Timber Hollow, United States

  September 4th, 2017

  Two floors, one story, and no frontal fence, for it would just invite graffiti. In one corner of the maintained but aging home, a mother still garbed in scrubs from hours past made breakfast, her bagged eyes and exhausted features unable to hide the beauty she still held. In another corner, a boy, approaching a man, partook in the most important task of his age.

  Correcting people on the internet.

  “Wind Swift only beats Overdrive on foot, you simpering sycophant!” The boy huffed as he typed out his test rebuttal, amused and frustrated by the fool on the other side of the screen. The fellow but unrespected keyboard warrior was quick to reply, offering some inane semantics in an attempt to devolve the debate, but before the boy could educate the error of Swiftest_Swiftee’s ways, a shout intruded into his room.

  “Greg!” His mother called, a codeword for “Come eat breakfast or else.”

  “Coming!” He shouted back, sending a longing look at his keyboard, just waiting for him to type out a response that would surely convince the deluded sycophant. But firming his resolve, he tore his gaze away and exited the room, leaving the debate of who was the faster mover to go eat, letting that groupie have the st word–at least until he was on the bus, but he’d probably forget about it by then.

  “Dressed and ready?” His mother asked as he sat down, his food on the table by the time his butt hit the seat. Milk, scrambled eggs, and heated-up frozen waffles: the breakfast of champions.

  “Yes, Mom,” he answered, drawing out her name, a question and answer that had been repeated a thousand times, and if she had her way, ten thousand more.

  “Good.” The mother flitted around the kitchen, tidying up the counters, scrubbing the used dishes, and putting away the dry ones, her eyes never once leaving her immediate tasks. “I have a shift this afternoon, so I won’t be able to pick you up. Go home with Violet, and don’t go anywhere but the bus station and straight home, understand me?” She belted out rapid fire.

  Greg rolled his eyes but nodded–not that she would see. “Yesh, Mom,” he answered through half a waffle. His mother heaved a sigh of relief at his assurance, as she always did, performing a final and third check that everything was right within the kitchen.

  “Thank you, honey.” She moved behind her boy and leaned down to kiss him on the head, combing through his beautiful, nostalgic hair as she did. “Have a good day at school, and I love you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, love you too,” he grumbled back, but even teenage angst couldn’t hide the reciprocated affection. The sight of her little man pouting at her doting gave her the energy to smile, and she couldn’t resist reaching down to pinch his still-fluffy cheeks, his growing protests wordless and token.

  Once his mom had her fill of squishes and pinches, she left him to pass out in her room, snores filling the room within seconds of hitting the bed. Greg quickly scarfed the rest of his food and gulped down what was left of the milk, scrubbing and drying the pte and cup when he was done.

  After pulling a bnket over his dead-to-the-world mother, he grabbed his backpack and left the house, the stench of the city immediately invading his nostrils. Sidestepping broken bottles and discarded trash littering the sidewalk, he made his way to the bus stop with his hands in his hoodie and his head down.

  Others were there when he arrived–teens dreading school and adults heading to work. They used to have buses that were yellow and went straight to school, but not anymore. No one cared enough about his school to keep it.

  Despite being a public pce and a routine one to boot, the bus stop was tense, with few words being spoken between flickering, wary gnces. After five minutes–only six behind schedule, this time–a bus half paint and half scratched steel huffed its way to the group and screeched to a stop. Wordlessly, they cmbered in, each of them going to their usual torn and bleeding seats.

  Greg was one of the st to get on, forced to sit in the awkward far back but not the back area. A certain prestige was required to take the back row, and he didn’t have it. Luckily this group wasn’t the most rowdy, and most importantly they didn’t pay attention to him. Still, these groups rotated over time, and he’d learned long ago the pitfalls of enclosed vehicles.

  Before the final student had sat down, the bus lurched forward, and Greg pulled out his phone. He had at least fifteen minutes to lose himself in the screen, the bus route long, winding, and inefficient–another consequence of crap funding.

  His fingers hovered over the portable computer, debating how to entertain himself. He had dozens of free mobile games downloaded and ready to py, but like most days, his fingers focused in on one app, where four bck letters were dispyed over a gold background–MCHAT. Before he settled on tapping it, he remembered the unfinished argument he started this morning and the thousands just like it, and suddenly he just wasn’t in the mood to start another. With a silent click of his tongue, he tapped his second most frequented app, pressing on a billowing cape with an unblinking eye in its center: CapeWatch.

  Immediately, a list of headlines of varying meaningness covered the screen of his phone, fighting for his attention. Like usual, tabloids ranging from WIngman’s Second Affair This Month! to Will Sky Fly Return to Modeling? took over most of the trending pages, most of them being gossip with airs. Though he’d never admit it, those were Greg’s favorite types of articles and the ones he’d normally read, but that day one headline stood out from the rest.

  Stormcloud Chases Lycan to Timber Hollow?

  It wasn’t particurly noteworthy, certainly not something he’d care much about normally. Heroes chased vilins every week, both to settle the score and to not look like a dope when they bounced towns. Except, this time the vilin came to his town, chased by a member of the Tetrarchy of all capes. But why?

  Sky Fly’s End of Summer Beach Shoot Hits the Shelves!

  …He could find out ter.

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  “Violet!” Greg shouted as he approached the outer school entrance, staying to the side to avoid the morning crowd. The owner of the name he loudly announced to everybody nearby looked up from her position of nguidly leaning against a crumbling wall. She was tall, her eyeline at Greg’s forehead even with her slouched against the wall. Framing her tired features was a bob of lustrous hair the same shade as her name, chocote brown eyes peering through purple to level a stare at the boy.

  “Greg,” She returned with dry exasperation, her muted fondness tempered by predicted annoyance. “You do Ms.Robinson’s homework?”

  “Eh…” Greg reached a hand back to rub at his neck, an awkward look on his face. “Ehehehe?”

  Violet did not share in his ughter.

  “This is important, Greg.” Violet said as she stood up, her chin now at the level of his hair and while her hands were now on her hips. Greg cringed back as he recognized the stance. “Were you on the M-CHAT st night?” She asked, half rhetoric and half hoping he was doing something more productive.

  “...it’s M-CHAT,” Greg muttered mulishly, his averted gaze a confirmation of her question.

  “What?” She asked with a raised brow.

  “It’s M-CHAT not the M-CHAT,” he insisted, much to Violet’s consternation. “Only old people call it that.”

  “One, I’m not old. Two, I don’t care. What you should care about is school and your grades, not obsessing over people in spandex.” She sighed as she reached into her bag–made up of a single strap slung across her shoulders and bck pleather hidden underneath numerous stickers. “I can’t-won’t keep covering for you,” she promised as Greg snatched the outstretched paper and hid it under his shirt as if this was some kind of illicit exchange. “One of these days I’m gonna let your dumbassness catch up with you.”

  “We both know I’m far too charming and handsome for that to happen.” Greg winked, an affair that required one-half of his face to scrunch to accomplish. The response was irreverent, flippant, really, but it was painfully obvious to both that the boy just didn’t want to make it real.

  Violet raised a single, unamused eyebrow. “You want that day to be tomorrow?”

  “Uh…I mean you won’t because you’re so benevolent and kind?” Her eyebrow remained raised. “And beautiful as well?”

  That got an eye-roll, which might as well have been a white fg. “Fttery will get you everywhere.” Before any more lectures could sprout, they were interrupted by the ringing of the warning bell, audible even at the perimeter of the school. “Except to css on time. Come on, let’s go.”

  Violet pushed off the wall and walked into the school proper, the inside just as cared for as the outside. Which was to say, not.

  “You hear about Stormcloud?” Greg excitedly asked as he was squeezed next to her, the overcrowded hallways killing any notion of personal space. Unless you were popur, but that didn’t apply to the twosome.

  “What about him?” She replied, tone vaguely disinterested, but Greg knew it was feigned. Probably. Who didn’t love capes? At the very least, everybody cared about them one way or the other.

  “He’s coming to Timber Hollow!” He excitedly excimed, as if the news was something to celebrate.

  “Wait, what?” Violet would have stopped in surprise if it weren’t for the sea of people that would crash into her if she did. For a moment, she frowned in confusion and concern as she processed Greg’s words, which meant she was interested. He was right!

  “Why the hell is a member of the Tetrarchy coming here?” She asked incredulously. Why someone of such renown was coming to their little shithole was a mystery to her. The only thing Timber Hollow was known for was crime, poverty, and a disproportionate amount of capes–and the st one was just a symptom of the first two.

  “I don’t know,” Greg shrugged. “I only skimmed a bit of it. He’s chasing some dude named Lycan. He's some vilin who popped up a few weeks ago and started murdering and robbing people, bh bh bh, the usual” he listed disinterestedly. “Anyway, he’s a transformation type, but get this: he can turn into a werewolf! Isn’t that awesome?” Greg gushed, too lost in his rambling to notice Violet’s concerned gaze.

  “No, I don’t think killing people is ‘awesome,’” she replied disapprovingly.

  “You know what I mean!” Greg whined. “Not the, you know, murder and stuff! The power! Transformation types are really rare, and he can turn into a werewolf! A werewolf!”

  “A werewolf,” Violet dryly repeated.

  “Yeah, like a half man half wolf type thing,” he expined.

  Violet rolled her eyes. “I know what a werewolf is, Greg. But why did that make Stormcloud hunt him down?” She asked incredulously.

  “Oh. That. Yeah, he killed one of Stormcloud’s proteges,” he bsely replied, Violet’s eyes widening slightly at the answer.

  “Well, that’s horrible. When’s the st time a junior hero died?” Violet asked as they reached the cssroom door, the two slipping in unnoticed amongst the rambunctious conversations.

  “They’re called Youth Guards,” Greg corrected as they sat down. “Junior is, like, demeaning or something. It’s why they changed it to that stupid name. I still think they should be called Minimorphs.” He then leaned closer to whisper in Violet’s ear…which meant putting his hand next to his mouth and taking at the same volume, just more breathy. “You know, I heard Sarah beat up a kid for calling her little league.”

  The words, gossipy as they were, caused Violet to nearly jump out of her chair in arm. “Shh!” Violet hissed. “Don’t say that aloud!”

  “What? It’s not like it’s a sec-mmph ummph bmmff!”

  “Doesn’t matter, dumbass,” Violet chided with a hand held firmly against Greg’s mouth. “Do you want to get expelled?” That hand quickly left when a too-wet tongue started sthering it as the perpetrator shook his head in denial. “God, you’re a weirdo,” she grumbled as she wiped her saliva-ridden hand on Greg’s hair, doing nothing to dim the smug smile he wore.

  “Well now you’re covered in weirdo spit,” he churlishly retorted, Violet choosing to not dignify that statement with more than a roll of her eyes.

  “Good morning css!” The door to the cssroom opened and in walked their teacher, her chipper greeting barely audible under the cacophony of conversations. Ms.Robinson was young, smart, and even more rarely, actually cared about her students. She also had a mean set of lungs that belied her small frame. “I said; GOOD MORNING CLASS!”

  Her surprisingly low-pitch bellow was at odds with her beatific smile as conversation stilled, students grudgingly making their way to their seats.

  “Good. This week we’ll be learning about the Great War’s origins, history, and its effects,” she announced, making some students perk up at something actually interesting being taught. “Today, we’ll be learning about the Triple Entente, and how such alliances caused the greatest armed conflict in history,” she added, before raising a single finger. “But first, let’s go over your homework!”

  Pained groans filled the room.

  _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  Morning csses were over, and it was time for Greg’s favorite part of the school day: lunch. The food was terrible, made with ingredients he didn’t want to know, and prepared by people with too much hair and too little net.

  And yet most of the time, it was something Greg looked forward to because it gave him half an hour to babble at Violet while she picked at whatever slop she chose.

  “And get this, this moron replied that Overdrive would only win if he was given a sports car! As if! He could win on a moped—though only for a little while. Then the moped would explode, but you get my point, right?” As he ranted, he waved his fork around with every sentence, unaware of the food he was inadvertently flinging to the floor.

  “Yuh-huh.”

  “And then when I tell that bozo what’s what, he starts talking about tool assistance for some reason. Like yeah, Wind Swift doesn’t really use tools, but she sucks so who cares.”

  “Mmhm. So why do you care about this Overdrive being faster than Wind Swiftie?” Violet questioned, making Greg gape indignantly as he sent a piece of mystery meat flying.

  “What? Buh-because he is! And the overrated roof hopper is called Wind Swift. Stupid name,” he grumbled.

  “I’m sure that’s very important, but-”

  She began, before with a ground-shaking roar the cafeteria rumbled, dust raining from the ceiling like snow.

  “What the heck was that?” Greg asked, more curious than afraid.

  “I don’t know. It sounded like thund-”

  “You got a screw loose, red bastard?” Violet looked past Greg as he turned around to see the reason lunch could be the worst part of his day.

  Tall, built, and objectively handsome with dirty blonde hair and green eyes, it was Brad Bradbury striding his way to their little corner of the cafeteria. Normally, he didn’t bother going to “loserville,” something about not wanting them to rub off him, but today was different, and Greg paled when he saw why. On the shoulder of his varsity jacket was a splotch of red, the source of it a fppy, rubbery piece of meat held between his thick fingers.

  “H-hey, m-man, it was just an a-accident-”

  “You shouldn’t waste the little scraps of money your Mom sves over to get, you know?” Brad continued, smirking as he saw the little shit’s face twist in impotent anger at his words. “You’re lucky I’m such a nice guy. Here, have it back,” he said as he brought his hand down on the manlet’s head, rubbing it in for good measure just to make sure he wouldn’t lose it again. Who could say he wasn’t thoughtful? When he lifted his hand, one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between before and after. Buried in an unnatural crimson the same shade as dried blood with small highlights of fiery red, Brad could barely see the chunk of flesh he so graciously returned. The owner didn’t seem to think that, what with how he gred up at him, adorable anger filling a pair of red eyes that were quickly averted.

  “The fuck’s your problem, Berry?” The girl barked out, making his features twitch in anger at her intentional butchering of his name. Meeting her gaze filled him with even more annoyance. Unlike the little shit sitting across from her, she was actually somewhat intimidating, though he’d never admit it. There was no fear in her eyes as she gred at him, and as if in response to her ire, the cafeteria rumbled again, this time louder and more intensely.

  “I don’t remember telling you to open your mouth, purple bastard.” He sneered, a sneer that turned into a venomous smile as a particurly clever thought came to mind. “Or maybe I should. If you’re anything like your Mother all I’d need is ten bucks for the rest of the hour. Or do you charge more?”

  That got her to drop the ice queen bullshit, her teeth showing as she snarled. Snarled! And yet, she did nothing but seethe and try to kill him with her eyes, as expected of the bastard duo.

  “Guess not. Just keep your slop to yourselves, or next time I won’t be so nice about it,” he decred and turned to walk away…

  “Say you’re sorry.”

  …only to be interrupted by the red-headed manlet deciding to grow a pair all of a sudden. What, was it the thing he said about his Mother? Brad was pretty sure he’d said worse before. No, that wasn’t it. It was about the girl. He usually just gred harder, though. The moron really never recovered his balls after trying to get physical with him. God, that was a good memory. Brad looked back and down to see the little bastard standing from his seat with clenched fists. The redhead was angry, apparently, but when he barely came up to his chest it was more amusing than intimidating.

  “You say something, half-breed?” Brad asked with a raised brow and a sardonic smirk. But instead of taking the obvious and far too generous out, the bastard proved his brains were just as tiny as the rest of him.

  “W-what you said about Violet’s Mom. Apologize,” he forced out despite his btant hesitance. This was starting to get more annoying than funny.

  Brad stepped forward until his chest was nearly touching Greg’s nose.

  “Ohh, scary. And what are you,” he said, barely raising his arm to poke the boy in the forehead, “gonna do if I don’t?”

  Greg clenched his fists as he looked to the ground, both in anger and to stymie the fear begging him to freeze, run away, or beg. He was sure that if he allowed his nails to grow out, they’d be drawing blood from how hard he squeezed.

  It felt strange, to stand up for himself, he realized. Unfamiliar and foreign, like he was in a dream that had no pce in reality. He didn’t even know why he was doing it. Not really. There was nothing special about it. He didn’t wake up with a feeling of emboldenment and something like this wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was normal. Routine.

  If he’d stayed quiet, meek, Brad would leave him alone after a bit more hazing, and that’d be the end of it. But maybe it was because he was sick of it, maybe it was because Brad had the nerve to insult Violet where it hurt, or maybe it was the booming rumble that seemed to thunder in time with his audible heartbeat, as if it was a manifestation of his inner turmoil.

  Behind Greg, Violet watched the encounter with conflicted feelings. She was proud of her only friend for finally standing up for himself, worried about the obvious outcome of it, and hesitant to intervene lest she snap his backbone before it’s given a chance to grow. And so she chose to wait, watching with bated breath as he finally looked up with something in his eyes she’d never seen before.

  “Apologize.” Greg was too weak, in every way that mattered. Physically, he couldn’t even beat Brad with one of his hands behind his back. Mentally, he wouldn’t even try. He needed to be strong, strong enough to never feel like this again. To never be treated like this again. He needed to change. And something inside him did.

  “Apologize, or I’ll- I’ll punch y-”

  BOOM!

  The wall exploded as a figure blurred by speed tumbled across the cafeteria in an uncontrolled hurtle. The sound of pelting rain and howling winds went from ambient to all-encompassing, yet for Greg, the cacophony of noise might as well have been silent compared to the sight in front of him.

  Grey and bck fur mottled with red both dark and bright. Sharp, rge, and blood-stained teeth of gleaming silver. Orange eyes nine feet off the ground despite being hunched over with arms rippling with muscle draped over digitigrade legs to effortlessly cw furrows into the floor.

  Lycan, the Werewolf.

  It was his first time seeing a cape so close, his first time seeing a vilin that wasn’t on his screen. He’d always thought he would geek out and scramble to get his phone to record the moment, yet now, in the moment, he couldn’t even move. Couldn’t think as the world seemed to grind to a halt.

  And yet, the world stopped for no man, let alone a boy, and now he had to pay the price for such delusion.

  “Greg!”

  Something warm and soft collided into him, knocking him out of his reverie and onto the cafeteria floor. Confused and disoriented, he looked around after wiping dust out of his eyes. Everywhere he looked there was chaos, over two hundred students running around as if their heads were cut off as two figures gred at each, one far rger, yet the other was looking down.

  Violet gets knocked out, not pinned.

  But no matter how big a nerd he was, the sight of Stormcloud barely even registered when his gaze made the mistake of drifting down to his left, where a curtain of purple hair was being dyed red. Next to her prone form, the offending piece of stray rubble y bloody and mocking, reminding him who its target should have been.

  “…no. No, no, no, no, no!” On hands and knees, he crawled closer, searching, pleading for a sign she was alright. Pressing two fingers to her neck, his relief was short-lived at feeling the weak pulse.

  “Violet!” He shouted, gingerly turning her limp body over if only to see her face. His hands came away bloody, and a strangled cry escaped him at the sight. “Can you hear me? Come on, say something!”

  Briefly, he looked around for anybody nearby to help him, as if by some miracle a random high schooler would be able to patch her up. No one was there to help. The only ones left in the room were the two capes battling it out and those still too busy cowering behind chairs and tables to move.

  “Violet!” He shouted again, as if this time she’d wake up from it. She didn’t, as expected, and yet he’d never felt so disappointed. He didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he could do. Their corner of the cafeteria was the farthest from the entrance, and there was no way he was going to bet Violet’s life on his ability to stagger through two top-level capes fighting. He couldn’t even move her to a safer spot, not without risking hurting her even more. The only thing he could do to help her was to sit there. To do nothing. He felt more powerful getting beat up than this.

  With tears of frustration in his eyes and his fists clenched against his knees, Greg’s gaze turned to the epic csh of titans before him. In the short span of time he’d looked away, they’d moved their battle outside, taking half the cafeteria with them.

  He watched in envy and awe as trees were uprooted and sent flying like javelins only to be rented in two with a swipe of cws. Cars were flung like they belonged in a matchbox instead of the road, just to be used as stepping points or dodged with inhuman grace. Bolts of lightning poured down like rain, each one dodged before they even struck.

  That power, that strength, where just being near the fight was a danger itself. If Greg had that, Violet wouldn’t have been hurt. She would never have even been in danger. The anger of impotence boiled in him like magma, and out of his control his fist shed out, crashing into the concrete with enough force to make a crack–so small Greg couldn’t even see it behind his pained fist.

  But even if Greg lost sight of others in his anger, he wasn’t alone, and you didn’t need to see something to know it happened. The boom, quiet as it was compared to the thunderous battle, didn’t go unnoticed by the only one with the ears to hear it.

  Lycan’s fur bristled just before lightning struck down where he stood only milliseconds ago. He growled in annoyance at the pesky bolts. He was fast, very fast, but even he could only rely on instinct and luck to avoid them. When those failed him, they hurt like hell and made his muscles shaky, even if the damage didn’t st long.

  The entire fight was an annoyance for Lycan. At first, it was fun, exhirating to fight one of the fucking Tetrachy in his first month as a morph. And then when it became a stalemate, it became boring. If Lycan could reach the weather boy he’d tear him to shreds, but he couldn’t, and weather boy couldn’t hold him down long enough to kill him. For the st half hour, he’d been trying to escape this boring back and forth, his efforts doing jack when the one chasing him could fly and sense him with the fucking air. He needed something to distract him. Nothing crazy, like an Abominable attacking the pce, he just needed a moment, a second where weather boy wasn’t looking at him to hightail it.

  And then he heard a boom.

  “Wake up, will you?” Greg pleaded, lightly spping Violet in the face in his tenth attempt to get her to open her eyes. Like every time before, it didn’t work. He went to sp her again, this time with probably too much force, but before he brought his hand down a werewolf riding the bumper of a thrown car smmed into the ground a few dozen feet away.

  Before he could even gawp, the werewolf leaped from the wreckage–not back to the fight or out of the way of an attack, but towards him. The world seemed to slow as orange eyes far too bright and malevolent stared into his own with the beast’s teeth exposed in a bloody smile. Meeting its gaze, his body and mind froze like a statue, filled with absolute certainty that he was going to die.

  He could try to dodge, but he’d be too slow. He could block, but he’d be torn through like paper. Anything he did, not only would he die, but Violet would too.

  So he did something so stupid his mind didn’t even think to object to it. He punched, and the world went bck.