Chương 59: Zeal

It was a fascinating evening, for lack of better words. Despite being the nominated leader of what he thought would be a great opportunity to bring more good in the world, nothing but bad seemed to keep coming towards the people Christian saw as friends. Or at least, people he saw as allies. His second-in-command, May, had been physically handicapped by an attack from the Anti-Deforestation Union terror cell, who were in turn in league with something called the Arboreal Senate. That poor lamb had lost a leg to it.

His overseer, Agent Tancred, assured him that matters would resolve, but doubt's unfortunately a very hard-to-exterminate animal. And on top of that, all signs showed their newest member had killed a man in broad daylight. He hadn't seen the footage; he just knew it was out there and what the basic details were. It was one of the ADU, so he hoped there was just a misunderstanding. Scrolling through his phone, Chris could see the headlines already popping up — and they weren't boding well.

NEW WONDER BOY ACTUALLY MURDER BOY? NEW SENTINELS ALREADY CAUGHT UP IN LETHAL SCANDAL — WHAT WE KNOW TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON MURDERING AMERICAN CITIZENS HERCULES, OR HERKILLES? They were all just taking advantage of a confusing situation. Anything to be seen. Vanity and greed loved to dance together, and in bed they made their children: Journalists. They saw an opportunity to profit and moralize, and took it. What would come for them, would come for them. Christian could not afford to feel any stress from this.

He took a deep breath, gaze moving up from his phone to the window of the car he was in. His own, he was expecting to just be going to school today. Instead he had to give a ride to one of his allies to this emergency walk-in that was the nearest point of medical care for the team. Now he was waiting for said ally. All he could do was watch street lights flicker on and headlights slowly roll by. noknok Looking to his side, he saw the ally at the door: Jairo Carter.

The second newest of the group, a poor victim of circumstance who took it on the chin better than anyone else could. He just wished the others could do the same. Chris' thumb flicked the button for the door locks. With a KLNK, the locks freed themselves and Jairo let himself in.

"Thanks! How was Leo holding up? You kind of just wandered off after letting us know he wanted to be left alone, man." The redhead clicked his tongue as he let the car roar to life, backing out of the parking spot.

"Not great. Very clearly on the defense after everything. His hackles were up and we nearly got into an argument there. I want to think I put a little motivation in him, but that's up to him to take it. The Lord only helps people who help themselves." Jairo croaked out a "Yeah," slinking into his seat. Streetlights passed overhead as they took the roads back to the base.

"Do you think it was my fault?" the younger one asked. Christian raised his eyebrow.

"What? Heck no. Why do you think that?"

"It's just... in the fight with Technofiend. I kinda really got into it after that guy nearly killed me. I told Leo to stand his ground so we could fight, like... we couldn't just let him go. And like, we both went nuts. I could hear him screaming the whole time we were brawling with that thing. He really lost himself in that. It might have taught him like, I dunno, like he should just turn his brain off in a big fight." Chris shook his head as they stopped at a traffic light.

"You guys were just trying to keep Technofiend from going and hurting a lot more people. You convincing Leo to help you doesn't mean you're responsible for what Leo does in other fights. We don't even really know what happened, man. Not like he got you to do anything bad when we were brought into the police station after Clowncar escaped." A chuckle rolled past the croaking one's lips.

"Haha, yeah. Man that was crazy. When we got in you literally couldn't even move your arm without hitting like, three of him. And then it was just confetti everywhere! Where do you even get a power like that? Did he used to be in a radioactive circus?"

"I don't know," the redhead chortled out, moving along once the light turned green.

"But that was a lot easier than what Leo and May had to deal with afterwards. Just wish it was that easy for all of us all the time. Just fighting goofy dudes in silly colors."

"Yeah," the mutated one admitted, failing to find more words for the exchange. Chris' gaze never left the road, but words left his mouth plenty.

"Just isn't possible. There's a lot of people in the world whose interests and plans just... don't mean well for other people. And sometimes we're the only people who can do something about it. It's not always going to be guys in silly costumes."

"Yeah," Jairo repeated, eyes sunken.

"Do you regret joining?" Christian asked, not looking towards his passenger.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You were probably told we'd just be stopping bank robbers or something. We're dealing with terrorists, one of our friends might not be able to walk normally again, and another one of our friends just scared the crap out of the city by taking someone's life. I don't know if that's really fair to you." Jairo responded rather placidly.

"This is the best direction my life could have gone in. I can't go pro anymore. I wasted most of my life on something I'm legally not allowed to do. I might turn into a monster some day, if I don't have scientists look at me. Tancred gave me something I can actually do, and put me around Sam who can help figure out what's wrong with me." He turned towards Christian, smiling with his vast array of sharp teeth gleaming in the passing street lights.

"My life was over anyway. I'm just glad I can still do some good." Chris nodded.

"That's good. That's great," he said with a smile. The rest of the ride was filled with blither between the two, opinions on things like kung fu movies and prize fighters and the best condiments for sports arena snacks. The closest illusion to mundanity either of them would ever have was in that little conversation in the car. Jairo would probably forget about it by the time he went to his room, but Christian would hold on to that exchange for the rest of his life.

The night passed with ease, and in the morning, Chris was already up at five o'clock sharp. He had to practice for the morning before he went on patrol. He ran through his katas, both with and without weapons. Unlike his allies, he was trapped with a mundane body. All he could do was work to sharpen it to the best of his ability and hope his powers could lead him in the right direction. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When he had thirty minutes left before it was time for patrol, he got dressed. The others had expressed some doubt in his costume, not realizing there was purpose to it. Everything was meant to give him as much freedom of movement as possible, and with the loose flairs all over, including on his head, his actual silhouette was impossible to read, and gave plenty of space to hide equipment. This, of course, he was already doing as he got dressed. Nunchaku hidden in his belt.

In his sleeves, each one had a jitte stowed inside. His pockets both concealed an insidious little weapon called the suntetsu: A simple metal rod with a ring in it. It was a utilitarian device, serviceable simultaneously as a knuckle duster, stabbing implement, and even parrying item. All of them, courtesy of Sam's engineering, were made of Dumb Metal, leaving them impregnable.

Fully dressed, he exited his room and got ready to take one of the tunnels out for his patrol, only to be stopped by the team's boss: Agent Tancred. His surly gaze sat behind a pair of deep blue sunglasses, accented by a frankly quite ridiculous mustache that bounced about with his words.

"It's gonna be just you again today. You handled it fine last week, but this week the only other Sentinel on call is Jairo. You need to be as conservative as possible with threats. Any signs of ADU, you call in. Any signs of Clowncar, you call in. You are to only handle mundane threats directly. You understand?" Christian- No, Flowstate, nodded.

"I can handle it just fine. That makes it a lot clearer for me too. Any superpowers, I just let you guys know on my earpiece." The auditor simply nodded, turning on a heel as he made his exit.

"Glad to see at least one of you fucking brats isn't too dumb to recognize reasonable orders," he grumbled on the way to the door. Flowstate made his own exit afterwards, crossing through the tunnels with nothing but his thoughts. They offered little succor in these times. While he accepted there was nothing to dwell on, the thoughts themselves are the decision-makers as to whether they would dwell. Just because one wants mice out of their home doesn't mean the mice will simply leave, after all.

The entire operation was a train-wreck from day one. Their public demonstration was interrupted, they were already down two members, normally scheduled routines were interrupted. But it was going to normalize soon. It was fine. They all just needed to deal with this ADU thing and from there, it was smooth sailing. All tunnels have a light at the end. Just as this one did, as it led him to the ladder illuminated by the dim lighting of the shed above. Exiting that shed, he began his patrol.

This wasn't the easiest day for him so far. Only the fourth one yet on his schedule, and they were testing him. Not by regular crime, but instead by judgment from those around him. Many asked about Hercules, and the only PR response he could come up with was saying they'd have answers in due time. The citizens of Charlottesville had nothing to worry about from The New Sentinels. They were still here to help. Some understood this, and were reasonable. Some, however, saw it for what it was: A political non-answer.

Just pretty words that created a simulacrum of an excuse. They could tell he was just as in the dark as them for what would happen. And a few took action in response to this. They threw things at him. Rocks and eggs, mostly. To Flowstate's convenience, nothing could really be thrown at him that could hit him. It was all readable to him. He saw the potential and kinetic energy arcs that every item sailing through the air led to.

He even could see the exact scale of how their weight was oriented as they careened down, allowing for fun tricks to compensate for the negative display of being struck by eggs. He could just catch and juggle them for onlookers, before appropriately dropping them in trash cans. It was only a band-aid solution, but it helped more than it hurt. What did hurt was old ladies refusing to let him help with crossing the street, and accusations of his friend Hercules being a murderer.

Others would see this as an unwinnable mission. But Flowstate remembered Job's perseverance. There's no reason he couldn't show the same. Towards the evening, Tancred called in to ask him to continue patrols for the evenings due to heightened activity. Flowstate had no reason to protest, it kept his mind distracted.

Frankly, it was quite constructive compared to what a debrief could do, as he scared some burglars away from trying to break into a house and even got to use his nunchaku to restrain and hold down a car thief while he waited for the police to arrive. Things were looking pretty good, as he made his way into a parking garage that was known to have some relatively undesirable individuals in it. There was enough buzz about it that it was worthwhile for him to take a look as his extracurricular for the night.

It wasn't long until the noise of a woman yelling at someone to back off served as a lure for Flowstate's ears. What he discovered were three men pestering a tired-looking woman. Inane little snarks and cat-calls, none of them seemed particularly sober as one carried a thick bottle of liquor.

"Hold it!" Flowstate called out, making the three men turn and immediately start howling with laughter at his attire.

"Hoooo-leeee shit he looks fucking retarded!" one cackled out, before a second screeched a follow-up.

"Motherfucker fell in the laundry basket and just decided 'This is what I'mma wear today!'" he wheezed out. Flowstate said nothing, simply nodding to the woman who saw the opportunity to sprint away from the group, which prompted jeers and complaints from all three.

"You're no fuckin' fun, man! You like that orange asshole on the news! I bet you related to him too! He your boyfriend? Give him a gift from us!" The man then hurled the hefty bottle of liquor at Flowstate, who could see the weight radiating off of it and how it was going to land. He rather deftly reached up, catching the bottle by the neck — much to the stunned stares of the three ne'er-do-wells.

"Goddamn he's on some Matrix shit-" The hero popped the cork off the bottle with his thumb, and caught it with his other hand. He rolled it onto his bent middle finger, his eyes telling him where it would go as the finger tensed and tensed, before it finally lined up with a target. PK The cork slammed into the kneecap of one of the men, who squealed out in pain.

"Fuck this! Absolutely fuckin' not!" They scrambled, thankfully in a different direction than the woman, while ranting about how they'd be back with guns and all of that lovely posturing men like that engaged in. Flowstate let out a sigh of relief as he gingerly placed the bottle down into a nearby trash bin. He contemplated informing comms, but given they were just drunk and no one was really hurt, it was best to just let them sober up and treat that as their one free pass.

That little moment of celebration was cut short, however, by the air. It almost hissed at him, gaining a texture that he'd never felt before. Bristled and soft, but smothering and almost humid. A deep voice boomed down along the concrete foundations.

"Been trying to get a conversation with one of you for a while now." Snapping his gaze towards the voice, he saw it. An older man in a trenchcoat, hands in the pockets. His deep blue eyes were looking through Flowstate's own, past the visor and deeply bored into his skull. Recognition flooded him. It was the journalist from the press conference. The one Tancred escorted them away from. Holden Worth.

"I heard all of that noise about one of you Sentinels killing a man and I just thought, 'I need answers. I need answers,'" he mused, walking with no sense of urgency. Flowstate's body tensed like bridge cables, ready to start issuing his three warnings. He tried diplomacy first, in hopes it wouldn't be necessary.

"What are you doing?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I can feel it. The air's different. You're exercising some kind of power. Are you registered?" Holden finally brought a hand out of his jacket, waving it off dismissively.

"Oh, no, I don't have any powers, friend. That'd be him." The waving hand became a pointing finger, aimed past the hero. Flowstate turned to look at what he was pointing at, and couldn't believe his eyes. This was a world where men could fly. Being airborne shouldn't be so shocking. But here was this man, in his own trenchcoat, and his wide-brimmed hat, head tilted down to obscure his face, just... Walking through the air. Like he was descending a set of invisible stairs.

Every step made that buzzing pulse and reverberate, saturating Flowstate in nausea and dread.

"He's the one with the powers," the journalist added.

"And he's interested in some truth."