Cards Of Power

Chapter Five

Nick presents a costume for Zaire. It seems to resemble a night sky since it's partially black and partially what appears to be a dark purple. "Are these white spots supposed to be stars," Zaire asks admiration in his voice. "Yeah. You said you basically see stars due to your powers so I figured maybe I should make it a night sky. I don't have any prototypes for Alyssa and I don't have shoes or masks. We'll also need names for when we're fighting." "Well Nick's powers are illusions and Zaire's are astral visions. So maybe the names should be related." We spend some time trying to come up with names after Zaire goes and gets changed so Nick can make adjustments. After a few minutes of no good ideas I sigh and speak, "maybe we should just go with something on the nose and call you Illusion." "Illusio." I look at Zaire after he speaks. "It just came to me. You said maybe we should go with things on the nose so how about I be Astral?" "Illusio huh, I like it. Plus I think Astral suits you."

Zaire and I smile and I nod. The next few days are spent trying to find shoes for our costumes and Nick is trying to come up with a costume idea for me. We've already decided the name I use when fighting is Suits. We found a shoe store designed for heroes and Zaire gets some boots and Nick gets shoes that you would normally see with a suit. When we get back home Nick designs the boots to match Zaire's suit and that's when I realize Nick's shoes are a dark red. "Weren't those black when we bought them," I ask. "I have an idea for Alyssa's costume and an idea for all of our masks." Zaire and I play some games while Nick works on my costume. A few hours later Nick leaves his room holding up a dark blue dress. "Zaire's costume and mine both represent our powers and I feel mine represents my personality too. You don't always know who the people behind the elegance and glamor are and some people pretend to have it all so it fits with my powers. Zaire has astral vision and his costume definitely represents that. He also represents the stereotypical hero with his costume." "Okay so you've thought this through and each costume has special meaning. What's the meaning behind Alyssa's," Zaire asks. "People have certain expectations of women in society. Several people expect women to always look their best and never do anything out of the ordinary. Alyssa's powers are far from ordinary. In some books and movies and things similar a woman will pretend to be the ideal and well behaved person people expect and believe them to be then do something completely unexpected."

"Interesting. Basically you think people will underestimate me because of my appearance, especially if I'm wearing something so simple. I like it." I go to my room and try on the dress. It goes slightly passed my knees and a little bit of my neck is exposed. When I go back to Nick he tells me too add the black leggings he's holding. I do so and return to see him holding something in his hands. There are three different colored fabrics in his hand and I see some holes in the fabric. "Are these supposed to be masks," I ask. "Yup. Mine is the dark red I turned my shoes into with my powers. Zaire has the dark purple mask to go with his costume and yours is dark blue. There's this thing my mom uses to keep masks on that's like a combination of putty and magnets. It's called Gummed Magnetic Adhesive or GMA for short. Zaire your mask has a little bit of extra fabric so you can loop the strip of fabric around your glasses so they stay." We all put our masks on and Zaire pulls his glasses off to loop the strip around his glasses then sticks the end on the side of his head putting Zaire's glasses in front of the mask. "Alyssa I want you to try something when we're in our normal clothes," Nick says. I agree and we all get changed back into our normal clothes. We spend the next hour trying to use the ace of hearts to change us into our costumes which works but doesn't stick around like we were trying to get it to do. "I don't think I have anything that can help." Just as we've given up and decide to head to bed the king of spades appears and the outfits come back and the ace of hearts reappears faded like it does any other time when I use the cards since I can only use them once for a time. The color comes back a little and both cards disappear and our clothes are again back to normal. Zaire and Nick are looking at me with surprise and excitement. "That was the spade suit right? I think it amplifies the other cards or makes them function differently altogether," Nick says.

"I think Nick is right and that is awesome," Zaire exclaims. A week later we're still only getting small jobs like stopping pickpockets and shoplifters. Just when we're about to despair about our team not being recognized as proper heroes and the pay being so minimal for all of us Zaire gets a call from the lady who registered me as a hero. Zaire immediately puts her on speaker. "Empyrean Mirages I have a mission for you." Shortly after we got our costumes figured out we decided we needed a team name and in order to come up with one we threw out whatever words came to mind and tried thinking of things that relate to our powers and Empyrean Mirages is what stuck. "There's a magical item of sorts at Treasure of Infinity. It is a museum that holds a lot of items of the past that look normal to an untrained eye, however, several of those exhibits and things on display have something to do with heroes." "Okay so it sounds like this museum place has a lot hidden in plain sight," Nick says. "Correct," the woman responds. "What do we need to do at the Treasure of Infinity," I ask. "Simple. There's a ring somewhere on the premises that I want you to locate and protect. This ring used to belong to Jibri, a man with powers who registered with our people many years ago. Unfortunately he decided to leave and according to our records he became a thief and problem maker. He is assumed to be involved with the disappearance of many older heroes as he was seen in the same place as all of those who disappeared shortly before they went missing. After the twentieth disappeared he went missing and hasn't been seen for a long time. People believe they've seen a person matching his description. The ring is one of many artifacts that made Jibri stronger and seeing as he is perceived to be an enemy we don't want it falling into his hands. He shouldn't know where his ring is however."

"You believe we won't be meeting this Jibri and that's why we were chosen for this mission," Zaire responds. "Yes. I also talked to some of my superiors to get this mission for you three because you've been active for over a month and haven't been on any proper missions. While this definitely should be a simple mission I have a feeling that if something goes wrong you three will be able to handle it. Look at your computer for the rest of the information." Zaire hangs up and we all huddle around the desk. The monitor has something open on it that prints a few papers. Somehow the people we register too have a way of accessing heroes' computers and monitors too print off information. The paper printed disappears like our identification cards and it's always the same papers used for information according to them. It's honestly kind of scary how much control they have but the three of us have chosen to keep our mouths shut about that so there's less problems. The first page is a picture labeled Jibri. According to the picture he has incredibly dark red hair with curtain bangs, his left eye is a greenish brown which is almost certainly hazel, his right eye is the same dark red and he has tan skin. He also looks fairly young like he's a teenager. "She did say it was many years ago he was last seen," Zaire remarks looking at the picture. "Is it just me or is his hair and eye so dark it looks like the color of blood," Nick asks not bothering to hide his shiver. "Now that you mention it," I say looking at the picture again. "Well this picture was likely taken from his hero days so we don't know what to expect," Zaire responds calmly moving on to the next paper. It has several pictures of Treasure of Infinity. It makes notes about the entire museum including some of the surrounding areas. The last paper is a picture of the ring we're going to be searching for. It says shortly before Jibri went missing the people had a strong hypothesis about where he was located. Several people stormed in only to find several objects including the golden ring that all had some sort of presence that led them to figuring out that they made him stronger.