The shiftbeast's tail licked across the ground. It glowered at the old woman clutching her tote bag of groceries to her chest, her knees buckling as it padded closer. Its long claws scraped the sidewalk, green and curling, too long to retract. Brown blood residue clung to the small grooves of its canines that curled from its mouth to its chin. Its ears and long, white whiskers twitched.
Tory's heart thudded behind his silver-coated chest as he watched the scene play out. He crouched low on the roof of the apartment building, copying the stance of the shiftbeast, and held his watch next to his mouth.
"Now?" He whispered.
"Wait," a woman's voice returned, the watch’s audio filtered and crackling.
The old woman backed up against the brick wall and looked up, her eyes searching the building above her for some kind of fire escape or anywhere to climb. She held the tote bag like a shield. Her hand began to wander to her purse at her hip, her eyes skittering back to the shiftbeast as it coiled up like a spring ready to pounce. Its orange slitted eyes narrowed on her.
"Now?" His voice was grittier and more insistent.
"Wait."
The shiftbeast rocketed toward the woman. It slammed her into the brick wall and dug its curling claws into her tote bag, tearing through it like tissue paper. Eggs tumbled to the ground and burst across the pavement. She screamed.
"Wait, not yet—"
He pushed off the roof and shot towards the shiftbeast.
He barrelled into the creature, wrapping his arms around it and tackling it to the ground. It yowled and swiped at him, raking its claws ineffectively down his silver gilded arms. Tory sprang away from the shiftbeast and knelt, touching the ground two feet away from it.
The cement responded to his touch, becoming wet and cakey, and pillars of wet cement launched from the ground. The shiftbeast's paw slammed into the cement and sank into the pillar.
Under Tory's control, the cement hardened around its paw and caught the yowling creature in place. It screeched in panic and scrabbled at the stuck paw. The remaining pillars of cement curled around the creature and planted on the other side, trapping it in a makeshift cage in the middle of the sidewalk.
Tory's chest heaved and his knees shook. He wanted to drop to the ground, staring at the creature yowling and grinding its long canines against the cement encasing its paw.
"Easy, kitty."
He touched the bar of cement, turning it wet again. It ripped its paw away and laid on the ground, licking it tenderly. It paused its licking to growl at him, then went back to licking.
"Don't stop, you need to pose!" The voice in his watch chimed.
He rolled his eyes and went over to the old woman and helped her to her feet.
"A little late on the draw, there, kiddo," she mumbled, dusting off her jean dress and fixing her short, silver wig.
"She wanted me to wait," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I get it. Heighten the drama for views."
"Are you alright?"
She craned her neck back and forth, then stretched her left arm over her right shoulder. "I've been in the acting industry a long time, kid. This is nothing."
He snorted. She shared a crooked smile with him, then nodded at the cement cage.
"Go finish the job. I need a smoke."
Tory wasn't sure what she meant for a moment by finish the job, his heart in his throat—he couldn't kill it—but then he realized.
He walked back over to the cage and sprang into the air, then landed on top of it, his hands on his hips. He felt completely ridiculous, but he flashed a grin and gave a corny thumbs-up to the old woman.
"Cut!" A voice echoed across the street, and the film crew peeled away from the shadows. People with cameras, lighting equipment, microphones, and clipboards hustled around.
"Nice job, Everlux." A guy with dark hair, patchy facial hair, and eyebags in his mid-thirties gave him a thumbs up, his voice grizzled and low. He was behind several of the hovering cameras, his eyes boring into the raw footage of one as he reviewed it. "You looked real good. Like a hero."
Like a hero was the keyword.
The producer of their project stormed out of the crowd and glared at Tory, which was a similar sensation to being impaled by two icicles.
"Thanks, Ben!" He beamed, then turned his grin to the producer, whose icy look defrosted into vexation.
"You know the script, Everlux. Why did you ignore me twice?" She put her hands on her hips, her perfect blond eyebrow arching high. Tory swallowed down a comment about her botox wearing out.
"You were making me wait too long. I had to jump in." His voice modulator warbled and made his voice sound much deeper than it was.
"You realize you look completely ridiculous jumping on the cage after going to check on the old woman?"
Tory shrugged. He was pretty sure he would look ridiculous either way. She sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose—a very familiar expression.
"Ey, uh, Mrs. Mayor?" Ben pushed down one of the hover cameras so that the producer could see his face.
Her eyes rolled up for a second before she looked at him. "I've told you a thousand times. It's Madam Mayor, Benjamin. Mayor isn't my last name, it's my title. Lest everyone forget." She shot a look at Tory before turning back to Ben. "Or just Diane. That’s completely fine."
Tory pretended not to notice, combing his hair and using his phone's camera like a mirror. Tall and fluffy and sky blue, like he was straight out of a comic.
"Ah, well, good news, Muh-dahme Mayor." Ben grinned, and Tory was pretty sure he saw a few strands of Diane's hair visibly gray. "The sponsor is visible in the background. The blimp slid in just in time. We’ll be rolling in that sweet Hoverworks cash in no time."
Her expression, her shoulders, everything about her lightened. "Really! Let me see."
She moved behind Benjamin and watched the raw footage. Tory was pretty sure he knew what he was about to see—he'd done this whole thing a thousand times—but his curiosity got the better of him. He slid in behind the mayor and watched it play back.
The framing and positioning of the camera made it look like a shaky fancam, but it got every angle that it was supposed to. The woman backing up against the brick wall. Her terrified face as the shiftbeast grew closer.
Suddenly, a silver streak burned across the screen, reflecting a solar flare of light across the lens. The shiftbeast was gone from the old woman, and the camera, mocking the hand movements of a bystander on a phone with its programmed hovering pattern, swept to zoom in on Tory's face.
Well, it wasn't really his face. It was Everlux's. A silver mask with an electric blue outline around his eyes and an opening around his mouth and the end of his nose, a shock of blue hair funneling from the top.
His silver and blue suit was blinding in the afternoon sun's glow—just as the mayor had planned. Any fumbles he made while fighting the shiftbeast seemed like nothing compared to his effervescence. Before he knew it, the beast had been caught, and he was sweeping over to the old woman's side.
Tory grimaced. He hadn't meant for that to look so...oh, what was the word? Dashing? Corny? Ugh. What did he care?
Tory tugged at the neck of his suit. It was absolutely sweltering. Silver wasn't exactly breathable. He wasn't sure if effervescence was worth all of that.
"Your people can make his shoulders broader and waist more trim? And if there's anything you can do about his height..."
Tory rolled his eyes. He looked perfect, as far as he was concerned. Perfectly blinding.
"We're experts, Madam Mayor," Ben assured her. "I've been in the social media game since my pops gave it up. We hired that damsel in distress Patricia specifically 'cause she's 5'2''. He'll look tall in comparison. And I've been around the block with her before. She's...eh, discreet."
"We are still having her sign the NDA."
"'Course, 'course."
"He is the most popular hero in Gale City. We need any knowledge that I’m involved in his business on complete lockdown."
Tory wandered away from their conversation, his eyes drifting over to the rest of the crew. They were huddled together. Despite the fact that he was practically their coworker, and had been for the last year, he didn't really know them. Some of them pointed and whispered toward his general vicinity.
The film crew packed up quickly, moving everything into the back of their black van. It was shiny and new, standing out against the rest of the road, its blue glowing disk between its four wheels releasing a loud puff of air as it slowly lifted into the sky.
Everything else here was ancient. Old brick buildings, cracked sidewalks, broken windows, cars that had run on gasoline once upon a time before being either updated or abandoned. There were even some that weren't hover vehicles.
He hadn't been to this side of town much before—he couldn't imagine living here.
He looked back at the sidewalk, where animal trainers were dragging the shiftbeast back into its cage to be shipped back to DOME labs. They had broken through his cement cage and dragged it by a lead and collar to its proper one, leaving the sidewalk wrecked. Someone placed an orange safety cone beside the broken sidewalk.
A woman wearing a blue and red supersuit and a red mask, part of the mayor's personal retinue of hero security, stepped into the center of the road and held out her hand. A green light pinged from her hand, and a green barrier surrounding them from all sides became visible, then slowly disintegrated and rushed back into her palm. She closed her fist and took a deep breath, a sheen of sweat covering her deep brown skin.
"We're back in the public eye." She nodded sharply to Diane, then walked over to the sleek black hover car with tinted windows and leaned back on it, finally letting her exhaustion show just a little bit.
Diane got into the back seat. Tory was about to take off into flight, but she met his eyes and curled her finger towards him.
Ah, shit. He was really in trouble this time.
He sat in the car, and Diane put up the divider window between themselves and the driver.
"Victor Bartholomew James Burns." She turned to him, her cool mayoral expression melting into complete exasperation. "We have a script in place for a reason. The director and the camera crew don't know that you're as young and inexperienced as you are, so they don't mind when you do things like tackle the shiftbeast as long as it looks authentic. They don’t know you’re only seventeen."
"Oh my gosh, Mom." He groaned and slumped against the seat dramatically. "I didn’t know what to do. That thing was gonna eat her!"
I don’t even want to be here.
She softened a little and reached over, fixing some of his blue strands of hair.
"I know you’re doing your best. But young man, Patricia is a professional. The shiftbeast has a shock collar! And there were experts all around you if it really looked like it was getting out of hand."
"Yeah..." He frowned at the window.
Apartment buildings blurred underneath them as the hover car joined a stream of air traffic, sweeping around one-hundred-story buildings that reflected the golden and orange sunset back.
Flashing advertisements rotated around skyscrapers. There were hologram ads of auto accident attorneys, cybernetic enhancement surgeons, and restaurants (now with android delivery!) plaguing every window, every hovering billboard, every inch of space where there wasn’t traffic direction.
From where he sat, Tory saw Everlux’s face on at least four different billboards, and one of them was an incredibly large toothpaste ad from four months ago showing off a smile as shiny as his silver costume.
Everlux was everywhere, constantly, always impeccable and charming. His white smile said, “Yeah, I know. You either want to be me, kiss me, or both. That’s a natural response.”
“I know not everything seems very heroic to you right now, but I promise what we are doing together—expanding the Everlux brand—will eventually make sense.”
Most heroes did not taint themselves by participating in commercializing their image for money and fame. Everlux, on the other hand, was what was known as a social hero. He was more of a celebrity than anything else. Sometimes he actually did save the day or fight a super villain, but that was more for appearances than it was for the greater good.
“I need Everlux to be well known. I need him to have an even bigger fanbase than Dynamus did. Your influence will help my cause—it will help the entire city someday. Trust me.”
Tory shrugged. She had given that spiel a million times. His mother was whip smart when it came to political strategy and getting her way, so maybe she was right, but he was still allowed to be grumpy.
They flew past the Paragon Guild as they drove closer to Central Gale City—opulent and grand, with statues of late heroes, a tall arched doorway, marble pillars, and glass-stained windows featuring angular heroic silhouettes. One of the staples of the city, the guild was the working hive of all of the heroes of the city and took care of their training, hero assignments, income, and general wellness. It was led by the Paragon Council, a group as powerful as the mayor herself. That was precisely why she had decided to become a member of the council—she wanted as much influence as she could get.
She still avoided it like the plague for whatever reason, forbidding Everlux from interacting with the guild or any of the heroes in it at all.
Diane touched his arm lightly, and he looked at her. Her eyes were soft as she smiled at him. "That party you wanted to go to tonight with your, ah, friend, Alex? That’s going to be at Martin Ramos’ house, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Good family, the Ramos’. The parents are going to be around, yes? Supervising?”
There was no way the parents were going to be around. It was a senior party to kick off their final school year—no underclassmen allowed, and it was mostly his old soccer teammates who were invited.
“It’s kind of a small thing. Just friends hanging out. I’m sure his parents will be around.”
“Good. Anything, even innocuous things, can become bad press for either one of us. So just stay on your toes, and leave if anything is amiss. And don’t post about anything on your socials without running it through our team first. Don’t let anyone else post pictures of you, either.”
Tory nodded. He just wanted a normal night, having fun with his friends. Normal.
“Okay.”
"Just make sure you have your phone on the whole time and that you check it. I could need Everlux. And make sure you keep your watch on you and you wear your rings.”
The moment she said that, he knew he would not be keeping his phone on. He didn’t want to be a Friday night headline—he wanted to have fun.
"Yeah, sure." He smiled his most dashing smile, as white as the toothpaste advertisement.
He was going to be sore and exhausted at the party tonight. He sighed softly and wondered what it would be like to be ordinary. No powers, no mayor for a mother, no face plastered across a million advertisements.
Just another civilian in Gale City.
Like his best friend Alex.
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