The Undoing of Sidekicks | ✓

three

(a/n: dedicated to belle-ssi for reminding that we'd actually reached the goal haha! <3 and your otherwise fantastic support. much gratitude your way <3.)

three

WRESTLING THREE children into bed had left me drained, but I'd downed a shot of espresso before slithering into my tight spandex suit and out of the window. The front door was heavy, and prone to obnoxious creaking, which was why I chose to avoid it when going out to perform my nightly duties. 

Jeez, Leo. You don't have to make it sound like you're a stripper, you know?

"Better for them to think I'm a stripper rather than, well, this." I murmured to myself, dropping away from the building. My bedroom was shoved in one end of the first floor, so I needed only to bend slightly, landing with a soft thump on the ground. 

After that, it was easy money getting to the edge of the property. The ground was soft, my soles soundless against the soil. I leapt across the fence with practiced ease, found myself on the familiar street lining one side of Sylvester House. 

The distance between Sylvester House and the spot I'd be hitting up tonight was considerable, even if I spent my nights running around like a maniac. There'd be no way for me to get there by two o'clock, unless I had some superhuman aid. 

Which, coincidentally, I have. I weighed the thought in my mind, let some tension leak out of my shoulders as I closed my eyes. With a light thought, I dipped into my mind for that place of power. Sometimes it came easily, and other times I needed to tug — to coax and seduce that part of me until it came forward, until it thrummed in every cell of my body. Tonight, however, it was a swift slide — like a coiled snake, it sprung and energy crackled. 

I'd always found it strange — the way it made me emanate a slight yellowish glow. I looked positively radioactive, the yellow light turning my eyes into the glaring equivalent of two headlights. I'd be gone in seconds, either way, so it didn't matter that I was spewing energy all over the place like a human lighthouse. 

Easy now, I mused, picturing a steady stream of power. The first times I'd done this, I'd freaked out. Had felt my body wavering, shifting as my balance disappeared. Now it was almost natural to me, the way the familiar change washed over me. 

I took a few steps forward, until I was conveniently standing atop a manhole. Through the thin, dark cracks I saw nothing. I knew where that particular line led, though, which was why I crouched by it. 

Touching the top of the manhole with my hand, I watched as the skin of my fingers rippled, then disappeared. It was replaced by soft, shifting sand — which slipped easily through the cracks and into the pipes below. The rest of my arm followed, a slow, gradual transition that had each part of me turning into sand and falling through the cracks. 

After the first limb or two, the rest quickly followed. I tipped my head back, and let myself fall. Anyone wandering the street would think they were mad, seeing a young woman turn into sand and slip through the cracks of a manhole.

Well, that's San Helios to you. 

I mean, I was sure it wasn't a pretty sight. Sand wasn't the most exciting thing ever, and when I confronted myself with the fact that I used the communal water pipes as a means of transportation ... well, let's just say it wasn't the glamorous career I'd had in mind as a kid. 

Not that you had a 'glamorous' anything in mind as a kid, loser. 

You know, I thought to myself, it really hurts when your own subconscious calls you a loser.