Unwanted Heroes

chapter three: a transformation

"So, every night, we go out to stop a crime from ever starting. We get this intel from undercover VCC employees that get into secret gangs, just to give us this information," Mar explained, giving Fin's watch a final tug.

"So that's how it works," Fin said, his voice filled with wonder and realization.

He swiveled his wrist around, admiring the sleek design of the watch. He doesn't remember the last time he saw anything so shiny and new, but he was definitely enjoying it. "I assume the employees have a...really high paycheck?"

"Really high is an understatement," Mar replied, leading him up to the roof where Kem and Al waited. "Their positions are ranked as one of the highest-paying jobs in the city, with certified life insurance, all medical bills paid, and protection from the law."

"Do the gangs know about them?" Fin asked.

Mar shrugged. "Dunno. Most of their work is confidential. All that I've told you is what I've snagged from the library," she explained.

Al bolted up from the bench she sat on. "Took you long enough," she chided. "Where were you two?"

"Giving rojo his special lil' watch that makes him a part of our team," Mar answered, wiggling Fin's wrist. "Duu-uuh!"

"Did you at least tell him where to access our suits? And how it works?" Kem chimed in.

"You can tell him that since you built it, Kem," Mar answered, patting his shoulder. This was definitely easier said than done, Kem being 6 foot 5 and Mar being about 5 foot 5.

Kem rolled his eyes. "Alright, Fin. So you see these glorified pajamas we're all wearing and their little secret?" He gestured to the group's clothes.

Fin glanced down at his own clothes. They had been issued to him as soon as he was registered for his room.

He definitely admired the simplicity of it all: blue bands that ran across the neck, the wrists, and the hems of the cloth, the soft cotton--it was hard to think that there was something suspicious about the clothes on his back. "What about 'em?"

"These clothes have RFID chips in them."

"RFID?" Fin repeated.

Kem nodded. "Radio Frequency Identification," he recited proudly. "These RFID chips are supposed to track every vero's move here so that just in case they try to escape, the VCC can find them and recapture them instantly."

Fin winced. Geez, this tech comes right out of a dystopian society novel, he thought. "S-So what'd you do with them?" Fin stammered, mentally facepalming himself.

"Simple." Kem pointed at a blue band on his wrist. "I removed the RFIDs on all of ours and replaced them with a transformation chip that will turn them into our suits. I did it to yours this morning and installed the program into your watch that lets you transform like us."

Fin's jaw dropped. "Amazing!" he exclaimed. "Amazing, amazing, amazing!" It seemed like it was all he could say. It really was amazing!

Kem beamed with pride. "It wasn't easy, of course. I had a ton of programming to do and our first suits were, more or less, these clothes we have now."

"We looked really dumb," Al pointed out, activating her suit. The blue bands glowed as the white cloth seemed to wrap itself around Al's legs and hands. The blue band at her neck elevated itself to rest just below her chin.

In about 10 seconds, Al had transformed from a typical VCC vero into a superhero that jumped right out of a comic book.

I'm going to die fangirling, Fin thought gleefully, clapping his hands excitedly. "That's too cool! And you did that! You're too cool!" Fin marveled, looking up at Kem with admiration.

Kem laughed nervously. "N-Not really, no," he stuttered, rubbing his neck.

"Hey, nerds," Mar called. "You guys gotta transform. We're traveling soon."

"Right," Kem called back. He showed Fin the activation program, which was easy enough to navigate, and transformed himself.

Fin couldn't believe he could do something like this. It was so high-action and thrilling and adventurous, so fantastic, that Fin barely caught the part that Al mentioned jumping off of the VCC's roof to reach the train station's main building.

A/N: I'm sorry this chapter is mostly talking and such but I just wanted to explain how they access their supersuits.

Because I don't want to leave you in the dark about my descriptions, I have decided to add pictures in the chapters so that you get the idea of what the characters and suits look like.

Thanks for reading! :)