oh god, where did it go?”

Felix was under a cupboard.

“Stay with me Lawrence, stay with me.” Felix’s ear flicked. That one was coming from a different direction. Mistakes had been made with Lawrence. He hadn’t expected the man to be so fragile.

“We need backup!” It was a different person to the first. They were in the direction of Lawrence, and were female going by the voice.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know!”

“Backup!” It wasn’t his whole sentence, but the guy yelling about things he didn’t know was louder than him. It was the first guy again.

A strong voice cut in. “Stay together and watch your exits! It blends in with the shadows, Whisper countermeasures!”

“What are the fucking Whisper countermeasures!?” Felix’s ear flicked again. He was curious about what the Whisper countermeasures were as well. They never applied to him before.

“When is Aegis getting here?” Something Felix would also like to know. He wasn’t sure if they were even coming.

“We need some fucking backup!” The first guy shouted again.

Felix barely moved as he listened to all of them. Now that Calgary had been evacuated, or at least this area of it, it was easy to pick out the panicked shouts. There were so many calls for backup because there were two groups of them, heroes and Regulation, mixed and matched. Each calling a different source of backup.

His right ear twitched as a thundercrack sounded, far away near where there were still civilians. The Thunder. Aegis had arrived. They were treating him like a Calamity. Felix wasn’t sure whether he should feel complimented or insulted. Sure, he had tossed around all those heroes, even Keaton. Left the ‘hero’ in a Keaton sized crater. But he hadn’t killed anyone.

Felix had perfect control now that he didn’t have to be slow. Lawrence would survive.

These two groups of heroes, Felix wasn’t even sure why he was playing with them anymore. He had started all this by seeking out his old hideout, and finding it abandoned. All that was left was the Locker with THE SNAIL spray painted on it.

That had made Felix get angry in a way that he hadn’t been able to before, so he destroyed the building. It was easy now. That, at least, had quenched the anger, but it had alerted the Sentinels to his presence. They didn’t want to let him get away, and he honestly didn’t really want to leave. Felix had wanted to play.

So he played with the heroes. He batted around the heavyset Muscle Wizard, an Enforcer that once had made him envious. Now... forgettable. He had pounced at Gale And Storm, and made her reevaluate what constituted a safe height. All the others he beat down casually, until Keaton emerged.

Keaton had monologued, and Felix hadn’t been caught in his power like before. So Felix pounced halfway through the speech and made the crater. Everything after that was a game of cat and mouse. Felix rumbled his laughter through his throat, close enough to one group that they spooked.

“Where is it coming from?” A particularly nervous voice asked.

“Why did a Calamity have to appear? We just got Scathach!”

“Focus!”

Felix ignored them, and leaped through the wall on the other side of the room. The strength behind his leap destroying the floor beneath him just as much as he took the wall away by jumping through it. All the men and women in body armour and wielding guns could do was cover their eyes and ears, duck, and pray.

The Thunder had not delivered Aegis too far away. Only a few blocks. It took as many leaps to reach it. Felix landed lightly on the edge of a skyscraper’s roof. He saw them there, the three great and undefeatable heroes. The vanguard, floating in space. Archangel, in her bright and resplendent glory. Kinetic, comparatively mundane despite his reputation as the first hero. He also had a nosebleed that he was wiping away. Curious. And then there was Victorious. Hope’s replacement was already glowing blue. Something Felix had never understood.

Felix’s tail flicked in two directions at once. To the right and up. He wanted to play.

“Where is the kitten?” Kinetic wondered aloud. He hadn’t seen Felix yet.

“I’m scanning local channels now.” Victorious responded, also oblivious to Felix. “Hm, switch back to FM.”

“Switching.”

Victorious paused, listening. “It just jumped out of a building. Took a good chunk of wall with it apparently.” He pressed something Felix couldn’t see. “Give me an address.”

“Men,” Archangel spoke. “It is right there.” She did not point, but solid beams of light extended from the shoulders of the two men. Thin, and only briefly gracing this existence before winking out, but they conveyed the direction easily enough.

Felix’s tails flicked again.

Victorious flew closer, blasting the air behind him as he moved. Felix considered pouncing, but decided not to. Yet. Victorious stopped a short distance away. Several meters of air separated them.

“Why aren’t you attacking?” He asked.

Felix twitched an ear and meowed.

“What do you think?” Kinetic shouted from behind. “Theta or Omega?”

Victorious turned back. “It’s passive!”

Felix jumped onto Victorious’ shoulder and half of his blue returned to his normal colour, everywhere within about a metre of Felix. Victorious started to fall. There was a crack from Victorious’ leg and the hero vanished from under Felix just as he was digging his claws in, making him spin with the exit maneuver. Being a cat, Felix righted himself and plummeted five stories, where he landed lightly on his feet.

“Victorious, you’re bleeding.” Kinetic said far above.

“I know.” Was Victorious’ gruff response. His lower half was still blue, but his upper half was red, still heating up to match the rest of him. The colour obscured the parts that were bleeding at the moment.

“Can’t you flick back?”

“Have to return to how I was before I changed. The thing negated my power, forced part of me back to normal.”

Felix wanted to join in, so he jumped up to them and landed on Archangel, breaking the sound barrier on his way up. The other heroes started shouting as Archangel’s wings vanished and she started falling like Victorious had. The heroine reached for something as Felix dug his claws in. He found out what that something was as the knife point hit the bottom of his mouth and got caught in his fur.

Felix meowed. He meant to say ow, even if he didn’t feel any pain.

Archangel immediately dropped the dagger and slugged Felix in the side to no effect. He wondered what she was trying to do, then got it when he noticed the ground getting closer. Felix climbed so he was between Archangel and the ground, then leaped down as hard as he was comfortable. He broke the sound barrier again before landing, just as Archangel did from the force of his kick.

Far above, her power reactivated as her rigid wings of light flickered back into existence, stabilising the heroine and lighting up the sky. Felix, on his part, jumped up a nearby building, then jumped off of it so he could land on the third and final hero of Aegis. Kinetic figured out what was going on though, and was getting out of the way.

He was using his power on the wall of the building Felix was jumping from at the same time, and it threw his aim off tremendously. There was also a flying car that was moving to intercept, but it wasn’t moving fast enough. Felix landed on Kinetic’s leg and dug his claws in there. Kinetic didn’t fall like the rest, but he did drop a little, maybe in an attempt to shake Felix off.

But Felix was enjoying this. He wasn’t about to back out now, so he started climbing.

“Get this thing off of me!” Kinetic yelled.

Archangel responded with a blast of light that hit Felix perfectly while missing Kinetic. But it did nothing to slow him and he kept climbing. The world dimmed as Archangel intensified her power, maintaining the pillar of light as Victorious repositioned.

“I’m not sure what I can do against this thing.” He told Archangel. “I return to normal when it gets close.”

“Find a bat.” Archangel responded as she made three more lances of light to blast Felix with.

“We don’t have clearance yet.”

“Invulnerability and power negation.” Archangel said. The implications went unsaid as she paused, and Felix wasn’t sure what they were. “Find a bat.”

There was a sonic boom as Victorious disappeared to do exactly that. Archangel had to let up on her assault from some angles as Felix made it to Kinetic’s shoulder. She introduced new angles, but it wasn’t impeding Felix any. Kinetic stopped floating and started falling.

Now Felix could say he had stood on the shoulders of Aegis. His wish had been granted.

He jumped far away, but got slammed out of the air by a long steel beam.

Felix picked himself out of the deep hole and looked up, his ears flicking asymmetrically. Victorious had found his bat. Archangel’s assault started again a moment later, severely limiting what Felix could see and burning the ground around him.

His fur was standing on end, but the heroes didn’t care. Didn’t they know cat body language? Felix arched his spine to further the point.

The sound of something very big breaking made Felix’s left ear flick more aggressively. His tail twitched and he launched himself in the opposite direction, keeping close to the ground. The moment he was out of the pillars of light, Felix saw he had jumped at a nearby concrete ramp. He pulled his legs up and landed sideways, then jumped in a different direction, only to be batted in a different direction by a flying green glowing baseball batter.

Felix’s body was redirected again as he hit an angled shaft of hard light, but it wasn’t as dramatic as Archangel probably intended. His new cat body twisted around the shaft of light and his tails slapped it before it left its reach. The blow launched Felix sideways instead of down, and he twisted in the air to land sideways on the skyscraper in his way.

The skyscraper that was moving.

“Shit, it’s on it.” Kinetic muttered, letting Felix pinpoint his location.

Felix aimed.

“Smash it down. Might do something.” Victorious suggested. The next moment the building tilted down and accelerated in the direction of gravity.

Felix corrected his aim, then kicked. The action collapsed the building in the middle and shook it from Kinetic’s telekinetic grip, letting it sail towards the hero whose power had just failed them. Felix the cat landed gracefully on top of a car and turned to watch the building go.

It moved quickly, and reached the position where Kinetic was within moments of Felix turning to watch. Then every surviving window in the building shattered as it stopped and crumpled. The building shaped debris was crushed into a ball only a third of its former size in a split second, then thrust back in the direction of Felix before the sound reached his new ears. It was thrust quite quickly.

Felix hopped down under the car, then kicked it towards the ball of concrete flying his way. The car had less force behind it, and was deflected down when it impacted the ball. It continued to crash through a low building and destroy three of its four walls, but left its roof mostly standing. The big flying ball was driven off course and hit the cars behind Felix. He hopped up onto a new car and meowed.

“Kinetic, are you well?” Archangel asked, still keeping an eye on Felix. She stayed her pillars of light for the time being.

“Like turning a key.” Kinetic responded, but he was breathing hard.

“It’s playing.” Victorious observed when it became clear this was a lull in the fight. “No deaths so far, and only select wounded. Reckless destruction means that someone who gets caught in a falling building might change that, but I seriously think that the worst damage it’s done is what it did to me.” His glowing shoulder had blots of red blood seeping through the costume and disrupting the glowing green/white nimbus.

Felix meowed. Lawrence had been worse off than Victorious.

“Is it even a monster?” Kinetic asked.

Felix pushed his ears back.

“Can you understand us?” Archangel asked.

Felix pushed his ears forward and meowed.

“I think that’s as close to a yes as we’re going to get.” Kinetic commented.

“Are the monsters evolving?” Victorious asked the other members of Aegis as he drifted to better surround Felix. Felix tracked him.

Kinetic shrugged in space. “Can’t definitively say no. Alpha class reproduces but this is the only example of this one. Theta class are all unique, but we haven’t seen any smaller than a big dog. This thing is a kitten. Calamity…”

“We thought there was a pattern.” Archangel said. “Are you a monster?”

Felix considered that, then hissed.

“So the kitty doesn’t like being called a monster.” Kinetic observed as Felix’s ear flicked. “Unfortunately, doesn’t mean it’s a human. Altered is possible, but it doesn’t match. Altered still have human features.”

Felix meowed as he flexed his tails. He started writing on the roof under him.

“Maybe it thinks you’re right.” Victorious suggested.

“Leaving… Bye now.” Archangel read as Felix’s tails carved out the words on the roof of the car, even though his body was blocking line of sight and the angle she was at meant the words would be upside down and diagonal.

Felix’s ears flicked in annoyance. Then he meowed and jumped to another car. He carved his preferred name, to take one he enjoyed rather than be given one he hated. Then he launched himself far away. He had his fun, and he wasn’t interested in talking to the heroes.

Kinetic groaned before Felix got too far away. “I’m going to get so much shit for that building.”

~~~

Felix turned the guitar pick around in his fingers. It was light blue, and had no text or decoration on it. Nothing, not even texture to help grip the thing. It was completely mundane, even in his hands, not that it mattered when he had hands.

“Find the city busker. Give that to them.” Greenflame instructed.

“Which busker?” Felix asked.

“The one with bleached hair and piercing eyes.”

“What will they be playing?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Greenflame swirled her bourbon in its glass. She paused, and a drop or two sloshed out of the crystal vessel. “They may be more than one.”

“May be?”

“May be.”

Felix looked at Greenflame lounging in that same chair, sitting at that same table in a different dark room with that same shitty orb. He contemplated how some things never changed and pocketed the guitar pick. “How much should I tip?”

Greenflame gesticulated with her glass. “I already told you, doesn’t matter. Just make sure you drop off the pick. Off with you, there’s a deadline.”

Felix turned to go, then frowned. “Where am I looking?”

“King street. Patrol Officer, if you don’t mind?” At Greenflame’s behest, the blue mist portal opened up, leading to a rooftop closer to downtown in Graceland. Felix walked through and was immediately buffeted by wind. He was moving relatively slowly, however, so the wind didn’t have much impact.

Patrol Officer closed the portal before Felix shifted into Dreadnaught with a brief burst of verdant fire. The agony passed in a moment, and he was used to it. That freedom was only afforded to him as long as he stayed with Greenflame. A metaphorical collar for her metaphorical kitty, Felix the Dreadnaught.

Dreadnaught hopped onto the balcony edge of the building and looked down at the city below. A good portion of King street was empty, the roads blocked off and crowds gathering at the edges. He had a sense of foreboding that he had become all too familiar with.

It was impossible to tell if this was a scene that Greenflame had orchestrated, but it was a scene that Greenflame had orchestrated. Dreadnaught’s ear flicked, and he jumped to an alley that seemed out of the way. After making sure it was empty, he leaped down and shifted back to Felix, then walked out onto the street with his hands in his pockets and his hood up.

He listened. He was a ways away from the crowd still, but he couldn’t hear any music. So Felix went towards the crowd. The sound of people murmuring picked up. Felix stepped through the crowd, using his slow strength to more easily navigate to the front. What he saw was disappointing, just tents that had been erected to block most of the view of the public. What he could see was just evacuated street.

Excited whispers swept through the crowd as a male figure in a silver and black costume that was checkered, with the four corners converging over where his heart would be. Felix recognised him from his first outing as Dreadnaught.

After leaving Aegis behind, Felix had hidden amongst civilians to get a good look at Control. The chessboard man was known as Eden, and he was making an eden. Several people got their Vphones out and started recording as silvery liquid seemed to rise from the ground around Eden grew upwards in silvery lines. The process took some time, but Eden shortly constructed barriers around the centre where the monster would appear, which seemed to be a corner store for a coffee chain.

Felix watched as the first set of barriers was completed and Bang Bang, someone Felix hadn’t expected, walked up in his new costume and started setting up his techo gear. He wore armour that used the same theory as ring mail, but had bullet casings instead.

The bullets fell around the symbol of Control, a flat circle with barriers going up on the left and right sides, which sat in his centre chest. The bullets only came down as far as his waist, not unlike a poncho, and underneath that were the myriad of guns and projectile throwers Bang Bang was known for, though these were only the ones he was able to carry on his person. His mask was shaped like two handguns aiming to the left and right of his head, using the trigger guards as eyeholes. Overall, it was a decent redesign.

Bang Bang could recognise Felix, however. He shrunk back from the front of the crowd, moving faster because people wanted his front row position and didn’t resist. After passing the critical point where the crowd suddenly lessened, he started making his way around and keeping an ear out for music. Felix made it three quarters of the way around the cordon before hearing anything.

There were two sounds. A guitar being played through an amp, and a beautiful woman’s vocals. They were playing a song that used to be popular, but Felix didn’t recognise it until he got closer. When he recognised it, he froze.

The Cat and the Snail.

Definitely Greenflame. It was just a reminder of how far her hold extended, something Felix brushed off since dwelling on it was pointless now. When he got close enough to see the buskers, he saw a lithe woman with bleached white hair singing her heart out. Next to her and a little bit back was a heavyset man with similarly bleached hair wearing a top hat and playing an electric guitar. Not too loud, thankfully. Felix’s ears were sensitive ever since he made his wish. He noted the guitar player’s intense eyes.

Not quite the Deus Ex Machina look, then. They would have had golden eyes if they were modeling themselves after that woman. Several people had over the decades. Bleached white hair had been popularised by the miraculous vigilante.

Felix pulled out the pick and some loose change, then walked by the buskers and dropped the pick into the guitar case the buskers were using to collect money amongst his coins. The guitar player nodded thanks while the singer gave him a coquettish wink, showing off her piercing eyes. Felix tipping the buskers started another person in the small but growing crowd stepping up and giving tips as well. They got similar reactions.

“What was that for?” Someone in the crowd asked, directing the question right at Felix.

He paused and looked at the speaker. The guy was wearing a hood just like Felix, but his was blue while Felix liked his hoodies dark and almost black. His hair, which was just visible underneath the hood, was bleached white. His eyes were an intense and pale blue.

“Tipping.” Felix answered and made to move.

“But why the pick?” The guy asked, making Felix pause again. He looked at the speaker, then he looked at the singer, then at the guitar player. Each of the buskers met his eyes as he looked at them, then looked away the instant he moved on. The specific wording of Greenflame’s direction echoed in his mind, and rumours he had picked up throughout his career swam to the surface.

“Oh, the City.” Felix realised. “Who hired you this time?”

“Surprisingly, no one.” The City guy said after flashing a smile. “The three of us are just killing time in Graceland. We’re poised to move across the Canadian border or move to Seattle as required. But right now…” He shrugged and sighed. “No work for us.”

“Too numerous?”

“No, just no work.”

Felix looked at the guy with suspicion.

“~nothing at all~” The singer sang.

“What brings the Dreadnaught to Graceland?”

There was a beat where the two transhumans stared at each other. Eventually Felix sighed. He’d mentioned the name of the City out loud, so this much was to be expected. “I guess you could say I’m wandering.”

“I could, but that would be letting you deflect. Now I’ll rephrase so my question is clear. Why did you drop the guitar pick into the tipping case?”

Felix picked his words, but got interrupted by the chorus of the song.

“Tell me why~ Sweet, sweet kitty~”

Felix tried to hide how disturbed he was. He did it by stilling his movements. “I noticed you needed a guitar pick?”

The City guy gave Felix a long and calculating look. “Close, but I’m satisfied… It will have to do. Thank you Dreadnaught.”

“What for?”

“For the guitar pick. Once we’ve determined it doesn’t have any Whisper effects we’ll probably use it.”

Felix pondered whether or not he should mention that the pick was actually a Traitor effect, considering how it lead to someone getting powers. He decided not to. Though, now that he knew the City was involved, it was plain to see how that kid was getting powers. He really should have only wished for one.

The City guy gave Felix a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Venessa recently broke his second to last pick, so we were going to pack up. Now we might be able to keep busking until the beast shows up. Thank you kitty cat.”

“Welcome.” Felix nodded shortly with a frown on his face. Venessa was a girl’s name, but this guy had definitely been talking about the guitar player, who seemed quite comfortable in his body if that sleeveless shirt at this hour was any indication. When he glanced at him, his eyes were met once again.

Venessa gave Felix a wink that outright invited him to bed. Even if that was the way Felix swung, these City folk were creeping him out too much for him to consider it. He broke eye contact and hurried to leave. As he retreated the singer sang a line of the song in her passionate voice, sending a lasting chill up Felix’s spine.

It was hard to believe the City had picked out that exact song, but they might have been able to time it just right. Maybe it was influence from Greenflame. It was also possible there wasn’t any ulterior motive behind them. Regardless, the words stuck with him.

“~and the snail ran away~”