The League

Chapter 2 - Always Check

Facts were easier to deal with than emotions. Anytime Phoenix thought he was close to losing his mind, he reminded himself who he was, hoping that running through the unchangeable facts would make him feel more grounded. He was Phoenix Anderson, nineteen, from Rochester, living in Queens. In the fall, he would be a sophomore studying engineering. He was a superhuman gifted with telekinesis and the ability to manipulate minds. His entire family was dead, and he never felt more alone than he did on the days after the trackers were gone.

It was the middle of a stale summer, and he had more free time on his hands than he wanted. Having enough time to slow down and really think would only remind him about how messed up the tracker conflict was. So, instead of sitting in his apartment and waiting until the inevitable, uncomfortable thoughts crashed into his head and started to gnaw at his peace, he went outside. Sunlight and noise fixed a lot of problems.

He liked living in New York City. It was nothing like the suburb he grew up in and had its problems, but there was, to him, a perfect redeeming quality: the people. Eight-and-a-half million of them squeezed into little more than three-hundred square miles. All these different people with different pasts, different presents, different futures, and it reminded him that, in the grand scheme of things, human beings knew almost nothing about each other, and the world kept turning anyway.

Sometimes he really needed that reminder.

There was another upside, too: being able to move things with his mind was useful in the smallest of ways in a city of so many people. If he saw someone about to trip, he'd move the obstacle out of their way just enough to keep them from face-planting. If anyone littered, they would turn around and be surprised to see that their trash had followed them. The breeze took the blame.

He was careful, though, since his telekinesis came with a quirk. If he used it to move a difficult or large target, then swirling tendrils of blue light would appear around his hands and around the object. It was a pretty quirk but a risky one, so he made sure everything he did was small and inconspicuous. If anyone did notice things moving on their own, they had no reason to suspect him.

These simple actions were his way of doing some good in the world since he had no plans to become a superhero or any sort of agent. His parent's secret and his avoidance of the League didn't even have anything to do with it; he just didn't find it appealing. He liked his life.

By the time he was in Central Park, Phoenix forgot why he went outside in the first place. It was always a momentary thing, his tension over the trackers. Avoiding the League was a heavy choice his parents made, but he couldn't remember a single moment from his childhood when it ever mattered. It wasn't a punishing shadow that hung over them—no, they were a happy family with lives as normal as everyone else's, minus the superpowers.

And when Phoenix wasn't caught up with the trackers, he was a regular, generally optimistic person.

He stopped at a bench near the lagoon, where Tim sat with his seeing-eye dog, a golden retriever who was curled up between his feet with her head resting on her front paws. The old grouch's nephew was somewhere in the park jogging; they came here together every day, uncle and nephew and dog.

"Morning, Tim." Phoenix sat down on the other end of the bench. "Morning, Goldie."

"You again," Tim said with a scowl. "What's it, Dove? Pigeon?"

"Phoenix. Or Nick, if you prefer that."

It was a running joke, but sometimes Phoenix wondered if Tim was teasing or if actually couldn't remember his name. He guessed birds, at least. That had to count for something.