The Wrong Genre

White Sheep

Zack didn't seem to be doing anything suspicious.

Other than breaking into the hero's headquarters, of course, but this wasn't the first time that a misguided but well-meaning person had done something so rash because they believed the heroes needed their intel. Actually for some reason it seemed to be a common misconception that "proving your skills" by doing something dumb like that was likely to get the heroes to trust your info more. A stupid, nonsensical notion, but common nonetheless.

Despite it, the heroes were understandably weary of anyone who went by that method. Even more so with this particular case.

Stravarius seemed to be convinced of Maestro's intentions, but the others wouldn't be swayed so quickly. Maestro wasn't trustworthy, so the fact that Zack was related to him made him all the more suspicious. Even if they professed to hate each other, taking their words as fact would be a grave mistake.

That thought process was what led Vertigo to her current situation, tailing the blond around town. She was the only one in the group who would be any good at it—the others were much too distinctive and flashy to go unnoticed even if they were trying. Meanwhile Vertigo was hard-pressed to be noticed when acting as a superhero, so when she walked around like a normal civilian nearly no one noticed her. Perfect for information-gathering like this.

He had claimed he could obtain information about Rabastian's whereabouts, and they needed to know where this information would come from. It could be a bluff, perhaps he knew nothing. Perhaps he had a legitimate source, some kind of spy or informant, at which point they would want to know who had the skills to gather that kind of information for the future.

These options were preferable to the last—although Interdit would argue that the last option was the best. Vertigo just liked to see the good in people, conman power or no, so the idea that Zack was working with Rabastian wasn't something she liked. That, and their relationship with Maestro and his villains was already delicate and complicated enough without adding on his cousin being part of Rabastian's crew. That would seriously endanger the fragile trust they'd managed to build.

Interdit liked the idea for the same reasons Vertigo hated it. He was always looking for more reasons to distrust the villain. On top of that, a more legitimate reason was that if Zack was in fact working with Rabastian then they had personal access to an inside man. So it really would be a great source of information, but Vertigo would still prefer if he just had a really great intel gatherer.

As of now, all she had seen him do was wander seemingly aimlessly, occasionally stop to gawk at something normal like a small dog, and buy about twenty dollars worth of snacks from a convenience store. The seemingly unending cheer that he exhibited before didn't seem to be an act either, and he seemed to be on good terms with nearly every person he came across.

The longer she watched him, the more she felt like she was missing something that she should have figured out already. For some reason she'd had that feeling ever since he had mentioned the family name Kawatan—but she couldn't figure out why. She knew no one else with that name that she could think of, and it was enough of a unique last name that she figured it would be easy to remember if she did. And yet it seemed familiar somehow.

Perhaps she could ask Kyle and Flashmob later, they would be the most likely to have a mutual acquaintance since all of them had grown up around the area. If all else failed she supposed she could ask Maestro himself, seeing as he was apparently also part of that family, but she doubted that he would know why she had heard of them.

She was so distracted by her ponderings that she nearly missed Zack veer suddenly into a side-alley. For a moment she feared she lost him, but she saw a flash of blond hair that disappeared behind a wall. Sure enough, he was there when she peeked around the corner.