Night's End

"I can't say I've ever heard of a Powered called uh… Brainwave," I stammered, all of a sudden distinctly aware of how bad tonight could have gone.

There was a third Coventry Mob Powered on the scene, someone who wasn't Loper or Phet. They could have been one of the gangsters that had met Phet at the start of the night and I never would have known. The odds of me surviving had just plummeted even further, so the fact that I had was a serious relief.

"I'm not surprised, Brainwave is almost as new as you are," Quasar said with an understanding nod. "We don't really know much about her at the moment. She's shown up out of the blue as Phet's left-hand woman, beside Loper as his right-hand man. We do believe, however, that in the right situation she could be incredibly dangerous on an incredibly wide scale."

I cocked my head to the side, waiting for Quasar to go on.

"At the moment she primarily acts as Phet's jailer and enforcer. To our knowledge, she can place down elemental charges, essentially bombs comprised of water, earth, fire, or air. She can then detonate them at any time, seemingly from any range. As of yet, we have no idea how small or how large these bombs can be created," he explained.

My eyes widened underneath my domino mask. With a power like that, depending on how many bombs she could control at once, she could be a threat to the entire community at once. No wonder she was all of a sudden on the PHA's list.

"Anyway, back to my original point," Quasar continued before I could get a word out. "Take a moment to think about the level of danger you'd be putting yourself into if you were the one that took the credit on Phet's capture. There are only two things that are going to be on Loper and Brainwave's minds right now, and that's freeing Phet and getting revenge on the person who banged him up in the first place."

While it felt a little gross for Quasar to come in and steal my thunder like this, there was no way he wouldn't be taking credit for this capture if I didn't, I couldn't help but take his point on board.

"They have two courses of action, I'd say you do too," Quasar said.

"What are those?" I asked, jumping at the chance to be offered an out of this situation that was so clearly over my head.

"On the one hand, you could join the Juniors and take the credit. If anything happens, if the Coventry Mob try anything, you'd have the full support and the protection of the PHA," He said, raising up one hand. "On the other, you don't take the credit and you let everything that happened tonight drift away. Keep your head down, don't let the gangs know you were behind it all."

That was… a big decision to try and make at what was probably something like two in the morning.

It had been a big night, one that I wasn't going to be able to process until I'd gotten at least a few hours of sleep under my belt. I had my misgivings about joining the Juniors, and I'd have to work through that on my own time. But did I want a bunch of super-powered gangsters coming after me? Not really.

I took a deep breath, "I uh… I don't want the credit," I said. "I feel like there would be a lot of hassle coming my way, and I'm not even sure if I want to, you know, do this whole superhero thing."

He gave me a smile at that, one that was meant to be reassuring. It sort of helped to make me think that I'd made the right choice here, though, in reality, I imagined he was just happy that he was going to walk away with one of the biggest villains in the community as well as all of the reputation that such a capture had.

"I think, in the future, you'll look back on this moment and realise that it was the right choice," Quasar said, walking toward the hole in the wall once again. "If you're able to, craft a handset, then call the PHA if you ever get into a tight spot again."

He disappeared into the gloom of the theatre, and a few moments later burst out of the top of the building with Phet trailing behind him. The man was unconscious, and his drug cocktail had clearly stopped beefing him up.

At this point, he just looked like a middle-aged man who'd had a bit too much to drink. You know, other than the whole being bound by gravity fields and being flown through the air thing.

With no one else around I started to make my way back home through the dark streets of the community. Without my gauntlet I'd have to be extra careful, I wouldn't have the increased darkness hiding me from sight anymore.

It'd probably take me anywhere between fifteen and forty-five minutes to get back home. Somewhere along the way, before I got back to the Main Quarter, I'd take my domino mask off and stow the tattered remains of my gauntlet in my pocket.

My Mum had gone to bed before I left, and she was a deep sleeper, so I was pretty sure that as I stepped through the front door and tried to close it as quietly as I could she would remain in her sleep.

All things considered, the night could have gone a lot worse.

I could have been clobbered in the head by a crazy drugged up supervillain.

I could have had my head blown off by a crazy drugged up supervillains left-hand woman.

I could have been turned into a paste by a crazy drugged up supervillains right-hand man.

You wouldn't think it, but admitting those facts helped me drift off to sleep as I relaxed under the cover of my duvet.