Williams Residence. September 22nd, 2014, 19:30 PM

  I had to admit, the costume fit me well.

  I looked over it and remembered the little details dad and I had considered: zip-up sleeves that could be undone in case I needed to make an armblade. Tearaway patches in the joints in case I needed to shift my elbows and knees into something.

  But even then, something was missing. The black and grey and white seemed a little too static, I needed to add something; a splash of colour.

  Not a cape, that’d be way too much. As much as capes were the superhero item, there were very few people who could actually make a cape work.

  I needed something smaller.

  I remembered something, an old Japanese TV show my dad had shown me when I was younger. The name escaped me, all I could really remember was how the hero had looked; dressed in green and black with a red scarf around the neck.

  I reached into my closet and fished for a bit before I felt it: a long red scarf, one of mom’s. It was light, silky, and flowed well.

  I wrapped it around my neck and let it fall behind my shoulder before looking over myself again.

  To break up the blacks and whites, was a streak of bright red.

  Perfect.

  I pulled out my phone and texted dad; just to let him know that I was hanging out with Elena, who I’d called “the girl from the tryouts”.

  Not technically a lie, to be fair. Just nowhere near the whole story.

  He sent back a quick message within a minute: “ok, be safe, love u.”

  I smiled, sending back a quick “love u too”, before I dialled Elena’s number.

  “Elena? It’s m-me, Skye. I’ve m-made up my mind. Are you about tonight?”

  Elena made a squeal of delight so loud I had to hold the phone away from me, before she just said “YES, I’d been waiting for you to say yes! Meet me on the rooftop of Wayward Places on Sixth Avenue, between the Zero Block and the Rustbank!”

  I laughed slightly. “The r-rooftop?”

  “Yes, it’s a good vantage point!”

  “I-if you say so. See you soon.”

  As I hung up and put the phone in my pocket, I just stood there, pondering.

  Am I really doing this? Going out as an illegal vigilante?

  Had you asked me a few days ago, I’d have thought it was an insane question. But getting rejected seemed to have lit something up inside me.

  I nodded to myself, and opened the window out onto the fire escape. I looked back into my room, to my clothes neatly hidden under my bedsheets, then looked out into the night, before closing the window behind me.

  I smiled under the helmet. This was it, the first time I’d be doing something as a superhero, official or not.

  And yet, despite that, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a very bad idea.

  Rooftop of Wayward Place. September 22nd, 2014, 21:00

  I regretted not putting on something warmer.

  I stood on the rooftop, looking down over Meritas City. This beautiful, massive city, a proper haven for superheroes and supervillains of all types, with a skyline that stretched into the horizon.

  The rooftop we’d decided to meet was wedged in the streets between the Zero Block and the Rustbanks; we really couldn’t have chosen a better place to see the city at its best and its worst.

  Unfortunately, we’d decided to do this in the middle of an autumn night, and it was cold. I tried not to shiver, which ironically made me shiver even more.

  You would have thought the scarf would have helped, but it really didn’t. It flowed nice, though; flying behind me in the autumn wind.

  As I waited for Elena, my mind was racing; should I be doing this? What if I get caught or arrested?

  But I kept thinking about how I’d spent a lot of the last few years: lonely, quiet, unassuming. Part of me knew that if I didn’t do something, I’d be spending the next year just waiting, doing nothing.

  My powers manifesting a few months back was the first trigger, the first sign that I had something I could actually do.

  The Young Defenders accepting me for the original tryouts was the second, but that had gone up in smoke.

  Maybe tonight was the night I did something that mattered.

  My train of thought was stopped in its tracks by a thud behind me. I spun around, only to be met with a panting Elena, who had clearly sprinted up the building’s fire escape.

  “I might’ve…rushed too…too much.” She panted, hands on her knees. She held up a finger as if trying to make me wait before standing up, exhaling.

  I looked her up and down, looking at her costume. Compared to me - all dark and angular with blacks and whites - Elena’s costume was much more bold, bright orange with black accents, like some kind of exotic animal, with a pair of goggles currently resting on top of her head with what looked to be a pair of bright orange frog eyes painted on.

  The costume itself looked solid; clearly made from bits and pieces of clothing in the same way mine was made from motorcycle gear.

  Elena looked up at me as I looked down at her, then smiled. “Damn!” She exclaimed. “Loving the tall, dark, and gloomy vibe!”

  “R-really?” I asked, my voice muffled slightly by the helmet. I flipped up the mask-visor to get a better look at Elena.

  “Y-you look good too.” I said.

  “Thanks!” Elena said, beaming. “Been working on it for a bit. Decided to lean into the freaky frog-girl vibe, y’know?”

  I nodded, before pulling out my phone. “S-so I was trying to listen to some emergency scanners.” I said, opening up a webpage on my phone, one that allowed people to listen in on police scanners.

  “Wow, you don’t waste time.” Elena said, stepping towards me. “Anything good?”

  I shook my head. “N-nothing that’s not either too big or already being dealt with. Lemme see if there’s-”

  Almost immediately, the app buzzed to life, the crackly voice of a man bursting from the speaker.

  “Any available units, we have reports of an active robbery at Old Lee’s on Fourth near the Rustbank, please respond ASAP”.

  There was a pause as Elena and I looked at each other, realising the same thing.

  “T-that’s only-”

  “A couple blocks away?”

  “W-we could help, we could-”

  Before I could finish, Elena was already running towards the building’s fire escape.

  “W-wait!” I yelled, trying to catch up to her.

  “Why wait, Skye?!” Elena shouted back, grinning with glee. “This is it, this is our moment to shine!”

  “I was just t-thinking, w-what do we call ourselves?”

  That stopped Elena dead in her tracks, and she looked at me like I’d just started babbling at her.

  “‘What do we call ourselves?’ We already know: Spitter and Skullgirl!” She shouted, incredulous.

  “B-but won’t people know who we are?”

  “Only people that know us by those names are you, and me.”

  I paused, looking at her. I think she knew exactly what I was thinking because she just stared at me. “That’s n-not entirely-”

  “Who’d you tell? Aside from Leeroy and Sweep; fat chance of us meeting either of them tonight.”

  “Y-you remember Mr. House from the t-tryouts?” I asked, sheepish.

  Elena slammed the palm of her hand into her forehead. “You told him?”

  “H-he asked me if I had an alias and I just-” I trailed off, as I could hear Elena groan. She looked at me, genuinely annoyed for a second before she started laughing.

  “It’s fine.” She said, laughing. “So long as we don’t run into him specifically, I’m sure we won’t get outed.”

  She smiled at me, flashing a mischievous grin. “Now come on, Skullgirl. We got a robbery to stop.”

  We’d rocketed down the fire escape as quick as we could before we set to running to Old Lees’s. The streets heading towards the Rustbank got rougher and rougher as we went; the Rustbank, back when Meritas was still young, was the thriving industrial sector of the city, the beating heart of a lot of its working class.

  Unfortunately, as years went by, the Rustbank’s businesses either closed down or got taken over by larger conglomerates; one of my uncles had been let go from one of the factories when I was a kid, dad said it had broken the poor guy.

  In the last decade, it’d become something of a haven for both small-time supervillains and vigilantes, a place that even The Union and the Young Defenders rarely stepped into.

  I had to admit, something about heading to the Rustbank for our first night doing vigilante work felt like a bad omen.

  As we ran towards Old Lee’s, we could hear the trilling of the store’s alarm. We turned the corner, diving behind a wall before peeking our heads out to look at the scene.

  The windows to the store were smashed in. I could hear a bunch of voices overlapping, all men. A couple of them were standing outside on the sidewalk; both were pretty big, easily six feet tall and built like oxen. One was completely bald while the other clearly didn’t want to admit he was going bald, with a combover that looked like it could fly off in a stiff breeze. Both of them were holding a pistol in their hand; they didn't look like Engineer-tech pistols to me, but I wasn’t sure at a glance.

  “How long’s it take to put money in a bag?!” Combover barked in a thick old Brooklyn accent, his voice sounding like he gargled stones on the daily.

  “Longer if you don’t keep yer trap shut!” Another voice yelled from inside the shop, same accent but much higher and nasally.

  I turned back to Elena.

  “Ok, s-so,” I started, “At least five people I can hear, two up front and the rest in the shop. Got guns, n-no idea if they’re Engineer-made or not.”

  Elena looked like she was pondering for a second before nodding. “Ok, seems easy enough.”

  I just stared down at her from behind my helmet, unzipping my jacket’s sleeves and rolling them up. “Have you b-been in a fight? Like, against actual p-people?” I asked, somewhat incredulous.

  She just shrugged. “Sure, when I was a kid. Besides, I’m gonna be spitting at them from over here, you’re gonna be the one fighting them?”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Me?!” I asked, stunned, still trying to keep my voice down.

  “You’re the one who can make bone blades, where else would you be?” She then stopped and I could see her face drop. “Please tell me you can fight.”

  “I-I can.” I admitted. “I did well in the combat part of the simulation. Can’t be much d-different against people just…less l-lethal.”

  Elena breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Anyway, we’re wasting time, let's go.”

  “W-wait!”

  She pushed me out of the alleyway gently. “Give ‘em your best one-liner!”

  I stumbled out from the corner into the open street, barely managing to stay upright. Somehow, the two outside hadn’t seen or heard me.

  I took a breath, and in the strongest voice I could muster, shouted: “S-stop right c-criminal sc-”

  BANG!

  I yelped as I heard the gunshot, raising my left arm in front of me, feeling its bones shudder before-

  SHRRK-

  My left arm tore itself open, blood and flesh scattering as the bones in my forearm and hand rapidly flared out and expanded, before flattening into a roughly-circular shape, like a shield emerging from my arm, just barely big enough to cover my chest and block the bullet.

  I felt the shot crack against my bones; it hurt, but not nearly as much as I knew getting shot in the bones should hurt.

  “Shit, its a super!” I heard Combover’s voice. I saw him frantically try to aim his gun and almost drop it.

  I shot forward in a panic, adrenaline shooting through me like lightning; I ran towards the bald one as he fired two more shots, both cracking against my shield, the second one tearing through it and ripping my jacket’s shoulder.

  As I neared him, I spun on my heel to kick with my right leg. I tensed as my leg made contact with his left side, the bones in my foot and shin solidifying and locking in place; I felt a crunch in his ribs and heard air rush out of his lungs in a pained wheeze, before he collapsed to the ground in a thud, groaning in pain.

  Holy shit, that worked. I thought to myself, genuinely impressed with myself.

  I quickly turned to Combover, only to find myself staring down the barrel of his gun.

  I could feel time freeze.

  This was it. My first night out as a vigilante and I died before a minute was up.

  I felt my life flash before me in a second. Playing in a park with mom and dad as a kid. The crash. My powers triggering. The tryouts.

  THUNK!

  I snapped back to reality.

  Something had hit Combover in the centre of his stomach, causing him to groan and double over in pain, the grip on his gun loosening. I looked down at what had hit him; it looked like…meat? A lump of meat about the size of a baseball.

  I looked back to where it had some from; I saw Elena rearing back.

  It was the strangest thing, watching her do this. She fully reared back like she was charging up, and her throat puffed out and expanded, like a frog.

  And then-

  PLEGH!

  A wet sound as she spat, sending another lump of meat directly at Combover. This one hit him straight in the head with a solid smack, his eyes rolling back as he hit the ground like a fallen tree.

  I stood there, looking down at him before turning back to Elena. But she’d turned around, looking inside the store.

  Inside the store I could see the other three: one tall and skinny, with an angular face and wispy black hair; another of a more average height, dark skin with a beanie; and the third man, short and squat, probably the same height as Elena, holding a bag full of cash.

  What struck me was that the dark-skinned man and the short one both had a tattoo around their right eyes: a black spade, like the kind you’d see on a playing card.

  I paused for a second, looking past them. Behind the counter, I could see the cashier - an elderly Chinese man in a stained white shirt - looking on, scared. I turned back to the three and charged forward.

  The short man with the bag full of cash pointed a finger at me, and mimed like he was firing a gun.

  There was a rush of air, then I felt something slam me in the chest. Like I’d been punched, hard.

  I felt my ribs crack as the air shot out of me, before I was launched back, flying across the street and slamming into a wall.

  I crumpled, collapsing to the ground in a heap.

  Another super? I thought to myself, dazed.

  I tried to pull myself up, but it was a struggle. I focused my power, trying to sense if there were any breaks; aside from the bullet holes in my arm-shield, my ribs had cracked.

  That explained why it was hard to breathe.

  I looked up to see Elena. She was spitting more of those meat balls at the three goons; her aim was good, but they were getting better at dodging her. Not just that, they were closing in on her.

  I pulled myself to my feet, groaning. I focused again, sensing the cracks in my ribs mending themselves.

  Wait, what?

  I knew my body healed fast when I transformed my bones, but I didn’t realise it’d heal if I got injured normally.

  I looked down at my arm-shield; save for a hole where the bullet from before had shot through it, it was mostly intact.

  It would have to do.

  On shaky legs, I ran forward, almost stumbling before I picked myself back up, charging at the squat man who had launched me.

  “How the shit are you movin’?!” He yelled, pointing a finger at me again. I raised my arm-shield up to block it.

  I felt that same rush of air impact it.

  It shattered.

  I screamed as a sharp pain shot through my left arm, as bone fragments flew around me, clattering to the ground.

  My left arm hung there, open and exposed, chunks of skin and muscle hanging loosely. The bones of my right forearm jutted out of the stump like a jagged spike.

  My arm felt like it was screaming, the pain burning. Even with my power dulling it, this still hurt.

  I turned to the short man, who now looked visibly exhausted, sweating and red in the face. Maybe that was his limitation, that firing repeatedly wore him out?

  It was the best thing I had to go on.

  I tried to focus, letting the adrenaline and my power dull the pain. I continued moving towards him, focusing on him.

  I was twenty feet away.

  He fired again.

  I swerved to the side, and I heard the tarmac behind me crack.

  Ten feet away.

  “Quit…movin’!” He gasped.

  With a much shakier hand, looking like he was about to pass out, he pointed at me again.

  He fired again.

  His aim was way off, as I heard glass in a window on the other side of the street shatter.

  I was up in his face now.

  I reared back my right arm and swung, focusing my power into my hand, making it solid and dense.

  My fist made contact with his stomach, and I heard him groan in pain.

  He dropped to the ground, panting and sweating.

  I turned around quickly; one of the other goons - the tall and dark-haired one - had dropped, slumped on the ground with a meat ball by his head. The other one was closing in on Elena, and-

  Sirens.

  The three of us stopped.

  I glanced at Elena, who looked to the last man standing. He looked between me and Elena, before looking at the faint flashing red and blue lights that rounded the corner.

  “I’m guessing by the mishmash costumes, you two are vigilantes?” He asked, his voice gravel-deep.

  Neither of us responded. We just stared at him, tense.

  “Silence tells it all.” He muttered, smirking, and tore off his shirt.

  An awful grinding, gravelly sound filled the air, like rocks rolling in a blender.

  Hundreds of tiny interlocking stones crawled out from under his skin, forming a rocky armour around his arms, chest, and neck.

  He cracked his knuckles, fists like boulders. “Best guess, we got two minutes before the cops rock up. Winner gets to walk.”

  We didn’t get a chance to respond as he bolted towards Elena.

  “S-shit!” I shot forward.

  He was slow - looked like those rocks were weighing him down. I dropped low to kick out his legs from under him-

  He pivoted suddenly, way quicker than I expected, and swung one rock-covered arm like a sledgehammer.

  I yelped, scrambling back as the hand cratered the ground where I had just been with a crunch, before pulling myself to my feet.

  PLEGH!

  Elena spat again, another wad of meat splattering into the back of his head. He didn’t even flinch, his head just jerked back to glare at her.

  Hit him now, quick! I screamed in my own mind. I shot forward, rearing my right arm back, focusing on the fingers of my right hand. They solidified, fusing my fist into a jagged white mace.

  I drove it into his stomach-

  CRACK!

  Something broke in my right hand, pain shooting up my arm.

  Not there! I screamed at myself again. Wrong spot, right in the stomach, where the stone armour seemed to be densest.

  The cracked bones in my hand quickly knitted back together.

  He just looked down at me, chuckling.

  “Nice aiming, kid.” He smirked, before kicking me in the chest.

  The leg wasn’t armoured, but it didn’t matter. I felt the wind leave my lungs again, and I hit the ground.

  My ribs cracked in my chest. Again.

  PLEGH!

  Elena spat again. Smaller wad this time, useless.

  “Fucking- Will you knock it off?!” He cursed, spinning to charge at Elena. She slid off of the car that she’d been perched on, before darting into the store.

  I forced myself up. My ribs were quickly mending themselves, but my left arm was still mangled.

  Why isn’t it healing like the rest of me..?

  I didn’t have time to think about it as I rushed towards him again. He was moving towards Elena, clearly thinking I was out for the count.

  Joke’s on him.

  I tried to assess as I ran. Upper half covered in stones, harder to hit; lower half not covered, more flexible but more vulnerable?

  Aim low. I thought. As I got closer, I stretched out my mangled left arm.

  I can’t let him get to Elena, I can’t-

  Suddenly I felt something shift in my left arm, my power surging. The jagged, ruined bones in my arm suddenly extended forward, stretching into misshapen hooks of bone.

  I just looked at my arm, confused. But I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  I swung my arm towards him, sending these jagged hooks in a wide arc. They scraped against the ground before catching him in the back of the leg. He howled in pain as he stumbled, falling to one knee.

  His head spun around to look at me, eyes wild.

  He swung his hand around, and I wasn’t able to move in time.

  It hit me in the side of my head like a hammer, and I could feel my helmet crack on the left side. The world tilted over, and I hit the ground with a hard thunk.

  My head swam. My vision blurred. I couldn’t move right, my legs unsteady. I felt the hooks that had extended from my left hand snap off, leaving my mangled left arm as it was before.

  He towered over me, standing unsteadily on his one good leg.

  “Hey, asshole!”

  Elena?

  I craned my neck to look where I heard her voice.

  She was standing in the doorway of Old Lee’s, bottle of hot sauce in one hand and a donut in the other.

  She quickly downed both.

  Then, she reared back again, her throat swelling up and glowing a deep red before-

  PLEGH!

  She spat again, launching a ball of dough that looked like it was steaming, glowing red. It flew fast, slamming him in the face.

  The dough hit him hard enough that it stuck to his face. He screamed in pain, muffled, grasping at his face to get it off.

  I strained, pushing myself to my feet again with one arm.

  Panting, I punched him in the back of the head, sending him to the ground with a thud.

  It was over. All five of them down, either groaning or unconscious.

  I felt like I was going to throw up, my head swimming and my left arm throbbing in pain.

  The sirens were getting closer.

  I looked up to Elena.

  “W-we should…” I croaked out, my voice shaky.

  Elena nodded, running towards me. I could see her eyes dart to my mangled left arm, as she retched slightly.

  “I-it looks…w-worse than it is…” I whispered as we ran down an alleyway.

  We stopped about a block away, darting into an abandoned building. It was dark and dirty, probably not the best place to stop given the state of my left arm, but that was the furthest thing from my mind.

  I slumped to the ground, the adrenaline finally wearing off and the pain setting in. I groaned as I did, panting. I felt Elena slump beside me, panting.

  “Holy…holy shit, Skye.” Elena said, catching her breath. “That was-”

  “Terrifying?” I replied, turning my head slightly to look at her.

  “Amazing!” She squealed, her face lighting up. “You were awesome, you kicked the fuck out of that guy! The way you tanked those bullets, how you got up from being launched across the street!”

  I laughed, short and breathy. I had to admit, it felt good to hear Elena say that. Her energy was infectious, and it felt good, really good.

  “Y-you were awesome too, Elena. The d-dough and sauce? H-how did you know that would-?!”

  “I didn’t!” She said, sounding about as surprised as me, still laughing. “I panicked, saw them both and thought they’d mix. Had to apologise to Mr. Lee though.”

  We cracked up, though my laugh quickly turned into a pained cough.

  She then looked at my arm, and visibly winced.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” She asked, staring at it.

  I looked down.

  It was pretty bad.

  Most of my left forearm was just gone. The bones had shattered just before the elbow; A lot of the skin and muscle was still hanging around it too, like torn cloth.

  “A little.” I admitted, wincing as I shifted where I was sitting. “N-not as much as it looks. And it’ll get better soon.”

  It wasn’t healing as fast as the rest of me. Maybe there was a catch to what parts of me healed quicker.

  It wasn’t bleeding anymore though, which was a plus.

  “Still,” Elena said, her voice softer, “Maybe we should bandage it, just to be safe?”

  I nodded.

  I sat there alone, finally letting myself relax - well, as best as I could with half an arm slowly regenerating - while Elena ran off to get bandages.

  Now that I was alone, I could sit with how bad the pain actually was. My power dulled the pain from my body tearing itself apart like this, but this was different.

  I sighed. Thank god I’m right-handed. I thought to myself, laughing slightly.

  Still, this felt right, somehow. Not sitting in an abandoned building with half my arm busted, but what we’d just done; fighting bad guys, helping people, getting back up.

  It felt…good.

  I wondered what dad would’ve thought if he’d found out; would he have killed me, or been proud of me? A mixture of both?

  I stared at the ceiling, just letting myself rest for a second.

  But I realised I had an audience.

  A small rat, sitting some ten feet away from me on a windowsill, just staring at me.

  I looked at it, but it didn’t move. It just sat there, watching me.

  I couldn’t stop looking at it. I was waiting for it to do something, to make a noise, to-

  I turned as I heard Elena crawl through a broken window.

  “Hey, sorry. Had to go to a different shop to get bandages, but I decided to sneak a peek at the scene of the crime.” She said with a cheeky grin.

  I shifted, sidling up to her as she unwrapped the bandages. My eyes poked back up to where the rat had been sitting; it was gone.

  “D-did you see anything?” I asked.

  “Not much,” she said as she wrapped my arm up, surprisingly gentle. “Couple of cop cars taking away the goons that were on the ground. Owner was talking to the cops.”

  “D-did they say anything about us?” I asked.

  “Nah,” She finished bandaging my arm, admiring her handiwork. “Couldn’t get close enough to make anything out.”

  “N-not bad.” I said, standing up. “B-better than walking around with a meat scarf around my hand.”

  Elena laughed. “Don’t call it a meat scarf, dude!”

  She stood and brushed herself off. “So…What do we do now? Sandwich?”

  I looked at her, incredulous. “You seriously w-want a sandwich after seeing that?”

  She shrugged. “Fighting and spitting made me hungry, sue me.”

  We walked for a bit, trying to look a bit more casual; I tucked my helmet into a bag, and wrapped my jacket around my waist. Not a huge difference, but it was something.

  We found a 24-hour sandwich shop. I went for something simple: turkey and cheese. Elena on the other hand went for a monstrosity that looked like it had everything on it.

  We got about three bites in before my phone started buzzing.

  An alert.

  Citizens Warning. Nemesis-Grade Supervillain Detected.

  I froze.

  Nemesis-Grade supervillains were the worst of the worst; where most supervillains still abided by a code of honour, Nemesis-Grade supervillains disregarded them. They were walking disasters, incredibly destructive and capable of building up massive body counts on their own.

  Elena noticed immediately. She stopped eating. “What?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Skye?” Her voice dropped. “What’s wrong?”

  I pulled up the police scanner webpage from before and listened to it.

  “All units, be advised: we have reports of a mass casualty event in the Rustbank.”

  Then- BOOM!

  There was an explosion, several blocks away. Smoke rose in the distance.

  The scanner crackled to life again.

  “Positive ID on a supervillain at centre of mass-casualty event in the Rustbank: Slaughterhouse. Repeat: Slaughterhouse located in the Rustbank.”

  My blood ran cold.

  I looked up at Elena. She looked like she was going to be sick.

  Fuck.