It is to the cawing of ravens and the rustling of leaves that I regain consciousness. Mind first filled with bleary confusion as I grumble and swipe at the black shapes around me. Before the sudden lurching sensation in my stomach sweeps it away in place of rushing clarity. I barely have time to remember that my bedroom isn’t filled with branches or angry birds before I start to fall. My heart feeling like it’s fleeing to my ankles as I drop headfirst through the branches.

  I bite my tongue to stop the scream that tries to burst free, grabbing out desperately at the rain of twigs and leaves falling beside me. My right leg, ironically enough, is the thing that finally stops me. Foot catching in the gap where a thicker limb splits apart and sending a jolt of pain through my ankle as the sudden stop.

  The now unfortunately familiar sensation making me certain that I’ve dislocated another joint. My breath comes heavy as the last of the falling leaves flutter by me, eyes still blinking back into focus to find me hanging upside down and hurting all over.

  I glance around rapidly as the blood rushes to my head, looking up to see the hole where I must have burst through the canopy of this copse of trees that has broken my fall. A collection of smaller branches still shaking just above me and occasionally dropping more of their late autumn leaves.

  Distantly, I realise that my breathing is only getting heavier. My vision feeling almost like I’m watching from outside of myself as I look up at my bruised and blood covered legs. The pain of my landing finally starting to catch up with me as adrenaline reaches its limit and my double dose of painkillers starts to feel too safe.

  The agony is still a distant thing though when compared to the panic now building inside my chest. My breaths going from heavy to shallow and quickening as my mind can’t help but go over how utterly fucked my situation is. Struggling to even think of ways this getaway could have realistically gone worse. Short of a Founder showing up or one of us being killed or caught-

  ‘Legit!’

  Oddly, the thought of my abandoned accomplice has me freeze instead of flail further. Worry surpassing panic and leaving me cold and still as I hold my breath to try and listen for the sounds of approaching sirens. I swallow down the last of the rising panic after hearing nothing but the sound of even angrier birds, semi-distant road noise and further off music. Pushing my worries for myself away while I carefully shift my legs until I can lock them around the thick branch that is holding most of my weight.

  It's just a quick leg pull from there to reach up and get my arms around the creaking tree limb. Biting my lip against the pain in my arm and what feels like it’s going to be a full body bruise. I close my eyes as I unlatch my legs to let them dangle under me before dropping to the grassy floor. Glancing down only at the last moment as I know that if I do it any earlier then I’ll be too scared of the fall to actually let go. My feet slip as I land, ground uneven as one of my beaten-up trainers finds a tree root hidden under the waist high grass and the other goes sliding away from me across the carpet of newly added leaves.

  “Fuckin’!”

  My hands sting and elbow screams as I fall to my knees, throwing my arms out in front of me to break my fall while my legs skate in different directions. The scrapes and cuts on my palms are somehow the thing that pushes me over the edge and I have to choke down a sob at the pain.

  My eyes stinging as I force away tears with the reminder that Legit still needs me, and that they’d have nowhere to go inside my mask. I resist the urge to try and jump to me feet, making myself breathe deeply instead while forcing the shakes out of my legs. It takes a few seconds but soon I feel confident enough to stand and finally take a proper look at wherever it is that Pinball has launched me.

  Thick bushes climb up the side of a heavy metal fence ahead of me, the steel slats as wide as my hand and bracketed with sloped struts that look like they’ll be difficult to climb over. A glance to either side of me reveals a heavily overgrown lot that looks like it might be connected to a derelict house some distance to my left. The intermittent sounds of a somewhat busy road just about making it past the buildings moss-covered bricks.

  It's not quite the waiting arms of a flying Supe or some specially calculated MEA drop point like I’d been fearing, and more than half expecting. A noise from the street behind the lot has me holding my breath again as I wait for the sound of approaching sirens. Some part of me still certain this was all planned and that Pinball’s allies are just waiting to swoop in and grab me. It’s with a mix of relief and horror that I breathe out, whole body starting to shake as I accept that, no. This wasn’t planned.

  ‘That tree was total luck. If I’d hit almost anything else or if he’d actually managed to touch me back on the highway… I’d be dead.’

  I’m barely able to pull my ski mask down to my neck before my early lunch forces its way up and out of my mouth. Using one hand to try and pull my hair out of the way while I half grab at, half collapse against, the tree for support. Mostly blind from the knocked visor covering my face, I spit out the last strings of spit and liquid noodle before glancing down to confirm that I’ve thoroughly ruined my already beaten-up trainers.

  I stay there a moment. Leaning against the tree that just saved my life. In an abandoned lot that no one has likely stood in for years. Might never stand in again, until some developer or investors board notices they own the place and decides it’s perfect for an apartment complex. The thought of Pocketing any saw that tried to chop down my saviour has me chuckling and I take another few seconds to just breathe before I force myself to start moving again. Hands shaking but movements steady as I wipe my mouth clean and pull the mask back up to cover me.

  ‘If it was me who’d been left behind, then Legit would already be running back.’

  Even rushing as much as I can, it still takes me a few frustrating seconds to find a pocket-like spot on my jacket that isn’t ripped. My hands reaching for my phone after I push away my first, unconscious, grab of more painkillers. Even meta metabolisms have their limits and so it’s with only a little reluctance that I instead pull out the thin slab and go to enter the passcode. I’ll need to use the Maps app to figure out where I am and how best to make it back to him.

  ‘Except he’s probably moved by now, God damn it! How am I gonna’ fi-’

  I freeze, breath halted and eyes wide as the screen wakes up and I see the first notification, as well as the time. My fingers tightening to claws as I grip onto the bark and push myself into a fully standing position. The pain radiating out from my elbow the only thing grounding me to the moment as shock and disbelief send my mind very, very far away. I flick through the alert, going straight to the ‘Supe-Watch’ front page where the articles picture confirms every fear that the headline had given me.

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  ‘New villain captured by Valiant after daring robbery and highway joyride!

  Indy hero Pinball questioned by MEA over his conduct.’

  The picture, likely a still taken from a bystander’s stream given the slight blur, shows Legit on his knees with his bat snapped in half beside him. The left side of his face is all one massive bruise as his head hangs limply and his arms are tied behind him. His jersey is torn almost entirely from his chest, revealing the shoulder-guards underneath and the mass of purple and black bruising across his stomach.

  A moment of embarrassment almost makes it through the shock as I distantly remember holding the torn rags of his favourite jersey while being launched through the air. He was going to be pissed that it was ruined.

  ‘I told him not to wear something he actually liked for this.’

  The little grin fades as I focus back on the picture, given how swollen his face looked it might be a while before he has the chance to be angry about anything. Whoever had taken the picture hadn’t cared much about my friend however. His beaten form almost off screen as the centre of the picture is taken up by the white and silver costume of the hero who caught him.

  She hangs there, her feet a foot off the ground with her cape out behind her, back straight and arms crossed as she looks down at the clearly furious stance of Pinball. I can tell that the junior hero’s body is tense even through the blur of the picture as he gestures towards Legit and points back up to the highway’s pillars behind them.

  ‘He didn’t make it more than a couple dozen metres.’

  The realisation sends a new wave of goosebumps rolling over my skin. Given the time, I’d likely been lying unconscious in that tree for close to half an hour. Which means that, either Legit had chosen to stay and fight Pinball until Valiant showed up. Or, given that even an AI written article like this would need time to be approved by a human, the Concordat hero had been only a few minutes behind us.

  I push myself away from the tree with a final focusing shock of pain from my arm. The realisation of how close I’d come to being caught as well, and so sinking any chance for a rescue, making me feel jittery and eager to be away. A fleeting thought that perhaps I and Legit working together could’ve done something against the government hero is dismissed immediately. We’d barely been holding our own against Pinball while he was showing off for the camera.

  Any thought of trying to break Legit out in transit to Fairhurst is also dismissed. Prison transports for Supe’s are always swarming with MEA and would have multiple decoys and countermeasures against an interception. Even assuming that the two heroes involved in his capture wouldn’t choose to ride along, I don’t stand a chance. Although, taking another look at the headline and skimming through the text, it seems that Pinball probably won’t get to ride along this time. Clearly, his almost killing me had not gone unnoticed even if it wasn’t being reported.

  My mind keeps turning over the articles words as I stagger in a circle around the tree to check for cameras or anyone I might have missed nearby. Finding nothing but more overgrown greenery and an out-of-control blackberry bush that looks to have once been part of a small allotment plot. The house next door looks to also be derelict though, from the flickering light in one of the windows, not unoccupied.

  I sit down against the tree once I’m sure that no one is camping beside me and that the house backing onto the plot is empty. Boarded up windows and tree branches tapping on the roof are no guarantee that a landlord wouldn’t try to rent out the rooms anyway. Or that some of the cities endless vagrants won’t have moved in like they look to have done next door.

  Every mayor seems to have a new plan for dealing with the homeless population that results from people arriving here with nothing but a dream and the implied promise of starting a new life in the three-world’s largest city. Whether going from immigrant to bum counts as fulfilling that promise or not is a topic of some debate online.

  ‘Damn, we’re probably going to get clowned on in the forums for such a shit debut.’

  I feel awful even before the thought has finished forming, raising my stinging hands to push against my eyes as I try to hide my face in shame. I’d almost launched a cannonball into traffic then been saved from death by nothing besides pure chance. Legit actually had been captured and would now either have to take one of the devil’s deals the city council offered villains or wait and hope that someone cared enough to break him out.

  Eyes still screwed shut as I whine softly at myself, I tap on the phone screen from memory to close the article and open up the app I use for Maps. Whatever I do next, knowing where I am will help. It’s in the moment before I make the third tap, the one that should have opened the map, that my phone starts vibrating as it receives a call. My eyes fly open as I try to stop my descending finger in time, too slow as my nail presses against the little green icon and the caller goes through at once.

  “Hey there, little hare. How’s your shopping trip going? Find anything nice?”

  I sit frozen, heart the only part of me still moving as it tries to rip its way out of my chest. My finger still hovering over the screen, dangling just an inch above the end call button that will let me postpone dealing with this new mess.

  “Millie? You okay?”

  “Yea- urgh, uh-hum. Yeah, I’m good.”

  I swallow repeatedly to try and get some moisture down my dry throat, the scratchy feeling not helping to steady my trembling tone while my heart keeps trying to get away from me. I feel myself breathing heavily again and almost let out a sob of frustration over how my body is doing everything I least want it to.

  “Millie?! Are you hurt? I’m stuck in traffic on the second ring but just tell me where you are and I’ll get there quick.”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  Even uncle Owen, trusting as he is, isn’t going to believe my sniffling voice. The irony of him being on the same highway that I and Legit had just been escaping down hits me a second later and I can’t stop the slightly hysteric giggles that slip out. Pinball going to the right entrance to run into us, my almost dying if not for this random tree breaking my fall and now, my own uncle almost got to see me in costume!

  “Millie, ceinach bach, where are you? I’m pulling off the highway now, just tell me where you are. Please?”

  I lock my throat to hold in the next sniffle. Shoulders shaking as I push them back into the rough bark of the tree behind me. Firming my jaw and clenching my hands until the screaming pain of my elbow is enough to drown out the panic in my chest. I breathe out through my nose in a long stream, facing away from the phone so that uncle Owen can’t hear me.

  “Millie!”

  “I’m ok, I’m ok. You know how I am, uncle Owen. I just saw something that gave me a fright. You don’t need to come get me, really.”

  “Oh no, I am coming to get you. Are you still in the second circle? It’ll take me a while but just find somewhere quiet and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “No, I took the metro. I’m-” I minimise the phone call while resisting the urge to accidentally hang-up, he’d just call back. Or worse, get my dad to use the tracker on my phone to find out where I am anyway. A few taps bring me to the app I’d been trying to open earlier, showing me a part of the city that I’ve never been to before and definitely didn’t want to be walking around in. Even if Pocket can deal with muggers or traffickers, Millie Carew can’t. I feel the blood drain from my face again as I scroll the map out and see where I am in relation to the highway. It’s at least a mile away.

  “Millie? You still there?”

  “I- I got off at the wrong station and didn’t realise and then- I’m dropping a pin. Just, come get me. Please.”

  I hate how much my voice trembles as the lies slip out, hating more how the panic in my chest quiets at once when uncle Owen confirms that he’s on his way and should only be a few minutes. He must have been close to the spot where we’d been thrown off the side. Guilt over lying to him and messing up his day wars with the swelling relief that I won’t have to worry about trying to walk home through this neighbourhood. Or figuring out what to do next. Both are swept away when I reach up to wipe my nose and realise that I’m still wearing my ripped and blood-soaked costume.

  Adrenaline surges back into my veins, the shot of panic having me push myself back to my feet where I immediately trip over from the flash of pain that runs across my body. All the cuts and, from the grinding sharpness in my chest, at least two broken ribs hitting me full force now that I’ve made the mistake of sitting down and letting myself feel safe. I push through it with a strangled hiss of pain, knowing, from long experience in taking bad falls off balance beams, that I need to move soon or I’ll seize up and not be able to.

  “You’re sure you’re okay, Millie? It’s a rough area so just find a bus-stop with someone else to sit next to and I’ll be there in fifteen, no, ten minutes tops, alright?”

  “Alright… but don’t run any lights, and both hands on the wheel!”

  “I hear you, little hare. I hear you.”

  I lodge my phone in a knot in the tree while forcing myself to smile through the pain to stop any more of my discomfort from slipping into my voice. Uncle Owen’s long-suffering sigh, and the flappy hand gesture I can imagine accompanying it, managing to turn it closer to a real smile.

  I pull off my mask once I’m back on my feet, careful not to further tear the cheap faux cotton of the pink neck-warmer. I’d felt more than a little ridiculous earlier when putting it on in the mall bathroom but now, after not even an hour of wearing it, my bare face feels strange and vulnerable as the air brushes against it.

  ‘No wonder some Supe’s are said to basically live in their costumes.’

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