“Of course not.”

  “Then what does?”

  I thought about it, but it didn’t take long. “Supervillains impose their will on others. Embrace chaos… hurt the innocent.”

  “Fuck you. You don’t think the Citadel does the same?” He leaned forward, pointing at me with one of those skewers. “Tell me how you define innocent, and we’ll go from there. Better yet, don’t, because it’s all bullshit. Anyone who lives without rising against their masters, if their masters do wrong, is complicit. And I’ll tell you, when the Citadel won in the last wars, you think they did so without hurting anyone not directly involved? What… children? Normies who weren’t part of the fight, or were forced to be part of it at the threat of death? I can tell you for a fact they suffered.”

  “War…” I countered, but really had nowhere to go with it. The fact was, I wasn’t trying to argue it with this guy, because that would paint me as the enemy, brand me as a superhero wannabe, and that was the opposite of what I wanted to be doing right now.

  When he saw that was all I had to say, he stuck his skewer into the ground and nodded. “War in-fucking-deed. That’s the difference right there—the Citadel doesn’t realize one thing. For you and me, for the others on our side, this war has always been on. It started the day they decided their way of ruling was the system we’d live under, and it won’t end until they are gone. This is one long fucking war.”

  My counter to him would’ve been something real intelligent, mind-blowing, really… if debate was my strong suit or I’d really bothered to discuss this topic much more before today.

  Instead, I let him have it. He’d be the winner, at least as far as he was concerned. But I still wasn’t buying it. I heard him, but I’d seen enough of the space pirates, the true supervillains, and how they treated people. And I could contrast that with the likes of Lamb, with the values of the Citadel.

  Whatever he tried to throw at me in terms of debate and his version of the facts, I knew what was right in my heart and my gut. My heart and gut were strong, so fuck him.

  But instead of saying so, I looked thoughtful, nodded, and bit into the meat in my hand. Hot damn, was it good. Spiced to perfection and kept warm, I imagined, by a heater built into the storage bin on his bike.

  “All that shit’s depressing,” I said as I finished my meat and moved on to the fruits. “Tell me what’s really going on here.”

  “What’s really going on?” He eyed me, unsure.

  “You know. The distraction—this guy here. At least this part, you said you’d fill me in on the way.”

  “Ah, right.” He popped a round, violet fruit into his mouth, a bit of red juice spilling out, then wiped it with the back of his hand. “This guy… The ward, you get that, right?” When I nodded, he looked at me skeptically, then continued. “Right, so yeah, ward power given to him by a supervillain who’s a bit out there, not following the rules.”

  “One point—”

  “Yes, yes, one point you should’ve brought up during our debate. Not the focus, now. Point is, this son of a bitch is a traitor. He’d have his own master, some outsider none of us have heard of—by Oram, we don’t even know this fucker’s name—well, he’d turn all power to this unknown.”

  “How?”

  “He’s trying to make a move on Rocadium first, get in and take over so the powerful administration there has no way of refusing to back him. So this punk servant is basically there with a ward that outs us. We get close, he knows, and he gives away our identity to the current headmaster under the guise of trying to be a good superhero.”

  “But really betraying both sides, in a sense?”

  He bit into another fruit, a type I’d never seen, yellow skin with green insides. “Right. And when his master tries to make a move, the ward will work against any who haven’t sided with him, too. We don’t want the superheroes to win, but we can’t let this son of a bitch win either. It would defeat everything we’re going for.”

  I frowned, looked around for water, and caught the canteen he threw my way. After a gulp, I set it aside. “Couldn’t you argue then that they are the real supervillains, and you—our group, aren’t?”

  “Or that there are at least three point of views, and who the fuck knows.” Prancer sighed, turning to the lake and watching a strange, tiny bird flutter across it. “Maybe we’re all fucking evil and some force of good will come and end the insanity. But I don’t buy that shit, and you shouldn’t either. It’s all about choosing a side, really, and sticking with it. I’ve chosen mine.”

  At that, he stood and packed up, returning to his bike. “Let’s go.”

  In the grand scheme of things, I supposed this mission now felt better. It wasn’t so much helping the bad guys, as helping everyone except for some unknown other bad guy. I could live with that.

  The rest of the ride was scorching as the sun beat down on our backs, the rolling hills giving way to rocky tundra and sandy dunes, but soon we crossed over that area and came to tall rocky mountains. There was the school, rising from the middle of them. It would’ve looked like part of the rocks itself, if not for the sunlight gleaming off of the many windows and the spires of bright orange.

  “Rocadium,” Prancer said, guiding us toward an area at the base of one of the hills. “We’ll stow the bikes, have them ready in case we need to make a run for it.”

  It was a well-covered area, clearly used before and set up with fake foliage to give it more cover. We ditched the bikes and started the climb, working our way around to another side of the hill so if someone did happen to see us, they wouldn’t guess our direction of approach.

  “If the schools are so easy to sneak into….,” I said, following him up the hillside. “Um, what the fuck?”

  He chuckled but shook his head. “Not easy, but we have several of our own wards in place, illusionists and blockers. Basically, you’re looking at a well-oiled machine that works within the larger picture… But you’re only seeing the bike and thinking it’s a floaty magic thing. Get it?”

  “Sure.” Though, I still thought someone needed to have a word with the administrations of these places and get this fixed, after my excursion here was done.

  As he’d said, getting in was the easy part. But as we made our way around the halls, it quickly became clear nobody was here. The sound of music caught my ears and I gestured for him to follow me. We kept moving, the music growing louder, and then opened a door to see a large courtyard full of people, many of them wearing masks and even capes.

  “Oh, fuck,” Prancer said, but he was all smiles.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked. “Rocadium can’t always be like this.”

  “No, I’d say we made it here on the night of the school’s end of the first week celebration. You’d have thought I’d remember this.” He winked at me, grabbed a drink from a scantily-clad waiter, and slapped the man’s ass, earning himself a smile.

  “Holy shit,” I said, and laughed.

  “What?” He downed the whole drink, looking after the waiter, who glanced back and smiled.

  “That’s why you weren’t checking me out earlier, when I was changing.”

  “Full of yourself much?” He handed me the empty glass and walked off, pausing briefly to look back at me and grin. “And yes, that’s why.” He pointed to a green tapestry hanging against the far wall. “That’s the mark there—with the women with the dragon tattoos on their necks. Keep an eye on him—when he goes back to his room, grab me so we can follow him and find out which one it is.”

  “We don’t already know?” I shouted after him, but the music was loud, and he had already taken off after the guy, leaving me here to keep an eye out for our mark.

  I glanced around, set the glass on a table, and meandered over to get closer to the mark. Sure enough, a guy was talking with two women, both with tattoos like a swirling dragon on their necks. One of the women leaned into him, laughing, and ran her hand along the side of his neck before pulling him in for a kiss. I didn’t see whatever she saw in him, honestly—a big guy, but with that meathead look to him that made me imagine he’d take a woman to bed and make it all about him. Not that I knew anything about that yet, aside from what my sister had shared.

  But then the other girl had her hand on his hip, and she was leaning in, too. I started to wonder. If they were both this into him, he had to have something going on. A charming personality? I doubted it. Must’ve been the whole power thing.

  On the far side of the place Prancer was laughing at something the waiter had just said. Judging by the other empty glass in his hand, he wasn’t going to be much help if the shit hit the fan. I doubted he’d last until night. No wonder he’d needed me to come along.

  More than one set of eyes followed me as I moved about the room, and I found myself wondering if there was a way to partially cloak—like just my tail. I tried, but no good, and realized I had to be careful, because if I vanished completely and then reappeared, that would draw even more attention down on me.

  A group of students started singing a song about great adventures and battles in space. I’d never heard it but recognized the lyrics from books as the Rocadium song. It was catchy, and I was starting to get into it when I noticed the mark touch a device just behind his ear. He glanced around, eyes landing on me, and then muttered something under his breath before turning to walk away, straight toward one of the exits.

  Fuck. Well, at least we weren’t going to have to wait around all day, and maybe Prancer hadn’t had too many drinks.

  I tried to get Prancer’s attention while remaining somewhat inconspicuous, but he even turned away from me, putting an arm around the waiter before the two of them vanished into the crowd. Motherfucker. I debated saying screw the whole thing right then and there, but regardless, the mark had seen me and seemed to have a reason for being pissed about it. My guess was the device on his ear had warned him of a presence, and he put the pieces together when he noticed me. I kind of stood out like a hotdog in an ear.

  That meant I had two choices. I could either abandon all of this and figure out an exit plan, which sounded way too complicated, or go after him myself. He could’ve been waiting on the other side of that door with a knife, or powers that would end me, though I imagined I could overpower him. I hadn’t met many supers I wasn’t stronger than, except for one or two who had only strength as their power. Instead of going a direct route, I made for the women first, picking up their scent, and then ducking out through another exit.

  My thought was that they’d been rubbing up on him, so I could probably use my enhanced senses to track him with their scent. Hell, I had to take advantage of my animal attributes somehow. While I didn’t have the nose of one, I still had better scent-tracking than the average super.

  My hearing was exceptional, so that’s what I relied on at first. Since most of the supers were still at the party, I could hear movement in the halls of the school, and knew the general direction the mark had gone.

  I didn’t want to attack him, because the goal was to find his room and obtain the ward. Therefore, before I got too close, I focused and found I was able to cloak myself easily enough. When he’d moved far enough on, I ducked into the same hallway and pursued, keeping a healthy distance between us.

  He glanced back more than once but didn’t see me. Ducking through halls that made Supralines look like a tea party—I’m talking heavy wood beams, intricate carvings of warriors with swords and spears, and antlers on display—we finally reached a door.

  No sneaking now. I kept up my pursuit until the moment he was in, then slammed through the door before it had a chance to close. It hit the wall and bounced back, banging into him from the other side so that he spun, thinking he was being attacked from both directions.

  But I wasn’t there to attack him. As he shouted, swinging at empty air, I went for the bedroom. Lucky me, it was a dorm room like we had back at Supralines, so there wasn’t much room to look.

  Still, when he saw his underwear drawer sliding open, he got what was happening and charged over. Hands up, he let out a roar that was followed by two bursts of light that took on the shapes of lions as they moved towards me.

  Fuck that! I threw his underwear drawer, emptying the contents and diving, snatching the one item that fell differently as I cleared the area of attack from the lions. Landing with a thud, I held out my hand to see what I’d caught.

  It was a metal disk, about an inch tall, with a covered screen in the middle and various toggles and a glowing blue light forming around the edge at my touch.

  “Fuck!” the mark shouted, turning the lions to redirect them. “I’ll destroy you, I’ll fucking kill you for this!”

  I rolled as another attack came, fake lion paws slamming into the ground where my head had been and causing explosions that cracked the floor open. Fighting a guy with powers like that wasn’t on my wish list, so I made for the window.

  Halfway there the lions blocked me, no longer connected to him. He plowed into me from behind, knocking me over and the ward from my hands.

  He flipped me over to deliver a punch, and that was his big mistake. Focused on making him terrified, I dug deep and then breathed. An orange breath came out, hitting him, and he blinked, still about to strike, until he blinked again and stared at me with confusion. I let the breath hit him again, and this time stumbled away, pulling myself free and rolling over to grab the ward before getting to my feet.

  The mark stared up at me, apparently having done something that caused him to see me now, anger fading to a look of confusion. “And… you are?”

  “Cleaning service,” I said, hiding the ward. I was about to make a run for it when I forgot what I was there for. I remembered enough to know I wanted to get out of there, so I nodded to the mark and stumbled away, laughing.

  Why was I laughing? I reached the hall and kept going, turning to see that the mark had crawled into bed, apparently assuming that was why he’d been in his room. A few steps later, I was not only confused about where I was or why, I was completely lost.

  Taking a deep breath, I made a note to not use my superpowers when their effect on me could lead to horrible situations like this one.

  Somehow I finally managed to make it back to the outskirts of the party, but only by dumb luck. Or maybe my hearing and subconscious took over, but none of it made sense to me. Someone said something. I remembered ignoring them, or maybe shouting.

  “You’re creating a scene,” Prancer said, coming up next to me. As soon as he could see my eyes, though, he knew something was wrong. “Did you get it?”

  “Get what?” I really had no idea what he meant, at the time.

  His hands were all over me, and I leaned into him, moaning, asking if this was the most appropriate place and starting to fondle him back.

  When he pushed my hands away, his came back with an object that looked familiar, though I couldn’t place where from. He was all smiles. “Good job. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wh…what happened?” I asked, only faintly aware of Prancer there at my side, helping me walk. The charm had hit me harder than I’d expected. Something clearly wasn’t right.

  “That’s a great question,” he said, and paused when we were clear of the main corridors, pulling me up against the wall and staring into my eyes. “You don’t know?”

  “A blur… I don’t know why I’m here, or…” Looking at him, my memory started fading in and out, leaving only glimpses of him with Ice and Trance, me at Supralines. I frowned, trying to piece it all together.

  “A prank,” he said with a chuckle. “Don’t you remember? Your friends at Supralines, what few you have, dared you to come here… dared you to steal that boy’s underwear. Shame on you.”

  Something didn’t feel right about the whole situation. My head was spinning, my senses not registering anything around us. And suddenly I felt guilty for doing such a stupid dare, a dare that I couldn’t remember ever coming up or me accepting, but no other memories were contradicting it, so I went with it. Now I know it all, but it took a trigger to break the memories free.

  Next, he leaned into me and sniffed, then an evil grin crossed his face. My instincts kicked in and told me to run, but there was something he was about to say, and I had to know what.

  “You’re kind of fucked in the head, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I blinked, wanting to punch him but also knowing he was my only friend there, my only way out of this place. Or was he a friend at all? I found myself woozy, my legs buckling, and this time when they gave out, he wasn’t there to catch me.

  In fact, I noticed when I looked up, trying to reach for him, he wasn’t there at all. I was alone in the daylight, my mind feeling like mush, and someone had just sounded an alarm.

  Fuck… me.

  23

  Every moment that immediately followed being abandoned by Prancer felt like it could be my last. The light of the afternoon sun was nearly blinding, making it all worse. Ignoring for a moment the fact that I was utterly confused and didn’t know what was going on, I was all alone at one of the top superhero academies—and I hadn’t been invited. At the moment, I believed what Prancer had said about the prank, but the details around it didn’t make sense. Why had he come with me, and what had he taken? On top of that, why abandon me like that?

  I did my best, staggering along, using the wall for support until my mind started connecting with my body again. Shit, I’d have to be careful from now on, I told myself. A beam of orange tracker light flew across the walls nearby, then the path, passing directly in front of me. I froze. It moved on, along with the super flying overhead who’d created it. I heard shouting coming from somewhere in the distance behind me, thanks to my enhanced hearing.

  I took a deep breath, remembered that I could use the black charm to my advantage here, and breathed it out. It was like an adrenaline rush. Suddenly, I was able to push off the wall, sprinting to get the hell out of there. My mind still wasn’t completely clear—in fact, a massive headache was taking hold—but at least I wasn’t staggering around like a damn zombie.