Introduction.7

I stood there across the hall leading to the counselor's office door. Zack was right behind me, probably because the bell hadn't rung yet, accompanying me to see Mr. Broker. The walk towards his office didn't feel as scary as it felt before thanks to Cassie's advice, which had helped a lot although not in the way she would expect. I now had some idea of what I would be dealing with and it wouldn't be too bad. My strategy was quite simple, don't cooperate, admit everything and leave. According to Cass if they threatened to call my parents it was bullshit because I hadn't done anything wrong, so I had to out threaten them by saying that I would start to act more like Cass, which supposedly would be too much of a bother and make them leave me be. Simple, but effective.

I knocked twice on the door and waited for the response.

"Enter!"

Looking back at Zack who flashed me a grin and two thumbs up I went in.

Mr. Broker's office wasn't anything remarkable, a simple desk with two seats in front and one behind, a computer on top of it and a bookshelf with an assortment of books placed against the right wall, and a window opposite of the door. The only decoration at all was a newton's cradle on the desk, other than that the office was almost empty.

This was the complete opposite of his predecessor Ms. Kylie, I only knew this due to Cassie, but apparently her office was filled to the brim with positivity posters and she was the stereotypical high school counselor who tried to solve everything with smiles, sugar and sprinkles. She quit at the end of last year after a whole year of dealing with Cass, which was to be expected and in fact Cass had bet against me that she could make her quit before the year was over. Given that there still two years until Cass would abandon this institution the school had hired a counselor with another methodology.

Mr. Broker was a big man at 1.808967 meters tall and boasting a shoulder width of 48.968965 centimeters, along with his dark skin would make him look somewhat threatening if you came across him while crossing the street at night, however he was the exact opposite. With his dress pants, shirt and always present blue tie Mr. Broker projected and atmosphere of calm and relaxedness, the man himself was very centered and you would never see him with anything else than a smile and a good tranquil predisposition, I would know since Cass had certainly tried to just rile him up to no avail. Many students came to talk to him just because he helped to calm them down and you just couldn't help but trust him. All of this qualities made him a perfect counselor.

"Oh, James good to see you, I was expecting you today, please sit." He said as soon as he saw it was me in that strangely calming voice of his. If I had any nervousness before it sure had been eased now.

I sat in one of the chairs while Mr. Broker took out a folder from the drawer of the desk and place it on the table, It took me a moment to recognize that it was my transcript with all my grades inside. He sighed before continuing.

"James do you know why you are here?"

I took a moment to think of an answer that would more or less work.

"Because I wasn't paying attention in class?" I tried.

He must have found my answer somewhat funny because he chuckled.

"James if we called every kid that doesn't pay attention here the line behind my door would be endless. No, we called you because we are worried about you."

"Worried?" What were they worried about, I hadn't done anything dangerous to me or someone else. Last Friday's escapade notwithstanding, which they have no way of knowing about.

He tapped the folder laying on the desk. " You know what this is James?"

"My grades?"

He nodded and sat a little bit straighter. "Yes, now while looking through your grades from last year and from this one I can't help but notice that some of them dropped severely. You had mostly A's last year. Did something happen?"

"Not really, I suppose this year is just harder." I answered while smiling a little.

"Hmmm and this certainly has nothing to do with the fact that Cassie and you only have one class together now?" He said tilting his head forward knowing full well that there was a relation between both facts.

I could deny it, but there was no reason too. " OK, yeah I copied. We both did it's just that Cass is better at actually studying than me."

It had been laughably easy to copy each other last year, Cass just memorized the whole textbook and then sat in front of me during tests while writing without wrist motions which allowed me to decipher the coordinates of her hand by looking at her elbow's movement and thus track the path of her pen, which lent me the answers. In any mathematical subject I just finished first and when I went to hand it in I flashed Cass a brief look of my test and let her memory do the rest.

He just nodded. " The faculty already knew this, that's why you haven't been put together this year. I would ask how you did it but there is little point to it. This was just a small issue that I was told to address. What really worries us is that you are wasting your potential. Don't you agree?" He said in dissatisfaction.

I tried very hard to get at least a little angry at him, this was the third time someone told me that this week, however all I accomplished was not feeling too bad for disappointing him. It was very hard to get angry at him, for whatever the reason, Cass seemed to be the only one able to do that. Seeing that I didn't answer he kept going.

"When the principal explained the situation to me she wanted to call your parents, I manged to talk her down from that. In my opinion there was no need for such serious action. You are an excellent student not a troublemaker, all you need is a little encouragement to nurture those skill and pursue some achievements."

I really didn't feel like it, but I suppose that trying wouldn't hurt me. It wouldn't be too bad and Mr. Broker really seems to have my best interest at heart.

"What do you suggest then?"

My agreeing seemed to prompt a smile from him, He took out some papers which I recognized as club fliers.

"Well I have talked to some of your teachers and given your great skill at math the Mathletics club seems like a good option, Ms. Kyler supervises it and most of what they do is studying together and competing in various Math competitions. If you don't like that the robotics or programing club may be good for you. There is also this new club, it was started this year by Mr. Lancer, they study economy and create fake stock market portfolios, seems like fun if that interests you."

I took some moments to decide which flier to take, in the end I decide to go for robotics if only because I was curious to know how well I could handle electronics. It couldn't be too hard after all it's just applied physics.

Mr. Broker saw me take the flier and smiled, which made me smile back at him.

"There you go! You will see that you are going to enjoy being there." Then he leaned closer as if to say a secret. " Who knows? Maybe if you are good enough this could be the path to a scholarship eh?" He sat back straight and laughed. " Now go James. I don't want to such a good student here again." He joked, eliciting a laugh from me.

I stood up and walked out from his office feeling a lot better. Mr. Broker was right I just needed to put in a little more effort and there would be rewards.

The end of the day found me at Cassie's house retelling my experience at the counselors office, once I had finished Cass gave me her thoughtful feedback on how I did, given that she was the expert and all.

"What the fuck Jay?" A master of eloquence this one.

"What?" We were in Cassie's bedroom with me taking the chair and her laying on the bed, her mom wasn't home but we would still keep ourselves here in case she decided to come back, which according to Cass wasn't very probable.

"Don't 'What' me! You did the exact opposite of what we agreed on! I can't believe you let yourself be convinced by that counselor." She yelled.

"I don't see why you dislike Mr. Broker so much. He is very likable and he was right I do need to push myself a little harder. Weren't you saying the same thing the other day?"

"Yeah, but until this guy tells you to do it you were completely against it!"

This argument wasn't leading anywhere so I decided to change subjects back to what initially brought me here. "Whatever. How are the clothes going?"

Cass stopped to stare at me for a second knowing full well that I was changing the subject, but she didn't press further.

"First, they aren't clothes they are costumes and second " She said as she stood up and retrieved something form under the bed. "They are already finished." Cass took out two pairs of jackets and trousers from under the bed.

"Wow! You are already finished? That was fast even for you. I thought it would take you almost a month to learn how to sew until you could do this." I said impressed and also a bit disappointed. This meant that our next outing would be soon. I held out my hand for Cass to hand me the clothes.

She handed them to me. "Well when all you do is to sit and sew for five days straight only stopping for eating and bathroom breaks you tend to get things done. " Then she added in a lower voice. "Also I had already picked up sewing before this."

I knew what that meant and ignored it in favor of examining the garments.

Their elasticity and thickness were around what I had assumed them to be. Thick enough to resist impact and elastic enough to disperse the inertia of the knife through the weaving, it would have been better had Cass been able to weave the fabric in the patterns I had indicated but she didn't have the patience or resources to make whole new fabrics from scratch. As it was these should be good enough to resist most stabbings, although slashing at certain angles would cut the leather hopefully the knife would get trapped in the denim underneath. A skilled enough knife fighter would be able to tear through all of it, however there were more effective ways to harm us than that so I didn't expect that to happen.

"Sooo does my work get the James seal of approval?" Cass asked once I finished appraising the clothes.

I smiled at her. "They do, if you have the helmets."

"Oh come on! I get to decide at least one part of the costume and that is the mask!" She loudly exclaimed.

"We never agreed such a thing, and no a mask doesn't cut it. For starters they don't give any protection, for your body or identity."

"Trust me dude no one is going to recognize us with the masks on!"

"You do know that biometrics are a thing, right?" I asked.

"Well of course! But no one has ever figured out an hero's identity by..." She stopped and stared at me. " Oh my god. You did, didn't you?"

I stood perfectly straight and lied through my teeth. "No I didn't."

However Cass didn't buy it. "Nu uh there is no way you didn't. How didn't I realize sooner? You can see the world with a bunch of mathematical notations detailing everything on your sight, if you saw an hero on costume and out of it the measurements would match! You didn't even do it on purpose, to you biometrics are like faces!" She said in excited deduction, which left me stunned as I had never told her I could do that much. Either I didn't remember or she pieced it together from lots of tidbits and pieces I had let slip.

In the end there was no difference, she had me. "Yes, I did."

She got too close and started to literally press me for answers. "Tell me, Tell me, Tell me."

I sighed, I had to give her something or she wouldn't calm down. "I know Batman's, Robin's, Green Arrow's and Speedy's identities." It was something purely accidental, living in Star city guaranteed that I saw both Green Arrow and Oliver Queen in the TV very often, and a domino mask offered little to no disguise of his measurements. Batman had been something a lot more accidental given that I wasn't looking for his and that his costume actually changed some of the biometrics by making some parts thicker than necessary, however Robin wore a domino mask too and Richard Grayson while a lot less noticeable appeared now and then in the news on virtue of being the adopted son of Bruce Wayne.

"Who? How?" Kept asking Cass.

"It doesn't matter." I said staring firmly at her eyes to convey that I wouldn't be giving her more information. She stared back for a few seconds before backing down.

"Tsk well no need to get so serious." She said clearly disappointed, however she changed her mood fast because the next moment she was at the door. "There something else that I wanted to show you. Come follow me."

I followed her to her backyard tiredly wondering what was it that she wanted to show me. Cassie's house wasn't very big or well maintained given that it was in the poorer parts of town, but her backyard was quite big, around 20 meters by 20 meters although the exact numbers escaped me until I got to watch it again.

When we got there I saw that the backyard was almost unchanged since I last saw it, the grass was dry given that no one bothered to water it and the grill was in a state of disrepair since no one had touched it in almost six years. The only thing that looked well was the tree in the corner which provided some shadow. Also there was a bullseye attached to it.

"Cass please tell me you didn't-"

"Ta da!" She exclaimed appearing behind me with what looked like a very rustic bow and some arrows. "Do you like it? I made it myself." She said with pride.

I should have seen something like this coming, God knows I should have.

"Please Cass tell me that you don't plan on using that." I was already massaging my temple knowing the headache this would give me.

"No of course not. But you will!" She said with a smile.

"What?! Are you crazy?"

"No no. Hear me out. Obviously we aren't going to be pointing this at anyone. All I want you to do is to try it out."

"Why? I won't use it."

"I want to make a point."

"Which is?"

"You will see. Come on now it isn't so different to throwing balls at a hoop." She said handing me the bow to grab it.

"Alright." I grabbed the bow and one of the arrows and examined them. Length, shape, tension of the string, weight. Like Cass said it shouldn't be too different to throwing balls in basketball. All I needed to do is figure out what I wanted to do and take into account all the physical variables that will affect it, do the math in my head and I will then know how I should do it. However I noticed one thing.

"Cass. This thing is horribly deviated." It was true there was approximately 15° degrees of deviation from where the arrow was pointing form where it would land.

"Well, I'm sorry my self made bow isn't up to your standards Mr. perfectionist." She said flustered.

"Why didn't you correct it?"

"Two reasons. First I have no idea how to do it. Second I learnt how to use this bow already, so I can aim well even with the deviation. I want to see whether my fast learning and memory work in favor or in detriment when I start learning how to use a well-made bow." She said. I had to admit it wasn't a bad idea as far as experiments went, was Cass even capable of re-learning something?

"You know you could have fucked up your ability to use a bow forever right?"

"It's too late now. Stop worrying about me and shoot!" She prompted me.

I nocked the arrow and drew the bowstring back. All the aforementioned variables were now in my head as I also took account of the air currents and resistance. The arrow's projected path unfolded in my vision as clear as day. The path shifted and moved around with my breathing, unsteady hand and air currents. I adjusted the bow and took a deep breath. Then I saw it a shift in the air current, the moment all variables aligned I released the arrow. It flew and hit the bullseye center.

I looked at Cass and said. "Well I hit it, what was the point you wanted to make?"

"Not yet. You took almost fifteen seconds to shoot. Now I want you to do something else." What did it matter how long I took to shoot?

"What is it now?" I said with irritation.

"Split it."

"What?" She couldn't be suggesting what I thought she was suggesting.

"Split the goddamn arrow by the middle." She said, arms crossed as if to convey that there was no way that I was leaving without doing it.

"No way. I can't do that." I said dropping the bow. I was leaving.

"You aren't going anywhere until you split that arrow." She put herself in front of me and pushed me back.

"Cass there is no way I can do that. It takes years to be able to use a bow and even think of attempting that trick." I explained already exasperated. I would jump over her if I had to in order to leave.

" Oh yeah? How about grabbing a bow for the first time in your life and taking fifteen seconds to hit bullseye? That shit happens everyday right? And don't you dare say it was a fluke because we both damn well know it wasn't!" She was yelling now. " Now grab that bow and aim it or I swear that next time I go out I will do it alone."

I stared at her in anger for a few moments before taking the bow again. If there was one thing about arguing with Cass is that she knew how to hit you where it hurts.

I nocked another arrow back and took aim. It was a lot harder this time because I needed to repeat the previous shot with an almost nonexistent margin of error. However since I had already moved from my previous place that would be impossible. The two main things I needed to focus on were the angle of entrance and the area where the shot would succeed, which was smaller than a pin's head.

I stared at the bullseye trying to make all variables coincide, but my hand wasn't steady enough and the more I kept the string drawn the less chance there was that my hand kept itself in one place.

"Relax." I heard Cass whisper into my ear. Her hands placed behind my shoulders. "You are too stiff, your muscles too tensioned you need to let go just a little. Stop focusing in the bullseye and focus on yourself." She whispered in a soothing voice.

I did as she said and she was right, there muscles in my back and abdomen which were unnecessarily tensioned, I relaxed those. It didn't improve my steadiness, but rather it worsened it. However now my movements were much more linked to my breathing, as I exhaled the projected path of the arrow got stable enough for me to release it.

"See? It wasn't too hard now was it?" Cass said now facing me with a full smile.

"Shut up." I said, turning my face away from her. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to listen to Cass and her craziness. This wasn't possible.

"No, I won't" She said grabbing my head and forcing me to look at the tree. "Look at that, because that shit is what you do. Own it. Everyone else may think you are smart and lazy so they think that you are wasting your potential by not going to competitions and applying for scholarships. But I know you better, this is the real kind of potential you have. This is what you are really wasting."

I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at the tree and at the arrow split right down the middle. I didn't want to know what that meant for me or for who I was. I wrestled my face away from Cass and ran from there. I didn't want to be special, I didn't want the responsibilities that came with powers, because even if I had accepted to calling them that before I sure hadn't truly believed I had them until now. I didn't want to be special.