For those who want to know what the future of this story is going to be (the upload schedule), at the bare minimum, expect a chapter upload ONCE A MONTH. I can't guarantee that I can go back-to-back uploads monthly with all my other fanfics that I am working on, but yeah, that seems to be what is most optimal for my current living situation, on top of finishing my schooling.

That being said, let's hop into the chapter!

[Summer Break Shenanigans – Part 2]

The police station was hectic, and Sheriff Martin Johnson was not exactly in the bestest of moods right about now. Oh, don't get him wrong, he was glad that they had finally been able to catch The Wet Bandits—and yes he was fairly certain that it was a reference to the Christmas movie Home Alone. Too bad they did bank robberies and not home invasions, because that would've made it even funnier if you asked him.

Well, maybe not funnier, but it would've fit the reference more. Oh, to hell with it, he was just looking for something to cheer him up a little bit and to get him out of his rather shitty mood. That aside though, while he was glad that they had finally caught The Wet Bandits, it still put him in a sour mood, and not because they had caught them.

No, it was how they were caught that annoyed him more than anything.

For some context: A month after superpowers showed up in the real world, stories of power-hungry children, as outlandish as that sounded, attacking people on the street and using their powers for quote-on-quote evil had been blowing through his ear from the major city police departments. He'd call bullshit if he hadn't seen some of these events on the news.

For example: in California, a kid with the power to continuously gain kinetic energy and build it up in his body just by merely existing blew his whole school out of the ground in an unprovoked attack, killing 100s of people in the process by flying debris, as well as anyone who was in the immediate area of the shockwave and the explosion, along with himself, seeing as the police shot him dead on the spot the moment he got out from the rubble.

And that was on day three of these superpowers showing up.

Then, later on in the week, there was the situation in Houston, Texas. A kid with similar powers to the Marvel villain Magneto launched an attack on a mall to steal every video game console in the store, TVs included. Now, in comparison to the first example, it didn't seem as bad. However, and as much as he hated to admit it, the way the police handled the situation was downright horrendous.

What he meant was that: when police were involved, it devolved into a shoot-out with the kid in a matter of moments because one of the dipshits discharged their weapon on the kid, and, well… needless to say it got ugly real quick. The kid, who was a girl around 17 years old if that even mattered, retaliated by using cars as bullets. The resulting onslaught ended with 90% of the police that had been called up for backup ending up dead, and the kid only getting arrested after having been shot at least twice in the torso but managing to survive because of her magneto-like powers.

The girl lived and was going to be heading to trial for multiple cases of first-degree murder. Needless to say, she wasn't going to be seeing the light of day for the rest of her life, assuming they could restrict her powers, that is. Because otherwise, unless she's put in a concrete bunker where no metal could be found, period, then she was going to escape and cause more havoc.

And that wasn't even the worst of it. Shocking, he knew, but the next thing made him sick to his stomach knowing it happened in his home state of Connecticut. What did he mean by that? Well… it was hard not to mention it considering it happened so soon to when this whole superpower pandemic started.

In case it wasn't obvious, he was referring to the death camp they had discovered that Governor Maxwell not only created but had run while doing his job as Governor. 33 children went in, and only six made it out alive, making it one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in US history since the Columbine Massacre, and any other requisite school shooting since then—the recent one with the boy and his kinetic energy power included.

And this was all in the first week of these things showing up. The rest of the month… he could've sworn the world had become a fucking comic book. Articles from the UK and Japan recording recorded high numbers of deaths due to battles in the streets with kids who had powers to level whole cities—children, man! Fucking children! Sure, some of them were, at the oldest, 18 years old, but the youngest of these superpowered kids were 7 to 8!

And the worst part about all of it was that no new laws, outside of having these powers registered as deadly weapons for very, very obvious reasons, had been passed to at the very least garner some form of control over these superpowers. Not even China was able to crack down on these powers, and that was saying something.

Funnily enough, speaking of China, "President" Xi Jinping and the entirety of the CCP had been assassinated by some kid with, funnily enough, superpowers that were based on stress. The militarized police were taken down in seconds, and the kid single-handedly toppled a horrible regime just by existing.

Now, whether or not China was going to undergo a collapse was not his problem, but he just found it incredibly ironic. But, that was beside the point. He was getting sidetracked with global affairs.

He hadn't even begun to touch upon the third wave of The Satanic Panic that was going on back in "The land of the free", with more heavily Far Right-leaning mega-churches declaring that these children with superpowers were "demons that had replaced our children". The worst peddlers of which was The Wittebane Mega Church in, you guessed it, his hometown—the one he operated in, i.e. Gravesfield Connecticut.

All of this is to say, that the reason why they caught these dweebs was because of a super-powered kid playing hero, which he had to admit was refreshing to hear. Said kid was seen wearing a black suit with a head mask belonging to some videogame character, going by the pseudonym "All For One".

Needless to say, his life had been a living hell for the last few hours. Don't get him wrong, he was glad at what this All For One person did, but, by the law, he now had to track down and find this person and arrest them for vigilantism, and assault with a deadly weapon, I.E. a superpower, which had been added to that list after The Supreme Court took on a case that said that they should be considered deadly weapons, with the vote being damn near unanimous—a first in a very long time.

Sitting at his desk, taking a sip of his dark roast coffee, the police chief combed a hand through his thick black hair, as he rubbed at his eyes, which had developed bags from a severe lack of sleep. Starting the search for this "All For One" figure was going to be extremely difficult, namely because they had nothing to work off of, not even skin tone.

Of those with superpowers, the majority of them hadn't registered them. And while that was bad enough, what was worse was that they didn't know who had them in the first place, and they certainly couldn't go around and arrest a bunch of kids off the street, because that would be sketchy as all hell, and be a gross misuse of power.

Sheriff Johnson frowned, tapping his desk, waiting for someone to call. He honestly had nothing to do. Thankfully, no one in this town was a crazy, power-hungry psychopath. That was the benefit of small towns. Everyone knew everyone, so if there was ever an idea that something big was going to go down, he'd be the first to know.

Oh, there were certainly a few people with screws loose, but none of them were mass murderers, save for say one, but due to obvious circumstances, they wouldn't be charged with anything. The person in question being Luz Noceda.

She was probably the first Serial Killer to date that would never be charged with her crimes BECAUSE of WHY she killed that many people. Although, if it was up to him, he would've thrown the book at her regardless of why she did what she did. The fact that a monster like that could be allowed to walk the streets… was aggravating. Her record was expunged by the local courts before she was actually formally charged. It was seriously annoying.

The Sheriff didn't care what the reasoning was, letting someone like that walk free was just asking for a disaster to happen!

That, and he had a personal vendetta against the girl. Namely, because his nephew, Cody Johnson, had been killed by her—at least, he assumed so, since he was never found and was presumed dead by natural causes, but he knew she had something to do with it. Unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to do anything about it on the record.

Off the record, however, he had done everything in his power to make her life a living hell. It was the least he could do. He made sure every store banned her from shopping there, those whose managers would take the bribe, anyway. The only stores that didn't were the local donut shop, the corner store, and The Shoppers Drug Mart. Every other store, however, gladly took the bribe.

The local Gym, the daycare, the schools, all of them banned her, too, all because he spread the rumour that she was a crazy murderer. All he had to do was show them the newspaper of what she had done, leave out a few key details, and boom—banned for life!

And if anyone said anything about it…. Well, he was the police chief. He was the law. He was the person who enforced the laws. But that was beside the fact. No one had come to him complaining, with the obvious exception of the girl's mother. All he told her was that it was their right to do whatever they wanted in regard to how they worked. He couldn't do anything about it.

"Heh… it's the least I can do… I could probably throw some stupid charges at her and get her arrested anyway. But Nah, I think this is more karmic. Good luck having a future, brat!" Sheriff Johnson thought as he took another sip of his coffee, and reclined into his chair.

He was about to start digging into the identity of "All For One" when someone knocked on the door. Sheriff Johnson sighed, sitting up straight before speaking. He had a feeling as to who it could've been, and while he didn't want to deal with her, there was nothing he could do about it. "Come on in," Sheriff Johnson droned, as the door opened. And, wouldn't you know it, it was Ms. Noceda again. She had already come in two days in a row now, and now she was coming back for a third time.

And, he probably had an inkling of an idea as to why.

"Good Morning, Ms. Noceda, what can I do for you?" Sheriff Johnson asked, his tone filled with disinterest as the Dominican woman looked extremely upset.

"Sheriff, I'm telling you, this isn't right! My daughter's been denied entry into school now. That's a basic human right! You have to back me up on this, please! If she can't go to school, then she won't have a future!" Ms. Noceda exclaimed with a frustrated look on her face as she sat down in front of him, brushing aside her brown turncoat, dusting off her shirt and pants, and looking presentable. She also fixed her glasses, as they were a bit lopsided when she walked in.

Inwardly, the Sheriff was smiling. Outwardly, he was frowning to keep up appearances and told her the same thing he had told her the last two times she had come in looking for help. "Look, Ms. Noceda, I've already told you, I can't do anything about it. Have you tried online school? Maybe they'll accept her?"

The frustrated look in Ms. Noceda's eyes doubled, as she crossed her arms. "That's the thing, I already tried that, but they denied her as well!" Ms. Noceda replied as the Sheriff blinked. Well damn, he was planning on bribing them next, but seeing as he didn't have to raise a finger, he felt a little bit disappointed and proud at the same time. Maybe the schools, online and otherwise, already deemed her a risk after he tipped off Gravesfield High? Ha! Now wasn't that ironic?

Johnson reclined in his chair, arms folded and expression dour as he spoke. "Well, if that's the case then I'm sorry, but I—"

"Bullshit!" Ms. Noceda snapped, interrupting him as she glared at the Sheriff. "It is a basic. Human. Right. It is your job to uphold them! Do. Your. Job!" Ms. Noceda spat, as Sheriff Johnson blinked. That was actually a good response, but, unfortunatly for her, it wasn't going to work.

Yes, it was a human right, but with legal loopholes, they could continue to deny her and her daughter's right to education based on company rights and people who could be deemed too dangerous to go to public places such as schools, gyms, etc. And seeing as every business that had a reputation to uphold, aside from Shoppers Drug Mart, didn't want people to flee in fear because a supposed crazy person with power they shouldn't have was in their shops… well, who was he to deny them their right?

Sheriff Johnson narrowed his eyes in response to the glare and the statement. "Exactly, and it's also my job to enforce the laws, and the company's rights. If they want to ban your daughter due to seeing her as a safety risk because of what happened at that camp, and what with her being superpowered and all, then I cannot do anything about it. Plain and simple, Ms. Noceda. Now please, leave my office. You're emotionally distressed, and clearly, you need a breather. Come back when you're not about to blow a gasket."

The frustration in her eyes skyrocketed, before she launched up from the chair, and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her. He smirked once she left, reclining in his chair once again. If he was able to drive that monster out of his town by the end of the month, then it'd be smooth sailing from here on out.

The Sheriff closed his eyes, as he went back to thinking about the more important matters. That of "All For One." There was a good chance that if another crime happened, they would be there. "I could probably pay off a few crooks to start something, then send the boys in blue over to capture both the crooks and this "All For One" person," Sheriff Johnson said, before smirking. "Yeah… that'll work…"

It shouldn't be too hard, right? What could go wrong?

And as the Sheriff began his search, he failed to notice a black and white tabby cat hop down from his window sill, wagging its tail from left to right as it pranced away.

xxXXxxXXxx

Riley Stewardson was your typical senior-year high school student—worked a minimum-wage job, hung out with friends after school when she was free, had decent grades and was on the path to graduating this year… had the power to turn anything she touched with her bare hands into bombs—you know, the usual.

On a less joking note, Riley found out about her power when her father… well, the less she talked about it, the better. And during that… incident, she found out just how powerful those explosions could be. What she meant by that was that she had lost her right eye because of the explosion… and she was lucky that was all. A good portion of her face had been blown away, and the only reason why she lived was that her brother had awakened a power, said power was that of a regenerative saliva power.

She still lost her eye, of which she was now wearing a black eyepatch over her empty eyesocket, though, and her mother had kicked her out of the house for killing her husband. She didn't blame her mom, though. Her mother had no idea her father did horrible things to her. Riley didn't even bother telling her mother what had happened, because it would've been like talking to a brick wall.

And if it weren't for The Wittebane Mega Church, she would've been homeless. Of course, it came with a catch, and that catch was that she had to become one of their assassins—yes, Mega Church's had assassins, and she was surprised about it too.

Seeing as she owed the Wittebane's her life, she had no choice but to agree.

For the record, Riley hated the Wittebane's for their supposed connections with what happened at The Death Camp. But, they paid good money—really good money. Like, seriously, 100K per job. All she had to do was kill someone, and they'd pay her a good sum of cash, and because it was a church job, it was tax-exempt.

You'd think that because she was an assassin now that her social life would tank, but it was quite the opposite. As twisted as it was, she had made good friends with her colleagues and had even begun to begrudgingly respect the Wittebane's for what they did, even if she saw it as disgusting and outrageously bigoted.

And by respect, she meant "put up with" because what they were doing was morally reprehensible, and using the masquerade of God to continue to do this horrible shit was… well, now that she thought about it, scarily normal. All one had to do was look back on the Church's history and… well, yeah no big shock, they were all scum bags—the Mega Church's, anyway.

That aside, she still kept up with her social life outside of work as well, and the Wittebane's kept their secrecy for their plans. Plans that Riley didn't have any intention of looking into, because she didn't want to end up dead in a ditch.

So, for the most part, she lived a regular life, outside of the times that she was driven to places to kill oppositions that The Wittebane Mega Church wanted dead.

Funnily enough, despite their outward stance against those with Superpowers, all of their hired guns were people with powers. Granted they were all 18 and 17, respectively, and surprisingly, seeing as they'd only had their powers for a month, some of those people had already mastered their powers to a science. And while she barely knew most of her colleagues, she did hear about them and their powers.

It was terrifying how some of them were as powerful as they were….

Although one of them… didn't look human. They had strange ears… and even stranger skin… and they had more than one power. And it had to do with the circles they generated with their pointer finger, though they typically used a wand, almost like a witch she'd read about in those fantasy novels.

Whatever the case was about them, it hardly mattered to Riley.

The red-haired, 5 foot 9 tall girl was walking down the sidewalk. She was wearing a black leather jacket, with a red shirt underneath that had the graphic of an explosion on the front. She wore a pair of jean shorts, and black knee-high socks, along with a pair of white shoes.

Right now, she was keeping an eye out for her current target, who supposedly lived in the town, and they went by the pseudonym "All For One." She knew that both the police and the Wittebane's wanted said person out of the picture, and with that amount of people after one person, it meant they would go into hiding.

The problem was… no one knew what they looked like, and because of that neither the police nor the Mega Church had any idea who they were looking for. Hell, their voice wasn't even known because they used a voice changer.

Riley was able to see what it was they could do thanks to the news reports. They were able to stop speeding cars with one hand, and they could extend their fingers, and turn them into blades. That was three separate powers used in one go. It was no wonder why The Wittebane Mega Church saw them as a threat.

And the money involved with getting rid of them… was around 10 Million American Dollars. The Church really wanted them gone, and she was going to do whatever it took to get rid of them.

The redhead stopped when something rubbed up against her legs. She looked down and saw a cat. It was a black and white tabby cat, and as it purred, Riley knelt down and patted it on the head. The cat then leapt up and perched on her shoulder, making Riley sigh with annoyance. "Millie, I told you to stop jumping on my shoulder."

The cat purred, before hopping down and running off into a nearby alleyway. Riley sighed, following the cat as it jumped atop a dumpster before the cat transformed into a person with… strange ears. They had ashen white bordering on grey skin, ruby-red eyes, and long black hair. Millie Ravenclaw was the aforementioned person with the strange ears that, according to the Wittebane's, was a close ally of theirs thanks to the "connections" they had… whatever that meant.

"Sorry, but it's the quickest way to get someone's attention, yeah?" Millie said as she brushed off her white cloak. Millie was wearing the aforementioned white cloak that came with a hood, kept together by a golden triangle pin. Underneath the cloak was a black jumpsuit with what appeared to be old-fashioned balloon pants, brown leather boots, and gloves.

"Doesn't make it any less annoying," Riley bit back as she crossed her arms. "Alright, what is it? What do you want?" Riley questioned the cloak-wearer as Millie smirked.

"Well, I've been doing some searching around, and there's a rumour as to where All For One's gonna show up next. One of your guy's police dudes or whatever is gonna be funding some crook to draw'em out. And then, that's our chance to get'em! It's gonna happen tomorrow at 4 pm, and it'll be at the local supermarket building!" Millie replied in an excited, but hushed tone of voice.

Riley, on the other hand, felt sick to hear that. "What…? So wait, the police are corrupt here? I thought this place was safe from that?"

Millie shrugged her shoulders as they hopped down from the dumpster, before leaning up against the wall. "Corruption can happen anywhere. It's just a fact of life. But hey, if it benefits us, who are we to prevent it?" As Millie said that, she stood in front of Riley, who dwarfed her by at least a foot and two inches.

"That's…." Riley's words died in her throat as she sighed. "Nevermind," Riley deadpanned as she stuffed her hands into her pockets. "So, what, go to the store at 4 pm tomorrow, and they're bound to be there?" Riley questioned as Millie nodded.

"Exactly! Catch ya later!" And like that, Millie twirled her pointer finger in a circle, before hopping through the ring and transforming into an animal—this time it was a dalmatian dog—before sprinting away from the alleyway, leaving Riley all by herself.

As she exited the alleyway, Riley let out a frustrated sigh. Of course, that was how things were going to develop. This town was already fucked as it was, what with most of the population being a bunch of brainwashed dumpster twits, but now they had morally bankrupt and corrupt police officers too?

"Well, fuck. If it wasn't for the Wittebane's, I would be outta here…" Riley thought as she stared across the street. Across the street from her, was a brown-skinned, brown and white-haired girl, staring at her with a raised eyebrow. She stared back with an equal amount of confusion, only for something in her to click.

She recognized that person… someone who she hadn't seen in a long, long time. Not since her father's brother had passed away had she seen them.

In a bid of confusion, Riley called out to the person on the other side of the road.

"Luz?"

xxXXxxXXxx

Luz was starting to get the idea that this town hated her as she walked out of a locally owned comic store, the echoes of the owner calling her a freak and a monster as he threatened to call the police rattling about in her mind. She'd say it was racism, but it had happened to her at a few other stores too, and it was beginning to feel like something a little more than racism on behalf of some of these store owners and managers.

In fact, from her perspective, it felt as if it more had to do with a pattern of events, rather than her just being extremely unlucky—which up to this point she had been believing.

Fool her once, shame on her.

Fool her twice, shame on the person fooling her.

Fool her three times, well, now you were asking for trouble.

Don't get Luz wrong, she wasn't going to get mad at the guy who had kicked her out—although she was more than certainly annoyed by him—because it wasn't just him. If it had just been him, then it would be a completely different story. To explain what she was getting at, the 7-11 down the road kicked her out for "being a threat to other customers", as did the library, as did the Papa John's Pizza place for the same reasons. And now, the comic store did the same thing, only a little bit more… hatefully.

Once again, she could pull the racism card, but when other people of similar skin tone to herself were allowed in just fine, she came to the conclusion that it most certainly wasn't racism, and was in fact something else entirely.

That, and this wasn't a recent development either. A week or so after she had been freed from that awful death camp, places she used to regularly frequent now forbade her from entering. It started small, but then as the days and weeks passed, almost 99% of the town's stores and local businesses refused her entry. Oh sure, her mother was allowed in, but she was not.

The only places that allowed her entry were the donut shop she had gone to yesterday, the local corner store, and the Shoppers Drug Mart. Everywhere else? To hell with her. Oh, and she also found out that she wasn't allowed within ten meters of any of the schools, either.

And she had a feeling as to who was to blame.

Sheriff Johnson.

Now, why did she think that way? Because Sheriff Johnson was a relative of Cody Johnson—the boy whom she stole the flame power from, and gave away to a man who was in desperate need of a lighter. And, apparently, the boy went missing and was presumed dead. Seeing as she had a reputation for what she did in the forest, it was obvious to assume that Sheriff Johnson may or may not have been throwing his weight around to blacklist her from basically every business within Gravesfield.

Now, typically, she would be stomping her way over to that man's office and "politely ask him" to undo the stupid shit he was doing. However, Luz figured that all that would do was confirm his bias against him. That, and she already had a bad rep as it was, making it worse would only make public reception to her mere existence even more troublesome than it already was.

So, what was she to do, knowing that she was basically softcore banned from being a person within her hometown? The answer was actually quite simple: Amazon and Youtube.

For as much as Sheriff Johnson thought he was smart, he really wasn't. Banned from a store? Cool, use Amazon Delivery to get what she wanted. Need to learn something? Youtube had learning and school channels for a reason. And if she needed more tools for education at her disposal? Khan Academy worked too.

Was it perfect? Fuck no. But between that and moving out of Gravesfield, where she had obligations to deal with and getting rid of the Wittebane's was not an option. She was going to make them pay for what they did to both Julia and for colluding with Governor Maxwell. She was not about to let them get away with that.

Luz sighed, as she walked down the sidewalk so that she could go home. No longer was she wearing her now destroyed suit—which her mom was patching up—as she was now wearing what she'd normally wear, that being her favourite hoodie, shirt, and shorts combo. She skipped out on the leggings because it was way too hot for that nonsense. 112 degrees Fahrenheit was not legging weather. Hell, it wasn't hoodie weather, but the shirt was so thin, and with her sweating like a pig… yeah, absolutely not.

As she walked by an alleyway, she couldn't help but stare down it, only to bare witness to a bunch of drug addicts high off their marbles. Luz felt repulsed and kept walking. The fact that people would so willingly fall into that crap… honestly disgusted her.

Life was precious. To waste it like that made her furious.

Glancing over to the other side of the road and over to the other sidewalk, she watched as someone transformed into a dog and pranced away, while a redhead walked out of an alleyway.

A redhead that she knew.

It was Riley… her father's niece.

Her dead father's niece.

It was her cousin Riley…. And she was in town. She never once said anything to her mother about it, either. And with how Riley was looking at her, that being in shock…. Luz watched as Riley shook her head, then motioned for the crosswalk up ahead. But Luz had no time for that, and activated Springlike Limbs, hopping over the street and landing next to her cousin, before enveloping her in a large hug.

"OHMYGOSHYOU'REINTOWNANDYOUDIDN'TEVENSAYANYTHING!" Luz spoke so fast that most of what came out of her mouth barely so much as even made coherent sense, yet the laugh of her cousin made it all the more clear that she was able to understand what she had said.

"Heya Lu, what's up?" Riley said, ruffling her hair as Luz let go of her cousin. She hadn't seen her since she was 6, and that was at her papa's funeral. But the moment she saw that head of red hair, she knew that it was Riley. And who could forget her bright blue eyes! Luz sure as hell couldn't. Especially when she was being glared at for perhaps drawing all over her diary all those years ago…. "You're hair's different. What's with all the white?" Riley questioned, dragging Luz out of her thoughts as the All For One wielder chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Stress…. Uh, did you read the news?" Luz questioned, her expression shifting from excited to neutral in a matter of seconds as Riley frowned.

"Oh… yeah, I heard about that. Are you okay? Your mom was posting some scary stuff on Facebook saying you had been in the hospital and were in for emergency surgery. After that, she stopped updating her page, and we all thought the worst had happened…." Riley said as Luz frowned. So that's why she didn't bother to talk to her mom and tell her that she was in town. Her family thought she was dead….

"I see…" Luz muttered as she chewed the inside of her lip. "Well, um. I'm okay! But, uh… the doctor said I'd probably have PTSD from the event. I mean, yeah, it makes sense. And, well, the surgery obviously went well considering I'm alive," Luz replied as Riley smiled, nodding.

"Well, that's good," Riley paused, as she rocked back and forth on her heels before she spoke up again. "Uh… so you got some sort of spring power, huh?" Riley asked as Luz bit her lip.

"Er… kinda?" Luz began, as she smiled. "I mean, I have more than just that. But, uh…. Tell you what, you come over to the house so that mama can see you, and we'll have a nice long discussion about it over dinner, yeah?" Luz said as Riley raised an eyebrow. There was almost a calculating confusion in her eyes before the redhead spoke up again.

"Uh… sure. I have been meaning to catch up with Camila for a while. Even if we're not blood-related, I still see her as family," Riley said as she stuffed her hands into her pockets. Luz smiled as she walked home, Riley following close after her.

Today, Luz decided, had been a good day.

-To Be Continued-

Short chapter, I know, but I still have a lot of build-ups to do. This arc is more or less a build-up arc, along with hints of world-building and major character introductions. So, yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you all in the next one. Peace!