I still wonder how potens are made.

Maybe Âkil will find out.

-Richard J. Richter, from the Colorado University

Gravity was walking through the mall in her blue and brown costume, watching her target. Her footsteps were lighter than normal, yet she walked with a confident and heavy pace. She had made herself ten times lighter. A good reaction time was necessary when on patrol.

Except, she wasn’t on patrol.

Gravity looked at the clothes displayed to her right. The majority of them were different kinds of dresses and had warm colors to them. She stopped to look at them further, her posture still upright.

She heard the click of a phone taking a photo behind her. Gravity ignored it and kept walking through the uncovered mall, just as she had been told.

It was known as the Main Mall throughout Expansion Valley. Mainly because it was the biggest mall in the city, and had double the shops than any of the other malls in the city. It hadn’t been the first to be built, nor was the prettiest, yet it simply was. And there she was, walking through its inner streets, playing a play that was only known by her and someone in the crowd.

Gravity was doing what was called a runaway. Basically, she was walking around in her costume to make sure everything was in place, despite her knowing nothing was going to happen, just so people could watch her. Runaways seemed similar to patrols, except there wasn’t any danger waiting in the mall.

The equivalent of thirteen police squads had been deployed as security staff across the mall, which was as big as a university campus, equipped with symbologist tools to take care of dangerous criminals, including low ranking villains.

She then stopped and stared at the display of a different shop, until, after some time, another photo was taken. Gravity then repeated the process with a multitude of shops, waiting until the photo was taken, doing what she had been told.

After that, Gravity approached a flat wall. She then returned to her normal weight, changing her directional pull to the wall after. She had never really thought of why she had to change her weight to be able to change directions. She knew that she could only be increasing or decreasing something’s weight, other than herself, by five times if she wanted to change the directional pull, but she didn’t really know why. It was just how her power worked.

Gravity then began walking on the wall, an action which attracted the attention of more people than what she had expected. She stopped once she reached the rooftops, changing the directional pull just as she stepped out of the wall’s limit and taking a stride to reach the roof with her foot.

After that, she pulled up the bottom half of her mask, grabbed something from within her wrist pocket, and began eating an energetic bar as her left foot stood out the roof, looking at the mall below her. It tasted blend and felt moldy.

Gravity didn’t like the idea of revealing part of her face. Even if it was just the bottom half, a part of her identity was public, and that was dangerous due to modern day technology and people without social lives. But Gravity wasn’t supposed to care.

Gravity was a hard and cold vigilante turned hero. Mysterious, yet able to calm pedestrians just with her presence. Someone honest that had begun doing hero work as a vigilante because it was the right thing to do, not because of the money, even though she had accepted to work for Ataki and get paid.

But she still did it. She showed part of her identity, even if she didn’t want to. She played the role of humble and cool vigilante turned hero, even though she had only taken the job because she needed the money.

Because she had to do as she had been told.

Gravity was then able to see a big crowd of people looking up at her. It still surprised her how popular she was.

Gravity wasn’t a high ranking hero. She was a B ranked hero. Though rank didn’t seem to care too much to the people and fans. Tiger Beetle… Or, well, Impulse, was a C ranked hero, yet was one of the most popular ones in the US. Neither was she an entity flowing with power like Don Quijote. Her abilities, skills, and powers were kind of average. Even her aesthetic and style were bland.

Yet she was way more popular than what she deserved. But why wouldn’t she?

Gravity was one of the few lonely vigilantes that had patrolled and protected Wet Wood for years. A land of mystery, villains, and crime. A place where if you entered an alleyway alone, there was a reasonable chance to get your insides outside. A city that forced its inhabitants to harden themselves if they wanted to survive.

She would have understood her popularity if any of those things were true.

Wet Wood had crime, as well as any other city in the world. Just like Expansion Valley. But it was surprising how not showing images of crimes taking place in your city distorted your own vision of it, making you think that you lived in a safe haven away from crime. When, in reality, if someone looked at the rate of reported crimes per inhabitant, they would see how Expansion Valley was above Cintia in almost every aspect.

But a dangerous city didn’t appeal to tourists.

The name wasn’t the only thing that Laura and Gravity hated about the city. She had been forced to move there so that she would be able to pay for Ludwig’s treatment. But now that he was awake, she could leave.

If she could pay the compensations for breaching her contract, of course. Which she couldn’t.

Laura would have to wait another three years.

Gravity’s phone buzzed.

She pulled it out and checked TakRan. Different pictures of her around the mall had been posted. Every post had gotten over one hundred thousand likes, and tagged the stores that appeared in the background with a message similar to: “Wow, I can’t believe Gravity shops at (blank)! I shop there!”

They looked like someone who was walking through the mall had just seen her and taken a rushed picture to post it on the media app. Which was the point. Relatability sold a lot.

Gravity lowered the phone and saw a flash of light among the crowd. She gave a thumbs up in response, making the flashing light turn off. She then began to walk back to where she had been. From above, Gravity was able to see an increase in the influx of people, not a major one, but noticeable, walking into the stores she had been looking at.

People were like sheep. Easy to direct and shave. Docile if kept in good conditions. Simple to manipulate.

Gravity tightened her right fist while pulling down her mask.

And she was like the shepherd’s rod. Unable to move while the shepherd shook her from here to there without care. Like something replaceable.

Gravity jumped from the roof and began falling upwards, to the skies colored pink by the sunset.