Possessive Behavior

I took the empty cup of coffee with a yawn and threw it in the sink. It took a few seconds for it to clean itself off and put itself back in the cupboard. With another yawn on my lips, I sluggishly left the kitchen.

My finger hovered over the panel of buttons next to the door, first stopping over the one labeled "GYM". Should I join Luisa? Shooting the shit with her while working out was always fun, but I wasn't really in the mood for that. The "Working Out" part that is.

I moved my hand above the "HB" button. Should I wait in her room? It could be fun to surprise her, but there was barely any stuff in there to distract me. She had always been somewhat minimalist.

With a shrug, I pressed the "S" button. My own room then. The door closed and after a few seconds, it reopened again, now leading to an entirely different place.

I entered the dark purple room and threw myself on the bed. My body sank into the soft mattress within seconds. It was heavenly. I fished out the remote from under my pillow and debated in my head wether or not I should activate the windows before just turning the light on instead.

The illumination revealed a familiar mess of worn clothes haphazardly piled up in different stacks around the room, an open closet, a meticulously kept case displaying a variety of trophies, badges, and medals (probably the cleanest thing in here), a TV with three separate VR game consoles and a wall full of posters and other knickknacks.

My eyes wandered to my favorite of the bunch, a collection of five mugshots. The Steely Hendrix Band (13th Line-Up). They were my first engagement as part of the Enlightened, just me, Honeybadger, and Kirin, and still probably my fondest memory. A musical bank heist, a riveting rock opera. He was living proof that not all Warpers were inherently destructive. Rewriting reality to create background music and force people to sing instead of speaking was not really all that dangerous by itself and he always made sure no one got seriously hurt, not even the heroes.

I glanced at the signature near the bottom. "To my biggest fan, Mallory. Shine on, baby, and keep the world alight." I smiled, letting myself reminisce a bit. Maybe I should visit him in prison before he inevitably broke out again.

Apropos prison, I pulled out my phone to check my messages. I told the cops to send me the full name of Robert, the last Midgardsummer goon I marked, so I could pay his sister a visit. I rolled my eyes when I saw no notifications. It always took them ages to fulfill even the simplest of requests.

Even though I had internally decided to put the phone away, I couldn't bring myself to do it just yet. I stared at the "My Hero" app for what felt like hours (but was most likely two minutes tops) before reluctantly opening it. My Hero let people review and rank any hero they wanted. It wasn't at all official, but it was difficult to ignore due to its sheer popularity.

I scrolled to the "Teams, Duos, and Trios" tab and checked the results. As expected, the Enlightened came in first by a significant margin. I grinned but suppressed those treacherous face muscles quickly. I was a bit ashamed of how easily I could let stuff like that get to me. In High School, I was convinced I'd be on the bottom tiers forever and made up my mind to do good for the sake of justice and not popularity. And that is a fine sentiment, but it's difficult to keep that up once you have gotten your first taste of nationwide fame.

I tapped our team name to pull up the popularity rankings within the group.

The One (82.8%)

Herald Queen Angelica (6.1%)

Future Guardian (3.3%)

Honeybadger (2.8%)

Helios (1.9%)

King Clover (1.1%)

Queen Snake (1%)

Satori (0.9%)

Miss Cortex (0.1%)

Nothing had changed. It never did, at least not significantly. The list was pretty much set in stone, yet I still couldn't keep myself from checking it again and again. Firstly, this was just the popularity ranking within the Enlightened. On an individual scale I was doing much better. Secondly, like in most teams, the supports were dead last. It made sense. Of course, the heroes who got right in the middle of things all the time were more popular. But it making sense didn't mean it didn't sting a bit.

I felt especially sorry for Michiko. She never left the Tower, so she didn't have the chance to leave a big impression on the general public. I think I'd actually have felt better if I was at the very bottom, but being right above her....

I let out a deep sigh and put down the phone. Time to play some video games.

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4:55PM - Tower of Light, Meeting Room

When the door opened everyone else was already there. "Are we late?" Luisa asked as we hurried inside.

"No, don't worry. You are just in time." Ray assured her and pressed a button on the underside of the round table. With a slight rumbling noise, it sunk into the ground. Once it was fully embedded the tabletop began glowing faintly.

"Lu, Angie, and I will reach the factory the old-fashioned way. We will approach from the front and make sure to be as visible as possible. Mal, Armani, you two will be sent to the outskirts of the factory directly. I want you to scope out the perimeter and tell us what you see. Understood?"

I nodded and looked at Armani. Her slit eyes widened in excitement. "Sure thing, boss."

"Good. We will engage at 6PM on the dot. When the grunts scramble toward the front to ward us off, you sneak in and try to locate anyone or anything suspicious. If they have a backup or a contingency plan, try to sabotage or outright eliminate it. Everything clear?"

"Yes. Let's do this!" I said and stepped onto the glowing circle. Armani joined me as Luisa took a step forward and took my hand. "Be careful, okay?"

"Aren't I always?" I said and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. "See you after, babe."

"Alright. " Ray interjected and put his wrist to his mouth. "Send them, Michi."

I grinned and gave Luisa a two-finger salute before my world was engulfed in white.

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The Gas Quarter was an eerie place. The green fog permeating the entire area painted the abandoned buildings in a sickly viridescent hue. The gas was deadly for mundane people, causing painful blisters and internal necrosis if someone was exposed to it for more than an hour, but it did nothing but make the air smell unbearably foul for both Empowered and Mages. Apparently, it had been a hotbed for all kinds of villainous groups before the Freakshow moved in and......"cleaned house", so to speak.

"Let's move." Queen Snake said and opened her mouth wide. Her fangs gleamed in the dim light as her jaw unhinged. Soon after three heads emerged from her throat. Snakeheads. The reptiles quickly crawled out of her gaping maw and landed softly on the ground. "Go and show Mama where the baddie bads are." she cooed and her serpentine companions slithered away in the direction of the factory.

"Alright, the coast seems to be clear." she whispered and motioned for me to follow her. I nodded and we slowly crept forward to our destination. Now and then she would make a slight detour to avoid a guard her snakes had spotted but all in all, it was smooth sailing. In just a few minutes we reached our goal.

The Sorcery Solutions logo glowed brightly. Each differently colored letter jumped, turned, and twisted in a whimsical dance, the magic that animated them still working after all this time.

"Me and my babies can cover a wider area, so we'll check the factory. You scope out the storage building Cyrus mentioned." Armani whispered decisively.

"Sounds good." I replied and we split off. I hurried along the outer wall as quietly as possible until I reached the back fence. It was still knocked down from way back when the employees had to flee the encroaching gas. Repairing it would have probably attracted too much attention for the Society, so they left it be.

So far I hadn't seen anybody, but I still couldn't let my guard down. I waited for a minute to make sure no one was around before approaching the large facility. I carefully peeked through one of the windows. Empty. But there was something on the table inside that room. I carefully circled the building, looking through the windows to make sure I was alone. And to my surprise I was. All the goons must be in the factory.

After I assured myself that I was as safe as I could possibly be in this situation I slipped in through the half-open door. The interior was empty for the most part, except for the odd chair here and there, as well as four or five fully functional water coolers. There was no way these were from SorSol, so they must've been brought in by the SOP.

I wasted no time and proceeded toward the table that caught my eye earlier. On top was an unlabeled map of L.A., that was dotted with a variety of symbols in seemingly random places, none of which I could immediately recognize. Some were crossed out in red, some were circled in yellow and others were marked with blue triangles.

Try as I might I couldn't make heads or tails of it, so I snapped a picture for Michiko to analyze and quickly left through the front door again. Once I was certain that I was a far enough distance away I pressed a button on my wrist and spoke into my helmet, "Queen Snake. Satori here. I am done with my task. Nothing to report. The place was empty. All that was in here was a map with strange markings on it. I sent a picture to Miss Cortex already. How are things on your end?"

It took a few seconds for the response to come in. "It certainly is more lively here, hihi." Her laugh had a certain hiss-like quality to it. I always enjoyed hearing it. "Two of my babies are inside the factory and boy is it packed. There must be at least 50 or so people."

"Any sign of Featherweight?"

"No. She must be deeper inside. You know, back home we would've just blown the entire thing to bits. Problem solved, villains gone."

I rolled my eyes. This again. "This isn't Utopia. No killing criminals. Anything else?"

"Hihihi, I know, I know. I'm just saying. It'd be so much more efficient. Anyway, I found two promising back entrances. One is directly next to the staircase leading to the second floor and the other seems to be some kind of basement access a bit further away. Which one do you want? Or should we do one together?"

I thought about it for a minute before answering. "No, let's do them separately. We can't risk letting anyone escape. I'll take the basement. Depending on its size your snakes could have little room to maneuver. Where is it?"

"Hihihi, good thinking. I'll send my baby to lead you to it. She found it after all."

"Roger. See you later." I said and ended communication. It wasn't long before I heard a quiet hiss beneath me. Armani's snakes could adjust their color to blend in with their surroundings, so finding them could be quite difficult. Graciously, this one had assumed normal coloration before approaching me to follow it.

It took a good five-ish minutes of sneaking before we reached the decrepit broken-down door that was situated inside a small alcove in the ground. My slithery friend promptly skittered away again. I hid behind an old broken-down car near the door and waited.

The more time past the faster my heart started beating. This kind of excitement was my drug of choice. Just before it became unbearable I heard a voice echo through my helmet. Her slight Japanese accent was unmistakable. "Recon Team, this is Miss Cortex. The Strike Team has started to engage. I repeat, the Strike Team has engaged."

"Roger." I said with the brightest grin humanely possible. Finally.

It was go-time.