To say things are getting worse is an understatement. There are supers popping out of the woodworks, and all of them seem to have an inclination to just fight or destroy or try to steal something.

  “Should I try and visit the warehouse again?” I ask, pausing on top of a building as I try to see if there’s anything on fire or exploding or anything else that would indicate that a super is fighting.

  “No.” Asher sighs. “You had a super captured there, so I’m sure they’re crawling all over the place still, so unless you want to sneak in and inevitably want to explain to them why you’re there, we’ll have to use another method.”

  “We could go to the lab and just start pounding heads together until they spill?” Amelia offers.

  “And what will we do about everything going on right now? You just finished fighting a super.” Asher responds with a sigh.

  “Barely a super.” Amelia corrects. “Definitely a criminal, but being able to float a couple inches off the ground and move slower than I can walk isn’t exactly a super power.”

  “He can still float higher than you.” I point out before picking a direction that’ll lead me deeper into the half of town I’m patrolling and vaulting in that direction.

  “Well, I can hover higher than you, which makes me still cooler than you.” Amelia says. “Besides the ice powers that make me intrinsically really cool.”

  “Fractal, next time you find someone you consider actually a super, would you mind if you went big with the fight?” Asher asks. “Jason leans towards being stealthy and all of that. But if we can send a message that there’s a hero protecting the city, I bet that would have a pretty major effect on the morale of everyone.”

  “Yeah, I can do that; I just don’t want to face someone with fire powers.”

  As the two chatter, I keep moving in the direction I chose, slowly lowering myself down till I’m only about one story up as I bound along.

  With how fast I am, hopefully nobody’s going to be too upset about me running through the floors of office buildings, but if they do get upset with me, I’ll deal with it by them not being able to find me.

  At this height, I can perceive below me far enough that hopefully I can find any criminal bases or something like that.

  Between the gore and the flesh golem I found in the warehouse, I’m betting the lab did some kind of mass sale on supers to various groups in the area.

  If the lab is gearing up towards actual operations instead of prep, they’re going to be significantly more on guard and will now have allies.

  If I were running a super villain gang, I would have a vested interest in keeping the lab supplying me with body-jacked supers safe.

  But I can take those groups out and cripple them.

  Hopefully, it’ll also be easier to start rescuing some of the people that I saw down there in various forms.

  The world shudders, and I miss my landing, though I manage to make it to the ground without too much issue.

  “Actual earthquake or a super who’s making stuff shake?” I ask.

  “Not sure, but since we don’t really ever feel earthquakes, I’m guessing an actual super.” Asher grumbles.

  “So, team.” Amelia says in the voice that means she’s definitely going to give me irritating news if nothing else. “I’m about to fight a giant twenty foot tall slime monster, so you two are going to have to figure out how to deal with the vibrator on your own.”

  At slime something catches on my memory, but thankfully my brain was already tuned in that direction so I don’t worry about what it is for a moment. “That’s a civilian, most likely. I remember seeing a slime person in the lab that was kept in a large vial.”

  “Don’t worry, Alias.” Amelia says, already using a superhero voice. “I’m having an adjacent no kill code as a superhero. I’ll just create a giant ice prison for them and hold them there till someone smart arrives for transport and debugging.”

  With everything sounding very much in hand, I drop through the street and start running through the tunnels, working under the assumption that if someone is generating tiny earthquakes that they’ll either be underground or on the surface.

  But if they are underground, hopefully they can be causing just as many problems for the lab as I want them too and we can start taking over their base.

  “—elting my ice.” Amelia finishes whatever her statement was while I was phasing through the ground before returning both my ears and helmet to this reality.

  “Alias just run around for a bit. I am hoping they quake again so that I can start tracking them properly, but otherwise just run towards old towne.” Asher says. “Fractal, yeah, I don’t know how to deal with that.”

  “What about my super suit? Will it be okay?” She asks. “I’m going to try to cut the slime in half to see if I make two slimes.”

  Before I can interrupt her with a comment about how terrible ?an idea that is, Amelia sighs in disappointment.

  “Odds this is coordinated?” I ask as I start running faster. Every opportunity I have to cut corners, I do, running through them as I flicker constantly between phased and not.

  “I really think the odds are fairly low that it’s anything like that,” Asher grumbles. He talks some more, but between the phasing, I only catch about half of it.

  Though it lined up well enough with the first half of his statement that I’m not confused. Odds are just two people with powers acting on the same night.

  “To interrupt finding the vibrator, which you aren’t doing, Miracle, because you’re waiting for them to turn on again. If there was a hypothetical giant slime person you were fighting and you really didn’t want to kill them. How good or bad of an idea would it be to just start blasting cold energy at them till they became a popsicle?”

  That seems vaguely more in the direction of how she used her powers while Horrorfrost. Though I guess sometimes just freezing stuff works a lot better than trying to trap them in a prison of super ice.

  Asher lets out a strangled sound of irritation. “Why would I know? Do I have a sample? No? Do I know anything besides it can recombine itself when split and it melts ice? No? Give me something usable and I’ll try, but till then I got nothing.”

  Before any argument can ensue, the world shakes again, and I drop to a knee, bracing a hand against the floor to steady myself.

  Whether it’s because I’m closer now or if it’s because I’m underground is up for debate, but that was way worse than the last one.

  After some audible grumbling interspersed with sounds of her running around, Amelia finally reaches some kind of conclusion. “I’ll figure it out; don’t worry about me.”

  “Alias, it looks like you’re going in the right direction. I think they’re in the tunnels with you. None of the cameras I have access to are seeing anything where the quakes should be emanating from,” Asher explains.

  I charge forward not needing anything beyond the right way. Hopefully, the right way will be enough that my awareness bubble will come into contact with them and I’ll be able to find them myself soon.

  Not sure what kind of abilities are supposed to come with the ability to generate earthquakes, but I don’t think it’ll be something insurmountable?

  There’s a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to cause people to have to start fixing this area of the underground and above street pretty soon as I run past visible fractures in the wall.

  What would an earthquake generator be doing down here? Are they just here to cause problems and destroy the town, or are they actually trying something specific?

  Now that I don’t need to listen to directions, I go through the routine of phasing the majority of my body in the hopes that I’ll be less vulnerable to most forms of attack.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Would vibrational blasts hit me even while I’m phased?

  Damn it, I really need to work on improving my abilities beyond phasing stuff. I’ve once or twice done all kinds of neat tricks, but have I worked on them besides growing the ability to phase more stuff?

  No. No I have not.

  I’m just about to tell Asher and Amelia that they need to start holding to actual improvements on my super ability beyond increasing basic capability when I feel a person on the edge of my awareness.

  Well, one that is also underground like me.

  At this distance, I can’t make out much detail beyond human and having their arms outstretched towards the ceiling, but if that’s not the source of my current problems, then I’ll eat my helmet.

  A ripple of power seems to build up in their arms before ballooning out, hitting the ceiling, and before I can react, the world shakes again, this time much more violent.

  Picking myself out of the ground, I run as hard as possible where I can leaping past entire sections of wall to make it as straight of a line as I can.

  I run through the options I have for taking someone down quickly before settling on the simplest one.

  Careening through the wall behind the quaker I tuck my head and barrel into them shoulder first, sending them flying back, hitting their head against the stone floor.

  “I’d ask you to stop, but three strikes is probably enough to tell me you’ll keep going.” I say, finally getting a good look at them.

  As far as I can tell, he looks like an ordinary guy. Pale skin, scruffy blonde hair, sharp eyes that are looking at me in fury. Dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket in an attempt about as successful as my first costume was at looking super.

  “You can’t stop me; you don’t deserve to stop me.” He says, standing up.

  “Kid, you’re just going to hurt people. How about we go down to the station and end this farce right now.” I say, keeping my body language as neutral as I can while in an armored super suit.

  “Fuck you. People like you are why I’m doing this!” He roars before thrusting his hands out.

  On autopilot, I leap into the air and phase fully, but as far as I can tell, nothing happened to me. Solid once more, I move forward, slamming my fist into his stomach, causing the super to double over, gasping for breath.

  “It’s over.” I place a hand to my ear. “Miracle, any suggestions of incapacitation so the earthquaker can’t use their powers?”

  “Just use the knockout juice; it’s kind of the catch-all for what I have so far.”

  Following instructions, I pull out one of the darts before sticking it in the young man, waiting for both his breathing to settle and for him to get knocked out.

  Once he’s out, I sling him over my shoulder and start making my way to a ladder so I can more easily get both of them out.

  The one thing that bothers me is that despite being back in the com system, I can’t hear Amelia blathering about something or fighting the slime monster.

  “Is there a reason I can’t hear Amelia?” I ask conversationally as I reach a ladder and begin climbing up.

  “Muted her as she screams profanities at the slime monster that won’t surrender.” Asher admits. “She’s doing pretty well just freezing chunks of it, but it’s been slow going. Pair that with the thing moving in the direction of residential buildings and you know.”

  “Containment folks already heading in their direction?” I ask, aiming in the direction I know Amelia was patrolling in earlier.

  “Yup, I could ask some to be sent to you, or?” He trails off at the inevitable conclusion of the question.

  “I’m running over, don’t worry about it.” I agree before clicking the exoskeleton button. Running with the earthquake manipulator like a sack of potatoes isn’t exactly the most flattering look either of us have felt, but I don’t have a better method.

  Tracking where Amelia has been is significantly easier than I would imagine tracking me is. While there’s nothing exactly frozen over, the trail of snow down the middle of the street is easy enough.

  As I run, I feel it start getting colder. What was once a crisp but not frigid night quickly begins to move to what I would assume is below freezing.

  It gives me a similar sensation to being next to Amelia; the cold radiating off of her. I’m betting that I’m getting really close to where most of her fight had happened.

  I find the remnants of battle first where it looks like walls and other constructs made of ice were melted through as if something just continued walking forward without stopping.

  The sound of my boot crunching against ice is my first hint that I’ve finally arrived.

  At the center of the park there stands a giant colossus in a vaguely humanoid shape. The ice sculpture is absolutely huge.

  The ice is thick enough that I can’t see inside it, and when I try to feel inside it, the thing just feels like there’s nothing but more ice and liquid inside of it all.

  Casting my net out wider I can feel Amelia on top of the ice sculpture a hand raised in victory and not far away I can feel a group of what is probably kids gathering closer along with parents at the back of the group trying to pull some of them away.

  “You want to handle the kids while I stand guard?” I offer.

  “You say that as if you have any interest in talking to people and openly being a hero.” Amelia responds as she slides down the slime anyway, moving closer to the families she protected.

  “I can do it.” I say disagreeing mostly on principle.

  “You’re going to owe me and like it.” She says instead before sliding down all the way towards the family.

  I don’t bother being stealthy, but I move up to the giant popsicle and try to be vaguely intimidating so that nobody tries to do anything.

  “That was really scary, wasn’t it?” Amelia says, crouching down to talk to the kids that gathered behind her. “But you want to know what’ll be fun to do? We could have a snow day.” She cheers snow begins to drift around them.

  “Are you sure you should be snowing out an area? I’m sure people might get upset.” Asher points out.

  “Asher, it’s December. As long as Amelia doesn’t flash freeze the city, I doubt parents will be too upset.” I defend

  “Yeah, if there was a super that gave me snow days, I probably wouldn’t be all that upset about them either.” Asher agrees after a second of thought.

  As Amelia pulls the kids away, I stand guard over the frozen slime monster, waiting for whoever’s going to be here to pick it up.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about holding the earthquake lad anymore; just setting him down on the ground should be fine.

  At the encouragement of the kids, Amelia stretches her hand up a beam of frozen light arcing into the sky as it snows, at least as far as I can see.

  It says something about our society that the first people to show up are reporters who are more than happy to talk to the new hotness that is Fractal, a newly debuted superhero.

  As the interview starts in earnest, I shirk around the slime under the personal excuse that I’m trying to see if I can find anything in there that could be controlling it.

  I can feel a few metal spheres, but I’m not sure what exactly they’re supposed to do? Could they just be where the slime stores memories and nothing related to body control?

  It could be that this person is someone entirely different?

  A trio of vans pulls up, and I move to intercept them.

  “You guys are here for the supers, right?” I say, holding my hands up in hopefully a nonaggressive motion. Thankfully, they’ve seen me enough times that it’s not a huge problem.

  “We were told that one is a vibration generator, and the other is a mutated slime?” The armored guard is motioning for his men to start preparing something.

  “Yeah,” I confirm. “The slime might be under some sort of control, but I can’t be positive.”

  The guard seems to study me for a moment, his dark visor meeting the darker eyes of my own suit before giving a shallow nod. “Thank you for the help. We’ll handle it from here.”

  The more surprising part when I look to reconvene with my partner is Amelia was waiting for me.

  “The stiffs sent everyone home real fast, though not before saying thanks, so I’m endorsed now.” Amelia jokes as she builds an ice staircase up to the top of a building.

  “That’s good, right?” I ask, taking the offered stairs up to join her.

  “Well, it means I don’t get to be a mysterious vigilante, but it’s cool.” She admits gathering the ice from the stairs and her armor before sending it into the sky.

  Hopefully, it becomes snow and not something more dangerous.

  It is fascinating to watch the trained professionals deal with the giant slime Amelia had fought, and the two of us can’t help but lounge on a rooftop watching them as we chat about our respective fights.

  “Yeah, I really didn’t know how I was supposed to stop someone who just melts through ice constructs. It was a pain.” She complains darkly. “Also, we need snack dispensers in the suit or at least one of those drinking tubes hikers use. I could have literally any ice-cold drink I want!”

  “How did you manage it anyway?” I ask part of mine directed towards my left glove and fill it with power.

  “Everything freezes eventually, so I just sorta started blasting cold energy and compacting any ice that I made.” She says, shrugging. “It’s more Horrorfrost than me, but I had to stop them somehow; you know how it is. At least I didn’t brain my opponent.”

  “You turned your opponent into a slushy.”

  “Well, I think I turned them more into a popsicle honestly; they weren’t goopy enough to be a slushy.”

  I let my mind wander back to pulling the power in my hand, trying to draw more power. Something clicks internally, and I can feel myself draining power at a prodigious rate.

  “What’s that?” Amelia asks, breaking me out of my concentration, my power snapping back ?off.

  I open my eyes in the hopes that I can catch whatever was happening while I was concentrating.

  No such luck.

  “No idea.” I admit pushing myself off the rooftop and back to my feet. “Just feeling inadequate recently if I need to protect people.”

  Amelia turns to face me, and I’m sure she wants to say something, but I really don’t feel like hearing it at the moment.

  Asher continues to prove his ability to break up our conversations. “Guys, I know both of you just took on a super respectively, but there’s a gang fight, and there are reports of multiple different colors flashing about.”

  “On it.” I nod. “Give me the direction and I’ll take care of it.”

  “We’ll take care of it.” Amelia corrects. “We’re a team, right?”

  “Of course.” I agree.

  Asher reads off the address of where the calls he’s tracing are coming from, and we both take off. Fractal snowboarding her way through the streets and myself leaping across the rooftops doing my best impression of a specter through the night.

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