August 31st, 2010, 7:45 P.M.

'The Nameless Motel' Taunton, Massachusetts

I sat in stark silence as I attempted to process what Amy had told me. The Empire had been all but wiped out. Finding out that my adoptive father was a cape had thrown a monkey wrench into my plan, but this ordeal had practically ensured its success. I had no idea what Adam would do, likely try to find me, but he would have no idea that I not only had the motive but the means to leave the city. The PRT would be too busy with the fallout of this mess to even think about tracking me down. If they even knew that it was me who robbed their bank.

"Did they say why Lung attacked?"

Amy shook her head. "No, they don't even know who started the fight."

"But Lung finished it." I replied.

"Yeah." Was her quiet answer.

It was too much. Today seemed to drag on forever, and most of my effort today was spent on gathering supplies. I needed something to just have fun doing. Hell, Amy probably felt the same way after being cooped up in here feeling like shit.

"Wanna go out?" I asked suddenly. "I'm sure you're practically going stir crazy being trapped in here and I wanna do something fun. How 'bout dinner?"

Amy opened her mouth in what I presume was a motion to argue, but quickly closed it. She remained silent for a couple more seconds. "You know, that's not a bad idea."

"Do you want to shower first? I can't imagine you're feeling very clean after… well…" I trailed off, not sure exactly how to finish that sentence. I can't imagine how humiliating it must feel: being able to cure pretty much any disease in anyone and then coming down with a case of the flu.

Twenty minutes later, Amy had freshened up and we were off. I didn't have any single destination in mind, but rather a trio of places that I'd looked up. The first was a movie theater that doubled as a pizza parlor. You'd order a pizza, which would bake during the pre-movie trailers and be delivered to your table as soon as it was ready. The second was a pizza buffet restaurant with a miniature arcade.

I was really in the mood for pizza, in case you couldn't tell.

The third was a small, privately owned pizza place with numerous glowingreviews. It was similar to a place that I'd used to go to with my parents, but they had shut down due to lack of business.

With a frown, I decided that going there would bring up too many bad memories.

"So," I turned to my companion as we walked in the general direction of the two remaining choices. "How do you want your pizza, with a movie or an arcade?"

"It's been a while since I've seen a good movie." Was her reply. I was relieved. As much as I'd tentatively come to consider Amy a friend, I was terrible at socializing. A movie was a far better choice than the arcade. I'd only even looked up multiple options so she wouldn't feel pressured to specifically go to a movie.

Another ten minutes of walking placed us outside of a building called Forsier's Multiplex. It was a starkly designed black building, with the name in bright, pizza-colored neon lights. The tickets were somewhat expensive at $20 for youths, but considering that we got a movie, a pizza, and free fountain drink refills, I considered it worth it.

It wasn't exactly like I was hurting for money, after all.

The movie that we eventually decided upon was an Aleph import called Die Hard. Amy had seen it before with her sister and said it was really good. When I asked her what it was about, she said she didn't want to spoil anything. For dinner, I got a small meat lovers while Amy had four cheese.

Given that I hadn't really watched a lot of TV or seen many movies, I didn't really know what to expect going in. It started out a bit slow, but once Hans's men took the tower over, it started getting good. I was surprised to learn that his so-called 'terrorist attack' was covering for a heist of hundreds of millions of dollars. The action scenes were a little over the top, and I was sad when Hans died, but the look on his face as he fell was hilarious. You'd almost think he was actually being dropped from a thirty-story building.

"What was your favorite part?" Amy asked as we walked out of the movie theater with a bag containing the remains of our meal.

I smiled in remembrance. "The part where John caught Hans in the maintenance area and Hans pretended to be one of the party guests." That was the most unexpected thing I'd seen in that movie. The fact that John didn't know he was talking to the ringleader of the whole heist was great. "His accent was awful. I still don't know how John didn't call him out on it right away." I added with a laugh.

"McClane probably figured out that he wasn't who he said he was." Amy countered lightly. "He just wanted to make sure that he had the upper hand before pressing the issue. Though I will admit that Hans's cover story doesn't really make much sense in hindsight."

"Yeah." I agreed. We walked in silence for a while. I wonder what she plans on doing tomorrow. Now that she's feeling better, did she plan on going back home? A pang of sadness hit me at the last word. She's said that she was upset with her mother, but now that they'd had a chance to cool off, it was pretty much certain that she'd want to go back.

I didn't have friends. Everyone was either too happy, too self-absorbed, or too put off by my taste in music. I didn't know why exactly they didn't like rock music, but they felt strongly enough about it to distance themselves. I'd hoped to be able to eventually call Amy a friend. Though her apparent aversion to my lifestyle choices would probably make that harder.

"Why did you decide to become a villain?" Amy asked suddenly. I glanced around nervously, wondering if there was anyone nearby that could overhear, then turned to her with a glare.

"I thought I told you I was a thief, not a villain." I huffed indignantly.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Okay, why did you become a thief?"

"It was something to do." I frowned. "Why are you even asking about this?"

She shrugged. "Curiosity mostly. I know you said you had a tough home life, but I think that there's something else there."

"What? Isn't 'my foster parents are Nazi's' a good enough excuse?" I snapped, then frowned. She was just asking a question, no need to rip her head off. "Sorry."

Thankfully, she seemed unaffected at my sudden aggression. "It's alright. It's just that talking about it can help get to the root of the problem."

"'Problem'? What problem?"

Amy frowned at my response. "Your whole steal-y thing."

"My 'steal-y thing'." I intoned flatly. "You think that's a problem."

She nodded. It took everything I had to keep from facepalming.

"My 'steal-y thing' as you put it, isn't a problem. It's a solution. It's the whole reason why we're here instead of getting caught up in whatever the fuck happened back in the Bay." I glared at her indignantly.

"I can see how you would think that, but-" I cut Amy off.

"News flash: the Empire just got wiped out. My foster father is Stormtiger, and not only that, but he knows I'm a cape. He doesn't know my power, but that wouldn't stop him. He'd more than likely gather all the surviving E88 capes and hit Lung back. Including me. So if I wasn't here, I'd probably either be embroiled in some fucking gang war or locked away."

After my rant was finished, I took a deep breath. It was with a grimace on my face that I looked around, making sure that there was no one around to overhear us. Thankfully we seemed to be on a deserted street.

"It's fine. In fact I'm sure I don't need to steal anything ever again." I told her in what I hoped was a reassuring tone. Though 'don't' doesn't necessarily mean 'won't'.

"Be that as it may, I'm still not comfortable hanging around with a villain." Her insistence in calling me a villain was grating on my nerves.

I responded in kind, which was a gamble, but if it didn't pay off then I had lost nothing. "Yeah, well I'm not comfortable hanging around with someone that can turn me into soup with a touch." Judging by the way her posture suddenly shifted defensively and her eyes widened, it seemed that I had hit the nail on the head. "But I know you wouldn't." I added after a moment. "You seem to despise villains, no matter their practice. 'Talking about it can help get to the root of the problem.' Isn't that what you said?" I turned her own words against her.

No further words were spoken until we reached the motel. The entire time was spent wondering what brought Amy's sudden antagonism on. I'd thought we were having a good night, and then it all suddenly just fell off a cliff. As soon as we got into the room, Amy rounded on me.

"I'm sorry." She spoke solemnly. "Pretty much since I was adopted, my mom had hammered the idea of 'heroes good villains bad' into me. That a villain will always backstab you and hurt you if given the chance." A grimace appeared on her face.

"Can you honestly say that I'm as bad as Lung or Kaiser?" She shook her head. "Hell, I'm sure that Uber and Leet have done worse things than I have and they're pretty much laughingstocks."

"In any case, I'm still not entirely comfortable hanging around a villain," I glared, but she held up a hand. "But, you seem nice enough that I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt." Well, it was progress at least. I glanced over to my bed, where the extra smartphone I'd bought for Amy sat undisturbed.

"Oh, I forgot to give you this." I hurried over to the bed and handed her the box. According to the clerk I'd talked to, it was pretty much the best smartphone on the market. With a price of six hundred dollars, I'd expect nothing less.

"You bought me a phone?" Amy asked, visibly confused.

I nodded. "Yeah, I saw that yours was a little worn, so I got you this."

Her confusion morphed to shock. "This is… this is a Bell X10. You realize that this is practically the closest you can get to a tinkertech phone without it actually being tinkertech right?"

"Yep." It almost hurt with how broadly I smiled at her explanation. I blinked, my smile faltering for a second, before also remembering the case that the salesman had talked me into. "Oh, here." I reached into my dimensional bag and retrieved the box. "A shock absorption case to protect your phone."

Amy looked at the case, then her phone. She repeated the motion several times. "Buh- How did you even get this? Don't you have to sign a contract?"

"I may have bribed slash lied to the salesman to get it without the signature of a guardian." I held my hands about two inches apart. "Just a little bit." My companion fixed me with a flat stare. "Oh and I paid for a year of service." I added.

"How did-" Amy started, but quickly gave up with a shake of her head.

I grinned cheekily. "Well, I bought a tin of cookies from a street vendor, scratched some of the paint off to make it appear worn, then crumpled up a bunch of twenties in it and added some pocket lint and small bits of junk to make it seem like they'd been in there a long time. After that, it was just a matter of convincing him that I'd been saving my allowance for the better part of a year to get a brand-new phone." I listed off easily.

"It's a nice phone." She admitted. "But I just can't accept this." She made to hand it back to me.

"No, consider it a gift for fixing my hand." I pushed the box towards her. "Besides, you know how much a hospital bill for that would be? Probably somewhere near the five-digit range. Way I look at it, I got off easy by having you heal it."

Amy winced, but didn't disagree.

"So, you keeping the phone?" I asked after several minutes of her just staring at the fancy phone, having removed from the box some time ago.

She stared at it a moment longer before replying. "Well, if I don't, then you might use it for something nefarious." That evoked a genuine laugh from me, one she matched a moment later.