[CHAR] MASKS- A New Generation

[Grey]

The Janus

Hero Name: Swarm
Real Name: Hana Salem
Look: Woman, Middle Eastern, Elegant Clothes, Concealing Costume, Character Mask
Abilities: Heightened Physical Abilities, Insect Control, Supernatural Senses

Secret Identity
Internship, Photography Club, Parents
Your mundane life comes with a series of obligations. When time passes, roll + your Mundane to see how you’re managing your obligations. On a hit, things are going pretty well—you have an opportunity or advantage thanks to one of your obligations. On a 7-9, you’ve lapsed on one obligation, your choice. On a miss, you haven’t given your normal life anywhere near the attention it deserves; the GM chooses two obligations that are going to bite you in the butt.

Team Moves

• When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, ask them if they see you as the person wearing the mask or the person underneath. If the former, mark potential and clear a condition. If the latter, take In uence over them if you reveal yourself.
• When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, tell them a secret about who you really are. Give them Influence, and shift your Mundane up and your mask’s Label down.

Janus Moves

• The Mask (Freak)
  You wear a mask and hide your real identity. Once per session, you can affirm either your heroic or secret identity to switch your Mundane with your mask’s Label. When you reveal your secret identity to someone who didn’t know it already, mark potential.
• Game Face
  When you commit yourself to save someone or defeat a terrible enemy, mark a condition and take +1 ongoing to all rolls in direct pursuit of that goal. At the end of any scene in which you don’t make progress towards
  that goal, mark a condition. When you fulfill your goal, mark potential.
• Mild-Mannered
  When you try to use your civilian identity to deceive, trick, or slip past someone, roll + Mundane. On a hit they buy your facade. On a 7-9, choose one:
  - you’re still under observation
  - you leave something incriminating behind
  - you’re forced to make a fool of yourself to sell it
  On a miss, one of your civilian obligations rears its ugly head.

Other Moves

Potential x x o o o
Advancements

Labels
Danger: 0
Freak: 0
Savior: 0
Superior: 0
Mundane: +3
Conditions

Backstory

• Q: When did you first put on the mask? Why?
  A: "I first put on the mask... Pretty recently actually, around the time I got my power a few months ago. But I'm not gonna lie and say it was for some altruistic thing like wanting to save the world or make a difference. I wanted to feel special, and I wanted to call my own shots for once."
• Q: Why do you keep a secret identity?
  A: "Plenty of reasons, but I guess it just boils down to "no parents, no consequences, no problem.""
• Q: Who, outside of the team, knows about your dual identity?
  A: "Nobody. The less my life overlaps, the better."
• Q: Who thinks the worst of your masked identity?
  A: "Oh, the cops, definitely. During my first outing I accidentally screwed up one of their investigations while conducting my own, and that rookie mistake let the bad guy get away. Some of the pro heroes and media might qualify by extension."
• Q: Why do you care about the team?
  A: "Well, they're showing me the ropes and they're not terrible people. Besides, it's not like I'm a super competent hero on my own, ha..."

Teambuilding Exercises

When Our Team First Came Together
We saved the life of someone important, either to the city or to us. Who was it? Why are they important?
Relationships

• Doktor Faust/Andrea knew you from your civilian life first.
• You refused to tell Luxurias/Ian your secret identity when they asked.

Influence
You look up to your teammates; they seem to have this superhero thing figured out. Give two of them Influence over you.

• Doktor Faust/Andrea
• Polaris/Alex

Q/A with the GM

Q: Why did she choose 'Photography Club' over all the other clubs?
A: Freedom of expression, even if that's within school approved limits. It lets her go out there and see new things without having to constantly be explaining herself.

Q: And her job as an intern is doing what, where?
A: In my head, I always imagined her interning at the universe's rough equivalent to Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises. Being a coffee grabber is a lame internship duty, so she's probably involved in helping with some STEM-based field (dunno which, but I'm leaning towards something biomimetics-y) or business/sales/marketing stuff, I haven't quite decided.

Q: And does this relate to her going to college or towards a career of some kind?
A: Yes. 100x yes. Her parents want her to get into a really good university so she can live out a successful life, so they constantly urge her to put herself out in the community to get those volunteer points, and to keep her grades up. She's got little to say on the topic, but it'd be a lie to say she doesn't worry about it. She's good enough at school though, which is why Schoolwork isn't an obligation.

Q: Any interesting pictures? I'm sure you have some amazing ones that you couldn't help but take, being that you had to have had your camera with you sometimes when you are out super heroing as Swarm.
A: "Well I don't bring it around anymore - the really good cameras are expensive stuff and heroing is very destructive business - but I'll admit to using the bugs for some photomacrography or getting good vantages. Also to taking shots of parahuman on parahuman combat. And crime scenes. A lot of crime scenes."

"...It's probably a good thing that I delete those last ones off my computer. People might think I'm weird."

Q: And speaking of Swarm, don't lie to me. I 'know' that you have to be pissing off your parents and your internship and the photo club. You're Swarm, and being Swarm is VERY inconvenient when it comes to time share. I'm sure you have broken curfew. I'm sure you've been late for your internship multiple times and I'm sure you've missed more than a few club meetings. How do you balance it all?
A: "Hahaha. That's funny. Well, to answer the question, the legions upon legions of drones help. They help a lot. A bunch of mindless bugs are way better than the biggest group of classmates in the world when trying to finish up a project, that's for sure. Other than that, it's just your usual combination of elbow grease, schedule prioritization, and lying plausibly."

Q: And how do you keep your parents from prying too deeply in you private life, because parents aren't idiots and if you aren't too careful, they WILL find out that you are Swarm. And based on what you already told me, that's not a good thing.
A: "Well, to be frank, I don't know if it would be a completely bad thing... But I also don't know if it'd be a good thing either. Which is what worries me."

"But that's not answering the question, is it? Usually I try to prioritize getting my parental obligations out of the way, but obviously that doesn't always work. And I've only been at this for a few months at this point! The method I've been using has been working fine, though I'm loathe to keep using it. The elaborate scheme just feels wrong."

"Basically it's this (admittedly over)complicated plan to normalize this kind of behavior. If I act suspiciously enough in more innocuous situations, I can get away with it when it counts because it wouldn't subvert their expectations. Plus, benefit of the doubt goes a long way. As long as I don't falter too much in my studies or my jobs or whatever, I should have at least a little bit of leeway for bullshit."

Q: On the point of Ian, woman are on him like stink on a monkey... which makes me ask what you think of him?
A: "Well for a guy calling himself Luxurias, he's a lot more tame than I'd expected. I mean he only hit on me twice - once for each identity, even. Still don't know if I should be flattered or offended by that, but it's not like I'm a whore for boys' attention; so I just filed all that under 'stuff that definitely happened'."

"But yeah, the whole demon part's a bit troubling - that definitely wasn't the way I thought I'd get my Sunday mornings validated, that's for sure. Next thing you know I'm gonna turn out to be the avatar of Beelzebub or something."

"But back to the point, I don't really think he's a bad guy per se. He has bad powers and bad precision and bad habits and... And he's part of the team and it definitely feels like he pulls more weight than I do, so who's the girl who talks to bugs to complain?"

[Tengri]

The Protege

Hero Name: Network.
Real Name: Robert Calvert.
Look: Man, White, Athletic, School Uniform, Protective Wear.
Abilities:
Shared Ability: Detective Skills.
Your Own Ability: Impossible Fighting Skills.
Your Mentor’s Ability: Intimidation and Fear.

Mentor:
Embodies: Superior.
Denies: Mundane.

Team Moves:
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, ask them if you’ve been a good leader or effective teammate. If they say yes, your mentor loses Influence over you and you mark potential.
If they say no, your mentor gains Influence over you, and you take +1 forward on using the Label your mentor embodies.
When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, tell them a secret about your mentor (including your feelings towards them). Give them Influence over you and add 1 Team to the pool.

Protégé Moves:
Be mindful of your surroundings: When you assess the situation before entering into a fight, you may ask one additional question, even on a miss.
Been reading the files: You’ve learned about the superhuman world through your mentor’s resources. When you first encounter an important superpowered phenomenon (your call), roll + Superior. On a hit, tell the team one important detail you’ve learned from your studies. The GM will tell you what, if anything, seems different from what you remember. On a 10+, ask the GM a follow-up question; they will answer it honestly. On a miss, the situation is well outside your base of knowledge; the GM will tell you why.
Fireside chat: When you seek advice from your mentor, roll + the Label they embody. On a hit they will tell you what to do. On a 10+, mark potential if you follow their advice, and take +1 ongoing to follow through. On a 7-9, you get +1 forward to see it through if you do it their way. On a miss, they don’t have time for you because something big has gone down; mark a condition, GM’s choice.

Mentor’s Resources:
A Hidden Base, A Vehicle, Badges of Authority.

Potential:
>>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑

Advancement:

Labels:
Danger: -1
Freak: 0
Savior: +1
Superior: +3
Mundane: 0

Conditions:
x Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory:

How did you first meet your mentor?
“It started with an assassination attempt at her. I was a child, trained to kill since my first footsteps. I was meticulously made into a living and breathing weapon until my last mission ended up with a complete failure, and the rest is a history now.”

When and why did you choose to train with them?
“I didn’t have much of a choice. It was either becoming her sidekick or becoming dead meat in a literal sense. It doesn’t mean she liked the way things were. In fact, when I was offered a new identity and family, it was me who refused the offer. I had to atone for all the crimson on my hands.”

Why did they agree to train you?
“I would have been disposed of by my superiors - some kind of death cult - if not for the woman that took me under her wing. Nucleus was the first person to ever show me even an ounce of compassion. I cannot afford to fail her.”

Who else, outside of the team, knows about your training?
“Nucleus, my mentor. I don’t know the details, but some of her teammates may know or at least received some clues. It doesn’t really matter to me, anyways.”

Why do you care about the team?
“It’s an effective unit that, given a proper training and guidance, would be replace the current generation of super-powered individuals. I believe that - with essential protocols and training - all of us will not only show that we are as good as our predecessors, but also superior to them. I was also told by my mentor that I needed to socialize with my peers - for whatever this means.”

Teambuilding Exercises

When Our Team First Came Together
We stuck together after all was said and done. Why? How’d we keep in contact?
Relationships
You and Luxurias teamed up a few times before the rest of you came together.
Your mentor is cautious; they asked you to keep an eye on Swarm.
Influence
If you choose business, give Influence to no teammates.

[Raijinslayer]

Luxurias, the Dark Lord of Awesome

Hero Name: Luxurias
Real Name: Ian Blackwood

Human look:Male, Caucasian, normal skin, fashionable clothing
Demon Looks:Male, Marked Skin(with Ash Grey coloration), Fantastical costume

Abilities:Sorcery, specifically those of dealing with the damned energies of hell, dream\desire manipulation, domination/subjugation, and control over darkness and shadows

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, ask them if there is any fear in their
eyes when they look at you. If they say no, take +1 forward and mark potential. If they say yes,
immediately shift your Danger up and Savior down.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, tell them how they could stop you, if
it came down to it. Give them Influence over you and clear a condition.

Potential:>>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑

Advancements

❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Someone permanently loses Influence over you;
add +1 to a Label
❑ Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add
+1 to a Label
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth
❑ Unlock three new flares
❑ Unlock three new flares
❑ Take The Bull’s Heart from the Bull playbook

When you’ve taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.

---

❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth after you’ve used it
once
❑ Change playbooks
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your
choice
❑ Retire from the life or become a paragon of the
city

Burn Counter: 3

Nova Flares

Reality Storm: You channel a destructive burst
with your powers. Spend 1 burn to directly
engage a threat using your powers, rolling +
Freak instead of + Danger. If you do, you will
cause unwanted collateral damage unless you
spend another burn

Move: Spend 1 burn to move to any place you
choose within the scene, breaking through or
slipping past any barriers or restraints in your
way. Spend a second burn to move to any place
you’ve previously been.

Constructs: Spend 1 burn to create any
object with your powers, up to the size of a
person. Spend an additional burn to animate
it independently of yourself. The construct
dissolves at the end of the scene.

Elemental Awareness: Spend 1 burn and mark
a condition to open your mind up to the world
around you with your powers. You can ask any
one question about the world around you, and
the GM will answer honestly.

Labels

Danger +1
Freak +3
Savior 0
Superior 0
Mundane -1

Conditions
❑ Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
x Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
x Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory

When did you first use your powers?
"Well, I've technically been using them my whole life, being the bastard Cambion son of Asmodeus -the demon lord of Lust, in case you aren't knowledgeable about that sort of thing- tends to give you a set of supernatural perks and drawbacks, but the instance where I first actively used them was when a bunch of guys tried to kick my ass cause he caught me talking to his girlfriend . . . okay, more like he saw ne making out with her in a shed, bjut I still think he overreacted a tad with the lead pipes. Anyway, I was getting beat pretty bad, but I felt more outraged and incredulous than scared. Some part me couldn't believe they had the nerve to strike at me. I usually don't pay attention to that side of me, tends to give very bad, very illegal ideas, but in that moment I kinda gave into it. Next thing I know, they're all on the ground bruised, beaten, naked, and utterly broken in spirit. Even to this day, I have no ifdea what happened to them. Anytime anyone brings it up, they shut down, and if any of them see even a picture of me, they breakdown into tears."

"So yeah, can we move on to another question?"

Who was thee first person you hurt with your powers?
"Besides those guys I traumatized? Well, I'd have to say my mom, though indirectly. You see, she liked this guy and he made her really happy and everything couldn't possibly be better, right? Then I decide to look into his mind and see what he was really like, as I didn't like him myself. Before I got involved, he was a pretty swell guy, but after I rummaged through his head? Turned into a sex-crazed lunatic within a week, unable to deal with the echoes of my presence in his head."

"Can you ask me a question that isn't a total bummer, please! This trip down memory road is getting very unpleasant."

Who, outside the team, helps you control your powers?
"Oh, that's easy. My mom has always had a way of calming down my . . . less pleasant urges. I don't know why she's able to do it, but your ass I'm forever grateful for her."

"See, that was much better. Now, keep it up And we might get through this without me bailing out."

Why do you continue to use your powers?
"Well . . . because if I don't use them, I'll never learn how to control them. I can feel myself get stronger everyday, and with that, I feel as if I have to fight that much harder to stay in control of myself. These powers aren't nice, they aren't pleasant, but I'm stuck with them, so might as well use 'em help people, right?"

"That question was a bit iffy, but I'll let it go. But I'm watching you."

Why do you care about the team?
"Well, cause they're all awesome for one, and for two, I like hanging around them. Keep me feeling grounded, keep me feeling human. Speaking of human, I've still got to show Riley the glory that is Game of Thrones. I'm sure she'll like it, maybe. If not, hey,she learns more about human culture either way. Also, need to see if I can figure out who Swarm is. Invasion of privacy? maybe. A fun game of deduction and clue hunting? Definitely. Oh, don't tell her about the game, she'll probably get mad.Andrea. . . I don't think she likes me very much. No idea why though, I've never done anything to her and I've only done sone casual flirting here and there. Do you think it's the demon thing, cause I'm thinking it's the demon thing."

"So we're done now, right? Huh, that wasn't so bad. Well, near the end it wasn't. The beginning was horrible, but overall, a decent interview. Later."

When our team first came together...
We destroyed our surroundings in the fight. Where was it? What did we destroy?

Relationships
You hang out all the time with Riley/Alex to blow off steam.
You once hurt Alex when you lost control of your powers.

Influence
Happy Facade: Alex, Riley, and Robb

[Ermine]

Should have at least a summary of the important bits.

The Doomed

Hero Name: (Doktor) Faust
Real Name: Andrea Faust
Look: Woman, White, Empty Eyes, Official Clothing, No Costume
Abilities: Telekinesis, Superhuman Strength and Speed, Psychic Constructs
Nemesis: Mephistopheles, as has been my family's nemesis for many generations.
Potential: 0/5

Freak +1
Danger +1
Savior +1
Superior -1
Mundane +1
Conditions: None

Team Moves
-When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, give them Influence over you and spend 1 Team from the pool to clear one box on your doom track.
-When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, give them Influence over you and ask if they honestly think there’s hope for you. If they say yes, mark potential or clear one box of your doom track. If they say no, mark a condition or mark your doom track.

What brings your doom closer? Overexerting myself, injuring innocents
Doom Track: 0/5
Doomsigns: Infinite Powers

Sanctuary
-Library of Valuable Tomes; A Scattering of Ancient Relics; Locks and Traps
-Tied intricately to my doom; difficult to access

Backstory
- When did you first learn of your doom? When my father told me of our legacy, and why we fight Mephistopheles.
- Where did you get your sanctuary? It has been shared by all generations of Faust. I merely inherited it.
- How is your nemesis tied into your doom? My great, great grandfather made a deal with him for power. This deal is passed on to the first-born child, which we must have to complete a portion of our part of the deal. We get our powers directly from him, but thanks to some poor contract interpretation skills, none of us can ever live full lives, or cancel the contracts. The deal itself was for just power in general, in exchange for his soul. Soul, by Mephistopheles' standards just means the deal is unending through the line until he feels like it's been long enough. Don't know why he felt like it was a good idea.
- Who, outside of the team, is crucial to facing your nemesis? Anyone who's willing to help me break the contract or kill Mephistopheles. But as for specific people, none come to mind. Really, anyone who can keep me from getting too much like him is good enough. Can't have myself becoming an easy target for his mind control.
- Why does the team matter to you? Having more people around means I may be able to defeat my nemesis. It's that simple. Plus, it's nice to have people around. Not that I like them or anything. But they do help keep me normal. Without them, I'd probably be...I don't know. Fine. They give me the ability to be a person who's not some monster or anything. I get to be good, and have people who motivate me to be more different from Mephistopheles. I don't particularly look forward to being under someone's control for eternity.

When our team first came together…
We paid a high cost for victory. What was it?

Relationships
You told Alex/Polaris all about your doom and the danger you're in. (But also told Hana much more recently)
You'd love to kiss Hana/Swarm before your doom comes.

Influence
These people matter for what you need to do. Give Influence to two of your teammates. Alex/Polaris and Ian/Luxurias

[Liliya]

Alex/Polaris

"Band-aids don't fix bullet holes, you say sorry just for show.
You live like that, you live with ghosts. If you love like that blood runs cold,"

Legacy Name: Ursae Minoris.
Real Name: Alexandria Stella Hathaway.
Look: Woman, White, Trendy Clothing, Predecessor’s Costume, Simple Symbol Insignia.
Abilities: Super Strength, Eye Beams, Flight.

Labels:
Danger -1
Freak 0
Savior +2
Superior +1
Mundane +1

Conditions
❑ Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory

• When did you officially become a part of your legacy?
I first put on the uniform a year ago. I mean, I guess we’re all born into our legacies, but before that I was just some kid who knew that, someday, I’d be a super hero, but I didn’t go on missions or whatever. I was never even really trained or anything, at least until I was like sixteen, and even that was kind of a joke. Like, you might think that the Guardians of Halcyon City of all people would have a kind of training program or something, but really, they mostly just wait around until they decide you’re ready, and then push you out of the nest, and you either fly or don’t. It’s kind of a jank system if you ask me, but that’s how they do things. I mean, I don’t know if Andrea was taught anything about how to control what was going to happen to her by her dad, you know, for when he would inevitably die ‘cause that’s just how our lives are, yeah, totally normal teenager stuff, but I certainly wasn’t. I guess it’s just because you can’t be taught how to control something you don’t have. My grandpa taught me how to shoot, right? Took me out on his ranch, set up targets, bought one of those little 22 long rifles, a pink hard plastic thing, told me all about how it would kick when I first pulled the trigger. Nothing actually prepares you for the recoil, though. It’s even worse than that for super powers. I guess the only way I could explain it to normies is it’s like learning how to ride a bike, without falling.

If you mean when my super powers developed, I was about twelve, and, yes, it was a total nightmare. Kept breaking things, flying off in my sleep, accidentally setting books on fire with my f#$%ing laser eyes, but I eventually got it down, haven’t accidentally hurt anyone or anything in years. I’m mostly grateful in retrospect that I never actually hurt anyone, like really hurt anyone, during that whole part of my life. I mean, there was a significant amount of property damage, but no living human beings ever got hurt. I guess I was always stronger than any normal kid, maybe even than any normal adult, but not, like, strong enough to really hurt a person unless I wanted to. Like, if a lady bumps into you it might make you stumble, but it won’t send you flying through a wall. It was different having to learn how not to accidentally hurt people, you know? Like, “hey, can you pass the salt?” and accidentally breaking their hand when I pass it to them. It’s rote now, like flipping a switch; Alex doesn’t hurt anyone, Polaris doesn’t handle fragile packages, that kinda thing. I’ve seriously got a borderline neurotic thing going on where I make myself go through the motions, on, off, like a computer, do it every day like other people stretch or pray or whatever. I was always scared to death that I would hurt someone in my sleep, so now it seems like I even go through the mental ritual when I’m sleeping, but the sleepy time one, yeah, that’s how nutty it is, I am, I have a separate ritual for bed time.

Super powers are not necessarily all they’re chalked up to be by the civvies. I mean, me and Andrea watch movies, right? When she moved in, after her dad died, I finally made my mom put TVs in all the rooms, she’s one of those, “TV rots yer brainz,” types, but we were teenagers by that point and she caved, probably only did because Andrea’s dad had just died and she’d rather not tell her she can’t have a TV anymore, but whatever. So one of those nights I fell asleep, movie on, Andrea right next to me, and I seriously woke up in terror that I might’ve hurt her. Like, it f#$%ed me up for days. She was fine, everything was peachy, I didn’t lash out and put a hole through her, but it’s really almost impossible to explain what that’s like to normal people, like, “I have to be real careful not to fall asleep within fifty feet of anyone, in all directions, ‘cause I might stretch or move or something in my sleep and take their head off,”. I mean, I haven’t actually broken a bed in years, so it’d probably be fine, but it’s scary. I’m not sure, but I think I could actually burn through my eyelids were I to use my eye beams, intentionally or not, with my eyes closed. I’ve never tried it, and I don’t plan on ever doing so in the future, but those are the real life things people that can do the things I can think about, not how cool it would be to race an airplane or see how much weight I really could bench.

Anyway, eventually I started going on missions, boring stuff the adults didn’t want to do and would rather delegate to the newbs, supposedly to teach us about the trade, but really I think they just wanted to keep us busy and out of trouble. I would either be alone or with Malcolm, Robert Calvert, then Andrea, sometimes the three of us. We stopped some little league villain, this pyro who couldn’t have burned a mouse very badly, that was causing trouble at a park for no apparent reason. It was the first time I really felt like I’d made it, though, like I really was a super hero. I learned later, after real missions and real injuries, just how lame and small time that pyro was, but at the time I just remember thinking that Malcolm was a dweeb, but me and him and Andrea were really super heroes now, we stopped an actual villain with actual super powers instead of just bagging evidence and, usually comically, interrogating supposed suspects and witnesses like we thought we were big and bad. Malcolm was always cool as a cucumber, just spoke to them real robotically like he does everyone, and he’d always get them started talking, but then me and Andrea would cut in acting like those PI’s from the old movies, and must’ve looked so lame doing it; the suspects would just shut up and look at us funny. Like, she was maybe four foot eight, and I was wearing a cheerleading outfit. I’d never seen any of those movies, of course, but Andrea was totally into it and I just followed her lead… The good old days.

• What’s the greatest accomplishment of your legacy?
Well, you’ll get a different answer depending on who you ask and, not uncommonly, it changes with the day. I mean, it’s a legacy, and one that stretches through Little Bear to the Golden Age, so there’s half a hundred totally viable answers including my own involvement in taking down Dragoon. In my opinion, though, our greatest accomplishment was mom’s, Lodestar’s involvement in the Halcyon City University incident. A few years before I was born the Guardians, the full team, were in this big series of battles with Doctor Zondervan and his henchmen, bloody, brutal, every single time the two teams, if you can call them that, crossed paths something would go wrong on one side or the other and people would get hurt. They had a sizeable amount of brainwashed supers fighting alongside them, and were just causing havoc all over the place, I mean, they had some real power. I’ve never really been told what is it Doctor Zondervan’s grand scheme was, and maybe still is I guess, but I know that his people target a lot of labs, newspapers, usually stuff connected to Scarborough Enterprises, anything that gets them information, and they cause a lot of collateral damage in the process any time they get intercepted by a super hero. They’re good at what they do, and usually don’t get caught, but this time someone got popped and taken into custody. I don’t know what the Guardians did to the guy, and really, knowing mom and Felitrix I know enough to know that I don’t want to know, but somehow it turned out that they finally figured out Doctor Zondervan’s identity, the real one.

Doctor, and uncharacteristically among supers he actually was a Doctor, like the kind that has a doctorate in some scientific field rather than the medical kind, but still, Tyrell de Wolff van Rijn, was a professor at Halcyon City University, an import from somewhere in Europe. I mean, Felitrix, Anne Scarborough, had tried hiring this guy half a hundred times, his work was really cutting edge I guess, but he always turned her down, never took any of the big money offers people gave him to start a company to compete with Scarborough Enterprises in return for a share of the stock, either. He said, “teaching was his passion, and that he couldn’t care less about making the eight figure salaries people were offering him on either side of the aisle,” and, “he just wanted to be left alone to teach graduate candidates, drink beer with his buddies, and live in his shitty Lowtown apartment,” I mean, if you ask me, in a city like this anyone who turns down a raise is probably up to no good, but I guess he never seemed suspicious to anyone else. Fled with his family from the Soviets back in the day, immigrated to America, joined the marines when he was seventeen, fought in some war, and then another one. He didn’t even have super powers, and when you join the military they make you take that test to see whether or not you’re a super, so he either cheated it somehow or really wasn’t born with the gene. Either way, he got out, went to school, turns out he was actually really smart, got a degree, and started teaching.

He did a lot of charity stuff. Like, soup kitchen kinds of things, homeless or wounded vets, supposedly he’d been hurt himself on his last deployment, but he still had both of his arms and legs so he must’ve gotten off lucky, him and a few of his friends from the service. They had a club, like where people, mostly vets who didn’t have anywhere else to go could come and drink shitty coffee, shitty beer, play pool on a janky, crooked pool table if they still had enough of their bits to hold a que, play poker, and just talk and hang out. I dunno, but anyway, he was an all-around totally okay guy, seemed good even. Also suspicious in this city, I mean I have personal knowledge that even our super heroes aren’t very good people, but no one really looked twice at Doctor van Rijn. He was attractive, --, really attractive actually, I’ll show you a copy of a picture some student of his took that the Guardians picked up as evidence or whatever, --, he was smart, a war hero, volunteered all of his free time and money for wounded vets and that club; I mean, everyone who knew him really liked the guy. Except Felitrix, Anne, but I think she just can’t stand people that turn her down, you know? Always has to win. Made her crazy that he wouldn’t work for her, and he wouldn’t even compete with her, he just wanted to, “waste all that talent teaching idiot grad students,” but even with all that in mind, she never suspected him of anything, and she’s, like, Sherlock smart.

I know, it's a shitty copy of a shitty old Polaroid, but still. Talk about hot for teacher, amiright? Anyway, the Guardians all laughed at this guy, the one they caught, when he told them who Doctor Zondervan really was, but I guess he kept his cool and it started dawning on them all, you know? Wish I could have been there to see the look on Anne's face when she realized that this guy was telling the truth, and that Doctor van Rijn was a f#$%ing super villain. Anyway, they raided the University, and everything just went to shit immediately. Like, the cops were supposed to wait for the Guardians to get there before they sounded their sirens and the helos showed, but they were twelve minutes early. I mean, this was before people had cell phones and supers didn’t usually talk to cops over their radios, but being twelve minutes off is just bad tradecraft. Plus, it’s not like you can take that kind of shit back, I mean, once helos are buzzing the grounds and the sirens are wailing you can’t tell them to just quiet down for a few minutes. I guess everyone got out, you know, there weren’t a lot of civvie casualties for once, which was what everyone was worried about. The problem is, the super villain in question was a teacher. I mean, he just walked out with the rest of the staff and students’, talking his class through the evacuation like it’s just some regular old fire drill or something, keeping them together and calm and getting them to their muster stations before he excused himself and walked off.

“Wow Alex, what an exciting story!” I know, right? So the Guardians get there, Anne’s furious, and mom goes to the guy’s office. I mean, they all know he’s gone of course, but she decides to do something useful instead of bitching at the unis. The Doctor’s gone, but there’s a guy in there burning all of his computers, files, everything like that. So of course a fight breaks out, and this guy just starts pounding the shit out of her, I mean it was bad. Fires everywhere, he’s using some kind of super tech to make himself strong enough to fight a super like Lodestar, and she just starts talking this guy down before he crushes her head in. I mean, he’s standing there over her, about to smash her head in, and she talks to the guy. He stops, just sets his stuff off to the side, and waits for the cops to come get him. Mom got back up, didn’t even handcuff the guy, and just sat there talking to him. The guy was suspected for a bunch of other crimes, but eventually got found guilty only for this one. Anne’s still convinced that he should've had worse, but mom actually used her words, which is seriously unbelievable to me, to talk down some super tech wielding Zondervan follower who was about to do the typical thing Zondervan’s supers do. It’s always the same, they try to do a job and if they’re intercepted by supers it turns into a massive f#$% fest, lots of innocent people get hurt, supers get hurt, and no one goes home totally alright. Lodestar saved lives that day.

The public at large would never list this as the greatest accomplishment of my legacy, hell, most of them look at the whole Halcyon City University incident as a total disaster. The bad guy got away, the henchman burned the files and got a relatively light sentence, and no one even died! But I’ve never been prouder of my mom. She managed to do what all supers should want to do, be able to save the day without putting anyone at risk, and with one of the followers of the Guardian’s greatest villain. I mean, I think she could have continued fighting, probably kept it going for another minute or two, and either gotten herself killed and risked the lives of the cops and evacuating students and staff, along with her teammates, but she didn’t. She took a different path, and she made it work. That henchman guy eventually got himself turned around, he was a drug addict and a former marine who had gotten hurt, Zondervan took him in, cleaned him up, fed him his bullshit story, the whole deal. He did his time, and when he got out became a contributing member of society who has nothing to do with Zondervan and, if anything, has been one of the greatest tools the Guardians have ever had in keeping their fellow supers from following Zondervan’s path. I looked him up once, a year ago, followed him around a bit. He looks good, has a pretty wife, works hard, maybe they’ll start a family someday. He’s alive, she’s alive, they seem happy, civvies are alive because of what my mom had the courage to refrain from doing.

• How does the public perceive your legacy?
Well, that depends on who you ask. I mean, besides the people who are philosophically opposed to supers getting away with the crazy shit they do on a daily basis, which would be very illegal for anyone not wearing a costume, in general no one really, “dislikes,” any legacy as long as there haven’t been any villains to come out of it, and Ursae Minoris has no blood related super villains to speak of. So far as how different people and the public look at the family, it’s not like most kids dress up as Lodestar on Halloween. There’s always a few, though, and despite being definitively eclipsed in popularity by Felitrix and Gravitron she’s close to the top. Adults sometimes point to her clearly being a Lonestar City implant to the city, but this is Halcyon, more than half the people here are from somewhere or another, including Gravitron. Of that little group, Felitrix is probably the only really popular local super. Of course Lodestar is still very popular in Lonestar City, saved the daughter of the owner of the football team in a very public fight with some villains who kidnapped her, to ransom her or whatever, the usual bit, and he gave her lifetime season tickets as some kind of thank you gift. I think it was mostly for the publicity, “buy tickets to the games, might just see a super hero there,” you know? Lonestar City isn’t known for having a prominent super hero community, so a local who is directly attached to football’s bound to be popular. Plus, she wears that stupid uniform… Have I mentioned how much I hate the costume?

The story behind the outfit is kind of asinine. Lodestar, Savannah Newman I mean, mom, was actually a cheerleader for the Lonestar City Steers. Not in a super hero capacity, but actually was employed as a regular person as a cheerleader for the team, back before she moved to Halcyon. So she’s at work, there’s a loud bang, and plumes of green and purple chemical smoke just start pouring out from some plant a few miles away and the tv news reporter people on the field start talking about their having been some kind of attack. So Savannah, mom, back before Lodestar was a thing, just walked off the field and responded to the call of supervillany in Lonestar City without having had time to change into something less ridiculous. So here’s this super powered blonde cheerleader, in Lonestar City, punching it out with some eco warrior type who got it in her head to use experimental chemicals to make herself a weapon capable of fighting for her agenda, against the company that made said experimental chemicals. Of course everyone in the city loved it, “evil liberals threaten the mild mannered and well to do businessmen and factory workers of E-Star-Chems Inc., who were only dumping a possibly harmless little bit of chemicals into the ecosystem,” and who comes to save the day? A literal hot blonde cheerleader with super powers. I mean, as you can imagine everyone was just blown away, it stuck, and people just assumed that it was a recognizable enough costume while still remaining somewhat anonymous, and that she must be a fan of the home team, like everyone else in Lonestar City.

The semi-sheer lace veil with all the embroidered constellations and the white gold tiara with the Ursa Minor constellation ornamentation came later, after Lodestar was an established hero and resident of Halcyon City. The first mask was an actual wedding veil. Why? Some tailgaters were celebrating a couple members of their party having just gotten married in the stadium parking lot in their dresses and tuxes, yeah, that’s how important football is in Lonestar City, and mom, Savannah, swiped the bride’s veil off the backseat of their no doubt rental convertible on her way towards that chemical plant. She says it was the first thing she saw that could be used as a mask, but if you ask me, she’s just kind of a bitch and wanted the veil. I mean, I love my mom and all, but I know her too, and that’s just the kind of thing she would do. That woman spent years accusing the hero, who would come to be known as Lodestar, of having taken her wedding veil, too, but most just assumed that the rightly unhappy bride was just some bitch who wanted attention and thought she could get it by accusing the hero of the day of having stolen her property, and just wrote her story off as obvious fiction. Really, mom could have just dropped the thing off on the lady’s front door the next day and left a note, “hey, sorry, had to take the veil so I could go fight that super villain,” instead of letting people think that she was some raving lunatic. Mom kept the veil, too, it’s on a mannequin head in the parlor.

That’s the parlor on the second floor, not the one on ground level. Did I mention the legacy comes with some money? Why does it come with money? Well, there are rumors of illegal gambling rackets, but the money really came from my dad. Our legacy was traditionally working class, which in Lonestar means ranch hands and service sector types. Back when the first Ursa Minor, known more commonly as Little Bear, was working the local stuff in and around Fort Alexandria, and yes I was named for a city named for a fort named for some old Macedonian guy, oh, and the middle name’s an obvious star reference like the rest of the legacy stuff which is in turn a reference to Lonestar, the most any of the supers in the family could afford was a tin roof and porridge, maybe some bacon on Sundays. Those who still remember the first Little Bear, and those aware of the second Little Bear, look at the legacy as paragons of Southwestern cowboy culture. Not the ones who have shoot outs in every other major thoroughfare twice daily on the tv, the ones who actually drove cattle and fought off the occasional bandito and horse thief who spent their lives dirt poor despite keeping the rest of the country in fresh meat. In Halcyon the opposite is true. Lodestar can fly, and yet owns a jet. There’s a hidden landing strip in my backyard, which is itself on acres of land in the heart of Halcyon City. Felitrix and Lodestar together are probably worth more than the lower twenty percent of the entire city’s population, real champions of wealth.

• How does your legacy tie into your reasons for being a hero?
My legacy is my reason for being a hero. I don't mean that in the, "me and my family have super powers, b, so obviously we do this hero thing," kind of way. I mean that I don't actually want this joke of a life. Not like I want to die or any of that emo shit, but I don’t want to be a super anything. The only reason I'm doing this is because I've been drilled since childhood to expect that this was coming, that whole, "with great powers comes great responsibility," yada yada. You know I've literally never been on a date? I'm f#$%ing eighteen. I’m smokin' hot. And sure, I can be kind of a bitch sometimes, whatever, but seriously. No one asks out Savannah Newman-Hathaway’s daughter. Even the people who don’t know that Savannah is Lodestar are turned off by the whole, “hey, isn’t she that super important Southern politico of the weirdly far right always ranting about Mexicans on the TV,” thing, and not being able to have friends over because the house is a computerized death box with twitchy biometrics scanners, and not being able to stay out because the robot butlers make sure that I get home or else they come flying out to find me, death rays blazing and everything in between considered collateral damage? Yeah, that is totally not helping things. Putting on the, “uniform,” did help, though, in its own way. I mean, I can go out for, “work,” now, without the mall being destroyed by flying robots ala mom. It doesn’t change the fact that this is a miserable way to live and, chances are, die.

I’ve watched people, totally reasonably good people, die in this line of work. In the end it really doesn’t matter all that much that they were super strong, super tough, super fast, super smart. Some villain gets it in her head to put you down one day, and, “blammo,”. There you go, super smarts spattered all over the pavement in some filthy, jank little alley somewhere, and your husband and kids are left mourning over the goop, and after they cry about it for a while they stop and realize that they barely even knew you at all to begin with. My dad wasn’t a super, wasn’t even particularly above average. Just some totally normal guy, loved sunsets and beaches, real passionate about digging wells in developing countries to get clean water to poor families living in the muck. He did more good for more people around the world than Gravitron and Lodestar ever did. Sure as hell are never going to see either of them with their hands in the dirt and their boots covered in mud. Yeah, they’ll take a picture holding a shovel at a worksite for some charity to get those donation monies flowing in, but it isn’t the same. Not that you should really compare supers to normal people like that, I know full well that we didn’t ask for these powers and they didn’t ask not to have powers, plus a horde of shovel wielding average humans couldn’t stop a super villain that Gravitron could have knocked down in his sleep, although that would be hilarious to watch and would make a killer pay per view, but that’s hardly the point.

When I first punched through my desk all the way through the floor of the second story and down into the basement just setting down a glass of water, it wasn’t my mom who walked me through the sobs, existential dread and absolute terror about being a total freak. It was my totally normal Joe, every day, regular old dad who had no powers and couldn’t have put a hole through that desk with a hammer if he tried. Where was Lodestar you might ask? She was off fighting some King Kong wannabe on a jungle island in the South Pacific with the other Guardians. You think its awkward having your dad walk you through getting your period the first time? I had that too, mom was doing some political thing in the Midwest somewhere that time, and in retrospect I can guaren-f#$%ing-tee you that it isn’t anywhere near as shitty as having a normie try to tell you that there’s nothing wrong with accidentally causing thousands of dollars in damage to the house because your super powers are developing, and that’s what, perfectly normal for a girl your age? Thanks dad, but no, I’m not stupid and I’m well aware that being able to bench the combined weight of the entire varsity football team is not normal for a girl, or woman for that matter, of any age. Even worse, it wasn’t until I was about fifteen or so that I realized it hadn’t been his fault for trying, and failing, to console me, but that this was something me and my super powered mother should have discussed, were she around to have had the conversation.

But it all comes back to the same thing. Being a super hero means that you aren’t, can’t be around to deal with the normal stuff that comes up with your family. The good times, the bad times, the just kinda okay times, you spend off fighting the woes of the world. It’s like having a parent who’s a soldier, except they’re leaving a box in your closet that will one day open unexpectedly and drop a loaded gun in your lap with no safety and a trigger that’s directly attached to your nervous system. Oh, and there isn’t a manual or, like, classes or whatever to teach you how to respond to what’s happening when it invariably comes, and your literally incapable of knowing that your carrying the thing before or after it’s put in your hand. Like, one minute you might be stronger than average, maybe even a lot more than average, but not anywhere near strong enough to cause serious damage to anyone unless you were really trying to, and the next a high five might take the other chick’s arm off without you realizing what was happening until after it was over and done with, no take backs. Plus, you can’t put the damn thing down, it’s just there, attached to you like some parasite that didn’t apparently exist one day and the next it’s just attached to your brain stem, never to go away, and all you can do about it is learn to control it and use it to beat up on super villains. I couldn’t have told you that before it actually happened to me, though, and normies couldn’t understand.

• Why do you care about the team?
Well, it isn’t hard to say why I care about Andrea. We’re friends, and I sympathize with her situation. We’re both legacies, and no one refutes that we belong here, doing what we’re doing and all. Besides, she’s a killer super hero; if she lives long enough to see it we’ll wind up on a real team of supers together someday soon. The grown up kind of team with actual villains and team mates who aren’t playing dress up. She’s practically someone out of some twisted part of my psyche or something. How I feel about the condition of super heroes, the real ones, yeah, she’s like that on crack, brought to life in some macabre fever dream. Talk about someone who represents just what it is to be a super; she literally can’t walk away from this. I mean, I talk a lot about how the life of a super isn’t quite what the public thinks it is, and it isn’t, but I could swallow my pride and come to terms with not protecting those people that can’t protect themselves even though I in a total fluke of genetic variation happen to be able to, and, the way I was raised and the way half of me feels about it anyway, that means that I have a responsibility to do so, but I could walk away if I chose to. It would humiliate my mother, and the legacy, and true supers as a community, and I could never forgive myself if I did, but I could. She doesn’t even get that luxury. This team, the protection and responsibilities it offers, or death her only real choice.

The rest of those idiots, though… I didn’t, I really didn’t care about any of them. I never set out to try to care about any of them, either. I don’t treat them well. I mean, I literally live in a mansion that they’ve never seen, and probably never will. I’m sure as shit not purposefully putting myself, Andrea and my mother along with who knows who else in danger by giving any of them any information about my actual identity. I know Riley is homeless. She doesn’t say anything, at least not to me, but it isn’t all that hard to see through her. I’m not Felitrix smart, but I’m not stupid. She’s an alien castaway, obviously doesn’t have a job lacking papers, and even with that skeevy pheromone thing I doubt she’s conned anyone into letting her live at their home in Halcyon City of all places rent free. Apartments here cost two thousand double dollars a month for a person sized tube, even doing questionable shit she wouldn’t be worth enough to pay for a place to live. My mom owns three properties and, using shell companies for obvious security reasons, the Guardians have a network of safe houses, apartments, armories, hangers, even a warehouse with one of those diving tank pools that super soldiers use to train for open ocean ops. I could have her on a monthly stipend and put her up in a Guardian apartment tomorrow just on the basis of her being a super on a team I belong to, mom loves throwing money my way to make herself feel better about never being around, but I choose not to.

Why? Well, first of all, I don’t want her or anyone else on the team for that matter knowing that I have access to the Guardians or can request their assistance, monetarily or otherwise. I mean, they aren’t stupid, obviously they know that Lodestar is the mother of, “Polaris,” and everyone and their mother knows about Lodestar and her stupid jet, and chances are anyone with a jet is probably worth enough to be able to pay for a two thousand double dollar tube for a fellow super, but that isn’t the same as knowing that I, Alex, can get cash monies from the grown up supers, for business stuff anyway. If this team finds itself in real danger, I’ll beep my mom. Until then, we get by with what resources we can scrounge together, which is basically enough to buy coffee and hang out in the alley behind the Circle-K. If we can’t do it on our own, what kind of super heroes are we? Hell no am I going to Gravitron or my mom unless my back is to the wall for realzies. Also, her f#$%ing pheromone thing got the quarterback of the high school football team, Riley, beautiful guy, really, crawling all over her. I mean, not like I ever asked him out or anything, but he pays more attention to her than to me. Before her, there were other girls I guess, but at least they played it fair and square, and he always talked to me first. She waltzes in and next thing you know he’s looking her way an awful f#$%ing lot, and it is not because of anything natural… Bitch.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care if she got hurt, though. I mean, I kinda want to smack the shit out of that little, --, whatever she is, but if someone else put a hand on that girl in a bad way I’d rip it off and beat them with it, and I know that if I saw her crying I’d break the f#$% down and cry right along with her. I dunno, it’s confusing, maybe I don’t have all my shit together, but that’s how it is between me and her, on my part anyway. Total c#$% though. I think her pheromone thing messes with my judgement sometimes. I mean, I’m not like the zombies that follow her around, and I don’t think she intentionally tries to mess with me or anything, but she makes me feel really conflicted all the time. I mean, sometimes I just look at her and think I want to hold her, and then I realize I’m just staring at her and shake myself out of it. I mean, and she’s her, so she just looks back the whole time, like, super eye contact kinda looking back. I don’t know if she expects me to say something, or if she’s reading my mind or what, but she always seems upset afterward. Not sad necessarily, but like she wanted something out of me and didn’t get it. Other times I really just couldn’t care less, sometimes I seriously dislike having her around. It’s really weird, I don’t get it, and so I chalk it up to me just being weird in general and her having that pheromone thing.

Swarm… I hardly know what to say about Swarm. I mean, she’s clearly wound as tight as I am, total nut. I imagine she’s juggling a lot to make this super thing she’s playing at work. She’s always early, I mean, always. I swear she uses those bugs to spy on us, it’s like the only way she could possibly know when to show up, I’ve even tried telling everyone to meet up at whatever time and getting there ten minutes early, and she’s there just waiting around for everyone to show up, because she has to be early, some neurotic thing I guess. I’ve developed this obsessive thing about it, now I carry bug spray in my bag in the city like a total tool, and I have to kill every fly in my house. Like, I’ve always hated, well, more like feared bugs, but this is totally different; I actually went online and bought this little cannon thing that shoots salt at flies, and before I go to bed I search the house for bugs while carrying the thing. My house is f#$%ing huge, it takes, like, forty minutes, but I do it every night. I mean, I don’t even think she knows who I am let alone where I live, but I still feel like I’m being watched unless I go through the whole ordeal. Andrea thinks I’m a total ass for doing it, too. Usually I actually stay up, wait for her to fall asleep, and then go around looking for stupid bugs to shoot. Who does that shit? This bitch. I don’t know why Andrea puts up with my shit, fer realzies.

But, I mean, so far as me and her go personally? I mean, at first I was really impressed with her. She’s the only reason any of us knew to respond to Dragoon, and she somehow managed to keep Dragoon contained and busy long enough for the employees to evacuate and for us to show up. Then we meet up again, after the fight, and she’s kind of just this meek little thing, like, I understand being star struck or whatever, but I’m not a star. I’m not Lodestar, and I don’t want a teammate who acts like she doesn’t belong in the company of teen supers that are legacies. I don’t do meek very well when it comes to f#$%ing supposed super heroes. She’s gotten a lot better though, over the past few months, actually makes herself heard, contributes to group discussions, has enough self-confidence to be useful. She’s smart, her opinions are usually valid, and often better than anything anyone else came up with. Of course there’s one of the several elephants in the room; she could have a real life, and doesn’t even understand how valuable that is, how much supers like me and Andrea want that, what we would sacrifice and do to be able to have that opportunity. I mean, it’s just frustrating to work with someone like her, knowing that she would be just as well, better even, being a normal girl. Then again, I really don’t like bugs, so I might be judging her unfairly. Maybe she’ll prove herself. Until then, I’m mostly just trying to keep her alive without getting Andrea, me, or anyone else hurt in the process.

I guess I started caring about Swarm and Riley because they were just so… Ridiculous. I mean, they’d get themselves killed in a day without me. I don’t mean to be condescending or frivolously mean spirited. They literally would not be able to live and operate in this world, doing the kind of shit we do as supers, without someone around who can actually beat down on the villains. I’m still not entirely sure what Riley even does around here, but smelling good won’t stop a guy with a pistol let alone super villains with death rays. I guess it’s like taking care of kids or something. I don’t buy into the whole, “motherly instinct,” thing, if it exists it didn’t improve me and my mom’s relationship much, but I guess as a person who can do something to protect these people and who sees the extremely obvious need that they have, and the equally apparent desire they have to do this, at least for the short term, even though they’re clearly not cut out for it, and do nothing? And not develop some kind of protective instinct toward them, care for them? Maybe this is how super heroes first came into being, just some chick with happenstance super powers who sees the need people have for a protector and their desire to do good for the world, all the while knowing that she’s a walking tank, so how can she just look away and do nothing, you know? I shouldn’t judge Swarm so harshly. I’m just petty and pissed because she could have the kind of life that I can only dream about having for myself.

Malcolm, Robert Calvert, he’s another story. He’s a real super, legacy or no, even without powers, but… He’s just so robotic. I mean, I’m cold and often prefer the company of computers to people myself, but he has some serious damage. I don’t know where Nucleus found him, but he’s just wrong. Like, he is either seriously autistic, or someone hurt him bad enough for him to have curled up and hid real deep within himself, you know? Total badass, worthy company in the team for sure, but I wouldn’t suggest trying to get to know the guy. He’s smokin’ hot, has the whole mysterious stranger angle, I mean no one knows or is willing to tell me where exactly he came from, and the kind of skills he has don’t come from your friendly neighborhood karate dojo, so I tried to get to know him. He shut me out at every turn, of course, and doesn’t seem like he’s opening up even after knowing him since Nucleus took him in. I mean, there was this whole me asking him out thing and him turning me down, which I’m totally over and not still super pissed about at all, but really I have less to say about him than anyone else on the team. Which, again, I feel I have to stress, I know him both in and out of costume, and have known him longer than anyone on the team except Andrea, and I really don’t think I could tell you a single story from his childhood, favorite food, color, anything. He likes to train, and thinks we’re all nuts for preferring other forms of entertainment.

Then there’s Ian. I’ve never had a scar in my life, dunno if it’s some super thing or I just happened to get away with never having had a real injury like that before. Five seconds after seeing him for the first time, and he cuts my hand off, cuts half of my ribs halfway out of my f#$%ing chest, lights me on fire and burns off my hair. Do you know how long it takes to grow long hair? I do. Years, and years to get it below your mid back. All gone, and in half a minute, tops. I literally wear a wig now. I mean, it’s been a few months and my hair’s growing back in fine, but seriously. Not to mention I’ve had my top burned off by him twice, in public, and I’m pretty sure the second time wasn’t a total accident. Like you can google, “Polaris topless,” and get pics of me on the internet, thanks to Ian and the f#$%ing news reporter people. They aren’t even flattering pictures. Oh, and speaking of losing my top, I have a scar from my bottom right rib to my solar plexus, yeah, real attractive. Bye, bye bikinis. Even if I could suck up looking like I had an organ transplant or something, Alex Hathaway doesn’t have a scar from the bottom of her ribs to her solar plexus, Polaris does. And it doesn’t help that, when I finally get a date and go to homecoming, the night ends with me covered in hot fudge and chicken feathers, in front of the entire school, thanks to guess who. Yeah, that f#$%ing particular half demon.

Then there’s the whole weirdness of the scar. I haven’t told mom, barely even talked to Andrea about it, and only because she made me after the shit she saw I could do with the thing. When I got up, after that fight with Dragoon, and everyone finally left except her, I felt this thing just tugging at me. Like, I don’t even know how to explain it. Something like what people with nerve damage talk about, like their muscles will just contract and move at weird angles, like they’re pulling away from the bone in directions you can’t just normally make them go by thinking about it, because the nerves are firing all wrong I suppose. I just knew I had to follow them. I mean, how f#$%ed up is that!? I had an injury that was tugging along at me, and this faint little calling in my head telling me I had to go somewhere, do something, the thing it wanted me to do and wouldn’t explain to me beforehand. I thought I was going crazy, but I got up, Andrea tried to make me stay in bed of course but I wouldn’t, and I just got dressed, with her help, I mean, I was drugged up and delirious from the blood loss but I was insistent, and we walked off, got on a bus to the subway. Who does that shit? This chick. I mean, I was still reeling from the loss of my hair, and I’m sure Andrea thought I was nuts, but I put that wig on, the one Felitrix gave me, threw on the book bag and got on a train.

Maybe Felitrix knew what I was gonna do, she wouldn’t have said anything either way knowing her, or maybe she just assumed that at some point I would have to walk out of that hospital room and wouldn’t want to do it with my head shaved to the skin. Either way, someone brought me clothes, mom probably made a robot butler get some and hand it off to a car messenger or something, along with a stock costume in one of our sealed black freezer bags, and we were on a train. We changed stations three times, at my behest, I just knew when we needed to change directions somehow, and my scar was just on fire. I mean, it wasn’t a scar then, but a wound held together with stitches, real puffy and reddish purple all over, nasty stuff, but it didn’t stop me. We got off somewhere, and just started walking. Got to this church with a Circle-K across the street, the security cam in the back alley behind the gas station was busted, I’m pretty sure now that Swarm had done it on a prior job but I couldn’t say for certain, so I threw on my costume in the alley, again with Andrea’s help, and we walked into this church. I mean, she knew this wasn’t normal, and she knows more about this kinda stuff than anyone else. Her dad and, by extension Andrea, specialize on the weird and occult, so I’m sure she probably had an idea of what was going on, scared her enough that she hardly said anything once she realized I wasn’t just on a drug induced taco run.

So, inside of the church we find none other than Ian. We talked, and the team proper was formed in that church. I mean, some of the details were hashed out after the fact, but that’s where we got the core stuff done, handed out the burner phones so we could keep in contact, stuff like that. Ian’s eyes practically jumped out of his skull, I mean, he seriously looked like he saw a ghost. Should’ve taken a picture. Of course, we managed to walk into the exact random church he happened to be in, and this girl he just cut nearly in half yesterday was standing there, alive and reasonably well. I knew how relieved he was to see me, too. Why? I literally could feel it. In the tissue around the rend in my chest. I could feel the tension pour off of him. I went to school a week later, and I had the same thing happen; I was just walking, and I knew I had to turn down this hall, then that one, and came upon some guy, who I just knew was Luxurias. I talked to him, he was confused of course, but I just grabbed him out of the hall, took him behind some lockers, and talked to him. He flirted with me, Ian’s just like that, but we just had some little conversation. I introduced myself as Alex Hathaway, he knew who I was of course, everyone knows the Build a Wall lady’s daughter, but he played along and introduced himself as Ian Blackwood, same old, same old. The bell rang. I said, “See you later Luxurias,” when I left.

Really, though, I think he’s probably the only legitimately good person on this team. Like really, morally, good. The rest of us are, well… Just doing what we gotta do, I guess. He really cares. I went to his house once. I was looking for him for a job thing, he’s a dumbass and let his burner die and wasn’t responding to any dark app stuff. Walked up to the door, knocked, and his mom answered. I was wearing heavy make-up, like Lady Gaga shit, a hat, scarf, trying to keep my secret identity, well, secret. His mom knows who he is, he had told me as much, so I just introduced myself as Alex, told her I was Polaris, and asked if Ian was there. The job wasn’t urgent, I mostly just wanted to make sure he was okay, it was a Saturday and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him ‘till Monday. We talked, me and Miss Blackwood, for hours. Looked through all of Ian’s baby pictures, she made fun of his lack of a love life, his height complex, right? I actually really like Emmie. We hang out sometimes. I mean, I know that sounds really weird, but sometimes Andrea’s busy, and I feel like I can just talk to Miss Blackwood. I know, that’s super lame, but I guess she’s just kind of a, I dunno, like a mom influence? The regular kind, who really cares about you and is around. This month I’ve spent more time with her than my actual mom. Me and Ian occasionally hang out, too. We just sit around and draw, watch TV. It’s like a thing now.

@Liliya

I know a little about 'Ursae'... but lets get to know more about you, 'Alexis'.

Let's just pretend that you couldn't bench press Ethiopia. Your mom is not one of the greatest heroes in present time Halcyon. Your mom isn't well known at all. You are just a beautiful, normal teen attgending Halcyon High. Surely, you have dreams of what you want to be. What are they?

Oh yeah, and on the subject of Halcyon High, it came to my attention (Riley, if you must know) that Halcyon High is kind of ran by cliques. The students there are very image conscious, whether by looks or reputation. Were you aware of this?

And where do you think you stand on the scale of 'coolness' at Halcyon High? Why?

@Joshie

Just Alex, b. Alexis is a name for some bubbly blonde happy person. Assuming my best, well, only friend wasn't stuck into some contract with a demon that's slowly eating her alive, and my mom was just some former Lonestar City cheerleader who came to Halcyon City to try and be an actress or something stupid like that? I mean, I have this idealized vision of myself just having been a happy, normal kid who had friends, went to the mall on the weekends, cried about my boyfriend breaking up with me instead of my friends being in mortal danger. I mean, I see them all the time; the girls who, even when they're unreasonably sad about something, just bounce back because there is no permanence to their troubles. Like one week their world has ended because Robert Calvert didn't jump to correct them when they said that maybe they could stand to go on a diet in front of his friends, and now they're, "fat and ugly and," and what? Doomed to never get a f#$%ing date with Robert Calvert? Next week they’re over it and still running off after Robert, of course, as though nothing ever happened because nothing ever did happen. Nothing permanent, anyway, not the kind of thing supers deal with, and knowing you can’t be that makes it all the more obvious when other kids get to be. In my vision I’d be one of those bitches, just fumbling around in the dark trying to feel wanted, validated, loved by someone, but devoid of any real, serious complications. Really though, I’d be kidding myself if I thought things would be that simple.

Maybe I get it from my mom, but I occasionally think I have a serious martyr complex. Like, even if I was some normal kid I’d find something to get into, some cause, probably something to do with digging wells for poor people in the third world like my dad. I’d still be fumbling in the dark, just like I am now even with super powers, but I’d be overcome by the soul crushing guilt and understanding that if we as a people, as a species, would only just come together, work together to try and make the world a little bit better, lives of actual people could be saved, entire cycles of poverty and death replaced by a reasonable quality of life and health and happiness, instead of being crushed down by the understanding that to act means my eventual death and to not act means the immediate deaths of other people, totally okay people who didn’t have to die. If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m killer fun at parties. Good thing I’m tall and blonde and hot, otherwise there’s no way anyone would put up with my bullshit. I really do think it’s a brain chemistry thing, though. Like I’m not really crazy or anything, I just feel like I for some reason always have to, if I’m flattering myself, “stand in the way of darkness,” or some stupid shit like that. More realistically I think it’s just more comfortable for me when the sky is falling all around me and I feel like me and mine are the only ones who can, or will, do anything about it, even though it hurts us.

We’ve established that I’m not a particularly selfless person. I really do care how other people feel, but I think I care more about how bad I feel when I see people in pain than I care about how they’re feeling. Maybe everyone’s like that, maybe I’m just not a totally okay person, but really I can count on one hand the number of people who I care more about how they’re feeling than about how I feel. Like, my mom has that prayer of St. Someone of Assisi hanging in, like, seriously every room in the estate, right? The one that goes, “seek not to be comforted, but to comfort,” yeah, that was my dad. I don’t think he was religious, we never went to church, and my mom’s one of those Southern Christians who hates gay people and Papists and somehow justifies it against Jesus telling people to love their neighbors, sinners, and Samaritans, however that one goes, but he really lived that prayer. He’d have given you the shirt off his back, and managed to keep a functioning charity and some old money estate going strong without stepping on any little people, basically an impossible feat in modern Halcyon City. He dies, my mom hands financial control over to the supposedly, “proper,” money people, and suddenly the estate lays off its employees, most of whom have been here longer than I’ve been alive, hires illegal immigrants and threatens to call Immigration on them if they aren’t basically slave labor. Meanwhile, Savannah Newman-Hathaway talks on every conservative talk show about how much we need to build a wall and set up a deportation task force.

But I don’t say anything, do anything. I feel bad for them. I could stand up to my mom, but I don’t. This isn’t abnormal, either; you can easily demonize the woman behind the mask of Lodestar for being a total c#$%, which she is, but this is just normal for people with the kind of money dad’s family had. He was one of the only holdouts who wasn’t doing this kind of awful shit, because he was a good person. Three super heroes live in this mansion, while wage-slaves keep up the grounds and robot butlers cook our food, because we can. I mean, it isn’t Andrea’s fault, she doesn’t know what’s going on here, but I do. We actually have bunkhouses on the grounds for the families who work the property, and most of their pay is in room and board. It’s f#$%ing gross. Don’t even know what happened to the groundskeepers I grew up around, the ones that were paid well and taken care of, dad sent their kids to university, the whole deal, and mom just threw them out with the last of dad’s clothes. I mean, at the time I thought she was just going through a lot, I mean I was going through just as much, but I hardly noticed, just kinda in a daze for weeks after he died, you know? But she never brought anyone back on, and if they’ve tried to contact me to figure out what the hell happened I have no idea. At the time I was more concerned with secreting dad’s clothes up from out of the trash and into a box in my closet.

That got dark fast, sorry. I’ll change course, --, have I mentioned I love computers? Like, not as in social media and all that, but the actual construction and programming of hardware and software? I know that I’m the muscle in the group and all, but I’m actually really smart and good at stuff. I tried to open up the robot butlers, see how they tick right? Reprogrammed one to drive, did the software myself, and it actually worked. Not on surface streets, never took the project that far, but it could recognize obstacles I set up on the property and intelligently respond to them. Talk about a science fair winner, assuming I could bring one of these things into school, which of course I can’t. Felitrix was impressed with my code though, real neat, tight, efficient, great stuff, --, for an amateur. I didn’t take it as a slight, I mean she is Scarborough Enterprises, and they are technology. If anyone can call anyone an amateur in that field and not sound like a bitch it’s her, she is modern robotics and supertech. My dad was an engineer, or educated as one anyway, before he was in charge of the Hathaway Charitable Foundation. We used to solder little circuits together, and I could get some pretty cool stuff built up by the time I was around eight. Maybe even in some alternate universe where I wasn’t a super I still would have wound up at Scarborough Enterprises doing some kind of research and development type of stuff, working for Felitrix. I guess I’d have known her as Anne Scarborough in that world, but still.

We used to play chess, too. I got pretty good just before my dad died. We’d sit and talk and play, and he’d tell me all about the different moves and strategies and the history of it all. I never won, unless he let me, and he could never bluff well, too honest maybe. Maybe I just knew him well enough and recognized his tells, or maybe he’d have had an easier time bluffing someone that wasn’t his daughter. I’d get mad if he let me win, throw a fit and all, so I always lost. I learned, though. He was a grandmaster, young one at that. Guess it isn’t hard to get to that point if you’re smart and basically have unlimited resources, but he did have a job and me and other stuff going on, so maybe he was just really good at the game, couldn’t say. Maybe in some other world I’m a chess geek, I’d wear those thick rimmed glasses that were ironic for a while but phased back into being lame real quick, and I’d get open mouthed stares when this six foot tall blonde hottie walked into a chess tournament and actually took games off of fat nerds. I kinda like that alternate universe. In this one, I haven’t touched a board since he died. I mean, unless I actually did join the chess club I don’t have anyone to play against, and if you’re going to play yourself in this day and age may as well just play the computer, right? Besides, it’s one of those memory things. His death doesn’t hurt day to day anymore, why open old wounds?

As to the day to day life of Alex Hathaway, the high school senior, things are in a grey area. It’s busy, I take AP classes and hardly have time to study, so I manage a B- to C+ average just trying to pick everything up on the day I walk into class, I’m on the cheerleading squad because my mom is bribing the dean of students to keep me on the team, even though I’ve made maybe half the games and probably less than half of the practices, and literally no actual cheer events, and I eat lunch alone and on the fly more than half the time. I say, “eat lunch,” because supposedly that’s what high schoolers do at lunch break, more realistically I eat half an apple from a school lunch cart or picked from off of some freshman’s tray while walking hurriedly between classes and the computer lab trying to get homework done that’s due in my next class. I had a date to homecoming, who bailed for some more prestigious prize, which turned into a total disaster thanks to Ian, and wound up dateless, covered in hot fudge and chicken feathers, and all in front of the entire school. I considered Carrieing him right then and there, but didn’t, and am now known as Hot Fudge Sunday. Most people wouldn’t actually say that to my face, I think they think I’m like a weird dangerous person or something, probably because I’m taller than most high school senior guys and eat lunch alone, plus my mom is the crazy Build a Wall chick from the TV, but even so the kids say hello.

I’ve never been disliked, or uninteresting enough for everyone to just ignore me. I think that would have to be worse than what I’m dealing with, the kids that no one says hi to, talks to. I say hi to f#$%ing everybody, which is probably another reason people think I’m weird. Not that I’m terribly nice to people as a rule, I’m not, but I don’t walk by human beings and pretend like they’re not f#$%ing there because they’re what, below my station? Now there are a lot of short, fat, nerdy, friendless freshmen who have asked me out because I say hi to them, which would be awkward if I had time to let it be, but mostly I just turn them down and make it clear that I’ve never even been on a date the way my mom is, and the way she keeps my schedule. I think they understand. Everyone knows what a right wing bitch Savannah Newman-Hathaway is on the TV, I assume they think she’s the most overbearing parent on the planet and just accept that I’ll probably never go out with them or anyone else which, unfortunately for me, at this rate I probably f#$%ing won’t. Hell, at this rate I’ll wind up going to prom with Andrea, if I’m lucky and she doesn’t have a date. I think Riley pays more attention to the game then I do, tries to play it and use it to her advantage. I don’t need leverage over high schoolers, she does, it makes sense that she works her pheromone thing and gets people to like her, offer her the goods and services she needs.

All things considered, we did well and impressed an established hero. Who was it? Felitrix.
Yeah, that day… I don’t talk about it much. I mean, I’m over it and it’s cool, but it was pretty nuts. Me and Andrea got an alert about some kind of disturbance, big time stuff, over Felitrix’s dark app. The Guardians responded, but all of them were twenty minutes out, and it was Class A, lots of civvies were in danger. We were a few minutes out, tops, and I beeped in. Normally they’d have shot down my request, I’d have gone anyway knowing how far out they were, but this time they didn’t. I knew it was big shit when they accepted and sent over an asap order. I threw on my costume, and we flew over. Dragoon is major league, like we shouldn’t be fighting this kind of villain, but that’s how the job goes sometimes. There are these three costumes just going at it with Dragoon, Andrea knew at least one of them from a previous job, but just from looking at them I knew that they were kids, and not the legacy types like us. I don’t know how they heard about the situation, too fast for it to have been on any of the big news channels, probably facebook or twitter, “Er mah gerd, super villainy at fourth and main! It’s Dragoon!! E’erybuduh Run!!1! #catsignal,” or something. Bugs f#$%ing everywhere, the literal animal kind, and I really don’t like bugs. Dragoon’s just smacking these kids around. She’s one of those former supers turned baddie, I hear it isn’t her fault, some kind of mind f#$% courtesy of our old friend Doctor Zondervan, yeah, the Doctor Zondervan, but it doesn’t really matter.

She was a danger, and we had to do something about it. Dragoon is a professional, usually wouldn’t have set off any kind of alarm, we’d only have heard about it after she was gone and everything was said and done. It was some kind of fancy lab, one of the ones with Grade A Scarborough Enterprises security systems, and she must have done something off script because she wound up getting boxed and having to fight her way out through robot security drones, made a lot of noise in the process. Anyway, Andrea’s throwing everything she’s got at her, and I take advantage of the distraction to just light her, Dragoon, up, laser beams and then a flying broadside punch, me and Andrea’s regular approach, but this is no ordinary supervillain. She dodges Andrea’s stuff, my lasers, and then swats me off like I’m a fly when I went in for the physical stuff, and I wind up right next to this monster lookin’ guy. Like, seriously monster looking, horns and everything, this blue fire that you just know isn’t normal in the physics kinda way dancing and arcing off him, all big and badass looking. He’s firing some beam at Dragoon, and the street is just melting away, nasty stuff that fire, and I’m getting to my feet. Dragoon dodges, I mean even with her armor no one wants to take something like that straight on, and this horned devil is just honing in on her, real focused you know? Tunnel vision must’ve set in, happens to all of us, because he clearly wasn’t paying attention to where we were in relation to each other.

I learned later that some of that fire, which as I had assumed at the time was no ordinary flame, was arcing off of him and went a little too far to his left. At the time I just remember looking at Dragoon and seeing an opportunity, then there’s this burning like nothing I’ve ever felt, I mean not like, “ow, hot!” more like my skin is covered in boiling cheese and is just bubbling up, like I’m seriously melting, and everything the bubbling guck touched on me was just instantly changed into the same awful crap. I guess it didn’t stop me, because the next thing I know I’m in midair, I have Dragoon’s helmet off somehow and I’m just dragging the back of her head along the street, at speed, crushing her head in with my left hand. I’m right handed, and I remember thinking it seemed wrong that I was using my left, but it didn’t matter enough for me to stop and consider the thought for any length of time, I was kinda busy after all. So I drag her like fifty feet, felt like fifty miles, and I just kinda fall. Not like collapsed to the ground, but I wasn’t flying anymore, just standing there crushing this chick’s face in. Her head looked like someone took a bat to it. I remember looking down and realizing that thick, dark, goopy blood was all over her face, her neck, her chest, and knowing that it shouldn’t be, wrong angle, like it was just falling down onto her from somewhere while she looked up at me, her eyes all big and wide and unseeing.

Next thing I know I’m floating, like literally floating, horizontal to the ground looking up at the sky. I tried to reach up and cover my eyes with my hand, right? Because of the sun and all, but it just wasn’t moving. So I look down, and my hand is just wrong somehow. I think it took me three whole seconds to realize that half of it was missing, in a semicircular cut from the bottom right side of my wrist to the tip of the index finger, including my pinky and ring fingers, and everything but the left half of the bottom section of my middle finger. I mean, you’d think it would have been some instantaneous understanding kind of thing, but I really had to puzzle out what was different about it, like seeing someone who you think changed something about their hair but have to make sure before you ask. I guess I mumbled something about it, like, “where’s my hand,” or whatever, but I mostly just remember feeling abject terror, and then Andrea was talking to me, telling me everything would be alright or whatever. I wasn’t paying attention to her, at least not enough to remember what she said, I was just looking at what was left of my hand, didn’t even occur to me to ask why the rest of it was missing in the first place. Never even realized that my costume was half burnt off, or that my hair was half burnt off, or the small factor that most of my ribs, along with some organ and intestinal tissue, were showing through the big ass rend in my chest.

I next woke up in what easily takes the place of the worst pain I have ever felt, and I’ve been nearly cut in half by, what it turns out to be, is known as hellfyre. I learned later that Andrea had gotten me to some Guardian safe house, and then they took me to some kind of hospital that they operate for dealing with the weirder kinds of injuries you might happen to receive in this line of work. Normally the hellfyre would have spread decay through my system, the flesh would have turned necrotic, I’d develop sepsis and die. Better to cut off anything touched by the stuff, but you can’t just cut off a deep chest wound. Anyway, they had some old connections to some interesting people, and got some monk or something to show up with some kind of hoodoo potion, boiling wine, herbs, supposedly, “holy,” holy water, though I doubt whatever that thing was happened to be a Catholic priest, what with the tree bark for a face and antlers sticking out of its head, the blood of a dove, eye of newt, f#$%, the shit was probably Drano for all I know. What I do know is that when you boil it and pour it into an open chest wound, and maybe this is true of any boiling liquid poured directly onto muscle and organ literally inside of your body, it is easily worse living through than losing your hand. The pain is actually necessary, too, like at least according to Tree Face I couldn’t be on a pain med drip or anesthetized until after going through it, cleanses the soul.

I don’t know if I felt any holier afterwards for being conscious through the process, and I kinda think in retrospect Tree Face was probably just pissy about being made out of wood and wanted to watch me squirm, but I lived, the flesh didn’t turn necrotic, and after I went through having the shit poured on what was left of my hand, including the missing parts which creepily I could swear I felt just as plainly as if they were still attached, and then I was just out, some kind of gas from one of those hospital nose tube things they’d put me on. I woke up, Andrea was there holding my hand, mom was yelling at Gravitron how she was going to castrate that mongrel pestilence before he could spawn any more of his ilk, to which he kept saying that he was just a kid and probably wasn’t evil, Felitrix was sitting on a chair in the corner typing something into a tablet, and I remember thinking to myself, “wait a sec, Andrea’s holding my hand. That’s new,” I don’t mean she’s never held my hand or whatever, I mean the hand was literally new. Or at least it was as good as new. I could feel her skin on mine, even in the pinky and ring finger that were completely cut off, and I squeezed her hand just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, not so hard that it would hurt her, of course, even drugged on that bed I remembered what I could do if I wasn’t careful, but it was enough to get her attention and satisfy my new hand curiosity.

I asked her why they cut my chest open; in my blood loss and drug induced delirium I guess I thought they had to start my heart with boiling oil or something, and forgot all about what side of the body the heart is on, and that people don’t start hearts with boiling liquid. She just told me that the wound came from the same place as the other one had, and called the adults over. So they showered me with affection for, like, five minutes, and then berated me for another ten. It was really f#$%ing weird too, like I just kept looking over at Felitrix and occasionally squeezing Andrea’s hand while Gravitron and my mother acted like a couple parents going back and forth between loving and scolding after their idiot kid got herself hurt. She didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong with this picture, though, just kept playing with her tablet, hardly even looked up when Andrea told everyone I was awake, and I guess I was just letting my own internal knowledge get outwardly expressed in my head onto her. So, being as everyone else really had to get back to their real world duties, they all started leaving, followed protocol. I mean it’s one thing for Lodestar, Polaris, Doktor Faust, Felitrix and Gravitron to be missing all at the same time, but for Lodestar, Polaris, Doktor Faust, Felitrix, Gravitron, Savannah Newman, Alex Hathaway, Andrea Faust, Anne Scarborough, and Jan Poole to all be missing, for what turned out to have been nearly eighteen hours, right after a very big, very public battle like that? Way too risky to everyone’s secret identities.

Andrea and Felitrix stuck around the longest though. After mom left, Felitrix pulled her chair up next to my hospital bed, one of the rolley ones that adjusts up and down and sideways, and lifted my torso up with the push button controls before sticking her tablet in my face. I took it, in my left hand, I didn’t want to move my right one from Andrea’s considering, and I read the article headline. “DRAGOON APREHENDED AFTER DECADE LONG MANHUNT, BUT NOT WITHOUT CASUALTIES,” and right below that is this big honkin’ picture of me bent over dragoon, on fire, bleeding like a stuck pig from my side, tit flopping out of where my costume used to be. They didn’t even have the decency to give me one of those censored bars, just one of those microscopic little blurred out star things over my nipple, --, f#$%ing bastard news media reporters. The first line of the actual written part went, “Bold new super hero team in Halcyon City?” and it goes on to talk about the five of us, speculations on who we are and what our super hero names might be, old articles about me and Andrea, Polaris and Doktor Faust I mean, something about some girl in a costume who was seen fleeing the scene of a crime after bodily interrupting a police investigation who they thought was the same person as the bug controlling hero of the day, pondering on whether the six and a half foot tall demon looked like that regularly, if it was some kind of prosthetics used as part of his elaborate costume, or some kind of activated transformation.

They wished me the best in my recovery, of course, all the while capitalizing on my injuries, vulnerability, and nudity, simultaneously hoping that I had died from my injuries so that they could cover the death of Lodestar’s daughter for some extra publicity, f#$%ing assholes. Of course they speculated whether or not Dragoon would survive her injuries which gave me some intense feelings up and down the spectrum. I mean, I hadn’t thought about her or what had become of her up until that point. Last time I saw her she looked pretty f#$%ing dead, and it was at my hands. Guess I’d just forgotten, what with the whole nuttiness of the ensuing eighteen hours. On the other hand, I didn’t know if I was glad she was alive, but I certainly didn’t want to have been responsible for killing another person, either. Squeezed Andrea’s hand hard enough to hurt her while looking at the picture and reading the article, hadn’t realized until she subconsciously squeaked out a protest. Guess she was just looking out for me and didn’t want to say anything, Andrea’s good to me like that, but I loosened my grip and muttered out an apology anyway. Down at the bottom, with like a hundred thousand likes, was a comment from Felitrix’s official account, the one used for correspondence between her and the Guardians and the newspaper. She had basically said that she was incredibly proud of this burgeoning new team, and that had we not acted the Guardians wouldn’t have been there in time to have prevented Dragoon from causing massive damage to life and property in her, likely successful, attempt to escape.

I looked up at Felitrix, and she just looked back down at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn’t know what to say, of course. It had been a hell of a day, I hurt everywhere, had a naked picture of me on the front page of the newspaper, had recently been cut nearly in half, and sewn back up after getting boiling liquid poured into the hole in my chest. I really just wanted Andrea to crawl into the weird rolley bed and hold me, cry for like an hour, the gross sobbing kind of crying, too, with like zero chill or composure, have some morphine dripped into my veins and forget this whole day had happened for a little while. Didn’t matter, though, Felitrix wanted me to say something, the right something, and she always managed to get people to do what she wanted. “We aren’t a team, Anne,” I said to her, dumbly, clearly flailing for something smart to say and just flopping instead. “Of course you are, says so right here in the paper,” she countered, feline smile spreading across her face. She’s pretty, Anne Scarborough, but she has the biggest mouth, and the evilest grin I’ve ever seen. Like, Jagger big mouth. Like, Jagger Face on the Cheshire Cat big mouth. Wonder if that’s a meme somewhere? It should be. “Never met them before in my life,” somehow her grin got even longer, wider, and I was starting to think there might be morphine in my drip after all. “Sure you have, Alex,”.

I thought to myself, “Holy shit, have I?” like a total tool, and squeezed Andrea’s hand, making her squeak again before Anne finished her sentence. “you fought off Dragoon together just a few hours ago… Did really well, too,” she leaned over me and pushed the bookmarks button on her Scarborough Enterprises psyPad Septum, pulled up some website. We were all over the Halcyon City page, the city run one for upcoming events and names of important people next to their business numbers and job titles, and people were actually cheering for us. Like, really applauding us for what we did. I mean, half the comments were about my boob, but most of them were people thanking us for finally doing what the Guardians had failed to do for ten years. One, I read it aloud and showed the screen to Andrea, was this lady, Maria, saying Dragoon had killed her eighteen year old son on the first day of his internship with some indie newspaper company, and that she had night terrors for years thinking about if she might show up and do the same to some other poor woman’s baby, and said that the night before was the first time she had gotten a good night’s sleep since her son, Victor, had passed. She posted his picture along with the text, and it just went nuts. Like a hundred people wrote on it that they remembered Victor and what a good guy he had been, and it just spread from there with hundreds of other people posting pictures and stories of how Dragoon had killed this person and that person. It seriously blew my mind.

I mean, first of all, I’d always known that there were some real baddies out there, but not kidding, thousands of people posted about how Dragoon had killed someone that they loved. It reminded me how in over our heads me and Andrea were in going up against her, but I think it’s where I first realized just how much people really need super heroes. I mean, Dragoon had been doing this shit for a decade, and had hurt who knows how many people, reasonably okay people, in the process. I don’t have an official list from anyone, but I sure as hell saw enough people on that website to feel like what me and Andrea had done was worth the scars. “I always thought you two would wind up on Ken’s team, but I guess it’s time to let that one go, for now,” Anne stood, put one of those canvas book bag briefcases stamped, “Scarborough Enterprises,” all officially on the foldey flap part onto the folding tray on the hospital bed’s left arm rest, collected her tablet, and made her way to the door. “Clearly you five have a lot of good work to do. Keep the other supers on their toes,” and she left, still grinning like some caricature of a person. Andrea said something about that being super awkward, and I nodded, patting the briefcase down with my left hand, still refusing to take my right from Andrea’s, before reaching into the main partition of the unzipped sleeve. There were five phones, Scarborough Enterprises pay as you go psyPhoneGo brand ones, stupid name really, and a blonde wig, for some reason. “Wait, what…?”

"Where is my f#$%ing hair!?!?!?!?"

Relationships
You once got caught doing something that shames your legacy with Ian/Luxurias.
I’ve done a lot of things that shame my legacy with Ian. I mean, he literally covered me in chocolate and chicken feathers, from live chickens, in front of my whole school, oh, and he burned off my top and nearly cut me in half in public. My personal favorite was this stupid job we did in Lowtown. It was supposed to be small time, find this bar, talk to this guy, follow up on a lead. I mean, we’re not actually old enough to get in through the front door, I have fake papers and all, for stealth stuff, but if you show up in costume meaning business, in my experience, no one’s gonna stop you. I bark at some bouncer to get out of my way, he does, it’s all whatever. Me and Ian get through the door, and instantly everything goes to shit. The weapons check guy, in this reinforced cage, tells Ian to lose the coat, guess he just assumed I didn’t have enough clothes on to hide a laser or something, but Ian’s got this big ass fancy jacket and he’s just not gonna hand it over. I mean, he always wears this thing, and I just knew he wasn’t gonna do it. So the guy in the cage pushes a button, bars come up out of nowhere, we’re boxed in half a second and he’s just disappeared behind folding sheets of metal. Phones are off, faraday cage kinda shit. So at this point we either wait around for the cops to show up, smash our way back out through the door we came in, or smash our way into the bar.

I didn’t come all the way down to Lowtown to get turned away by a basic security system, so I just start lighting the plates at what I assumed were the hinges with the wall proper up with my eye beams. Now the fire alarm goes off, of course, sprinklers turn on and, I mean, I’m wearing a primarily white cheerleader costume so that’s already super nice, but the wall was malleable enough and I just pushed the plates off once they weren’t properly attached anymore. In retrospect I should have just gone through the ceiling, come back down on the other side, would’ve saved me a lot of trouble, but usually avoiding major property damage is for the better, and it’s one thing to clean up after sprinklers and reattach some metal plates to hinges, and another to fix a person sized hole in the ceiling. So on the other side of the security wall are these seven guys, in a semi-circle to maximize surface area, holding blasters, not too happy about getting their thousand dollar suits wet. I am not bullet proof, and these guys definitely meant business. So we’re boxed, again, and I’m considering whether to put my hands up and surrender or go into desperation mode and just cut them in half before they blast us, and Ian just starts laughing. He does this whole weird, booming whisper echo evil voice thing, and they all freak the f#$% out, of course.

One of the suits yells at him to stop, and fires a warning blast, I grab Ian and go through the ceiling, eye beams cutting a hole in what I figured was roof directly above the seven guys sending chunks of building down on them. Dunno if it worked, ‘cause we popped up in a total shit show. Ten or so guys in masks, those stupid Tuxedo Mask kind from Sailor Moon that don’t conceal shit, standing around in an office with none other than Arsen, this former super turned Zondervan henchwoman. She’s bad news, I knew her from before, used to work with the Guardians. Sad too, Zondervan’s a real creep brainwashing her, she’s maybe Ken’s age, a few years older than me at most, but anyway, this guy goes for his blaster, one of the ones in masks. I grab him, twist his arm. It broke in two places, bone sticking out and all, --, super gross, but this was a real bad situation, total Class A oh shit kinda thing, and I just had to move, you know? No time to avoid causing damage, had to seriously keep myself from going all out and cutting people in half with my eye beams. I threw him into another guy, and knocked through a desk, getting to cover. Next thing I know everything’s on fire, Ian isn’t stupid, knew how bad the situation was and just let ‘em have it, henchmen rolling around trying to put themselves out, blasters firing everywhere, and I see Arsen leaving with this briefcase, a silver heavy duty medical one, the kind that have a fingerprint scanner. I knew it.

There was a bulletin on the Guardians dark app that put it as a Class S recovery item, dunno what’s inside of the thing, but I knew I had to grab it, f#$% the consequences. So I went after her. Must’ve looked cool as all hell doing it, too, just knocking desks and henchmen over on this b-line towards her, don’t even know where Ian was. So I grab her, and we start going at it. She’s a badass, one of those supers who can really take a blow and hand one right back to you, and we’re just beating the shit out of each other. Somehow in the chaos the news people showed up outside, helos all over the place, and my shirt gets set on fire. I grab this briefcase, knock the shit out of Arsen with it, and I’m about to get out of there when I see a guy, that one whose arm I broke, lying on the ground with a blaster in his hand, aimed at the back of Ian’s head. I turned, and lazered the thing in half. I think I was trying to save the guy’s hand, but the extra moment of consideration was all it took for Arsen to come up on me from behind, pull some fancy judo move on me, kick me in the chest while I was in mid-air and send my flying out the window, without the briefcase. I crushed some car in the fall, Ian followed me out the window with blasters just flying all over the place around him, and the bad guys got away, with the briefcase, before backup could get there.

Did I mention my top, for a second time, was burned off in the process thanks to Ian’s f#$%ing fire? The reporters got lots of nice shots of that particular episode, practically gave them a photo shoot. Could’ve been this awesome thing where me and him saved the day, caught the baddies, and brought the briefcase home to Felitrix. Instead we nearly got ourselves killed, started a fight we couldn’t possibly win, never even talked to the source we went there for in the first place, got our asses kicked by lame guys in lame masks and a former friend of mine, gave the news media people more topless pictures of me to put up alongside the headline, “Dragoonslayers thwarted by mooks with commercially available blasters, start fire in historic Lowtown bar on the national register of famous sites for early meetings pioneering civil rights movements in Halcyon City, destroy priceless classic photos and memorabilia in the process,” with a picture of me stunned on top of this car, topless as is apparently becoming my usual. Then there’s the pictures of Ian jumping out of the window under fire, landing like a dork on the street, and me getting up to fly off with him. Took his coat, yeah, that one that’s the reason all of this went down in the first place instead of a casual meeting with a D Class source that shouldn’t have even taken one of us to do. If we’d sent Swarm, she would’ve talked to the source, informed us Arsen and the briefcase were there, us and the Guardians would’ve swooped in and the whole thing would have been a success.

You trust Andrea/Doktor Faust and told her an important secret of your legacy.
Maybe everyone trusts someone, even in this line of work, where secrets are more dangerous then bullets and, keep in mind that this is coming from a chick who can punch through a cement wall, in this case knowledge really is power. I’m no different, I have no desire to die or get maimed or whatever, and I hate that my lineage has put me in a situation where I have no choice but to be a soldier in some endless, pointless series of battles until they eventually kill me, but if I could make a deal with Mephistopheles to trade my right arm for Andrea’s life I would. I wouldn’t tell her that, of course, certainly not in anything even close to those exact words, seriously I have to call her a bitch with the same breath on the rare occasion that I tell her I care about her, but I would. Lodestar, I mean Savannah, mom, and the former Doctor Faust were teammates, I’ve known Andrea since we were babies who didn’t know supers from cats. Her family secret is hardly secret to anyone even remotely attached to the former Doktor Faust in a professional capacity, and I remember when she realized that not only was her dad going to die, but that she would die. Not like, in eighty years, when she’s old, broken, crotchety and well and ready to move on to whatever comes next, but when she was reasonably young, healthy, happy, and it wouldn’t be pleasant going. It’s gotta be hard enough to swallow that pill for yourself, but to know that you’re leaving it for your daughter? It was awful.

Andrea really gets what this is all about. Whether or not she feels the same way as I do about supers and the whole lifestyle, as far as I’m concerned, me and the Doktor share a common bond, while the others, well… Swarm is a bratty kid playing at being a superhero, and Riley is even worse; some idiot alien who got lost on a foreign world who, were it not for the protection of the group and super heroes in general would have been picked up by some evil organization or another by now. No shortage in Halcyon City of super villains looking either to experiment on her to discover the genetic secrets of her shapeshifting, or mold her into a weapon for their own crazy purposes, maybe a doomsday cult looking to send a message to the people of her home world by publically killing her in the hopes of inciting some war of the worlds just to keep things interesting. Hell, all it would take is some wealthy collector of rare and exotic aliens to learn about her existence and the next thing you know she’s in a cage in some creepy take on a zoo. Andrea gets that this isn’t a game, this is real life and being a hero is always dangerous, quite often terrifying, and will get you killed in the end. Who could understand that better than her, after all? She’s going to die, sooner or later, specifically because of the same malevolent source from which her powers derive. How could the others understand what it actually means to be a superhero, the actual cost that this life truly demands?

Of course I told Andrea that my dad, Ron Hathaway, the mild mannered executive of the Hathaway charitable foundation, wasn’t actually my dad. Like, he was great and the best dad you could ask for, but I mean in the bio sense. My father, the biological one, as it turns out, is in fact Gravitron. Scandalous, to be sure, but that’s so often how things go in this line of work. Of course, there were always rumors that mom, Lodestar, and Gravitron had something going on between them other than simply being members of the Guardians of Halcyon City, but there was never anything definitive to point to and it was for the most part simply ignored by the public at large. After all, Gravitron and Felitrix were publically known to be married at that point, and other than happening to have saved one another’s lives on multiple occasions and having shown some degree of concern and feeling for one another when the other was injured or in danger there was nothing to really suggest that there was anything going on between the two. I mean, there were also rumors that Lodestar was a lesbian, that she was an alien, and that her and Felitrix ran an illegal gambling ring to fill their personal pocketbooks on the side. Mostly people just like to talk about supers. We’re prevalent in the public eye, but lead very private personal lives as a matter of necessity, which leads to speculation and then to rumor, it’s simple human nature. At the end of the day most conclude, however, that members of teams care when one another are in danger, after all.

Then again, usually they don’t care in the kind of way where they happen to produce a child together, while both are married to other people, and especially when one is married to a member of the same team. According to my mom, Gravitron doesn’t know. It's probably true, too, or at least if Gravitron knows he hasn't told his son, the legitimate one by Felitrix, who has been trying to pick up on me since I first developed boobs. Which, I mean, is really just gross, but it isn’t Ken’s fault. Ken, my half-brother I guess though it feels alien thinking it, is the sweetest guy, and I hate feeling like I’m the asshole for treating him like some weirdo no one knows showing up to the office Christmas party and eating all the nachos. He doesn’t deserve it, but I don’t really know what to do about any of it. I can’t exactly just tell him he’s my brother from another mother. I had never told anyone before Andrea, hadn’t even known myself until after my father, the one who raised me and that I had obviously presumed to have been my biological father, had died and my mother eventually told me the truth. Hard to say why I told Andrea in the first place, but it felt good to talk about it. Then again, it left another human being holding a very big secret that would cause real world ripples directly affecting me and my mother should it ever get out. Besides, she has her own problems to worry about, and I hardly needed to compound it all by venting my shit on her.

Influence
You’re a part of this team, for better or worse, and you care what they think. Give Influence to all of your teammates

Legacy Moves
❑ Never give up, never surrender: When you take a powerful blow from someone with far greater power than you, use this move instead of the basic move. Roll + Savior. On a hit, you stand strong and choose one. On a 7-9, mark a condition.
- you get an opportunity or opening against your attacker
- you rally from the hit, and it inspires the team; add 1 Team to the pool
- you keep your attacker’s attention
On a miss, you go down hard but leave your opponent off balance and vulnerable.

❑ Symbol of authority: When you give an NPC an order based on authority they recognize, roll + Savior. On a hit, they choose one:
- do what you say
- get out of your way
- attack you at a disadvantage
- freeze
On a 10+, you also take +1 forward against them. On a miss, they do as they please and you take -1 forward against them.

Legacy
Lodestar is still active and prominent in the city.
Ursa Minor (Little Bear) the First is retired and quite judgmental.
Charles Newman who would be the third Little Bear is the next possible member of your legacy.
Doctor Tyrell Jan Marten de Wolff van Rijn (Doctor Zondervan) is the greatest opponent your legacy ever faced...and is still at large.

Whenever time passes, roll + Savior to see how the members of your legacy feel or react to your most recent exploits. Before rolling, ask the other players to answer these questions about your performance. Take -1 to the roll for each “no” answer:
- have you been upholding the traditions of your legacy?
- have you maintained the image of your legacy?
- have you made the other members of your legacy proud?
On a hit, one of them offers you meaningful encouragement, an opportunity, or an advantage. On a 7-9, another is upset with your most recent actions, and will make their displeasure known. On a miss, something you did stirred up the hornet’s nest—expect several members of your legacy to meddle with your life.

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, tell them whether you see them as an equal. If you do, give them Influence over you and mark potential. If you don’t, shift Superior up and any other Label down. When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, tell them a secret about your legacy (including your own true feelings about it) to clear a condition and give them Influence over you.

Potential >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑ >>>>❑
Every time you roll a miss on a move, mark potential.

Advancement
When you fill your potential track, you advance. Choose from the list below.
❑ Take another move from your playbook
❑ Take another move from your playbook
❑ Take a move from another playbook
❑ Someone permanently loses Influence over you; add +1 to a Label
❑ Rearrange your Labels as you choose, and add +1 to a Label
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth
❑ Take a Sanctuary from the Doomed playbook
❑ Unlock the remaining two powers of your suite

When you’ve taken five advances from the top list, you can take advances from the list below.
❑ Unlock your Moment of Truth after you’ve used it once
❑ Change playbooks
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Take an adult move
❑ Lock a Label, and add +1 to a Label of your choice
❑ Retire from the life or become a paragon of the city