The air was clear. Low humidity. Crisp. Every light in the city battled and won the starry sky above so that only the light of man shone triumphant in the dark of night. The city was alive. Electric. 

Rena stood upon a tall building gazing down over the quiet din. With the aura sense activated, Rena tried to gauge the maximum distance she could perceive the aura of a human being. 

“I’m not seeing much. Uhhh. I can see a few in the building next to us.” Rena pointed. To her it appeared as a normal building, but several dull embers jittered within it. This was the first test Wren and Akuna had come up with for Rena to further her abilities. 

“That’s about ohhhh… 300 meters?” Akuna said, merely gauging the distance by looking. “How visible are the auras? Can you determine their color?” 

“Um. Not really. Usually when I look from a bit of a distance most people’s auras don’t have much color. I can kind of tell them if they’re a bit closer. I can see one that’s brighter. A lot brighter than the others.”

“Very interesting.” Akuna scribbled something on a sheet of paper she had clipped to a clipboard.

“What are you writing?” Wren said. She still wore her mask and full costume. She had had to do some gymnastics to get all three of them on top of the building. Akuna had experienced this before, and didn’t like it. To Rena it was terrifying. 

Akuna wore a simple domino mask. Rena wondered about her costume. Was the lab coat a costume? Didn’t seem like enough. Although Akuna probably didn’t do any work from outside a room, due to the nature of her abilities. Rena felt naked with no costume. Shouldn’t I be trying to hide my identity? Am I superhero now?

“I’m writing the information on Rena’s power obviously. We’re supposed to learn about them remember? Or do you think you can hold all the information in your memory?” Akuna said without looking up from her writing. 

“You’re not gonna get anywhere trying to math this out. This kind of power isn’t something you can constrain to numbers. It’s feeling. Sometimes it can vary by day.” Wren said, believing whole heartedly that she knew what she was talking about. 

“Then if a feeling effects the power wouldn’t that be good information to write down too?” Akuna said. Wren didn’t respond. 

Rena looked all the way down to the street. She could see the auras of individuals like burning ants on a sidewalk. As cars rushed by the trails left in vision by the passengers’ auras mingled with the trails left by the car’s tail lights. A rainbow colored symphony. 

“When I was in that convenience store when those guys were robbing it, I tried to do something.” Rena said. Looking down at a hand, then a fist, then a hand. “It was something I’d seen somebody do once. They could like…. Wrap their aura around stuff to control it when it left their hand? I tried it with a candy bar. Ha.” Rena suddenly felt a pang of guilt, and embarrassment. “I didn’t throw it or anything so I don’t know if it actually worked.” 

“Aw now you’ve been holding out on us!” Wren descended from the rooftop air conditioning unit she had parked on top of. “Now that’s something we can test. Ok.” Wren looked around on top of the rooftop. Scanning for a small object. When she had searched for a little too long Akuna produced a pen from her breast pocket. 

“Try it with this?” Akuna said, walking it over to Rena. 

“Aha! Poindexter’s pocket protector! Always comes in handy!” Wren was eager to offer, having failed to provide anything of worth a second ago. 

“Ok. I guess we’ll see.” Rena took the pen and looked at it. She closed her eyes and centered herself. She tried to extend her aura around the object she could feel but not see in her palm. 

“Oooh. That’s good.” Wren said. 

Rena opened one eye and looked at her. “What is?” 

“I can see you doing it. You’re doing something. Your Shin is shifting.” 

“Where did you learn it was called that? Did somebody teach it to you?” Rena said, losing a bit of concentration, and feeling strange that Wren could see her doing something she could not see. 

“Yeah. Somebody taught it to me. I won’t say who of course. There were a few of us. Students. Usually this kind of thing is learned naturally through tough discipline, or someone can teach it to you.” Wren responded, crossing her arms. 

“Notice that Wren is certainly not in the discipline camp.” Akuna said. 

Wren ignored the comment. “My master called this Shin. He would scold you when you pronounced it wrong. He always would make sure you understood it was kinda like sheen. Like a glow. ‘Shin encompasses life energy, soul, and body, united as one.’” Wren recounted with her eyes closed. “To certain practitioners, Shin is everything. They spend their entire lives studying it, attempting to master it. Many die seeking mastery. I don’t know, it’s all so whatever to me. Once you’ve developed a good power, why keep looking? Most the other kids in my group. They went hard. Sparring all the time. It didn’t do them any good…” Wren trailed off. Deep in thought. 

“You were a kid when you learned it?” Rena asked, now more interested in Wren’s story than her own task in hand. 

“You’re getting distracted. It’s not important. Focus on that pen.” Wren returned to reality. 

Rena tried to center herself again. After a short while it was done. She opened her eyes. 

Rena could feel it without even needing to open her eyes, and she could see it as well. The pen now was wreathed in her own aura light. It flickered dimly, as if caught with ghost fire.” 

“Wow you did it. Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Wren said. She got close and bent in to look at the pen. “Nice work. Very nice work. Now. What can you do with it?” 

“I… I don’t know?” Rena said. She balanced the pen between her two index fingers. “I didn’t even know it would work. The guy I got the idea from used it to… strike.” 

“Strike?” Akuna said. 

“You know, like. Bowling. He would only bowl perfect strikes.”

Akuna and Wren shared a glance. Then Wren ran to the other side of the rooftop. “Hit me!” She called from the distance. 

Rena looked, concernedly, at Akuna. Akuna simply shrugged, and cleared a path for the test. 

Rena cocked back her arm in imitation of a pro baseball pitcher and, with her best strength, launched the pen in Wren’s direction. It slammed into the ground about 10 feet away. Aura dissipating. 

            After a short moment of stillness, Wren walked back to Rena. 

“That wasn’t even good as a normal throw.” Wren said. Rena felt absolutely dejected. She looked at the pen lying pitifully upon the slate of the top of the building. “But hey! Not bad for a first try. Hey look, you’re progressing really fast. For most people it takes years to be able to do that. Feel good about yourself!” Wren placed her gloved hand on Rena’s shoulder. The contact did actually make Rena feel a little better. Akuna made a few notes on her clipboard, and Wren shot her a glare. 

“Uh. Great job! I can’t see Shin so I have no idea what you’re doing but I’m sure you’re extremely talented!” Akuna attempted. Rena felt worse again. 

Back in the darkly lit HQ, the trio regrouped. Several attempts at gauging various uses for the aura technique Rena was trying to develop were conducted. None provided any usable data, at least to Rena’s estimation. Akuna continued to scribble little notes with each attempt. Wren detected how Rena’s spirits were lowering with each attempt, and decided to call it a night. 

“Listen. It’s your first day. You said you got powers a few days ago. Believe me, most people don’t have it this easy. You may not be able to do any cool stuff yet but you’ll get there in no time. I promise!” Wren was doing her best to cheer up Rena. Rena did not feel too down, she didn’t expect to get anywhere, let alone be in this position at this point, or ever in her life. 

“I’m alright. It’s no big deal.” Rena said, but still Wren could not shake a sense of dejectedness coming from the girl. 

Akuna plopped down in her usual chair, took off her domino mask, and replaced it with her thick framed glasses. She immediately went to typing hurriedly on something. Rena thought it was code, of some sort. Maybe a database. 

“Hey, Akuna?” Rena ventured. 

“Huh?” Akuna verbalized. 

“Hehe. She hates to be bothered when she’s ‘working’.” Wren said, also taking off her mask.

“It’s fine. Go ahead.” Akuna said, still hammering the keys.

“I don’t know uh… I know I’m not supposed to ask how people’s powers work but uuuh. Um. I guess…” Rena trailed off. 

“She’s a freaking super genius, dude. You don’t even know. She can make all sorts of stuff.” Wren cut in. Quickly, Akuna stopped typing and silenced Wren with a motion of her finger. 

Akuna swiveled to face Rena. “It’s debatable I have any powers, but basically I can work well with machines and systems. That’s as best I can describe it to a normal person.”

“A normal person?” Rena asked. 

“No I mean like…” Akuna chose her words carefully. “Do you know a programming language? Any language?” 

“No. I learned some html in college I guess?” Rena offered, not feeling particularly smart about it. 

“When you look at a programming language it doesn’t make any sense to you, when I look at it I can pick it up pretty intuitively. It’s second nature. The same goes for certain types of machines. When I look at it I don’t see a bunch of cables and bits, I can see it like the body of an organism.” 

“Huh.. Ok.” Rena’s mind went to the examples of super science she had seen in various media, fiction and nonfiction. Rockets that can travel the stars, suits of metal armor that turned a person into a walking army, powerful weapons of mass destruction. Oh. “Like that ray gun?” She pointed at the green raygun still sitting on the table beside her. 

Akuna looked over at it. She had forgotten it was even there. Wren brought it in the other night when she had taken care of those thugs in the store. “I suppose so, yes. Though I have a distaste for weapons.” Akuna turned back to her screen and began typing again.

“I, for one, love weapons.” Wren said proudly. All things considered Rena thought it was a pretty strange thing to say. 

“Are you planning on doing something with that gun?” Rena asked. Rena had developed a much more nuanced understanding of Wren’s personality throughout the course of the night. She gave Rena the impression of a party girl, but if partying were beating people up in alleys. She had a particular zeal when it came to matters of violence, and seemed to consider herself very confident and capable. She had sort of threatened to kill Rena a few minutes into their first meeting after all. 

“Nah. Guns aren’t for me. I’ll probably sell it. I like knives. Blades. You know. Obviously. Hahaha.” Wren leaned back in her chair. 

“You’re gonna sell somebody a raygun?” Rena asked. She had to ask. I had to ask. 

Wren laughed heartily. “Not just anybody, silly. That kind of tech is dangerous on the streets. You know what it can do. The idiots I took it from didn’t even know how to use it. No idea where they got it. We’re looking into that by the way. Nah there are people who deal in super technology, and superweapons like that. I know a guy. It’ll probably fetch a pretty penny.” 

Rena considered this information. 

“It’s my solemn duty to get weapons of mass destruction off the streets and out of the hands of children!” Wren triumphantly proclaimed, doing her best hero pose with her hands on her hips while sitting in her swivel chair. 

Suddenly, Rena checked the time on her phone. It was almost 2 AM. She didn’t have to get home so quickly, but she quickly envisioned Sylvie in her psychic form, invisible, stalking her for being out too late. “I should probably go.” 

“Alright! No problem.” Wren said. “Just wait a sec. I’ll be right back.” Wren got up and went into the other room. In a few minutes she returned wearing a normal t-shirt and jeans. Rena was surprised to see her out of her superhero outfit completely. It was like looking at a normal person, except for the purple streaks in her hair, well, that wasn’t really abnormal for people Rena knew either. 

“Check this out.” Rena watched as Wren’s aura flared, her entire body went up in light, and dissipated. With the aura went the purple streaks in Wren’s hair. “Real life magical girl transformation.” 

Wren and Rena stood on a curb a ways outside of HQ, waiting for Rena’s ride to come. Akuna didn’t even offer a goodbye when Rena left but Wren was adamant about walking her out. 

“Hey. I’m really proud of you today. Don’t feel bad. You’re doing really impressive things.” Wren said. “It’s a big step contacting a superhero and actually getting anywhere. Let me tell you all the times I’ve tried to do that and failed..” 

“Really? How many times.” 

“Just one.” Silence hung. “But really. You’re doing some big things for yourself. Things are all gonna work out. It’s gonna be alright.” 

Rena was struck by the overwhelming kindness, as well as perplexed by the underlying tones of pity? It was certainly pity right? Rena felt conflicted. Wren had proven to be far more personable and willing to help than Rena could ever dream of. In actuality, Rena felt strange, it was like the entire night she was simply floating, observing the unbelievable actions of the person she thought of as herself. The life she had just lived for a few hours, and the life of earlier in the day felt wholly separate, and it was difficult for her to reconcile them now that the day was almost over. To Rena it felt like she was still in a dream, and any second she could wake up. Any second the last few days could be a distant memory. A vivid fantasy. 

“How do you deal with all this? You know. How do you keep your real life and all this separate?” Rena asked, looking at the near empty street. 

“Huh? What was that? My real life?” Wren asked, coily. Rena immediately realized she had said something wrong. Wren giggled. 

“This is my real life. When I’m on these streets at night, busting thugs with Akuna, that’s real life to me. When you enter this kind of lifestyle you need to make a choice. You either give yourself over almost completely to one side. Mundanity is safe. Relatively. For me, it’s never been an option. How could I not use the things I can do? How could I pass this up? Know what I mean?” 

Rena was looking at the pavement. The cracks in the sidewalk. Dirt in the cracks. 

“I think you’ll know what I mean soon enough.” 

On cue the uber car came around the bend and got slower as it approached its passenger. 

“Thank you, Wren. You’ve done a lot for me.” Rena said, still looking at the cracks in the pavement. Hoping for an ant to crawl by. It was too dark to see any ants on the ground. 

“And we’re not done yet!” Wren brought Rena into a short hug. It absolutely shocked Rena. This person she didn’t even know, but had known from afar for so long. “We’ll be in touch, partner.” She emphasized the last word. 

Rena climbed into the car. When she looked out the window Wren was gone.