Chương 6: Get Help

I never really thought about any sort of alter ego or title when I started. I didn't want to be known, I just wanted to make results.

"Crunch" became a popular way to describe me after my first big fight with some perps who were breaking down an older man's door. I couldn't throw punches often because as much as I wanted to scare them, killing any of them would prompt an escalation that could get regular people in trouble. So I just tried to grab and throw them around. I had caught two by their forearms, and the sounds their arms made earned me the name. It wasn't necessarily on purpose, but it sent a good message so I had no issues with it.

Hercules, though, felt like an odd name to call me. It's a religious name technically, they were trying to make me mythological. Maybe that wasn't a bad avenue, but I still wasn't sure. I didn't like the sound of it yet. Perry had finished taking my measurements before rolling up his measuring tape and tossing it onto his desk. He clapped me on the back.

"They really fed you your Wheaties, didn't they? If I could bottle your puberty up, I'd make a killing in the pro-wrestling world." He then pointed at Agent Tancred.

"Your paperwork was horse crap by the way, he's 6'2", not 6'3". I could figure that out just by the fact his eyes go just under mine. That's why your recon team shouldn't guess measurements with pictures of a guy standing next to DOORKNOBS." Was never something I considered. I knew I was tall but I never really thought about my appearance beyond keeping it unknown. Height's difficult to hide. Worth considering slouching more. But then the posture would be distinct.

I considered asking Perry for inserts or heels in the boots to look taller instead. I opened my mouth to follow through on it, but Agent Tancred's voice disrupted the opportunity.

"Well you have your numbers and you convinced him to put the spandex on, which makes that half of the meeting well and done. Eliza here wanted to go over herself and your college stuff, Leo. She's technically your point of contact on that but most of it's gonna be admin office, and your first psych eval. Eliza?" The older woman spoke, despite the expanse at which her mouth opened, she talked like if she hit too high a note a bomb would go off.

"Thank you. Let me first introduce myself, my full name is Eliza Forrest. I'm a licensed counselor with the state of Virginia, and a youth development specialist. I own three cats and I'm a grandmother of eight." Four kids with two each? Two kids with four each? One busy child? I didn't think to ask as she continued.

"I'm also licensed with SHERPA, the Superhuman Enrollment Policy Authority, for the purpose of performing the psychological evaluations necessary for Blue Cards." Blue Cards. Little blue license to use your powers. Three grade system, but only two get cards. Grade 1 lets you be a superhero. Grade 2 just keeps you from going to jail for flying. Grade 3 means you're too much of a headcase to be trusted with what you got.

"And I've also been tasked as a general liaison for your studies and with the Super Commission. You talk to me and I can talk to the government, and I'm pretty good at making them listen." She gave a knowing wink. I had no idea what she knew.

"Nice to meet you, Eliza," I said, trying not to gag on the words. It wasn't a loathing of being social, but I still wasn't used to people talking to me without feeling like I was going to accidentally shove them through a wall.

"As for the more specific things like courses, we're gonna go over that all at once with your teammates so that people can coordinate a little. The only consistent one for all of you is you're going to be in the theater program." I could feel my neck tensing on one side for the sake of tilting, but I kept it straight so I would seem less thrown off.

"Theater program?" I inquired.

"Just so you can learn some performance tricks, helps with separating your alter ego from yourself, you know? Was my suggestion. But for a psychological evaluation, we're gonna need some privacy." She glanced to Perry, and then Tancred.

"And unless you two want to sit in my office while I do it in Perry's, we're gonna head over there now." Tancred shuddered and shook his head. She smiled, pleased as punch, and got up, gesturing for me to follow. I did, feeling like my guard was far too let down here. The one solace I could take was that she let me walk in behind her so I didn't have anyone aimed at my back, but when I walked into her office, I sorely regretted following at all. There were cats everywhere. Not real ones.

Plush cats, glass statues, posters, pictures. Instead of normal wooden chairs like in Perry's office, there were multiple beanbag chairs with cat heads on them. It was all cats. Every one of them stared at me like I was the fattest rat in town. For the first time since I met the mustachioed asshole, I fully understood him to the core. This would hopefully be the only time.

She rounded her desk, which had an array of nine cat statues of varying size and coat pattern like a panel of jurors, and gestured for me to sit in a beanbag chair with a grouchy-looking black cat. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road." That grumpy one's yours," she said cheerfully. I never felt more profiled before in my life, but I conceded and sat in it. Somehow, even sitting down, I was on eye level with her.

By the time I had processed that, she had brought out a notepad and a pen that clicked mechanically.

"So this is just our first time doing an evaluation, so I'm just going to go through some questions, with the chance of a follow-up or two for each one, and you just try to answer the best you can, okay? There aren't any wrong answers. I'll be asking different ones every time we do an evaluation to track how things are going with you, for transparency's sake.

For this first one, I plan on just getting answers and I'll work on an evaluation of them over the next week and have a little sit-down with you afterwards so we can work out strengths and weaknesses, okay?" I nodded as Eliza told me she was going to put me under yet another, completely different gaze along with all the others this job put upon me.

"Right," she segued, "First question I was thinking was this. Walk me through the last time something went wrong that was at least partly your fault. What did you actually do first?" I squinted out the window behind her as I tried to gather my thoughts.

"A lot of things have gone wrong for me, where my fault lies in most of them I don't really know. Getting arrested by Tancred is the only one I really know right off the bat was my fault. I got sloppy. It was weird, I kind of wanted to fight Tancred off, like I was right at the precipice of figuring out how to take him down. A gun to my head doesn't really scare me." As I spoke, I could see her writing.

"But for some reason I just... I gave up immediately. Hands up. I don't know why I did." She nodded as she finished her scribblings, before looking at me.

"Do you think maybe you felt what you were doing was wrong? Or as a better way to word it: Do you think you wanted to be arrested?" My face curled up a little, like I had smelled something rancid.

"I'm not really sure," I admitted. She nodded, scribbling something else before speaking again.

"Okay. Now, I want you to think of a belief you held strongly a few years ago that you no longer hold. What broke it down?" I didn't even need to take time to think. The words burned in my head.

"That I would've been adopted by someone who wasn't scared of me, since even the foster people weren't." She nodded as she wrote, speaking without looking up.

"And what broke it down?" I was too quick for this and I hated that.

"When I turned eighteen, I was handed my social security card and ID, and I was told they didn't have any room for me. My foster mother didn't even look me in the face." Eliza looked at me, her face neutral. She seemed to be reading my eyes. There was a redness building around her eyelids, but she otherwise seemed stoic. She then broke the silence.

"I see." Nothing else on that was said by her, as she moved on to the next question. I wasn't surprised.

"Could you give me an example of how you come across to people that you think is inaccurate?" I watched her face for any evidence of regretting letting the topic move on that easily. Nothing. I decided to follow suit.

"People seem to think I'm some scary monster. Perry said I could be mistaken for a supervillain. He called me a bomb. I've never hurt anyone coming out of the foster system that wasn't a lowlife, that wasn't hurting others. And others think I'm some charity case. I'm neither." Eliza's pen glided along her paper, before she flipped to a new page on her pad.

"I see." Apparently her favorite words.

"After that whole event that got you here, what were you still thinking about now that there's been a little time since then?" I couldn't think of a reasonable answer, so I went with an unreasonable one.

"That I should have left that hideout a different way." She nodded and scribbled away some more, not looking up for her next question.

"What's something you've done that you're still not sure was the right call?" I shook my head.

"I don't know. Next question, please." She fixed her gaze on me after that.

"I need a little more than that. Are you sure?" I let out a deep breath.

"Right in this very moment, taking Tancred's offer." She blinked before filling out something related to that on that stupid notepad, following along with another question.

"Who in your life would you say pushes your patience the most, and what specifically do they do?" That was an easy one at least.

"Tie between Agent Tancred and Christian right now. Tancred's an asshole and Christian rubs me the wrong way. Perry's kind of annoying but I can tolerate it." She filled out something else while her lips kept on moving.

"Describe the last time you recognized you were about to make a mistake before you made it. What tipped you off?" I thought about the dream. Grabbing that wooden ball. Maybe if I let whatever force it was pull me away I would've just woken up and been normal. Sickly, sure, but people wouldn't have to act like they're made of glass around me. But she didn't need to hear about that.

"Christian wanted me to try and throw him. He was too confident I couldn't. He ended up putting me on my ass. I felt it was too obvious but I went through with it anyway." That answer kept up appearances. All that got was an "Mhm" as she moved on to her next question.

"What's something you're confident you handle better than most people, and what makes you confident in that?" That was an actually easy answer for once.

"I can send a message. I kept an entire gang trapped in a six block part of Richmond for half a year by myself because they were too damn scared to cross me." She nodded, speaking rather abruptly afterwards.

"And why go for scaring them specifically?" Another easy question I could answer.

"People were already scared of me. I knew how to work with what I caused." Eliza nodded and marked another point down, following into yet another question.

"Should be my last question for now." Thank God.

"What does someone who's genuinely frustrated with you usually say?" I blinked. And then I blinked a second time. A third.

"I... I don't know. People usually don't get frustrated with me. Or if they did, they never say anything to me about it. Probably because of being scared of me." The sound of pen meeting paper rung out one last time before she tapped a palm on the pad, letting her breath out." Whew. All set here. I can get a report written down and we can have a conversation about it in a week. You deserve some downtime. Mingle with your teammates. Please.

I know this is a different situation and you haven't had opportunities to get along with people, but I promise, they're all great kids. Frankly, they're a bit too soft, you might be able to help with that as well. Don't see it like any sort of charity case, you're going to be helping each other." I just nodded, pushing myself up from the beanbag chair. Eliza had gotten up and waddled next to me with a surprising amount of speed.

"Let me get the door for you." Without even a chance for me to refuse, she had already made it to the door itself while I trudged over. When I looked at the door, she didn't open it. Instead, she stepped in front of it, looking up at me.

"I'm sorry, about your aging out. That shouldn't have happened. There are supposed to be transition plans, minimum ninety days, for independent living services to help with aging out of the system. And that's usually after other interventions that are supposed to happen when you're sixteen. I'm going to look into this, okay? Please don't blame yourself." She reached out, placing a hand on my arm. My fist clenched again, but I kept stone still otherwise. And then I felt something I hadn't felt ten years.

She hugged me. It was like she was trying to squeeze my head off. I didn't deserve this.