It was a normal small car, Rena could discern from sitting inside. The thread obscured Rena’s sense of aura around her. She could not get a good look at either Wren’s or her partner’s auras or make any judgments about them. The car ride was smooth, crossing several times left and right navigating the square grid pattern of the city blind. Rena couldn’t tell if the driver was intentionally obscuring the path, or if the path was that complicated, and she didn’t really care either way. In the car, the music was cranked. A pop song Rena had heard everywhere was playing. Not a particularly good song, but not a bad one, with a very catchy tune. It covered Rena’s mind like a sheet, and the volume made it impossible to ignore. The two in the front seat were talking but Rena could hardly understand it. The music was too transfixing. 

Don’t know what I’d lost till I met you

Don’t know what I’d say if I’d lose you

Never knew this pain till I held you 

Don’t know how to say that I love you 

The music continued. A couple of songs had played since Rena entered the car and Rena knew the song had at least one minute left. She knew all the words. It was a song she liked, if overplayed, and it oozed into her consciousness like a salve. She sang the song in her head. Rena was now blindfolded in a car with her favorite superhero on her way to their secret lair. The initial meeting had made her nervous but Rena surprised herself with how normal talking to Wren had felt after a short while. Wren’s open personality helped, Rena had no idea what she would have done had Wren been mean. The context of the conversation had made Rena more uncomfortable than being in the presence of Wren. Without thinking it, subconsciously Rena was very happy that Wren seemed to have accepted her after not so much. 

After another song played, they arrived at the HQ. Rena was led into a door, still blindfolded. And once she was inside and the door was closed, the blindfold simply vanished off of her face. She blinked a few times, and saw before her Wren, still in her costume, and Wren’s partner. The girl was shorter than Rena, and thus a few inches shorter than Wren. She had dark skin with colorful hair braids tied back into a tight fitting style. She wore a white lab coat that came down to her knees. She was already sitting at a desk with several computers and instruments on it. Mechanical things. On one table Rena noticed the very same green raygun she had seen twice before. Wren spoke first. 

“So this is Akuna. Code name obviously.” Akuna raised a hand to say hi. She was still turned to her screen. “She’s the eyes of the operation. Any sort of camera footage and whatnot is all because of her.” This filled in a piece of information Rena had always wondered about. “She’s our resident genius and can make gadgets. One of those. You know.” 

Wren was referring to the group of people who had supernaturally increased aptitude with technology or mathematics. It was actually frequently debated whether or not this group of people was actually supernatural and should be classified as a super-class, but most people considered them such anyway. When supernatural abilities broached into mental faculties and intelligence there was always a lot of debate surrounding them. There was no surefire way to actually know if a ‘genius’ was a super-genius or just a very smart normal person. To most people anyway, the difference between Einstein and someone who could create anti gravity in their backyard was never an important concern. 

“Hey. What’s up?” Rena said. Akuna was clearly standoffish and probably didn’t want to talk with her at all. 

“Just so you know, this doesn’t mean we trust you or anything. I was telling Wren the entire time to stop talking to you and let you go about your day.” Akuna said. wheeling around in her chair. 

“Put a little harshly but yes, she’s right. I invited you here because I relate to you as I said before, and I think maybe you’re someone who could be useful. And I like the idea of teaching someone how all this insanity works.” Wren said. Rena did not like the phrase ‘someone who could be useful’.

“Also I’m taking off a night of patrolling for you. So be grateful. Also, what is your name?” Wren said. 

Oh yeah. We didn’t really introduce ourselves. Rena wondered for a moment if she should be giving out her real name to these people who already clearly expressed their distrust of her. It was no use wondering. She didn’t have a codename and could not possibly think of one now. “It’s Rena.” She spoke. 

“Alright, Rena.” Wren replied, with a smile.

She spun around another office chair and took a seat, crossing one leg over the other as she sank back and relaxed in the cushioned chair. Wren motioned for Rena to do the same. There was another chair behind her. The room wasn’t large, and there was a door that led further into the apartment, or whatever kind of building they were inside now. Rena got the sense that this was more Akuna’s space than Wren’s. 

“So. Continuing the lesson. Now that smarty-pants is here she can back me up on stuff I’m not good at explaining or don’t know about. Our power, Shin, can be learned by most people right? It just takes time and practice, and know-how. And it’s pretty much a secret because if it weren’t, and everyone had it, everything would just be too crazy and impossible to deal with right?” 

“Right.” Rena replied, sitting in her not very comfortable chair.

“Right. So. Even though it’s a secret for that reason, it doesn’t matter.” Wren said and paused. 

“Um. Ok? I don’t get it.” Rena responded. 

“The reason it doesn’t matter is because people with incredible abilities are, frankly, everywhere. Remember when I said there were people stronger than Protector? Yeah. There’s tons of them. Who knows how many. They could be anywhere at any time. They could be your next door neighbor, your best friend, or some kid getting on a school bus.” Rena’s mind immediately thought of Sylvie when she said ‘best friend’. 

“But how is that possible? Wouldn’t that mean there’d be chaos if there were tons of people with the power to kill the Protectors and go crazy?” Rena said. 

“The answer is no. And the reason is the most important thing you need to understand about all of this. Even if you had someone who could kill every member of Protector, and go on a killing spree and cause eternal darkness of whatever you can think of, they couldn’t actually do it.” Rena could tell Wren was getting some sort of mirthful glee from explaining this. 

“I don’t get it. Who would stop them? Or..” Rena said.

Akuna spun around in her chair and joined the conversation. “She’s intentionally explaining it confusingly because it’s fun for her.” 

“No I’m not!” Wren shot back at Akuna. 

“She’s explaining it poorly because she’s bad at explaining.” Wren frowned. “The reason they couldn’t is because of what Wren said earlier. There’s always a bigger fish. There will always be someone stronger, into infinity. There are countless supervillains who pop up, and some of them wield devastating power, but there’s always someone who likes how the world works now and doesn’t want to see it changed, and so they stop them. The reason society isn’t in chaos is because the desire to maintain the status quo is so strong in so many powerful individuals that even if someone tried to change it, they would be stopped, every time.” 

“But by who…?” Rena was starting to understand it but she still wanted more clarification. 

“By the bigger fish. Even if you think you’re the biggest fish, a bigger one will come along.” Akuna said.

Wren picked up where she left off. “Even with the power to shatter the earth, nothing would change in the end. That’s why nothing changes. Many super villains show up wanting to change the world for the better. Eliminate poverty, unfair differences, what have you. The reason it hasn’t been changed even if it would benefit everyone, is because there are a lot of people who like how their lives are now. Even if it would benefit them to change. The same goes for people who want to make things worse for everyone by plunging the world into darkness or creating a zombie apocalypse or something. More people don’t want that to happen, so it doesn’t happen. Democracy!” Wren did a pithy gesture upon the final word.

“More like tyranny.” Akuna added. “The world we live in is doomed to never change at a decent rate because of the whims of a few.” 

“She’s very negative about it, but it’s not that bad. I mean, we’re basically good on not dying randomly..” Wren added.  

“Untrue actually.” Akuna interjected. “It is theorized that the earth has been destroyed many times, and is simply remade or time rewound and put back exactly how it was pre destruction. There’s a lot of evidence for it. Not to say anything for the many people killed each year by random acts of super violence." 

The three sat in silence. Rena felt alone with the weight of this information. She felt a growing sense of the burden. The hand that threatened to grip her so tightly moved its fingers ever closer to each other. But why did she feel such a deep unease? Wasn’t it as Wren had put it? Humanity was relatively safe from sudden destruction. Shouldn’t that be enough? The life of relative middle-class comfort with a job in a small bowling alley where she could slack off as much as she wanted, go home and do whatever she wanted, essentially make whatever she wanted of her meager existence. It was all but guaranteed. What is there to fear? Life will continue unimpeded. There’s nothing to worry about. 

“That’s a… that’s a lot to take in.” Rena said. She scratched a small itch on her scalp. 

“I take solace in it. I’ve got a nice thing going here. I’m a freaking superhero! I’ve got a cute sidekick. I beat up bad guys and the cops can’t even do anything about it. This is a good life for me.” Wren said, and leaned back in contentment. 

“I’m not her sidekick.” Akuna said, eyes glued to her glowing screen. “If it weren’t for me this girl would probably be three stories deep in super prison by now.” 

“She’s got a bit of a point but it’s not that bad. The punishment for what we’re doing isn’t that severe.” Wren said, still reclining.

“Yeah but without me you’d probably have killed a couple people out of incompetence by now.” Akuna retorted. 

“Actually if the roles were reversed I think you would be the one doing all the killing and I’d be helpless to stop you.” Wren replied, snidely. 

“If the roles were reversed I wouldn’t need a sidekick to do the actual hard part for me.” 

“Aha! You admit it! Sidekick!” Wren pointed a gloved finger at Akuna, smiling like a child. 

“So…” Rena interjected. The two broke their attention from bickering. “Can you teach me? How to be like you?” Rena thought it strange to ask so directly, but she felt like if she let them continue on like they obviously normally did they would forget about her and make her leave with nothing but some depressing information. 

Wren swiveled her chair slightly with one foot and put her hand to her chin in the classic pose of consideration. 

“You want to be a vigilante?” Wren asked, somberly.

“I… I mean I wanted to… Uh..” What do I want to do? I don’t really want to try to be a superhero, do I? The question had of course crossed Rena’s mind before. Many a time in fact. Rena had often fantasized about having incredible power, flying around to people in need and helping them. Was that really what a superhero did though? Wren mostly just ran around beating up criminals and petty thieves. Was that something Rena could see herself doing? Didn’t exactly feel like the glamorous life of helping people and saving the day. Even if she had found some strength yesterday in the convenience store, if she had single handedly defeated all three of those thieves, would it lead to fulfillment? Rena had a difficult time imagining a single situation which led to her filling this sense of emptiness. She then realized that she only ever looked at Wren as a curiosity. She did not want to actually be like Wren, she just wanted to have the power to do what she wanted to, she wanted to live vicariously through that experience. To not feel powerless. Talking to Wren and learning the nature of this cruel world had only served to make her feel more powerless. But still, there was a yearning for more. Rena felt, still, a strong desire to learn. To see what she could do. 

“I guess I want to learn how to use my powers. Anything else… I haven’t thought that far yet.” Rena looked down at her hands, too shy to look at Wren in the face. 

Wren studied the timid girl in front of her for a moment then said “I think you have a lot of talent, which means you have a lot of potential. I can’t guarantee you’d be able to learn what I do. Most people’s powers manifest a little bit differently, but I can do my best to teach you some of what I know and hopefully that’ll be enough to get you on the path at the very least.” Wren pulled off her domino mask. It peeled off effortlessly, a wonder how it even stuck so securely at all. Rena saw now that there was nothing extraordinary about her. She was just another person, the same as her. She extended her hand and with a big grin spread across her face said “I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But for the time being, you can consider us partners.” Rena studied the hand, then shook it.