Tag Archives: Tasha

Catharsis: 2.9

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Casper:

The boy took a shaky breath, eyes fixed on his phone screen as he waited for James to respond. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Nothing. The crowd moved all around him, jostling him as he stood, rooted to the spot, one or two adults muttering something under their breaths as they stepped around him towards the crossing lights. Still nothing from James. A little voice in the back of his mind told him that his friend was still on his way home, his phone probably stuck in the bottom of his bag, unnoticed.

Casper took a breath, acutely aware of the presence of the hunter by Tasha’s side, aware too of the panic coursing through her mind at that very moment. Why wasn’t she moving away? Did he have a gun on her? What was it? The two were drifting away from him, making an easy pace through the people all around. He could walk away, he knew, could turn and run, probably even avoid any further part of all this. Hell, Tasha would probably want him to do that. But what if he could help her? He came to a decision, grit his teeth, and turned to follow them. He wasn’t at all sure what he could do, or if there even was anything he could do, but he could feel Tasha’s emotions like a nagging voice in his head. So angry and frantic, turning to a twinge of fear that grew larger by the second. He couldn’t leave it like that, though a part of him wished he could.

The hunter turned down a new street as Casper followed, and the boy soon had a decent guess of his destination. He was headed towards the building that Tasha had attacked. He felt an angry tear trickling down his cheek at the reminder. This was all his fault. He closed the distance, occasionally losing sight of the two of them in the mid-afternoon foot traffic. He followed them with his mind. After a few minutes of this, he felt the hunter duck into an alleyway, Tasha still moving in perfect lockstep with him. The stranger pulled back, pressed against a wall, an undefinable emotion somewhere between annoyance and respect playing in his mind. By context, it was not difficult for Casper to understand the meaning of it. The man had noticed him following, and had chosen to lie in wait for him. Casper steeled himself, a clear voice inside of him vocalizing a reminder that this was very stupid, and stepped forward. He skirted wide around the entrance to the alleyway, stepping out in front of it in a lull between two groups of people walking the battered sidewalk.

The hunter was there, gazing out at him, impassive, a slight note of surprise playing in his mind. Tasha was leaned up against the wall behind him, her face blank, even slack. In her mind, though, Casper felt the first true shock of fear at the sight of him. He struggled to keep his expression calm, gazing across at the man. A few seconds passed, the two staring through at one another, almost unnoticed by the occasional group of passersby that moved between them.

“How’d you know I was waiting?” the man asked, quiet.

“How’d you know I was following?” Casper replied, forcing a calm into his voice that he most certainly did not feel.

“… Fair enough,” came the answer with a shrug, followed by a small smile. “I smell people. Okay kid? Now, how’d you know I was hiding?”

Casper nodded. Well, that answered one question, at least. Best to give an answer, he decided; a half truth to keep the dialogue going and, hopefully, gain more answers.

“… I feel people,” he answered. The stranger made a thoughtful expression, stroking his stubble with a finger, then nodded, gesturing for him to elaborate with a wave of his hand. Casper sighed, then pointed dismissively at the wall against which the man leaned. “Two women, one man, a couple kids. The women are together, probably talking about something. The man’s watching the kids.”

“Handy,” the stranger said simply, his mind shifting from curiosity to outright interest. “Not often I get to meet another potential tracker in my line of work. It’s a cool power you’ve got there, little man.”

Casper ignored him, gesturing to Tasha.

“What’d you do to her?” he asked, his voice breaking for a moment on the last syllable.

“Poison,” the tracker replied. “Comes in handy, doing what I do. She’ll be alright in an hour, but she’s a little limp right now.”

Casper accepted that. The man had no reason to lie, and his emotional state gave no real indication of falsehood.

“I could scream,” he said evenly. “There’s people around. People with cameras.”

“You could,” The hunter said amicably, not even a hint of fear touching him at the idea. “And it’d work, for now. I’d have to run, you’d get your friend free, and I’d know exactly who it was that got in my way. I know I said I don’t like hurting kids. But I’m gonna put this one on the table right now. I’m not above punishing you if you do something stupid. I’ve warned you, you know the dangers, and I will hurt you very badly if you get in my way.” The words were spoken casually, without any anger or malice behind them, but Casper had no difficulty believing them one hundred percent. He stood there, uncertain, for a long moment, before the man put a hand to his forehead with a sigh. “Wow, you’re just gonna keep walking into danger, aren’t you, kid? I tell you what. Come with me.”

“What?” Casper asked, utterly backfooted. “Let you kidnap me? No thank you.”

“I’m not kidnapping you, kid.” The stranger chuckled. “No one’s paid me to. Look, it’s a big world, you’re living in, and as far as I can tell, you don’t have a damn clue how to live in it. Let me guess. Your parents don’t have powers, do they? You’re a first gen.”

“First gen?” Casper asked, momentarily distracted.

“Yeah, see?” the man raised a hand towards him in an almost dismissive sort of wave, as if to say that he’d just proved some self-evident point. “You don’t know a damn thing about any of it. Okay, it’s very simple. First gen means your parents are just normal guys. No powers, nothing special, and no one really able to teach you about what’s out there. First gen means you come into this stuff blind. That’s why I’m telling you to come with me. Let me show you around, give you the lay of the land, help you stay out of the kind of trouble your friend here got herself into.” He jerked a thumb behind him towards Tasha, who still lay slumped against the wall, the surge of fear at Casper’s arrival having slowly lessened as it became apparent that he was not currently under threat, dying back to a subdued sort of rage.

Casper hesitated for a long moment, then eventually nodded. It was an olive branch, he knew, offered without a trace of insincerity. More importantly, it gave him a chance to gather more knowledge to formulate some kind of rescue.

The man smiled, stepping forward from the alleyway and extending a hand.

“Well then,” he murmured. “The name’s Lewis, kid. Nice to meet you.”

Casper took it and shook with only a moment’s hesitation.

“… Casper,” he replied, reasoning that he may as well give the man his name, if he already knew where he went to school. Hell, the guy had probably seen his name in the yearbook by now. They kept a copy by the administration desk.

Lewis nodded, approving.

“Good to see you’re being honest with me. For the next two hours, though, your name’s Danny Reynolds. You got that?” Casper nodded. “Good. Now give me your phone.”

“Why?” Casper frowned, trying to ignore the jab of fear spiking painfully into his chest. “It’s mine.”

“Don’t play dumb,” Lewis replied, annoyed. “We both know you’re still looking for some way to turn this situation around. I’m keeping you with me for the next two hours more so that I can stop you pulling something stupid than because I want to help you. That phone’s the biggest chance you’re gonna have at making a bad decision, and I don’t plan on letting you have it.”

“… Fine,” Casper muttered, glaring at the older man. “Just let me call my dad. Tell him I’ll be home late.”

Lewis nodded, waited for Casper to make the call, the boy exchanging a few mumbled sentences with the man on the other end of the line, before extending his hand for the device. Casper ended the call, let out a defeated breath, and handed over the phone. Lewis turned it off and slid it into a pocket of his trench coat. Then ducked back into the alleyway and picked up Tasha from where she lay, positioning the teen against his shoulder in a manner that looked more or less natural as long as one wasn’t looking too closely. Then, without a word, he stepped out into the city street once more, gesturing with his free hand for Casper to follow them.

The boy obliged, kicking his feet miserably, before a hint from Tasha caught his eye. She was still desperate, her mind filled with a silent fury at her own capture and a lingering concern for his own safety, but there was something else there now. Hope. Had she had an idea? Casper gazed at her back as they walked, keeping step a few meters behind the other two, and thought desperately. What had Tasha thought of? What idea had she had that would give them a chance here? It needed to be something that could keep him out of trouble, or she wouldn’t be so affected by it, and it needed to be something that could help. The only thing Casper could think of that would help here was his phone, and that option was gone now.

Wait… Tasha had a phone. Tasha had a phone that he knew the password to. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was something. Casper stepped in closer, hoping against hope that Lewis wouldn’t choose this moment to turn, would keep his eyes focused forwards. Casper stepped in so that the bulk of Tasha’s admittedly slight frame was concealing him from their captor’s view, and reached out a hand, dipping it into the girl’s pocket as quickly as he dared. His fingers touched something plastic.

“Your dad really a cop?” Lewis asked conversationally, the sound practically making him jump out of his skin.

“K-kinda,” he answered, his fingers clasping around the casing of the object and pulling at it. “H-he works with them a lot, but he does more of a government thing, I think.” The object slid gently from the pocket, and Casper felt both his and Tasha’s hearts leap. It was her phone. He pocketed it as quickly as he dared, and moved back a little, away from the pair.

“Figures,” Lewis chuckled, eyes forward. “No way you’d be going to a school that fancy if your dad was just some beat cop. It was a slick move, though. You had me going for a second there.”

“… Not that fancy,” Casper mumbled, defensive.

“Danny,” came the amused sounding reply. “You go to a school in the city that has a dress code and a flower garden. Trust me, that’s fancy. Anyway, be quiet for now. We’re here.”

Casper glanced ahead, and, true enough, saw the face of the building he’d flagged just a week or so before. One of the second story windows was broken, a solid wooden board temporarily placed against the frame. With his power, Casper could feel the minds of those inside; men, women and children, all moving about one another with a surprising degree of energy, most of them seemingly riding the calm and good cheer of a generally pleasant day. He felt one or two things in the upper levels that made him flinch, but did not allow his power to withdraw itself. He needed to be as aware as was physically possible for this.

Lewis stepped in first, adjusting his grip on Tasha, before carrying her casually inside. Casper took a deep breath, dug for a moment into the surprising good cheer of the building’s inhabitants to steady himself, then followed. Dear god, he hoped this worked.

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Catharsis: 2.8

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James:

’32 pounds.’ James sighed as he stepped off the scales. His new state had remained aggravatingly constant since Casper’s departure the previous evening, to the degree that he had struggled slightly even to do simple things, like opening the bathroom door with its unfortunate tendency to jam against the frame, the wood slightly misshapen and warped in the years since its installation.

It was being weak, more than being light, that felt the strangest to him. His school uniform felt heavy against his skin, the light cotton shirt weighing down on him like a thick fleece. At breakfast, he’d fumbled with his cutlery a few times, not expecting the extra effort required to lift it. Most troubling of all, he had tried, while getting dressed, to lift his school bag, and had found he could barely stand under it, the loose collection of textbooks and gear weighing on his legs as though he were trying to lift a whole other person. He had redressed the balance with his power, lifting most of the weight with his flight so that the extra effort was expressed as pressure against his shoulders rather than as strain on his legs. It was an easy fix, but he wasn’t at all pleased to be left so reliant on his powers in his daily life.

He tried to let those frustrations slip from his mind on the way to school, staring out of the window as Bex babbled on in the seat to his left, only half paying attention. In his mind, he was reaching out, his power extending out into the air surrounding the car, apparently unhindered by the glass partition of the window. He played, experimented in his way, making little gusts and dervishes play out and dissipate overhead. He flicked a tree, and watched as the shock sent dozens of loose leaves spiraling out from the canopy. He played with the breeze beneath them, shifting the wind to keep the pieces airborne. They passed a hot dog stand and he could swear, even with the window closed, he could smell the grease saturating the air around it.

Casper was waiting for him at the school doors, skipping anxiously on the balls of his feet as his eyes scanned the crowd, his hands fiddling at the cuffs of his blazer. Even from a distance, James could tell something was wrong. The boy was pale, his eyes wide and glassy. He quickened his pace towards him.

“Hey, Cas. What’s wro-”

He was cut off mid sentence as the taller boy grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug, burying his face against his shoulder and squeezing. A few people glanced their way, before turning their attention back to their own matters.

“Help,” the boy whispered urgently in his ear, his eyes wet. “Please, help.”

James stalled for a moment, a few gears in his head slipping on their tracks, before he righted himself, a sort of focus settling into him that drove the confusion aside.

“Come on,” he murmured, pulling back slightly and grabbing Casper’s hand. “Let’s go somewhere quiet, kay?”

He tugged at his friend’s hand, guiding him out of the throng of students, towards a more deserted section of the campus. The school was dotted with small segments of grass, breaking up the brickwork of the flooring, each lined with benches and flowerbeds. These spaces went largely unused day to day, serving more as a statement of the school’s wealth, that it could afford decorative space in a place as cramped as New York, but they served well when people needed a little privacy. James pulled Casper along to one of the benches, and sat him down against it, where he gazed at the floor, face white, playing with his hands.

“Now,” he asked. “What’s wrong, bud? Tell me everything.”

Casper took a deep breath, then another, then began to speak. James listened, and tried his best to remain calm; he didn’t want to be contributing to his friend’s panic. Casper told him everything, refusing eye contact, hands determinedly fiddling with themselves throughout. He told James about the man, about their conversation and about the thinly veiled threat at the end of it all.

After that, both were silent for a time, James trying to quell his rising fear and managing to force himself to a tense sort of calm, Casper still determinedly avoiding looking at him.

“… Do you think they know about me?” James asked, forcing his voice to remain level.

Casper shook his head.

“Don’t think so,” he mumbled. “Not sure… I don’t even know how they found out about me, but I figure if they knew about you, then the guy would’ve talked to you too, right?”

James nodded. “Yeah, you’re right about that, I think.”

Casper took another deep breath, then swallowed.

“… What am I gonna do?”

“… I think…” James hesitated, then shook himself. “I think we can fix this.”

For the first time since he’d started talking, Casper looked at him. His eyes were still wide, his face streaked with a few thin trails of tears.

“…How?”

James took a moment to marshal his thoughts, then began speaking, his tone one of forced reassurance.

“Well, that guy said he didn’t want to hurt you, right? And that means he’s probably not gonna tell the people who sent him anything about you, cuz he knows they might wanna hurt you for getting in his way.” Casper nodded mechanically, his expression unchanged. James took that as his cue to continue. “And it sounds like he didn’t know anything about your power, cuz if he did, he’d have talked to you different, right?” Another nod, slightly more human now. “And that means that no matter what, at the moment, the only person in trouble here is Tasha, right? And that’s okay, because she wanted it that way, right?”

Casper sniffled, his knuckles going white as his hands clenched against one another.

“R-right,” he mumbled, letting out a shaky sigh. “I-yeah… Right…You’re right, thanks.”

James smiled, a fraction of the tension leaving him upon seeing his reasoning stand up to someone else’s eye.

“What you need right now,” he continued. “Is more information. Tasha needs to know more so that she can keep you out of it better. You need to find out how this guy found you, and you need to find a way to make sure it never happens again, right?” Again, Casper nodded, a little less shaky now. “So all we need to do is figure out how to get this guy talking without you looking like you’re involved.” Casper swallowed, a moments distaste crossing his features, but nodded once again.

“I think we can do that,” he muttered. “Tasha used me as a lie detector once, a few months ago… We didn’t do it again, because it was… it was bad… But I could… I mean… I could do it over the phone or something, right? Hide inside a building?”

James nodded.

“Sounds like an idea. Next thing you need to do, then, is talk to Tasha. Make a plan, okay?”

“Right,” Casper agreed, his panic seemingly settled to a more tolerable degree of nerves. “Okay, we can do this. Thanks, James.”

“It’s okay,” James replied, resting a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. “You helped me out last night, right?”

James had not been expecting Casper to hug him, and let out a little stuttering sound in surprise as the taller boy’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him close. It was… uncomfortable, in a way, but he allowed it without complaint, figuring it was just what his friend needed in that moment. After a few seconds, Casper let him go with a mumbled apology, his face slightly red. James remained silent, unsure of what to say, eventually settling for a small smile and a shake of the head.

“Please don’t make hugs a regular thing, okay?” he said quietly. “Especially now that I’m too weak to push you off.”

“Right… sorry,” Casper replied, still a little red. “Only when I’m being followed by criminals, promise.”

James chuckled.

“C’mon. We better get to class.”

Two hours later, Tasha:

“Are you kidding?” Tasha asked, fingers clenching on the phone casing hard enough that she was having to force herself not to crush it by accident. “Dude, next time that happens, you tell them everything about me!”

Casper went quiet on the other end of the line, cut off mid sentence. After a few tense seconds, he spoke, his voice sad.

“But I don’t wanna get you hurt cuz of me.”

“Yeah,” Tasha replied, her voice fierce. “Well I don’t want you getting hurt for me either. Difference is, you’re still a kid! Casper, If I get hurt cuz someone forced you to talk about me, then that’s just someone else being a dick. If you get yourself hurt for me, then I’m the shitty hero who let some kid take a bullet for her, you get me?”

Casper didn’t reply, either agreeing, or biting his tongue; Tasha wasn’t sure which.

“Look,” she sighed. “I’m the one who got herself into this. I don’t wanna drag you in too, same for James. You’re too young for it, kay?”

“… Kay.” There was an emotion in Casper’s response that she couldn’t place. She ignored it. For the moment, he was listening, and that was all that mattered.

“Now, you said James said something about a plan?” she asked. “Some kinda ambush interrogation thing?”

“… Yeah,” the boy answered eventually. “… We figured he’d probably follow me home and stuff till he found you, and I could use my power from somewhere hidden to-”

“We’re not doing that,” she cut him off. “We don’t know how he found you in the first place, so even if you’re hiding the whole time, it’s dangerous for you. No.”

“… Ok,” came the reply after a second. This time, Tasha had no difficulty identifying the emotion behind the word. Relief. She didn’t blame him.

The line was quiet on both sides for over a minute, Tasha thinking, Casper waiting in silence. Eventually, she spoke up, her tone commanding.

“I want you to tell me what he looks like, and what he sounds like. You will walk home today by that cafe we went to last Thursday. After that, I want you to forget this ever happened, and if you ever feel him near you again, I want you to ignore the hell out of him, okay?”

“… Okay.”

Tasha closed her eyes and let out a sigh, staying quiet for a minute or so as he described the man in question.

“Good,” she murmured once he was done. “Thank you. I’m sorry this got to you, Cas. I’ll deal with it, I promise.” Casper began to reply, but she had hung up before he was more than a word in.

She placed the phone back in her pocket, stood from her seat on the couch, and tested her leg. Still pretty stiff. She’d be walking with a limp for a few days, at least. Well, that would certainly make this trickier.

Tasha pushed that trouble from her mind as she made her way into her apartments junk cluttered kitchen, grabbing Maxie’s lead from the sideboard where she had left it. She found a change of clothes, tracked down her wayward dog, and took the guy out for a walk. Thinking was easier in the open air, and Maxie liked spending time outside. It was a win-win, even if she had to hobble.

Tasha found a hot dog stand on her way to the park, and ordered two covered in cheap cheese and grease. She devoured the first enthusiastically, before pulling the sausage from the second for Maxie, and consuming the bun on its own. When finally at the park, she propped herself up against a tree, grabbed a stick from the ground, and tossed it for her companion to chase. Unfortunately for him, she had quite the arm. She passed hours this way, throwing the stick again and again, watching the other park goers come and go with their own pastimes, her mind gradually working through to its conclusion. By midday, she had a plan.

She played with Maxie for another hour, before making her way home to prepare. She changed to a darker set of clothes, ate a more substantial meal, and watched a movie on her phone until it was finally time to make her move. Tasha gave Maxie a scratch behind the ears, before making her way out of the apartment. She crossed the city with time to spare, and waited in an alleyway beside the cafe she had specified, concealed as best she could in she shadows cast by the buildings on either side, largely hidden from the passing crowd.

It wasn’t very long before Casper passed her spot, eyes forward, not looking at her.

“It’s gonna be fine,” she murmured gently as he walked by. He gave no sign that he had noticed the words, besides briefly jerking a thumb behind himself towards the crowd.

“Thanks,” Tasha answered simply as he moved out of earshot. Then, she waited.

The plan was simple. Wait till the guy passed, then snag him, step out into the street, grab his wrist as if he were a lifelong friend, then pull him into the alleway and make damn sure he never went after Casper again. It was simple, it was straightforward, and it failed utterly.

The man caught her eye perhaps half a minute after Casper had passed her, brown jacket, bad stubble, bad hat, just as described, his hands in his pockets. She waited for him to pass her, then stepped out into the daylight, smiling a wide, friendly sort of smile. She moved in behind him, and reached for his wrist. Tasha knew it had gone wrong the moment her fingers clamped down around his arm as, with a quick, simple movement, his free hand moved from his pocket and shifted alongside her own. She felt a small pain, a tiny prick as something sharp and slim pierced the skin of her wrist for the briefest of moments before being withdrawn.

“Little bit of advice,” the man murmured, shifting in close beside her as he walked. “You need to wash more often. I could smell you from the other end of the street.”

Oh. Shit.

Tasha gritted her teeth in frustration, and tried to exert some control of the situation by squeezing his wrist a little harder in her grip. Nothing. She glanced down. Her hand hadn’t moved, her fingers felt numb, as if they weren’t even there.

Tasha opened her mouth to scream, perhaps incite the crowd, anything, really, but found that her vocal cords were utterly still. She narrowed her eyes, mouthed a swearword at him, and then felt her body going limp. He slipped in under her, catching her under a shoulder with one hand, and held her upright as her legs began to sag. The adrenaline began to pump through her, and she fought with all her might, desperately trying to will her body to move away from him, to escape or fight back. Anything. One of her legs kicked weakly.

“I am sorry about this,” the hunter murmured. “But hey, at least the family doesn’t want you dead. Small mercies, right?”

She felt something terrible sink into the pit of her stomach as the man began to pull her away, shifting his grip to carry her after a few yards.

Some distance away, Casper grit his teeth, blinked a few times to rid his eyes of the sudden tears, and pulled out his phone. The text he typed in was brief, simple, and the only thing he could think to say.

‘James. Come see me.’

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Catharsis: 2.6

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Family:

The woman leaned against the shattered window, her fingers clenching occasionally against the scarred wooden frame. Marcus watched from his position against the wall, trying to figure out how best to approach her. He allowed himself a momentary irritation that dealing with Father’s dispatches was his job now instead of Samson’s. The older man had busied himself in calming the customers and seeing the children back to bed, leaving him to deal with the pissed off superhuman.

“So,” he ventured eventually. “What now, Lara?”

“Now?” She asked, her tone clipped, not looking at him. “Now we find the girl. Much as it pains me to admit, she beat me in a fair fight. She passed the entrance test. Now we just need to get her to Father. The tracker’s still active in New York, right? I don’t feel like waiting for her to come back here again.”

“I’ll contact him,” Marcus nodded. “Is the main family paying, or is this one on the New York branch?”

“We’ll cover the cost,” she allowed. “Looks like you’ll have enough to deal with for now getting the building repaired.”

“Yeah,” Marcus laughed. “You know, before I was put in charge here, I used to wish I’d wind up with powers like that. Now I just look at the walls and see a pile of repair bills.”

Lara let out a short, forced laugh, her knuckles still clenched hard against the window frame.

“You’re not alone in that. When I was still training, Father used to say I should write a receipt every time I opened my mouth, just in case.”

The two were silent for a while, her staring out of the window, him gazing cautiously at her back. After a time, she sighed.

“Just let me be angry for a while, kay? I’ll stay here till I’m calm, best for Father’s representative to not be furious in front of the children. You go call the tracker.”

For a moment, Marcus considered contesting the issue, trying to talk things out. He decided against it. He pushed away from the wall, pulling his phone from his pocket as he stepped towards the open doorway.

“She was gonna break my legs,” Lara murmured, Marcus wasn’t entirely sure if she was speaking to herself or not. “She’s gonna pay for that before Father gets her.”

“She threatened the little ones,” he replied quietly, his broken hand emitting a momentary ache as the fingers reflexively tried to clench against the bandages. “You’re right. She’ll pay.”

Tasha:

The girl let out a hiss of pain as the knife blade pierced the meat of her lower leg, the flesh parting with a slight puff of oddly savory smelling steam. She tried to ignore the sting as she pulled the handle to the side, carving a shallow trench in the skin a few inches below her knee. The bullet had gone in from the side, and, as far as she could tell, had been stopped short by bone, leaving it buried a few millimeters beneath the skin, while at the same time, nearly an inch from the point of entry. After some consideration, Tasha had decided that she’d rather just cut it out that try rooting around inside the bullet hole for the slug, so now she sat on the small, largely unused kitchen counter beside the stove that she had been using to heat the knife. She wasn’t entirely sure whether her body had anything to really fear from infection, but she figured she may as well warm the blade just in case.

After a few moments of work and an uncomfortable degree of pain, she felt the blade catch on something hard and jagged. She tossed the knife in the sink, and reached down with her other hand, placing a finger on either side of the fresh incision, pulling the hole open while the fingers of her other hand fumbled inside of it, grasping the exposed section of the slug and tugging it free with a grunt. She brought it up to her eye, examining it closely. The soft  metal was warped and cracked, but, as far as she could tell, largely intact. She tossed it into the sink after the knife and pushed herself down off of the counter, taking the landing largely on her uninjured leg. Experimentally, she pressed her other foot to the ground, testing the damage. It hurt, but the pain was a little better now. She tried walking, and managed a decent limp, heading into the small bathroom to wash the wound clean under the shower tap, stopping briefly to fend off Maxie on the way through; he was a good boy, but she’d picked him up too late to really train him at all, and she groaned as he jumped up on her, his paws pushing her off-balance against the hallway wall as he tried and failed to lick her face. She pushed him away with a groan and allowed him a grudging tickle behind the ears, sending him back to his room, tail wagging, before finishing her journey to the bathroom.

The bad guys had powers. Well no shit. Tasha chuckled angrily to herself, trying to ignore the sting as the cold water soaked between the torn flesh of the injury, momentarily regretting not having warmed the water first. Of course the bad guys would have powers. It made sense, in retrospect. If superpowers were just getting handed out to random kids, it made sense that some of those kids would grow up letting it go to their heads. She allowed herself a grin. At least she’d beat the bitch. If it hadn’t been for the dickbag with the gun, she let out a sigh. Losing, as it turned out, was not fun, and it felt doubly shitty because she’d overcome the main threat without issue. It was cheating. It was unfair.

Her phone pinged, pulling her out of her lamentations for a moment. She dug in her pocket, pulling out the device, almost out of power, and checked the screen.

‘You gonna be okay? James says he wants to help you out. Cas.’

Tasha gazed at the screen for a few moments, then sighed. She’d lost tonight because she was outnumbered. She had no doubts there, but James was twelve. If she was going to be a hero, then she needed to find another way to win, something that didn’t put a kid in danger, let alone a kid whose power probably wouldn’t even be much use in a fight. Seeing the phone battery tick down another percent, she typed in a quick response.

‘I’m good. Heal quick. Phone dying. I’ll talk him out of it.’

After a few seconds, a new message came up on the screen with a ping.

‘Thanks.’

Any response she might have made was cut short by the phone shutting off. She chuckled. It was nice to see the little guy with a friend his own age. He was a bit more delicate than her. He needed other people. Tasha shut off the tap, found a rag, and mopped herself dry, before finding an unused shirt to wrap around the wound. Then, she limped back into the main room, flopped down on the couch, and went to sleep. As she began to fade, she felt something warm against her stomach as Maxie clambered up alongside her, resting his head against her side.

Hunter:

The cell phone alarm went off at six AM, the familiar staccato sound of piano chords cut short after a few seconds by an irritated flick of his thumb. Must have forgotten to turn it off. He hated that alarm. Not unusual, perhaps. He supposed most people likely hated the sound of their alarms after a time. That didn’t matter for now, though. He’d already been up for hours. It was always best to rise early when he had a new target to locate, before the movement of the day diluted the scents his targets left behind, making them all that much harder to track.

He began at the street below a broken window, from which he had been assured that the girl in question had thrown herself the night before. Sure enough, there was a scent there. A powerful one, full of the telltale notes of blood and sweat and dog hair. He chuckled to himself. This girl needed to take better care of herself. The chuckle was cut short as he remembered just who he was hunting her for. Knowing what the Family tended to do to kids, it wasn’t particularly likely that she’d be neglecting her hygiene for very much longer. He suppressed a shudder at the implications of the idea, and pushed it from his mind. It wasn’t that he begrudged them his services, but he had to admit, the Family weren’t exactly his first choice of customer.

He shrugged. Best not to think about that sort of thing. He knelt down slightly, allowing himself to get a better whiff of the target’s scent. It was distinctive, easy to track. He followed it across the road to where one of the children had said they saw the target jump to a rooftop. The front entrance to the place was closed, but that wasn’t much of a concern. He made his way across to one of the buildings alongside it, and found a fire escape. It was easy enough to jump up to, and he ascended, bringing himself a little above level with the roof the girl had jumped to. He climbed up onto the handrail, then launched himself across. He made it, narrowly, hitting the surface in a roll before coming to his feet, dusting himself off. Better remember to give himself more height next time he tried that. The scent was nearby, a strong concentration, collected in a solid line leading from one end of the building to the other. Ah, so the girl had been bleeding as she made the journey, then. He followed to the ledge where the scent ended. Easy enough to guess she’d tried jumping again. He was surprised she’d made it if she’d been bleeding that badly. By the direction of the blood trail, he made a guess as to the building she’d gone for and nodded, before descending back to ground level with relative ease.

The second ascent was easier than the first. The building was open this time, and he was able to make his way up to the roof via the stairs. Again, the scent was easy to discern. It was everywhere around this rooftop, collected on small, torn lumps of metal sheeting and foil. He picked one up, took a sniff, examined it. Was this meant to be armor? He laughed. Not that it would be useless. Hell, maybe it’d even be enough to stop a low impact round, but judging by the blood, and how the armor had been discarded, he had to assume the gun she’d been shot with was a little more than expected. He moved to the edge of the roof, and began to walk around the perimeter, searching for the point where the scent was strongest, where she was most likely to have jumped.

It was after almost ten minutes of searching like this that he realized he’d made more than one lap of the rooftop, and had found nothing. So she hadn’t jumped. Had she gone inside? No. He would have smelled her on the way up. He searched closer. There were other scents, a few individuals who must have been around in the last few days or so, their odor mixed largely with tobacco smoke and food. He needed something more recent, an explanation. He moved to the center of the area, where the majority of the armor pieces lay, and took another sniff. His eyes widened slightly. The scent went up into the air. Surprising. So she had jumped, after all. How, though? Some kind of glider? Unlikely, but possible. There was something else there, though. Something confusing. Another scent. Male, and young, but fainter, much fainter. At a guess, he would have said it was days old, maybe even a week, but it intertwined closely with that of the girl, rising up into the air with hers in such a way that it could not be a coincidence. What an unusual boy, to have such a weak scent. He grunted. Well, if she’d gotten away by air, he had no way of pursuing her from here. Best to retrace his steps.

He made his way back to the Family building, and stood outside the entrance, taking another breath. If he couldn’t track the girl by her escape route, best to track her by the approach instead. He set off at a jog, interrupted briefly by his phone’s secondary alarm going off at six twenty.

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Catharsis: 2.4

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James:

The boy shot through the nighttime air like… well, like nothing he could conveniently reference. The feeling of it was odd, to say the least. He could tell by the way the lights moved below him that he was moving fast, but beyond that, he had no way of gauging his own speed. It normally took his mother a little over half an hour to deliver him to his school in the morning traffic. In flight, however, he guessed the journey took around two minutes, perhaps longer given the sheer exhilaration of it. Time passed faster when you were having fun, after all.

He came to a stop above the entrance to his school, floating a few hundred feet in the air. This close down, he could make out the features of the buildings below, the outlines of the middle school building and the courtyard dividing it from the highschool section. It was a little odd, seeing the whole place from above, it seemed a lot smaller from up here. James grinned to himself, then pivoted once more. Tasha had said she was to the south, and he had no time to waste. He drifted out from his point above the campus gates, scanning the rooftops below, and rapidly concluded that this would be harder than he’d thought. He could barely make out anything in the gloom.

He was considering lowering himself a few dozen feet towards the ground so as to see more clearly, when a slight change in one of the lights below caught his eye. It came from a rooftop, a small, clear white spot against the dark. Unlike the dim, faintly yellowed glow of the streetlamps all around, and the squarish patches of light emanating from windows all around, this one was moving, waving gently from side to side. Tasha? He scooted forwards, not descending immediately, but instead reorienting himself on the other side of it, before lowering himself. As he came closer, his eyes began to make out the edges of a figure, sprawled against the concrete, the edges of a dim, greyish cloak obfuscating the boundary that divided them from the surrounding concrete. He reoriented again, so as to come down behind them, just in case it wasn’t her.

James ceased his descent a half foot or so from the rooftop, and considered how best to approach this. If it was Tasha, then job done, but if it wasn’t, best to identify them without being seen. For the moment, they were still distracted, waving the light, which he now saw to be a cellphone flashlight, from side to side in front of them. He glanced around, noting a number of large, oddly shaped chunks of what appeared to be some sort of metal or debris laying around the figure, and spied a small, tightly packed air conditioning system that lay a short distance away. It wasn’t perfect cover, not quite big enough to reliably conceal himself behind, but it would impede the figure’s sight long enough for him to fly away if it wasn’t Tasha. He floated in behind it, hunched himself down into a little ball, and spoke.

“Tasha?” he whispered, as loud as he dared. “That you?” At first, the only response was a small thumping sound, then silence. James gathered his focus, chose a direction, and was about to take his leave when:

“James?” Tasha’s voice called quietly. “I can’t see you. You here?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, floating out from his hiding space. Tasha was twisting around frantically on the ground, her eyes scanning the skies above, presumably searching for him. He chuckled. “Behind you.”

The girl swiveled around, caught sight of him, and let out a heavy groan of relief, her shoulders slumping slightly as the tension began to drain out of her.

“Oh, thank fuck,” she muttered. “My phone was about to die.” She grinned tiredly, stowing the device in a pocket, before turning her attention to her legs. “Just gimme a sec. I gotta get the last of my armor off or you’ll never be able to carry me outta here.”

“Armor?” James asked, surprised. “I thought you said you got shot, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” she grumbled, her hands working at a set of loose fitting, wide hemmed pants, pulling them up around her right leg and revealing a section of something apparently metallic wrapped around her lower leg. “Didn’t hold up as well as I hoped.”

James, curious, moved in for a closer look. Tasha’s ‘armor’ seemed to consist of what looked like a thick, tightly bound mass of aluminium foil, of the sort that was used to cook Turkeys on thanksgiving. It seemed, for all the world, as though the girl had simply wrapped it around her leg until it was near enough a solid inch thick.

“Is… is that cooking foil?” he asked, perplexed.

“Yup,” Tasha grunted, reaching her hands behind her knee and grasping at something. She pulled, her face contorting in effort, until the armor piece came away from the limb, bending out of shape with a surprisingly quiet series of creaks. “Whole bunch of it wrapped around strips from those heavy duty metal trash cans, I took that, beat it flat with a hammer, and then bent it around my arms and legs and stuff. Got the idea off a youtube video.”

James considered this, mouth slightly open in surprise. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that, but eventually opted for:

“… Isn’t that kinda heavy?”

“Pretty heavy,” Tasha agreed, depositing the hunk of ruined metal on the ground alongside what James now realized were the rest of her armor pieces. “About two hundred pounds. Kinda handy, really. Being heavy helps hold me down when I’m punching stuff.”

“Didn’t work out too well as armor though, huh?”

“Fucking really, genius?” Tasha asked, her tone positively dripping with sarcasm. “I never would have guessed without the help, thanks. Homemade kevlar my ass.”

James rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, whatever. Just grab on to me so we can get out of here, okay?” He reached out a hand towards the girl and she took it. He began to rise, face turning skywards, before letting out a small squeak as she yanked him back down towards her.

“Nope. I am not just gonna let you dangle me along, buddy boy,” she grumbled, pulling the protesting boy around and forcibly positioning herself at his back, her arms locked over his shoulders and wrapping around his front, her hands pressed to his sides. “I’m not trusting your weedy little grip strength to keep me up there with you. It’s piggybacks or nothing.”

“What?” he objected, trying to shove her off. “I can’t piggyback you! You’re like a foot taller than me!”

“Oi,” Tasha replied. “You’re gonna be way up in the air, so you can piggyback me all you like. Now get flying, c’mon!” With that, she dug one of her fingers sharply into the skin below his ribs, eliciting a squawk of purest outrage from the boy. Before he had a chance to make a counter, she flexed her good leg against the ground and pushed off in a jump, sending the two of them high into the air. “Better catch us or I guess we’ll die.” She murmured into his ear, insufferably smug.

“… I hate you so much,” he muttered, allowing his flight to kick in and feeling the weight of Tasha’s body against his sternum as gravity began to reassert itself. “Fine, whatever. Just tell me how to get to your place before I run out of juice or something.”

The girl pointed, and James fired himself forwards into the gloom, the exhilaration of his new mode of travel somewhat ruined by the continued waves of smugness emanating from the girl against his back, spoiling the sheer joy of it a fraction.

They traveled largely in silence, broken by the occasional muttered direction from Tasha as she spotted new landmarks by which to navigate. James quickly found his annoyance and the residual shades of fear giving way to a more subdued train of thought. Tasha was surprisingly light against his back; only a little heavier than him. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he had expected her to be heavier. More… boyish, he supposed. It was a little disconcerting. Pressed this close against him, he was acutely aware of the soft pressure of her chest against his shoulder blades. He’d heard a couple of his friends at school bragging over getting to touch some girl or other’s boobs, and had never really seen the appeal, an attitude that remained with him still. Maybe he’d get it when he was older.

“Been quiet for a while,” Tasha spoke, re-positioning herself a little against his back. “Whatcha thinking about?”

“Trying to figure out what’s so special about boobs,” he replied, grinning. “Yours don’t seem all that great.”

“… You copping a feel, you little perv?” She chuckled. “You know I could snap you like a twig, right?”

“You’re the one who forced me to carry you like this,” he replied with a shrug. “Besides, I could totally stop flying pretty much whenever I wanted. How does your super strength handle twenty story drops?”

“Better than you’d handle not having a spine,” she replied. Despite himself, he laughed. The two were quiet for a time after that.

“It’s nice up here,” James murmured eventually, more to himself than to his companion. “It’s quiet, you know?”

“Meh,” came the reply. “It’s kinda cool, I guess. Mostly cold, if I’m honest.”

“Wait, you’re cold?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow in confusion. “You sure that’s not just blood loss? I’m totally warm.”

“It’s not blood loss,” Tasha replied. “I don’t really bleed a lot when I get hurt. Just a couple seconds before it scabs. Trust me, it’s cold up here. Wind chill isn’t helping.”

“…Huh,” he muttered. “Guess it’s a power thing. That your place?”

“The building with the sign on top?” she asked, peeking down past his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s it. Land us on the roof and I can manage the rest myself, okay?”

James nodded, angling himself towards the building in question and beginning his descent.

They struck the ground a little harder than intended, James intent on getting them out of the sky before anyone had a chance to notice them up there. He hissed in pain as the impact jarred its way up his shins and into his knees. Tasha, behind him, let out a bark of sound as her weight came down on her injured leg. Her knees buckled, leaving James in the unfortunate position of attempting to carry both of their weight. He staggered, righting himself with an instinctive jolt of his flight, and came to rest on his feet, panting, with Tasha braced against his back.

“I’ll… see you inside before I go.” He mumbled, semi-apologetically. “That okay?”

After a few shallow breaths, the girl gave a small, sharp nod, and the two stepped forwards, opening the door into the complex, and making their way towards Tasha’s home. As it happened, her apartment was one of the ones on the upper floor, close to the stairway onto the roof. As they approached the door, Tasha pushed herself off him, leaning the bulk of her frame against the hallway wall as she fumbled in her pockets for her keys. James stood awkwardly behind her, the need to ensure she was alright warring against the desire to get home as quickly as humanly possible. The girl fumbled at the lock for a few moments, before the door swung open, and she stepped inside. James followed, momentarily curious as to what her place might look like.

Whatever the boy’s expectations of the place had been, they were not met. Pizza boxes. Chip wrappers. Everywhere he looked, there were more of them. The floor of the small living room sat hidden under a layer of discarded food wrappers and trash so thick that he couldn’t see it to identify its presence. He took a step inside, and his nostrils filled with the smells of old grease and dirt. The layer of garbage was broken only by a small, beaten up old couch in the center of the space. A ball-pein hammer sat on one end of it, along with several unused rolls of aluminium foil, half a trash can, and a set of bolt cutters. Tasha glanced over her shoulder at the boy still standing in her doorway, his mouth hanging open in shock, and made a small sound of realization, before digging in her pocket.

“Uhh, here,” she muttered, holding out a crumpled wad of bills to him. “Some of the money I made in the raid. Only fair you get some, since you helped me out of there.”

James didn’t move.

“You… live here?” he asked, trying to make his voice sound mild. “Like, all the time?”

Tasha looked around herself for a moment, apparently confused.

“… Yeah. Why?”

James, for a moment, considered continuing, but opted against it with a sigh.

“No reason. Keep the money, kay? I don’t need it.”

“Nope,” she waggled the notes in front of him again. “Take em, or it’s unfair. I don’t like unfair.” James rolled his eyes, and took the cash, tucking it into his pocket without looking at it. “Good.” She smiled. “Now go away. I gotta dig a bullet out of my leg and I don’t want you around for it. Bye now.” Without another word, she ushered him out of the room, before slamming the door closed in his face.

For a moment, James just stood there, uncertain. Then he turned, made his way back onto the rooftop, and took to the skies, headed for home.

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Catharsis: 2.3

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James:

“Wait, so if she’s gonna be Queen of Mars, then why does she need the Silent Knight to die for her? Can’t she just order Lord Commander Hadran to step off?”

“Yeah, but if she did that, then we wouldn’t get to see this cool robot fight.” James gestured towards the television, where two animated metal figures were indeed dueling fiercely with one another.

“But the fight makes no sense. If the war’s over, then these guys are on the same side now, aren’t they?”

“… I think you’re putting way too much thought into this, Casper.”

“Hey, you said this show had politics. I just wanna make sure those politics make sense, which they don’t.”

“Shut up, you massive dork.”

Casper opened his mouth to reply, before being interrupted by a sound from his pocket. His phone, presumably, blaring out a drum solo from a song James didn’t recognize.

“Hang on,” Casper murmured, digging in his pocket. “That’s Tasha. Wonder what she wants.”

James grabbed the television remote with a shrug, and lowered the volume a fraction while his friend answered the phone.

“Hello?” Casper spoke, his voice curious.

James heard Tasha’s voice faintly on the other end of the line. He allowed his gaze to drift around the room as he waited for the conversation to end, glancing down at the DVD case on the bed, and looking over the blurb for lack of anything better to do.

“Jesus, Tasha,” the other boy groaned, drawing James’ attention for a moment, raising the palm of his free hand to his forehead in frustration, before resignedly continuing. “How bad is it this time?”

James returned his attention to the box cover, only to have it snapped violently back towards Casper.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU GOT SHOT!?” The boy screeched, forcibly lowering his voice at James’ frantic gestures for him to keep his voice down. “Why are you telling me this?” Tasha’s voice spoke for a few moments on the other end of the line, and Casper shot a glance at James across the bed. “I don’t know if he’d want me to give you his number yet… No, I’m in his room.” A few more words from Tasha, and the boy held the phone out towards him. “She wants to talk to you.”

James took the phone, his fingers shaking slightly as they wrapped around it, and brought it to his ear.

“You got shot?!” he whisper-shouted into the mouthpiece, aghast.

“Yeah, kinda,” came Tasha’s response. She sounded pained. “Look, I need a hand with something, okay? Now, did you test out how much weight you can carry with your power yet?”

“Not a lot,” he replied hurriedly. “More than a backpack full of books, less than my bed. I didn’t have much to test with.”

“It’s ok,” she muttered, letting out what sounded like a gasp of pain. “That should be plenty. Look, I’m on a rooftop about two blocks south of your school. I need you to come give me a lift home before someone finds me.” James didn’t respond at first, staying silent so long that Tasha spoke again. “James? You still there?”

“You what?” he hissed, incensed. “You want me flying in the open, in a city, in a place where people with guns are apparently looking for you? Are you insane, Tasha? What if I’m seen? What if my parents notice I’m gone? I don’t even know you!”

“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m sorry,” she replied, her voice tired. “I’m only asking cuz I’m out of options here. I managed to get some distance from them, but if they find me, I’m screwed. If I have to jump another building like this, I might make a noise loud enough for them to hear.”

“And who’s they?”James continued, his shock giving way to anger. “How bad did you mess up, Tasha? Who did you get so mad that you need ME to come save you?”

“… People selling kids for sex,” came the bitter answer. “I almost had them, too.”

That cut James short; stopped his anger in its tracks. What was he supposed to say to that? No?

“J-James?” Casper’s voice sounded from somewhere to his right. “You okay? You feel kinda messed up right n-”

“Shut up for a sec,” James cut him off. He stood, dropping the phone down onto the bed behind him, and took a deep breath. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to force himself to calm in the past few weeks, and he’d gotten surprisingly good at it. This time, however, was different. Whatever horrors his nightmares routinely showed him, they were all, at least, just variations on a memory. This, on the other hand, was very much present. This was a danger still to come. If he went, people might try to kill him. If he stayed… could he even stay at this point? He knew himself well enough to know that staying would feel like siding with the child molesters. The very thought made him feel ill.

He moved to his bedroom wall, rested his head on the plaster, and brought his fist up towards it, setting his knuckles gently against the material. It didn’t help. He pushed himself away, and started pacing the length of the small room, his hands held tight around himself. He needed time to think; needed quiet. The television in the corner played on. The little sounds broke his focus; distracted. Not what he needed. He moved to the bed, picked up the remote in trembling hands, and mashed at the off button for a few long seconds until his shaking fingers finally managed to shut off the sound. His heart was racing; everything moving too fast. He sat on a corner of the bed and tried to force himself to breathe deep.

James felt someone’s arms closing around his own, pressing his elbows to his sides, restricting his movement. He reacted without thought, forcing his head backwards as hard as he could. He felt it make contact with something, and a voice yelped in surprise and pain. Good, he had them on the back foot. He wrenched his arms to the sides with all his might, forcing his way free, and in the movement, felt a hand latch on to his shoulder. He took it in his mouth, and bit down, hard. Another cry. James pushed away, forcing himself off of the bed and starting to fall. He would have hit the ground in a heap, but he had more options now, so instead of down, he went up. His back found a surface, and he shoved himself to the side, coming to rest in a corner where the wall and ceiling met. He looked down. Casper sat on the bed, gazing up at him, a few drops of blood dripping down his hand.

“Everything okay in there?” came Sarah’s voice from the hall. “What’s with the noise?”

“It’s all fine!” Casper replied, his gaze level with James’ own. “James fell off his bed cuz he’s being a doof.” The boy raised a hand towards him, silently gesturing him to come back down to the ground. Somewhat ashamedly, James lowered himself to the floor, then moved towards the bed, and picked up the phone.

“This is the only time, Tasha. You understand me? The only one.” Before she had a chance to answer, he hung up. He held the phone out towards Casper, not looking at the other boy, opting instead to gaze at his own feet. “… Sorry.”

Casper chuckled.

“Panic attacks a new thing for you?” he asked, taking the phone. “They were an issue for me too when I got my powers. Lots of people around me with problems, you know? I learned to deal after a while.”

James wasn’t sure what to say to that, so instead opted to change the subject, too ashamed of himself to bring up the still bleeding wound on Casper’s hand.

“Can you cover for me if my parents come in?” he asked. “I’m probably gonna need about twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, of course.” Casper nodded. He reached for the TV remote, returning the robot fight to the display and upping the volume a little. “Just a thought. Wear dark clothes. It should be harder to see you against the night sky.”

“Good idea.”

Casper was good enough to turn away while James changed, turning back to face him when he moved to the window, opening it with a loud creak. He clambered up, his feet resting against the second story window sill, and took a deep, long breath.

“Sorry I hugged you,” the sandy haired boy spoke quietly from the bed behind him.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m sorry too.”

With that, James squeezed his eyes shut, placed his hands on the edges of the wall to either side, and pushed off, allowing himself to fall.

Immediately, he willed himself forward and up, as far and as fast as he could go, reasoning that he’d be harder to spot if he was higher from the ground. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, he found himself high, high above the ground.

James took a moment, the sight of the hundreds, even thousands of tiny lights below him was… oddly invigorating. He stretched his arms back, his back cracking slightly as it worked through the cramps of sitting on his bed with his friend, and breathed deep. The air up here was cold, wet, and unexpectedly fresh, clear of the ever present tint of smoke he so often tasted out in the city streets below. He grinned, simply because it felt like the natural thing to do, and, without warning, even to himself, let out a loud, whooping yell into the night sky. There was no echo, and that fact elated him somehow.

He shook himself. He was getting distracted. There was a job to do. James pivoted slightly in the air, peering through the nighttime gloom until he saw a formation of lights that he was fairly certain belonged to his school, and began to move.

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