9

Keanan sat in Mr. Marsh’s office with a feeling of trepidation. It was a big triangular room, the back of the room was floor to ceiling windows. When he touched them they felt like metal even if thy were transparent, the knowledge mother had given him showed a couple of possibilities. He didn’t quite get why she had given him so much information on the properties of but almost none on other things. Like the awards, newspaper clippings, and trophies that lined the other two walls. The plaques on the trophies all didn’t make much sense neither could he understand what the awards meant. The newspaper clipping provided some context, but since he had no idea who they were talking about they were kind of useless too. In the pointed corner of the room stood a statue of a man and woman holding up a globe, the thing was solid copper. In front of the statue was a massive mahogany dest with platinum inlays, it seemed like a waste of platinum.

After Mr. Marsh left he had started examining the room, starting with one side and reading all of the articles, and plaques. Then he switched to the other side of the room. Then he spent some time looking out the window trying to conform what he could see, to a map mother had shown him. He eventually went to go examine the statues for a while, looking at the level of detail that had been worked into them. Finally he turned around and saw his mother. Ok, not mother, a picture of her, she looked younger too. He was so busy looking at the photo he almost missed his mother walking into the room, his real mother, not a photo.

“Mother, how did you get in here?”

“Same way I’m going to leave, the front door with a kind word to Steve.”

“Steve?”

“The security guard, nice guy, his daughter just turned two. Won’t stop showing the photo to anyone he can.”

“What does this picture mean, I thought you were a villain?”

“I am, and that picture means my dad is getting sentimental. He really shouldn’t have that on his desk.”

“Your father is Mr. Marsh?”

“Well yeah, why did you think I had a photo of him on my desk?”

“But he’s a hero.”

“The world isn’t quite that black and white Keanan. Just like you ran away from me to go all heroic, I went in a different direction from my parents.”

“What are you going to do to me mother?”

“Why would I do anything to you?”

“Because I ran away, and your evil.”

“Not so black an white, also apart from setting some new rules nothing.”

“New rules?”

“Yeah, new rule, no more calling me mother or mom. From now on call me sister, sis, or if you have to, Alecia.”

“Alecia?”

“Yeah, that’s my civilian name.You’re going to be staying at my house for the time being, my parents are going to be protecting you from your evil villain of a mother.”

“Umm?”

“The irony is not lost on me, that’s why I set this up. Now I need to get going. Don’t tell anyone who I am, don’t let the civilians connect your glamor with your real body, and you can show my parents your powers if you want to.”

“Were are you going?”

“Out, be back in two months or so.”

“But.” Too late, Mother was already leaving without looking back. 

---

Not very much later, but still long enough for Keanan to put down the photo of his mother and go  back to staring out the not glass windows nervously. Ares walked back into the room. he was looking a tad tired .

“So we’ve come to a decision about you, unless you’re willing to tell us who your mother is?”  Keanan shook his head silently. “Worth a shot, you will be staying with me and Uriel for the time being.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Alecia came in and told me.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“She told me to call her Sister, and that she would be back in two months.”

“Damn it, I wanted to talk to her before she left. Might as well call her sister, she gets stubborn about these things.”

“Ok, Mr. Marsh.”

“And you need to stop that, in costume my name is Ares, out of costume you can call me Bernard, under no circumstances call me Berny.”

“Yes Mr. Ares”

“What’s will using Mr. all the time?”

“Mother taught me to be polite to everyone, unless you can blow them up, then it doesn’t matter.”

“For a moment there I found myself agreeing with your mother, then it was ruined. Probably a good thing to be honest.”

“Mother had a lot of rules about social interactions that didn’t make much sense.”

“I shudder at the thought. Now kid, my daughter seems to think you want to be a hero, is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, we might as well give you an education while you’re here, teach you how things work.”

“Mother taught me a lot about how heroes and villains interact.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust her perspective.”

“She did keep calling herself insane.”

“Oh god, your mother is one of the self aware ones?”

“Maybe?”

“They tend to be crazier than they ones that don’t know they’re crazy. Please tell me she doesn’t call herself a fairy?”

“She doesn’t, but she has a couple on speed dial.”

“Just perfect. Look I have things to do until I can take you home in a couple of hours. So I’m going to get someone to keep an eye on you for the next couple hours until we can come up with something permanent.”

Almost on que a young female hero walked into the room. She was all in orange, like completely orange. The shading was such that her jumpsuit had the appearance of iridescent scales. Her face was covered with an orange visor that looked like it could be seen through easily but the light was always wrong, causing a glare. She leaned down looked at Keanan and smiled.

“Hello Keanan, my name is Koi. I’m a friend of Alecia.

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