Mr. Forgettable #Wattys2016

10

Larkin swallowed the lump in her throat. She was breathing heavily after her little rant, and was trying to decide exactly how bad her mistake was. On a scale from one to ten, I guess I'd give it a five. At least he's a super, but I would prefer it if no one knew who I was.

Black Lightning blinked a couple times before saying anything. "What?" He shook his head, as if trying to clear his thoughts. "What?" he repeated again, his voice cracking.

Larkin backed away and appeared to deflate. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. She let out a sigh and decided that it was no use trying to conceal her secret anymore.

"You know me, Black Lightning," she confessed. She paced to the corner and sat down on the curb, her back to him.

"Coalescence."

Larkin flinched. She could hear him approach her from behind. Larkin didn't want to deal with questions or talk to anyone, at all. So she escaped. She knew that one of her tunnels lay under this sidewalk. Without any hesitation, she let herself sink through the earth into her underground haven. When she was free of the earth's clutches, she dropped to the ground. Larkin wasn't prepared, so she landed on her tail bone. She cried out into the empty tunnel. It hurt.

Larkin wanted to cry. She knew she was overreacting, but she didn't care. The day had been too long. She had possibly ruined a friendship, someone knew her secret, and she fell on her tail bone. What a wonderful combination. She wanted to cry, but she didn't. Instead, Larkin rose from her position on the floor and stepped through the wall into her base. She used the ladder attached to the wall to climb up onto a catwalk. She pressed a button on a control panel attached to the wall.

A robotic, monotone voice rang out from the speakers in the ceiling. "Three. Two. One. Begin." A beep resounded throughout the space, and Larkin knew that the training session was about to begin.

She walked the center of the rail-less catwalk and tensed her muscles, ready to defend herself from any attack that came at her.

With her super hearing, Larkin heard the faintest of clicks. She was ready when the panel on the wall slid open and the pistol fired. She didn't move, only readied her body for impact. This was the easy part. She let herself relax, and counted off each click of the chamber. Five blanks total. She never used real bullets, for where would her town be without a live hero? As each blank passed through her, she only felt a slight tickle. Despite her mood, Larkin laughed. She lived in the shadow of death, but he couldn't catch her. She was practically invincible.

When she heard the blanks clatter off the wall behind her and fall to the ground, she prepared herself again. Round two. This time, it wouldn't be quite as easy. Before it began, Larkin put her suit on. She wanted to have full movement capabilities, and no disadvantages.

The thing about Larkin's fight simulation program was that it learned from its mistakes. Larkin didn't create the sessions, the sessions created themselves. She had no idea what would occur each time the robot voice decided it was time to begin. Behind her metal walls, she could hear the whirring of machinery as the computer developed a more difficult situation for Coalescence to solve. After keeping her waiting for five minutes, the monotone voice spoke again, and she was ready.

This time, when the fight simulation began, a box descended on Larkin. She was forced to crouch because she didn't know the height of the box. It landed with a clang. She was encased in darkness, and the walls of the box blocked almost all sound from her sensitive ears. She was blind and deaf: her worst fears. Larkin's first instinct was to crawl through the walls of the box. That was the simplest solution, and the simplest solution was often the correct solution. Larkin tentatively stuck out a hand and rested it, palm down, on the wall. She tried to rearrange her molecular density so that she could slide through the wall, but it wasn't working. Her powers were failing her. Larkin dropped her hand before remembering her newly developed ability. She lifted her palm and waved it across the space in front of her, hoping for some sort of reaction.