chapter nine

I go back to the tower on Wednesday for more than one reason. All of the drugs I was given during my last visit to the Riveras' humble abode are quickly exchanged for money provided by the League. I tuck the white envelope full of worn money safely into the bottom of my bag and leave it on a couch of the common floor. Max accompanies me to the elevator that we take down to the athletic floor.

I can't ignore the fatigue that's blanketed over my body as I find a spot on the floor by the sparring mat to tie my running shoes. The reality of how quickly my League career has taken off is finally setting in. There's a reason that agents are typically eased into everything. The learning curve is steep. I've been forced into a position where I'm not taking a slow trek up that curve but instead forcing myself to sprint my way to the top. It's exhausting.

The "Rowan situation" is weighing on me like a ton of bricks, as well. He may not be as connected to his family's business as I previously thought, but family is still family. The relationship between two counterparts is like no other and yet I've been lying right to his face about my family, my friends, my past, and my career since we first laid eyes on each other. We've already started growing closer in the few days we've known each other. Will anything I have to say possibly be enough to make up for a betrayal as big as the one I'm actively committing?

I push all my worries aside to focus on the task at hand. Training. Anything Max can teach me is more important now than ever. Max points to the track once I'm finally ready to go, but he runs with me this time. Well, he tries, at least. He's gasping by lap six, so that's the number he decides we'll stop on for the day.

"Grab a drink of water, you look like you need it," he says, patting my shoulder as he passes by, "Don't wanna push you too hard, you know." A laugh blurts out of my mouth as he stumbles over to where he left his refillable water bottle, huffing as panting as he goes. My breathing is a bit elevated, as well, but we really only kept a jogging pace the whole time so I've barely broken a sweat.

He gets to his feet and point forcibly to the ground once he's collected himself. He has me do push-ups until my arms give out and I'm left lying on the floor like the sad sack I am. I glare up at him and see the exact smirk I expected to be on his face. This seems a bit like payback if you ask me.

"You been getting behind on your program?" he says from above. The playful tilt to his voice is hard to miss.

I groan from the floor in response. He's right. I've barely been able to remember to take a morning run ever since I started trying to worm my way into the Rivera group, let alone anything strength related.

"Alright, up, c'mon," Max commands, taking my hand and yanking me back to my feet. "Let's do some throwing, huh? Something easy."

"Why easy?" I say as I allow a smirk to creep its way onto my face. "You going soft on me now?"

"Nah," he replies, rolling his green eyes before strolling across the main floor to the knife rack. "You just look a bit run down these days, Ford. Undercover work is tricky business, so it's kind of what I expected."

"I was sort of hoping we could do some more range training. I barely know how to hold a gun."

Max's eyebrows raise a bit in surprise. I don't normally try to dictate what we go over every week. I've been letting him lead the way since the day we met.

"You think you're better than what I have planned for today?"

I stride across the room and take the knife from his hands. I definitely have the hang of knife throwing from last time so it only takes me a moment to get into the proper stance. I bring my arm back before flinging the knife forward as hard as I physically can. It lands smack in the middle of the target with a resounding thunk.

"Alexander Rivera is not a fucking joke," I say quietly with my face turned away from the man. "He's psychotic. He's the kind of guy who'd laugh while he threatens someone's life. I don't even think it's the Valerie that made him that way. What I guess I'm trying to say is that I would very much like to not get shot in the face because I can't figure how to load a fucking gun."

Max's skin pales a shade at the end of my outburst. His mouth opens to answer, but he is ultimately cut off by the room descending into a flood of blue light. A mission alert. Max and I share a momentary look before we are dashing to the elevator and taking it all the way up to the tenth floor where the missions headquarters is.

I've only seen the mission alert light come on once before. It was back before I became an actual agent and all I was really doing was following the team around like a lost puppy. It was pretty terrifying and I had no clue what do with myself. Max eventually made the decision that it'd be best for me to stay in the tower while they went to take care of whatever the problem was. I'm a real agent now, though, so it's go time. I can barely keep up when Max practically flies off the elevator the second the doors open.

"What have we got, Flint?" Max says, jumping straight to business.

"There's a kid with NAE's loose in Time Square. He's out of control," Flint reports as he types away at the keyboard beneath his fingertips. He drags up what appears to be a live feed of that very location, pinching the hologram that's on the computer monitor before flinging it to the large flat screen for all of us to see. "D.C. already called in the team Q but they're failing quite spectacularly."

"What're NAE's?" I say dumbly.

"Newly acquired enhancements," Flint replies absently as his eyes flick wildly over the live video. "Looks like he's got dual powers, concussive and metal manipulation." Max's eyebrows jumps into his hairline as I look to the video in surprise.

Most people who develop powers either only get one or their powers revolve around one main concept. I can wield ice and water which isn't incredibly unheard of, but a combination of concussion beams and metal is intriguingly rare. Something tells me that there's no one is this kid's life to support him through the transition. Comorbidity of two powers that are so incredibly different only complicates the transition from normal life to controlling the roar of energy that comes with enhancements. This kid is melting the sides of buildings and sending anyone that comes near him soaring in the other direction. I've seen team Q's track record and the general consensus of the public is that they're nothing but a group of hotheads. Their team is just about the last one I would call into a situation that is as charged as this one

"I want everyone in on this," Max announces. "Cecelia, Cally, Tony, and Nick, I want you guys on crowd control. The rest of us will take care of the kiddo. We got a name?"

"Local PD is saying James Fisher," Cally calls out from where she's standing a bit away with a phone pressed to her ear. "He's sixteen."

"And Q couldn't take care of this because...?" JD says with a roll of his brown eyes.

"Most of their team is impatient and stupid which isn't a good fit for talking a teenager down," Max says as he kicks off his shoes. I'm confused for a second until I remember that we're in a serious time crunch and we have to suit up.

All of our suits are kept in a locker room on this floor. The room is basically a high school locker room on steroids. There's a set of metal lockers that sit back to back in the middle of the room with women on one side and men on the other. That's about as far as the gender separation goes around here. Privacy isn't a top priority when we're being called upon to take care of an emergency.

One of the walls is lined with glass cases that hold specialty weapons and gear for the team. There's a small hallway off the main room that leads to some sinks and a few showers.

JD's already suited up so he stays behind to continue coordinating with the police while the rest of us swarm the locker room to change.

I press my thumb onto the fingerprint scanner set into my locker and watch as it pops open.

This is the first look I'm getting at my uniform and luckily Tony hasn't disappointed. A pair of navy blue pants and a matching jacket are hanging from hooks inside the locker. The material feels close to Kevlar, but I'm almost entirely sure that it's actually some crazy League-grade stuff. The jacket has a thin silver stripe that runs up the length of each sleeve before meeting to line the top of the collar.

A navy blue domino mask with silver trim is sitting on the top shelf of the locker, as well. It was measured to fit my face but that's about as far as the customization for it goes. I always thought that League agents who where them look kind of goofy, like something out of an old comic book, but I don't really have a choice here. I want to keep my career separate from my personal life and this is currently the only way, as ridiculous as it may be, to do so.

It also seems that Tony took it upon himself to kit me out with knives instead of guns. Nobody but Max has seen me throw so he must have been talking me up to the others.

I struggle a bit with putting the entire suit on for the first time. The boots take me longer than anything else since they have complicated buckles but I eventually get it together. Flint shows me how to glue the domino mask securely onto my face since he's the only other agent on the team who hides his identity.

Finally being all suited up like a real League agent is making everything feel a lot more real. My current undercover operation isn't anything like this. There aren't any news channels broadcasting a live feed of every decision I make while I'm in the Rivera household, but that's how this mission is going to be. Any move I choose to make will be viewed by thousands and scrutinized on late night talk shows because that's the sort of magnification every League agent is constantly under.

"Jinx on Q is opening a portal for us," Max's calls, voice ringing through the locker room as everyone finishes up pulling themselves together.

Jinx's only power is creating portals. He's an example of why League agents are trained in combat and on how to wield weapons with deadly force. Just because they have a superhuman ability doesn't mean that they're magically great at everything physical automatically. The director of the League has made it clear on many occasions that powers aren't what make League agents. Character makes League agents. It's why people like Dylan Dodson are turned away and watch-listed.

A flash of light explodes into the room a couple minutes later and suddenly there is a portal hanging in the air just outside the locker room. Wendy leaves the room with an encouraging nod from a nearly dressed Max. She disappears from view before she steps through the portal so she can go ahead of us and secretly scope out the situation.

Everyone moves back to the control center so Tony can set us up with comms like he did already with Wendy. We wait for Wendy to give us the all clear before following after her.

"He's melted all of the local PD's guns," Wendy's voice finally crackles over the comm connection with a slight amused tilt to her tone. "Puddles of them all over the place. Nobody's approaching him anymore. There's a huge crowd of civilians, so we're definitely gonna need crowd control. He's formed himself a nice little spot outta a light pole. That huge set of red stairs or whatever is in pieces, though. Probably the initial loss of control for the kid."

"Clear for us to join ya?" JD chirps.

"Yeah, portal's a good few hundred feet from him. We seriously need crowd control, though. Some A-Hanced people are here and they're a step away from inciting a full blown riot."

A-Hanced, as in anti-enhancement, is a group that protests just about anything to do with people who have powers. I can see where they're coming from even as an enhanced person myself. There's no shortage of instances when people with superhuman abilities have severely abused them. It's totally reasonable for a person without any superhuman powers to be worried about what the people with them might do. The problem with the A-Hanced group, however, is that they have quickly morphed into a violent organization that has hunted and even murdered enhanced people on more than one occasion. James Fisher is the exact situation the A-Hanced crowd tend to have a field day over. They're constantly looking for someone to hang and jump at any opportunity to do so.

JD goes first through the portal, shooting through the opening in the world so fast he's nothing more than a black blur. His suit is pretty similar to mine but it's black instead of blue. It's better to stick with darker colors in our line of work, but there are always agents who decide on more conspicuous designs, like Nick with her white dress. Calling it a dress would actually be a disservice to Tony's craft considering he's managed to make it safely functional and stylish at the same time. He's done her angelic side justice with the dress as well as the white thigh-high boots she wears with it. She also has a deadly weapon that he has disguised as a golden halo. Nick's weapon of choice isn't a knife or gun but a beautiful glowing band of metal that goes razor sharp with the touch of a finger. Anyone she fights is in for quite the surprise when she goes from sweet to slice-happy in the blink of an eye.

Max follows closely after JD and tugs me along with him. There's this really weird feeling like I'm being pulled apart at the seams for a second before the world opens up and suddenly I'm standing in the middle of Times Square. The rest of the team appears from the portal right after us. The agents Max ordered to take care of the crowd split off to do that immediately, not wasting any time.

The kid can definitely see us from the nest of melted metal he's created for himself. None of us will be able to reach him on foot.

Max nods to Nick, whose wings whoosh out of the back of her uniform with a loud flourish before she takes flight a moment later. James predictably sees her coming.

"Get away!" he shouts. "I said no League!"

I can't hear what Nick says from where I'm standing on the ground, but there's only a brief pause before Nicks comes hurtling towards the ground, the effects of his concussion beams sending her slamming into the concrete. She's almost immediately back on her feet, though, visibly distraught and sore but not critically injured.

"Kid really doesn't wanna talk," she says, hissing as she rolls her shoulders back, "I asked nicely and everything, boss."

"Shame," Max says, sighing as he looks back at James. "Hurricane, can you just freeze him?" I don't understand what he's talking about for a second until I remember: I'm "Hurricane." League teams only use codenames on missions and operations.

"I mean, I can, but you don't want to try to talk him down?"

"Angel, did he seem very interesting in talking to you?"

"No," Nick replies with a laugh and the shake of her head, "definitely not. He's not down to deal with anyone from the League, so I think our job here is just to apprehend him and then we'll deal with everything later. Situation's too charged to take another chance."

"Alright," I say, sighing quietly to myself. I've accidentally frozen parts of myself in the throes of a nightmare when I was just learning how to control my powers and the experience is hardly pleasant. It's not my first choice in dealing with a kid but it's clearly the safest option for everyone right now.

"Can't you just come down here?" I try.

His response is one of those nifty concussions beams projected directly into my chest. I fly back just like Nick did but I don't have any fancy angel wings to dampen my fall. I slam back into the concrete and narrowly avoid smashing my skull into smithereens. My ribs are aching as I drag myself into a sitting position, flares of pain running from one side of my torso to the other. I try my best not to grimace. We're in public. Times Square is quite possibly the worst place to be called to for a League mission in terms of privacy.

JD flashes up to my side and helps pull me to my feet. He holds on for a second until I wave him off and he releases me. I turn my attention back to James after taking a quick second to collect myself.

I steady my hand up in the direction of the kid and release a long stream of frozen crystals which shoot out and encase his legs from hips to feet. A shocked expression jumps onto his face and he raises his arms, ready to retaliate, but I freeze his hands into blocks of ice before he can react. The ice will only hold from so long so I'm thankful when Nick swoops in, Max in her arms, so he can slap a pair of power inhibiting handcuffs onto James's forearms. Those concussion beams of his can break straight through ice with ease so we're lucky we got to him before the momentary shock of being frozen wore off.

My ribs tug at my attention the entire way back to the portal. The others are still taking care of the crowd but it appears that the local police department has finally gotten their shit together, as well. They'll be able to handle everything once our team is gone from the looks of it.

The agents on team Q meet us by the portal that Jinx has once again opened up for us.

"Those were some good moves, kid," the man standing next to Jinx says. The guy towers nearly a foot taller than me. I've seen him before. Tidal Wave. He has dyed turquoise hair that makes him quite memorable. He controls water like me but lacks the control that I have over ice. I almost think he's talking to James for a second, but when there's an awkward pause of silence among all of us agents, I realize the compliment was directed at me.

"Oh," I say before an awkward laugh breezes through my lips. "Thanks."

The awkward silence breaks when Max nudges me with an elbow, an easy smirk splayed across his face.

"Kid's always on another planet, don't mind him," he says, easily patching over the strange space I've managed to create between our two teams.

Tony stays behind to touch base with the local police department while the rest of us file back through Jinx's portal to the tower. Max immediately moves James into one of our holding cells on the appropriate floor. The rest of us take some time to cool down and regroup.

"You should let Cally check you out, Lake," Nick says as Cally wraps a gash on her side with bandages. "I know he messed up your ribs. We all saw the way you landed."

"I'm fine, Nick," I say, rolling my eyes with practiced nonchalance. I keep careful control of my face as I get to my feet, hyper-aware of the eyes that are surely surveying me for any sign of discomfort or pain. I've never liked having people watch over my health and just because I'm an agent now doesn't mean that's going to change.

"At least let me look them over," Cally reasons, patting Nick on her uninjured shoulder to indicate that she's all set. "The advanced healing is probably gonna take care of it quicker than anything I can do, and ribs can't exactly be wrapped or casted, but you know that internal bleeding can kill you, right?" I take the lecture for what it is and nod in understanding.

Cally knows the most about medicine on the team since her mother was a nurse and pushed her to become one as well. She majored in nursing for three years to appease her family but inevitably switched to studying astrology. She joined the League as an afterthought when she discovered she had powers. Since her abilities are on such a scale where they'd only really be useful in the event of a nationwide or worldwide cataclysmic event, she understood why being a consultant instead of a full-time agent would be best. The part-time work she does with us gives her tons of time to work as a technician at NASA, anyways. Apparently she's been to space twice.

"They're fine, Cal," I say more forcefully. "I know what broken ribs feels like. There's no bruising yet, so there's no bleeding, okay?" I don't take my shirt off for just anyone. Danny is the only person I've willingly exposed myself to like that and that's the way I want to keep it for now.

"How would you know what broken ribs feels like? Has that undercover op you're on been getting out of hand?"

"No, nothing like that," I reply, shaking my head and crossing my arms over my chest. "You guys do know I'm an orphan, right? There's a reason I'm not too broken up about it." This small truth, a single glimpse into what I'm like outside of the tower, has varying forms of uneasy expression spreading across their faces.

"So, not a big deal, and I'll be just fine," I plow through the dead air that's fallen upon the room and shrug. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out, thankful for the distraction.

R u alive???, the messages reads. It's a text from Atlas.

I saw u on the news!!! Well, I saw the whole Q team disaster, and then u guys were there

everyone's freaking out, man

they have no idea who u R, its kinda hilarious tbh

I begin typing back a reply, carefully ignoring the team as they start moving around me. The shock from my previous words must have finally worn off. Cally disappears with Wendy in tow. JD and Flint clamber into the kitchen to more than likely raid every cabinet for food. Tony and Cecelia quietly slip away to the elevator and I can only imagine what they're planning on doing. Max finds a spot at the table in the kitchen where he can go over the files the local police department had on James.

Oh? I haven't even seen the news, lol, I text back. Are they being nice abt me??

The situation with James isn't exactly uncommon so there probably wouldn't have been such a crazy amount of media coverage if I wasn't there. That sounds quite conceited, but it's the unfortunate reality. Fresh faces, covered by domino masks or not, are practically devoured by the public. The fact that I'm the youngest agent right now has nearly tripled the public's interest in me. I might've been able to coast through the mission without attracting the current tsunami of attention if I hadn't been the one to actually subdue James.

The attention definitely terrifies me but that's just the way things are going to be for now. Remembering that they don't really have much information about me makes me feel a little better. All they have is my codename, my age, and my rank since those are only League records that are legally required to be public record. The League decides if they want to release an agent's complete power specifications. The only additional information that's out there right now is my ability to control ice, and that's how I plan to keep it. Being the center of attention will always make me uncomfortable.

The media having virtually no information about me doesn't stop them from having an absolute field day. There are pictures of me shooting a stream of ice and even one from when I got knocked back onto my ass. There's a photo of me talking to Max and Nick. There are fangirls freaking out. The media circus and social media reaction wasn't unexpected, but it's still stressful. Hundreds of people I don't know and never will are demanding to have information about me that I haven't even offered to my team yet.

Lots of good things, man, Atlas replies. Also lottsss of questions, tho.

I smile and shake my head.

Well, I'm ok. Probably bruised ribs but no big. As 4 the media circus, it's kinda terrifying

I make sure the text sends before shoving the phone back in my pocket. My side may ache every time I move but I'm no stranger to pain. This kind I'm specifically well acquainted with. Dad liked kicking.

"I'm gonna head back to my apartment," I call out to whatever few members of the team are in hearing distance. "I'll see you guys later."

JD flashes from the kitchen to where I'm about to get on the elevator in the time it takes me to blink once. He shoves a Cosmic Brownie into my hand and then calls out a goodbye before disappearing back to the kitchen. I shake my head as I step onto the lift, tucking the brownie into my pocket so I can eat it on the train ride to my temporary apartment.

I finally get a good look at my ribs once I'm finally tucked away in my apartment. Purple bruises are blooming all over my chest where James's concussion beams hit me. They'll most likely be gone within the next few days so I'm not particularly worried. I'm pretty sure I'd be throwing up and feeling ready to pass out if there was any internal bleeding, so I seem to be in the clear.

I roll into bed at around six after forcing my way through a very light dinner and an incredibly ginger shower. My ribs throb but I'm so tired that there's thankfully no time for me to dwell on them.