A buzz ran through the city. The air practically singed with a quickly building charge. It spread like wildfire through the streets, affecting the thoughts on every mind and the words on every pair of lips. The children played imaginative games with their friends, while the adults had more civilized, contextual discussions. Although different in scope, both groups talked about the same subject.

Ayda rode her motorcycle down a random, mostly empty street of the industrial district. She hadn't a drug dealer to bust, and was instead on a general patrol. The bluetooth piece in her ear connected not to the open call with Elliot, but to the police scanner app on her phone. It was a quiet night, with little activity to report, certainly nothing the police couldn't handle. And rightly so. The would be criminals around town were frightened. After Ayda's demonstration just one day ago, none of them dared draw her ire. Or, at least, that was the theory behind the boring night.

But, despite the lack of real action, the teenager did not want for entertainment. The tail end of a song, one she quite liked, issued forth from the radio in her bike. Heavy guitars and dire vocals punctuated the last few seconds. As Ayda hung a right turn, the music gave way to a familiar and most welcome voice.

"Alright everybody, that was Disturbed with 10,000 Fists, my personal favorite of theirs. I am, as you know, Casey Calamity, and it's time for everyone's favorite segment...Vigilante Watch!" the DJ paused to allow a short jingle to play, which Ayda recognized as the opening riff for the X-Men theme song. "Although, I guess I shouldn't call it that anymore. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. The vigilante now has a name.

"Around lunch time yesterday, the horrible news came in that some dickhead with a gun broke into Persimmon Elementary School and started shooting young, innocent children as well as faculty and staff. The police surrounded the building, and then proceeded to do nothing, as is the standard procedure in these situations. Then, in walked the vigilante. And I mean she just walked right in. The cops just let her through, probably because they knew she could take out the asshole easier than they could.

"Long story short, she apprehended the douche nozzle and turned him over the the authorities. The press swarmed her, taking videos and pictures, and asking questions. When one inquired about her name, she responded with a single word, Pulse. Just twenty-four hours after the event, the story is everywhere. I even managed to find an article from Dubai. Dubai! Seems they're big fans of hers over there.

"There have been pictures in the past, but this is our first confirmed look at the vigilante, and it confirms a lot of rumors. To quote a journalist from the El Puerto Gazette: 'She is a young woman of Middle-Eastern descent, with short dark hair which falls just below a strong jawline. Roughly five feet and seven inches in height, her build is strong and fit.' That's a pretty good description, I think. She reminds me very much of a kickboxer.

"Why tell you all of this? So you know her when you see her. And when you do, I want you to say, 'Thank you, Pulse, for keeping the city safe, for saving those children. No matter what the blowhards think, we're better off with you here.'

"Since I realized earlier today we haven't done it for a while, I will be taking callers for the next few minutes. If you have a strong opinion about our knight in shining bo staff—whether in support or not—feel free to give us a call at—" Casey was about to give out the radio station's phone number, but cut off sharply. "Well, that was quick. Someone must have us on speed dial." He audibly pressed a button. "Greetings, Caller, you are on Vigilante Watch. What is your name and where are you from?"

"My name is Greg, from El Puerto." The caller had a deep, southern-fried drawl. He sounded at least in his forties, if not older. Ayda winced from where she straddled her steed. Old people didn't usually like her.

"Well, Greg from El Puerto, do you have something to say about our Lady Pulse?" Casey crooned. Ayda shook her head.

"I think she does some damn fine work," Greg spoke with heated enthusiasm. "She keeps those hoodlums off the streets, and keeps our children safe."

"So, are you saying you support Pulse?"

"Yes. Hell yes. Crime dropped way down in the city once stories of her started spreading. That can't be a coincidence. The cops never did anything like that. If the police can't keep us safe, someone has to."

"That's a point I've made before, Greg, but it always bears repeating." The DJ audibly pressed a button. "Next caller, you're on Vigilante Watch. Who are you and where are you from."

Ayda would've liked nothing more than to continue listening to the opinions of her adoring masses, but—as fate would have it—an interruption in the form of a text message came in. It'd been so long since any sound issued from her cellphone, she forgot that audio for the thing was currently routed through her headset.

She perpetually struggled to get the volume of the thing correct, and this was no different. A pair of tones blared in her ear. A high beep phased quickly into a lower, drowning out all other sound for a brief second. Ayda grit her teeth and covered her ear in pain, which only created an echo chamber, amplifying the sound.

But it was gone as soon as it came. The noise subsided, and with it so too left the discomfort. Ayda shook the cobwebs from her cranium. The vision, which she hadn't realized blurred, slammed back into focus. She blinked several times, just to dispel any lingering fog.

A part of her wanted to just ignore the message and just get on with her night, with matters surely much more pressing. Though, in the back of her head she knew that wasn't really an option. It could be from Elliot or Rudy, which automatically gave it paramount importance. With a sigh—only somewhat frustrated by the interruption—Ayda pulled over and dug out her phone.

A click on the text message inbox brought up the source. A long message thread consumed the touch screen display. Timestamps above each entry revealed long gaps between each correspondence. That in mind, this couldn't be either of her friends, since they texted on a daily basis. Before reading the meat of the message, her gaze flicked to the heading. Bernard. Strange. What could he possibly want?

"Can you come home?" The message said. "We need to talk."

Ayda rolled her eyes, shook her head. Something stupid, to be sure. She loved the man, but he could be a worrywart at the best of times. He probably wanted to ask some sort of trivial question, the kind of thing he thought could only be addressed in person. Still, to leave him hanging would be rather rude. She could probably cut her patrol a little short. There weren't any leads to chase down, anyway. Later, though. The night was still young... relatively speaking.

The teenager was about to put her phone away, when another message from the same sender ticked by. This time, she froze in her tracks as the contents crossed her consciousness. The world faded away. The alert tone fell on deaf ears. For a moment it played king in her consciousness. A single word controlled her every thought and feeling.

"Pulse."

A maelstrom of emotions danced on her psyche. Confusion, anger, anxiety, concern, and a host of other washed over the girl like unrelenting waves on a shallow beach. She'd theorized this moment would happen, but never actually expected it to. Now that it arrived, no inch of her body nor soul knew how to handle it. She did know one thing, however. This couldn't wait until the end of her patrol. Almost in one motion, Ayda pocketed the phone, spun the bike around, and launched off back down the street the way she came. A little puff of gray smoke rose where the vessel had been.

Now, Ayda was not a stranger to hustle. Plenty of moments in the past required at least a modicum of expedience. She liked to reach all of her destinations in a timely manner, which was where a motorcycle came in handy. All of this, however, said nothing for the pace she kept on this occasion. If the bike had wings it would take off and fly, so extreme was her speed.

Cars passing by on the left hand side of the road were little more than front lit blurs, while the ones she herself weaved between simply barred her path. To this effect, traffic picked up when she reached the heart of the city. At this time of night people were always up and about, and many of them congregated in the middle.

But they only got in the way. Ayda fought a path in and around them. She considered taking a side street, going around the obstacle. That might not have solved anything. The shortest distance between two points was a straight line. Even though that straight line led through a series of moving roadblocks, it still provided the quickest avenue of attack.

Before she even realized it, Ayda cleared the congestion. Lavish tall buildings gave way to lavish manor homes. It always startled her how this part of El Puerto could be so much quieter than the center it branched off of, especially when the two districts were so close. However, this evening, it seemed stiller than usual. No dogs barked. No night birds sang. Even her own heartbeat echoed not. This was a silence not of circumstance, but of the mind.

She didn't have to go. She could just turn around, pretend she never got the memo. Bernard might just drop the subject, then... only to bring it up later. No, best get it over with. Why the apprehension, anyway? She'd faced worse right? Right? Yeah. She could do this! As Ayda pulled in to the driveway of her estate, a creeping nag ran through the back of her brain. Maybe she couldn't do this after all.

The teenager didn't even bother with the garage. She hadn't the patience to park properly. The bike was abandoned right there in the driveway as Ayda went for the front door. A test twist, more out of habit than anything else, yet it swung open. The door was unlocked. But, Bernard always locked the door. A bad omen, if ever there was one.

Ayda removed her sunglasses before entering the home. She looked left, and then right. She almost expected Bernard to be waiting for here there in the foyer, but—of course—he was not. No, that would be far too simple. Nothing ever was simple. He had a few other haunts like the master bedroom and his study, but Ayda would kick herself if she didn't check the living room first. She turned left and went through the empty doorway closest to her. Immediately on the other side, she froze in place.

Found him. Bernard stood closer the other end of the longer than wide room, arms crossed, overhead light glinting off his emerald eyes. A pair of black leather couches—a long wooden coffee table sandwiched between—separated him from the new arrival. The flatscreen television mounted on the wall behind Ayda had just recently been turned off. Latent static still charged the air, heightening her senses to the tension of the moment.

The older man still wore his Belmont International lab coat, which was a bit odd. The garment almost never came home with him unless he forgot to take it off, in which case it would usually remain on for the rest of the day. Forgetting to remove his coat, and then not locking the door? The abnormalities continued to pile up, which Ayda could only take as a negative development.

For a moment the two just stood there, Ayda wide-eyed and Bernard gruff. They shared a petrified indecision, completely unsure how to proceed. Ayda expected to get yelled at the moment she walked through the door. This silent treatment wigged her out. How did someone start a conversation like this? What would they even talk about? Bernard's stiff and stern posture didn't help things much, either. No version existed which didn't start out almost unbearably awkward. Might as well just go for it.

"You, uh..." Ayda trailed off. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes, Ayda, I did," replied Bernard. He gestured to one of the couches to his right. "Why don't you sit down?"

"I think I'd rather stand, if it's all the same to you."

"Alright, that's fine." Bernard let out a long sigh, idly scratching his cheek. "I'm just gonna get right down to brass tacks, here. Ayda, I know who you are, and I know what you've been doing."

"What are you talking about?" Ayda replied instinctually. Self-preservation overrode any logic or clarity. She still clung to the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, he didn't actually know, and this was about something totally different.

"Don't mince words with me," warned the scientist. "You know exactly what I'm talking about!"

Ayda shied away from his raised voice, realizing simultaneously doing so was ridiculous. What could he possibly to do her, to someone like her? Why was she so cautious of him?

"How long have you known?" She asked, straightening out.

"I had my suspicions when the stories first started coming out, but it didn't take me long to put two and two together."

"Yeah," Ayda agreed with a shrug. "It's not that hard to figure out. I mean, a Persian girl with a bike, a staff, and purple explodey powers?" She smiled in a vain attempt to inject some much needed humor. Bernard remained solid as a rock. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"No, it's not." Bernard shook his head. "Three people in the world know about you, and I'm not worried about Elliot or Colonel Hammond spilling the beans. No, what I'm worried about is you, Ayda."

"Me?" Ayda wore a puzzled expression as she leaned back just slightly, giving him an angled glance.

"Yes, you," the older man reasserted. "Do you have any idea how dangerous what you're doing is? Not just to you, but to the people around you?"

"I... I don't think I follow you, here..."

"They're criminals!" Bernard paused for a moment. "Thieves, murderers, rapists! They're bad people, Ayda."

"I still don't know what you're trying to say." Ayda assumed a more normal posture. "Yeah, I know they're criminals. That's why I take them off the streets, to protect people."

"But who protects you?"

The atmosphere in the room noticeably shifted. Ayda could almost see the air grow thicker, as lingering electricity from the television whipped up between her and the older man. From the authority in his voice, one could ascertain this was the meat of the conversation.

"No one protects me," Ayda said slowly. "I don't need protection."

"But how do you know that?" Challenged Bernard. "Just because you never needed protecting before, doesn't mean you won't later. Someone will get the better of you eventually."

"You don't know that!" Ayda fired his own points back at him. "I'm fine, Bernard. I've been fine. Nothing's gonna happen to me."

"Okay, but what happens when you're not fine? What happens when you can't protect the people you claim to fight for?"

"What?"

"Do you ever think things through, even just for a second? Your actions, these criminals you fight, they all have consequences. It's not just your life at stake here."

"What are you getting at?" Again, Ayda questions his motives. The topic transitioned pretty quickly from her own life, to those of others. What was Bernard trying to get at?

"Seven children are dead, Ayda. How many more would've died if you'd failed?"

"Are you serious?" Ayda couldn't believe her ears. "What kind of logic is that? Bernard, I saved those kids. How long would that madman have kept shooting people if I hadn't stepped in? The ones who survived got out because of me. I didn't fail."

"But what if you had?" Bernard fired back. "A lot more children would be dead, and you'd be one of them!" He took a deep, shuttering breath. "I already lost one daughter. Don't make me lose two."

Silence again took the room. Where once was hostility toward this unjust interrogation, Ayda instead reached out with sympathy. Bernard wasn't playing the bad cop or the drill sergeant, here. He was just a father, scared to death of having the most important thing in his world taken away not once, but twice. Ayda knew how he felt. It was the same for her when Jackie died. But this was different. He had to see that.

"I understand where you're coming from," Ayda began gently, "but I'm okay. I'm better equipped to deal with these... these criminals than the cops are. We both know that. I'm not going anywhere."

"Every time you leave the house," Bernard said lowly. "Every time I hear about the things you've done, my heart stops, and it doesn't start again until I see your face, until I hear your voice."

"I know."

He shook his head. "I don't think you do." The man averted his gaze. "I turned a blind eye to all of this, at first. You were mad about your sister, and you wanted justice. I knew that. I thought it was over when Sun Xin turned himself in. That was you, right?"

"Yeah," Ayda nodded. "Yeah, that was me. I found him."

"I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn't. You kept on. You took justice into your own hands, with no regard for the law or for restraint. I ignored it, but the school shooting was the last straw. I can't just stand by while you put the lives of children in danger."

There were several things wrong with that last statement. She never put the lives of children at risk. The police were the ones doing that by sitting on their asses instead of taking decisive action. Ayda could push the point, but she knew it was pointless. Bernard already made up his mind. Instead, she skipped by it entirely in favor of more important topics.

"Is this the part where you tell me to stop?" She said bluntly. "Because you have to know I won't."

"No, Ayda, I'm not telling you to stop. I know my words would just go in one ear and out the other. If you want to continue you're vigilante schemes, that's fine. Do whatever you want, just like you always do."

Bernard ceased talking for a moment to transition to a more nonverbal form of communication. He reached into his right lab coat pocket and produced a mostly flat, black leather square, about the size of his palm. Ayda's eyes grew wide. She recognized it immediately. Her hands flew to her jean pockets, checking each one frantically. Empty. Of course. She always left it behind when she was out as Pulse. It wouldn't do to carry around something with her name and photograph inside.

"I didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice," Bernard said. "If you want to keep taking the law into your own hands, then you're not gonna do it with my money."

As Bernard spoke, he flipped open the bifold. Using one hand, he extracted Ayda's bank card—a green and white rectangle—with the deft fingers of the engineer he was. The case fell to the ground. With the other, Bernard again reached into his pocket, but this time pulled out a small pair of orange-handled scissors. Ayda watched on in sheer horror as Bernard opened the simple machine and placed the card, her livelihood, within it.

A single motion. A poignant snip. Two unequal halves of plastic fluttered to the ground. Although their impact was silent, their rest made a bomb go off in Ayda's brain. All she could do was stand and watch in paralyzed terror as her life for the past five years—quite literally—fell apart before her.

"As of this moment, all assets under the name Ayda Belmont have been frozen. All funds and property you own will be turned over to me. You are officially cut off."

"What are you—"

"You can have everything back the moment you hang up your jacket, but until then your trust fund belongs to me."

His words pierced her very soul, seeming to echo though this room allowed for little reverberation. This can't be happening. This has to be some sort of dream. She fell asleep behind the wheel, or maybe had been the whole time and would wake up any moment now. She'd be a rich girl again, not the pauper she had been her entire life before. Bernard would no longer be cross with her, and she could go out and buy anything she wanted. No more pain or poverty, just the luxuries of a first world life.

But this was not a dream. Deep down she knew, even if every bone in her young, seventeen-year-old body rejected it. This was all too real. In a matter of seconds, she lost everything. All funds and property. Did that include the clothes on her back? Would Bernard strip her naked and cast her out onto the streets? He wasn't that kind of evil, right? In that moment, Ayda knew nothing for sure.

One thing, though, was abundantly clear. She had to leave, if not for her own safety, then for Bernard's. Historically, she tended to have problems reconciling extreme emotions, and this was definitely an extreme time. She turned and walked out of the room.

"Ayda!" Bernard called after her. She ignored him, and slammed the front door behind herself.

Ayda turned her motorcycle around where it sat in the driveway and mounted the beast. A push of a button brought it roaring to life. The sunglasses returned to her face. She peeled out and turned right toward the city, no destination in mind except far away from there.

For everything that just happened, her mind was remarkably calm. Normally, she couldn't shut up the little voice in her head at even the best of times. It'd be wise to assume a situation like this would only exacerbate the problem, but that simply wasn't the case. Ayda thought little. She felt almost nothing. It almost seemed unreal, like it never happened. Save for the task of driving, her mind was completely blank, and the sane part of her knew that wasn't right.

The scenery slowly blended together. Homes and trees and storefronts lost their definition, forming into one incoherent color. The rev of her engine was just noise. The rumbles and honks of traffic meant nothing to her. They were not a distraction or alert to possible trouble. They simply became part of the same cacophony.

Every once in a while something would jump out at her. The bright yellow of a luxury sports car. The streetlight glint off a convenience store window. A piercing and out of place Bostonian accent shouting obscenities at another motorist. They were all just flashes, a parallel dimension phasing in and out with her own personal reality.

As life passed her by, the teenager became increasingly aware of the weather. It was an odd thing. The air around her was warm as any other night in Texas, yet a constant chill ran through her muscles. She tried to convince herself how stupid this was. She should be sweating, if absolutely nothing else. But, try as she might, Ayda just couldn't get warm. A hot exterior swirled around her, but all she felt was chilling cold.

However, even that faded away. In time, it too mixed around with everything else, a garbled mess of sights and sounds, and the occasional feeling. She looked, but did not see; felt, but did not perceive. It was a mess of meaninglessness. Nothing mattered except the drive and the night. They distracted her from the truth, and made her forget about everything she'd just lost.

Only God himself knew how long she'd been riding, or what paths she took in the mean time, but the girl did eventually come to. Like a battering ram to the brain, the world slammed into focus. Ayda took a long blink and breathed in sharply through her nose, as if jolted awake from an unpleasant nap.

The motion—and sudden awareness of the city—caused the startled teenager to lose concentration. She reflexively jerked her handlebars to the right. The bike dipped dangerously low. The tires slipped perpendicular to the pavement with a harrowing scrape. Ayda put one foot on the ground and pushed back against the gravitational forces bringing her down, all the while jamming on the brakes. Thankfully, her steed was a rather light creature. A tiny, little blast underneath her foot was all she needed to right it. Otherwise, she absolutely would've dumped it.

Crises averted, Ayda pulled over to the side of the road, an exasperated hand on her forehead. That was dumb. Blatantly using her powers in the middle of the road like that was dumb. Even though she still wore her sunglasses, a random criminal—or fan, for that matter—recognizing her at that moment would be very bad. Until she got her bearings, the last thing she needed was attention.

The disoriented girl took a deep breath, a long draw in and out through the nose. She blinked and rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger. Had she always been this tired? Stinging pupils looked about the place, taking in the scenery to get at least a vague sense of direction.

Dilapidated buildings in various states of disrepair, a startling lack of traffic, the occasional pedestrian on a late night stroll, this was definitely the industrial district. Why on earth would she come here, of all places? This was where she went to bust heads, to live in the moment, not escape from it, which she had assumedly been trying to do. Maybe her instincts were trying to blow off some steam with a good fight. This certainly was the right place to find one.

And then it hit her. As the mental fog cleared, this particular street became very familiar. It was one she traversed almost every day in transit to the first step of most patrols. This was a path she'd taken many times before, one she'd chosen completely unbeknownst to herself, almost as if by habit. Her carnal senses really did know what she needed.

The teenager dug out her phone and quickly dialed her one and only speed dial contact. Might as well let him know before popping in. The call's recipient picked up just after the first ring.

"Ayda," said the familiar voice of Elliot. "What happened, there? You just kinda went offline for a moment."

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry about that. I...had something to do." Ayda couldn't keep a breathy note of exhaustion from her voice, which her partner picked up on immediately.

"You sound really tired," he observed. "Is everything alright?"

"No," Ayda sighed. "No, Elliot, everything isn't alright."

"What's wrong?"

Elliot's question was met with silence. Ayda's heart sank. The grip on her phone tightened. The words formed on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't bring herself to say them. Doing so spoke life into them, as if giving in to the reality finally would cement the deal. Part of her still refused to believe it, even though the deed had been done.

"Come on, talk to me," Elliot prodded. "You're gonna make me worry, and I know how much you hate it when I—"

"Bernard cut me off," Ayda blurted, every syllable like a dagger to the brainstem. She physically winced. The words were simultaneously the most difficult she'd ever elucidated, and yet surprisingly simple to pronounce.

"What?" Elliot said after a moment.

"I got a text message saying we needed to talk. He knows, El. He knows who I am."

"Yeah," Elliot shrugged with his voice. "If I know, he knows. We figured that out a long time ago. Why would he cut you off?"

"I don't know." Ayda pinched the bridge of his nose. "He said he was worried about me, and that I was putting my own life and the lives of others at risk, and I shouldn't take the law into my own hands. Then he said something to the effect of 'you won't fight crime with my money,' and he cut up my credit card right in front of me."

The whole story, albeit a paraphrased version, came out all at once. Ayda leaned forward, propping an elbow on the gas tank of her bike. Elliot's side of the conversation fell mute for a moment. He clearly was taking in all of that information.

"Did he say anything else?" Elliot asked eventually.

"I don't know, probably. It's all kind of a blur."

"And have you checked your bank account yet?"

"No, El. I haven't done anything yet. I've kinda been riding around for the past... I don't know how long." She paused for a second. "Listen, can I come stay with you for a little while?"

"What? Did he kick you out of the house, too?"

"No, I just can't be there right now." Ayda gave him a chance to respond. He did not, which made her nervous. "It won't be forever, and I'll pay rent, or something, I swear. I'll stay out of your way, I'll help out with chores, whatever. I just need some space to—"

"Ayda," Elliot interjected firmly. "Get your things and come down here. You're always welcome in my apartment, you know that."

"Really?" Ayda blinked a few times. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," confirmed her friend. "I'll leave the door unlocked. Which doesn't matter, since you have a key. That's not the point. Kust get down here, whenever you're ready."

"Thank you, El," Ayda breathed. "I'll be there in a few minutes. I was kinda already on the way, I just didn't know it at first."

"What does that even mean?"

Ayda chuckled, despite herself. "I'll explain when I get there."

And with that, she pocketed the device. Ayda sat up in her seat and pulled back onto the road, destined for Elliot's apartment. When she'd been driving without any real purpose or direction, some undefinable force knew what she really needed, what would help dull the pain. Ayda didn't need a distraction or to beat up a few gangsters, but instead the warm presence of a good friend. Elliot always knew how to cheer her up, even if he himself wasn't aware of it most of the time. She'd been unconsciously working toward that comfort the whole time.