City of Heroes

Ignite

"So let's clarify, who and what is the Prime?" Levi asks, sprawled across my couch. I sit on the edge, criss-cross applesauce style, with a bowl of popcorn in my lap.

"The Hero, not you but Finn," I explain. Levi opens his mouth and I toss a piece of popcorn in.

"Great. So I'm being hunted down because of the traitor," he grumbles, "Why do they even want Finn?"

"Remember when you were brainwashed and were trying to capture the Hero?"

"Yah, I remember," Levi grumbles. He hates anything to do with when he was mind controlled.

"It's like that. The Olympians are just unstable clones. They need the Cure to survive that's why they're hunting down the Prime, Finn, the first Super to survive."

Levi grabs another handful of popcorn, "So Finn leaves town and he's still our problem."

I ignore the comment. "I think they're being mind controlled too. When I stabbed Circe she acted different."

Circe is a complicated issue. When I stabbed her with the Cure it freed her of mind control and stabilized her. The Olympian Squad just replaced her with another clone so somewhere there's the copy I stabbed with Cure running wild. That explains why when I saw her at the coffee shop she didn't recognize me. It's because it was a completely different person.

"Look it's on tv," Levi says, sitting up rapidly and spilling the popcorn everywhere. I give him a dirty look, he rolls his eyes but in one second it's all cleaned up again. Oh superspeed...

I turn the volume up on the news. The reporter is interviewing Detective White. I had called her from a pay phone after we got out of the tunnels. Her whole team did a search of the area and found nothing. If the Olympians had their headquarters around there they must have moved.

Some of the Olympians even showed up, trying to win some good PR and pretend like they weren't the cause of the problem. I gasp out when I see Selene smiling and waving for the cameras.

I watch wide-eyed, hands clutching at my hair. "No, no she was dead! She was killed right in front of me."

That confirms it: the Olympians are all clones and whoever is making them can replace them just as easily.

"You ok Mack?" Levi asks, looking worried.

"I'm fine," I breathe, "Really, just a little shaken up after tonight. I still can't believe he killed his own teammate. It's horrible."

Levi stares at me long and hard, "That's the thing I don't get about you."

"What is?"

"You're tough and you act cold like you don't care about anyone or anything. I mean that in a good way, that's what I like about you," he begins, "But then you want to go help people and run into burning buildings and play superhero because you genuinely want to do good. And I think I like that about you too I just don't know what side is the real you."

"Maybe I'm both," I say quietly.

"Maybe."

I tug awkwardly at the bandaid around my wrist. My father practically threw a fit when I came home. I had scrapes and bruises everywhere and my wrist is probably sprained. He helped fix me up but the whole time he kept saying how I should leave town. Go stay with my family upstate where I'll be safe. My dad doesn't want me to have anything to do with Supers or the Olympians or Vertigo City. Levi had even offered to fly us away, just him and I, anywhere in the world I wanted. But I had to stay in Vertigo. I couldn't leave all this mess when I'm the only one who can clean it up.