A flash of light.

A deep warmth burrowed into Leo's bones like the desert chipmunks that dug into the ground as day grew to dusk. A lilac haze hung through the air with the soft wind tickling at the tiny hairs on his arm. The orange beams peeking over the sharp rock formations and cliffs painted a gentle oak tint over the sand and rock. The stench of carbon monoxide from the dormant taxi still swirling around them, Leo coughed as he leaned onto Hawks' body. The film around the darkening sky obscured the sun into a splash of melancholy cerulean and indigo that bled into the first twinkles of stars above.

Seeing that the day was expiring, Leo turned back as another flash of light enveloped him and Hawks. Robyn, at the center of the small circle, blasted the light that encircled the ground around them. Surrounded by the bright light, Leo saw the cuts and purple bruises to his hand meld away into his normal pale skin. The abrasions evaporated along with the withering flashes of ivory that fluttered into the dense desert air. Like an eraser to lines of chalk, the injuries vanished.

After their argument, Robyn and Leo stayed in that tight hug for quite a while. The sun had snuck underneath the tops of the canyons and plateaus that stood like guards protecting the desert. When they finally released, both of them gave off apologies for their previous behavior. It was awkward, but Robyn very quickly went back to being a talkative and chipper girl. Leo eventually told her all of the details about what he was doing this for and for whom. The story was long, with Leo lowering his voice and shedding a few more tears out of the shame and regret from his past actions. The girl listened to his entire story with no judgement. When he had finished, Robyn simply turned back to Hawks and decided it was a good time to heal all of them with her quirk.

Robyn, after a few more uses of her quirk, opened her eyes. Sweat peppering her forehead, she crouched down to her knees and balanced herself on her hands onto the steaming pavement. She had healed as much as she could from the damages incurred on Hawks, but the man would still be quite weak for awhile. That said, he was in much better shape with the bumps and cuts dotting his face mostly gone. His jacket and clothes were still in tatters with the ends frayed like he was thrown into a volcano. His hair was littered with black soot and bits of rubber that kicked up into his face when run over with the taxi cab.

Leo rested Hawks' head onto his lap, the tawny blonde hair poking at his hand like a bush of straw for grazing. The boy ran a hand through the hair with small bits of dirt and pebbles of concrete threading through the coarse locks. The hero's face seemed so calm, but etched with a deep frown like he was remembering a bad dream. His forehead threaded with wrinkles, and his lips were thin rubber bands tight and shut.

"Any more healing, and I'll be joining him," Robyn crawled over and sat next to Hawks.

Leo gave off a weak smile and kept stroking at Hawks' head. "Your quirk is amazing."

Robyn flashed a grin and brushed back a bang of her raven hair. "Not as flashy as the others, but it gets the job done."

Shifting Hawks' head in his lap, Leo reached down into the hero's jacket pocket for the spiral binds of his notebook. Reaching his hand, Leo felt the soft wool fabric rub on his skin as he wrapped his hand around the notebook. The inside was lined with fluffy white wool, and Leo realized just how comfortable the jacket was to him. When he pulled out the notebook, another piece of paper was lodged between the surface of the pad and his pinky finger.

The paper folded and bent while blowing in the light breeze around them. He clutched the notepad and the half-folded loose paper and stared down at the blank side.

"Was that in the notebook?" Robyn asked.

Leo shook his head. "Probably something of his."

Robyn snatched the paper away from Leo before he could react. "We should take a look."

He shoved the notebook back into his pant pocket and grimaced at the rough material. Then, he scooted over to Robyn. "Maybe we shouldn't. That's probably his own personal things."

Robyn waved off Leo. "It's our duty as future heroes to know why he's been running around Los Angeles getting whipped by Midnight. Any piece of evidence helps."

Deciding his own words would not dissuade the girl, Leo sighed with a heavy lilt while rubbing his eyes of the dust that got kicked up by the ensuing wind. Robyn opened up the paper and turned the page over to the black letters that were written with pen on the inside. Her blue eyes scanned the document and bounced back and forth like she was watching an intense tennis match. Her smile, however, faded with every letter that went into her head.

"What is this?" Robyn asked.

Leo, curious as ever, braved a look when he set down Hawks' head onto the pavement. He scrunched himself over the road and locked his head right next to Robyn's shoulder. Reading along, Leo squinted to read the markings.

And markings they were. Instead of intelligible english, strewn on the page was a block of linguistic spaghetti in a language they had not seen before. Instead of neat rows of text, the markings were wrapped into what appeared to be random patterns thrown on the page like an exploded tower of building blocks. The scribbles and dots were akin to a baby babbling his or her first noises.

Throughout the black ink, there were circles that captured certain strings of lines and breaks within the passage that could signal words or certain symbols. Trapezoids and octagons cut into some of the lines with rectangles and rhombuses encircled them. With no rhyme or reason, the page read with pointless shapes and pen-marked trails that led to another part of the page with more shapes.

"Is this his kid's drawing or something?" Robyn asked.

"No, he doesn't have a kid," Leo said.

Robyn faced Leo and raised an eyebrow. "So...what is this?" she shook the paper in her hand.

Leo shrugged. On this paper was something either completely senseless or important; the reason Hawks was even in California to begin with. The boy's amber eyes stared deep into the strange document, but there was no recollection of anything close to what these markings could reveal. Had they come across nothing, or was there another mystery that would be put on the students shoulders?

Leo was still freaked out by the strange machine he found with Anton and Moxie in the basement of Buscemi's house. Occasionally, he would look over at the strange crystal on Moxie's neck and feel the lightest chill go through his body like a ghost fanning arctic air through his veins. For some reason, this did not seem like nothing.

A cough.

Robyn shoved the paper into her pocket. Leo turned and shot up to his feet.

Hawks stirred with his head lolling from side to side. The man moaned out and stretched out his arm. His wings bristled with the feathers shivering up and raking down as if they were waking up as well. He pulled up the top of his torso and wiped away some dirt from his eyes. His limbs aching and head pounding, he licked his chapped lips and stretched both arms above his head.

"Jeez, I feel like a Tonka truck ran me over," Hawks croaked out.

"It sorta did," Robyn said. "Sorry."

Hawks, not even angry at this moment, twisted his neck and gazed with mild interest at the two students. Then, he examined the rest of his body and noticed, outside of the pain inside, most of his exterior injuries were gone. His hand went up to his mouth, and he felt the front tooth that was chipped. He groaned out at the pain that left a small smear of blood around his gums, but he grimaced through it and squinted at the students.

"Did you heal me or something?" Hawks asked.

"I did," Robyn flashed her bright teeth at Hawks like she had just won the lottery. "I couldn't get all of it, though. Being run over with a taxi cab takes time to recover even with my quirk."

"Maybe we shouldn't mention that," Leo ran a hand through his hair.

Hawks blinked and shrugged at the two students. If they healed him, maybe they weren't all that bad. After all, if they really wanted to kill him or were apart of some group, they would have taken him away by now.

"Okay, so why are you two here?" Hawks asked. "I promise I won't get mad, but you've followed me around all day for a reason."

Leo pulled out the notebook in his pocket. "Mister Hawks, I've been a big fan of yours for a lo-."

"An autograph?" Hawks raised a disinterested eyebrow. "Really?"

"No," Leo took out a pen and held both of them out to Hawks. He slid himself over the tough gravel closer to the hero. "I actually wanted you to write a bit of a message for me. It's for somebody that I treated really poorly a long time ago. I was...a very different person, and I've had to live with a lot of sadness and regret over how I've been to people. Not just this one person, but to many others."

Leo, his arms shaking, squeezed his hands around the pen and notebook as he sat himself right beside Hawks. The man had propped himself up on his elbows and examined the sincere boy.

"My father," Leo continued. "He was awful to me, and I carried that with me for a long time. A lot of people were terrible to me growing up, so I lashed out and hurt others for no reason. And...I need to cleanse myself of that."

Hawks stared with his eyes quivering from skepticism. "Okay, so you followed me around southern California and hit me with a car so I can write something for you...for someone else?"

Leo pulled his hand onto his mouth and lowered down his head. Shrinking back into his hoodie, Leo held out the pen and pad. "It would be helpful for me."

With a huff, Hawks snatched the paper from Leo's clammy hands and stared down at the blank page. He still had no idea who these kids were, but he supposed healing him and helping him escape Midnight did deserve them some credit even if they hit him with a cab. Also, based off how bent his wings folded underneath his weight, he was in no position to reject any help.

After all, these kids didn't seem like the worst delinquents in the world. Sure, they skipped school and broke quite a few laws, but the best heroes usually did those things growing up. He certainly remembered all of those early days in his life kicking away empty beer bottles and the dilapidated shack that his father made him life in before he was caught by Endeavor. He felt a twinge in his heart at the sincerity of Leo, the quiet and glass-eyed boy pleading in silence at the hero. He could relate to the boy's painful past, but he could also admire the perseverance.

Giving one more glance at Leo, Hawks sighed. "Whaddya want me to write?"

Robyn and Leo smiled.

Megan missed peace and quiet like the tart biscuits her grandmother used to make her.

With the library open until sunset, Megan burrowed herself in the back and scanned through the novel that she poured over. Laying in a beanbag, she donned a white tank-top with black sweatpants and bobbed her head to the hard rock song screaming in her ears. She had been so used to the loud noises of the class around her, she forgot how great it felt to be by herself.

Brushing at the short side of her hair, Megan flipped through the mythology book with ease. She had read it many times before, but she felt more at home seeing the familiar words. In a way, it was like her father was right there at her side chortling her about the different crimes that he stopped that day.

She wished that the past month could have been more interesting or better for her. In fact, she had little contact at all from home. Some of that had to be blamed by the time zone difference between California and London. The other part of it was that she just felt like staying inside and reading most of the time. She was never much of a social creature, to stubborn to bend to peer pressure and liking the same things as other people. That said, she wouldn't mind a challenge once in a while.

"I thought green was supposed to be for broccoli. Not your skin!"

Megan perked up at the loud pronouncement. Hearing it over her music, she plucked out her ear buds and rose up in her seat.

"I said to leave me alone. I'm tired."

"Hey, I thought eating broccoli was supposed to make you big. You scrawny as hell!"

The girl pounced up to her feet and toed through over the carpet like a stalking hyena. Hearing some more arguing, she slid her hands over the ends of the gigantic book cases towards the aisle of the noise. When she reached the apex of the arguing, Megan snuck her neck around the corner and furrowed her eyebrows. At the end of the long hallway was the wall. In front of the wall stood Anton who was being cornered by an older student with hulking muscles that crawled with bulging veins. The blonde bully laughed at the boy who had his back to the wall, an apathetic frown covering his face.

"What does it matter to you what color I am, you racist."

"Hey, I'm not racist," the bully said. "But you messed with my girl Linda! She's my favorite lieutenant governor, and she's gonna be the first female president."

Megan rolled her eyes. Without a moment of hesitation, she grabbed an extremely thick book off the shelf and pulled it down to her side. Like a cowboy perched in the middle of the town square for a gunfight, Megan stepped into the aisle and walked midway up to the two.

"Just leave me alone. I've had a long day," Anton said in a frustrated tone.

"I'm tired of you first years getting all the attention. I'm the one that's supposed to graduate and be top of my class. You need to pay for messing up Linda! Besides, what makes you all so special?"

"Hey, peabrain," Megan shouted.

The bully turned around and chuckled. "Oh, tallyho! Looks like you got a Brit to come to your defense. You know, he seems like a guy who would let a girl defend him."

Seeing Megan with a book in her hand, Anton rolled his eyes. "Megan, I can handle this myself. Just leave us alone."

Megan ignored him and took another step forward. She brushed away a few strands of her blonde hair with red tips and glared at the larger guy. "And what makes you so special that you can treat people like that? A good hero would know better."

The larger man spat on the ground. "Like you would know anything about being a hero. I've aced all of my classes! What, you gonna throw that book at me?"

"In fact," Megan smirked as she drew nearer. "I am."

"Oh, no," The boy held out his palms in front of his chest. "What will I do? A girl is going to throw a dictionary at me! I mean, my quirk can handle a thesarus, but a dictionary! Somebody please save me before I-."

Smack!

In the blink of an eye, the bully fell to Anton's feet like a stack of cards. Anton stared down at the boy. He was out stone cold with the book draped over his face.

"Are you alright?" Megan sauntered up with a powerful display of confidence. She flashed her smile down at the lifeless third year.

Anton sulked and leaned onto the wall. "I didn't need your help. Me and pathogen could handle it."

"I bet you could," Megan picked up the book on the boy's face. His eyes shut, his tongue hung out of his mouth with his arms bent in an awkward triangle around his shoulders. "I remember when you let Pathogen into me. It was tough. But...I also really felt like throwing a book at somebody today."

Anton scoffed. "You and me both."

Megan brushed off the dirt on the book and and closed it in hands. "I thought it was cool how you threw that hot dog at Linda today. That old bat is just an establishment hack, isn't she."

"It's been a long day," Anton said. "They even have my name in the news. I'm worried some of the people that like her are going to come after me."

Megan patted Anton on the shoulder. "Don't worry about those dimwits. There are always people trying to keep you down. Just give them the old walley-gee and you'll be good to go."

"Huh?"

"Walley-gee? That's what you Americans call flipping the bird?"

Anton grunted out. In a defensive gesture, he looked down at his sneakers and crossed his arms in a tight hug around his thin chest. "I didn't even do it for any reason. It was an accident."

"Sure, but one man's accident is another man's terrorist attack," Megan said. "Besides, you could make a lot of money making appearances on television. If I were you, I'd run with it. Maybe you should even make your hero costume a hot dog."

"You're kidding," Anton said.

"I'm British," Megan shook her head. "We don't kid."

"Hey, you kids. It's closing time!"

Interrupting the girl was a thick and nasally Mexican accent. Megan spun back and saw a bald and dark man shuffle up towards the two carrying a yellow bucket that sloshed with soapy bubbles on the surface. He held a mop in the other hand like a samurai bearing a sword as he pushed the cleaning receptacle over the carpet towards the students.

"Hey," Megan pointed at him. "Aren't you one of those morons that attacked us at Void Industries.

"Sure am," Raimundo said as he pulled out his mop. He dunked it into the soap water basin and then slapped the head onto the carpet. He rubbed the mop over the carpet which led to the floor becoming stained with dark detergent.

"Shouldn't you be in jail?" Anton asked with quiet resignation.

"Yeah, I was," Raimundo said. "But then Principal Tommy called up the jail and said they needed some janitors. So, yada yada yada, I'm here now, dawgs!"

"Principal Tommy seems to have a lot of power, doesn't he?" Anton commented to nobody in particular.

"Creeps like that always seem to be the ones in charge," Megan pointed out.

Raimundo kicked over the passed out bully without a word and kept mopping up the carpet previously covered by his body. "So now I'm on work release. I get like eighty cents an hour for this shit. Easiest money in my life, homies. I ain't work a job in ten years on the streets. Kinda liberating to be honest. It's like I'm my own man making my own money!"

"So proud of you," Megan said as she rolled her eyes.

"I'm proud of me too," Raimundo said. "I even called my momma. She was too drunk to answer, though, so I told her parole officer and he said that she was very proud when she woke up. Oh, you kids reading about that shit?"

"What?"

Raimundo pointed at the book. "The Salton Sea Scrolls? I know quite a bit about it. Bunch of researchers fifty years ago digging that shit up. They said it was fake, but I know they actually found something there. Some really important shit."

Megan looked down at the book in her hand. On the cover was a picture of the deserted shoreline of the Salton Sea. In golden letters was the title, and Megan found herself invested in the hard velvet cover. Turning the book in her hand, she saw the text on the back with various critic quotes.

"The Salton Sea Scrolls?" Megan asked. "What on earth is that?"

"I told you," Raimundo put the mop down on the bully's head. "It's some conspiratorial shit, but I know for a fact it's real. My homie even saw one of the pages one time in the trap house he snuck into. It was a rival gangs trap house. And he saw one of the pages from it, but it was some strange shit scribbled on there. Chinese or something. But that shit is still out there, and if you read it, they say you get some special shit for it."

"That sounds," Megan said. "Actually intriguing."

"But anyway," Raimundo waved his hands at the students. "I gotta get going. The library closes in five minutes, so get your books and pay your fees or whatever."

Megan nodded at the odd description. She had a sudden urge to learn more about whatever these things were. Raimundo skipped away down the hallway and left her and Anton in his tracks. She turned back to the green boy and squinted her ice blue eyes.

"I think I'm going to read more about this," Megan asked. "I could go for a treasure hunt."

Anton sighed as he followed Megan out of the aisle. "If it leads me to a time machine so I can relieve today, I'm all for it."

Neither bothered to check up on the bully who was still passed out. He would stay there overnight.

Hawks was far too weak to fly anywhere, so he sat in the back seat as the taxi cab chugged and shook down the highway back into the city.

By then, it was nighttime. The black blanket above twinkled with ivory stars dotting the sky like specks of snowflakes on a granite mountain. No other cars were in sight, so the cracked headlights flashed a tungsten film over the desolate road. Visibility was tough with the light only showing the feet right in front of the car, the black void in front of the light eternal and impenetrable.

Leo bounced in the driver's seat and leaned over the central console to see beyond the cracks in the windshield. His eyelids drooped over his eyes with fatigue making his arms hang low at the elbows as he tilted the steering wheel with his fingertips. In his pocket, the notepad and pen sat with Leo occasionally patting the pocket to make sure it had not disappeared for no reason.

Robyn, with the window open, smiled as the wind brushed through her soft hair. Her elbow on the window sill, she dipped her face into the crisp wind blowing past the car as it squeaked down the road.

Hawks had to kick away the cab driver that was still sleeping on the floor of the back row. After scrunching him into a small ball behind Robyn's chair, the man stretched out his wings and sat right in the center for the most room. As they drove, he stared down at the floor and rubbed his fingers together with snoring from the cab driver drowned out by the creaks of the car.

"So, what are you doing around here," Robyn broke the reverie and asked Hawks. "Why were you tied up by Midnight?"

Hawks crossed his arms. "It's...adult stuff. None of your beeswax."

Robyn turned and faced Hawks, propping her head on the crook of the seat shoulder. "You know, you probably did a lot of illegal things today."

"So did you two," Hawks said. "You could be expelled from that crockpot school."

"And you can be arrested," Robyn challenged. "After all, whose to say you didn't kidnap us and bring us out to the desert to kill us?"

Hawks narrowed his gaze with a dangerous glimmer at the girl. "Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"Does a rabbit try to get run over by a car?" Robyn asked.

Hawks shook his head. "You two wouldn't understand. I've spent most of my life being trained for this kind of stuff. Undercover stuff. Finding out about the enemy. Deception. Infiltration. Stuff that would make your skin peel off. Lots of things that are happening under the surface. But guess what? That's nothing that should concern you two."

"So you're keeping things secret...for us?" Leo asked when he looked into the rear view mirror at Hawks.

"You should focus on the stuff happening to you now," Hawks said. "Teenage stuff. Grades. Boys. All those things. None of this concerns you, so just leave it alone. Besides, you all want to get the high school experience, right? You should consider yourselves lucky you get that chance. So, you all keep quiet, and I won't tell Deku or Bakugo about anything that happened today. You got it?"

Robyn turned back and snuggled herself into the chair. Since she would get no response from Hawks, she resolved to keep quiet for the time being. When she felt the piece of paper crumpled up in her pocket, her mind filed through the strange symphony of things that had been revealed to her over the past month. Other dimensions, clone test tube babies, even some strange spy operation involving Hawks? It excited her to know end that all of these things would be happening to her. In spite of that, she frowned in the chair as another cactus whizzed past in its dark and shriveled up profile. For as fun as this was, there were still too many unanswered questions for her liking.

"Kacchan? Why are you still here?"

Deku had been through the ringer most of the day. After Linda had the hot dog thrown in her face, Deku had spent the next three hours apologizing and giving out statements to the media. The lady had been whisked away by security, so he had not seen here since her face had been coated by ketchup and bits of pink meat. He had given phone call after phone call to the governor's office and different news shows to show that it was purely an accident.

Sad to say, but the damage was immense. Emails and nasty phone messages had already invaded Deku's phone and the schools messaging system. The story was catching like wildfire, and Anton appeared to be dead and center. He hated for one kid to have his future ruined over an accident, but Deku knew there was little he could do. If the tabloids in Japan were invasive, the gossip columnists in America pried into every single word ever said by a person. He knew he would have to protect Anton from the blowback as much as possible.

Izuku had gotten out of his hero uniform and put on a simple red tee shirt and blue pants as he stepped into the teacher's lounge. The night already shrouding the building, most of the faculty had left save for the custodial staff. Bakugo, sweating and scowling as he sat at the long oak table, folded his hands and clasped them together.

"I felt it."

Izuku, not recognizing what he meant, blinked and placed himself at the edge of the table. "What?"

"What you felt," Bakugo said. "When you said you wanted to give away One For All?"

Instead of a downpour of dread he expected to overcome him, Izuku blew out a long sigh and walked past Bakugo towards the window. He stared at his own reflection and looked beyond it seeing the lights blowing out in the parking lot below. A few headlights zipped through like fireflies through the sky on the highway beyond the main entrance.

"So...there really is a new enemy out there," Bakugo said. "I felt that tugging, but it was really hard. Almost like my heart was going to be ripped out from my chest. I've taken on how many villains now? And this...this nearly made me pass out in just a second."

"Are you sure you didn't just have heartburn or something?" Izuku asked while staring out the window.

"You fucking donut, of course it wasn't heartburn," Bakugo turned and barked. "I couldn't even eat today because I was stuck watching those shitty students. Besides, it was the same thing you said happened to you."

Izuku tapped on the window. He saw the small grey line formed by his fingerprint and traced down the cool glass downward. His finger left a single long smear over the glass. Once he finished, he balled up his hand into a fist and pressed his knuckles on the pane. "What do you think it is, Kacchan? A ghost? Spirit?"

"Stop the black magic shit," Bakugo stood up and kicked away the wooden chair. It crashed onto the ground and dug a scratch into the linoleum. "It's probably All For One. Somebody has a hold of it and they're controlling it remotely."

Izuku frowned and spun back to face Bakugo. "But that's all over with, Kacchan. We destroyed the duplicates. And Shigaraki has been in Tartarus for ye-."

"Crusty the Clown made another duplicate," Bakugo threw his hands up in exasperation. "And somebody that can effect others from a distance is using it."

Izuku placed his fist on his chin and stared down at the floor. He racked his brains for any of his potential adversaries picking up such a power. Most of the big-time villains from his U.A. days were defeated. Any of the newer villains had been taken down and arrested as well. Of course, there were plenty of people he imagined would want to take on the new Symbol Of Peace. He shivered when he thought back to earlier in the day, and he realized Linda may very well be the newest person on that list.

"What about that Edith Void bitch," Bakugo said. "She escaped from the hospital and hasn't been seen. Maybe that has something to do with it."

Izuku nodded in agreement. That lady seemed hellbent on taking his quirk away for a battery. It makes sense that she would still be somewhere trying to act. Then again, security was supposed to be top notch. Even if she could be invisible, there would be heat-seeking technology in the cameras to notice her. They would have to see the surveillance footage later, but Izuku felt like the person had to be nearby. Somebody that new him and Bakugo. A personal vendetta? A simple challenge? If someone like Edith were to attack, they would need to be nearby.

Then, Izuku gasped. An arrow shot through his chest, he snapped his fingers and pointed at Bakugo.

"Blake."

Bakugo sneered. "Huh? What does he have to do with this."

"A person that can hurt others from a distance without them knowing it. And his parents. They were big villains," Izuku said. "Of course, you and I helped catch them. So, they spoke with Blake to get him to do this to us."

"Oh, so that weirdo is stabbing himself in the chest. For what? So we can feel bad once in a while?" Bakugo asked.

"Maybe," Izuku said. "But it makes sense he would be involved."

"That doesn't have shit to do with your quirk," Bakugo said. "Why would he want your quirk? Not only that, but...this pain felt different than just being stabbed. It felt..."

"Existential," Izuku interrupted. "Almost like your soul was being taken away from you."

"That's not what Marseilles' quirk does or feels like," Bakugo said. "But...I guess if it did...he is a weirdo who might be involved in something like that."

Izuku crossed his arms and leaned back onto the glass. "It's the only semi-reasonable lead right now. We gotta pay extra close attention to him. And I'm calling up a friend to visit his parents in that Paris prison. Maybe they can find out if they've had contact. But we need to find out who is behind this fast. If we don't, I'm worried it could be too late. And if my quirk gets in the wrong han-."

Bakugo gave off a gruff grunt and turned back towards the door. He marched away from Izuku without a moment's hesitation.

"Kacchan," Izuku said. "Where are you going?"

He threw open the door. "A thought just occurred to me. I'm doing some research of my own."

Leaving Izuku behind, the green-haired wonder pulled out his phone. Scrolling through his contacts, he braced himself for all the different phone calls and messages he would need to send. It was going to be a long night, and he might as well pull out the couch in the corner and prepare to sleep in the room.

Pop!

Splat!

The car sputtered to a smoking halt with steam boiling out of the hood. The vehicle coughed before the exhaust gave way to a cloud of carbon monoxide that made some of the pedestrians on Hollywood Boulevard swat away the smoke and hack up their lungs as they passed.

The taxi cab somehow made it all the way to Hollywood before dying right on the side of the road. Sadly, that was as far as the car would go. Leo stepped on the gas a few times, but the engine completely gave with one final boom that rocked the entire foundation of the vehicle on its rubber tires. Leo clutched his chest at the loud noise and patted at his heart to calm it down.

"I think we killed it," Robyn said about the car.

Leo, unimpeded by a door, stepped out onto the road. They were at a curb right by the metro station next to a movie theater. The bright neon lights and blue flashing signs bounded off the dust-covered vehicle. A few motorcycles blared through the street as cars and tour buses honked in a slow river of metal that flowed like thick molasses. Tourists chatted and laughed through the street with a few of them noticing the destroyed taxi that had lurched onto the curb.

Hawks and Robyn poured out of the dead heap of metal. With his strength back, Hawks stretched out his wings and gazed out at the flickering television monitors and advertisements lighting up the street. He stood upright and paced towards the front of the hood with Leo and Robyn. The hot smoke flooded out of the car into the hot night sky filled with the aroma of hot dogs and stale marijuana that permeated most tourist traps in the area.

The hero grabbed Leo's hoodie and threw it over his head. The boy cried out and spun around to face Hawks who held an unimpressed expression on his scruffy face. Leo backed up to Robyn's side. This time, he stuck out his leg to cover part of her almost in a defensive but combative stance. Robyn noticed Leo standing between her and Hawks and gave off a cotton candy light chuckle.

"Well, I can't say I was thrilled to meet either of you," Hawks said. "But...you two have ambition. Can't fault you for that."

"Mister Hawks," Leo started. "I-I just want to thank you. I've wanted to meet you for a while. Do you have any advice for us?"

Hawks blinked at the pair. "Like how to be heroes?"

Leo nodded.

Without hesitation, the winged hero shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I still don't think I'm much of a hero either."

With that, Hawks threw himself into the air and disappeared over the rooftops.

In an awkward stupor, Leo crossed around the hood and stepped onto the sidewalk. He avoided a few babbling tourists and looked down both ends of the wide walkway. He stood next to a hot dog stand, the sizzling of the franks on the grill interrupting his thoughts as he looked back up to the sky where Hawks left. Meeting your heroes would be underwhelming, but Leo thought that he got his monies worth going through the city today.

He pulled out the notebook and read the message he told Hawks to write. It was simple but valuable, and it was much better than the words Hawks left him and Robyn. What did he mean about not being much of a hero. Hawks was supposed to be the essence of a hero. The calm and assured man was so different than what Leo was in his life. He was a hero he admired, and he would admit that the events of today did not change that.

"What do you think...happened today?"

Leo pivoted towards Robyn who had joined him on the sidewalk. The girl, vibrant and beautiful as ever, gazed right into Leo's eyes with her blue orbs reflecting the sparkling plasma screens swirling with different products and colors above the sidewalk.

"I think Hawks has a lot going on. And...that's all I know," Leo said. Then, he started to the right and headed down the street towards the metro stop entrance.

Robyn followed him and rubbed her shoulder to his. "Didn't he say we were with the CIA or something? He clearly thought that we were following him for that. So he's involved with some weird spy stuff. Hey! You think we could be apart of that? Super secret spies or something? I think that'd be so cool."

Leo shoved his hands back into his pockets. "I don't think there's much too it. Just leave it up to the heroes."

"But aren't you a little curious," Robyn asked. "What if this is all connected? Moxie saying that some ghost guy is following her. Hawks being here. That weird device in Void Industries. Oh! What about my paper with those weird markings? And that lady politician that came to our school today? Gee, I hope nothing weird happened over there today."

Leo shook his head when he took a sudden turn towards the convenience store and pharmacy next to the entrance to the movie theater. "Some things should be secret, Robyn. Maybe Hawks is right. We should just focus on what we can do now."

The girl tugged on his hoodie sleeve. "Where are you going? The subway is over there, Leo."

Without looking at her, Leo pulled open the front door for Robyn. "I'm going to purchase your butter. Remember? For your sword?"

A small flicker of confusion gave way to a sudden realization. Robyn gasped, then her face melted into a bright grin that brightened her face more than the neon lights that painted the concrete sidewalk. Ecstatic somebody remembered, Robyn squealed and reached over towards the brunette. Before Leo could react, Robyn grabbed the boy's thin arm and dragged him closer. She took her arm and wrapped it around his. Snuggling up to Leo, Robyn smiled at the boy and even giggled as his face started to blush.

With the cuddling girl on his arm, Leo felt his heart skip at the intimate and comfortable contact. He snapped himself away from Robyn's bright blue eyes to avoid any more embarrassment at the close contact with the girl. Without another word, he tugged Robyn into the store.