Super

28 - Think The Cucumber. BE The Cucumber

"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity."

– John F. Kennedy

"It's going to be dangerous," Ardie was saying, "hell, I don't even think we can do it... That's some serious Hunger Games shit."

"Just spit it out, Ardie," Dresden sighed. Healing Lodestone was really doing a number on him. The six of us - Ardie, Ciaran, Dresden, Gabriel, Finn, and I - had sat down around one of Finn's lab tables with some coffee provided by one of the other interns up late working in Blood Analysis who kept rambling about some breakthrough to stop Obsidian, but I doubted it was anything we didn't already know.

Anyway, I was hyped up on coffee, Ciaran was falling asleep, and we were all getting nowhere fast. It didn't help that on the rare occasions he was somewhat awake, Ciaran refused to answer who's side he was on so we had to monitor what we said when it came to discussing a plan since he also refused to leave.

"Shouldn't we call your other super friends?" Gabriel suggested, "you know, like, assemble the Avengers?"

"There isn't much to assemble at the moment," Finn sighed, "most of them are locked away."

"But this can't be all of you..." Gabriel trailed off. "Is it?"

I hesitated. "Well no, but–"

"So call the others."

I groaned, "it's not that easy. I don't exactly have their numbers."

"You have the Claw's," Ciaran suggested with a wink, obviously knowing who the Claw was.

"You guys don't communicate?" Gabriel asked, knitting his eyebrows.

"We use ear chips, but we keep them off unless something happens. Ya know, so we have our privacy," Ardie grumbled, half-asleep himself.

"So they only know you need to get ahold of them if something happens? When they have the trouble feeling?"

"Pretty much."

"Annie has the bad habit of risking her life to get my attention," Ciaran said with a cocky wink and I nearly slapped him in the face except he teleported to my other side and threw me off so much, I spilt coffee on him instead. Sweet, sweet karma. Grumbling, Ciaran teleported away, presumably to change, and I felt I could finally speak freely.

"Plus if we call the others and make a plan, Ciaran will totally just bust our chops and get someone else killed."

"Else?" Gabriel raised his eyebrows.

"Another long story," I whispered and everyone fell quiet, their gazes falling somewhere in the distance as we remembered Liam Williams, aka Arson, the human fireball.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Dresden asked, "how the hell is this like the Hunger Games?"

"I overheard Obsidian and H2O talking one night after she practiced... using me. Obsidian said he was afraid the supers would get too powerful if he kept too many together, even the weak ones, so he divided them into groups of three or four and spread the groups out around the city. They're locked in cells or rooms or whatever and they're guarded by..." He trailed off and gulped.

"By what?" Dresden pressed.

"Monsters..." Ardie whispered, letting the word hang in the air.

Everyone was silent for a long time, looking back and forth between Ardie and each other, unsure quite how to react. Monsters... That was a scary word, especially in a world where superpowers exist with a villain controlling... whatever they are.