The Glass Knight

Damien peered at the flickering light inside the locked bodega, the blueish light giving the whole space an eerie cast. He glanced back down at the note that had been left in his apartment, turning over the piece of thick cardstock in his hand. It was blank.

It had not been blank earlier.

That's odd, he thought, looking back up at the bodega. He knew better than to overreact. It certainly wasn't the oddest thing he'd seen, or had happen to him, and neither was being forced to break into a bodega at one in the morning. He'd done similar out of necessity before. It was odd, however, that it was a hero that was asking him to do so.

The more worrying part was that they'd felt compelled to leave the note for his first spywork class in his apartment. Which he'd locked thoroughly before leaving for class that morning. There wasn't much there, still. Damien had been loath to buy anything, when he could be leaving at any time. He'd been reluctant to even move the things from his car, but leaving them there would have been more suspicious in the long run. Upon finding the note, he'd wracked his brain, trying to think of anything that could be damning. Hopefully the hero hadn't gone snooping.

The paper crumpled as he stuffed it back into the front pocket of his well worn black hoodie. Under this lighting, you couldn't tell that it had obviously been through a lot, and for that reason, he rarely wore it during the day. But nights like this were exactly why he'd stolen it in the first place.

He stepped up to the door, lifting his prosthetic hand, then paused. Normally, when he needed to break into somewhere, he'd use the telekinesis core Vora had added to the prosthetic. The habit was so ingrained, he consciously had to stop himself from using the core whenever he needed to grab something. But he couldn't use it with the heroes around.

"Uh…"

The light behind him flickered, the street seeming to go dark for a moment as the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Vora?

He spun around, struck with the foolishness of the idea as he came face to face with Vivainne, shock registering on her face before her eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. "Are you following me?"

Maybe he shouldn't have rolled his eyes, if she was anything like Vora it would only aggravate her, but he couldn't help himself. "I got here before you."

"Why are you here?" she asked again.

"I got a note," he said, the words dry. "I'm assuming you got the same, or are you following me?"

She didn't say anything, just pushing past him, going so far as to physically bump him out of the way to reach the door. Her whole body flickered and disappeared, turning into a dark shadow that stepped through the glass like it was nothing, and reformed inside the shop.

Whoever looked at the security footage in the morning was going to think they had a really pale ghost on their hands.

Damien lifted his bio hand, knocking quickly on the door. "Are you going to let me in?"

She turned around, rolled her eyes so hard it had to have hurt, and flicked the lock. Damien shot her a dirty look as he pulled the door open, stepping inside. So much for trying to get close to Vivainne for Vora's sake. Her daughter was a goddamn piece of work.

At first, he thought the bodega was empty, but Vivainne clearly didn't think the same. She planted her hands on her hips and marched through the shop, winding around overstacked shelves until she came to the back of the room, where most of the blue light was coming from three old and foggy coolers. A man stood in front of one, closing the door as Vivainne approached.

"I spend a week figuring out that this is the only store within a mile in every direction that sells those god awful energy drinks so I can find our next meeting place, and you just give him a note?" Vivainne snapped, her voice more demanding than Damien had ever heard from her. Not scared or panicked, just pure intent.

The man shrugged, the tab on the aluminum can releasing a little hiss as he popped it open. "Would you prefer I change the meeting place and let all your hard work go to waste?"

"Why is he even here?" Vivainne demanded, throwing a hand back at him.

Damien raised his hands, palms open. "Hey, I'm just doing what Artemis assigned me. Didn't know you were doing spywork too."

As he said the words, his eyes narrowed. If she was doing spywork, how long had she been doing spywork, and had she spied on him?

"Is this some sort of weird flirting?" their teacher asked, pointing a finger between them.

Vivainne made a disgusted face, reacting faster than Damien could.

"No."

"Ew. No, we're both gay."

"Actually, I'm bi, but the point stands," Damien said. "Not interested."

"Thank god," the teacher sighed. "I hate sexual tension."

"All right, Chad," Vivainne said. "What are we doing tonight?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Have you made any progress?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not breaking into Artemis's office," Vivainne said.

"Coward. I'll take that as a no, then. You're running out of time here, Viv. Think of how it's going to look during your test if you don't know anything about what's going down? I thought you were supposed to be their info gal."

"Yeah, that's the official term," Vivainne said flatly. "And how do you know about that?"

"If it's written on paper, I know it," he said.

"That can't be true. If it was, you'd know how to get a girl."

"Oh, sick burn. And how'd that date of yours go?"

Vivainne shuffled, purposefully not answering the question. "All right, fine. I thought the assignment was for midterms."

"And that's an excuse to miss an opportunity to gather information? Secrets are compounding, Viv. Have I taught you nothing?"

"What are we supposed to be doing?" Damien interjected before Vivainne could fire off another retort. Apparently she didn't care that this man was, supposedly, a hero and one of their professors.

The man turned, looking at Damien like he'd forgotten he was there. "What's your name again?"

"Damien."

"Hi, Damien. I'm Inkwell. Or Chad. So long as you're more respectful than this one, I think we'll get along fine."

Vivainne crossed her arms over her chest. "We're information gathering," she said.

"Actually, you've just leveled up to infiltration," Chad said, snapping his fingers. "Tracking and infiltration. You tracked me here. Technically, you infiltrated this place. Now, let's put those skills to work."

"How?"

"I'll give you a hint," Chad said, a smile stretching across his sun tanned face. He stomped the floor twice. "Artemis's office is right below us. Try not to get caught. If you can do that, we'll keep training. See you later, Viv, Damien."

"Wait, so if I don't do this, you won't keep training me?"

He shrugged. "Can't train someone who's afraid to do what needs to be done for spywork."

"And how am I supposed to get down there?" Damien asked. Vivainne may have her shadow phasing power, but Damien was entirely corporeal.

Chad shrugged. "I think you'll figure it out. Oh, and pay for this for me, will you?" He raised the aluminum can in his hand as if in toast, grinned, and stepped out into the night. The bell jingled as the door slammed shut again.

"So, what?" Damien asked, looking at Vivainne. "We're just supposed to break into Artemis's office?"

"That's what he said," Vivainne muttered, fishing into her pocket. She pulled out a few crumpled dollar bills, leaving them on the counter. It was definitely more than the energy drink was worth.

"Is this class always like this?" Damien asked.

She shrugged. "More or less. And it's less of a class and more of a… weird club with an insane club leader."

"Cool. So, what's the plan?"

"Hold on."

She grabbed him by the sleeve of his shirt and shadows wrapped around them.

Damien barely had time to process it before he felt his stomach drop. Only it wasn't his stomach, it was his entire body, plummeting through the floor. He felt himself gasp, only he exhaled no air, and there was no air to breathe. Nothing but solid flooring all around them. He cried, on instinct, but it was like a phantom of the sound, an odd echo.

Panic filled his chest. The shadows wrapped around him, Vivainne nowhere to be seen. He had the distant idea that she was the shadows dragging him down, but that definitely didn't help with the panic any. What if she left him here, trapped between floors?

Did she hate him enough for that? Was the mistrust enough?

No, she wouldn't do that.

The solidness around them suddenly disappeared and his body reformed, dropping from ceiling height. He let out a strangled noise as he flailed, feet hitting the ground and his ankles crumpling.

"Fuck!"

A puddle of shadows landed weightlessly on the floor before reforming. Vivainne sat crouched beside him, clutching at her chest.

"God, you're heavy."

"A little warning would be nice," he grunted, struggling to catch his breath.

She let out a little whimpering noise like she was in pain, which wasn't fair, considering she hadn't just been dropped hard onto her feet without warning. How many levels had she dragged him down?

He pushed himself upright and looked over, pausing as he found Vivainne still crumpled there, breathing hard. "You all right?"

"Fine," she grunted, in a voice that didn't sound fine.

"You sure? You don't have compression sickness or something?"

"Compression sickness?"

"You know, when you get sick from dropping too far too fast. Or is it rising? I can't remember."

"No," she said, teeth bared. "It's not compression sickness. It's my core."

"Your core?" Damien blinked.

"Yeah," Vivainne said, slowly pushing herself to her feet. "My core. Didn't like all your added weight."

"Gee, thanks. Sounds like you need to practice it more."

"Can't really practice away the fractures in my core," Vivainne muttered, the words bitter.

Damien hardly heard the tone, too focused on the words. "Your core is fractured?"

"Yeah," she said, spitting the word. "Thanks to my mom."

He shook his head. Vora wouldn't do something like that. She was all about fixing things, not breaking them. "What are you talking about?"

She stared at him like he should have known what she was talking about. "When I was little, my mom decided she didn't like the power I had, so she ripped one out of another super and implanted it in me," she said, each word as sharp as a knife. "And then she broke it. So I'm stuck with an imperfect, stolen power core that's at risk of breaking anytime I strain myself too much. Read the court records sometime, if you don't believe me."

He opened his mouth, and felt sick. She was lying. She had to be lying.

But why would she lie about this? he thought, staring at her. Why lie about a fractured core? Especially when he could, easily, go and find those court records and unveil the truth.

"I'm… sorry," he managed, the words lingering on his tongue like a bad aftertaste.

"Yeah, well, it's fine," Vivainne said, brushing him off. "I'm going to find what he sent us down here for. You figure out how we're going to leave without getting caught."

"Why me?"

"Because I can't risk using my power anymore tonight," she said, with such conviction he knew she couldn't be lying about it.

"All right," he murmured. He couldn't shake the words off, even though they didn't affect him. Because it went against everything he knew about Vora, and he could tell she was telling the truth. "I think I can handle that."