Chapter Two

The t-shirt was too big.

In hindsight, it should've been obvious when I held the clothing against my chest. That was to bad; the shirt was pretty cool with fancy cursive words wrapping around the torso and sleeves. Would've matched with the costume I had in mind—especially my newest face mask.

Taking off the shirt, I hung it on the door and continued to the other clothing I picked out. There were a couple pairs of shorts, boxer briefs, and some black t-shirts. It took some time, but I was happy with what I found.

A quick purchase later and my backpack was filled to the brim. Since coming to the town, I had made sure to buy as many quality of life goods as possible. Staying in one place long term wasn't an option, so I had to go the nomadic route.

Exiting the department store, I was once again greeted with a bustling city. Somewhere in New York, I believed. I had probably seen the city's name numerous times, but hadn't realized it.

This place was by far the most developed city I had visited on Earth Bet. The buildings were towering and the streets were well kept. The roads weren't filled with cars, but a significant amount drove by.

It reminded me of downtown LA, just without the palm trees. Then again, I didn't have many other big cities to compare to.

My stomach suddenly felt hollower. Checking my phone, it showed the time to be around 11:45 AM. I usually had lunch around this time, but I was pretty sure that my phone was behind a couple hours. After all, it was clearly afternoon judging by the position of the sun.

There was a nice little restaurant that looked like a good place to eat. It was very open, with large windows, lots of plants, and lights hanging from the ceiling. A waitress came by and provided me with a menu.

It was one of those sandwich places; the kind that had all the fancy 'European' foods. After ordering a sandwich consisting of several meats, I pulled out my phone. I looked up recent events to see if anything interesting had happened.

And interesting it was. Word of my city-wide 'mastering' had finally made the news. Talked about how the entire city, save for a few lucky individuals, had gone completely insane. They hadn't released any statements by the survivors, but I imagined that would make waves.

As for the relevant information, there was nothing but speculation on potential suspects. Most were attributing it to either the S9 or an unknown cape. None of the big media made any claims that this event was connected to The Pit.

"Woah, what kind of phone is that!" My important research was abruptly cut off by some nosy person.

Turning to look behind me, I found that girl around my age (maybe a year or two older) was leaning over her seat to get a better look over my shoulder.

She had long dark brown hair that had a couple red dyed streaks. I think she was going for the attractive college girl look with the dark blue blouse and black skirt. Her accent sounded familiar. I was semi-confident that she was Canadian.

I raised my eyebrows slightly, if only to seem more approachable. "Oh, this? It's from an obscure company, I doubt you've heard of it."

"No way! There's no way something that stylish could be obscure. You've gotta tell me-" She paused mid sentence to get a closer look, using my chair as balance. "Is that a news article?"

Ah, right. While Earth Bet had its own share of smartphones, I doubted any were quite as streamlined as what I had. Aside from Tinker tech of course.

The girl began speaking again, this time about the article itself. "Really tragic what happened there, right? How horrible is it for someone to master that many people- just to drive them insane!"

"Yeah… it really is awful." I injected a sufficient amount of emotion into my voice in response. Personally, I thought I did a good job at sounding sympathetic, but the stranger briefly wore something other than wholehearted agreement. Maybe I was just seeing things.

A loud buzzing erupted from my phone, startling us both. Shaking off the chill, I checked to see what that was about.

On my phone was one of those special alerts for emergencies. It was stating that the city was to be evacuated and that citizens should follow directions from the police.

"Uh… what's this about?" I looked for any other directions, but it simply said there was an emergency. People around me were receiving the same message and either sat in surprise or dashed out the door.

"That- huh. I think this is one of those warnings for super dangerous capes." Nodding at her own explanation, she linked her arm with mine and dragged me out of my seat. "We should get going."

For a moment, I was too stunned to react to her brazen action. Waving away the unwelcome feeling, I tried to break free from her grip. "Let go already. And what is this 'we' business? I don't even know you."

Something was off. I knew that while my leverage wasn't the best, overpowering the girl would've been easy. But I couldn't put in the right amount of effort to do so.

"You should really relax! Just stop resisting and follow me. We'll get to safety in no time."

With her soft coaxing words entering my ear, I idly compared her actions to that of Jack. How persuading and reasonable they sounded.

It was then that I realized exactly what was happening.