A Tale of Two Masks

Not long after Summer found the news, her father returned home. At least she assumed it hadn’t been long. She had been too scared to move since she had seen it. A bombing, and in a secured prison. If SI had really been behind this, what would they do to her? Had she been treating everything too lightly all this time? She had been concerned before, but now she was terrified.

Mr. Aster showed up in her doorway and sighed. “I thought you might have heard the news,” he said, “Whatever the outcome of this is, I don’t believe SI is behind it.”

“How can you be so sure?” Summer asked.

“I was there when the CEO heard the news,” he explained, “I won’t accuse him of being a good man, but I am confident he is not behind this murder.”

That actually did make Summer feel a little better until she realized that someone else with enough power or skill to frame SI had been behind it instead. “Was Ashton there too?”

“He was. I left before him, so he might still be there.”

“Okay,” Summer replied. Her tone sounded dull and disappointed, even to her. She wasn’t even sure what she was disappointed about. Maybe it was because he still hadn’t responded to her text?

There was a pause of silence for a few moments before her father gave her shoulder a light pat and left the room. Was it fear? Disappointment? Maybe even depression after all her dreams were crushed, one after another. Summer curled up into a ball on her bed and didn’t move until she eventually succumbed to sleep.

When she awoke, the house was pitch black. Sleep had helped her feel a bit better, but she still felt off somehow. The emptiness of night didn’t help. Everyone was likely still asleep.

Tap. Tap.

It was light and quiet, but they sounded just like footsteps. Not the stumbling footsteps of a family member getting a midnight snack, but of someone sneaking about. All of the repressed fear rose to new heights. They were her for her! She was next! Just as she was about to hide, a more horrifying thought came to her.

What if they attacked her parents when they couldn’t find her? She would have to face them. Was there anything in the new tricks Ashton had taught her that she could use? She scanned her room for anything she might be able to use as a weapon, and grabbed the first thing that seemed decent. The obnoxiously large wooden hairbrush her mother insisted was better than the squishy plastic kind.

Weapon secured, Summer did her own sneaking towards where she had heard the footsteps. If she was right, they had been heading for the living room. She leaned against the wall with one last corner to turn. Her heart was beating so loud she wouldn’t be surprised if it gave her away. All she needed was a quick peek to see who, or what, she was dealing with.

She steadied her breathing, trying to remain as silent as possible while being painfully aware of the slightest noise. Moving so she could reveal as little of herself as possible, she peeked around the corner into the living room. Rather than pulling back, she froze in shock from what she saw.

It was Shadow Phoenix! Not only that, he was seated so naturally in her father’s favorite chair. It was almost as if he was waiting for something. Then their eyes met. At least she assumed their eyes met. It was hard to tell with the mask. He smiled slightly and stood up.

Not good! Summer had been trying so hard to meet him, but this timing was far too suspicious. Besides, even if he had the right outfit on, how could she even be sure this was the right Shadow Phoenix? Out of sheer habit, she shot a golden beam of light straight at him. It would be harmless to the ordinary person, but if he was Shadow Phoenix, it should hold him back.

He dodged out of the way, careful not to disrupt any of the furniture or decor in the room. Right, they couldn’t fight here. Summer bolted for the front door, hoping he would follow. He did, but his calm, unhurried pace grated on her already frazzled nerves. The moment she was outside, she turned to face him.

“Why are you here?” Summer demanded. If he spoke she was confident she would recognize him, if by nothing else than his usual sarcastic tone.

“Why am I here?” he asked back, delivering the sarcasm she had been waiting for in full force, “That’s an interesting question from the girl who has been relentlessly hunting me down. You didn’t even bother to cover your tracks.”

So he came because of her clumsy attempts to find him. She supposed that made sense but something was bothering her. There was nothing different about him, from his pose to his tone, to even the words that came out of his mouth. Summer just couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

“There were other ways to meet me than breaking into my house,” Summer countered.

“Were there?” he questioned, “I waited for quite some time, but you wouldn’t leave.”

Unfortunately, he had a point there. Summer tried to remember the last time she had left her house. Was it when she met Ned? Had she even gone out since then? Even if it was true, why would he want to meet her? She doubted he had any of the same drive or reasons she did for wanting to meet again. He might not have even known she was Golden Reign until she shot that beam at him earlier.

“That doesn’t explain why you came,” Summer pressed. She wasn’t going to back down until she got answers.

He eyed her weapon of choice, the wooden hairbrush poised at the ready, before he answered. “I came to tell you to stop. Shadow Phoenix should have ceased to exist that day. There is nothing to find. No reason for you to care.”

Did he really come just to shoot her down? Regardless, there was one thing she couldn’t agree with. “I have every reason to care! I spent my entire career as a hero fighting you. At least tell me why!”

He paused to think for a moment, and Summer used the moment he was distracted to test him. If he wasn’t going to give her any answers, she would find them on her own. Just like old times, she shot a beam of sunlight directly at him. In the past, he would always manage to dodge, or he would crumple with pain.

The sunlight hit him right in the abdomen, and he froze in shock for a few moments as he processed what she had just done. “Heroes are supposed to avoid attacking areas that may leave critical injuries,” he mumbled.

“I’m not a hero anymore,” Summer told him, “And I’m pretty sure you were never a villain either. That’s why you want to disappear forever, right?”

“If that is what you want to think,” he replied with a sigh, “I can’t give you the answers you want, but I can tell you this. I never held a grudge against you.”

Summer caught his foot moving back, the way it always did before he made his escape. She caught his wrist before she had a chance to think, but he threw her off effortlessly. Effortlessly, but gently? She had always had the sense he was avoiding hurting her, but this time she wasn’t even knocked down.

She didn’t have it in her to try to stop him again, so she just watched him leave. As she turned to go inside, something glinting in the grass caught her eyes. Summer bent down and ran her fingers through the grass to pick it up. It was small, and once she got a closer look at it, she recognized it as one of the decorations on the sleeve of Shadow Phoenix's costume.

The black ornament was made of polished metal, which was why it had glinted in the starlight. It was heavier than she expected, and something about it seemed odd. Rather than an ornament, it looked like a small device. Summer fiddled with it a bit until she found a miniscule lever looking thing that still had threads attached.

Had she grabbed his sleeve tightly enough to rip out threads? Summer gave the threads a tug, accidentally flipping the switch in the process. A purple flame shot out of the eye of the ornament, causing her to nearly drop it.

What was that? A little more carefully this time, Summer flipped the switch again. It only lasted a moment, but that was definitely his eerie purple flame. The flame that Shadow Phoenix was known for. It had also been her only clue to track him down.

“Even this was a lie,” Summer muttered, clutching the device tightly in her hand. Still, she was glad she had seen him. She felt like she was starting to figure things out. Oddly enough, she wasn’t scared anymore. Would a company who employed such gentle villains really kill off one of their heroes? Besides, hadn’t they sent Ashton to protect her?