"So where are we going?" I asked excitedly.

"Well, me and Crepitus have to go on patrol, so I guess you're coming with us." Lucendi said, looking amused at my excitement.

"Yay!" I was about to carry on talking, but a voice sounded out of Crepitus and Lucendi's earpieces.

All of the heroes had recieved tiny, barely visible earpieces in the last month so that they could communicate in the event of an emergency, which was becoming more and more likely as crime rates continued to rise.

"Is anyone near the abandoned warehouses?"

Crepitus reached up to his earpiece, clicking a button. "Yeah, we're about five minutes away. Why?"

"I think the villains might be hiding something there, and I don't want to check it out by myself. Anyone else with you?" The voice asked.

"Lucendi. Although, we also have Schlatt's (daughter/son/child) with us, so we'll have to bring them along." Crepitus said with a shrug, even though the speaker couldn't see him.

"Ok. As long as they don't get in the way. Meet you there in five." Sounds similar to static sounded and then there was silence.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Zaeim." Lucendi responded, looking troubled.

"Zaeim? As in, No. 1 hero Zaeim?" I asked, becoming more excited by the minute.

"Yes. But I don't think it's a good idea for you to come along- if there are villains it won't be safe." The blindfolded hero said, turning to Crepitus. "You shouldn't have said we were bringing Y/N along without checking."

"Aw come on, I'm basically an unofficial hero at this point-" my complaint was cut off by the other hero cutting in.

"With all due respect, Lucendi," Crepitus said quietly, "I have a higher rank than you, and four more years of experience."

Lucendi nodded quietly. "Of course. Sorry. Let's go then."

——

I heard Zaeim before I spotted him, muttering to himself and pacing up and down.

Lucendi rushed ahead, exclaiming quietly, "Zaeim! Over here!"

Zaeim turned around, and his face brightened as he spotted Lucendi, smiling.

He was about 6 foot 2, and he had messy brown hair. His eyes were bright white, even his pupils, and he had red robes trimmed with white fur. Zaeim was probably the only hero who didn't cover his face apart from Captain Puffy.

"Lucendi! Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you were only five minutes away. Crepitus, good to see you as well. And you must be Y/N?" He nodded at me.

"Yeah, that's me. Nice to meet you." I said brightly.

"I could say the same." Turning to Lucendi and Crepitus, he began to explain. "We have reason to believe that one of the warehouses is being used by villains as either a base or to store something, but obviously it would've been dangerous to check it out by myself."

"Of course." Lucendi muttered, glancing at Crepitus, who nodded.

"Okay, lets go. I'll check the southern warehouses with Lucendi, Crepitus- and I suppose Y/N- can check the northern warehouses." Zaeim instructed.

"That's a lot of ground to cover in one night." Lucendi worried.

"If anyone can do it, it's you guys. And Y/N of course." He grinned. "Okay, lets go."

——

"Okay, last one and then we can meet up with the others..." Crepitus muttered, looking around.

"It looks like there's a door over there!"

"Y/N that's a wall."

"No! Look!" I rushed over to the door. It wouldn't budge. "Can you use your explosion power thing on this?"

"There's nothing there, I'm telling you." Crepitus muttered, focusing on the door.

There was a loud bang as the door blew up.

I pointed at the hallway it had exposed. "Definitely a door."

Crepitus blinked, surprised. "Wow, it was- how did you know that?"

"Do you not know my power?" I asked pointedly. The awkward silence afterwards suggested that he didn't. "I have super senses. Nothing special or heroic, but it's very helpful."

"Hm. That is quite cool actually. You wouldn't be a terrible hero, you know. Maybe you should consider applying to be one. Although, 99% of applicants aren't accepted. So you'd need to train a lot." He paused. "I'd help you train, if you needed to."

I stopped, watching him quietly. Did he mean it? Or did he know me well enough to figure out that I wanted nothing more than to be a hero?

"Let's go, come on." Crepitus nodded, and his trident appeared in his hands with a flash of green light.

The hallway was long and dark, illuminated by eerie blue lanterns.

"They couldn't have made this place creepier if they tried." I muttered, glancing around. "There's another door there, look."

"Wow, this one actually looks like a door." Crepitus muttered, and I gave him a playful shove.

"Oh, shush, you. You're just mad I spotted the door before you did."

Zaeim spoke over the earpiece. "We're nearly done checking out the last warehouse. You guys see anything odd?"

Crepitus reached up to his earpiece. "A concealed hallway. I wouldn't have spotted it without Y/N."

"I guess it was a good idea to bring Y/N along." Lucendi's voice could barely be heard.

"Thank you!" I exclaimed, and the sound of Zaeim's muffled laughter could be heard faintly.

"I'll let you know if we find anything." Crepitus finished, and, moving his hand away from the earpiece, he pushed the door open.

I stared at the odd scene in front of me.

There were a few crates piled up in the corner, and on the wall were pictures of all of the heroes and vigilantes, and a few people I didn't recognise.

I walked over to the wall, looking closer.

There were pieces of paper with numbers on them attached to each picture. I studied Swarm's note.

19-23-1-18-13

I glanced across at Gemstone's picture. There was a pin stabbed into the picture, and a piece of string wrapped around it. The string was attached to a pin stuck into a picture of Bad and Sapnap.

"Do you think they're trying to figure out the families of heroes and vigilantes?" I asked Crepitus quietly.

He nodded, studying the pictures with a concerned expression. I pulled my phone out and took a picture of the wall before walking over to Lucendi and Captain Puffy's pictures. They had multiple pieces of string (about 20) crisscrossing between the two pictures, with notes that just had question marks.

Clearly they had also heard the theory that Captain Puffy was Lucendi's mother.

I noticed string going from the picture of the oldest hero Swift to the young vigilante Deactivator. They do have the same colour hair. Although it's a bit of a random guess.

"Why do you think there are numbers on the notes?" Crepitus asked, studying his own picture and the note next to it.

3-18-5-16-09-20-21-19

"It might be code for your name. And the others are the same. And if that's true..." I said, walking over to Zaeim's picture. "Zaeim's name should be easiest for us to decode. It's mainly vowels."

I glanced at the note.

26-1-5-9-13

26...

"How many letters are then in the alphabet?" I asked Crepitus, who looked confused for a moment before responding.

"26."

"Which is what is written down for the first letter of Zaeim's name. Which is 'Z'. Which is the last letter in the alphabet." I paused, looking at the note again. "And look- the second letter, which is 'A', is 1. 'A' is the first letter of the alphabet. Do you think the number corresponds with how far along a letter is in the alphabet?"

His eyes brightened. "Yeah, probably!"

"Then that'll help us figure out any cryptic notes."

I glanced at Deactivator's picture- I remembered noticing the extra notes. The first note had only three numbers.

04-14-01

I frowned, counting on my fingers as I tried to figure it out.

"D.... N.... A? DNA!" I exclaimed. There was another note attached to the note I had just decoded.

14-5-5-4-5-4

6-15-18

23-5-1-16-15-14

"Oh boy, that one's gonna take a while." Crepitus muttered sympathetically as I began counting.

"Needed....." I glanced back at Crepitus. "...For...." I stared at the note, hoping I had decoded the last word wrong. "....Weapon."

Crepitus' eyes widened.

"The note attached to 'DNA' means 'needed for weapon'." I breathed, looking back at the picture.