There was a sudden silence before the sound of more glass shattering filled my ears.

“Sorry Bryce, sorry Iris, I kept you guys waiting!” Jaye’sun said.

Perspective changes back to Jaye’sun

I assessed the area, noticing Bryce bleeding, and Iris barely conscious on the floor now, as she tried to reach a hand out.

“That was a nasty trick you pulled on me, luckily I made a call to the cops before going all the way to the location of the text that I got. The second I heard there was no report of her being found I knew something was up and bolted all the way to Iris’s house, now you’re done!” I exclaimed as I ran at Jeremy throwing a punch sending him to the ground as he let go of Bryce.

“Just tell me about his Deviation and I can handle the rest, I won’t let you get hurt anymore Bryce, what type of friend would I be if I let you take all the hits?”

“W-well his Deviation allows him to appear in the blind-spot of the last 2 people he made eye contact with, right now, it can only affect me or Iris as long as you don’t look him in the eyes.” Bryce responded with a cough.

How am I supposed to beat him if I can’t watch him? I could watch his feet but then I’ll have no idea if he was to throw a punch or try to stab me.

“Wait, Bryce, if he’s always in your blind-spot, you can let me know where he is! Once something disappears from your peripheral vision, we’ll be able to cut off a few of the locations he’s in through the process of elimination.”

“B-bet count me in, let's do it Jaye! Everytime he disappears I’ll yell now, so you know when to react.” Bryce said.

I put my hands up taking a deep breath, if I don’t make eye contact he can’t use his deviation. I just need to feel the change in the air, and listen for his footsteps.

“Now left!” Bryce Yelled.

I dodged to the right, throwing a punch making contact with Jeremy’s chest.

“Damnnit, Damnnit, Damnnit, you shouldn’t be able to see me! Leave me alone! LET ME JUST HAVE WHAT I WANT FOR ONCE!”

Jeremy swung his syringe around widely trying to stab and slash at me, but I continued to weave the hits while following his feet.

“Are you honestly satisfied like this?  Lying, and stalking people, look, I don’t know what happened in your life, and I don’t know why you hate me so much, but I know what it’s like to feel invisible. Like the world can’t see you, everything in the world is out for you, but that’s not true. If you turned your back on the world, then of course you’ll think it turned its back on you.” I responded as I looked up, looking Jeremy in the eyes.

There was a sudden silence before the sound of more glass shattering filled my ears.

He paused, stunned at what I said, not knowing how to react.

“I-I… w-why… WHY WON’T YOU HATE ME! If you won’t hate me, I won’t have a reason to HATE YOU, so HATE ME!” he screamed as he took his syringe stabbing it multiple times into my chest.

“Why?” I coughed.

“Just because you’ve done bad things, doesn’t make you a bad person. With enough time you could be someone who smiles at the world.” I said with a smile weakly.

Just then my head started to feel light as the warmth from my blood dripped down my leg.

“Jaye’sun!!!” I heard Bryce scream before falling on my arm, and everything was fading to black.

Some time passes

“Hey Jaye!, yo Jaye! Wake up man, this isn’t funny, it’s been a couple hours and you still aren’t up yet! Iris is worried about you, don’t scare her now.” Bryce said with tears in his eyes.

“Hey man, can you keep it down, my head hurts.” I said, rubbing the back of my head.

I looked around to see I was in my bedroom, with bandages wrapped around my chest. I continued to scan the room as I saw the sun was starting to rise, and Iris was asleep in a chair next to my bed.

“What time is it? Wasn’t it just the afternoon, how is the sun coming up?” I questioned.

“Are you stupid or what?” Bryce laughed.

“You’ve been out for almost 12 hours, I’ve been here watching over you, and Iris was the one who wrapped you all up, she insisted on staying, but fell asleep waiting for you to wake up.” Bryce responded.

“Wait, Jeremy, what happened to him!” I said shooting out of bed before quickly laying back down from the pain.

“Once you passed out, he broke down crying and surrendered. I used my clouds to stop my own bleeding since I didn’t have it as bad as you, and handcuffed him leaving him by the police station after getting a recording of him confessing to his crimes.” Bryce said, looking away dismissively.

“Phew, that’s good I was worried he got away, but how did you close your wounds? You were bleeding too, how are you okay?” I asked.

“Oh well, I took a gamble, but you know I’m able to control the thickness or size of the clouds I can create?” Bryce said.

“Mhm, yeah, what about it?”

“Well basically I did just that, I created a small cloud the size of my stab wound, and hardened them to fill my wounds, and stop the bleeding. I had no idea if it would work, but as you can see it clearly did. But man, I don't care about me, how are you?” Bryce said worryingly.

“You think I would let something like this stop me? I do admit though, even though he wasn’t strong he was a tough opponent, I have no way of really dealing with piercing damage like how you can. I’m able to partially absorb the kinetic energy of any hit I receive, but being stabbed doesn’t take much energy. Honestly I don’t know what I would have done if what I said didn’t work.” I said while looking down.

“And Iri-”

“Yeah she’s fine Jaye, once the sedative wore off, she was pretty much fine, I guess it was only to transport her a short distance, so the effect wasn’t that long, but it sure did pack a punch. I’m telling you though once she woke up, and saw you bleeding, I’ve never seen her act so fast.” Bryce laughed.

“H-huh, are you guys talking about me?” Iris questioned, rubbing her eyes.

“Jaye’sun you’re awake! I was so worried about you!!!” she exclaimed, hugging me tightly.

She felt so warm, and now that I thought about it, it was the first time any woman other than my mom had hugged me before.

“Owww, I’m happy to see you’re fine yourself Iris, but uhm can you maybe let go… my wounds still hurt.” I said quietly, before she suddenly jumped back looking away embarrassingly. 

“So is this bad timing, but have any of y’all gone shopping for homecoming?” Bryce asked.

“Oh shit that is next week isn’t it? I can’t believe it’s already mid october, ever since I manifested my Deviation time has been flying by. Well, that’s probably because we keep getting into fights, recovering, then somehow ending right back into another one.” I said.

“Homecoming? We never had one at my old school, we didn’t really have any sports teams, plus well, I kinda stopped taking part in things after my Deviation was made public.” Iris responded.

“Jaye, we gotta go shopping, and this time together! We remember what happened last year when you picked out your outfit on your own.” Bryce said with a snicker.

“Shut up Bryce, you’re always an asshole, it wasn’t that bad… I mean only a few people laughed…” I said quietly.

“A few? Dude you had on khakis, and some random polo shirt, and your tie wasn’t even done properly, it was hilarious.” he said, laughing harder.

“Okay, okay, I get the point, we can go shopping together this year, you better have me looking good though with all the game you’re talking about.” I responded by punching his shoulder.

We both started to laugh, before Iris couldn’t hold it anymore and started to laugh with us. 

“You guys are the best! I really needed this. I’m so grateful to make friends who truly care about each other, no hiding how you feel, and just being brutally awesome.” Iris smiled, wiping away the tears that were starting to form.

“You’re always crying Iris, I don’t know how you could be so emotional.” Bryce said.

“Well pardon me, for being allowed to feel, I’ll make sure to check in with you next time before crying.” she said annoyed.

“What! You know I didn’t mean it that way!” Bryce exclaimed.

“Mhmmm, sure you didn’t. But I do have one issue…” Iris said.

“What’s wrong Iris?” I asked.

“How do I explain to my parents about one, where I’ve been, and two the shattered glass… you guys did kinda break both my bedroom windows…” Iris said.

“Damn we did kinda do that… maybe we can just blame it on some random kids playing outside… or like a bird or something hit it…” I said.

“A bird Jaye’sun? Yeah let’s just go with the kids playing outside, and they broke it.” Bryce responded.

Iris yawned, before stretching, and grabbing her bag.

“Well, if we’re all good now, I think I should get heading back home. I told my dad I was at a friend's house, so I should be on my way!” Iris smiled before leaving and waving goodbye.

“So we did it huh?” I said to Bryce.

“Yeah guess so, but we really did get our asses kicked by someone with no fighting experience, like isn’t that embarrassing?” Bryce asked

“Literally, we also were struggling with dealing with just his syringe, imagine what would happen if he had an actual knife, we probably wouldn’t be here now.” I responded.

“Exactly, after homecoming we got a lot of training to do, so next time we won’t end up as beat up.” Bryce said.

He was right, it was kinda embarrassing especially if we’re supposed to be heroes, but that did get me wondering what the real “heroes” go through everyday. What goes on in G.O.D? What do they endure during practice? What type of villains do they fight?

“Well I’ll see you later Jaye, if you need anything just call.” Bryce said with a wave.

“Wait but I don’t have a ph-”

I looked over by my bedside seeing a brand new phone, and all.

“Thanks Bryce.” I said with a smile.