---

There's no word to describe how you might feel looking up at a statue of someone you knew, someone you loved, someone who died fifteen years ago but whose impact is still felt in the city she lived in. The sculptors put a lot of work into every detail, likely poring over every photograph of the Queen of Blades to make sure they got all the details right. Most of the statues are placed in chronological order from the death of the hero each one represents, but the park's planners probably felt like it wouldn't be right to do anything but place hers next to Shining Shield's, even though their deaths were over a decade apart.

And then the word hits me, seeing the two of them standing side by side, the Queen beaming behind a half mask as Shield stands stalwartly beside her in full plate armor: I feel inferior. This is the legacy I come from, the legacy I don't think I'll ever be able to live up to. I'll never be half the hero either of them were.

I've been visiting Memorial Park to look at the statues since before my mom died. Stopped for a few years after she died, then made it a point to visit once a month after that, the only other gap being the time I left Calder to go to college. This is the first time I've been here since I moved back to Calder. When she was alive, mom would take me down here once a month, just me and her, and we'd sit on a bench looking at Shield's statue. She told me stories about him, how he was one of the bravest men she knew, how much passion he held for his work as a hero. He was my favorite hero throughout my childhood, the one I dressed up as every Halloween while my mom would wear her actual heroic attire, her secret identity long gone by that point. "My little Shield," she'd call me with a smile, and my dad would shake his head when he heard it and try to hide a sigh.

Dad never liked Shield. I only started to understand why later in life, doing research on my mom and her heroic partner, digging through archived news and magazine articles on the Wayback Machine. Back in the day, the tabloids and gossip rags would always go on about every small show of care between the Queen of Blades and Shining Shield, how every hand on a shoulder to steady the other during a battle or a celebratory hug after a job well done surely meant they were in love. They had to be, they had saved each other's lives so many times at that point. It just made sense.

While mom tried to maintain a secret identity early in her career, those things tend to be very tenuous, and eventually it was uncovered who she was and that she was dating a civilian who wasn't even a Gray. When that came out, the tabloids shifted to how my dad wasn't good enough for her, how she should be with someone in the same line of work, like Shield. After he died, it just got worse and worse, personal attacks against dad for being alive while Shield wasn't and against mom for letting her partner die and then continuing to date this man like nothing happened. It must have been terrible for both of them.

This is the life I'm trying to break into, the whirlwind of media exposure that won't let you get a moment of rest, the people you protect and save deciding to spit on you and the people you love. I look over the long line of monuments to dead heroes, thinking about how this is the life that every one of them lived, only for them all to be cut short. As a cape, you don't get to die peacefully in your bed surrounded by loved ones. You die in action. You die a hero.

Man, it's always so uplifting coming here.

I let out a sigh, shake my head, then turn away from the statues and begin the walk out of the park. The walkway at the end of the line of statues is cordoned off and diverted onto a temporary path, and I look over to find the cause is the construction of the latest addition, the statue of The Mountain. Shit, he died pretty recently, didn't he? I remember reading about it not even a week ago, scrolling on my phone in bed and trying not to think about how I'd have to be up in three more hours to get ready for my shift at the bar.

That dread of the day to come was forgotten as my heart sank reading the headline, memories of the man flooding in. He was always kind when I met him at galas and other social events held by Vanguard for heroes and their families, and he got along pretty well with my mother. His son Rock and I were friendly too, though we never met outside of those events and I haven't seen him and Saw since mom's funeral. I wonder for a moment how Rock must be taking Saw's death, then shake it off. The past is the past. I have to look to the future.

I keep on walking.

---

The sun is just starting to set, casting Calder City in an orange glow. I'm sitting on the second level of a fire escape in full costume, fiddling with the dials of the worn down police scanner I picked up at a pawn shop today. Probably should have looked up how to get this thing working, but I feel like I'm close.

I'm trying to pick up any voices obscured by the static when a voice sounds off about thirty feed ahead of me:

"ALL THE CASH IN THE REGISTER, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"

I look up and see a man stepping into a convenience store across the road, the glass door closing behind him. Alright, looks like I picked the right place to start my patrol. I climb down the fire escape, crossing the street and stepping up to the door to look inside. The gunman is waving his pistol around before setting his aim on the middle aged clerk. The clerk doesn't look too perturbed, like he's done this song and dance dozens if not hundreds of times at this point, simply popping open the register and calmly pulling cash out of it one stack at a time.

The door chimes as I step inside and the gunman turns on his heel to aim the pistol my way. He looks me up and down, looking irritated at the interruption. "Who the fuck are you supposed to be?" he asks, sneering.

Instead of saying anything in response, I summon my sword and fling it at the gun, making sure to dull the blade so I don't slice his hand off. The spectral weapon flies true, knocking the pistol out of his hand. The gun goes off as it falls, the round flying into a rack of magazines, a cloud of shredded paper filling the store. My blade bumps into a wall then clatters to the ground before dissipating. Takes a lot out of me to summon a new one so soon after dispelling the last one, so I'm gonna have to do this the old fashioned way.

The burglar barely has time to blink in surprise before I'm on him, sending a wild punch into his nose that knocks him on his ass. He's still sitting instead of laying prone though, so I lift a leg and send a boot into his chest, sending him to the floor. He groans and wheezes in pain, clutching at his ribs, and I turn to the clerk. His weathered face is pulled into a deep scowl.

"What the hell is your problem?" he asks.

I blink behind the visor of my helmet. "... What?"

"I had it under control. This would've been a write off, now it's a whole fucking fiasco because you stepped in. Trashed my damn magazine rack, too."

Shit. "I was trying to help."

The clerk clicks his tongue, shaking his head in frustration. "Damn capes, you're all the same. Get the fuck out of here."

There's not much else to do than what he asks, so I leave the store. I can hear sirens fast approaching, so I take off sprinting into the alley across the road, heading as far as I can away from the store. That was the first time I stepped in to stop something bigger than a mugging in the street. I took that guy out quickly, efficiently, but that clerk really didn't appreciate it at all. I guess I can understand why, but it stings to get reprimanded for trying to help.

Guess this is my first experience with what I was thinking about the other day, how the people you're trying to help will disparage you at the same time. I'll have to get used to it.

When I can't hear sirens anymore, I duck into a quiet corner and pull out my police scanner again, trying to get it working. Got a long night ahead of me.

---

I step through the front door of Haven, immediately basking in the atmosphere: the dinner crowd filling every seat in the house, the sound of scattered conversations drowning out the live games on the TVs, the smell of every dish on offer being cooked up in the kitchen. A smile makes its way onto my face as I remember the weekends spent as a kid, sitting at a table with a stack of comics and dad's iPod while he tended the bar and mom was flying around the city. She'd drop in sometimes on dad's breaks if nothing was going on and we'd have lunch together as a family. There's a tinge of pain in the memories, thinking about the times after she died when I'd be at Haven, sulking in a quiet corner and trying to pretend for a moment that I didn't exist.

I shudder a bit, shaking off the memories before walking up to the bar. Dad's not tending it right now, but I recognize the woman who is, and I smile at her as I take a seat. "Hey Char."

Charlotte has been working at the bar since I was in my last year of high school and she was in her second year of college. I got to know her a bit the summer before I left Calder to attend UMBC, then figured I'd never see her again. Lo and behold, she also ended up dropping out, and she was still working at Haven when I got back. It's always nice to see her.

Charlotte's head perks up when she hears my voice and she looks over to me with a grin, setting a mug of beer down in front of a patron before moving over to where I'm sitting. "Scott, it's so good to-" She cuts herself off, looking concerned now, and raises a hand to point at the bandage on my cheek. "What the hell happened?"

I let a finger rest on the bandage for a moment. After last night's encounter in the diner where Dusk pointed out my terrible lying skills, I decided to work on a cover story, and I only falter slightly before delivering it: "Oh, this guy at the Haunt threw a bottle at me. Managed to duck out of the way but a shard hit me in the cheek after it bounced off the wall."

Charlotte frowns deeply when she hears that. "Jesus Scott, you gotta quit working at that shithole. You know they run drugs through there, right?"

I shrug. "Hey, the Haunt pays pretty decent." I don't add that as a server, I can eavesdrop on conversations throughout the place and see if anything catches my interest. Not much has yet, but hey, hopefully something will pop up.

"Why don't you just come work here?"

"The Haunt is way closer to where I live, it's a twenty minute bus ride there versus almost an hour to here. Plus if dad hired me, everyone would be crying nepotism."

She rolls her eyes. "That's bullshit, Scott. Everyone here loves you."

"They might not love me so much when they have to spend forty hours a week with me."

She shakes her head with a sigh. "You really need to stop putting yourself down so much, Scott. You're a great guy."

"Sure," I say dismissively, giving another look around the bar again and still not seeing dad anywhere. "Anyway, I came here to see dad. Is he around?"

Charlotte looks like she wants to press the issue, but probably figures it would be best to drop it. "... Yeah. He went on his break just before you got here, saw him head back to his office."

"Thanks. Take it easy, Char." I slip out of my seat and pull away from the bar, heading to the back and through the door to the break room and the manager's office. I pass by the break room where a few servers are chatting and step up to the office. A simple plastic placard rests on the door, reading "Benjamin Knight". After a moment, I raise a hand and knock.

"Come in."

I open the door and step inside, making sure to angle my head so that dad won't see the bandage immediately.

My dad sets his eyes on me as soon as I walk in, and his bored expression instantly warms up into a smile. "Scott! You didn't tell me you were coming." He stands up and approaches me with arms wide open. I meet him halfway and we give each other a hug, dad squeezing me tight. After a moment longer than I probably would've liked, he pulls back and looks at me, his grin slowly falling as takes in my face.

His face shifts into a stern mask, his eyes slightly narrowed. "Finally went up against someone out of your league?" he asks, gesturing to his own face where the bandage is on mine.

I sigh. "Yeah. It was uh, it was Rock, actually."

Dad blinks in surprise but quickly recovers. "Saw's son? He's back in town?"

"I guess he is. Thought I saw someone breaking into a store down by the docks, turns out it was where one of the Mountain's gadget stashes was. Rock kicked my ass."

"Makes sense. He was trained for the life." Dad's probably trying to imply something with that.

"Look, I don't really want to talk about it. I'm fine. I just came here to catch up because it's been a minute." I look over to his desk, a neat stack of paperwork sitting next to a keyboard. There's a photo frame on the desk, a picture of the two of us and mom when we visited Hersheypark for my seventh birthday. I look away from it and back at dad.

Dad purses his lips together, looking into my eyes. For a moment I meet his gaze, feeling some kind of pressure weighing down on me, then look down at my feet. He steps back and sits back down at his desk and I follow his lead, taking a seat on the sofa against the wall. "You been getting out much, son? Other than your nightly escapades I mean."

I consider trying to lie for a minute, say something like "yeah, I've been seeing this guy I met at a coffee shop" or "I've been going out with friends from work", but dad can read me like an open book, so I just shake my head.

"Come on, Scott. You live in a city with so much to do and you just stay at home when you're not at work or playing vigilante?"

"I just don't see the point. Yeah, sure, I have to go to work, but that's just something I do to pay the bills. My real life is hitting the streets, saving people. Making a difference."

"That's the only thing you care about?"

"Yeah."

"You should care about a lot more. Some of your friends from high school swing by sometimes to ask about you because they still think about you, they want to reconnect. You can't just throw away the people closest to you because you think it's for the greater good."

My shoulders tense up and I try my best not to look at dad. "That doesn't matter. I can't be a hero and act like I can still live a normal life, too."

"Scott. Look at me," dad says. After a moment of hesitation, I shift my gaze over to him and he leans forward to emphasize what he's about to say. "Just because you think you have to be a hero doesn't mean you have to stop being a person."

I take in a breath. "... It's my life. I'll decide what I have to be." I stand up and walk over to the door, yanking it open and stepping out.

"Scott, please, don't-" I shut the door before dad can finish his sentence and rush back down the hall back into the bar proper, where the atmosphere is the same, everyone oblivious to the family drama that just took place in the back. Normal people.

I can't ever be one of them.

I have a job to do.

I pull my headphones off my neck and put them on, hitting play on my phone as I walk down to the bus stop.

---

I step out of the convenience store, digging through the brown paper bag, brushing aside a few packs of ramen and pulling out the stick of beef jerky I bought. With one hand still holding the bag, I use the other to hold the stick while opening the wrapper with my teeth, then take a bite and start the walk home. Only a few more blocks past some old warehouses. The conversation with my dad at Haven was still weighing on my mind no matter how hard I tried not to think about it. "Just because you think you have to be a hero doesn't mean you have to stop being a person." His words echo in my mind, bouncing off the walls inside my skull so I can't ignore it.

He's wrong. Mom had two lives before her identity was uncovered, and when they became one it just made it easier for Omega to track her down and kill her. I can't do the same thing. I can't risk ruining someone else's life because I died. I don't want to leave a child behind the way she - I reel back from the thought as soon as it enters my mind, feeling disgusted with myself that I would even imply mom's death was her own fault, like she abandoned me instead of giving her life defending me and dad.

I sigh. "Goddammit..." I shake my head in an attempt to get rid of all the negative thoughts, walking past a row of dilapidated warehouses that were shut down long before I was even born. A voice sounds off as I'm about to take another bite of beef jerky, faint but still loud enough to be heard clearly.

"Just you stop right there. Freak."

I stop in my tracks, casting a glance in the direction of the voice only to find no one looking at me. Guess I wasn't the person that was aimed towards. For a second I wonder if I'm starting to lose it when I hear another voice, quieter than the other and quivering in fear: "I-uh-I-I'm sorry, I didn't know this uh, building was still in o-operation... W-w-wait, what are y-UGH!"

Shit.

I break into a sprint towards the sound of the voices, ducking through an alleyway between the buildings. Damn, don't have my costume, gotta hide my identity somehow... I stop, look at the big paper bag I have in my hand, then dump the contents in the alley before sliding it over my head. I poke holes through it where my eyes are and find that I can see pretty clearly, even if the edges of my vision are obscured. It'll work... Even if I look ridiculous.

The sounds of a beating get clearer as I get further down the alley, only to see what's unfolding as I turn a corner: three guys dressed in all black with kevlar vests, using batons to beat on some poor guy in coveralls as he's curled up on the ground. I don't bother coming up with a witty quip. I just summon my sword, keep it blunt, and fling it at one of the men. It strikes him right in the head, sending him reeling backwards as his black shades fly off his face in the opposite direction. He lands on the ground with a thud, knocked out cold.

The sword is about to hit the ground when I act fast, yanking my arm back and recalling it to my hand. It flies true and I wrap my fingers around the grip, getting into a fighting stance. Almost like I was practicing that. The other men have noticed me now, probably would have been hard not to after that, shouting out colorful streams of curses as they abandon their victim to focus on me. I see two more men climb out of a black SUV maybe fifty feet away, holding similar batons. They start sprinting forward as the two men ahead of them rush to meet me.

Four guys. I don't think I've ever taken on more than two people at once before. Time to see if I can hold my own.

One of the men runs in with a wild swing and I duck out of the way, swinging my sword into his chest. It connects and he wheezes as the air is knocked out of him, clutching at his ribs with one hand while the other struggles to keep a grip on the baton. I pull my blade back and lift it high, bringing it down hard on his head. His entire body lurches forward, his face slamming into the cement. He's out.

I look up from the unconscious man only to see a baton slam right into my nose. I stumble back, dazed, recovering just in time to take a fist to the gut that makes me keel over. Another baton slams into my jaw, sending me to the floor, my sword slipping out of my grasp and clattering to the ground. My vision is blurry, vomit rises in the back of my throat, every muscle in my body feels like it's on fire. A boot comes down hard on my chest, pressing my chest into the asphalt. I groan in pain.

"Heh. Two Grays for the price of one," the man standing over me says. "Good deal. Get him in the van with the rat freak."

No.

No no no no no.

Get up.

Get the fuck up.

Don't let it end like this.

I throw my hands up to wrap them around the man's ankle but he just kicks them away, sending his boot into my chin and making my head snap back. It bounces off the concrete and I realize that I can't do anything. They're going to take me who the hell knows where and do who the fuck knows what.

Rock was right. I'm not cut out for this. I should have stopped while I had the chance.

I close my eyes.

And then I can't hear anything except an ear-piercing screech.

It's even more painful than the beating I just took, pounding against my eardrums and frying my brain. After a few seconds I realize that the boot is off of me now. Fighting through the pain, I try to pull myself up and stand using whatever strength I have left. I've managed to prop myself up on my elbows when suddenly the sound stops, my ears still ringing but my head clearer than it was. I look over to see the guy in coveralls unconscious with a tranquilizer dart in his neck, his mouth wide open as if he had been screaming.

The other three men that were ganging up on me are on the ground with the two that I knocked out, hands pressed over their ears as they try to pick themselves back up. A sixth man with a tranquilizer gun in his hand stands over the Gray they were all trying to kidnap. I pull myself to my feet just as the other men do. The man with the dart gun raises it and levels it at me, pulling the slide back to load another dart. Panic bursts through me but I keep it together and grab the nearest man, holding him in front of me just as the dart is fired. It pierces him in the chest and he goes limp in my arms.

I toss him to the side, seeing that the other two men have recovered now, picking up their batons. The one with the tranq gun lifts the man in coveralls over his shoulder, shouting to the other two: "I got the rat, just fucking kill the one with the sword!" The men look to each other, grin, then come at me with their batons.

I can barely stand. They're going to beat my head to fucking mush. I can't just let them do that. I recall my sword, left forgotten on the ground after they all got their hands on me, and as soon as it hits my hand I pour everything I have into making it as sharp as possible. I stumble backwards as one swings at me, thrusting my sword towards his chest and closing my eyes. I feel the blade slide deep into his ribs with little effort, hear his death rattle as he goes limp.

I open my eyes. The other man is hesitating, stunned to see his friend impaled against my sword. A scream of rage rips out of my throat as I yank my sword out of the man's chest, sending the corpse to the floor, and swing with all my might at the second man. I look right into his eyes and see fear before the blade connects, slicing through his neck. His head rolls off of his shoulders and hits the ground with a dull splat, his body standing still for a second before it hits the ground too.

I fall to my hands and knees, rip off the paper bag, and vomit violently. I can hear the tires of the SUV squealing as it tears out of the parking lot. Bile continues to flow out of my mouth, and after a while I don't even have anything left in my stomach but acid, which keeps coming out anyway. Eventually it comes to a stop and I pull myself up, trying not to look at the two dead men.

Everything hurts. I take in deep breaths to steady my racing heart. It doesn't help. My breath hitches as I choke back a sob, clenching my eyes shut so I don't accidentally look at the men I just killed. I stumble forward, pressing a hand against the wall of the warehouse, and limp away into the night.