The day was hot enough for the usually fairly steady stream of customers making their way in and out of Gar's Bodega to almost halt entirely. Even after Enid's battle against Elodie, the crowd of people who had appeared at the Plaza to see Elodie had mostly dispersed since she left after her defeat.
Time seemed to crawl by with the only break in the silence of the store being an overhead droning of radio hits playing just loud enough to be distracting. Enid was fidgeting with an old pen, rolling it back and forth on the counter in front of her. She was startled by a loud thud followed by a yelp from Rad and a quick "sorry!" from K.O. which caused her to flick the pen just hard enough for it to roll off the counter. Enid sighed and rested her head in one hand. Glancing to the side, she saw Rad picking up a box that had been dropped on his foot. She laughed lightly to herself, earning her a sharp look from Rad.
Enid let out a breath, making no effort to retrieve the pen she dropped. Instead, Enid leaned back in her chair and kicked up her feet. She yawned and tilted her head forward, closing her eyes.
Enid didn't pay much attention as K.O. scampered back and forth and Rad continued moving and unpacking boxes. She was mentally exhausted. It wasn't her usual tiredness that resulted from sitting in the same place with nothing to do for so long, but those factors weren't out of the question. Alongside the fight she had won earlier in the day, Enid had been putting a lot of effort into not thinking about anything. Thinking led to reflection and reflection led to Elodie, but what happened between them was a subject that Enid had done enough thinking about as of late.
Regardless of Enid's reluctance to think over the events of the day, she couldn't help but look back on what she thought was true about her childhood best friend and how her thoughts on those things had changed. Enid had believed Elodie to be a liar and that wasn't exactly wrong, but there was more to it than that. Elodie hadn't lied about being Enid's friend when they were younger, but she was still a liar. Elodie had told Enid that she took advantage of her to win a competition and a scholarship when that wasn't true. Even when meeting face to face for the first time in years, Elodie had kept up her charade. For all that time Enid had hated her and Elodie might as well have accepted it. Now knowing that they really had been friends, Enid couldn't help but ask more questions.
Was Elodie just bored of her company when the competition happened? Was she faking her enthusiasm and waiting for an opportunity to let go? Maybe. Enid wouldn't have been able to tell, considering that Elodie had proven herself to be an exceptional liar. Maybe Elodie really just felt bad for Enid all that time. Maybe she had lied about never having a best friend before they met. Elodie didn't ever seem to be the reclusive type, and her tendency to seek out others has only ever helped her make a name for herself in recent years.
Enid jumped at the loud thud on the counter beside her. She scooted her chair back, once again sitting with her feet on the ground. She was met by K.O. who had slammed the palm of his hand down on the counter. He stood on his tip-toes to reach as far as he could onto the counter.
"Something is wrong with Elodie's Pow Card!" He said. Enid wasn't entirely sure whether the tone of his voice was one of intrigue or concern.
"Huh?" Enid blinked as she looked down at K.O.'s hand, a single upturned Pow Card underneath it. "What do you mean?"
Despite reaching as far as he could onto the counter, K.O. was still barely able to look over the counter at Enid. "Elodie's Pow Card," K.O. repeated. "It changed!"
"Well, sure," Enid replied before noticing how dry her voice sounded. She cleared her throat before responding in a more interested sounding tone. "Did you catch it while it was updating? That must have been cool-"
"No," K.O. interrupted quickly, "Enid, look," he pointed down at the card, using his other hand to try and pull himself upwards over the edge of the counter. "Her power level went down!"
Enid immediately looked over at the card, expecting it to quickly glitch back to the way it had been before, but K.O. was right. In the bottom corner of Elodie's Pow Card, her level read 3 instead of 4. Enid could have sworn that Elodie's level had been one unit higher before seeing her card then. Maybe it was a mistake?
"I didn't know heroes could lose their levels," K.O. said, a tinge of worry in his voice.
"Well," Enid thought of the ways she could handle the situation, taking a second to run them over in her head. "You have nothing to worry about, brush-head. These things happen on occasion, and it's nothing to worry about, okay? You just keep on fighting the good fight and you won't have anything to freak out over."
K.O. took another second to think before nodding. "Okay, Enid! I believe you! I just wanted to show someone before my break ended. It seemed really strange."
Hoping to change the subject, Enid asked, "You're on break already?"
"Rad wanted me to take a minute so he could handle the heaviest boxes and I could help him with the others."
"Because you dropped one on his foot again?" Enid chuckled.
"It's happening less often, now! I'm getting better!" K.O. insisted.
"All the time, kiddo."
Enid handed the Pow Card back to K.O. who returned it to his book before tucking the collection under his arm and running off. Enid leaned forward and rested her head on her palm, propping her arm up on the counter.
While Enid wasn't as good of a liar as Elodie, she had practice when it came to giving somebody the answer she knew they wanted. Mostly it involved maneuvering her way around a potentially unpleasant conversation and while it didn't always work, it was worth a shot sometimes. She didn't want K.O. worrying about Power Levels being able to move in more than one direction, but she couldn't help but wonder about it herself.
She could have taken pride in it, being a factor in Elodie's level dropping, but when she considered that power levels almost never moved backwards without good reason, there was no room in her mind to be proud.
Elodie's day had been one of the worst she could remember. She had gone to the Plaza with a plan to make up for past mistakes that she abandoned in favour of continuing a lie. She made a fool of herself by losing a battle that should have been easy. The way Enid had stared at Elodie after knocking her down was nothing she hadn't expected. Enid deserved to look like she hated her, and she had every reason in the world to feel that way. It was true that not everybody truly loved her, everybody has people who dislike them. People who will see others as villains through and through. Even though her stance had been made clear, people still have the tendency to tease about such things. It isn't like they knew what she had done, they just didn't like her. They didn't know that because of what Elodie was hiding, she had occasionally entertained the thought that she wasn't a hero after all. It never lasted. So Elodie left the Plaza and returned to her dorm room for the day. It was then that she noticed the Pow Card on her nightstand had updated. Through the tears still in her eyes, she could have sworn her level had changed.
Elodie took her Pow card from her nightstand and stared down at it. Her soft crying picked up again as she read and re-read the card in her hand. She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her free hand before looking back down, misty-eyed. There was a pause in her thinking. Refreshing her card hadn't changed the update, but Elodie was certain that what she was seeing had to be some sort of glitch.
Elodie's card read that she had lost a level after her fight with Enid. Elodie knew that it would be only a matter of time before other people noticed and the story caught fire. A known heroine losing a fight so spectacularly that she had lost a level? At least that was all an outsider would be able to make of it. As soon as enough people caught wind of the news, Elodie would have questions to answer. She straightened herself up, staring straight ahead at nothing. She resolved that dodging invasive questions wasn't something she hadn't done before and that she could, and would, handle it. Nobody had to know about any immoral actions she had previously taken, regardless of how they were tied to her level dropping.
Pulling it from her vest, Elodie ran her thumb over the engraved letters on the necklace she kept tucked where nobody could see it. She simultaneously thanked and scolded herself for having never gotten rid of it. The chain it had been originally attached to had long since been broken and replaced with a stronger one. The new chain was silver and didn't at all match the mock gold pendant.
It wasn't like Elodie hadn't avoided scandal before. Nobody knew what she did to Enid, but that also meant they didn't know why her level would have dropped after a single fight. Just another secret to be carried around like the necklace that sat on her nightstand.
Elodie dropped the necklace, lifting her hair off the back of her neck and unhooking the chain before returning the locket to her bedside. At the edge of the counter, her phone began to buzz before stopping abruptly. It buzzed again. A single green light at the top of the phone flashed on and off. Elodie pressed and held the power button until the buzzing and flashing stopped. Whoever was calling would have to wait for now. It wouldn't have been anybody important, Elodie doesn't get many calls from the friends she doesn't have.
The day was nowhere near over. Elodie approached her window and roughly pulled the blinds shut. There was no way she was going out again to end the day, she had nothing important to do anyway. By the next day, there was no way she would be able to turn her phone back on. Somebody will have noticed by then if they hadn't already.
It was terrifying, the idea of people turning on her if they found out exactly what she had done for her level to have finally dropped. Refusing to make up with Enid must have been the last decision necessary to send her backwards. She wondered if Enid was proud. If Enid had already noticed she might be glad that Elodie was finally getting what she deserved. Enid had the right to be proud.