The following afternoon found Ana and Megumi in the gym on the bottom floor of Megumi's apartment. It was a large area, as big as the parking garage under Ana's apartment. There were various types of heavy equipment in every corner, from large machines to small dumbbells.
"You sure no one will come in here?" Ana asked, hesitantly looking around.
Megumi set her gym towel and water bottle down on one of the benches that were scattered round the room. "No," She said, walking towards Ana, who was in the center of the room. "It's June, majority of people gave up their workout resolutions months ago."
Ana hummed, walking around the room and observing the equipment.
"Alright," Megumi said, stretching her arms over her head. She was in a similar attire to when the first time Ana saw her outside of her villain costume. Ana was wearing a neon purple leotard with bright purple shorts over them, along with matching leg warmers, which Megumi compared the outfit to the obnoxious neon signs she sees from bars at night.
Ana came up from a stretch as well, her bright outfit making Megumi cringe as she stood up to beam at her.
Megumi shook her head. "First things first, try summoning your rings again." Ana nodded and held her fists up to either side of her face, shutting her eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath. "I'm in control." Ana muttered to herself. She felt the familiar warm sensation in her eyes and wrists before she heard a shimmer and a 'pong' sound along with a feeling of intense heat.
Ana opened her eyes, the cool air hitting the heat emanating from them, clouding Ana's vision with a pure purple glow.
Megumi shifted her feet to get into a fighting stance, her chest heavy with anticipation. "Okay Ana!" Megumi called, "Let's see what you can do!"
--
Just a few hours prior, the late morning found Ana and Megumi on the black leather couch of Ana's apartment, just a few minutes after Ana's acceptance and proclamation to help Megumi take down Zalic, wanting to be an opposing force to her barreling reign of terror.
"Well if you're going to help me take her down," Megumi told her, "I'm gonna need to help you get to a level where you have confidence and control over your power." Megumi had a fire in her eyes that Ana had never seen in her before. To anyone else she may have just looked mildly pleased, but to Ana she could tell just how much this meant to her. She had to suffer at the hands of a rampaging madwoman and now she was finally getting the support she needed in order to get justice for her, and all the previous and inevitable future victims of Zalic's real world guinea pig experiment.
"Alright," Ana smiled, feeling recharged from Megumi's energy. "Where do we start?"
Megumi then scrunched up her face a bit in thought. "Well first you need to be able to summon your power." Ana faltered slightly at that. She looked down at her hands. How was she going to summon this power? "If it helps," Megumi said, grabbing hold of Ana's hands. "The way I learned to summon mine was to think of how I felt the first time it happened." "But I was terrified!" Ana exclaimed, pulling her hands back to her chest. Megumi nodded, unfazed. "Exactly." Ana opened her mouth to protest but Megumi cut her off, taking her hands again.
"I'm not done. Once you get into the mindset of when you first summoned your power, and you really feel it, once you get to that level of panic, remind yourself that you're in control. These powers work off your desires. If you worry about losing control, you expect it, and deep down, you almost want it. You want to lose control because then that means the pain and fear goes away. Want to control it. Want your powers to do what you want. You are in control here Ana, no one else. It's just you."
Megumi let go of Ana's hands after that. Ana looked at her, then down at her own hands.
She took a deep breath and nodded to herself. "I'm in control." Ana told herself. Megumi nodded out of Ana's line of sight. "You're in control."
Ana closed her eyes and thought back to the night in the backroom. Seeing Zalic's logo on the box. The sheer panic and pain when the rings sunk into her skin. The thugs in the alleyway. The panic when Tiffany grabbed her wrists…
Ana felt her wrists heat up and a pit of panic form in her stomach. She took a deep breath as her eyes and face got hot as well, the panic growing deeper and deeper. "I'm in control." She murmured to herself. As she repeated this mantra over and over until she felt the panic calm even as the heat on her wrists and face began rapidly increasing
She felt the temperature grow hotter and more intense causing her to squeeze her eyes tighter, and as she did so she felt Megumi put a hand on her knee, telling her there was nothing to be afraid of. Ana relaxed and ignored the heat, then after what felt like an eternity, the heat passed over her in a swift fluid motion.
The feeling felt like she was plunging into a warm bath as opposed to the boiling sensation she felt over the past few days. She heard a soft 'pong' sound that seemed so far away, and a soft whir which faded into a low hum, the previous burning sensation turned into a warm feeling like a blanket being placed over her body.
Ana took a few steadying breaths and opened her eyes slowly, quickly noticing that her vision was suddenly more purple. She blinked a few times to get used to the new sight. She slowly brought her hands down and stared at the large whirling bright purple rings that were spinning around her wrists. She stared at them with a feeling of awe and wonder, a newfound appreciation and admiration for the power slowly taking over her the longer Ana stared at the rings.
Suddenly her feeling of nausea and panic turned into a feeling of pure ecstasy and giddiness.
She looked up at Megumi with a wonderstruck smile. Megumi looked back at her with the same mystified expression. "How does it feel?" Megumi asked cautiously. Ana opened and closed her fist, causing the rings to shrink and expand. Another thing she noticed was the longer she clenched her fist, the hotter, and brighter, the rings became. Ana studied the rings closely.
There was something flowing in them, some sort of energy that Ana became completely mesmerized by.
"It feels unreal." Ana said at last, still staring at the flowing energy. Megumi's expression softened as she stared down at the rings. "I didn't know much about it," She said, getting Ana's attention. "All I knew about fourteen was that it was one of the ones she was pretty apprehensive about. It had a power that even she was hesitant to experiment with further. That's why it got packaged up and locked away, and why I recognized it so quickly."
"That reminds me.." Ana said, "How do you think this one, number fourteen, ended up at the Disco Diner?" Megumi scrunched up her face a bit. "Like I mentioned before with the tracker thing, Margret wanted an army but she could only kidnap so many people. She had to plant the amplifiers in places innocent people would stumble upon them. The more that popped up in different areas, the harder it would be for the authorities to figure out her trail. Not to mention the less work she had to do… She plants the amplifiers and lets natural human curiosity do the rest." Megumi shrugged.
Ana looked down at the rings again.
"Although.." Ana looked back up at Megumi who was deep in thought. "It doesn't explain how they ended up in your diner. The room you found them in, is it open to customers?" Megumi asked. Ana shook her head. "It's a staff only room, we have to keep it locked up during the day because of people trying to go back in there. It's been like that since I started working there."
Megumi went back into her train of thought, which made Ana start to worry.
Ana looked back down at the rings, then vaguely remembered how she was able to get them to go away the first time. She touched the center of the rings which caused the rings to shimmer a bright purple before they slowly dissipated in a flurry of shimmer and ash. When she looked back up at Megumi, she became slightly concerned at the contemplative look on her face.
"What's wrong?" Ana asked.
Megumi huffed. "It's just," Megumi shifted in her seat before turning to look at Ana. "Margret was a bit uneasy about number fourteen. She wouldn't just, leave it laying around somewhere; she specifically told me that she regretted making it. From what I've seen, it doesn't seem like that detrimental of a power, Trina, Mag, and Solar all have powers that seem more catastrophic, so I don't know what it is about number fourteen that makes her so anxious."
This made an uncomfortable feeling shift in Ana's stomach.
"It's not because it's… dangerous.. is it?" She asked Megumi. "Well I mean they're all dangerous," Megumi said aloofly, making Ana's stomach churn. "No- I mean, will it- kill me?" Ana asked. Megumi looked uncomfortable with the question. "If you want the honest answer Ana… I don't know. I've had my powers for the longest and I haven't had any life-threatening health problems. Plus, I saw the aftermath of the animals she experimented on, the only thing that killed them was old age or stress."
Megumi looked over at Ana's pale face. "You should be fine." Megumi tried to reassure her.
Ana relaxed a bit, sinking into the couch. "What we should focus on now is helping you learn to control it. Maybe then we can understand why Marget wanted it locked away so bad." Megumi said. A thought struck Ana. "Does Zalic even know it's gone?"
The look on Megumi's face after told Ana all she needed to know.
--
Being brought back to the present;
Ana looked down at the ring on her wrist. She remembered what happened earlier when she tested the summoning out. She opened her fist, making the ring dim and cool. Once it got to a color and temperature Ana felt wouldn't melt Megumi's skin, she swung her arm back and threw it forward it a fast motion, the ring flying off her wrist and spinning through the air.
Megumi locked her gaze on the ring, her own hand at the ready for when the ring came barreling towards her.
The ring ended up flying just past her ear and crashing against the wall with a sound like glass shattering. Megumi hissed at the contact of the hot shards on her skin, her head quickly snapping back to Ana, who was charging up another ring.
Ana launched the second one, not paying much attention to Megumi at the moment, first she focused on how many rings she could summon at a time. Around the fourth time summoning, Ana felt herself begin to get the hang of the rings. She launched one, quickly making another as Megumi was still dodging the first one. Ana looked at the ring on her right wrist, experimentally spreading out her fingers with the ring on her wrist. The ring grew larger and larger until it reached the size of Ana's face, at which point she threw it across the room, only then realizing-
"Shit- THAT ONE'S HOT!" She exclaimed as the large ring came barreling towards Megumi.
Megumi's eyes zeroed in on the ring. 'If she deems this one as hot, what the fuck did she think the others were?' She thought to herself. The ring flew closer to Megumi, and with every step Megumi took out of its path, the ring seemed to follow her like it had a mind of its own.
'Well then,' Megumi thought as the ring made no clear sign of falling off her path. 'I'll have to show this ring what it's up against.'
Megumi brought up her own hand, which Ana could only see for a second before it became unrecognizable in a rapid whirlpool of dust and wind. Ana could feel the harsh winds even from the far distance away from Megumi in which she was standing, taking a few cautionary steps back, feeling like if she was any closer, she would get swept up in the mini storm.
Megumi clapped both her hands together, creating a gust of wind so intense it knocked Ana off her feet, sending the ring zipping past her and hitting the wall.
The ring hit the floor, spinning and clattering for a few seconds before Ana experimentally put her hands together, making the ring dissipate.
Ana pulled herself off the ground, dusting off her clothes and stretching out her arms as she turned to face Megumi, who was looking a bit sheepish. "Sorry." She said, a grimace on her face. "It's fine," Ana said, wiping off her clothes some more. "You're really powerful though," Ana told her. Megumi looked slightly taken aback.
"I mean, yeah, but it took me a while to get here-" Megumi started. "I'm not feeling discouraged or anything I just-" Ana quickly intervened before Megumi could continue. "I'm just saying, I've heard stories and seen videos but those just seem like nothing compared to the real deal." Ana said. Megumi shrugged. "I mean, yeah, but how are you feeling so far? About your power and everything?"
Ana looked down at her arms.
The hairs on them had been singed off from the heat of the rings, and her skin was so red it looked like she was sunburned. What Ana noticed the most though, was that she didn't feel the heat as much as before, in fact the shards that seemed to leave Megumi with a nasty sting felt no higher than blood temperature to Ana now.
"It's going to take some time to get used to, there's still a lot a want to experiment with, I've got so many questions about it.."
Megumi nodded. "Take your time, there's no rush for anything yet."
Yet..
"What about the future though?" Ana asked. Megumi looked up at her. "There's going to be a point where I'm going to have to make some sort of debut, right? I can't stay in the shadows forever." Megumi shrugged. "I mean you could, be a vigilante or whatever. The media loves that shit." Ana sighed before walking over to one of the benches. "But I don't care about what the media thinks now. The goal is to thwart Zalic, and you're the closest to her so think; what's the best way to go about telling the world of my existence?" Ana asked.
Megumi put a hand on her chin.
"Well, one thing Margret hates most is being upstaged, especially by her own devices… You could make yourself known upfront the next time she appears in public but I don't know if you're ready for that, she doesn't take too kindly to thing not going her way. If she saw you had number fourteen though…" Megumi got lost in thought again. Ana cocked her head as she waited for her to continue. Finally, Megumi shook her head. "No, that's not a good idea. Her instinct would be to kill you on sight, make an example she would call it. You would need way faster reflexes than you have now to take advantage of the moment of shock she would go under, it would literally only be a moment. Then there would be avoiding the rest of her…"
Ana bristled. "You're making her seem like some sort of- super soldier or something with years of combat training." She joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"That's because she was." Megumi said flatly. Ana's smile dropped. "She what?" "Margret was in the army for ten years before she fully committed to genetics. She also received five years of defense training prior to that after she was sent to a boot camp every year in her high school days. Her mom was killed in a mugging when she was eight and since then her dad's been putting her through combat training. She's incredibly skilled on her own without powers which is another reason I hesitated for so long. I may have had power back then, but I had no training. She could've outsmarted me easily."
Ana gulped quietly and slowly nodded her head. "Good to know." She said quietly.
Megumi huffed quietly before sitting down next to Ana on the bench. "You'll be fine.. With me on your side we can think of how many different ways to outsmart her, especially if I can find newly transformed supers before she does. If we get more good guys than villains, we'll have a chance. Just.. let me think about this for a while, think of the best way this could work.."
Megumi got lost in her trail of thought while Ana went down her own.
Ana glanced at Megumi. All of the villains have alternate identities. Megumi was Twister, she and the rest of the villains knew that, just as Megumi knew the identities of the others. Ana looked down at her lap.
What was her identity going to be? She sat in thought of this for a while. Her identity was something the public would know her for forever, right? So she had to make it count. While Megumi sat mumbling to herself, Ana sat and brainstormed the possibilities for her new super career.