“Ow, fuck!”

Anna grunted the words for the tenth time this hour, every new one hinting more pain and anger than the last.

It really seemed like it was gonna work this time, she thought.

One would think flying with telekinesis would be as easy as lifting another object off the ground; after all almost every telekinetic superhero in the comic books she had read the past two days did it that way. Hell, for some characters it was the very first skill they learned. Unfortunately, this was reality, not a comic book and the cold, hard truth was that in reality, flying wasn't easy. Not in the slightest.

For some reason, the forces she felt when she used her telekinesis in lifting things always disappeared the moment she used it on herself and this time it disappeared when she was a good twenty feet up in the air. It was difficult lifting herself and even more so keeping herself elevated. Worst part, she hadn't even tried moving yet.

Anna was really starting to doubt flying was possible.

It was Saturday afternoon, nearly four days since the warehouse incident and like she had spent her Thursday and Friday afternoons, Anna was in one of her father's old company buildings in the city training and practicing her telekinetic power. Learning new skills and most importantly, her limits. The empty (except for broken doors and old machinery) building was in a quiet, remote area of the city. While the large building provided her a perfect place to train and use her powers, the area it was in also provided her privacy. It was a two-in-one package.

Excluding today, training had been awesome. Anna was starting to get the hang of her mindman power. She could do a number of things with her forcefield now and that was exciting to say the least. Number of things in this case actually meant different shapes and constructs. Despite it being not quite long since she started training, Anna could make relatively better, finer and stronger constructs than the ones she made at the warehouse fight.

Her favourites were the gauntlet and vambrace-like forcefield constructs she made around her hand and forearm as she got up from the sprawled position she had been in earlier from the fall. Those were the only body amour Anna could make right now. Any other armour parts she made with her forcefield either looked misshaped or too big for the body part. Thankfully, practice would help perfect that.

She didn't look as cool as the Iron Fist from Marvel Comics but one could compare her to him. Dressed in black leggings, a purple colored hoodie and white sneakers she was pretty much a female version of the guy. While her hands weren't glowing gold or red like Iron Fist's, they were covered in a translucent forcefield. They packed the same punch as a direct hit from Iron Fist though. The destroyed concrete walls and heavily dented, large steel doors arranged on the walls around her could testify to that.

A few more minutes of training and that would be it. Anna still had a lot of things to do and in short time. She had to get home on time or her father would ground her or worse, stop her from leaving the house without an escort. It had almost gotten to that on Wednesday night but thankfully, Claire was there to plead on her behalf and the old man settled with a 'no leaving the house past six thirty' rule.

Of course she was going to break that rule today because tonight was the night. The night she broke into a police station and made a copy of the video of Carter Grayson.

It was also the reason she was training extra hard and trying out new skills: to be ready in case anything happened. Anna was definitely going to be as quiet as possible in getting into the police station but that didn't mean she wasn't expecting the worst and in the event that it happened, she had to be prepared. The policemen would be armed and unlike the criminals she fought at the warehouse, they knew how to use their guns.

In the two days she had been coming here, Anna had redesigned the place to suit her requirements. The area of the one storey building she had basically thrown herself (in her failed attempt to fly) toward was surrounded by metal doors and useless, long, flat horizontal metal pieces. Of course, they weren't useless anymore; she used them to train. Anna could put a hole in a wall when her forcefield-guantlets were on, with a single punch, so punching bags wouldn't be so much help. Metals doors were the next best thing.

Reaching with her power, Anna lifted a piece of long metal a few meters away from her and brought it toward herself. Fortunately, unlike the telekinetic superheroes in the comics, Anna's mindman powers didn't require her to lift her hands in the general direction of the object she wanted to lift with her telekinesis before she could lift it, so as the metal door approached her at a decent speed, she lifted her hands into a fighting position and at the last moment, she punched it with all the strength she could muster.

It wasn't a huge amount of course. Anna was a runner not a fighter but thankfully with the forcefield-gauntlets on, she didn't have to be. The metal flew backwards violently but before it could hit the wall in front of her, she brought it back to back to herself. At the same time she lifted the steel doors and the other generally rectangular, rusted metal pieces, throwing them at herself all at once. Then she would punch each one back but before it dropped, she'd bring it back to herself once more.

It looked cool and felt cool. Aside the telekinesis, telepathy, mind control, quick healing and whatever obvious power she was yet to discover, Anna possessed rather subtle powers as well. It was either that or she had no explanation to how she got so much better in studies the last few days, how she was running faster in track now or how she got so good in hand-eye coordination.

Soon, the thirty minutes was over and she stopped training and refreshed. It was twenty minutes past three now, leaving her with only three hours, ten minutes before she'd have to go home. There were only two things left to do now. One was getting a costume. Anna wasn't going to make it glamorous, it was going to be a simple costume with it's only purpose being that of hiding her identity. She was going to be a vigilante after all and according to the comic books she'd been reading, they hardly wore anything fancy. The other was planning the whole vigilante thing. She was going to stop Carter Grayson from using that drug but there were a lot of steps she'd have to go through before she got to that point. She had to think things through. She got the first down but she had to think about the other ones.

But that would be later after she got herself a costume, gotten home and was left alone because as Anna walked out of the building, boarded a taxi and headed towards the closest shopping mall to her home, only one thought bothered her.

I wonder what my codename is going to be, all the good ones are taken.

■

On the roof of the two storey building closest to the police station, Anna stood watching, taking in every detail the area had to offer. Like an eagle watching its prey, she was waiting for the most conducive moment to take action.

The night's air was warm and it made her uncomfortable but that was mostly because of what she was wearing. The costume wasn't the most suitable for the season. It was a pair of black cargo pants, combat boots, gloves, black colored sweatshirt and a mask with a stylized biker helmet. It made her itchy and hot but aside all that, it worked fine as a costume.

It was late, about twelve minutes past ten but there were still a lot of people moving about. Anna didn't like it. It was difficult thinking with everyone's thoughts invading her mind. Despite her attempt at keeping them out, they still poured in. It was probably because she was excited about tonight. Or maybe because she used her mind control on a lot of people on her way here; the three guards in the living room and the one in the kitchen, the six in the two cars outside and Mrs. Cooper's dog who for some reason, kept barking the moment it saw her use her powers on the guards.

Looking again, she noticed there were no police officers or passerby in the alley between the block of flats and the station. The number of people in the area had reduced. It was the perfect moment, the one she'd had been waiting for.

One last time, Anna quickly went through her plans for the night, thinking about every aspect of it over and over. Once she was through, she moved backwards a few feet, readying herself for a jump.

“Let's do this,” she said to herself.

In the same manner she had used her powers at the warehouse, Anna used her telekinesis to launch herself at the end of her run toward the edge of the building. The boost shot her across the narrow street beneath her and onto the roof of the police station building. She landed on the rooftop and then it happened.

Almost at the same time she stood up, the door that served as the building's roof access swung open and three police officers walked out. Two males and a female. They seemed relaxed at first; speaking leisurely amongst themselves but that changed the moment they saw Anna's dark figure standing a few meters from them.

“Shit,” Anna muttered.

“Freeze!” one of the police officers said as he pulled his gun from his holster and pointed it at Anna while the only female amongst them spoke into the device on her shoulder.

Run? Anna questioned within herself.

Running wouldn't make any sense. It would only confirm the thoughts that were establishing themselves in their heads. Also she wouldn't get what she came for. Running wasn't the answer. Fighting wasn't the answer either. She could definitely take out these guys but the female officer had radioed the station already. Everyone was aware and probably headed toward the roof. There was no way she would win in a fight like that. Losing meant she wouldn't get the video. She had to get the video.

Talking? Yeah, let's try that.

“Get on the ground now!” the officer who spoke earlier commanded. The other officers too had their guns out.

“I know what it looks like,” Anna started, raising her hands in a sign of surrender. “I look like a criminal but trust me, I'm not. I'm actually here to report a case. I'm a good guy.”

“I'm not gonna say it again, get on the—”

“I know about the warehouse incident,” Anna interrupted the man. After a pause for dramatic effect, she added, “I also know that the most of the apprehended criminals killed themselves with a false tooth and the ones that didn't get a chance to wouldn't say anything about their boss no matter what. I know that's the reason why it wasn't announced on the news. You have no leads. Jeff wasn't crazy when he told you how he got knocked out. You're looking at her.”

She had their attention now. The thoughts that ran through their minds said it all.

“Like I said, I'm the good guy. I've got some information about the case that I'd like to share. It's important. Really important.”

“So you're saying you and Alex Fisher coming here the same day was a coincidence?” the other male police asked.

“Brian!” the female officer called disapprovingly.

“What? With what she knows, it's a harmless question.”

The words hadn't quite left his mouth when an explosion that shook the entire building was heard beneath them.

“Uh, what was that?” Anna asked as the officers turned around. They didn't answer of course, instead the officer called Brian and the woman rushed back into the building while the other police officer remained, his aim fixed on Anna.

“Now,” the officer began as he reached for the handcuffs on his waist with his left hand while the right held the gun, “get down on your knees.”

“Seriously?” Anna asked exasperated. Before the officer could reply or do anything else, she spoke again, this time, while using her mind control power. “Drop the gun and walk away from the door.”

The officer did as he was told in a dazed manner and Anna walked past him into the building and shut the door before he snapped out of her control. The command wouldn't make him stay there for a long period. It wasn't like the ones she used on her father's guards. Those ones would keep them unconscious the whole night. She wanted the officer to come back into the building, just at a time when he wouldn't be able to stop her from getting the video.

Anna hurried down the stairs towards the source of the commotion and gunshots that could be heard from anywhere in the building. It was in the ground floor of the building, in an area that seemed to have been for offices before the explosion. Anna watched what was happening from a corner near the entrance of the large, white painted room.

Several police officers were lying unconscious and injured on the the rubble covered floor. The ones standing pelted a shirtless blonde man in torn trousers with bullets. Despite the onslaught, he kept walking towards them like the bullets had no effect on him. He was impervious to bullets and worse, Anna felt the cold aura again. Much like the one from the warehouse.

Whoever this man was, he'd taken the drug.

Soon, he reached one of the officers and grabbed her. After smashing her head on the wall beside him, he threw the officer at her colleagues and lunged at them as well.

Anna didn't wait another second.

Catching the woman midair with her telekinesis, Anna created a blockade with her forcefield that the blonde man collided with violently. It disoriented him and he moved backwards a few steps. Not wasting another second, she lifted a chair from the rubble and sent it flying at him and followed it with a violent push.

He was thrown backwards many feet away from them and Anna gently lowered the unconscious police officer she had held in the air.

“Uh, I just saved your lives,” she said to the officers who were staring at her, “the proper response would be a 'thank you' and not the gaping thing y'all got going.”

The response she got was from the blonde man who chuckled as he got up.

“You know what's funny?” he asked as he brought out a syringe filled with a blood red liquid, “you actually think you have the power to stop me.”

“Girl, you only have the power to make this interesting for me,” he said, injecting himself with the syringe.

And the room suddenly became twice as cold.