Dupes: Part 1
On Friday afternoon, as planned, the Heroes League landed on Central High's lawn.
The Rocket looked exactly right. The Feds had the original design for the World War 2 era Rocket, so it probably hadn't been hard to come up with something similar looking to the current version.
Captain Commando had Cassie's build -- her mask hid her face and hair, so that was easy too. Whoever put her costume together did a great job since they only had TV to go on. The precise wave of the flag on her chest wasn't quite right, but would pass, and obviously the sword wasn't functional.
I didn't see any major flaws in the Mystic's or Storm King's costume either.
We'd talked with them on Thursday over the phone arranging things, and they did what they were supposed to -- they went through the school looking for something. They didn't say exactly what.
With permission from the principal, they checked every classroom in the school, not paying any special attention to us.
It worked perfectly.
I actually saw Mr. Sledge guiding them through the school. They stopped next to the door during my physics lab, and Mr. Sledge looked in while "the Mystic" closed his eyes, concentrated, and then declared the classroom clean.
It took them a while to get through the whole school. They must have been inside when school let out, because they were on the lawn with a crowd of students surrounding them when I walked out.
Sean seemed to be talking to them.
I considered going over to find out what they were saying, but Chris had cornered me, and he wanted to talk.
We walked a little bit down the sidewalk from the school's entrance, past the buses waiting for students, but not so far that we were past the parking lot across the street.
The key point being that we were out of earshot, standing just across the street from where I'd fought with Sean.
"Who are those guys?" Chris glanced in the direction of the school.
"I don't know their real names, but someone guessed at some of the Heroes League's identities, and this is how we're dealing with it."
"Who?"
"I don't think I should say. Believe me it'd make your life more complicated than you want it to be."
Chris' smiled for a second. "More complicated than it is? Sean sent one of his buddies, Dayton, I think, to see if I was interested in helping with some team he was forming, and it's the second time he's asked. I already know about you, and the Feds dropped by after Justice Fiend left. They asked me if I knew anything about the Ball or the Maniacs or whatever."
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Justice Fiend seemed like last year, I thought, and then another thought struck me -- Justice Fist. How hard had Sean been thinking when he came up with the group's name? Justice Fiend seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't take the potential confusion very well at all. I decided not to go into that for the moment though...
"What did you tell them?"
"Dayton or the Feds?"
"I'm assuming you didn't tell the FBI anything. What did you tell Dayton?"
The expression on Chris' face told me I didn't even need to ask.
"I told them no. I don't like Sean much in person. In costume I like him even less. Did you see that shit? Slamming that guy into the ground? I mean, not like Jack Maniac deserves better, but Sean could have killed him. You think about it for a second, if he'd lost his temper, he might have killed us."
"I did think about that."
"One more reason that I wonder whether I should ever put a costume on. I was terrified the whole time. You think about our grandfathers... For them it was second nature. I'm not like that."
"Me neither. I'm usually scared too. It's just that I get too busy fighting to think about it most of the time."
"Yeah? I guess it's good to know I'm not the only one, but I'm still going to think long and hard before I do anything else. Hey, we were talking about bringing the Ball back. Are you done with it yet?"
"No, but I don't think I'm going to get to it for a while. I'll just bring it back tonight, and maybe we can just experiment with it on Saturday or something."
"Sure. That sounds like fun."
Shortly after that, Chris took his car home, and I took my bike.