Super

12. foursaken

Capitol City was a beautiful place.

It was a diverse city, filled with wonders both artistic and technological, some of which one could see walking down a street. Oftentimes Mark had seen three-dimensional billboards and holographic advertisements around the inner city, and he was one of the few people who had been around to see the hover-train still in the process of being constructed. In fact, the place was so beautiful that a stranger would never be able to guess that the city was surrounded by a desert.

Despite its slightly hard-to-access location, the city was home to many famous people—artisans, tech moguls, and athletes. One of these people was Lee Taemin.

Nova Tower, home of the most successful tech giant in the country, was right in the middle of the city, accessible only to a select few, and Mark was one of these few. Sometimes when he looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, he marveled at the glass domes, metal spires, and the hover train track ringing the building like an orange peel, as if seeing it all for the first time.

The tower was one of the tallest buildings in the city, the electric blue logo visible high over other, more mundane structures. People knew and respected Nova Enterprises, and they had seen and been in awe over the Nova Tower. What they didn't know about was another hidden lair constructed by Lee Taemin, buried deep in the desert.

When Mark first found himself in the lair, he was speechless for a good few seconds. AEOLUS (Aerial Operations and Logistics Unmanned Ship) had brought the eight (seven superheroes, and one unsuper) to the lair, and Mark had pressed his face to the glass front to watch a hatch half the size of a football ground open up in the middle of the desert and swallow them up.

"This is so cool," was the first thing he said, grinning wide from ear to ear as he spun an unsteady circle and surveyed the area with insatiable interest. "I can't believe we haven't been here sooner!"

"And there's more to it than just looking cool." Taemin winked at him as the walkway extended before them, tubes lighting up on either side of them as soon as he pressed a hand against the top of a podium.

"Can we see it right now?"

Baekhyun laughed, patting his shoulder as he walked in front of him. "All in good time, kid."

The rest of the Supers didn't proclaim their impression verbally, but Mark could tell they were all just as awed as him. Even Taeyong, grumpy as he had been after being assigned the duty of bringing Shao down the airship, had his mouth half open as he studied the interior of the structure with growing concentration. Shao, trailing behind them with a poorly done blindfold over her eyes, was pouting sadly.

"Why don't I get to see?" she asked, hands out in front of her, still tied together with something that looked like common picture wire but was actually an extremely advanced device specially designed to slow down the reflexes of the wearer. "Is it because I'm new? Are you guys calling me a noob behind my back?"

Taeyong rolled his eyes, touching her elbow ever now and then to keep her moving. "You're not new, you're an accident."

She made a noise at the back of her throat, a cross between amusement and frustration. "Are you going to make a condom joke? Because those are getting old."

The blue-haired man threw his head back in a sudden burst of annoyance, and poked her back a little harder than necessary. "Stay quiet and keep walking."

Mark was too invested in the building to look at her, but he admitted that he had been curious about the teardrop's-path scar on her face. It was a thin white line that was so perfectly shaped that it looked almost like it had been drawn on, but the more mottled scar tissue under her jaw told him it was more than that. There were a few marks on the base of her throat, too, and the insides of her forearms—he would usually have thought of something else, but they were too close-set and regular to be slashes. They looked more like claw marks, which just made him more curious.