Lucien arrived at school the following day with a broad grin on his features, feeling immensely satisfied from his first foray into crime fighting. His best friend had seemed distracted since the previous night, having seemed as if his mind were somewhere else even during their organized ‘debrief’ after he’d returned from his nocturnal excursion. It was a point of curiosity and mild concern that his godbrother seemed to be proverbially chewing on an issue that he hadn’t raised, and Lucien suspected it had something to do with the events of the previous note — specifically what had happened with Jayne.

When Tiberius was ready to talk, however, he’d talk.

Until then it would be life more or less as normal, and Lucien had every intention of enjoying it. The short time since the end of summer had been two days of bliss for him; two days of not being the world’s biggest reject, treated as if he were some disease that was impossible to extricate from his godbrother’s side. Now when people saw him they waved, they smiled, they greeted him with enthusiasm. It was a change of pace. One that was, at its core, artificial. He knew their ‘affection’ for him was as shallow as their previous disdain.

It had been a matter of survival for many of the thousands of students to treat him like something the dog had left on the sidewalk, but that didn’t make the feeling of popularity any less intoxicating by comparison. Empty platitudes or not, he’d take forced friendliness over casual mockery anytime. Most kids who had been bullied or shunned would. If a super-powered makeover was the catalyst for that… well, so be it. He’d revel in it. It was, after all, technically his birthright.

When he approached the ever-fluctuating group of people waiting for him and Ty at the entrance to the school, Lucien grew curious to see them all crowding around a tablet playing a video. Eddie and Sam were present as usual, with the twins John and James standing with them. Taylor, Hailey, Carmine, Jessica and Harper were present as well — while Jason and his cronies stood off to the side chatting. Lucien intentionally ignored the blond polo captain with forced restraint, resisting the way his fingers itched to grab him by the head and repeat what had happened to Jayne. As wrong as he knew the violent urge to be, he couldn’t help but think the world would be better off if he just gave in.

Too bad his mother had taught him better. Sorry, world.

He smiled when Jessica spotted him and Ty, lifting a hand in greeting as the fit brunette’s half-asian features split into a dazzling smile. He glanced at his godbrother and saw him smile back, though Lucien noticed the slight tension at the corners of Ty’s gaze that told him it was at least partially forced. He filed that away, realizing that perhaps what was bothering his best friend was deeper than he’d initially thought. The sound of clicking heels drew his attention back, however, and he only had a moment to steady himself before Carmine threw her arms around him.

A moment of bewilderment overtook Lucien as the normally cool, aloof mean girl decimated his personal space. “Hey, Snow.” He said with audible surprise, returning her hug after a moment of hesitation. He deliberately didn’t notice Harper’s look of dark disapproval. “Why so affectionate?”

“What do you mean?” She asked as she drew back, looking up at him with her vivid blue eyes.

“Just not used to this level of PDA from you. Or, hell, any PDA for that matter. Until two days ago you didn’t even like m—”

“Shh.” She said abruptly, putting one pale finger against his lips. “That’s all in the past now, right? You’re not the same person you were last year. It’s fine.”

Something about her statement bothered him, far more than something so innocuous should have, but he didn’t press the issue. Instead he shrugged and nodded, eager to move on. “What’s everyone crowding around watching, anyway?” He asked, shifting his bag as Carmine slid both her arms around his right and joined him in approaching the group.

“Ty! Luc!” Eddie called out excitedly, beckoning them over faster and causing both boys to exchange one of their patented looks with one another. Even when he and Ty were at pseudo-odds with each other, their ability to communicate wordlessly remained fully in-tact. That one glance told him that Tiberius had an identical feeling of wary concern about what they were about to see.

“This wild video came out last night, leaked by someone in the NAPD.” Sam explained as they joined the group, holding out the tablet so that Lucien and Ty could get a better look. “They posted it with the hashtag ‘Aquila’.” Sam pronounced it as ‘akwilla’ and Lucien winced, automatically correcting him as he did.

“Aquila, dude. Like ‘akeela’. It’s Latin.”

Sam gave him a weird look, and shook his head. “Whatever bro, look.”

Another glance was exchanged with Ty and Lucien joined his godbrother in watching the video as Sam restarted it. It had been taken from the perspective of one of the police officers that Lucien hadn’t had time to check on, and the man’s strained breathing could be heard in the background, though it had been deliberately lessened in favour of pumping up the audio of the exchange between the two criminals and Lucien himself, his white suit and golden eagle on full display.

He was suddenly glad for the mask.

“Jayne be careful, he’s a Multi!” The speedster repeated, though from the camera angle her back was facing the police officer. “He’s faster than me, which is probably how he got you. I doubt he’s strong enough to take you directly, though!”

The other four boys snickered as if they knew what was going to happen next. Unbeknownst to them, so did Ty and Lucien.

“You know I’m right here, right?” Lucien’s voice responded, though it didn’t quite sound like his. Had he been subconsciously deepening his voice to sound more heroic? He was sure someone was going to point out it was him any second, but no one did, too engrossed in the video to notice. Or perhaps not able to entertain the thought. “I can hear you.”

“Doesn’t matter, asshole.” Jayne said in the playback, before launching herself at Lucien hard enough to rip up asphalt. He hadn’t remembered that, but then again he hadn’t been paying much attention to the ground when the muscular woman had been staring him down. The police officer’s voice chimed in a moment later when Jayne impacted Lucien in the video, weak from pain. “H-Holy shit… How is he still standing?!”

“Dude this next part?” John said excitedly. “It’s fucking badass boys.”

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

Lucien hadn’t thought her that loud until he heard the playback. Either she’d been speaking quite generously, or someone had deliberately increased the audio. Either way, his response caused the boys around him and Ty to snicker again. “What?” Followed by “Nevermind” and then the sudden onset of strength that visibly turned the tables on Jayne. The police officer seemed to have a better idea of the significance, as his comment a moment later demonstrated. “Equilibrium. Th-thank God.”

What followed was something that Lucien found himself feeling strangely disconnected from as he watched. He hadn’t realized he had been so angry at the time, and his brain hadn’t properly processed it in any real capacity. When he heard his voice in the video, though, he knew. He could hear it like a knife through his gut. It wasn’t just anger in his voice; it was hatred. Hatred and pain so volatile and corrosive, that it caused his stomach to twist with familiar anxiety. He sounded… cruel. Vicious.

The boys cheered and whooped each time the echo of his knee smashing into Jayne’s face came through the playback, and Lucien looked up towards Ty, noticing how forcefully neutral his godbrother’s expression was. He wanted to say something then, to reassure Tiberius that he understood, but he couldn’t — not with the others so close. Instead he looked back down to the video, forcing himself to endure the playback of his actions as he watched on helplessly.

“Okay, now this is what you really need to pay attention to.” Sam said, looking between Tiberius and Lucien. “This next part? It’s wild.”

Lucien watched in silence as he started on his tirade, and then sucked in air in shock when he realized what the other boy had been talking about. The more Lucien spoke in the video, and the more angry he grew, the more part of him changed: Specifically, his hair. As he spoke it lightened, streaks of it changing colour rapidly until every strand was a pristine snowy white; the kind of white one might find at the top of a mountain.

Grinning at both Lucien and Ty’s stunned reactions, and blissfully unaware of the root of them, Sam waggled his eyebrows. “It gets better.”

“Not yet.” The recording of Lucien declared, responding to Ty’s voice in his ear, though the camera thankfully didn’t pick up that audio. Instead it looked as if he were talking to Jayne, sagging and dazed before him on her knees, held up only by his gloved hands still tight around her damaged hands. When he grabbed her face, an action Lucien distinctly remembered, he took a step as recalled — but in the video, he didn’t just take a step, he levitated. Lucien’s heart nearly stopped in his chest as his recorded self hovered several inches above the asphalt, holding Jayne in the air.

When he turned to face the speedster, the camera zoomed in on his eyes beneath the mask.

His pupils were gold, and luminous with power.

A moment later he delivered Jayne to her fate, slamming her into the pavement powerfully enough to rock the police officer whose camera was recording and noticeably displace the nearby patrol cars by several metres. When the camera refocused, Lucien’s hair was once again black, and he was walking over towards one of the cops.

“Holy shit.” The recording officer coughed. “Holy shit.”

The camera cut out as Lucien bent over one of the police officers, the one whose handcuffs he remembered liberating. In the video, however, it merely looked as if he was checking the man was okay — and then the feed died. Lucien lifted his eyes to look at Ty, and the other boy stared back in stunned silence, his expression a mix between amazed and worried. For a moment, a single dreadful moment, Lucien thought Ty was scared of him — until he saw his godbrother dart his eyes at their animatedly chattering friends warily.

He’s wondering if they recognized me in that video.

“Woah.” Eddie said, drawing people’s eyes as he scrolled on the tablet. “Check out these comments. People are calling it #OlympusGate.”

“What?” Lucien asked after another mini-heart attack.

“Yeah.” Eddie continued, as the others started pulling out their phones to look it up themselves. “This Aquila dude is going viral, but people keep tacking on ‘#KidOlympus’ to the blasts.”

“That makes sense.” Jessica said as she scrolled through her phone. “Olympus died, like, fifteen years ago? Roughly? If he had a kid, they would have had to have been born, like, at most twenty-five years ago. Seems more likely they’d be younger than that.”

“Based on what?” John asked, glancing up at her.

“Based on reality, jackass.” Hailey cut in rudely. “If Olympus had had a kid near the start of the war, there’s no way the other Trumpets wouldn’t have used that against him. Kid had to have been young enough not to be noticed, or born near the end of the war.”

“That argument’s no more logically infallible than mine is!” John objected.

“Whatever idiot. It’s just reality.”

John gave her a look of incredulity, blustering without articulation at the indignity of her attitude.

Lucien himself looked down to Carmine, who was also engrossed in her phone and the ‘#KidOlympus’ tag. She was scrolling past more than a few posts that had stills extracted from the video next to some of the more famous photos of Olympus, with red lines connecting various features between Aquila and Olympus, and boxes of text describing how identical they were. There seemed to be a minority that believed it was all a hoax or conspiracy, but they were being drowned out by the vocal majority declaring Aquila to be either Olympus’ illegitimate son or — in the more out there theories — some form of reincarnation that heralded the return of the Trumpets.

The theories ranged from reasonable to ridiculous, but one thing became rapidly apparent: They weren’t going away. Lucien exchanged another look with Tiberius, and his godbrother flashed him a sympathetic look. In spite of the tension between them, his best friend understood what this very unwelcome revelation was doing for his anxiety: Nothing even remotely good. The fact that Ty understood and was able to just be his friend, in that moment, meant the world to Lucien. It was a reminder how lucky he was to have Tiberius Washington in his life.

“Oh. My. GOD.” Taylor exclaimed, lifting her phone to the group. “Hyperion is giving a statement! Hyperion!”

The teenagers immediately turned their eyes to Eddie’s tablet as he brought it up, holding it out for them all to see.

Hyperion stood outside the entrance to League Tower, flanked on either side by Dreadnought and Tempest, both of whom wore warm smiles for the crowd. To Lucien’s hyper-acute eyesight, however, he spotted the very faint frown lines in the 64K resolution screens. Tempest and Dreadnought were, it seemed, far more concerned than they were willing to let on. He doubted anyone would even notice, unless they really dug deep to enhance their features and look for the tells.

His attention drifted back to the golden-armoured figure of Hyperion as he delivered his statement. “I’m sure all of you have already seen the footage planted on your feeds this morning.” The world’s greatest Superhero began, his commanding voice riveting the attention of reporters and audience alike. Lucien found himself holding his breath. “As most of you are aware, the Primus — that is, Olympus — was my mentor. In fact, he was the mentor for the entire original roster of the Golden League.” Including Atlas and Lady Midnight, Lucien reminded himself, thinking of that original roster.

“Olympus was more than just a powerful hero, more than just the Seventh Trumpet, more than just the saviour of Humanity: He was our teacher. He was our friend. He was our family.” The final word was emphasized by the publicly styled Lord of Light, his hair glowing faintly from within under the light of the morning sun. “Nobody wishes Olympus to return more than we, and nobody feels the pain of his loss — even fifteen years later — more than his students. When Olympus was tragically slain by Calamity, in a final act of cowardice and desperation on the part of the Third Trumpet; we of the Golden League swore an oath.”

The media’s camera flashes were frenzied, their bated breath palpable. Many of the things Hyperion was saying were a matter of public record — of human history. Others, like the oath, were completely new. A quick glance around told him his friends were as awed as he was, whether he liked it or not. Every word from Hyperion’s lips was magnetic, capturing them and everyone else with their weight. The entire school had fallen silent as groups or individuals watched the address on their phones.

“We swore to protect Olympus’ legacy. We swore to defend the world he martyred himself to save. We swore to be the Guardians of a new future for mankind, all of mankind; be it metahumans, practitioners, or average citizens just trying to get by in a shattered world.” Hyperion’s handsome features darkened then, his expression hardening. His eyes even seemed to shine, to radiate inner power. “This ‘Aquila’, this proclaimed ‘Kid Olympus’ is nothing more than an imposter.” Silence. Utter, absolute silence in both the school and on the screen as Hyperion continued. “Whoever he is, he is a liar and a fraud disgracing the memory of the most noble and heroic human being this planet has ever produced.”

Hyperion curled his right hand into a fist, golden flames dancing around its edges in an aural display of power. “The Golden League has unanimously decided to denounce this pretender, and implores the public to do the same. The brutality employed by this vigilante is anathema to the teachings passed down to us — to all heroes across the world — from Olympus’ own lips. To that end, we hereby declare the vigilante known as ‘Aquila’ to be an enemy of the Golden League; and demand his immediate surrender.”

Lucien noticed something perhaps nobody else did; a slight twitch from Tempest. A downwards quirk of her lips, a tightening around the eyes. It nagged at him, though he couldn’t tell why. “Knowing this brand of renegade as we do, however… I have no doubt he will refuse to do as I’ve requested. He will attempt to deceive us all, and maintain this ludicrous and disgraceful narrative. I urge anyone with information on this duplicitous villain to come forward immediately. A reward will be offered for any information that yields results in the hunt for this menace to our great city.”

When Hyperion finished, the reporters scrambled to ask him questions, with one ringing clear and louder than the rest. “Hyperion! Any message for Aquila himself?”

The ostensible First Among Equals of Earth’s Metahumans turned to the camera, almost as if he’d been waiting for the question, and his eyes seemed to stare directly at Lucien when he spoke.

“I’m coming for you.” He said simply, before stepping back and launching into the air with a trail of golden fire, followed by a waving Tempest and thumbs-up-giving Dreadnought. The media’s desperate questions chased the trio into the sky, but an aide took over the podium, marshalling the assembled crews as she started to take questions.

Lucien stood in shocked silence as his friends erupted into excited murmurs and animated chatter, nodding distantly as Carmine said something and went to put her head together with Jessica, Hailey, Taylor, and Harper. Even Jason was talking about the video, saying something that Lucien intentionally stopped himself from hearing to the amusement of his polo goons. His attention instead turned to Tiberius, who made his way over to Lucien quickly, lifting his phone.

Vanessa’s caller ID was visible on the screen.

It was going to be a long, long day.