She banged through her front door, slamming it behind her. She nearly cringed at how it bent and twisted under the pressure of her new strength.
The sound of the door opening must have alerted her mom. "Hey, Hope, welcome back- Oh dear God, what happened?!"
She didn't answer, turning the sink on and throwing her hands under the water. She stared in silence as she watched the red begin to drip off of it and into the sink. Her heart was beating faster after the encounter with the thugs. She assumed it was fear.
She nearly jumped when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her from behind. "Hey, are you okay?" Her mother murmured.
She turned the water off, drying her now blood-free hands. "I think I made a mistake." She rubbed at her eyes, which were starting to become a little wet, then at the spot at her neck from where that knife had shattered. It was all still so fresh in her mind. She had run straight home, doing her best to avoid everyone.
"You got into a fight, didn't you?"
"You should see the other guy."
"What!"
"I mean, I ran into a pole? And also punched it?" Her mother only glared at her, placing her hands on her hips. "You're not buying that, are you?"
"No, I'm not. But honestly, you don't look that bad. What happened to your glasses?"
She chanced a look in the mirror and couldn't help but stare in shock. She looked fine. The slap mark on her face was gone, as were all the bruises that had been inflicted on her. All that blood hadn't been hers...
"I got in a fight at school." Her mom didn't get a good look at her. The woman hadn't seen how much blood there had actually been.
"Oh, is that all?" The woman sagged in relief and snorted. "I thought you were going to say you killed someone or gave birth to the antichrist."
"You're taking this very well."
"Well, are you on any drugs?" Her mom asked, giving a snarky smirk.
"I'm not on anything, mom!"
"Seriously? Damn, you're boring. I was high as a kite constantly in high school-"
"Mom!"
"I'm kidding." Her mother reached over and cupped her face. "I know your father taught you better. The other people started it, I'm guessing."
"Yeah."
"Is it finished?"
"I think so, yeah."
"Then I'm not mad at you. I'm worried. But I'm not mad." Her mother checked her watch, biting her lip. "I could call into work if you want."
"Nah. I'll be fine. I'll wash up and go to bed. I can handle cleaning myself up."
"Hope-"
"Dad needs you more." She squeezed her mom's hand. "You can't miss any of your shifts." Her mom worked two jobs. One early in the morning, from six to two, and one later in the afternoon, from four to midnight. All so they could pay for those ever-increasing hospital fees.
Her mom finally relented. "There's money on the fridge. Order yourself something. I'm going to visit your dad in the hospital. I'll tell him you said hi."
"Okay, I'll see you later." The house was eerily quiet as her mother finally left. She collapsed onto the couch, face first. "I'm such a coward." She hadn't even been able to tell the whole story. The TV blinked on, and it was something about the Victorian. It always was, though, nowadays.
Then it dawned on her.
"Wait. Do I have superpowers?" The couch fell back as she jumped to her feet, staring back down at her hands. The fight felt like a blur as it flashed back through her mind. She had beaten all those guys so easily. "How do I test this?"
She was never the smartest person, but what she was about to do was really dumb, even for her. She had made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She wasn't about to stab herself; that would be stupid, but this was a close second, for sure.
She gripped it by the blade and began to squeeze. She half expected it to cut into her palm, a scream ready in her throat, but instead there was the sound of metal cracking as it began to twist and snap in her grip. When she was done, she made sure to hide it under a layer of trash in the bin so her mom wouldn't find it.
Her hand was fine—no cut or bruise at all. She was knife-proof. Her fingers went back to her throat, tracing the spot where the knife had hit her.
"I have powers." She whispered to the empty house. She eyed the window of her apartment for a second. Their apartment was up on the highest floor, so it was a long way down. She decided against it quickly, though. There would be better ways to test if she had flight. Cleaner also, just in case she didn't.
"Armin's going to freak when he learns about this." Or should he know? He was pretty good at keeping quiet about stuff; she had told him plenty of secrets, and he had never outed her. This was a little different, though; he was her best friend. Come to think of it, Kyle already knew. "Crap."
Not just him. The men in the alleyway, the one who had run away, so there was a good chance the Bad Timers would know, and Kevin could also figure it out if he heard a Super took those guys down. It was not even day one of being a hero, and she had already messed up on the whole secret identity part.
It didn't hurt to tell Armin. The cat was already out of the bag—or at least that had been the plan. As she reached down for her pocket, it suddenly dawned on her that the situation was worse than she thought. She hadn't picked up her phone or wallet when she fled the junkyard.
"Man, I'm really bad at this!"
Her nerves nearly skyrocketed when she heard a knock on the front door. She opened it a bit, that beating in her chest getting worse when she saw Kyle. He seemed to notice her staring at him through the crack and smiled at her. "Can I come in?"
Hesitantly, she pulled the door open. "How do you know where I live?" He quietly handed her the wallet she had dropped, along with her phone and glasses, which answered her question. She was a little disturbed that he went through her wallet and found her address in it, though. "Oh yeah. Thanks." She held her glasses, looking down at them. They were barely holding together, badly cracked, and a bit twisted. She'd have to get a new pair. Not like she really needed them now, though.
"So, can I come in?" Kyle asked again.
An awkward silence followed as she considered how easy it would be to wipe someone's memories with a good whack to the head. Finally, she moved out of the way and waved him in. "You'll have to leave before my mom gets back. She'd kill me if she saw I had a boy here."
"Your mom a Super, too?" His words nearly caused her to smash the door in his face.
He knew. Instead of freaking out, she decided to just tell the truth. She snorted as she tried to imagine her boring, overworked mother in a hero costume. "Nope. She's normal. Same for my dad."
"So just you, then?" Kyle asked, sliding a chair out and sitting down.
"Yeah, just me. And before you ask, I didn't know about my powers until today." She took a seat across from him, staring down at her hands. "Did you tell anyone?"
"No." He gave her a serious look and shook his head. "And I won't. I know we just met, so you have no reason to trust me, but I would never reveal something this big. You pretty much saved my life, after all. I cleaned up that mess, too."
"You did?"
"Yeah. My dad is pretty high on the totem pole. I gave him a call. Those thugs that you knocked out won't be getting up anytime soon. I told him I was walking home by myself when they jumped me and wanted to kidnap me for ransom. I left out the part of you being there and made it sound like I was alone."
"So now he thinks his son is some kind of badass that took down several grown men?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "I told him a hero knocked the men out. A new one, who I didn't get to see very well, and that 'he' took off when he was done."
"One of them got away." She mumbled.
Often, when a new Super appeared, it was some sort of race to see which group would get them first. One of the hero groups, or villain groups, and she had basically shot any chance of a secret identity if he blabbed.
"What about Kevin?"
Kyle sighed and leaned back. "I didn't tell my dad about him. I figured that would be a bad link back to you, so I imagine he's back at his house. He might be able to put the pieces together, especially if it ends up on the news. I couldn't tell if he knew then or not."
"You just let him leave?"
"Well, after you were gone, he woke back up. Mumbled that he was sorry and told me where you lived so I could return your stuff. Then, when he left, my dad and the other cops showed up." So, he hadn't gone through her stuff to figure it out. That was nice. Wait, how did Kevin know where she lived? "You should still be worried, though. Today was sloppy, so expect someone to figure it out."
"Great." She moaned, collapsing face-first into the table. "Well, I guess it isn't so bad. I mean, I could probably bench press him into oblivion."
Kyle snorted and folded his arms. "So, what do you do, exactly?"
"What do you mean?" She shot him a look and raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, what powers do you have?"
That caused her to sit up as she looked down at her hand. She had extra durability and strength, obviously, but she wondered what else she could do. She knew there had to be more to it than she had shown so far. She felt it in her gut. "I actually haven't tried anything out yet." She admitted.
"Really? Well." Kyle gave a sly smirk. "I've got a good idea, then."
"Uh oh."
***
"I'm glad I got my tetanus shots." The beach of Oleander had once been a nice tourist attraction, but years of trash and ignorance had left it cluttered with anything the city no longer wanted. She could almost feel the rust coming off all the metal, and there were dozens of stacks.
"Oh, don't be such a baby." Kyle replied, slapping her on the back.
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one who is going to be handling all this metal!"
"You have super durability."
"I feel like if I breathe wrong, I'll be coughing rust for a week."
"This place doesn't see any action anymore and is pretty far from prying eyes, so if you want to try anything, this is it."
They weren't anywhere near the maze of scrap. In fact, they were almost on the very other side of the junkyard beach, but that didn't ease her nerves. If a gang like Bad Timers was hanging around on one side, then chances were there could be others.
She kept expecting a supervillain to jump out and give her a horrible, painful death, but it never came. "Quit stalling!" Kyle urged.
She gave a half-nod and looked around at all the piles of trash. Finally, her eyes settled on what might have once been a small speedboat but had been badly gutted. She wrapped her hand around it and let out a grunt, trying to raise it up.
When she was a kid, she had once gotten into a horrible car accident with her father. That accident was actually what led to his illness and having to go to the hospital. Back then, she felt so powerless. Like the world would always be stronger than her and able to do whatever it wanted. Now, though...
She lifted the boat with a single hand, her fingers tearing into the metal as if it were wet paper. "I feel so strong. This would have come in handy a long time ago."
This year, PE. had gotten boring and consisted mostly of running and doing push-ups. The feeling in her arm was sort of like doing a few push-ups. Her muscles ached and strained, but she still managed to do it.
"That must weigh close to five hundred pounds at least." Kyle murmured, watching her with wide eyes. "Maybe not, though, with how bad of a shape it's in. Still, I doubt even a group of men could just pick it up like that. You got some kind of super strength for sure."
She sighed and set it down, rubbing her shoulder. "It's still awkward to hold it, though. I could feel the metal bending as I tried to balance. It let me get a good idea of a limit, though, that was starting to hurt."
"Well, you don't have any muscles. Maybe you'll be able to get tougher?" Kyle suggested.
"Maybe."
"We already knew you had strength, though. Try to, I don't know, shoot lasers or something. Preferably facing that way."
He gestured at the ocean, and she rolled her eyes but obliged. Demonica, Polaron, Ocean Empress, and Victorian all shared one thing. They had more than one ability. Ocean Empress was insanely strong, able to control and shape water and even ice to an extent. Polaron could not only control metal but also had the ability to heal, and Demonica was crazy fast and on fire. As for the Victorian... Well, there really wasn't anything that woman couldn't do.
Compared to all of them, her strength and durability weren't anything too crazy, so if she really was a Super like them, then she'd have to have an ability of her own.
After several seconds of staring out at the ocean, she gave up trying to shoot lasers from her eyes or hands. The next thing she tried was making water move like the Ocean Empress or even to create ice, but nothing. She didn't seem to have telekinesis, and metal wasn't obeying her. She tried to read Kyle's mind or even control it, but he just said she made a dumb face. Her limbs didn't stretch, and she didn't feel smarter or know how to suddenly build a crazy suit of tech armor. Besides the enhanced body, she felt really average.
Finally, it was time for the last power. The one she had been waiting for.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I can fly. I can fly. I want flight. If I can pick my power, please let me fly."
"I don't know if this is a good idea."
Kyle was cut off as her eyes snapped open, and she crouched down, taking a great gasp of air. Then, like a rocket, she blasted off into the air. Not because she flew, but rather because she focused all her strength on her legs and kicked off.
She leaped well above the walls of trash and metal and got so high that she could see the skyline of the city. "Now fly!" And then she began to fall. Really, really, really fast. "Fly? Fly... Fly! Oh God, please fly-"
She was grateful enhanced durability was part of the power package deal because if it wasn't, she'd be dead.
"Ow." She whined, lying in the mini-crater she had formed from her impact. "Don't. Speak. A. Single. Word. Of. This." She hissed quietly when Kyle peered down into the hole at her.
Kyle couldn't stop laughing as he stared at her. "I'll keep your secret safe when you become famous, Fall Girl."
"Can you help me out? I'm kind of stuck."
"Speaking of which," Kyle muttered as he began to slide down the side of the crater and made his way over to her. She was halfway buried in the sand, and he got to work trying to dig her out. "Are you going to become a hero?"
Hope looked up at the sky as the sun began to set. "Well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it."
"And?"
"I don't know yet."
"That's okay. As long as you don't hurt anyone, I'll support whatever choice you make." Kyle smiled.
They spent the next few hours testing out all sorts of powers, though they never did find out what other ability she had. That was okay, though. She was pretty sure she made a new friend by the end of it.
***
Soon, they had to say goodbye, with Kyle heading to the richer part of the city while she made her way to the border of the poor and middle-class areas. The sun had long since gone down. Her mom was still at work when she arrived back home. Thanks to issues with the Bad Timers Gang as well as a new group calling themselves Wandering Coin, she'd be working late.
She closed the door to the apartment and stumbled to her room. Her body ached, and she could feel sleep starting to bubble up, but she wasn't ready for bed. Not yet.
When they sold the house, much of her stuff was either sold at a garage sale or put away in a storage container owned by a friend of the family. One thing she had saved, though, was her old costume.
She'd outgrown Halloween, but several years ago, when she was little, she saved up as much spare cash as she could to buy a Victorian costume. The suit itself was obviously too small for her now, but she still pulled it out and held it up to her body, looking at herself in the mirror.
The costume was sort of like a cross between a standard superhero suit and a military camo uniform. It didn't have any armor; the woman didn't need it, and it was all black, with a few bits of red, various medals of honor, and a long red cape sewn into it.
"I really could be a superhero." It was just dawning on her. How real it could be. How close she already was. But would it be a smart idea? It wouldn't pay the bills and could get her mom or dad harmed, or worse.
Besides, even if she did want to be a hero, that'd have to wait. There was no telling what her limits were or what else she could do. Kyle and her had barely scratched the surface of the whole thing. She'd need to practice more if she wanted to be ready.
One word buzzed through her head as her ears twitched, and her thoughts came to a screeching halt. "Help!" It must have been nearby, judging by how close it sounded. The next sound she heard was that of a crashing car.
Before she even knew what she was doing, her window was open, and she was literally jumping off of the fifth-story floor. The cape of the childish costume was ripped off, and she tore two holes into it and wrapped it around her face to hide her appearance. She attempted to do a superhero landing but fumbled it as she collapsed butt first onto the road and groaned.
She'd have to work on that.
She was back on her feet and sprinting down the road. Not quite as fast as a car, but far faster than even the best athlete could manage. Her ears burned as she heard the screaming, and to her shock, it was further down the block than she thought, too far for her to have heard it from her bedroom and far from any place where help would have been.
She rounded the corner of the road and saw it. The metal of the car had bent around a tree, and there was an awful grinding noise as the car kept pushing against the wood. Smoke was gushing out of the hood of the vehicle, and the two front doors were crumpled so badly that it'd be impossible to open them.
In the passenger seat was the one who cried for help. She was an older woman dressed in a suit, likely in her mid- to early-fifties. She was trying to force the door open, but it wouldn't budge. In the driver's seat was what Hope assumed to be the husband. He was a bit of an overweight man, dressed for a night out on the town.
Currently, he was blacked out over the steering wheel, his foot still on the gas.
She took only a second to clear the air that had gotten caught in her throat, and then she acted. She reached the woman's door, grabbed it, and pulled as hard as she could. The door snapped off easily, and she fished the woman out.
"Call an ambulance." She yelled over the sound of the car.
"R- Right." The woman nodded and started looking through her pockets for her phone.
With that done, she reached the other side of the car and was able to get that door off as well. Getting the man out was harder, though. The metal had twisted and dented around him, leaving his leg stuck in place. She was afraid of breaking anything in case she slipped and got his leg, so she did the next best thing she could think of.
She walked to the front of the car and ripped it out of the tree carefully. Then she smashed her fist through the hood of it and shattered the engine to pieces, ripping as much of it out as she could and ignoring the horror that would be cleaning the oil out of her clothes and hair later.
The car slowly died down, and the smoke began to stop as she let out a sigh of relief. "What happened?" She questioned when the woman was done calling for an ambulance.
"He has issues with his heart." The woman winced, wiping at her eyes. "We were heading back home when he had a bad one, and well... You can tell the rest. Can you get him out of the car?"
"I just got my powers. I don't know how good they are yet, and I don't want to start ripping at any of the metal near him in case I cause more harm. The ambulance should be able to get him. His heart has settled down, which is lucky."
"How do you know?"
"What?"
"How do you know his heart settled?"
"Oh well, I can hear it slowing-" She went silent, cutting herself off. It was there. A faint beat in the air. Not just from the man but from the woman as well. Their heartbeat. It hadn't even dawned on her that she was listening in.
The woman studied her. "You're new, aren't you?"
"Duh. I mean, look at how bad my costume is-" The sound of sirens caused her to stop. "And that is my cue to leave, ma'am!" She crouched down and jumped up, just as she had earlier, only this time she was ready, and landed on the roof of an apartment.
Part of her prayed that enhanced hearing was just a glimpse at what else she would unlock because, while it was cool, it wasn't exactly flashy. She was tempted to wait for the cops to arrive before she took off, but she didn't want to risk getting seen and someone recognizing her.
She stuck to the rooftops, leaping from building to building, before she finally arrived back at her apartment. With another high jump, she reached the window, managed to wrap her arms around it, and hauled herself up. She collapsed back into her room, breathing heavily.
Once again, that pounding in her heart from earlier today was back. That fear. No, that wasn't the right word. She knew what it was now. She hadn't been scared when she got her powers.
This was a feeling of excitement.
She took the makeshift mask off and sighed. "Well, that might be too much fun for one night. It's not like I've decided, anyway-"
She was cut off by the sounds of a little girl who was blocks away. "Kitty, get out of the tree!"
With an excited smile, she tied the 'mask' back on and jumped out of her window once more.