Chapter 2: Drawn Deeper

A full month had passed since the incident, which James took as a sign that there wasn’t going to be a sniper bullet attempting to lodge in his head for now, though a part of him wondered if such a thing would actually harm him now.

Exams had come, and James had crushed them. Anything else wasn’t really an option.

He had already been admitted to Empire University, a preeminent university within Devil’s Rest, and gotten the scholarship he had expected, both for his grades and for being a ward of the state. The cash sitting in his apartment was enough to last a bit if push came to shove. Though he had run the calculations again and was realizing he would need more.

With that new consideration, he had even signed up for a summer course to fulfill a general English requirement, and had decided on a course called Ethics and the Law, 101. Really, he had just wanted something to do.

He hadn’t bothered to walk at graduation. He had gotten his diploma mailed to him and tossed the honors cord he had gotten in the trash. After all, graduations, in his opinion, were mostly for the family of the student, something he lacked.

More than that, he had a pressing issue because while the cash sitting in his apartment was nice to have, he realized that he couldn’t rightly spend any decent portion of it without having a source for the income.

Reporting some of it as cash tips seemed fairly reasonable. More than that, he had the job experience already waiting tables at Angelo’s.

He had kept an eye on the Angelos’ restaurant to make sure none of the other Angelos were bothered. He owed them even if he didn’t feel like he could face them. He did so by walking by the back alley, waiting till he spotted one of the parents, and despite the discomfort it gave him, he would look through their surface thoughts.

He had gotten another job at a bar down by the water line, only a short distance from the docks. A place called Hellen’s Bar with the symbol of a woman holding two beer mugs. Who Hellen was, he had no idea, but it wasn’t the worst place to work evenings.

He even got a free dinner out of it, something he would never turn down.

More than that, it was a local hotspot for off-duty police officers. It was a hope to catch something, anything about Franky. After all, it was a cop he had last heard about Franky’s disappearance from.

He had two other important details: the chips they had stolen had been from Adder Corp, a multinational corporation big in technology and someone who people had only referred to as the ‘Boss’ in their heads had a connection with the theft he and Frankie had committed. That information he didn’t know how to follow, so he focused on one simple objective: find a cop who knew something; after all, it had been a cop’s thoughts that had been his last clue as to what happened to Frankie’s body.

He knew he was treading dangerous ground; for dirty cops to be involved, this wasn’t a small thing.

On the other hand, teenagers didn’t always make the best decisions.

He was wiping down a table from a particularly messy group when luck turned his way after several weeks of nothing.

The police officers walked in wearing suits, not entirely out of place for the usual crowd, but their thoughts gave them away as cops as they retraced their days and laughed and chatted among each other. James instantly spotted a familiar face, Officer Rogers, and his attention instantly focused on the man.

What were the odds?

If that hadn’t given them away, James noted that the thoughts of a couple of the patrons thoughts he had glanced at had gotten a little bit nervous as they clocked the officers instantly

No other server had grabbed the officers yet, so James walked up to them, pasting on a friendly smile.

“Good evening, what can I get everyone?” James asked, his face a friendly mask while he focused on the first technique he had developed during his last month of classes; like a cloak, he shielded his face from focus. While the officers could see him, they would pay him little mind, his presence quickly becoming an afterthought unless he directly interacted with them.

Even if someone tried to focus on his features, they would immediately forget them. It was entirely visual-based, as far James could tell, having tested it on his classmates extensively, so he was uncertain what would happen if a picture was taken of him.

The police officers greeted him with friendly smiles and ordered their meals with drinks which James memorized instantly before he turned away and walked back to the kitchen feeding in the orders to the computer.

He glanced over the computer and focused on the group, utilizing a technique he had recently developed during his time here.

By scraping the surface of a person’s thoughts, he could hear what they were saying as they said it along with anything they heard. For some reason, this skill acquisition was a little more complicated than the technique he had done before, perhaps because the words people thought and used could be diametrically opposed. This technique required visual focus on a person but he found that he could maintain the connection for a bit even without visually looking at them, something he hadn’t been able to do at first. Furthermore, there was a significant drawback in that he couldn’t go deeper into the person’s mind as he maintained the technique as it took too much concentration.

James kept moving about as they talked, setting his body on autopilot.

“- the Commissioner is really cracking down right now. Can’t believe he’s still upset about that kid’s disappearance.”

James didn’t so much as blink, his mind separated right now as it kept moving about the bar, getting orders and clearing tables.

“I know,” one of the other officer's voices filtered into the man’s mind as he responded, “Plenty of kids go missing I don’t know why he’s had such a conniption about this one.”

“It’s cause he thinks Silver Ghost was involved,” another officer said sagely, garnering the officer’s mind he was reading attention.

“Silver Ghost? I thought Knight Walker put her down.”

“You know the Knight; she doesn’t kill, one of her rules or something, probably why she and the Commissioner get along so well.”

“Yeah, but still, wasn’t Silver Ghost serving time in the High-Security section of the Fort?”

“She was. She got out, though, and we don’t know how, that’s another problem the Commissioner is worried about, probably making this disappearance worse.”

“Damn, what a shit show; hope Knight Walker catches her soon.”

Officer Rogers chuckled, “Scared? She only goes after high-value targets; we’re not important enough to kill.”

“Yeah, keep thinking that, pal, if she was behind that kid’s disappearance, then I think anyone could be targeted, these Villain psychos will do anything,”

“Oh, drink your beer,” Officer Rogers chuckled, “You keep to yourselves, and everything will be fine. I investigated that case, and let me tell you, the kid was really stepping in it.”

“What do you mean?” questioned another officer.

“Just that the kid was ripping off some people he shouldn’t have; he was a criminal; it was only a matter of time before someone capped him.”

“You think he’s dead?” the other office asked frowning.

“That or he wishes he was, we only say he’s disappeared because we can’t find a body.”

“That’s cold, Rogers,” another officer said, “He was a kid.”

Rogers shrugged, raising his hands defensively, “I didn’t say he deserved it, he was just a kid. Just that it’s not like he was just some innocent teen minding his own business. Silver Ghost doesn’t kill civilians; if she was the person who killed him, then there was something else to it.”

“Suppose that’s fair,” the other officer said, sighing and nodding, “Crime in this city is never simple. You sell some drugs, and it turns out you piss off an entire outfit by being on their turf. You lift some items; you interfere with a protection racket.”

“Exactly,” Rogers nodded

James grabbed their food, balancing the trays easily with his hands as he walked across the restaurant floor.

He gave the officers a placid smile as he set down their food, “Here you go!”

James kept an eye on the officers for the rest of the night, consciously keeping his feelings at bay. They ate and drank, and when they got ready to leave, as James ran their check, he clocked out to take his break, exiting to the back of the restaurant where he pulled on an outfit he had packed away for a week.

It was an all-black assemble with a mask he pulled up over his mouth and a hoodie he pulled over his head. He wore black pants and gloves along with a pair of boots.

James took a couple of deep breaths, centering himself before he kicked off the ground, and his body shot into the air, landing without a sound on a nearby roof.

He walked without a sound across the roof, waiting with bated breath until the officers walked out in a huddle. He narrowed his eyes, focusing on Officer Rogers, who, after some words, split off from the group and started walking down the street.

James followed across the rooftops, waiting for an opportunity to ambush the man.

It was with dread that he saw the man walking to one of the subway stairs that he realized he was going to have to move his timetable up.

Which meant he would have to use his power.

He focused on Officer Rogers and pushed one singular thought into the man’s mind: go into the next alley. James felt the thought catch and the man shifted, walking down an alley where the only light came from the side of the street as the bulb had gone out.

No reasonable person would walk into such darkness in Devils Rest.

James dropped down, his eyes centered on the man who was now turning about, bewildered as the compulsion faded.

James hammered a shot into the man’s gut, relying on his newly obtained knowledge to go for a shot to the kidney.

Officer Rogers was sent flying to land with a meaty thud against the wall, choking as he clutched his stomach.

James didn’t care stalking up to the man and narrowing his eyes at him.

“What the fuck,” gasped Officer Rogers looking up at him.

“Franklin Rose,” James growled, attempting to jog the officer’s mind onto the right topic. He looked down at the man, who stared back at him. His thoughts ran through the other man's mind as he attempted to catch a glimpse of what the man knew.

The kid who was stealing from the Boss. What the-

James growled, frustration leaking through him, “Whose the Boss?”

Doesn’t know the Boss? Who is this guy? Everyone knows the Boss; he runs everything in Devil’s Rest.

“Who is he?” growled James, slamming a fist into the wall next to Officer Rogers and blowing chunks of stone out of it.

The Hell, do I look like? Why would I know the Boss?

Officer Roger stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Goddamnit!” James grabbed the man’s shirt collar with one hand and pulled his other fist back, ready to paste Officer Roger’s face over the wall.

The barrier he had erected in his mind had somehow shattered, James realized. Emotions that had been bottled in the statute were raging through him.

He stared at the terrified officer; the officer's fragmented thoughts ran through his mind as his emotions reached a feverish pitch.

He drew his fist back. It would be so easy to crush the man’s skull. It’d barely require any effort at all.

His connection with Officer Rogers flared brightly through James’ mind as the man stared at his assailant, dressed so dark he blended into the shadows of the alley; the only thing visible was furious eyes glaring at him darkened to near pitch. His judgment facing him for all his sins.

James froze, fist still reared back, he needed to do this, he had to do this-

“Let him go, kid,” a soft female voice spoke from behind James, slowly James turned around still holding the man up to look at a dark figure standing behind him that somehow he hadn’t even heard arrive.

It was Knight Walker.

An ice-cold chill went down James' back as he looked at Knight Walker.

This was the worst-case scenario.

The barriers in his mind were instantly reassembled. He couldn’t get caught here, assaulting a police officer definitely carried a punishment he had no interest in.

He glanced at Officer Rogers and focused on drawing to the forefront of the Officer's mind the questions he had asked and then distorted them just as he did others' perceptions of him, making them impossible to recall, ignoring the slimy feeling that went through him as he did so.

He dropped Officer Rogers to the ground and backed away from him slowly as Knight Walker advanced toward him.

He didn’t say a word as he backed away.

Knight Walker stepped forward, her steps not making a sound.

James braced his feet against the ground, taking a fighting stance, his limbs braced.

“You don’t want to do this, kid,” Knight Walker said just as softly, “Whatever’s going on, you can’t let that anger control you.”

James’s lips tiredly quirked behind his mask, “You’re right,” he said simply.

Focusing his energy through his legs, he leaped straight up.

One moment, he was standing in the alley. The next, he had shot into the sky, the cold air rippling past him as he flew; he was suddenly higher than the top of the buildings he had been by. He reached out desperately for one of the roofs, and his body shifted sideways following his desires, sending him careening across the sky toward the rooftop.

He hit the flat concrete rolling across the ground till he came to his feet somewhat awkwardly.

He started sprinting across the rooftop, heading for the next one; he leaped awkwardly but soared across the space, touching down on the rooftop and continuing to run.

While he ran, he cursed to himself; he had lost control. How had that happened? What could have possibly shattered the barrier in his mind?

How the hell had Knight Walker been there? Was it just random chance?

It didn’t feel random.

Yet what else could it have been? Did she somehow have surveillance throughout the entirety of Devil’s Rest? He had been sure there were no cameras. Could it have been random chance?

Finally, he felt like he had covered enough distance and so he sat on top of a roof waiting, wondering if he would be found.

-

It was some hours later that James felt comfortable enough to go home. He had made his way to his apartment and flopped down on his couch after stripping off his gear.

“Knight fucking Walker,” he mumbled to himself tiredly.

Deciding there was nothing better to do than flick on the news, he reached out and grabbed the remote to turn on his TV.

The screen flickered on, and he navigated to the local news channel with a couple of tired clicks.

He left it on as a low background noise as he stared up at the ceiling, now finally giving himself time to think why it was exactly that he had frozen.

He had frozen before he even knew Knight Walker was there, so that wasn’t an excuse. Was it just the simple fact that, as he had looked at the terrified man, he couldn’t bring himself to end his life?

And if he wasn’t going to go after the cop, who would he go after, the Boss?

His eyes lazily fell on the television as scenes from an earlier water rescue played across the screen.

Aegis, in her classic blues and reds, easily lifted the boat free from the water, hovering above her surroundings with ease.

Classic hero stuff, but people ate it up.

Heroes…

Now that he thought about it, it wasn’t like it had been Aegis chasing him; he could have turned around and potentially fought back.

Yet even with his abilities as they were now, he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease at facing down Knight Walker. Even something like the Grim Pack he figured would beat him into the dirt like he owed them money.

So, how was he supposed to get justice for Franky?

-

Because of the class he had selected, he was able to move into the Empire University dorms early. Moving in solo would have been more of a challenge if he actually had more stuff but this wasn’t a large problem for him.

Within a couple of days, he had packed his life into boxes and gotten rid of anything he no longer needed.

He was slightly uncomfortable with having to move all of his cash, but the pile had decreased a bit, laundered as tips, into his bank account, not a lot of course, but it was something.

Handing in his keys to his apartment was a strange feeling; the apartment hadn’t been his favorite, but it had been his home for several years, leaving it behind was… well, a little weird. He had already sold all the furniture he had previously bought, having no other place to put it.

Bit after bit, he moved into his apartment, trekking across the city as he moved his life to his dorm.

Staring at his empty apartment on the third and final trip, he didn’t know how to feel. Just a little while ago, leaving this apartment would have shot glee through him.

Now he didn’t feel anything, he realized that he had gotten awfully use to pushing feelings into the statues and buildings of his mindscape, without even realizing he had pushed everything surrounding this apartment into his mind’s representation of it.

“Well, that’s it,” he turned and shrugged the last bags over his shoulder and began his trek to Empire University’s campus.

The campus itself was nestled within the city, as were the dorms, and his dorm was on a corner of the campus in a fairly nice single room that he had managed to snag all to himself. As it was a dorm, he had lost the personal kitchen, but he still had a shower and restroom to himself, which was nice.

He wouldn’t have been able to grab such a nice room without the scholarships, along with his own money to put into his education.

He unpacked his room thoughtfully and then was startled as he heard a knock on his dorm’s door.

He turned, frowning slightly, as he walked up to the door before he opened it to see a pretty blonde girl standing in front of him. She had long blonde hair and crystal blue eyes; she wore a plain blue t-shirt that said RA in white across it. Her form was svelte, not particularly chesty, or with a particularly large butt, but those aspects of hers were still noticeable likely because they were well shaped.

“Hey there!” she beamed at him, unwilling James was witness to her surface thoughts.

Oh. Crap. He’s cute. Focus Ana, you’ve met cute guys before, though maybe not as built as him, holy crap he’s friggen sculpted, wait I shouldn’t be-

James was taken aback, and he turned his eyes off her, not used to the effusive praise that the girl was saying in her mind. It made him oddly proud, oddly subconscious.

He double-checked to make sure he was wearing a shirt because the thoughts from the girl had been so oddly directed.

“Can I help you?” he asked softly, pasting on a small grin of his own.

“Oh right,” the girl nodded, “I’m your RA, Ana Wright,” she held out her own hand for a handshake.

Somewhat bemused, James took her hand, gently shaking it, though he noted there was far more pressure coming from her grip than he would have expected.

“James King,” James shrugged his shoulders lopsidedly, “I guess I’m just more fresh meat for the grinder,” he chuckled, a natural sounding device, that he had practiced and perfected by flaring emotions a certain way through his brain.

“Well, hello, fresh meat,” Ana grinned cheekily, “Since you’ve moved in early, it’s just us on this floor for now, well, us and another sophomore, but she’s great when you get to know her!” she beamed brightly at him.

“Wanna grab a bite to eat?”

James glanced back at his room which was unfortunately completely put together, there really wasn’t a way to avoid this without looking like an asshole.

“Oh, uh, sure,” he nodded his head, and turned back to his room to grab a pair of shoes.

Slipping them on, he turned to see Ana patiently waiting, though he could have sworn her eyes had been focused directly on him before he turned around.

Whatever, he was probably just imagining things.

They walked down the hallways and arrived at another door which Ana knocked on.

“Coming,” came a soft voice. There was an audible trudging of footsteps before the door opened, revealing a rather sleepy-looking girl with small dark circles underneath her eyes. Her hair was short and cut closely around her head, and was a deep red, contrasting against startling green eyes.

The girl groaned, and James saw the white compressing her chest shift as her two rather large breasts jutted outward as she yawned and stretched blatantly in their faces, “Sup Ana?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“Sam, you shouldn’t be sleeping so late in the day,” Ana remarked reprovingly.

“’s fine, just needed a nap to be ready for-“

She stopped looking at me even as I heard the end of the sentence in her head.

Tonight. Patrol fucking sucks while you’re doing an internship as well.

Patrol? That was an odd statement, James thought; even odder were the images it evoked of a dark city only illuminated by the lights within that pushed back the night.

“Whose the baby?” she said, her eyes trailing over James with a look that James knew was appreciation from the glimpse he had of her thoughts.

Still, it was kind of an offensive statement, wasn't it?

“Just the new freshman,” Ana shrugged, smiling warmly at the other girl, this smile looking remarkably real, just as her other one had. “He moved in early just like we did.”

“What did ya go and do that for?” Sam said, looking at James, though her thoughts to James didn’t seem as petulant as her voice sounded, it was more of a small emerging interest.

James shrugged, “I actually have a summer course here so I had to,” he said leaving out the other 80% of the reasons he had, that he was more than ready to be done with his old apartment, he needed a change of scene after seeing his friend die, that he just wanted to do something, and that he needed to not put on the black clothing again and jump around the city.

“What’re you taking?” Ana asked with interest on her face, combing some of her blonde hair back.

James shrugged, “Ethics and Law, basic 101 course, but I wanted something to do this summer.” he gave the pair a half grin.

“Wanted to get out of the parents' hair?” Sam asked, giving him a commiserating smile, “I feel that.”

Ah, yes, parents, that was something normal people had.

“Yeah, something like that,” James nodded, not wanting to disturb the other two girls and their potential impression of him. Usually, when people found out he didn’t have any parents, things could get weird for a bit.

“Alright!” Ana clapped her hands together. “Let’s go eat! I assume, since you’re a first-year and have to be on campus, you have a meal plan with the university?” she asked.

“Yeah,” James simply nodded.

“Great!” Ana exclaimed, "I know the perfect place!"

-

The small dining center Ana and Sam took James to was apparently one of the few currently open on campus, seeing as most of the population was still absent for the summer. This one was open year-round for the benefit of summer students and professors.

Using a meal credit, you could order a variety of pan asian food options, or at least the university's conception of such.

It was good, the side soup along with an entrée of fried tofu doused in sesame sauce along with vegetables and steamed white rice.

It wasn’t necessarily a choice on James’s part, but whenever he had tried to eat meat recently, he was taken back to the dead bodies surrounding him.

The only reason he hadn’t suppressed this thought like the others was a faint worry of what might happen if he suppressed too much, it was like he was flipping switches and turning knobs in his mind but he had maybe a conception of what ten percent of them did.

“So,” Ana clapped her hands together, “Where are you from James?”

Great, an easy question.

“From Devil’s Rest, actually, the East Side,” James shrugged his shoulders easily as if that was all there was to the story, “Where are you two from?”

He literally saw the gears turning at his words.

‘Ha does not from around here even begin to cover it,’ were Ana’s thoughts.

Sam was simpler, ‘The western outskirts filled with the who's who of the movers and shakers city, maybe a little much to drop on him.’

“We’re locals too,” Sam said easily, though James saw that it wasn’t the whole truth, and given Ana’s thoughts, he figured she, for some reason, was lying on behalf of Ana, but why, though?

Ana glanced at Sam, and for a moment, something irritated crossed her expression and her thoughts sounded as such.

‘I’m definitely not, please don’t lie me into a hole here, Sam’

James had to purse his lips to keep from laughing. There was definitely something going on in the background, but seeing these two attempt to avoid saying off while inadvertently throwing the other over the barrel was amusing.

“I guess that explains why you went to Empire University,” James shrugged easily, attempting to dismiss the topic.

“It is also a premier University,” Ana said quickly, “Plenty of people apply here and don’t get in. I’m thankful to be here.”

This girl really did not know when she was being given an out, James realized.

Worse, he admittedly kind of found it adorable.

“So what are your majors?” James asked, directing the question at both of them

Ana seized on the topic immediately, the relief in her mind apparent, “I’m a double major in Aerospace and Electrical Engineering.”

Sam shrugged with a lazy smile, “I’m just a pre-med student, what’s yours, or have you decided yet?”

And wasn’t that a question? Learning wasn’t an issue, and while James had never been stupid since his powers had developed, it felt like his intelligence grew by leaps and bounds. He was reasonably certain that if he wanted to, and it was possible, he could, in a quick session, take every class's exam that was offered at Empire University and pass them after seeing the professor.

Yet as far as passion went, he had none.

He wanted a good job; he didn’t want to have to do criminal acts to get by, yet since getting the money, that hadn’t been an issue either. Sure, in some point in the future, he would have to plan out his next steps, take an action, right now though…

He was lost.

James sighed, giving both of the girls a false smile, “Not sure what I want to do, so I’m undecided for now. There’s a lot I’m interested in, yet I don’t have anything more than that. I hoped college would give me some kind of direction.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Ana gave him a warm smile, and James was struck by the knowledge that she meant those words and that smile, that for some reason, this girl would put faith in him.

It was… disconcerting.

Sam giggled, a surprisingly airy sound coming from the lackadaisical girl, “You would say that, Ana,” Ana shot her a surprisingly stern glare, and Sam raised her hands defensively, “I didn’t say he couldn’t do it. I just meant you have so much faith in people, it can be a little disconcerting sometimes.”

Ana frowned and turned away slightly, looking down, and James noted a small but sad tinge to her thoughts.

“I don’t mind,” James smiled faintly, “Sometimes I think we could all use a little faith in each other.”

Franky certainly thought he could do a lot. Well, he had thought at least. Franky had always pushed him to do more, to be more. Sure, that ended in petty thievery, but the idea had been there, a chance for Franky’s family to pay off the medical bills they had accumulated with his sister, a chance for him to get out from behind the eight ball where his life had started.

He wasn’t even really sure he meant the words as he said them, but Ana certainly brightened up, grinning brilliantly at him.

-

James spent the next couple of days creating another obelisk in his mind, on computer programming and security.

He traveled the campus, locating one by one the prominent professors on the subject and copying their knowledge into his own mind.

All of this was in pursuit of one goal, lacking a better option, he wanted to create a program to scrape the internet to find more information on any rumors about the ‘Boss’, the police officer he had cornered had mentioned.

The only issue was that by drawing in so much data, he knew it would be difficult to search through it all to find the most important information. Worse, he was sure that the actual information he needed was at best behind other firewalls and at worst just completely disappeared from the internet. What James hoped for was some trace, a sign, of who would have deleted the information.

From the information he had scraped together, such a thing should be a possibility.

The only issue was that the hardware he was working with wasn’t exactly top-notch. He had an older laptop for school assignments, but he was quickly finding out that the poor device just didn’t have the power necessary to run the scraping program, at least in a time frame he cared about.

Que the dipping into his funds for buying the materials to put together an actual modernized computer. Several thousand dollars lighter, he began his construction of his device, carefully putting together the computer in his dorm room, laying on the floor and attempting to keep his power controlled so he didn’t crush anything.

He had invested heavily in heat sinks as he had left the computer in his walk in closet, where there was still some air conditioning in his room, but he wasn’t fully confident of its ability to actually keep the computer cool.

After that, it had been the better work of several days to construct his web scraper.

It was unfamiliar work, but the knowledge he had obtained had at least enabled him to do that much.

With the program’s completed construction, with a push, he had released it to scrape through the internet with the current search parameters he had encoded within it.

That done, he had nothing better to do than go to his singular class.

Where he sat now, bored out of his mind. The Summer course was within a building not too far from his dorm, so actual travel wasn’t bad, and he had picked a desk by the window.

It was a small course with only around twenty other students, which he supposed wasn’t a surprise because he had noted this was registered as a seminar course, and also was, of course, a summer course.

The pre-reading wasn’t all that bad, some general stuff regarding the Roman legal tradition, a bit on Hammurabi, small bits and pieces, and concepts surrounding the law.

What he was surprised to see was that Ana, who was walking into the class, seemed startled, seemingly surprised to see him, but then made her way over to his chair and settled in next to him.

“I didn’t know you were taking Ethics and Law?!” she said cheerily.

James shrugged, giving the girl a half smile, “Just trying to get the required general courses out of the way, you know?”

“Good plan, I did something similar my first year,” Ana sighed in distaste, an odd sound coming from her, “Didn’t manage to get the writing credit out of the way my freshman year though, but this should be interesting, human legal ethics and tradition are fascinating aren’t they?”

“Human legal ethics?” James raised an eyebrow, turning to her, confused at her wording, “As opposed to what?”

Ana blinked, then her altogether too pretty blue eyes shot open wide, a single thought going through her mind.

Oh. Crap. Quick, make it a joke!

“Well, I’m sure other animals on Earth have their own opinions and morals on the way their societies should work, right?” She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly.

Yeah, James thought, there was really something strange about this girl, but it wasn’t his business, though.

“Well, let me know when they start making the rules so I can be aware,” James chuckled, “Though I have sometimes wondered what the aliens who come to Earth think of us, I mean, in comparison, we’re basically primitives scratching on a pile of dirt.”

Ana’s lips quirked down in a frown as she looked at James, “That’s a kind of rude way of looking at it,” she said, and James noted the small tinge of negative feelings that went through her head at his words, though he wasn’t able to catch any thoughts to go along with it, it was difficult keeping track of everything in a conversation so at times he would sometimes just get strong feelings when he was talking to people.

“I don’t really mean it rudely,” James shook his head, “You don’t have to look too far in human history, though, to see we’re still getting off the ground as it is. Most of our technological development is rather recent, historically speaking. That, along with the fact that unless you get genetically lucky or something crazy happens to you, or maybe you learn some magic, you’re not going to be matching up to people who got something more going for them than being human. I mean the aliens that come here seem to have crazy abilities that make us humans look like cheap jokes.”

“There are humans, though, like Knight Walker or Blue Tiger, that can stand up to people like that,” Ana said, her lips still set in their small frown.

James hummed thoughtfully before nodding his head, acknowledging the counterpoint, “I guess I kind of see it. Intelligence and probably a ton of training can help balance things. It’s not like I feel scared of any of the aliens here, yeah sometimes there can be some big knock down fights that break some cities, but I suppose that’s just the consequence when they’re putting the bad guys down, especially when the bad guys are people like Centurion or Pandora.”

Even as a technical one of the bad guys, James didn’t hate heroes, yeah especially before he got his powers they scared the bejeesus out of him especially in the late night profession he had chosen, actually scratch that they still made him nervous even with some of his own power to back him up.

“So you appreciate them in a way?” Ana asked curiously.

“I mean it beats the alternative, especially with some of the lunatics in this town,” James shrugged a half smirk on his face.

Ana nodded, seemingly taking this conversation very seriously, but maybe that’s just the way she was.

So he doesn’t hate-

The professor stepped up, starting the class, and the sudden motion changed James’s focus enough that he lost his own focus on Ana’s thoughts. James turned, shaking himself a bit, he was getting far too comfortable reading people’s thoughts for his own comfort.

He gave the professor his full attention, beginning to take in the information that was expected of him, but the period opened at the latter half of the class for him and his classmates to state their own beliefs on morality.

James let his eyes stay unfocused so he wouldn’t grab too many thoughts by accident and listened along as his classmates fell in a still, somewhat unsure way about the morality of superheroes.

Not an uncommon topic, though kind of funny given he had been discussing it with Ana earlier.

The opinions were a little divided; some thought of superheroes as dangerous, wielding their power in front of others’ faces, and some thought they contributed to the rise of dangerous supervillains.

Ana spoke after the end of a student who thought they recklessly endangered people, “Statistically, though, since the emergence of heroes, the average person is safer than ever from more common events and disasters, even the murder rate is down, there’s just larger events caused by Villains who cause their own issues.”

An interesting thought, though James wondered, given his own experience, how accurately the crime rate was reported.

“Sure,” another student said, “But isn’t there that theory that with more Superheroes, great Villains emerge?”

“That’s not really able to be empirically decided, though,” another student shrugged, “Sure there’s more villains around but it’s difficult to prove one way or another whether that’s caused by having more heroes, or other stuff like the fact that there’s people nowadays who had their genetics mutate or be effected to the point they developed abilities.”

“I don’t think that matters either way, though, really,” James spoke up, “Either way, we have to deal with both Villains and Superheroes being a thing, I think the question more is recognizing that reality, what are any of us going to do about it. If there aren’t heroes, some villains plot goes through and a city explodes or something, with heroes, there are at least people putting a check on the clearly deranged.”

The conversation continued from there.

His conversation with Ana stuck with him for the rest of the day for some reason. He didn’t consider himself an overly philosophical person so maybe it was no surprise he hadn’t given much thought to the questions she had asked him before.

He supposed right now he qualified very technically in the field of Villains, he had at the very least been a petty criminal before he had attained his powers.

Yet he had never been a fan of the major named villains who tromped around the world, and he had never gotten that impression from the people he had worked with. They had been thieves and small-timers in a larger scene. The players in the big scene were the type of people who would kill you as soon as look at you.

Larger questions revolved around this issue with whether one was a good person or a bad person, but by James’s reckoning, most people fit into the category as simply a person, someone capable of both good and bad things.

Or maybe that was mere apologism for how he chose to carry on his life.

-

James had been sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, his head lying against the cool, hard surface, when his computer chirped, signaling the completion of his program.

His eyes snapped open, and he got up, walking into the walk-in closet.

On the monitor was displayed an indicator that there had been several matches for his search parameters, but there was a clear best match sitting at 78%. A building owned nominally by some shell corporation, a construction company, but his program had tracked down the financials leading to Adder Corp. The construction company's headquarters were of interest and had been targeted as a center point by the program, where much traffic occurred, at least server-wise, which in itself was suspicious. The traffic was more than could be accounted for by its clientele and the money it publicly claimed to pull in.

James quickly scanned through more details of the company. There were apparently unsubstantiated rumors about the connections between crimes in Devil’s Rest. That thing would sometimes look altogether too neat. That a criminal would be found too quickly, immediately willing to confess, yet then they would die in jail.

What was stranger still was that oftentimes Adder corp was in spitting distance of said crimes, individually, they were never a large portion of the crimes, but their name would pop up in a report.

Reports that something was stolen from them, an employee on the scene being questioned…

If he didn’t already suspect a large number of the police within Devil’s Rest as being dirty, this was definitely a significant indicator

There was the possibility that someone was manipulating the company; they were a rather large company. On the other hand, James had no faith in coincidence now.

James scanned through all the information, his lips quirking downward. He still lacked information about ‘The Boss.’ What kind of person could that be? How much control could they have?

And a small but rational voice made itself known in the back of his head, if he did get to ‘The Boss’ and if he did manage to overcome the defenses of a man powerful enough to have assassins and cops on their payroll, what would he do?

Capture him for the Police?

Kill him?

James knew he needed answers to those questions. He knew he was relatively bulletproof, and his strength was only increasing, but these things also didn’t give him much confidence. There were plenty of heroes in Devil’s Rest, and yet they didn’t seem to be going after this.

He had seized the tail of a beast of unknown size and was about to pull.

He could be making a very dangerous decision here, yet even though he had suppressed the feelings, he could still feel the anger and sadness he still felt from Franky’s death.

If he could find something at this company's building indicating who ‘the boss’ was…

No one else was going to avenge the death of a petty criminal; Aegis wasn’t going to descend from the sky and put the man in jail.

He was the only shot at justice Franky had.

He was the only way that he would be able to make sure Franky’s family, who had helped him so much, was safe in the future.

James pulled on his backpack filled with very much not typical school supplies and headed out his door, looking for all the world like a normal college student. He watched the evening sun through the windows of his building as it began to make its path toward its disappearance into night, orange light illuminating Devil’s Rest in sharp relief.

Tonight was another step forward.

-

James had chosen an alley relatively nearby to change clothing in before leaping up the side of a building, though his movements were a little tentative, he set his backpack of clothes down off to the side of some plants that lined the roof, covered to the point you would have to look for the bag.

James bounced on his feet a couple of times, looking at a nearby building with a little trepidation, before he took off in a sprint, blurring across the ground.

He reached the edge of the roof and leaped skyward, just a black spec against the night sky.

The cold air ripped past him, and James took a deep breath as he soared through the air, for all appearances entirely weightless.

He hit the next roof with a somewhat ungainly landing but shrugged it off and continued sprinting forward.

He kept running, bouncing between the rooftops with calculated leaps focusing his mind on the technique that shifted peoples focus away from him for all the good it might do. He figured if anyone got a good luck of someone flying through the air they would focus on the scene despite any minor suggestion he put in their mind.

Run. Leap. Run. Leap.

He blurred through the city, covering the span of about half of it within minutes, due to the speed at which he was moving, before he finally spotted the building he was looking for.

He sprinted forward and leaped the final distance, touching down on the construction company’s rooftop with a small thud.

Right now came the hard part.

James walked to the door and pressed his gloved hand against it, and then reached further out, not with his hand but with his mind, and he got an instant impression of the door. With the press of his mind, the bolt slid free, and the door unlocked.

He pulled it open and walked inside, the inside stairwell lit in a low light, and the hallways he entered only having a couple of lights on, interspersed a fair distance apart.

Now he was dependent entirely on the impression he had created that anyone who would look at him would simply ignore him as something normal before forgetting him the instant he left their vision.

He had tested the ability extensively and believed it would work even if he still showed on the cameras, though he wasn’t sure which, of course, was what his outfit was for.

By the time somebody checked the camera records, he would be long gone from here, even in the worst case. However, he was messing with people's perception, which didn’t extend past present sense impressions; he had seen himself on cameras with his ability activated.

Still, James' footsteps on the linoleum of the buildings floor seemed particularly loud as he moved through the barely lit corridors.

Following the map he had found of the building, he moved through the top floor, walking down some steps before he found his way to the main office space of the building. Computers hummed in low power mode as he walked through the assortment of office cubicles.

His target was the back of the office, where a larger solitary office was.

He entered the space, taking note of the well-appointed wooden desk, dark oak wood shelves, and a computer sat under the desk with a monitor on top.

It was now that he realized he was unsure of what exactly he was looking for, but he had some ideas.

James reached out and pressed a hand onto the desk, and closed his eyes, simply letting his senses extend outward from the point of impact, feeling over the desk searching for any irregularity.

He hadn’t practiced this ability much, and it required a decent amount of concentration but-

There was a compartment in the desk, not visible to the naked eye, but he could feel the gears inside it, just as with the lock, he pushed the gears out and heard a click as a small compartment jettisoned open.

He reached inside, finding a folder and then two small drives.

He pocketed the drives and opened the folder to find it filled with sheets of paper. He began to scan through them rapidly, reading the words at a pace he hadn’t been able to before his powers had developed, but now he did so with ease.

It was a list of company names, dates, and items that were being shipped. Some were marked as ‘open’, some were marked as ‘protected’, and the vast majority were under the protected category.

So a protection racket? Adder Corp featured prominently under the protected category, as he flipped through the pages this continued, every single shipment from Adder Corp was protected.

James didn’t know what to make of it.

“What do we have here?” a low feminine voice murmured, and James’s heart jumped in his chest as he froze, looking up from the documents.

In front of him stood a woman who had haunted his nightmares at least before he had suppressed the memories.

She wore her black latex outfit, and it was visible now that she had a mask pulled up over her nose, along with her dark black hair pulled in a ponytail. Her eyes were cat-like and green and seemed to gleam in the relative darkness of the office.

James froze.

“I admit I’m curious how you made it in, how your appearance on our cameras seems almost like static, how even now, looking at you, I find it difficult to focus on your appearance. I’m sure if you told my employer they’d be more than willing to offer more gainful employment… more than whatever this is.”

Come on kid. Take the opportunity. You mess with the Boss and this whole city will come down on your head.

Anger flushed through his system but rapidly James reigned it in.

Documents and flash drives were whatever. Here was a chance to learn something. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions take control.

“Aren’t you an assassin? Why don’t you just kill me?” he stated softly.

He knows me then? But how?

“So you know what I do? Confident young man aren’t you? If you know I’m the Silver Ghost than you know it’s in your best interest to surrender. I don’t want to hurt you.

I really don’t. Enough blood on my hands as it is. If I can avoid it I’m not going to be killing anyone else for the Boss.

James remained impassive even as he felt emotions surge him, now wasn’t the time to feel anything.

“Like I’d believe that,” James snorted, frowning at the woman.

Silver Ghost shrugged the motion, looking casual on her, a languid shrug of her shoulders, “We all have to do what we have to do to make a living. Believe as you will but unless I’m ordered to I don’t kill.”

“Unless you’re ordered too,” James trailed off, “And the Boss can order you too.”

So he knows about the Boss. Yet then why is he doing this?

“Yes, he can.”

Though not for much longer if I have anything to say about it. With the debt settled, I just need some insurance to keep Sara safe.

James' heart clenched. He stared at her. This was the person who had killed Franky. He should be launching himself at her to tear her apart.

Yet from her thoughts and emotions… She was doing this to keep someone else safe?

The justification shouldn’t have mattered to him. This woman had murdered his best friend. Yet looking at her now, hearing her thoughts. Perhaps because the emotions surrounding Frank’s death were suppressed, unsurety filled his heart.

Kill her to avenge Frank?

Would it even matter?

It would have been nice to see the thoughts of a woman who was an unrepentant murderer, well, in the sense that he would have felt some kind of justification.

He had been willing to kill Officer Rodgers in the moment, yet for some reason, Knight Walker’s words rang through his mind: ‘Whatever’s going on, you can’t let that anger control you.’

But not doing anything meant this last month had been for nothing. His work, his planning, there was no point to any of it.

Yet he was also realizing that he couldn’t kill this woman; he had frozen before, and he was now truly realizing he didn’t think he had it in him to kill, not then and not now. Not at least without some kind of urgency or immediacy.

The woman's thoughts were so loud, so far from the cold-blooded killer he thought he would be ready to face.

“So, what, you some kind of hero? Going to take down the boss? Got to say your costume needs work,” Silver Ghost said, startling James back into the present after the long silence.

James recentered himself, looking at the woman thoughtfully, before, with Franky, evidently interfering with ‘the Boss’s’ operations caused him some headache. They had killed Franky because he was a thief and had stolen from ‘the Boss.’ Lost them money. Hurt them.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t use the money.

He was going to rob them. Take everything they had, and with every dollar he stole, there would be some small recompense for Franky.

“I’m a Villain, just like you, if the ‘Boss’ wants to stop me, let him try.”

On those words, James sprinted for the woman crossing the space in a blur.

She dove out of the way, rolling across the floor, but James was already blurring out of the room.

James dove to the side as gunfire erupted, low shots sailing through the space his legs had been, but James noted he could see those bullets somehow, easily catching them somehow.

James shook the thought away and sprinted for the hallway, easily swinging a window wide now that the stealth was useless, before he leaped free from the building, soaring out through the night sky.

Translucent silver shot by him and reformed into Silver Ghost herself mid-air, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, kid.”

She raised a handgun seemingly about to open up point blank, and the fighting instincts James had copied into his brain took over.

His hands shot out, knocking the gun askew, even as Silver ghost twisted, trying to kick him in the head somehow, even in mid-air.

James shifted around the motion and launched a palm strike out, titrated to the point where the strength, while beyond what a human could generate, would at most break ribs.

Silver Ghost flashed silver and disappeared again, and James spun his brain screaming at him as something came cleaving through the air above him.

That something turned out to be a leg aimed directly at his head.

James deflected it to the side.

Their limbs shot out in a blur, and despite the martial arts that James had copied, he found himself stalemated. Silver Ghost moved faster than any human possibly could, and she only increased in speed as she seemed to realize that he was keeping up.

A shot finally slipped through, and James choked as the force somehow made its way through his passive defense in a way that a high-caliber bullet had been unable to.

James landed on the ground in a crouch and rolled back from the next flurry of blows headed towards him.

She was already spinning out a handgun that James ducked around using what he had learned from Knight Walker to close the distance, all the while preventing her from getting a bead on him.

James saw her mind tensing and realized that she was about to do the weird silver movement again.

He stepped forward and nailed a shot into her gut, launching her into the air and backward for several meters before Silver Ghost disappeared and reformed on the ground.

“Holy shit,” Silver Ghost said coughing slightly, “What the fuck are they feeding you little bastards these days?”

It had been a solid shot, but it wasn’t nearly enough to put her down, apparently.

“Not enough apparently,” James remarked wryly, the words slipping out before he had given them much thought.

“Alright, kid, no more playtime,” Silver Ghost growled and blurred forward.

Three shots nailed into James in quick succession as the silver blur spun around him, the final shot hitting the back of his knee, causing him to keel forward a bit. The sheer speed of the hits hit hard, and he felt a small strain in his mind as the field around him strained slightly from blocking the blows.

They slipped and fought across the street, exchanging blows that they ducked around, never quite making solid contact.

James ducked under a high kick and hopped a second kick that blurred through the air even as he spun his own body through the air to attempt to deliver his own kick to Silver Ghost's side.

Silver Ghost blurred again, disappearing from in front of him.

James was already ducking and throwing himself to the side to avoid a kick that managed to literally dent the street where he had been standing.

Despite all the knowledge he had accumulated, he just wasn’t able to integrate all of it into a fight. This was his first real fight, and with someone who had powers. He was quickly finding out the difference between the martial arts he had siphoned into his mind and the actual reality in the real world.

Though he supposed it said something that he hadn’t been just straight knocked unconscious.

James gritted his teeth; he just couldn’t hit her.

James took a breath; he needed to focus and get out of here.

A kick slipped by him, and he caught it underneath his arm and then spun his body, leveraging his strength to throw Silver Ghost down the street.

He didn’t stop his spinning, turning his body and then focusing for a moment before leaping away to the edge of a building, which he just barely managed to make it over.

He rolled across the ground and continued running, pumping his arms as he pushed himself as hard as he could, his surroundings blurring around him.

He leapt several more rooftops before taking to the alleys, focusing hard on himself, focusing on warping any perception towards him to completely ignore his appearance.

Something shifted, and a cold feeling erupted over his body, and he glanced down, shocked to see that his limbs themselves had seemingly vanished.

This wasn’t perception, it was something more.

For a moment, he caught himself analyzing the feeling; it was like he was pushing the light around him away and around from over his skin.

He didn’t know he could do that.

He froze as he heard a thud and turned to see Silver Ghost in the alley, apparently having been on his heels.

She glanced around her, eyes passing over him without a second glance.

“Quick bastard,” she mumbled, before sighing and then vanishing just as she had come, likely to keep looking for him.

James didn’t breathe; he didn’t want to disturb whatever he had managed to do.

Finally, after several minutes by himself, he allowed himself to take a deep breath, letting himself relax, at least a little bit. He would attempt to head home in a bit, just give himself a bit more time to make sure Silver Ghost really wouldn’t be following him.

He had a lot to think about and a lot to plan.