Heroic Villains: Super Normal

Chapter Five: Playing with the Enemy

So, a style choice dilemma. At least I think its style and not grammar... Whatever here it is. In the third limited POV I have going on, what the heck do I call the parents when names would have otherwise been in place? Right, do I call them her/his parent, just parent, father/mother or what? So, I am making the stylistic choice to capitalize the parent title i.e., Father/Mother for when the name would otherwise be in use. At least until I find some grammar thing that mentions it. Pretty sure you should use their names when you need the proper noun but like... I like the idea that even in third limited the POV character is still picking what would be said and so using the parent's name when its the child's POV feels weird to me.

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Emma Jones

Emma flipped through the news tabloids reading about the latest movements of active heroes and registered villains, true criminals wouldn't be caught dead actually giving information to reporters. She scanned down to her own region and smirked at the section that spoke about Spirit and Quake.

Quake will be leaving the city for a new home on Monday, take this weekend to wish him well. As for his sidekick, young Spirit will be spending some time off duty to heal up after his latest encounter with the unregistered villains Sefarious and his Miss Fortune. Where the young sidekick goes from here hasn't been disclosed just yet.

"How come they mention you? You weren't even there?" Emma asked the tall willowy man that stood next to her, watching the crowd around them with that casual boredom that hid just how aware of everyone's movements he was. His brown eyes slid from one person to the next, looking for that specific someone without seeming like more than a cautious parent.

Which he was, in a way.

"They make you sound like a weapon. Maybe you aren't taking enough credit for your ideas," He commented.

"Sure, let me just call up the reporters and correct the mistakes. I'm sure they'd love that. Ugh, no thank you." She said and felt a little thrill of pride at the approving smirk her comment got from her adoptive father.

"There he is," Father said and shifted his weight. Emma looked up to follow his gaze to find that the boy they'd been waiting for was standing by the sign-in desk.

"...Why'd he have to be so cute?" Emma sighed out under her breath, ignoring her father's raised eyebrow.

"Better question is why you didn't see it," Father said which was a bit of a stab at her pride; which was already bruised with Spirit finding her so many times; he had to go no matter how cute turned out being.

"Doesn't matter, he's getting too lucky, and I don't deal in luck." Emma huffed out. She was annoyed Spirit had somehow been within arm's reach and she never even had suspensions. They have the same hair color and body build for crying out loud. She'd been able to deduce Quake as a man named Josh Evens two weeks into studying him. But Spirit had been a mystery until she'd seen under his mask.

"Maybe it's cause he's cute." Father shrugged and used that tone that made Emma all the more embarrassed.

"I wasn't- I didn't," Emma began to stutter.

"Don't worry, I was a dumb teen once. Now go, see if he saw your face."

"...Yeah yeah, I'm going." Emma handed over the newspaper and sauntered over to Alistair Mayweather who'd just finished signing in and Emma sensed the charismatic Spirit would chat up the person who helped him sign in and she'd cut in to ask a question but was caught off guard when he didn't even thank the woman and turned suddenly, almost running right into her.

Him catching her off guard didn't end there. Their whole conversation felt off.

He quickly spun around to help clean the mess he'd made, giving Emma time to recenter herself and opened her third eye more fully to see the the intentions behind gestures and words. It almost felt like holding a magnifying glass up but instead of seeing things up close it pulled apart all the meanings smallest things to find purpose behind the chaos.