Silhouette

Sarah was seated at a wooden desk in what could only be described as a stereotypical classroom - maps and weird knickknacks included - along with five other teens in Hero trainees suits.

At her right was a white girl even smaller than her, with spiky crimson red hair and orange eyes - her power being fire-related seemed obvious but you should never assume. She looked excited and kept glancing at The Serpent, Mecha Man, Miss Malice, and Firefighter - all four of them standing in the back of the room. She also kept making little gestures at her fellow trainees - Sarah waved back each time, of course, but in a much calmer manner.

At her left was a tall black boy with short hair and hazel eyes who appeared to be a bit uncomfortable being here - he seemed a bit too scrawny for a strength-based power and yet she had seen him stand his ground when an agitated orcish centaur lady had pushed past him to request for Miss Malice's assistance regarding a curse that had supposedly been placed on her, so, Sarah wouldn't underestimate his abilities. Unlike the girl behind her.

She had met her less than an hour ago but she already disliked the bubble-blowing drow teen, no matter how good her long ebony hair looked in contrast to her purple skin. She had to be as tall as the scrawny boy and as thin as Sarah herself - she was pretty sure she could see bones protruding through the skin sometimes. The drow teen obviously already considered everyone standing in this room to be beneath her - at least the other trainees - as seen via her blatant overuse of eye rolls - her disgustingly sparkly pretty pink eyes being unusual, even among elvenkin.

The boy - at least Sarah thought it was a boy? - sitting to the left of the drow seemed much nicer. Maybe because he was an owl - which meant that he probably had a Body Core. Yes, he was just an owl : round head, large pretty eyes, a brown coat of fluffy feathers - except on the torso where they were beige - talons for feet and a pair of wings. Wearing the suit made his feathers poof out of it hilariously - if she had to hazard a guess, Sarah supposed he usually wore clothes that could hide beneath his feathers, looking less like a humanoid and more like a regular giant owl.

The thing at the drow's right, however, was a complete mystery to Sarah. She could tell there was a rotating green crystalline hollow pyramid - maybe made out of emerald? - in a bubble - rainbow reflection included. Then, she could tell that, under that floating bubble, there was the Hero trainee suit - an XXXL model, so around The Serpent's size had it had legs - filled with something. What, exactly, she couldn't tell. It was bumpy though. Annnd for some reason the bubble emitted some weak low-frequency noises, mostly white noise and occasionally a silent beep.

As Sarah was still trying to figure out WHAT exactly was the sixth member of the class, the door to the room opened and a black-haired woman walked in. Not any woman, mind you, but Zalcien's Hero Union's leader : Alberta Saline, one of the few Supers in Zalcien to have no secret identity, no alias, no mask.

She was somewhat taller than the average woman, never was seen outside of her pale blue outfit - to be more precise, a pair of light blue pants and a similarly colored long coat, a white button-up shirt, and a pair of deep blue gloves and boots, it was no surprise that she was often compared to a corsair captain - and wore the passage of time - through small wrinkles on her face, to be expected of a sixty-years old human - and battle-scars with pride, her tan skin entirely covered with an absurd amount of them, from small cuts to burns to the famous icy crystals embedded into her skull on the right side of her face. Rumor was she was actually a cyborg, her real body being too damaged to function properly pushing her to relocate her brain and consciousness in a metal body.

No one dared to disrespect the woman and all stood to attention - even the drow stopped chewing her gum and quickly swallowed it when her gaze met the green eyes of the one who was probably the most influential person in the city after the mayor. She walked to the front of the room, right in the middle of the large screen-board behind her, and spoke.

"Good morning, trainees. You may sit."

That small announcement was followed by the creaking and scraping of wooden chairs on a wooden floor.

"You have all passed the preliminary tests to become a Hero. Congratulations."

The trainees began to smile, even looking at each other to share their joy.

"This, however, means nothing."

The joy level dropped.

"What?"

Sarah turned around and was quite surprised to see it wasn't the drow that had spoken but the - probably - fire-girl.

"Yes, trainee. Tests are purely theoretical. Having powers and knowing how to use them is already quite a feat, but it means nothing if you cannot cooperate with a team, obey rules or deal with the stress of an actual urgency. Case in point, Shining Shogun."

Sarah cringed at that. The man had single-handedly ruined the reputation of light-based powers in Zalcien - something not even Flasher, the sole light-based Villain of the city, had managed to do. Simply put, Shogun was an academic prodigy who suddenly gained luxomancy and used his powers to fight off small-time criminals. He constantly boasted about his abilities and, at some point, got recruited by the Hero Union after numerous petitions had been made. On his first mission - which consisted of stopping a bank heist by some random Cored Villain - he broke down, his powers went berserk, and nearly killed a lot of people before he fled, becoming persona non grata.

"Powers are but an aspect of being a Super. You are not predestined heroes of fate and justice, you are warriors in training - warriors who happen to fight to defend the law."

Sarah gulped. She was so used to hearing her uncle's point of view on heroism that Saline's words shook her a little.

"You six have been selected to form a temporary team during your initiation. Whether or not all six of you will be left by the end of the year, we'll see. You will all be offered a job to justify your trips to the Union, if you fail the initiation you will be allowed to keep this job for an undetermined amount of time to cover your tracks - it may be days, weeks, months, or even years."

Sarah nodded - this was more in line with her uncle's teachings. Every Hero's other identity had a job at the Headquarters to ensure Villains and the media could never figure out who they truly were behind the mask - after all, one person out of ten in Zalcien worked for the Union, no one could narrow down THAT list.

"Over the next few hours we will go over all of the basic information you should know, following which we will begin team training - after giving you some time to discuss your powers, of course, teamwork is impossible if you don't know what your allies can do. For now, let us discuss your aliases."

The firey girl almost jumped out of her chair.

"Me! Me first! I wanna be Glicer Glitter!"

"Noted, though curb your enthusiasm young woman."

"Oops, sorry ma'am."

The owl raised his wing.

"If possible, I'd like to be called Stolos."

"Demons usually do not appreciate others using their name as their own, especially by Heroes, but knowing him he won't mind much. I'll allow it, for now."

The owl bowed to thank her as the scrawny boy raised his hand next.

"Is Golden Guardian in use?"

"Not in Zalcien, no, but it is taken within the Union. I can offer Bronze Battler, however."

He seemed dejected but prepared for such an outcome.

"Is Kopper Kid okay?"

"Copper with a K?"

He seemed a bit uncertain at that.

"Yes?"

"Very well. Next."

The pyramid thing flashed briefly before speaking in a way that reminded Sarah of those old AI you sometimes saw in movies.

"Request: may this one be referred to as Elaimant?"

"Request granted."

Sarah was about to speak next when Saline raised her hand to silence her, staring at the drow girl.

"What about you, young woman? You seem distracted."

The drow sighed and rolled her eyes before answering.

"Call me Maledicta. And I'm not distracted, just bored out of my mind being stuck here with these incompetent idiots."

Saline stomped the floor, urging Maledicta to straighten in her chair.

"This alias seems a bit too close to Villainy but I will let it pass. Your behavior, however, will need to be corrected. You are not here to judge others, this is your instructors' job. Remember your place."

Saline then turned toward Sarah.

"And you, young miss?"

"Firefly. I want to be known as Firefly."

Saline hummed before nodding.

"Understandable, agreed. I now have other matters to attend to, I will let your instructors take charge from now on. Stay out of trouble, trainees: we always need more Heroes and fewer Villains. Farewell."

Saline left, leaving through the door from which she entered as quickly as she had come. In the back, The Serpent, Miss Malice, Mecha Man, and Firefighter exchanged a few looks before Firefighter stepped forward to stand in front of the board, right where Saline had been.

"Now, children, over the next three hours we will begin teaching you the ways of the Hero before doing any actual training. Lesson number one: the rules of Union and Zalcien's laws."

At this, all of the trainees - including Sarah - couldn't help but groan.

James slithered in the sewers - he had decided to try out a snake-like form in case he ever had to travel through a space in which he couldn't use his Skitter form. What kind of environment would that be he didn't know, but better be safe than sorry. He had learned that the hard way.

After the hunting trip's disastrous ending, he had brought the rats back to the nest where they could stay safe. All of the ratlings worked together to cheer up Goliath and help him get over what happened - despite James thinking it would take more than a few hours of playtime and grooming to do so.

After having made sure the surroundings of the nest were safe and instructing the ratlings on how to use their otherwise purposeless mechanical spider as a door, James had decided to explore the sewers once more. This time, he had an actual objective: making a - mental - map. If he could establish which zones were safe and which were dangerous, he wouldn't have to expose the ratlings to any more danger. And, if he was lucky, he might even stumble back upon the place where he had first woken up - a place with a clear exit to the sewers, the inlet.

He wasn't ready to leave just yet - the ratlings still needed him after all - but it would be useful to know how to exit the sewers in case of an emergency or even to simply fetch things on the surface. He needed the Internet, not because he was bored - though he did miss it quite a bit - but to get information, it's the reason why it was first created after all.

If this world had the Internet, that is. The presence of robots seemed to support this train of thought but, well, James had read and played his fair share of books and games where fantastical worlds had robots thanks to magic so, who knows. Certainly not him.

Thankfully, James had learned a new trick to help in his task: it appeared that his new shadowy body came with enhanced memory and sense of space - both of which made shapeshifting and moving in weird shapes much easier, as well as - mental - map-making almost casual. Almost.

Tunnel, more tunnel, more tunnel, oh, more tunnel, tunnel...

Who would have guessed sewers would be so repetitive. At least James now had a rough idea of how things worked down here regarding the food chain: the cockroaches lived in cracks and holes in the main tunnel network - where the main canal ran - and they fed on the waste floating down there. Then, small critters - toads, newts, rats - who lived in side-tunnels came out of their hidey-holes to feast upon the cockroaches. At this point, bigger critters - so far James had only seen a giant rat, a feral cat, an oversized newt, a spider the size of a large dog, and half a dozen dragonflies - who lived in their own side tunnels, these having off-branches of the main canal - hunted their smaller brethren.

And that's where the aquatic food chain began.

The catfishes and the dragonfly larvae ate the bigger critters - too large to quickly flee from the waters - and the overconfident smaller ones. There were a few other fish species as well but those mostly fed on the scraps, the waste in the water, or each other, the only notable exception being lampreys who clearly would have ruled the waters had it not been for the catfishes' existence.

It was at this point that the outliers began. A few catfishes as big as the one James had first seen - in other words, the size of an average car - roamed in the water, occasionally snacking on, well, anything smaller than them. There were a couple giant lampreys too, roughly the same size, though those were much rarer. No crocodiles surprisingly, which implied that the gargantuan scarred one he had encountered not so long ago either had a very large territory from which it chased the others or it was alone down here - the possible reason why scared him a little.

How had James gotten all of this information about the inner workings of the aquatic fauna despite the water being a disgusting murky green? Simple: he had infused his shadows into small pebbles - fragments of broken or cracked bricks - and thrown those into the water, relying on their weak sensing ability to scout out what was happening down there. Going down himself was a no-no after all - he did not want to become crocodile chow, no thank you.

There were also a couple outliers on land. He hadn't noticed them at first due to how stealthy they were but, once he knew where to look, he realized they were not as rare as he thought they'd be. They were still rarer than the giant catfishes but, since he hadn't encountered anything for hours on end when he first awoke, James didn't expect such impressive fauna in the tunnels.

They were giant snails, their shell the size of a human, who calmly grazed the moss that grew in some parts of the tunnels. They even had moss on their own shell, moss that much smaller snails - probably the young - were feeding on. He also had seen a similar slug at some point, which seemed a bit more aggressive, but it quickly got snatched off and eaten by the next item on the list: a very, VERY big dragonfly - again, roughly as long as a human was tall. James had only seen one and he hoped it stayed that way, though he couldn't deny it had left him alone, mostly focused on catching catfishes when they surfaced.

The last one was a classic of monstrously large creepy-crawlies: a gigantic spider. In its case, each LEG was as long as a human - which made it quite the impressive beast. Thankfully it had the same behavior as the majority of its smaller brethren: it simply waited on its web, hidden on the ceiling, a few strands of silk dropping off like those sticky fly-traps. Still, considering what he had seen so far, James didn't put it past it to suddenly start lassoing prey if it ran out of food. Still, James was glad to see that, much like most spiders, this one preferred its meals to have exoskeletons - it probably made slurping out the liquified insides easier if James had to guess, not that he wanted to.

He was not returning towards the nest - to ensure he would cover as much ground as possible, he went off in a direction and looped back to the nest and repeated the process again and again. He was probably going to call it day at this point, he had already learned a lot about the sewers' ecology - including the fact that the nest was in a safe zone and directly surrounded only by cockroach territory. Future hunting trips should be safe as long as he watched out for mutants.

As he neared the nest, coming in from the opposite direction from which he usually entered, James heard a noise. It was not some kind of screeching, screaming, gurgling, squeaking, or even meowing, no, it was... Voices.

James turned right and he saw it, up on the wall, connected to the ceiling : a sewer inlet. A sewer inlet from which light and voices fell down the sewers. A way to go to the surface. To civilization.

"Joe, we got some new stuff to deliver, go pick three crates of Red Dust."

"Finnnne. Bob, wanna come help?"

"Nope, you're the one who said I shouldn't go near the stuff, bad for my health, remember?"

"Slacker."

Had he had eyes James would have narrowed them. Something here seemed fishy.

He turned into a shadow and slithered up the wall to peek on the workers.

Yup, definitely fishy. If this were a show these people would either be dockers or thugs - and, as far as he sensed, there was no sea around.

Then James saw something really interesting come near.

"Gonna be fine Joe? Sorry, I can't help, must stay on watch duty."

"Bah, I'll be fine Mickey."

A humanoid creature, at least two heads taller than all of the other men here. His hands and feet were covered in thick brown scales up to the elbow and knee respectively, the rest of his limbs had thinner plates between which grew long white hair. He had even longer white hair on his head which was crowned by a pair of curved horns, going to the sides before going straight up, and his face was covered by a gas mask - James could barely tell there was some tan skin around the mask. He wore black shorts and a crimson leather jacket, James could read out "Blood Angels" embroidered on the back with darker scarlet threads, an angry horned skull crying tears of blood beneath.

Looking closer, an awful lot of them had similar jackets.

Fishy, really fishy...