“Mmm…nggh…” Jason’s whole body felt heavy and thick, like he was under a weighted blanket. But that couldn’t be right, because he was shivering with cold.

“Hey. Hey!” Why was he so cold? Even when he curled up in the alley he wasn’t this cold. But there was something incredibly warm propping him up. And what was that whistling sound?

“Hey. Hey! Hey! Wake up!” Blearily Jason opened his eyes to see a concerned Max looming over him.

“Gah!” He tried to scoot away, but his foot touched nothing and his head flopped to the side, looking down on-the city street fifty stories down! “Wah! What!?”

“Easy, easy, I gotcha.” Max said gently, pulling back even further from the edge. Jason realized he was holding him up in his huge arms.

“Dude, what? Put me down!” Max set him on the roof, right next to him in easy grabbing distance. Jason sat down, legs shaking. “W-Where are we? Why are we up so high?”

“The Silver City Metropolitan Mirror office. It was the highest building far away from the crash. The cops are, uh, swarming the place right now.” Max said bashfully. “They’re never gonna find us here. Speaking of finding, it’s a good thing I did, otherwise they would have got you. Sorry about the rough ride, but you’re in one piece. What was that all about? You know them?”

“Never seen ‘em before.” Jason said with a straight face. Max just shook his head. He gave him a flat, disbelieving stare, and the boy shifted uncomfortably. “Well, most of ‘em. I’ll never forget the creepy one, as long as I’ll live.” he clarified, face hard, voice breaking.

“The one in the sweater.” There couldn’t be anyone else. “Let me guess. Something that happened with your family?”

“He’s the one that killed my mother and burned my house down.” Jason said, the high altitude and frigid spring air not even close to matching the ice in his tone. Max was taken aback, but nodded. It had to be something like that, after all. He sighed deeply.

“That sucks, and I mean it. I’m sorry for your loss. There’s nothing worse than losing those you care about. What about your dad?”

“They threw his body on the floor before that creep and the goon squad lit my house up. Boom, orphan.” Jason said harshly.

“Oh my god.” Jason suddenly found himself enveloped in a gigantic hug, and there was no breaking free. “I am so, so sorry you had to go through that.” Max cried, nearly in tears.

“I’m dealing. Let go!” Jason said.

“Not until you understand that it gets better, it really does! The burden you have to bear isn’t something a grown man should have to endure, let alone a child! I promise life will get better!” Good lord, the kid had it worse than him!

“Can’t...breathe…” Jason gasped, turning red.

“O-Oh.” Max let go and Jason turned back to his normal color. “My apologies. I’m not really used to physical contact when I’m like this.”

“Don’t use me for practice then.” Jason muttered, adjusting his collar. His arms felt tighter than steel! “So yeah, that’s what went down, but they weren’t done with me. They took me to some kinda lab, stuck me in a tank and stabbed me with needles, injecting who knows what into me every day.”

“Good lord.” Max said breathlessly.

“Yeah. They were conducting some kinda experiment, and apparently needed my genetic code to complete it or something. I was ‘the most perfect and sublime test subject that could be envisioned.’ All I really know is they kept me locked up while they shot me up.”

“Oof. Know what that’s like.” Max said, commiserating. Jason blinked.

“You do?” Max waved his hand dismissively.

“Later. Tell me everything, please.”

“Well, it went on like that for about a month. But they messed up. See, they were trying to perfect a formula for making supers, they didn’t bother hiding it. Every day, they’d inject something new, and s-something new’d happen to m-me. I-I’d start stretching, I’d t-turn different colors, m-my e-eyes would fall out and come b-back, m-my skin turned inside out…” Jason was shaking, his teeth chattering, not from the cold. “E-Every injection hurt. It b-burned. Why did it burn? Why? N-No, s-stop, I can’t t-take anymore-”

“Hey, hey!” Max barked, snapping his fingers in Jason’s face. He shook his head. Flashbacks from the trauma. Wonderful. “It’s ok, it’s over. They can’t do that to you anymore. I won’t let them. It’s okay.” he said, placing a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder and looking into his eyes. Jason blinked groggily, shaking it off.

“Huh? Oh. S-Sorry.”

“It’s alright. It sounds like you had to go through a lot. Don’t bother with the fine details. How did you escape?” he asked.

“Easy. Like I said, they messed up.” Jason said with a predatory smile. “See, they gave me a whole bunch of stuff that would change my body. At the end of every experiment, they’d inject what they said was a neutralizing agent. Funny thing was, it kinda stopped working after a while. Whenever they kept me in my cell or the tube, when they weren’t looking I could, uh…morph.” Jason’s whole body shivered, then shifted. Max could hardly believe his eyes. In an instant, the scrawny boy in mismatched clothing and coat was gone, replaced by a small black cat.

“Whoa! Amazing!” he exclaimed. He bent over and examined Jason the cat from all sides. “You look just like a real cat! Fascinating!” He poked Jason’s furry shoulder, and frowned. Something felt off about it.

“Meow.” the cat said. Not as an onomatopoeia, but the actual word ‘meow’. “Pretty good, right?”

“Good heavens! You can talk!?” Max said, taken aback.

“It’s easy. Anything I can turn into with a voice box, I can talk with. It’s a little hard with these teeth, though. Usually I keep the fangs smaller.” Jason admitted.

“So you can turn into any animal?” Max asked. Jason shot him a feline smile.

“Hell no! I can turn into anything!” he declared, rapidly shifting into a book, an empty shirt, a game console, and finally a gargoyle, moving his stone body to squat on the ledge in a menacing pose. Max gaped in wonder. If he hadn’t known Jason was transformed, he would have sworn the gargoyle was supposed to be perched there.

“Fantastic! You can change into anything you want?”

“Sorta.” Jason said, shifting back and sitting on the ledge. “I can, but I can’t really turn into things bigger than I am. Smaller’s no problem though, it’s weird.” he said, scratching his head. Max put a hand to his chin. Organic to inorganic, same size or smaller…was that really the case?

“Anyhoo, I can see why they wanted you back.”

“Yup. Slipped free a couple days ago. Turned into a cat in the middle of the night and slipped underneath the doorframe, thin as a piece of paper. Took like two hours, but I wriggled through.” he said proudly, beaming at Max and flattening his body to demonstrate. He immediately turned back when a wind gust threatened to blow him off the building. “I’m ok!”

“Maybe just stick to explaining.” Max said.

“Not much else to tell. I managed to slip out a door, and it’s been life on the streets ever since. It’s been easier for me ‘cause I’m super now, I usually curl up somewhere as a cat, nobody bothers me. It’s kinda funny; I wanted to be a super and a hero like everybody else. Now that I am, I’d trade it back in an instant if I could put everything back like before.” he said bitterly. There was a moment of silence as Max could only commiserate.

“Well...why didn’t you go to the police? Surely they would’ve believed you if you showed them your new ability?” he said with a frown. Jason snorted.

“Get real. It wouldn’t have helped. The cops in town are all corrupt, they don’t do a thing to actually help. Everyone knows that. It’s why there’s so many shootings and unregistered power attacks. Best they are is glorified undertakers. Going to them’d be a one-way ticket back to the test tube.” he said blankly.

“Hmm.” Max rumbled, rubbing his chin. The more time he spent in this city, the bleaker it seemed.

“You’re cursed.” The words of his kibvaghn echoed in his head. He shook it, forcing those thoughts down.

“In any case, it sounds like they’re going to be after you.” Max heaved a sigh. There really was no better option, if the police were out. He’d only been here a month, but even he could tell the truth of Jason’s words. “Nothing for it. If you keep living on the streets like you are, it’ll be easy for them to grab you again, superpowers or not. So how about it?” He extended an oversized hand down to Jason. “Want to come with me? I can help.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind blowing across the skyscrapers, and the chattering of Jason’s teeth. The boy looked from the gigantic hand to Max’s face warily, as if searching for a trap.

“Why?” he asked. Max chuckled, sadly.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it? I think it is.” he said. Jason stared at his enormous hand.

“You really aren’t from around here, are you.” he stated.

“Not for a long time.” Max said. Jason smirked at that.

“A night indoors sounds good to me.” He reached up and shook his hand, his own lost in the big man’s. He had a surprisingly gentle grip.

“Right! I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s get out of here.”

“Okayyyyyah!” Max smiled and picked him up, placing the boy piggyback on his shoulders. “W-What are you doing?”

“Heading home, what does it look like? Hold on tight.” Max replied, squatting on the roof with a grin. “You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

“Uh, being high’s never been a problem, but if you-”

“GOOD!” Max leapt off the tower, and Jason’s vision went blurry as the wind scraped his face. It felt like a nuclear-grade leaf blower was hooked up to a refrigerator and aimed right at his head. Then, his stomach started to lift. No, that was his whole body!

“Waaaaaaaaaagh!” Jason screamed in terror as his body lifted up, clinging to Max like his life depended on it, which right now it did! Max had launched himself at an angle, soaring over the city. Jason gasped. They were headed straight into another building!

“Here comes the fun part!” Max cried over the wind, his booming voice carrying.

“Nolookoutaaah!” was Jason’s response.

Max slammed into the side of the building on all fours, bending with the weight of momentum. Then, they were still. For one horrible, terrifying lifetime, yet not even a second passing, Jason felt himself wrapped around a man who had jumped onto a wall, with no handholds. They were going to drop, he could feel it, hundreds of feet in the air.

Then Max pushed, heaving his body with his fingers and toes in the miniature gouges they made when he hit. There wasn’t any more air in Jason’s lungs to scream as they zoomed straight up, the dark offices blurring beneath them. Max repeated the upward hurl when their momentum ran out on a windowsill, and in no time had reached the roof. His legs pumped tirelessly at max speed, running across the entire rooftop before Jason could breathe in. His knees bent, and Max threw them up in the air once again.

“Uuuueh.” Jason moaned, eyes screwed shut, burying his face in Max’s neck.

“Aha ha ha ha ha! Take a look! Quick!” the giant commanded, and Jason opened an eye. Which instantly became two as he beheld.

The entirety of Silver City was laid out before them, sparkling with lights that turned the dingy metropolis into a gem. Jason gasped as he realized he barely had to tilt his head to view the clouds, the stars glittering overhead just like the city below. They started to fall, and Jason tensed up again.

“Relax! Ride it out instead, like a rollarcoaster!” Max shouted, pointing his shoes at the next target building. Jason clenched, but he remembered riding the kiddy coaster at the fair when he was five. He didn’t like it until his mom told him to hold his hands up.

‘See, honey? Don’t try and fight the centripetal acceleration, just let it carry you. You’re safe. Just like when I carried you in my arms!’ Mom was always funny with words, but her advice worked. He rode it three more times that day, quickly moving on to bigger and badder coasters as he grew up.

“It’s no different.” he muttered. Gravity was catching up, and they were falling faster and faster. Jason gripped tighter with his legs, let go of Max’s neck and threw his hands up in the air, shouting out the biggest “WA-HOO!” he could manage. Max’s grin widened.

“That’s the spirit! WOO!” They landed, but before inertia caught up Max jumped again, twisting his body to land on another building sideways and launch off that. He could feel Jason shift on his back, rolling with it instead of fighting.

“Whoa!” Jason exclaimed, now able to take in the city from above at speed. It was a crazy ride, but Max moved like a machine, precisely pinpointing where and how to jump with expert timing. The night zipped by, and in no time at all they were dropping down onto a six-story building, climbing in through the corner window Max kept unlocked just for this purpose.

“That was totally awesome! It was so fast! Like whoosh!” Jason babbled, flailing his arms in the dark.

“The only way to travel.” max chuckled, turning on the light. Jason stared at his new accommodations: a kitchen with a table and single chair, a living room with a crate for sitting, and beyond that he could see the bedroom, with a sheetless mattress on the floor, a blanket laying on top of it.

“Wow.” he said, not trusting himself to say anything else.

“Well, um, I know it’s not much, but it’s got all the basic amenities. Walls, water, heat and electric. Oh uh, just don’t take a shower longer than ten minutes, it overheats the boiler and it’ll turn off. That’s a...bad idea this time of year.” Max said with the certainty of experience.

“Thanks. Uh, where do I sleep? Is there a...couch…?” Jason asked, awkward and doubtful. Max shuffled his feet in the nervous dance of someone who was just realizing they hadn’t thought this through.

“Um...I hear the floor’s very comfortable this time of year.” he said lamely.