ROCKETEER

Chapter 15: Pure Light

This one's long, y'all.

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"When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back."

- Sarah J. Maas

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"I have to go put my hero costume on, would you meet me in Yokahoma?" I asked Hawks, picking up my keys. My hands shook with excitement.

"Wait, Emma, what if it's a trap?" Hawks looked nervous, an odd look on his usually confident face.

I turned and looked Hawks dead in the eyes. "So what if it's a trap? My best friend is in danger, and this is the only actual lead we have to finding the League. I'm going, are you coming or not?"

Hawks sighed, and his wings drooped. "I'll meet you a block from the Kamino in 30."

I smiled, Hawks shook his head and turned down the hall. I left his apartment and flew to the one the Commission gave me.

It was a dump, but at least there was running water and lights. I tied my hair back and shoved on my gear in ten minutes, before flitting out the door and taking to the gray sky.

The League knows my Quirk, so there probably won't be any light.

I checked the back up light button attached to the front of my suit. The artifical light shone, and I clicked it off to save the battery.

Hawks had seemed disappointed in going on this mission. Did he not want to find the League?

The flight to Yokahoma City took me fifteen minutes, and Hawks was already at the meeting spot when I got there.

"'Bout time you got here, Miss Priss. I've been standing here for ten minutes."

I frowned and flicked a stray feather on his wings. "You were already at your house, I had to go change."

"We should race sometime, if we get out of this alive." Hawks cracked his knuckles.

"I'd fry your ass in a race."

"We'll see, chickadee."

We crept down allies to the address Melody sent me, the darkness pressing in the deeper we want into the Kamino ward.

The address brought us to an abandoned-looking building, with all the windows and doors boarded up haphazardly. Glass littered the ground.

"I figured they would set up camp in a place like this," I whispered. "I'm surprised the building hasn't come down on top of them."

Hawks slapped his hand over my mouth. "Don't jinx us!" He whisper-yelled.

I shook his hand off. "Oh please, I don't believe in that stuff."

"Well I do, so shut up," Hawks said. "Let's fly up, quietly, and see if we can get in a window."
He took off silently, his wings stirring up the glass.

I frowned. "Who made him the leader?" I whispered to myself, before following him up, using the little light that shone from nearby building windows.

Hawks seemed sure about where he was going. Weird, since neither of us had been in the building. He led me to a window about three stories up that had less broken window than the others. It looked kind of like it had been used for this purpose before-

"When we go in, turn your wings off. They give off too much light." I pursed my lips, but did what he said. We crawled through the window and I shut off my wings, bathing us in darkness once again.