Lucien stood atop one of the large residential buildings in the heart of New Avalon’s First District, haloed by the neon lights of the steel giants surrounding him in every direction. By night the mega city was a breathtaking vista, a sea of lights and eclectic colours that stretched from horizon to horizon. His city of birth was alive, a living organism consisting of over a hundred million people living their lives in the titanium paradise Eckhart Grant had founded for them. From his position on the roof of one of the large apartment complexes, he could see the blue-lit rails of the mag-lev trains crisscrossing the city as they fed into the hundreds of gargantuan terminals scattered across New Avalon.

It was a city that truly knew no sleep, whose nocturnal activity was as prevalent and raucous as its daytime was productive. His sensitive ears picked up hundreds of sets of sirens if he let them, and helicopters and VTOL response craft dominated the skies as the demand on first responders called them to action. In spite of having one of the lowest crime rates in the world, New Avalon was still home to a population larger than many sovereign nations. The sheer scale of the city, even with its elimination of poverty line conditions, leant itself invariably to a criminal element.

It was the simple reality of its own size.

More than once he’d seen a silhouetted figure soaring across the sky, either a lower-ranked Metahuman working as a Courier or — far more rarely — a powerful Hero patrolling the night in case of danger. His eyes drank it all in greedily, reveling in the freedom he had to even experience such a view. The constant traffic of the mag-lev trains served as an almost rhythmic background noise; as welcome as a lullaby of his youth for a young man born and raised in the City of Tomorrow.

“Dude that view is mental.” Ty’s voice said in his ear.

“I know, right?” He replied happily, turning his head so the camera between his eyes in the mask could see. “It’s insane that this is happening.”

“Relax dude. Our parents weren’t going to let you go off caping without proper support. What’s the point of being rich if you can’t make use of it?”

“Spoken like a true son of the bourgeois.” Lucien responded with a grin.

“Yeah, well, so are you jackass.” Ty responded without malice. “Anyway, I have something for you if you’re feeling ready for it.”

“Sure Ty, hit me.”

“Agh! I told you dude, it’s Quarterback.” Tiberius objected. “What if some villain has super hearing?”

Lucien sighed. “Alright, alright. What do you have for me, Quarterback?”

“Much better!” His ‘guy-in-the-chair’ responded smugly, before continuing. “First District PD just picked up a meta-crime in progress. Armoured truck got hit. Looks like a strength type and speed type working together.”

“A pair, huh? Hm…”

“You’re stronger than the speedster and faster than the strongman. You got this. These guys are being classified as C+, it’s a cakewalk for you.”

“Dude I haven’t even been certified.”

“Dude you can bench-press an eighteen-wheeler and run at 600 kilometers an hour. You’ve got this.”

Lucien closed his eyes for a moment to calm his racing heart, and felt his resolve strengthening. I can do this. This is my destiny. I’ve got this. His eyes opened and he stood up, reaching up to touch his chest for a final bit of reassurance. “Alright. Send it.”

“Sending it to your nav now.”

Lucien looked down at his left wrist and the device strapped around it. The tiny device was very obviously out of place on the rest of his outfit, but there had been no other options when trying to find a solution to maintaining communication. The powerful miniaturized transceiver and touch-screen interface made the watch-sized device the best way to keep a constant connection with Tiberius and the Washingtons.

As he looked at it the screen shifted, blinking with a GPS update and a new destination that had been entered remotely. “Got it.” Lucien said to Tiberius, stepping towards the edge of the building. “Heading there to now.”

“ETA?”

“Not sure.” He said, his inexperience shining through. “Maybe three minutes.”

“Copy that.” Tiberius said, fully immersed in his role as the guy in the chair. “I’ll be on standby until you arrive.”

“Thanks.” Lucien said simply, before bending his legs and focusing on his powers. What came next was a monstrous launch from the top of the building, carefully calculated to avoid cracking the concrete under heel as he propelled himself into the night. He’d learned to arc himself carefully over the summer, training his ability to launch and land with as much impact dissipation as possible. While he couldn’t fly, he had managed to will himself to rapidly decrease velocity when nearing the ground, resulting in reasonably elegant landings that could almost be mistaken for flying down from the heavens.

He glanced at the GPS again and then looked down below him, watching the smaller high-rises pass beneath his legs. If not for his heightened awareness informing him of the faint changes in temperature, and the caress of airflow against his face, the scents in the air and the miniscule changes in air pressure he’d have believed he really was just soaring through the sky. He could feel the arc of his motion though, telling him the exact moment he reached the apex of the leap and transitioned from rising to falling. He could see the ground growing steadily closer, hear the subtle increases in noise from below as he descended towards the earth.

The target of his leap was in sight; a junction of four different roads in a massive cross-shaped intersection that led towards the north-eastern section of First District. His arms extended further in the way he’d practiced, flaring out like stabilizers as he drew his knees up towards his chest to maximize his wind resistance. Descending in a controlled fall, he summoned the vestiges of his power he’d yet to properly access — feeling the faint flutter of anxiety in his gut that always preceded his tapping into his still-unused flight abilities.

The ground surged up to meet him as his gravity yanked him downwards and Lucien slammed the proverbial brakes, killing his downwards momentum in a sudden violation of Newtonian laws that allowed him to come to a solid but non-destructive landing. Unluckily, however, he’d landed in the middle of the intersection and not the large pedestrian walkway he’d been hoping for.

A sudden and alarmed honk followed by the audible — thanks to his hearing — squeal of surprise from a stunned female motorist drew his attention, and he lifted a hand to her in apology; watching her shocked expression morph into mild bewilderment as she automatically lifted a hand in response to acknowledge him. A cheeky smile lit up his features and he bent his knees as people started to call out, tapping into his speed and launching himself forwards as time demented around him. Distance and reality melted and blurred into his ‘speed mode’, and took off along the streets of New Avalon, leaving a shocked crowd in his wake.

His speed was a strange thing, allowing him to take sharp turns and make rapid changes of direction without impediment, as if inertia had no grasp on him. He’d pondered if maybe it was the nature of how his speed worked, creating an exception to the world around him that allowed him to speed through it with perfect perception, and yet with the understanding that he was effectively skipping huge chunks of space with every step.

Lucien’s enhanced hearing allowed him to identify the moment he drew closer to the scene of the crime he was approaching, and he cut his speed in an alley about two hundred metres away. He carefully peeked his head around the corner of the building he was using as a shield, his enhanced eyesight pulling the distant scene into sharp focus: The armoured car was tipped onto its side, silhouetted by three flaming police vehicles that had been helpless before the aggression of the strength-type. Multiple police officers were on the ground, though Lucien couldn’t tell immediately if they were alive or dead, and the area appeared clear of any others.

The strength-type, an extremely muscular woman with a fierce mohawk, was moving back and forth between a large van and the armoured car while hauling metal boxes presumably filled with money. The speed-type was nowhere to be found, but Lucien wasn’t worrying about that in the immediate moment. His focus was, most immediately, on the injured police officers.

“Quarterback, I’ve arrived.”

“Yeah, I can see.” Ty responded grimly. “Camera has a solid zoom function. This looks really bad, dude. You need to get in there and help those cops.”

“I didn’t think it’d be this serious.” Lucien admitted. “There should be heroes here handling this.”

“Uh, dude? There are.”

“What, where?” He asked, looking around in sudden alarm.

“Dude. You’re the Hero.” The way Tiberius said it told Lucien he was in ‘Captain’ mode, as if dictating a play on the football field. “Time to get shit done, Luc.”

“I…” Panic warred with his desire to help, reminding Lucien that he was a sixteen year old kid with one self-defense lesson, a loose grasp of his combat acumen, and no business interfering with cold-blooded cop killers. On the other hand, those same cops — wounded and potentially in need of life-saving intervention — defied his urge to flee, grounding him in the moment. He felt himself heading towards a panic attack, and sucked in large amounts of air as he turned and flattened himself against the wall and closed his eyes in fear.

“Ty, I don’t know if I can do this.” He said quietly, hating his own cowardice. “I just…”

“No.” His godbrother said, voice hard in Lucien’s ear. “You don’t get to make excuses this time, bro. No way. This is what we trained for, what you literally died for. This isn’t something you get to just throw up your hands and say ‘oh well, I tried’ to. Not this time.”

Lucien was silent, taken aback by his friend’s iron tone. With no response, he could only listen as Tiberius continued.

“When you have the power to stop something bad from happening but you don’t, then that bad thing that happens; man that’s on you. Forget the right and wrong, what if that was me lying there on the street? I’m not a Super, Lucien. I can’t do what you can do. What if I become a cop, and a hero could save me, and they choose not to?”

The words dried out Lucien’s mouth, and he lowered his head in shame.

“This isn’t about you anymore dude. This is about them. This is about your ability to make a fucking difference. So.” His friend’s voice grew warmer, but remained stern. “Lift your chin, flex those ridiculous biceps, and go show those assholes what happens when they mess with First District.”

Lucien’s mouth firmed into a determined line and he nodded. “Thanks, Quarterback.”

“I gotchu.” Ty responded simply. “You ready?”

“Ready.” Lucien said firmly.

“Engage.”

Reality blurred and Lucien moved, crossing the space between himself and the strong-woman rapidly. Instead of attacking her, though, he went for the van: Gripping it under the frame and flipping it onto its back with a cacophonous bang. Normalcy reasserted itself as he turned to face the woman, who stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him in bewilderment that quickly turned to rage. “What the fuck?” She demanded, dropping the boxes of money and clenching her fists menacingly. “You fucking prick, you’re going to pay for that.”

Lucien only half-paid attention, his senses extended to listen for the speedster. At first he heard nothing but the — to his relief — steady heartbeats of the unconscious officers, and the desperate squawking of several unattended radios. He heard the crackle of flaming cars and the distant sound of whirring helicopter blades, as well as a strange rustle of fabric as if the wind were caressing material. Probably a cyclist. He put that out of his mind as he honed in his senses, keeping half his attention on the approaching woman and her chain of invectives… until he finally heard it.

His muscles faintly strained in objection as Lucien moved as fast as he could from a standing start, spinning around and pushing his gloved palm out towards the sternum of the approaching speedster. Instead of a brutal cessation of motion, they dodged it, weaving with lightning reflexes under his hand to come to a sudden halt just behind the approaching strong-woman, who paused in her tracks. Where the mohawked brunette was dressed in a tank top and khaki pants with combat boots, the speedster wore a black leather bodysuit and had her brown hair up in a ponytail. A pair of similar boots completed the outfit, giving her a strange 1990s Matrix look.

“That explains why you were advancing towards me like you wanted a dance-off.” Lucien said with a smirk that was far more confident than he felt, ignoring the weird pair of outfits. “You were waiting for your partner to get me from behind.”

“Bully for you, asshole.” The speedster jeered, a high-pitched female voice assailing his senses. Two women, then. Part of him felt comically guilty about the idea of throwing down with two girls, until he remembered the flaming police cars and unconscious officers. The guilt was largely suppressed rather quickly after that.

“You should surrender.” Lucien said as he watched them, placing his fists on his hips in the most iconic hero pose he could think of. “I don’t want to hurt you, ladies.”

Both women stared at him for a moment before erupting into laughter, though there was no mirth in their voices. “Hurt us?” The big woman said, flexing her muscles at him. “Fuck you, you sexist asshole. I’m going to enjoy breaking your spine.”

“Hey, I’m not sexist!” Lucien refuted, momentarily slipping out of the ‘epic confrontation’ mentality. “I’m just trying to be polite, here. That was really uncalled for.”

At his words they developed looks of bewilderment. “Are you retarded?” The speedster asked, staring at him from behind her companion. “Do you not understand how fucked you are?”

“Oh man.” He said, a sudden surge of amusement banishing the last of his trepidation. “You really have no idea.” Then he remembered one of Malachi’s main lessons: Initiative. Even as the speedster opened her mouth to retort, Lucien activated his powers and launched himself at the strong-woman, stepping forwards with a colossal burst of super-speed. He saw the female speedster’s eyes widen in shock and the next moment her companion was knocked off her feet, Lucien’s fist frozen in the extended punch that ended with the larger of the two Metas smashing into the armoured car with a crumple of metal.

“Fuck.” The speedster said. “You’re a Multi.”

Before Lucien could respond lightning crackled around her body in sparks of blue, and she was gone, racing to gain distance. He blinked for a moment in confusion before reality distorted and he took off after her, his nose locked in on the faint scent of lavender perfume he’d detected in her wake. Streets passed and roads blurred together as he chased her scent across the city as fast as it appeared, catching direct sight of her after about twenty seconds of pursuit. He saw her glance behind with a look of fury and double-down on her speed, pushing herself forwards even faster.

In spite of that Lucien kept pace with her, pushing his speed to his limit and transitioning to steadily gaining on her. A look of panic crossed her features as she looked back, and the black-suited woman darted left and back, surging towards the crime scene again with Lucien hot on her heels. She cut her speed when she returned to more or less where they started from, looking desperately to her groaning companion as Lucien came to a halt nearby. “Okay, so that was pointless.” He said, his confidence rapidly rising. “Is that seriously the fastest you can go? Jeeze.”

“Fuck you, asshole.” She spat, looking around wildly for an escape that wouldn’t come. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. There weren’t meant to be any capes here tonight. We had a deal!”

“Sucks for you then, doesn’t it?” He said smugly, walking towards her at a leisurely pace. “Listen, I meant what I said. I don’t want to hurt you, and I think we both know I’ve got your number. How about you just surrender?”

“How about you go fuck yourself?” Her companion responded, extricating herself from the armoured truck with a screech of metal. “I’m going to turn you inside out, you prick. That was a fucking cheap shot.” The larger of the two women looked pissed as she focused on Lucien, curling her hands into fists.

“Jayne, be careful! He’s a Multi!” The speedster warned. “He’s faster than me, which is probably how he got you. I doubt he’s strong enough to take you directly, though!”

“You know I’m right here, right?” Lucien asked with a feeling of mild annoyance. Who talked about their tactics so brazenly? “I can hear you.”

“Doesn’t matter, asshole.” Jayne said before she abruptly launched towards him, arms extended. Lucien’s enhanced senses and mind processed and noted her attack by the motions, watching it both in real-time and frame-by-frame as his speed mode aided his perceptions. Judging from the force of that take off… He grunted as her hands impacted his and he slid backwards along the asphalt, thrown back by the force until he slammed down his heels… and stopped dead. …She’s weaker than Malachi. He finished, daring a cocky smile at Jayne’s vicious expression.

“… fuck.” Jayne said. “You’ve got Equilibrium.”