The battle of rock, paper scissors on who has to make the phone calls is long and arduous, and unfortunately, I’m the one who lost, which means I have to be the one who contacts people.

  While Amelia cooks lunch with Bianca, I call Travis a part of me hoping that he won’t respond.

  “Hey Jason.” He greets. “Do you want to cancel or something?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. I wanted to ask if you would come to a meeting tonight. I’m going to have to ask you for a favor, and I would rather do it in person than over the phone,” I laugh, rubbing the back of my head.

  “How big of a favor?”

  “One that I only give fifty-fifty odds on you agreeing to.”

  “Super work?”

  “It’s definitely like that,” I say, trying to keep most of it vague.

  “Are you and Amelia already good enough to go back in the field? The two of you have been running around a lot recently,” Travis asks, concern breaking through his impartial facade.

  “We have to be, because if we aren’t nobody else is going to protect our home,” I say calmly.

  “Where is this meeting going to be?”

  “You know the hydraulic clock tower?”

  “Got it go to your superhero base though I won’t be going in costume,” Travis says, which I hope is jokingly.

  Though that does beg the question of should Amelia and I be going in costume to it or not? It’ll be obvious who we are because of the suits, but.

  “Thank you so much,” I say, trying to push all the ?sincerity I feel in that statement through my voice.

  “Don’t worry about it. Text me the time and I’ll make sure that I show up,” Travis commands.

  “Can do, thanks again and bye.”

  Travis echoes a similar goodbye, and I escape the first phone call without any issues.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad,” Amelia calls from the kitchen. “Now you just have to do the actual hard one. Thank god you’re a hoarder, cause if I had gotten that business card, I would have for sure lost it.”

  I grumble to myself as I retrieve the business card ?the lady from Containment gave me so long ago, flipping it around to see the number scribbled on the back.

  No time like the present.

  Punching the number in, I put my phone to my ear expecting to hear the sounds of ringing, but there is none.

  When checking my phone, it says the call is going through, though beyond that I can’t tell.

  After about a minute of waiting, a familiar voice answers. “Who is it?” She says her voice flat.

  “The phaser from Silver City.” I answer, cutting to the chase. “I need to ask for a favor.”

  “We aren’t in the practice of giving rogue vigilantes more help than helping restrain and detain the captive supers they defeat.”

  “I just want a representative to come to a meeting at my super base to hear out my request. I know you have some people stationed here; they respond too fast to what Fractal and I have been doing.” I plead. “I can’t do this on my own, so I need some help that only you guys can offer.”

  I can hear her drumming her fingers against the phone as she thinks, each tap sending a vibration through the microphone.

  “That can be arranged. Just don’t waste our time,” she says before the call clicks off.

  I sigh in relief, my shoulders slumping. That had gone better than I expected, but truly I don’t think what we dealt with is over.

  “To free you from your burden, I texted Asher since he’s not even up yet.” Amelia says, flashing me a smile as she walks towards me, Bianca in her arms. “And to increase your burdens here’s Bianca.”

  I accept Bianca holding her in my arms as I plan out the rest of the day. “Hey Bianca?” I ask, tapping her on the nose.

  She giggles, moving away from me or at least leaning her head back.

  “Would you want to play with our powers today? All three of us?” I ask, waving a hand in front of her face and phasing it as it passes through the air.

  Bianca watches the appendage with fascination before wires spin out of her hands, wrapping around my solid wrist and shaking it in excitement.

  “This sounds like a training montage. Sign me up!” Amelia laughs, a flurry of snowflakes beginning to fall around us.

  “A little bit I’m sure you want to do stuff with your powers too though.”

  “Duh, who wouldn’t want to goof off with super powers especially in the middle of playing games with the family? But is there a space we can use, it’s not like Bianca and I are subtle, and you want somewhere with layers?”

  “I was thinking the clock tower?”

  “Asher has been retrofitting parts of it for training even if he says it’s not ready yet,” Amelia muses, rubbing a hand against her chin.

  “But we’re mostly going to be playing superheroes with Bianca, right?” I ask the small girl, getting a brilliant smile in return.

  “You never have to try and convince me to be a mild inconvenience against someone. Let me finish lunch and then we can go,” Amelia says, wandering back to the kitchen.

  “What’s even left for you to do?” I ask following to continue the conversation.

  “I must cut them into triangles so that I can increase the amount of vibes per sandwich.”

  Sometimes I wonder what it’s like in Amelia’s head. And statements like that are what convince me that I am better off not knowing whatever is going on in there.

  “Bianca want to help me pick out snacks to take with us?” I ask, opening the fridge and peering into its depths looking for untold secrets.

  While Amelia finishes cutting the sandwiches into triangles, Bianca and I fill up a bag with snacks and drinks for us to have on what I guess could be called a sort of picnic.

  Though we have replaced frisbee and other sports with what’ll be some kind of probably lethal game for anyone who’s not a super. Regardless of that, I do pack a blanket for either when Amelia is cold or if we want to have a picnic on the roof.

  Lunch is a mostly silent affair, but that’s the kind I love. Just being with the people I hold most dear to me in the world is more than enough for me.

  Once we’re ready to go, we pile into the car, driving towards the clock tower, the familiar roads passing us by.

  “Have you noticed we get around faster when out doing heroics than we are like civilians?” Amelia asks, leaning her head forward through the gap between the passenger and driver seats.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed. What about it?”

  “Just funny that us running around bouncing off rooftops and extreme snowboarding is faster than driving a car.”

  “Guess you’re going to have to train Bianca on how to move like a superhero so that we can move around even faster,” I comment jokingly.

  I can hear the sound of it flying over Amelia’s head as she lets out a gasp of excitement, rocketing back so that she can face Bianca easily.

  “Okay, B so when you’re older we’re going to teach you how to be a trapeze artist or something so you can jump off a rooftop like daddy and just go “thwip” and wrap a wire around something and swing like an absolute badass!” She chatters excitedly.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, I can see a little snow and ice demonstration of a girl using wires to swing around as if they’re in a jungle swinging from vine to vine.

  My attention returns to the road as we get ever closer, letting the almost entirely one-sided conversation carry on behind me.

  Once we arrive, unloading is a quick affair, and we scamper into and up the clock tower till we get to the floor Asher has been transitioning into a training hall.

  Pulling my attention outwards, I let my senses expand out of the monochromatic world filling my mind, showing Bianca reaching her hand to the ceiling.

  Does she want to be picked up?

  That thought lasts until a wire spits out of her hand, wrapping around an exposed support, and she swings off giggling madly as she goes.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Amelia crosses her arms behind me and smiles brightly.

  “You knew this was going to happen.”

  “No, I expected it. Besides, it’s not like a fall from this height would hurt her, right?” Amelia asks, grabbing the tote bag from me and putting it near the door so that it should remain hopefully safe.

  I tilt my head from side to side as I consider the question. Almost certainly, Bianca is physically tough enough that it shouldn’t hurt her, but I don’t know if it would scare her or not.

  “Hey B!” Amelia calls, waving to Bianca, who’s now spinning in place. “We’re going to play rescue the princess. Do you want to be the princess or the rescuer?”

  Bianca lowers herself to the ground wires retracting as she considers this incredibly important question before she indicates that she does not want to be the princess.

  “So are you the princess or am I the princess?” I ask while moving to the center of the room.

  “You are obviously the evil ne'er-do-well who captured me, and the knight Bianca is here to save me.” Amelia says creating a tiny ice tower for her to stand on before creating a frozen tiara on her head.

  “Are you sure, Bianca?” I ask, trying to decide how much I’m willing to fight her.

  Bianca gives me a nod before summoning several wires, all of them trailing behind her like a veil.

  “Penalty for Jason, you can only use the abyssal knight mode for this round!” Amelia says, a snowball thrown at the back of my head.

  I slip to the side trying to figure out what she means by abyssal knight, which lasts all of a second. There's really only one thing that it could be.

  “Okay.”

  Bianca bounces up and down excitedly.

  “You going to try and beat me to save the princess?” I ask, putting on my best evil villain voice.

  Bianca nods seriously.

  “Then you’ll have to get past me,” I laugh incredibly poorly before I dart forward, closing the distance between Bianca and I in a surge of movement.

  I reach out to grab her as she gasps with excitement; the wires wrap around a wall and pull her out of my reach.

  I duck under the attack coming from behind me before another snowball is tossed. “No mind powers, just the evil villain mode!”

  Retracting my awareness, I dash towards the space between Bianca and Amelia, planting myself between the two.

  Bianca shoves her hands, and a column of woven wires fly at me.

  I spike my power hard, letting it crash into me, forcing me to take a step back but still standing.

  When I try to move on my own, however, I feel as if I’m pushing against my own ability, which shouldn’t be right. I’ve moved multiple times when doing this, catching the sword or the fight against Lance.

  “Winner Bianca!” Amelia cheers from behind me.

  Looking up, I realize Bianca had swung herself around while I was catching the wire blast to the chest.

  “So, Jason, could you not move when you’re being tall, dark, and mysterious; is the need to pose too strong?” Amelia asks, fussing over Bianca and wiping away imaginary smudges. “You fought really hard, didn’t you, B, that bad villain capturing me and then you saving me.”

  Bianca nods in agreement as I let my power fade.

  “Yeah, I don’t know if there’s something I was doing unconsciously that I don’t know how to do at the moment.” I shrug. “So who gets to be the princess now?”

  Bianca points to me.

  “Does that mean I captured Daddy or did you capture him, stealing him from me?” Amelia gasps, a pair of ice hands slapped to her cheeks to exaggerate the surprise.

  Bianca points to herself, giggling.

  “Alright, princess, get up there and I’ll save you.” Amelia says, hopping off her ice tower. “I expect a reward.” She flirts, winking.

  “Whatever you want.” I shrug, climbing up and sitting down. “So the loser gets to be the princess next round?”

  “I was thinking so now you get to give me a penalty that I have to work around just like how I told you to do what you’re worst at.” Amelia says setting Bianca down and scampering along to the other side of the room.

  “Uh, I don’t know what would be good.” I admit after a few seconds of thought.

  “That’s a brilliant idea Jason I will restrict myself to no manipulating ice, just blasting cold out and freezing stuff. Smart.” She says, dusting ice off of herself and making it vanish.

  Amelia didn’t even last as long as I did against Bianca.

  Turns out freezing the wires doesn’t do a ton when she can just summon more and stop focusing on that set.

  Amelia mopes her way up to the princess tower, taking the tiara off of my head and slapping it onto her own as I take the stage, though this time Bianca asks to be the villain instead of playing knight.

  As I mentally prepare myself, I try to capture the feeling I had last time. I was able to pull it off both times because of being incredibly emotional, but to control that, what did I do?

  The black energy circles from my eyes to the rest of my body in smooth loops flowing back in.

  Might as well try it.

  At the signal, I push my power hard, my body and clothes becoming an abyss as I continue pouring energy into my body, using the circulation of it to move.

  Wires clang against me as I move forward.

  My charge into battle was even going quite well until I tripped, falling ass over teakettle and rolling in the direction of the tower.

  On a whim, I return to normal and move faster, not feeling the burden of having to micromanage all of my movements, vaulting over a set of wires and twisting under a third to come face to face with Bianca.

  I tap her on the nose. “Got you.” I say before standing up and moving towards the tower. “Princess, the hero has arrived.” I say, doing a joke of a bow.

  “You promised me a reward earlier. It's time to pay up.” Amelia says, leaping into my arms.

  “No, I promised you a reward if you saved me. You failed remember?” I point out dropping her onto the ground. “Now it’s you versus me.”

  “A tale as old as time. Now I’m going to turn you into a Jasoncicle,” Amelia says, standing up and shoving me back towards where I had started last game.

  “Same limitations?” I ask, stretching my wrists out. Unlike Bianca, Amelia offers significantly more capability in stopping me.

  Besides the fact she’s also just straight up better at most of this stuff than I am.

  “Yup, only the abyssal knight mode for you and only freezing stuff for me.” Amelia says, shadowboxing the air. “And once I win, I’ll make you the princess and get my reward.”

  “This seems like a complicated plan,” I point out, trying to decide what the best method of breaking past Amelia is.

  I’m probably not fast enough while using my powers to blow past her, but if I’m not using my abilities, I won’t be able to break out any of the ice she puts in my way.

  “What are your thoughts on letting me have my phasing fully instead?” I ask a plan coming to mind.

  “Only if it is always only full-body phasing.” Amelia responds, checking her nails.

  “Nevermind.” I shrug. It was worth a shot, but, eh.

  “Ready, steady, go!” Amelia calls, blasting a wave of cold energy in front of me, trying to imprison me with an ice wall from the jump.

  I vault over the burgeoning wall, my left foot going black as I use it to smash through a few pillars and get to somewhere not slicked over. “Is there a reason that you didn’t freeze the air when you were against Bianca?” I call charging forward.

  “I need to spoil her, and you need to grow,” Amelia quips, slamming her foot against the ground, a rippling wave of cold freezing the surface.

  Hoping that it’ll work, I spike my power and continue running across the ice. Not sure what it is exactly, but something about using my power this way makes it harder for other forces to oppose me.

  Slipping on ice, thankfully, appears to be one of them.

  As I close the distance between myself and Amelia, I catch a flash of snow-white hair from the corner of my vision as Bianca watches, a smile beaming across her face.

  The game isn’t can I beat Amelia.

  An eight-foot-tall wall of ice freezes into existence between me and Amelia, though it’s too late for me to change directions, so I crash into it, leaving a Jason-shaped crater against it.

  The wall doesn’t seem to respond to me all that kindly, and it begins to freeze me inside a small bubble.

  With a roar of effort, I blast myself back towards the direction that I came from, my power fading without my permission.

  Crap, I lost focus.

  I don’t need my power for my new plan, though. While I wish I could tell where Amelia is, I don’t exactly need to if this works.

  Jumping on ice isn’t exactly easy, but ?breaking the ice wall has given me enough traction that I cleanly get into the air, landing on the ice wall without a struggle.

  “Hey wait, that’s cheating!” Amelia complains, looking at me.

  “And I like winning,” I laugh, pushing off of the wall and twisting through the air to dodge the ice blasts.

  I manage to not totally screw up my landing as I touch down next to Bianca. “I believe the princess was looking for a rescue?”

  “I want a rule change. The game isn’t fair if we just need to get to the princess! Because then it’s way easy for all of us to just blow past the other one.” Amelia complains as she walks up and joins us at the top of the miniature tower.

  “Are you trying to take my win away from me?” I tease sitting down.

  “No, I just want to make it more exciting.” Amelia lies as she sits in my lap before pulling Bianca into her own lap.

  “That’s fair. Though if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t have been able to do it unless you had given me something to vault off of.”

  Amelia complains for a second before coming to a conclusion. “Is there a reason we’re sitting up here with our butts getting cold when we could go over where the blanket and snacks are?”

  “Because I wanted to rest my head against something cool after that.” I admit.

  Bianca and Amelia look at me like I’m some sort of idiot.

  “I want to do another match where I have to get past you either beating you or getting to and escaping Bianca. Same power limitations. I have something I want to try,” Amelia says, extricating herself from the pile of people we’ve become.

  “You good being the princess again?” I ask Bianca as I stand up.

  Bianca nods excitedly before climbing up on top of the railing to see the battlefield better.

  It’s going to be a pain to clean up most of this ice even if Amelia can make it go away with a wave of her hand.

  Once I’m back in position, I focus on the mental image of my power spinning out in loops around me, and I push it just to the brink of me spiking my power as solid as possible.

  On the signal, I run forward before I’m met with a wave of cold. As soon as I got within ten feet of Amelia, it’s as if the only reason the air itself hasn’t frozen is just because she hasn’t willed it.

  On reflex, I let my power flow out my entire body, darkening right as something slams into my shoulder.

  An icicle.

  She’s freezing the ice above me and letting gravity do the rest.

  As the ice rains down on me, I try to break through the falling barriers as fast as I can, but she can create the ice faster than I can smash through or run past it.

  I switch back to fully normal, taking a few strikes to the body from the hail before phasing and escaping the ice prison. “You definitely won!” I call out, trying to warm my body back up.

  I’ve been playing around for like thirty minutes with it and I’m already feeling like I’m running on empty; that’s wrong. My power feels as full as ever, but my head is killing me.

  “I had the thought when you were on your trying to walk on air arc. I can’t freeze anything just by looking at it. But I can make an area so full of my magic mojo that with a snap I can crystalize some ice.” Amelia explains as she cleans the place.

  “You’re not getting rid of all of it?” I watch as the ice coalesces into a large ball.

  “Nah, Asher showed me how to put the ice into the tower’s reservoirs where it would melt. May as well keep our pace extra-self sufficient.” She explains.

  Once the ice is cleaned up and we’ve had a quick snack break, it's right back to super power play, that’s doubling as training for myself.

  And maybe Amelia? It’s hard to tell what she’s doing.

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