*Whirrr*

I could hear the sound of cogs resounding in the air as broken machines lay on the ground all around us.

“Please… swear to me…”

I felt blood splatter onto my face as the woman struggled to talk. Tears stained my eyes as the woman’s blood soaked hand gently caressed my hair.

“Swear to me that you will always stay like you are.”

I fell onto my knees and tears splashed down my face, “I-I promise you that I’ll always stay the same.”

Her face was filled the most radiant smile I had ever seen but I knew that she hadn’t heard my words.

She was dead long before I had spoken them.

I had gained my powers that day.

But I had lost so much more in return.

“I promise I’ll avenge you mother.”

~~~~

*Pop*

The pink haired woman’s voice carried past the rain towards us.

“Oh look, a hero. It’s a B ranker as well, cute.”

She was chewing her gum with a bored expression on her face. Lunar Princess kept her sword steady as she spoke to them.

“The association has received several distress calls of explosions in the area. Lay down your weapons and surrender yourself to me or I will be forced to take action.”

The woman gave her the finger, “try me.”

Lunar Princess exhaled.

“Very well.”

The white aura around her turned to silver and channelled into her sword. She swung her sword and the aura spread and flew out in an arc towards the pair.

They jumped back and the ground around them exploded, sending clouds of dust into the air and knocking them back behind it. We had lost sight of them.

“It does not look like you are with those ones.”

I looked up as the hero spoke to us and shook my head, “Complete bystanders.”

I turned to the blonde haired girl standing next to me.

“Come to think about it, I don’t know anything about you.”

The girl’s blue eyes swirled to meet mine.

“You’re name is E-23?”

The girl shook her head, “I left that name behind when I left the organisation.”

It was understandable. I nodded my head. Any thoughts I had had about her story being fabricated were long gone by now.

“My name’s Luke Hamilton.”

I looked up at Lunar Princess and checked that she was listening.

“I am also known as the hero, Avenger.”

Lunar Princess brought her wrist up to her mouth and I saw that she was carrying the personal helper device the hero association handed out to its members. She was talking into it and I realised she was probably checking to see that I was who I said I was.

After a moment she nodded in acknowledgement.

At the same time a gasp sounded out from beside me and I stepped back in surprise.

E-23’s eyes had lit up at my words and she was making grabbing motions with her hand, as though she wanted something really badly.

“Say it!”

She continued to stare at me and it took me a second to realise what she was talking about.

“I’m not going to say it!”

Her eyes lit up more, with electricity this time.

“Say it!” She repeated.

‘Can she shoot that stuff from her eyes? Can I take that risk?’

I looked around at the wet floor and realised that my clothes were soaked as well, I couldn’t take that chance.

“Listen, I’ll shout it some other time.”

Her blonde hair suddenly dried as bolts of electricity ran through it.

“I-I’m not here on hero business you know, it would be wrong to say it.”

Suddenly she nodded enthusiastically, she could understand my logic.

‘Thank god I managed to fool her.’

I really didn’t want to shout my battle cry. It was too damn embarrassing.

Besides I had left behind any association with my life as a hero a long time ago.

“Prepare yourselves!” Lunar Princess suddenly cried to us and I could see her pointing towards the section of the street where the organisations men had been covered in smoke.

The pair was striding towards us.

It was clear that they hadn’t been harmed at all by her aura attack.

Lunar Princess glided down from the air and landed in front of us.

“Avenger stay ba-”

Lunar Princess’s eyes widened and she stopped talking mid-sentence as she looked at me.

I could feel it rather than see it. Seeping out of my body through my pores and reaching across my skin. My clothes and hair instantly dried and the rain fizzled and evaporated as it hit me, no, as it hit the aura which was encompassing my body.

It was red, the colour of anger. It was the colour of blood.

“You have an aura?! You’re only a D-ranked hero!”

Surprise fluttered across my face.

‘I have a hero rank?’ This was news to me.

A bright flash of light was accompanied by a trail of smoke in the sky as the organisation’s man fired on us again.

“You stay here.” I motioned to the girl, more specifically I pointed to her clothes which were falling around her in tatters.

“Kyaa!”

She screamed and dropped to the ground blushing and covering her body. I motioned her to move back and she looked at me, bobbing her head to show that she understood.

I looked at the oncoming rocket.

“While I take down the woman use the chance to stop that guy from firing on us again.”

Lunar princess nodded and her sword glowed as she sent more of her aura into it.

I jumped into the air towards the pair, my fist flying towards the woman’s face…

~~~~

-But first, a quick flashback-

“Hey! What are these ‘auras’ that keep turning up in the stories?”

The teenage girl interrupted the man as he was reading to her and he put down the file he was reading while groaning internally.

He yearned for those years gone by when she wouldn’t interrupt his reading every few sentences with questions or statements.

“The concept of auras has been around for almost as long as powers.”

The girl yawned as she sensed another lecture coming. She’d had a shorter attention span as she grew up.

“They are,” he laboured on, “the physical manifestations of a person’s life energy. The concept of aura is that people can use their own life energy, or chi as some people prefer, which is the very essence that drives them and let them live, as a tool like any old common weapon or power.”

“Does that mean that I can use it too?”

The man ignored her question. He didn’t ignore it because it was a bad question, but it was simply a question he could not answer. No matter how often they had tried they had never been able to insert life energy into E-23.

“People had discovered long ago that using your life energy is a lot harder than simply thinking about it. People use life energy in their everyday lives without noticing it or even knowing about it. But the people that can manifest their energy into auras are the ones that have an extreme abundance of it.

Much like powers, life energy will increase exponentially in people randomly and when this happens they suddenly find themselves able to manifest auras which they can now use at will. It’s as though they have suddenly gained enough life energy to fill them twice over, more in rare cases.”

“Can all heroes use auras?”

“No, life energy which can be manifested into auras is a rare occurrence, even now only people above the B rank in the hero association can manifest an aura and even then it is incredibly rare. There are people in the highest ranks that haven’t been able to manifest their auras yet.”

The girls twiddled her thumbs as she distracted herself from the man’s long explanation.

“This part is important. For all intents and purposes aura can be used as both a weapon and a defence, it strengthens the body beyond what conventional means can do and can be considered an equal to enhanced strength powers.”

The girl held up her chin with her hand and moved it up until she was facing the Director, “So auras aren’t a type of power?”

The Director considered her question carefully.

“Life energy is placed in the Strength category of the Richter power types. But we discovered long ago that although the appearance of abundant life energy in a person may be random, it does not create the same genetic anomaly in people that powers do. The people that have auras are still the exact same as they were before they had them.”

The girl nodded her head.

Even though she didn’t look that interested in it, she wouldn’t be forgetting about auras anytime soon.

~~~~

Lunar Princess swung her sword in an arc in front of her as I jumped into the air.

*BOOM*

I was pushed to the ground by the force of the air as it exploded around us.

*clatter*

Pieces of metal rained down on me. Lunar Princess had cleaved the rocket that had been flying towards us into two pieces.

A shadow appeared above me and I rolled over. The bitumen next to me cracked as a fist hit the spot where my head had just been.

Pink shoes entered my vision and I felt the woman kick me in the stomach and send me flying backwards.

I landed on my back.

She raised her fist and I saw her grinning at me while smacking her lips together.

“It’s payback time.”

I gathered my aura in my legs as I twisted my hands inwards and placed them on the ground. I pushed myself off the ground, landing both my feet on her shins, and I saw her flip over my head at the impact.

*Crack* I heard the pavement break as her head hit it and I frowned. She must have been hiding some sort of durability power from me when I broke her jaw before.

The woman disappeared in a blur and I jumped back as a sword sliced through the air in front of my eyes. The woman grunted and followed through with a stab to my chest.

‘Damn she had a speed power. Wait, where did the sword come from?’

I grabbed the sword mid-stab and broke it with aura infused hands. At least she wouldn’t be able to use it anymore.

The woman dropped the broken sword on the ground and held her hand in the air. I jumped to the side to dodge whatever projectile attack she would throw at me but to my surprise another sword appeared in thin air.

The woman blurred again and materialised in front of me swinging the sword down to where I was landing. I twisted my entire body mid-air and sent out a kick. My foot hit the hilt of the sword and I heard the sound of it hitting the ground. I ducked my head to avoid getting punched in the face as I landed.

“Too bad, I have super speed too.”

The woman’s eyes widened as her arm overextended over my head and I smiled at her. *Crack*I didn’t feel a single bit of remorse as I hit and broke it into two pieces. I moved back and saw that the bone of her arm had pierced her skin and gone through the jackets materials.

“You can give up now.” I didn’t really want to have to break her anymore.

She grunted, her other fist swung towards my face and it smashed against my cheek. I ignored it and used the opportunity to move in front of her to gaze into her eyes. There was something wrong with them.

‘Some sort of pain killers. They must be pretty good too if she can still concentrate with a broken arm.’

I smashed my left fist into her stomach to wind her and as she stumbled backwards I followed up with a right palm to her face. I felt her nose break as I hit it and she stumbled back more while gasping for breath, she still wasn’t feeling any pain.

I circled behind her while she was distracted and wrapped my arm around her neck in a choke hold. If I couldn’t knock her out through pain I would make sure she suffocated into unconsciousness.

*BOOM*

My aura flickered around my body to protect me as both of us went flying in the air. Lunar princess landed elegantly behind me I found myself facing the man with the rocket launcher.

The man and the hero stood staring at each other and I could see that Lunar Princesses mask had cracked even while she was surrounded by her aura. Her sword was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re stronger than the average B-ranked hero, but you won’t be able to defeat me. Give us E-23 and we’ll go quietly.” The man pointed to the girl that had previously been known as E-23. Although she was out of hearing range she shivered as she understood the meaning of the gesture.

“You already know my answer.”

The rain around the man exploded as he blurred and disappeared. Lunar Princess shot her aura out in front of her to block his attack. The attack didn’t come and she turned around just after the man appeared behind her and sent a punch towards her head. She wouldn’t be fast enough to dodge it.

“Wait a second there.”

I wrapped my fingers over the man’s fist and held him in place.

“You have some explaining to-”

The man forcibly removed his fist and before I could react his other hand blurred and he punched me in the stomach. I took it easily and grinned as I grabbed both his arms. The man’s eyes widened as he saw me.

“Avenger.”

I let go of the man’s arms and he jumped back. I stared at him in surprise.

“You know me?”

The man motioned for me to stop with his hand and walked towards us.

“Move aside and let me collect my partner. We will retreat for now.”

I could see from his eyes that he was serious. Lunar Princess moved to attack again and I motioned for her to stop while shaking my head. If he wanted to get away he could have done it without asking. He was simply being polite.

The man picked up the woman and slung her over his shoulder. I could see that the arm and nose I had broken were already mending. By the time they returned to wherever they came from they would have healed completely.

He turned around to face us and saluted.

“I thank you. In answer to your previous question, our organisation keeps track of all heroes. It is no surprise that we would know of a former A rank hero such as yourself. I personally have enjoyed reading many of your exploits.”

‘Again with this ranking thing, I’ve never heard of it until today.’ I thought to myself.

“Encountering someone of your calibre was not in our calculations.”

He was being awfully polite for someone that had been trying to kill us a moment ago. Just in case I moved between him and E-23 so that he wouldn’t try to make a final run and grab her. He looked at me and turned his head to give a final nod towards Lunar Princess.

He blurred and the rain exploded around him as he his body hit the droplets before they could reach the ground. By the time I blinked he had disappeared.

We stared at the spot where the pair had been for a few minutes and the rain stopped.

I turned to face the bunny masked hero, “Sorry, but he would have gotten away no matter what. That guy was strong.”

Lunar Princess walked towards me and I feared that she was going to try and punch me.

“I know.”

Her aura disappeared and she started swaying from side to side. I rushed to grab her as she fell forward, unconscious. I sighed gently and smiled, she had held out against that man until she could barely stand and I could respect that.

I lifted her up in a princess hold and spread my aura around her body to dry her off before I stopped emitting it and it curled back into my body. She was surprisingly light despite all of the folds in the shrine maiden outfit.

I walked over to where the blonde haired girl was sitting, a lot had happened since she had first broken through my floorboards and I wasn’t sure what to make of all of it.

I could swear that her eyes had grown bigger by several millimetres and were somehow shining.

“So, you were an A ran-”

I quickly motioned at her with one of my hands.

“First, we get put this hero on a bed and let her rest. Then we can talk about what just happened.”

The folds of Lunar Princess’s shrine maiden uniform swayed as I turned to walk towards my house.

My house…

“MY HOUSE!” Where my house had been was a large smoking crater surrounded by smouldering pieces of wood and broken bricks.

Whatever the rocket hadn’t destroyed the fire following it had scorched to cinders before the rain could put it out.

I felt a hand running over my shoulder and turned around to see blonde girl looking at me sympathetically. Her eyes were still shining.

“Hohoho~”

A smile crossed her face as she laughed.

“I think I have a solution.” She nodded to herself as she considered her genius idea and…

~~~~

…Tapped her chin as she gazed nervously at the various masked individuals surrounding them.

“Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea after all.”

As I looked around at the numerous guns pointed at us I couldn’t help but agree with her.