"The villain known as Intake, after causing a massive scene, seemingly vanished after he was defeated in battle by an unknown Super. You can see the footage here as the newbie hero used her super strength to make a series of great jumps."
Hope groaned as her eyes began to open. Her head was killing her, and the lights above really didn't help. In fact, they made it all so much worse. She could hear what sounded like a TV—the newswoman that was always going on about heroes talking.
"Hope?" Her eyes fully snapped open at the sound of her mother's voice, and she sat up. "Oh, thank God you're awake!" She didn't have time to process anything, as she was suddenly pulled into a hug so tight that even with her enhanced durability, it caused her to wince and groan. "Don't you dare scare me like that ever again, young lady!"
"M- Mom?" She slowly pulled herself out of her mother's grip. Her eyes finally adjusted to the light, and she looked around.
"Hey, Hope." Her head turned when she heard Armin. Her best friend had a smile on his face. It wasn't a joking smile or the sly kind he always had. It was one of genuine relief. "You owe me big time for the years I just lost. You have no idea how much stress you caused me." It was his turn to pull her in for a hug.
"Sorry, I guess?" She was a little confused. Her mind raced back to everything that happened. She was in the hospital. A room very similar to her dad's. She was also dressed in a gown. The memories of the beating she took raced through her head. Despite it, she didn't feel that bad. In fact, she felt mostly fine. She ran her tongue through her mouth, confirming all her teeth were still there, despite having lost a few in her battle. "What happened?" She finally asked.
"We were sort of hoping you could tell us that." Her mother sighed. The room wasn't very big, just having a table, two chairs, a bed, and a TV on the wall. Her mom muted the TV, which had already stopped talking about the Intake story, and instead focused on a story about the Victorian stopping an asteroid the size of Texas from hitting planet Earth with the help of another hero named Boy Genius. "Do you remember what happened, Hope?" Her mother's words drew her attention back to the situation at hand.
She did, of course, remember what happened. Most of it, at least. Intake had nearly killed her, and then that red-haired man showed up out of nowhere. He was strong. Way stronger than she was at the moment. Then everything went black. Of course, she couldn't exactly say all of that. Her mom would kill her if she found out she had tried to fight a monster like Intake.
"I- I don't know." She finally said. "I left the house and was walking down the street. Then-" She trailed off. She didn't really have a good lie to say, but thankfully Armin saved her.
"Intake." Armin nodded. "I bet she got caught in the blast. That villain bombed an entire street. I heard a lot of people got hurt, but thanks to the quick work of the Pallet Boys, no one died. The entire floor below us is filled with a ton of people that were on the street when it happened, all needing help."
"Y- Yeah." She would seriously have to thank Armin later. He just gave her a golden excuse. "I was walking down the street, and I remember just a lot of pain. Then I blacked out. That must have been it."
Her mother nodded. "We were told someone dropped you off at the hospital. I'm guessing you don't remember, though, do you?"
"No. Sorry." She winced. She wondered if that strange man had been the one to drop her off. He was likely the one who knocked her out. The fact that there weren't any police here asking her questions meant no one knew that she had been the person that led Intake away. With all the injured people, they likely thought she was just a normal kid. After all, her suit could barely be called a hero costume.
"Why were you that far from home late at night?" Her mother folded her arms and began to scold her. "That was miles away from home. You know you're not allowed to leave the house at that time."
"I uh, well, um, I-" She shrugged and shot a look at Armin, pleading for his help.
He caught on to what she wanted and gave her a grin. "I bet she went out to see someone." He announced. "I'm right, aren't I, Hope? Admit it, you were sneaking out of the house for a date or something! Come on, tell me what her name is! Who's the lucky girl?"
"That's not it at all!"
"Hope." Her mother spoke up. "I was young once as well. That said, there should be no reason for you to go out late that night. Next time, just invite them over to our house."
"You're as bad as he is!"
"I wish that hero was still here, though." Her mother finally decided to change the subject. "I'm sure you'd love to thank her."
"Hero?" For a moment, her thoughts went back to the strange man, but her mother said 'her', so it couldn't have been him.
Jane reached out and held her hand, squeezing it softly. "We still don't know who brought you here, if it was a hero or what, but you, like many others, were in a bad condition. Apparently, a superhero from Lillian came down and is the reason you're unharmed. Her name was Paragon. She spent all night healing every patient she could."
"Lillian... That's where Team Reservoir is. A healer from there. Could she be-"
"Yes." Her mother cut her off and smiled. "She's the hero your father told you about. Once she's finished with all the people who are critically injured, she's going to get to work healing everyone else in the hospital. Your father is on the waiting list. He should be out of here within the week."
Armin turned away sheepishly, feeling a little out of place, as the mother and daughter hugged each other tightly. "Anyway." He spoke up. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but I promised Mr. Thaddeus I would help him move some stuff, so I need to head out."
She raised an eyebrow at the boy. "Mr. Thaddeus?"
"My new boss."
With everything that happened, she had totally forgotten her friend was working now. It wasn't like he needed the money; his family was rich, but she was still happy he was doing something with his life at least. More than she had been doing anyway...
They didn't stay in the hospital for much longer. Armin had been the first to leave, and eventually a doctor stopped by to check up on her. She was given a lookover, and they decided she could go. Her wounds should have been far worse, but there wasn't a single scratch on her. All thanks to that hero called Paragon. She'd seriously have to thank that superhero if she ever got a chance to meet them.
With a healing power like that, she was confident that the nightmare of her father's illness would finally come to an end.
She was wheeled out of the hospital in a chair, despite the fact she felt fine, and soon enough, she climbed into the back seat of her mother's car. "Can I borrow your phone?" She asked.
"What happened to yours?"
"Broke." She had been given a change of clothes from her mother, but her phone had been in her jacket pocket during the Intake fight, so needless to say, it was shattered beyond belief.
"Ah."
Her mother didn't say any more, reaching into her pocket and tossing the device to the backseat. She caught it and began to fiddle with it. She put it on the news, just in time to see herself.
It wasn't a good picture, but someone had managed to snap a shot of her in the middle of her chase with Intake. It was extremely blurry, and almost no detail could be made out, but she felt a strange sense of joy at having her image out there in the world.
But all good things must come to an end.
The screens changed as a newswoman came into view. The woman looked strangely familiar, but she couldn't get it to click in her head. Currently, the woman stood in front of a destroyed apartment building that had suffered from severe burns. The woman smiled at the camera and brought the microphone she held up.
"My name's Alice Ward, and I'm standing in front of the Rainbow Grove, a hotel that has seemingly suffered great damage after the battle with Intake was drawn to this location by a new, as of now, unnamed rookie hero-"
"Some hero she is!" Next to the newswoman, the owner of the destroyed apartment building growled. He was a small puddy man who glared into the camera. "I bet she took that bastard here on purpose! She thought it would be funny to battle Intake in my building! She's lucky I evacuated all the people when word got out that prick was rampaging; otherwise, the injuries would have all been on her head! And I bet she thinks it was funny leaving this here!" The man showed a business card with the number of a Cleanup Crew printed on it. "Like I have the money to afford these guys! Not when I'm paying out of my pocket for failures like her! If you're out there watching this right now, girl, next time don't use fire powers indoors, you cindering bit-"
She clicked the phone off her eye, twitching a bit. "I wasn't even the one that sent him into that building!"
"You say something?" Her mother called back to her.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything." She slumped down in her chair and let out a sigh. Her first day out as a hero, and already someone hated her. "I'll just do better next time. I promise."
***
"D- Did we really have to run all the way to school!" Armin huffed out as the boy struggled to keep up with her.
She spun around and flashed him a grin as she began to jog backwards on the street. "Come on, we used to do this all the time when we were kids, remember."
"Yeah! Like six years ago!" Armin was far from a jock, but he had been shockingly more athletic than she thought he'd be. Oleander Bay was placed directly at the edge of the middle zone and rich part of town. This meant that her house was practically on the other side of the city. Usually Armin and her would take a series of buses and walk the last of the way to school.
Not today though. Today she insisted on running all the way there herself. She was proud to say that along with strength and durability, she could put down inhuman stamina as another power, as even after a full ten minutes of sprinting she barely felt tired. She wasn't going at her full speed, of course. Another reason she wanted to do this was to see if she could hold her powers back and only slightly stay ahead of Armin.
Speaking of which, the boy caught up to her, running alongside her as he took several gasps of air. They were getting closer to the school now. "Did you actually have an end goal for this? We're going to be hot and sweaty the entire day now." He grumbled.
She decided to not bring up the fact that she was barely sweating and instead shrugged. "We can just hit the showers. I have track and field in my second period."
"I don't have weight lifting until the end of the day, though!"
"That sounds like a you issue then." She smirked.
"Hope!"
She was about to say something but stopped suddenly when her enhanced hearing kicked in on its own. It caught her off guard for a moment as an assortment of sounds hit her from all directions, but one stood out above all others.
Whispering. Whispers that were all talking about her.
"Isn't that her?"
"She was the one, right?"
"The Intake attacks?"
She hadn't been paying attention to how close to the school they really were until that very moment. They had reached the gate when her powers kicked in, and now she was unable to stop herself from overhearing all the conversations about her as the other students who stood in the courtyard of the building noticed her.
"Isn't Hope Lauren that weird girl that's into heroes? I bet she's glad the attacks happened and she got to meet a healer."
"My father was also caught in one of the attacks, but the healer Paragon never had time to visit him and fix his leg. Lauren got healed though? How is that fair?"
"It's a shame Intake didn't do a better job. I'm getting sick and tired of how she keeps causing trouble for our boss, Kev."
She felt all the eyes staring at her. Every student was whispering and talking about the incident with Intake. They somehow all knew that she had been a person caught up in it. Some were staring at her in pity, others glared at her, and more still were just gossiping about it. It made her skin crawl a bit. She couldn't turn her hearing off, and it wasn't stopping. The people weren't stopping.
"You think she should be at school?"
"I wonder if she's really okay. She's cuter than I remember. Maybe I'll ask her out."
"You doing okay, Hope?" The final voice she heard caused her to jump a bit when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, finding Armin staring down at her with concern. He didn't have the hearing she did, so from his perspective, it likely looked odd why she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks right at the gate to their school.
"Yeah. I'm fine, I guess." She said, finally stepping past the gate and entering the school grounds. Several people shot her looks, and she did her best to ignore them, playing with her glasses. She didn't need to wear them anymore, but she kept that detail secret from her mom and Armin. It'd be too weird to have fixed eyesight overnight.
It had only been two days since she tried her luck at being a hero. News of her being in the hospital had gotten around, it seemed. There were no mentions of her in her bad costume or anything. Rather, most of the rumors were tied to her having gotten to see the new hero, Paragon.
"And you're sure you feel fine?" Armin asked for what must have been the tenth time. She didn't expect him to be the mama bear type, but ever since she got out, he seemed dead set on sticking close and making sure she wouldn't randomly explode or something. He kept a hand on her shoulder and walked her to the building, shielding her from the looks the other students were giving her.
"For the last time, I'm fine! I was fully healed, remember?"
Armin gave a slight nod. "I covered for you in the hospital, but I seriously got to know. Why on Earth were you running around that part of town late at night?"
She shot a glance at all the other kids that were scattered about the school field. To many that could be listening to drop her bombshell. Instead, she shrugged. "I mean, in a way, I guess you were right."
"You really were seeing anyone!" Armin nearly tripped over his feet and stared at her with wide eyes. "Seriously! Does she go to this school? It better not be a student at our rival school; I swear I've had enough Romeo and Juliet issues for a lifetime! Is it a cheerleader? Gossip girl? Emo, goth, weeb? What's her name? What's she look like? How big are her-"
"I'm not dating anyone!" She hissed. She calmed down and folded her arms. "I was hanging out with Kyle."
"Oh. Less interesting but okay. Isn't he the new kid?" Armin's voice had a bit of a dangerous edge to it now as he looked from her to the other side of the schoolyard. "I don't recall him being sent to the hospital. Did he leave you when the attacks started? Give the word, and I'll take him out."
She followed his gaze and saw Kyle had a bit of a crowd around him, primarily girls. He was still pretty bruised up from the gang incident, unlike her, but that seemed to actually work out in his favor. His popularity had skyrocketed in a day. Perks of being the hot new kid, she guessed. Currently Ashley, Kevin's ex-girlfriend, was batting her eyes at him and rubbing her hand on his arm.
She snorted for a bit when she saw how uncomfortable Kyle looked. "Armin, I'm pretty sure Kyle would fold you in half if you fought. And no, he didn't leave me stranded. I had already left him and was heading home when it happened."
Kyle seemed to notice her looking and gave a half-wave. The crowd that had formed turned, and she suddenly felt very self-conscious at the many eyes that were set on her. Then her eyes settled on Kevin. He was standing near the back, staring right at her with his usual crowd flanking him. "I'll talk to you later, Armin. I'm going to scram before anyone else gets the wrong idea." She muttered. The whispers had already been bad enough; she didn't need to hear the new gossip about her and Kyle.
Armin gave a faint nod. "Okay." He opened the door to the school, letting her enter first. "Oh yeah, sorry, but I can't hang out after school. I need to go do something with a friend of mine."
"You have other friends?"
"Don't be mean!" Her friend huffed. "Listen, in case we don't see each other for the rest of the day, try and stay low. I heard Kevin was looking for you. I'll try to throw him off if I can, but stay careful, okay?"
"Right. I'll see you around." She stumbled into the hallway, dodging the crowds of students. It took all her willpower to not just throw the crowd to the side with her super strength, but with the cameras and many kids walking around, she knew she'd be outed worse than she already was. She didn't know if Kevin would follow after her or not, but she wasn't going to risk it.
She took shelter in the bathroom and found her way into a stall, ready to hide out until the bell signaled first period. She sighed and pulled out her mother's phone. She 'borrowed' it and had tried looking herself up on the internet. There were dozens of forums and posts dedicated to Supers. Luckily for her, any search for a brand-new Super in Oleander didn't turn up any heroes or villains—nothing that could be linked to her at least.
The closest thing to a mention of a new Oleander hero was some girl who recently joined the Oleander Sub Enforcers Team and metal powers. There were some talks about the picture that had been taken of her, but no name or power set had been assigned to her yet. The only thing most people agreed on was that she let Intake get away and botched up the job of the Pallet Boys.
It would seem that she had managed to remain under the radar for the time being, an impressive feat considering how much she had botched it up.
But good things aren't meant to last.
Especially for her.
The door to the restroom banged open, and on instinct, she froze. She did her best not to make a single sound. There were many giggles that filled the small room, echoing around. She could hear shuffling, and even without looking, she could tell they had stopped outside of the stall she was in. There was a knock on the door, making her jump.
"Umm, occupied." She called out hesitantly, though she had a bad feeling in her gut that said that fact wouldn't matter.
"Oh my god, she is in there! You were right." One of the girls on the outside exclaimed with glee. It wasn't Kevin. It was much worse than Kevin. Popular girls. More giggles followed. There must have been four or five out there. "Yeah, do it."
The liquid that splashed down into the stall burned her eyes. She could also tell it was sticky and felt it foaming on her skin. Grape soda. Lots of grape soda. The stall finally opened, causing her to come slipping out, a dripping wet mess of purple liquid.
It was no longer giggles but full-blown laughter that bounced around the bathroom stall. She had no idea how many of the girls had been in on it; even if her eyes weren't a burning mess, her brand-new pair of glasses, which her mom had specially ordered for her, were stained purple. The smell of the fruity drinks and sodas was sickly sweet.
She couldn't stop shivering from the cold and slowly climbed to her feet. Her backpack had taken the worst of it, and a sick feeling was in her gut. All that money on the textbooks went down the drain. Same with her comic. It was already a soggy mess. Her appearance must have been the funniest thing in the world to them because it caused more laughter to echo.
Her mother's phone had also been affected. It had been almost at full charge, yet now no matter how many times she tried to turn it on, the thing wouldn't work. Her mom was going to be really, really mad...
The words of the girls went over her head as she pushed past them and made for the sink, cleaning off her glasses. The world came back into view as she slipped them on. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her black hair was soaked and almost dyed red and purple. Her T-shirt was sadly no longer white. She also saw the bullies' reflection and the sheer glee on their faces.
It had been eight girls in total, though three stood out to her. The ring leaders or the popular girls. Hannah and Paige were the types of girls that fit the 'prom queen' image. But even they were nothing compared to Queen Bee Ashley. She guessed the girl didn't care that she had saved her from Kevin the other day.
"Maybe that'll teach you to stop trying to flirt with the new kid." Ashley's voice caused her eye to twitch, and the girl even attempted to do a hair flip. "He's off limits, got that?"
"You did this because you were jealous that a boy waved at me," she asked, her voice flat and empty of any emotion. "All of this for a boy I don't even like. What are you, a dumbass?" Ashley took a step back, not having expected that answer.
"Dumbass? I'm one of the smartest girls in this school!"
She finished cleaning part of her hair with water and used paper towels to dry off her face. She winced a little, staring at her shirt. Finally, she turned to look at them, taking her backpack off.
"What's wrong? Got nothing to say?" Ashley sneered.
She stared the girl in the eye. Then she swung the backpack as hard as she could. By some miracle she missed, as she hadn't been thinking straight when she did it. Ashley managed to duck under the strike just in time, and the bag slammed into the wall of the bathroom.
The other girls all stumbled back in shock, and Ashley stared up at her with a mix of fear and rage. "You psycho!" She stood there blankly as the girls ran out of the bathroom, leaving her alone. She knew what was about to happen next. They'd go and give some story about how she attacked them first and to spin it all on her.
She didn't really care about that at the moment, though. She quickly tugged her bag and pulled it out of the wall. They had been so busy glaring at her that none of them had noticed that she had swung with enough force to crack and dent the wall. Her bag was now beyond destroyed, her soaked books and supplies falling out of it and hitting the floor with a wet splash.
She reached up and wiped some of the soda off of her face and let out a sigh. "It's going to be a long day."
***
Mr. Pluto stirred his cup of coffee, mixing the sugar with the liquid before he took a slow sip from it. "I'm glad that you were able to come on such short notice, Mrs. Lauren. I'd like to talk to you about your daughter's actions today-"
"Is the other girl also in trouble?" Her mother asked in a cold tone.
She wasn't able to look either adult in the eye and instead kept her head face down. Her favorite teacher, Mr. Pluto, had been the one who was here to tell her mom about the trouble she was in since the principal had been caught up in a Super attack and would be late coming to work. Currently, she found herself seated in his office, sitting in awkward silence.
The school had called the hospital her mother worked at to get the woman to come down, and Jane Lauren was not very happy at the moment.
Mr. Pluto cleared his throat and placed his cup down. "Rest assured, we already plan on speaking with Ms. Numen about the part she played in this incident. From what I understand, she is the one who started it-"
"So then why is my daughter the one who is getting in trouble?" Her mother demanded.
"Ms. Numen's prank was bad, but your daughter physically tried to attack her-"
"Prank? Prank! That girl destroyed her bag and belongings! That's damage of property!"
The teacher raised his hands up slightly. "Mrs. Lauren, please calm down. I'm not on anyone's side in this situation and am simply stating the facts. I understand that Ms. Lauren was in the hospital the last few days. I think it would be best if she recovered more before returning to school. With everything going on-"
"Are you kicking my daughter out of school?"
"That's not what I said!" The man raised his voice for a moment before clearing his throat. "I just think it would be best for your daughter's sake if she was at one hundred percent before returning. Everyone's nerves have been acting up recently with all the attacks. No one is at fault, I think-"
"Not even the girl who decided it would be funny to destroy my daughter's things and dump soda on her? Not even the other girls who went along with it? They're not at fault either." Her mom didn't give the teacher time to respond and instead stood up, grabbing her hand. "Come on, Hope, we're leaving. You can return to school when you're feeling better."
She allowed herself to be dragged out of the room and walked the halls with her mother. Her face was red as many students stared at her, and the whispering started up once more. She had a towel wrapped around her, and her hair was still mostly stained purple and red. Her mother didn't say anything as they left the school and got into her car.
They pulled out of the parking lot, and she stared out the window in silence. Finally, her mother spoke once more. "Why would you do that?"
She flinched a little and looked down at her lap. "I don't know."
"You attacked a student in school, Hope!"
"She started it. I finished it. Besides, I thought you were on my side."
"I am on your side, but you can't be doing things like this. This is the second time you've gotten into a fight!" Her mother turned and stared at her. "With that and the Intake stuff, I'm getting worried, Hope."
She shrunk down in her seat a bit and began to mumble. "Look. I get that I went too far. I just... I just got mad." She had gotten lucky that she missed all things considered. With her new super strength, there was no telling what would have happened to Ashley if that blow had landed.
Her mother finally let out a heavy breath, shaking her head. "Well, you seem to get mad a lot lately." The woman's eyes glanced down at her watch, moving her car into the fast lane. "I'm going to be late to meet a friend. You're going to have to come with me." She winced at her mother's words. The look in her mother's eyes, though, made her a little nervous. It was the same look she had gotten that time her mother tried to build a new lawnmower. "I just got a great idea."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, my friend was complaining about how he's short on workers."
"Oh no."