Echo had to respect Fox's acting skills. He didn't even know Fairy, but when Fox addressed her murder in a solemn correspondence to CNN, her delicate, depressing words pulled a few heartstrings, even though he knew she was mad, not sad.
Celestro had lost supers before, but never to a gruesome murder like this. It hurt their pride, so figuring it out was personal. First order of business: find and talk to the subject of Fairy's last mission, which was in progress before her death. Sending Frostbite was out of the question. Flamethrower was trigger-happy and therefore a terrible interrogator. The others were busy, so the job had fallen onto Echo's shoulders.
Fairy's pager was found in the pocket of her supersuit, but it was damaged beyond repair, so he went to Celestro's dispatch room to find her last assignment. The technician brought up the details: a narc had asked for assistance in tracking down a drug kingpin named Silvera, who supposedly had a hideout somewhere in the city. Fairy was tasked with bringing him in; it was her first real job after being relegated to simple, save-a-cat-from-a-tree type missions to keep up the kid-friendly marketing. But since Silvera was, according to the technician, never found, it was Echo's job now.
Finding the kingpin was conventionally difficult: these people were smart, untraceable, and connected. But the Marvels didn't comply with conventional, and Echo reached out to every source they had, including the sleazy, criminal ones that no good hero would associate with. It would be frowned upon-the heroes shouldn't be fraternizing with enemies, they should be arresting them! But what the people didn't know couldn't hurt them. Two conversations later, and Echo had the address of Silvera's hideout.
It was night, and there were no witnesses on the old, rundown street. He hopped down the steps two at a time to the basement floor of a former bakery, now for sale. The hinges creaked as he gently pushed open the heavy door at the end of the stairs. The sheer confidence in leaving it unlocked was laughable; they knew most people wouldn't dare touch them, but they also seemed to have forgotten that they lived in the superhero capital of the world.
Or maybe they were perfectly aware, and some supers were friends, even customers.
Echo stood staring into a dark hallway, narrowing his eyes. He could hear faint voices, but it wasn't any superhuman help-he had vibration and sound-based powers, but, unfortunately, super hearing was not one of them. Somehow, Juggernaut had that. Echo was a little jealous.
He moved forward slowly. There was no light at the end, so unless the dealers were talking in the dark, there was likely a turn up ahead. He was right; the hall started to curve and lighten up, and then he came out into an open room.
It was larger than he expected, filled with ceiling-high piles of crates with plastic bags and stuffed animals poking through. Four men jumped to their feet in panic and scrambled for their guns. One of them took a long enough look at the newcomer to realize he was a Marvel, and he dropped his weapon and made a run for it through another door. It didn't seem like Silvera, so Echo let him go and focused on the other three, who were seconds away from having their weapons ready and aimed.
Echo didn't give them the chance-he wasn't bulletproof like Marv or J, and he couldn't let the bullets pass through him like Phase, so guns were a problem. He clapped his hands once, and an intense vibration resonated through the room, knocking everyone off their feet. Some crates toppled over, sending plumes of white dust into the air. Echo blinked and held his breath, realizing he should've thought that through better.
He clapped again, this time sending a screech of a sound wave that had everyone crying out and clamping their hands over their ears. Echo himself was unaffected, and he waited patiently. Two of the three dropped their weapons in surrender and scrambled for cover behind their supply. The last guy, dressed fancy in an expensive suit, backed into the wall, sliding down to the floor. This was Silvera.
Echo crossed the distance between them in two strides. He crouched down and held his index and middle finger right in front of Silvera's eyes, just millimeters away from poking them.
"Fairy lost her eyes," Echo said calmly, "and if you don't talk, you're going to lose yours."
There was a click behind him. Echo glanced over his shoulder to see one of the men creeping forward with a switchblade raised. Echo raised his other hand and snapped. Another vibration resonated across the room and knocked the man into a stack of crates, which collapsed over him, sending more puffs of white into the air.
Echo turned back to Silvera like nothing happened. "Did you kill her?"
Silvera smiled, but the fear was showing. "Why would I be stupid enough to do that?"
"Did she ever come here?"
"No. None of Celestro's frea-" he paused, catching his mistake. "None of their heroes ever came here."
Echo stilled at the almost insult. For the most part, being a super was praiseworthy. People loved them. But there was a minority, of which Silvera was apparently part of, who thought they were freaks. It was why Echo's mother said what she did when he manifested: you'll have a hard enough time being Black in America, did you really have to be a super, too? She said it in jest, but he still thought about that anytime someone called them names.
"We're not freaks," he chided. "We're just like you humans, except better."
"No one ever came here," Silvera repeated, voice trembling a bit. "I had nothing to do with Fairy."
Echo considered it. Fairy was a decent person: she wouldn't have used the sources he used, so it would've taken her much longer to find this place. And if Silvera never saw her, then she was killed before she ever got this far...which meant her assignment had nothing to do with her death.
Echo sighed. "I was really hoping this would be the end of it."
"Don't like feeling threatened, do you?" Silvera asked quietly, pretty brave for a man in danger of being blinded.
"Why would we feel threatened?"
"Someone murdered a super and displayed the corpse. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Of course it bothers me," Echo snapped. "But we don't feel threatened, I promise you. You don't mess with Celestro without suffering the consequences."
Silvera shut his eyes tight. "I told you what you wanted. Let me go."
"You're still wanted by the narcs."
"Then turn me in," he insisted. "Arrest me!"
Echo grinned. Most people had blind faith in the goodness of heroes, but people like Silvera saw right through the shiny image: criminals knew that justice from the system was usually kinder than justice from a hero, especially a Marvel. Echo wanted to watch the man squirm more, but he needed to be turned in. The narcs wanted him badly.
Echo stood up. Silvera sighed in relief just a little too soon, because Echo kicked him in the face, banging his head against the wall hard enough to render him unconscious.
"Finished your mission, Fairy," Echo murmured, calling the police.
___________________
Like everyone at some point in their childhood, Vidya once wanted to be famous. She wanted to be on Broadway before she realized how horrible of a singer she was, and although that dream was long dead, she never stopped wondering what being a celebrity was like.
She was finding out pretty quickly.
The world was obsessed with Frostbite. People were cosplaying, shows were requesting interviews, and there was even a documentary in the works. Since her identity was a secret, the documentary couldn't include anything about her childhood and family, which would've been a good chunk of the footage, so the crew stalled. They needed her to do something to have any good material to work with.
Frostbite herself also wanted to do something. Anything. Even help an old lady get her cat down from a tree. She was desperate for a proper chance to prove she mattered as a hero.
She tore her eyes away from her pager and focused on her calc book. She was spending so much time at headquarters, training and prepping, that doing homework here was the only way to stay on top of things without losing too much sleep. It wasn't bad-only Juggernaut was in the meeting room with her, standing behind his chair and looking out the window.
They'd gotten a new table: still a half-oval-ish shape, but with less of a curve so that it looked better for six people than the old one would have. As Marvel Number Six, she would've been sitting at one end of the table no matter what, but as for which end, they'd given her two options: next to Phase or Flamethrower. The choice was obvious.
She closed her book with a sigh and rested her forehead on it. "What are you looking at?"
Juggernaut shrugged. "Nothing."
"Why did you approve of me?"
Silence.
Vidya lifted her head. He hadn't moved from the window, but she could see in the reflection that he was smiling.
"Because I thought you had potential, and we were planning on a sixth member, anyway," he said.
"What about Talia?"
"What about her?"
"Why didn't she join the team?"
"Because we chose you."
"Why did you choose me?"
"Because we thought you had potential, and we were planning on a sixth member, anyway."
Vidya frowned.
"Relax, Frostbite. There's no ulterior motive or catch."
"It's just..." She trailed off. "It feels too good to be true. Even though I'm already here, I still don't understand why you'd willingly put someone so inexperienced on the team."
"Ever heard the saying, youth are the future?"
"There's a huge difference between promoting power in youth and sticking one where they don't fit," she said. "Would someone my age ever join the FBI? The CIA?" You know, besides in weird teen romance stories?
He finally looked at her, amused. "You're just finding every possible way to doubt yourself, aren't you?"
Vidya couldn't help but be honest. "Yes."
"Well, stop."
"I still haven't done anything heroic, you know."
He sat down in his chair. "Give it time."
Footsteps echoed in from the hallway outside. Vidya instinctively reached for her stuff, ready to leave in case it was Flamethrower walking in. Talking to Juggernaut was nice but still nerve-wracking, but him and Flamethrower in the same room? No way was Vidya putting herself through that.
But it was only Fox. She came in and stood in front of the table, grinning. "It's time, Frostbite."
Vidya perked up, because it sounded like she was finally getting a mission. "Really?"
"Really?" Juggernaut repeated.
Fox gestured behind her. "Go and follow Emika. She'll give you the details."
_________________
Juggernaut watched silently as Frostbite put on her mask and ran out the door, an excited bounce in her step that was adorable and sad at the same time. She reminded him of a baby goat in a slaughterhouse: living in blissful peace until it realized how things really worked.
Fox could tell, as she always could, when he needed to say something not for the ears of the others, so she closed the door and waited expectantly.
"The way this works," he said, showing her his watch, "is Celestro dispatch sends me the crime alert, and I send it off to whoever I see fit."
She indifferently asked, "And?"
"I didn't get any alert. So what exactly is Frostbite responding to?"
Fox thoughtfully tapped her fingers on the table. "It's rather heavily staged. We let Heat escape and find his way uptown."
It was what he expected to hear, but he was still disappointed. "Why?"
"Because right now, Frostbite is nothing but a shiny new edition with no credibility. We're giving her career a head start before people question why we hired her."
"This'll crush her," he said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Fox's face went cold. "She'll never know though, will she?"
It sounded like a threat, and it was an incredibly ridiculous one, considering who she was talking to. The world thought of him as a perfect hero who genuinely believed in truth and freedom and who had no reason to ever, ever go off the rails, but Fox knew the truth, she knew the history. She should know better than to threaten him.
"Careful," he said simply.
It was enough for Fox to recoil just a little. "She'll never know," she repeated, less of a threat and more matter-of-fact this time. Still incredibly arrogant.
She left before he could get another word in, not that he had anything left to say. He swiveled his chair around to face the window, still thinking about the poor baby goat, if she should suffer quietly and if he cared enough to do anything about it.
______________________
The scene was straight out of a comic book. Vidya never thought it would be this way: two opponents on opposite sides of an empty street, staring each other down as people and police watched from the sidelines. It was so perfect, it was kind of funny.
The supervillain Heat was a dumbed-down version of Flamethrower, as Emika had put it. He had similar but weaker powers, all thermodynamics but no flashy pyrokinetics. Around his ankle were the remains of an ankle monitor, melted and warped beyond function, but he hadn't managed to get it off. His tacky suit was a blinding shade of orange, and his laugh was more clown-like than villainous.
Despite all that, Vidya was nervous. Her first mission was supposed to be simple, not fighting one-on-one with another superhuman. Flamethrower said it would happen, but Vidya hadn't planned on it being so soon.
Heat squinted at her. "Who the hell are you?"
"Frostbite."
"Well, Frostbite, I just broke out of prison and would really like not to go back. So why don't you leave me alone and get out of my way?"
She shook her head. "No can do."
Heat rolled his eyes and held up his hands. "Fine. Have it your way."
Vidya anticipated what was coming; she'd studied Flamethrower enough to know what to expect from people with powers like hers. Out from his hand came a suffocating, almost invisible blast of heat that rippled the air. Before it reached her, Vidya held up her hand and returned a blast of chilled air. The blasts met in the middle, and then it was a matter of who pushed harder: a supervillain good enough to break out of prison, or a superhero who was fighting for the first time.
Vidya wouldn't win this way-she had to think outside of the box. She stopped her own blast by closing her hand, and she jumped into the air and caught flight. Her hands froze over as she formed ice in them, willing it to grow long and cylindrical until she had something that resembled a baseball bat.
Heat must've thought she was flying away, because he smiled and backed off like he was about to escape. But then she changed direction and dove right at him, makeshift ice-bat in hand. He didn't react fast enough: by the time he'd heated up his hands and held them up to try and melt the ice, she was already swinging at his head.
He crumpled to the ground. Vidya hadn't hit him hard enough to cause any serious damage, so he woke up almost immediately, looking dazed. He held a hand up to the side of his head and muttered, "Ow."
He was in no shape to fight back, so Vidya landed, turned the bat into snow, and let it flurry to the ground. The small crowd cheered; a lot of them were holding up their phones, and Vidya was sure there were already dozens of videos finding their way online. An officer thanked her before handcuffing Heat. The villain complied without resisting, looking over his shoulder at Vidya with an irritated but impressed scowl.
"Great job!" said a voice from behind.
Two hands landed on her shoulders, and Vidya turned to face Fox. She was beaming with pride, and so was Emika, who stood just behind her. The sheer joy in their faces made Vidya blush.
"You might want to go before they start spamming you," Fox said, leaning close so no one could eavesdrop. "I know you have a lot of homework to do."
Vidya nodded. Fox winked and turned to get statements from whoever she needed to talk to; maybe Heat, or the officer, or whoever it was that called this in. Vidya was about to fly away when she saw Juggernaut. He stood a little way away from the crowd, not looking at anything specific.
She went over there, nervous. The crowd might be pleased, but critique from an actual superhero held more value. "How did I do?" she asked timidly.
Juggernaut was silent for a moment that stretched on forever. Finally he said, "It was staged."
Vidya blinked. "What?"
"Fox wanted to jump-start your career, so she staged Heat's escape. This mission was orchestrated."
Vidya blinked again. It was all she was capable of.
He shook his head. "It won't happen again."
Vidya opened and closed her mouth, at a complete loss for words.
"This stays between us," he added. "I wasn't supposed to tell you."
Vidya looked at the ground, heart thudding. "Then why did you tell me?"
"Because I want you to know who your allies are." He paused. "Or more importantly, who your allies are not."
And with that cryptic message, he took off into the sky. Vidya wanted to follow, to demand a better explanation, but she would never catch up, and she wasn't actually brave enough to ask. Instead, she watched as the police drove away with the villain she'd 'defeated,' and the crowd cheered on for a lie.