“Mr. Maxwell!” Claire called out cheerfully. “This is a lovely surprise. It's really nice to see you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Henson Maxwell replied, “but I'm afraid, this isn't a social call. May I come in?” The question was directed at Anna who was still standing at the entrance thus preventing the man from coming in. Her gaze was still on the small gemstone in his hand. If it weren't for the way he held it, Anna would've probably missed it. That was if she was normal, anyways. The gemstone was the one giving off the aura she'd felt earlier, which made sense. This was Henson Maxwell, sure he was a lot of things (an awesome doctor, amazing husband and father, and the principal of one of the most prestigious schools in Redstone city), but there was no way he was a mindman too. That'd be just too much. But then again, how did he get the gemstone, were all precious stones like that or was this one special?

Okay, now was not the time to think about that, Anna thought. Moving those thoughts to the back of her mind, Anna dissipated the brass knuckle forcefield and moved aside. Plastering a practiced forced smile on her face, she replied, “Oh, uh, sorry, Mr. Maxwell, please come in.”

Smiling at her, the brown haired man replied Anna as he entered, his deep blue eyes fixed on hers. “Come on, Anna, just call me Henson. We're basically family.” The gaze lingered for a few more seconds and it was anything but comfortable. The look in his eyes gave her the creeps and the gemstone (which he placed in his pocket as he entered) wasn't helping matters. Seriously, her living room was the last place to be right now.

“I'm really sorry you wouldn't be able to eat with us today,” her father said, breaking the awkward silence that had managed to creep in, “but like you said, it isn't a social visit, this'll help speed things up.” Her father walked towards Henson, shook hands with the man before adding, “It's good to see you.”

“I'd be frank,” Henson Maxwell said after he had exchanged pleasantries with everyone. “I'm here for Anna.”

“Did she do something wrong?” Claire inquired, speaking quickly. Shoving the worried look aside, she added, “I mean beside the Tuesday incident.”

Okay, this was bad. Anna was pretty good at hiding her emotions. From repeatedly pretending to be happy whenever her father was around, she had learned to put on a face that said the opposite of what she was feeling but still. Anna was quite sure everyone saw the look of fear that had crossed her face the moment Henson announced his reason for coming here. Could he have discovered what she did last night? It made sense if he did. She didn't plan it right. The costume wasn't good enough and she hadn't disguised her voice, meaning that anyone who was familiar with her (like Sarah's father, who wasn't there last night for some reason), or followed her on Instagram would recognise her quite easily. Agreed, she hadn't planned for a fight last night but that didn't mean she couldn't have prepared better. If she had, she wouldn't be—

“That is precisely why I'm here,” Henson replied.

“What?” Anna asked, trying not to look flustered.

“The police have a few more questions about things that happened that night,” He said facing Anna, “They wanted to be more... direct in their interrogation, but your involvement has made this case delicate.”

“So they are making you ask the questions instead. Since everyone involved attends Henson High,” Anna's father guessed carefully.

“Exactly,” came the retired doctor's reply. “I'm going to have a PTA meeting with the parents at school this week, but I wanted to be here first. I wanted talk with Anna before anything. Of course, you can choose to wait till Tuesday. I'm fine with that. I just didn't want it to be a surprise or throw you off balance when I bring it up at school.”

Ignoring the obvious special treatment (and the daunting presence of the gemstone in the man's pocket), Anna replied shrugging, “Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't mind answering any question the police have. I just want everything that happened that day to be nothing more than a vague experience of a bad day in my mind. I'm pretty eager to put it all behind me. So yeah, I'm okay with answering questions.” Anna didn't have to lie about that part. She wanted to do this especially if it meant that her parents believed she was still normal and all that. Everyone had been taking extra care to ensure she didn't feel uncomfortable since that day. Now that she'd begun the vigilante life, she wanted to make it look like she was moving on from the tragic experience or at least trying to. It would help reduce the attention she was currently under and her parents' chances of discovering how she spent her nights from now.

Besides that happened a lot better that she thought it would. Answering a few questions about the warehouse incident was way better than explaining how she spent last night fighting a super strong, bulletproof man, and how she ended up capturing a minion of one of the powerful drug lord in the city and how she has him tied up in one of her father's old industrial buildings. Yeah, her situation right now was quite amusing, but it was way better than it would have ended up being given her recklessness last night. Thankfully, the police for some reason didn't share any info about her appearance at the station last night, and that was probably because they didn't have anything on her. Also, the deaths of the warehouse criminals (and her capture of the only one alive), meant her identity was safe. Their deaths weren't a good thing but at least it helped her in some way.

Yeah, and that line of reasoning isn't selfish in any way, she scolded herself, those were people Anna.

In any case, it all meant one thing; she was safe, no one knew anything about her.

“Well, it's just one question,” Henson Maxwell started as he sat on the couch. “About something that, if true, means you and Donna happened to lie about it in your reports. It's about the girl who fought off the criminals that attacked you guys at the warehouse.

”Do you mind telling me about her?

■

Well she wasn't entirely screwed. Apparently, all Mr. Maxwell knew was that a girl appeared in the warehouse that day, fought back the men, and saved them all from otherwise certain death. He didn't know how she did it or that she had appeared in the station yesterday. Yeah, the police were being really picky with the information they shared about this case. Anyways, given the police knew a lot more than Henson, she stuck to what she said in her report (not that she had a choice not to anyways); the moment she got in, she managed to stop the man from pulling the trigger and killing her friends, she then took down few of the unarmed but quickly got overpowered by one of them whom afterwards, tried strangling her. It remained that way until the female police officer rushed in and literally shot him off her, but the man simply got up and escaped running through a wall.

To Mr. Henson Maxwell, it was skeptical. Mostly the part about the bulletproof man. He probably would have called her a blatant liar if that police officer being in there with them that night didn't serve as a witness. Nevertheless, she stuck to it because despite it sounding incredulous to Mr. Maxwell, to the police who had seen the girl in question use superpowers straight out of the comic books, it was believable. Very believable. She was still safe on that front. The cops still couldn't connect it to her or Donna.

Still, she was very uncomfortable that her parents knew about it.

Another thing that made her uncomfortable was that gemstone Henson had with him. It made her so uncomfortable that she headed to the high class pawnshop downtown. Well, she was there for a different reason but being there gave her the opportunity to research about gemstones and the likes. Contrary to what she thought, all gemstones had that effect. It was overwhelming. The shop being filled with them, it was nearly impossible to concentrate but Anna managed to and was able to buy what she'd gone there for.

A voicechanger device that'd help conceal her voice whenever she went out in her masked persona. Anna wasn't going to let last night's mistake repeat itself; she left last night's outfit at home (along with her backpack). It was dangerous already, going out fighting bad guys, she didn't have to make it worse by gearing up terribly. That said, she made a lot of changes to her costume; she purchased a dark red hooded techwear jacket with matching pants, and a new helmet. This one was much smaller than the biker helmet she wore last night and had it's black visor covering the front of the helmet from the area that covered her forehead, to the part that would fit her jaw. It also allowed her to wear the voicechanger without hassle. The voicechanger on it's own was a less protruding Subzero themed mask that had been worn by a celebrity to an event a few months back. That and the fact that the mask was decorated with golden inscriptions made it quite expensive. Or it would have been, if her weekly allowance wasn't a lot more than eight hundred dollars.

After purchasing the mask, Anna called an Uber and headed toward the warehouse. That was the reason she left the house today. Anna wasn't headed there for training today though. She was going there to find answers, about Carter Grayson's criminal organization and about how the super drug got into her city, the source of it, everything. That man she had tied in the warehouse was going to provide the answers to all of her questions. He was going to help her put Grayson behind bars.

In between the thoughts of whether she was going to make him tell her what she wanted to know by using her mind control or asking him first and see where that led to, she arrived in the general location of the building. Paying the Uber driver, Anna headed to a fast food restaurant in the area and ordered takeout. Stuffing the food into her nearly filled shopping bag and heading to the restroom afterwards, Anna changed into her new costume and honestly, red fit her more. If the suit didn't cover her completely, she might have seemed like a vampire, given her pale skin. That would have been funny though, given the new outfit seemed like a modern, fitted ninja outfit. Vampire-Ninja. The idea made her chuckle slightly. Anyways, the suit was awesome. The teachwear jacket and pants, the voicechanger mask and black helmet gave her the vigilante look she wanted.

Leaving through the open back door, Anna managed to leave the restaurant without being noticed. Anna then headed toward the huge, industrial wares storage building, her father owned across the street. The same building she had been training in; where she had left the man she'd saved from Alex Fisher last night.

The building was intact. Doors where they should be and everything. It was also surrounded with a fence, making the whole place safe. Using her telekinesis, Anna leaped over the fence with a running start, and landed at just the right distance in front of the building to avoid a face plant.

“I should really learn how to time that right,” she said to herself, cringing as she remembered how she'd been landing the past few times she'd come here. Straightening herself, she moved aside the huge metal piece she'd kept behind the door and entered the building.

Anna hadn't gotten that far into the building when she noticed that the man wasn't where she'd left him. Just as a quick search with powers alerted her of the man's location, she felt a sharp erupting at her side. The hit sent her to the floor while the man lifted the metal pole to hit her once more.

She didn't let him this time. The moment the pole would have struck home, Anna released a wave that sent the man flying backward, while she got up hurriedly wincing from the pain at her side. The man got up as well and moved frantically to the entrance of the building. Forming a forcefield at the door, she stopped the man from leaving.

“I'm not gonna let you escape,” Anna stated loudly. “Where are you gonna go exactly? You're supposed to be dead. I'm sure your former boss has his men looking for you. You have no where to go.” Shrugging she added, “Can't you just be grateful I saved your life, and sit down like a good boy while I question you?”

“Fuck you,” he snapped as he swung his pipe in her direction.

Boy, was this guy mad. He was so livid with rage that she could barely read his thoughts. His emotions were all over the place and it blocked her access. She hated it when this happened.

Taking quick steps back, Anna dodged his attacks. Grabbing the hand that held the pipe, Anna formed a brass knuckle forcefield around her right fist and punched the man's arm till he let go of the pipe. Dazing the man with a punch to the face, Anna released a low, discreet wave of her force that took out his legs from under him. Body in midair, Anna dragged him to the ground, landing face first.

Before he could get up, Anna lifted him off the ground herself with her power and hung him on a wall far inside the warehouse building. Keeping him there, she lifted the pole he'd been using. Bending it, Anna sent it towards him, burying the ends of it on the sides of the man's chest region.

Anna was going to say something but didn't as she heard the man sobbing when she got close enough.

Crying. The obviously middle aged man was literally crying. Heavily for that matter. Tears, mucus and all that was all over his face. It made her feel sorry for the man for hitting the man. He'd obviously been through a lot. Almost being killed last night would make anyone want to go into hiding. Maybe she should have tried to be more understanding.

Shit.

“Look dude, I'm—”

“They're gonna kill her,” the man interrupted, speaking to himself.

Okay, that made her give a double take. “Uh, what?”

“She didn't do anything wrong,” the man lamented, ignoring her question. “They're just gonna kill her because of me. Because of my mistakes, they gonna kill my Judy. They're gonna kill her.”

“Who's Ju—”

“Hey, you're some kind of vigilante hero, right?” He asked, giving Anna a pathetic look. “You want information about the Zeniths, right?”

“Yea—”

“So save my kid,” he interrupted again. “Save my Judy. They're gonna find her and kill her if you don't.

“Save her and I'll tell you everything you want to know about Carter Grayson.”