After a few minutes of soaring above the ground, riding on updrafts and the wind. I banked a hard left and turned right toward city hall before finally dripping down onto the ground back into my human form.
“Amazon, are you near base yet. We’re all waiting for you.” Psy asked me through the mindlink she had established. Psy was my best friend and the team’s resident psychic.
“Right outside the front entrance, do you think you could unlock it for me?”
“Yep.” there was a slight pause. “Okay, Amazon, it’s unlocked you can go in now.”
I faced the brick apartment building that stood next to city hall. Squinting I walked forward and held out my left hand and watched with awe, as I always did, as my hand exploded into a kaleidoscope of light. The light dimmed as I walked forward and found myself once again, in the familiar hallway of our base.
Our base was large and rotund. It was also quite musty due to the fact that we were located under a giant apartment complex, but hey we took what we could get.
“I can’t believe Amazon would do that, is she trying to get herself killed?” a male voice demanded angrily.
“I can’t tell you what made her do it Mecha, but it worked.” Psy replied, in an exasperated tone. “At least she did something, unlike you. You’re just a useless hunk of metal!”
When the words metal and useless come from sweet little Psy’s mouth you know things are going to get nasty, so I stepped inside, if only to stop the fighting.

“Knock it off you two!” I snapped as I prowled into the room.

“Sorry, Mecha here was just being an idiot and over protective to boot.” Psy’ dark chocolate eyes danced with both amusement and frustration. She flipped her chocolate locks off of her shoulder and promptly walked away leaving Mecha standing slightly confused and off to the side.
“Amazon… What you did…” Mecha began to stutter as I approached. He ran his hands through his blond hair.
“Was reckless?” I guessed. “Completely insane? Potentially life threatening?” I snapped.
“Actually I was going to say reckless, but those work too.” he smirked, his brown eyes boring into my green ones.
“By doing that, you almost lead them straight to our base. You put Magi in danger. Not to mention you could have been seriously hurt, or worse, dead!” he yelled his voice quivering with emotion.
“I hate to interrupt this touching moment,” a voice interrupted. We both turned and saw Magi, our resident wizard, cockily leaning against a wall. “But I do believe we need to debrief and then get the hell out of here. I don’t know about you lot, but I have homework. Lawrence has been on my back for weeks about it and I must get it done.” the boy said lazily in his clip british accent. He blew a piece of black hair away from his blue eyes.
“Y-yes,” Mecha straightened. “You’re right, alright team let’s head to conference room and debrief.” Mecha head toward our conference room leaving me standing beside Magi.
“For what it’s worth, love” Magi called back to me as he took his leave as well. “I thought you were bloody brilliant.” He winked at me and continued on his way.
I blushed at the cheeky Brit before finally stepping inside of the debriefing area.

“So, we can all call today’s mission somewhat of a success,” Mecha announced with an air of authority. “Because of this I will not put Amazon on standby for recklessness.”

“What! You can’t do that!” Magi raised his voice.

“I can, and if necessary I will!” Mecha retorted.

“At least she did something! Unlike you who sits here on his butt in the control center.” Mecha snapped. “You don’t have any right to call yourself a hero, if anything you’re a glorified secretary! Amazon has more courage and more strength in one ounce than you have in your entire body, you bloody git!”

Everyone sat there shocked at Magi’s sudden out burst. If there was one thing to be said about Magi, it was that he was extremely loyal and if anyone messed with his fellow teammates he would snap.

“I’ll have you know, my friend,” Mecha retorted, his voice dripping with loathing. “That while she may have more courage and strength, Amazon also has more stupidity than even you have, which says something!” Mecha huffed.

“Hold up!” I interrupted holding my hand to both sides. “Did you just insult me to try and insult him?”

“Ummmm….” Mecha trailed off avoiding eye contact.

“I don’t know why you two are suddenly fighting but I have had it! I may have been reckless Mecha, but at least I wasn’t a jerk. And you, Magi, why are you all of the sudden so defensive about what others say about me?” I questioned him. “If you two are going to continue to act like complete and utter idiots then Psy and I will just head home, Come on Psy!” I stormed out with Psy trailing behind me and leaving the two boys staring confused in my wake.

“You really shouldn’t have stormed out that way, Tobi!” Psy said pulling me to a stop. I gasped she used my real name. “I know you are already regretting what you said.” Her big brown eyes were boring into mine.

“I just said what you were thinking!” I snapped back.

“You couldn’t have. Unlike me you can’t read minds!” she giggled.

“Well, I am not sorry!” I huffed.

“You may not regret your actions, Tobi, but I can see that you regret hurting them like that.” Psy pushed me back towards headquarters. “You may not want to apologize right now,” She glanced at me knowingly. “But you should at least let us both get changed.”

I looked down at my attire and sighed, still in uniform. I held my hand up to the sky for a moment before walking quickly back to the base’s secret entrance. It opened and the two of us stepped inside and quickly went to our individual lockers and to the bathroom to change, all while I avoided the two idiots. After changing back into my civilian clothing I quietly stepped back into the immense hallway.
“Ahem.” I turned around and saw that it had been Mecha clearing his throat and looking at me sheepishly. “Amazon, I want to apologize to you,” he began. “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. It was just, you scared me back there. I have never lost a team member before and I don’t want to lose one now.”

“I understand, Mecha. I’ll try to be a little more careful next time.” I turned to exit the building.

“Wait,” he exclaimed, his hand gripping my wrist. “Please promise me you’ll be safe on your way home. Please don’t get caught sneaking back inside,” he begged.

“Will do Cap’n” I laughed before heading back towards the stop
I ran back to where Psy was waiting for me, a smirk adorning her small face.

“I take it he apologized to you.” she quipped.

“As a matter of fact he did. He was actually really humble... Did you do something, Maya?” Her smirk widened into a grin as she heard the seriousness in my voice as I used her real name.

“You know for a fact Tobi, that I don’t use my powers for that purpose, ever!” She sighed. “I would never do that to my teammates.” She corrected herself.

We continued walking on in silence, until we finally reached her street. “I’m off, see you tomorrow in school.” Maya waved goodbye. I waved back and continued walking off towards my own street. I paused, hearing something behind me, and turned around quickly before jumping into a bush and quickly transforming into an alley cat. I poke my head out of the bushes and sniff around, the coast smells clear and I quickly run off towards my own street and the safety of my own comfortable bed.

Then, once again I heard the footsteps of someone running a short distance behind me. I just had to get to my house, there were safety spells on it. After I began my nightly jobs I asked Magi to put some enchantments onto my house so that my family was protected from any of the “friends” I’d make while I was working. So far, my house has remained safe and my family out of harm’s way, a fact I was thankful for. It seemed, though, that tonight I was the one in need of this enchantment. My paws sputtered to a stop as I reached my house. It was a beautiful colonial, with lovely brick walls and ivy trailing along the sides. I was especially thankful for the ivy tonight, because I could easily climb it and rach my window. I would not lead an intruder into my sanctuary. My heart was beating erratically as I began to traipse the foliage.

I pulled myself up gracefully through the window with the cat like reflexes that I now possessed. Once I reached the inside of my room I flopped down onto my comfortable bed and transformed back into my human form. I closed my eyes briefly before finally being lulled into a dreamless sleep.
~

When I awoke the next morning to my alarm, I was quite refreshed. Stretching my arms, I pulled myself out from beneath the comfortable sea of covers that had been enveloping me. I stepped out and began to dress for the day. It was monday morning and I had to go to school. Looking at my clock, I realized that my parents had already left for the day. I guess I’ll have to call Maya to come pick me up this morning on her way to school. I heard a soft merow from the doorway and looked down to see my small cat Toni rubbing herself against my leg.

“Hi there kitty cat! How are you doing?” I asked bending down to pet her.

“Merow,” she purred back arching her head against my hand.

“Sorry, you had to sleep outside last night. I just couldn’t get you. I was out all night.” I sighed. Since joining the team this had become a normal occurrence in the mornings. I ran down stair after finishing in my room and called Maya asking if I could get a ride.

“Sure,” she squeaked, in her high voice. “I’ll be there in five minutes don’t forget to grab your breakfast.


As I stepped out onto my front porch and locked the door behind, I noticed a note had been place by my front door. Stooping low I picked it up and began to read it.

Dear Amazon,

Hello my dear, it was a pleasure to see you in action last night. You really do have such a lovely home. It is quite unfortunate for you that your friend’s little magic spell won’t work when I’m around. If you don’t stop messing with my group’s plans I won’t be afraid to drag you family into this mess that you have created. Don’t tell your friends about this, I will find out.

Yours lovingly,

Smother

I cringed at the words that popped out at me. One question continued to race through my mind, how in the heck did this person get my address? How on earth did he manage to get past Magi’s unbreakable spells? My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden screech of tires.

“Hey Tobi!” Maya chirps as she opens the passenger side door for me. “Whatcha reading?” she asks as she takes in the piece of paper in my hands.

“Um….. It’s just the study guide for today’s test!” I improvise.

“Wait we have a test?” she begins to freak out about how she didn’t study and how her parents will probably kill her and ground her until she’s dead.

“If you’re dead,” I politely point out to her. “then you won’t be grounded.” She seems to calm down quite a bit, even though I just pointed out that she wouldn’t technically be grounded if she were dead.

“Wait a minute!” she stops crying suddenly. “We don’t have a test today, our test is tomorrow silly!” She flashes me an excited smile as she realizes that once again her GPA is safe.

“So, were you really looking at a study guide?” she eyed me suspiciously.

“U-umm, yeah,” I hesitated, wrong move.

“So, what were you looking at, hmmm? Was it a love letter?” She questioned eyes still trained on the road and a mischievous smirk adorning her face. I felt my face growing bright red as she mentioned the letters I had been receiving in my locker for the past two years of high school.

“N-no, nothing like that! Why on Earth would I keep something like that?” In all reality though, I had kept every last one of those sweet little notes I had been left. I was still left wondering who was sending them.

“Why on Earth wouldn’t you keep something like that?” Maya yelled in astonishment as she turned to look at me with her wide brown eyes. She took in my furious blush with a smile.

“OOOOOOH!” she squeaked with surprise and excitement. “I bet you kept everyone of those little letters that you’ve found. I bet one day you two will finally meet and fall in love! Can I be your maid of honor? What theme will your wedding have, cause I think you should-”

“Enough Maya!” I yelped at her burying my now burning face behind my hands as I glanced up at her slowly. “We… we haven’t even met face to face yet. How will i know if it's actually someone who would mean all the things written in those letters? what if it’s someone trying to mess with my head? I don’t know what to do about that kind of stuff, Maya!” I squeaked.

She just chuckled at my growing discomfort and soon announced that we had arrived. I sighed grateful to the intervening heavens above as I stepped out of her car and began to go on my way.

The first class of the day was biology, a class I excelled at due to the fact that not only was I human but I could transform into any animal. This small fact allowed me to get into the mind view of the creatures that we talked about. I was also a genius when it came to molecular structures due to the fact that I had been experimented on as a child.

The class soon ended and I was pulled along in the flow of salmon like students hustling up stream to get to their next class. My next class was dreadful, pre calculus. I honestly have no idea why they put us through that kind of torture on a day to day basis. Every time I stepped into that classroom my heart died a little. My head kept drifting off to the note I had received just that morning.
Who would want to hurt me that badly, I wonder to myself as I absently took notes on the subject of logs and exponents. Maybe it was that shady group the four of us had been entangled with over the last couple of months. They were called The League, a group of under age super villans with powers strong enough to match our own from what we had gathered in our quest for information. Their leader was supposedly the smartest person on the planet earth and with looks to match making him or her a lethal combination. They had a hooligan with the ability to kick like a kendo master and throw fireballs simultaneously, a deadly weapon of precision and accuracy. They had a baby faced thug with the ability to pick up a house and throw it straight across lake Erie. Those three were villains, but never before had they even attempted to attack the four heroes at home, they knew full well the consequences of those actions. That left only one person, the mysterious robed figure that seemed to sap the life straight out of any fight between the two groups. The letter was from a person named smother, so that made sense. I growled in silent frustration.

My head still remained in the clouds as I walked to my next class. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings because I ran straight into the solid chest of my british friend’s twin brother.
Lawrence was the same height as his superhero twin brother Terrance. They both had the icy blue eyes and the jet black hair the drew attention to their strong facial features, but while Terrance’s wildly tousled black hair had gotten him labeled as a rebel and a troublemaker, his twin’s perfectly combed locks and clean way of dressing had caused Lawrence to be considered the star pupil of every teacher within a five mile radius, it also helped that he was a perfect gentleman.
“S-sorry Lawrence, I didn’t see you there.” I quickly began to apologize to him bowing my head in an apology.
He gave out a low chuckle that caused me to blush. “It’s quite alright, love. I wasn’t paying attention either.” his soft baritone replied. Did I forget to mention that both boys had taken to calling me love after almost every sentence. Lawrence did it to be kind, while Terrance just did it to see if he could get me to blush profusely.
“I- um, well i’ll be seeing you around I guess.” I stuttered. I had developed a bit of a crush on one of my best friend’s brothers, it was slightly awkward seeing as they shared the same face and voice.
“Hey, you’re coming over to our home this evening aren’t you?” he inquired politely, tilting his head slightly to left.
“Uh- yeah. Terrance wanted to play video games this evening. I guess I’ll see you then.” and with those parting words I scurried away.

The boy glanced back at the retreating figure of the girl he had had a crush on for years now. It was unfortunate that he had to threaten her the way he did, but his higher ups had demanded that she be knocked out of the way, if she thought her family was endanger then she won’t become involved, if she didn't become involved, he wouldn’t have to hurt her.
He looked back to where he had just been watching the girl round the corner. If only he had gotten to her first instead of that lousy rat Terrance, maybe she would’ve joined his side, the right side. The girl had no idea what power she could have held in her pretty little hands.

I continued on my way to my third period class, history. I have to admit next to science history in my favorite class. I love having to memorize all those dates and facts. I find it interesting to watch the human expansion and evolution of the human population of the world. I sit next to Terrace in this class as well which is also a plus.
People often wonder about how the two of us could ever be friends, for you see we are polar opposites. I am a nerdy bookworm, a straight A student with a love of books. He, on the other hand, is the school’s resident bad boy, wearing dark clothing and having piercings. Our two types don’t match normally in high school. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that the two of us are super powered teenagers we wouldn’t have met at all. It all started five years ago, my sixth grade year.
I had just come to town with nothing but the clothes on my back and a few dollars I had managed to scrape up. I had just run away from my old home. It was a sterile white space that seemed to envelope me in sameness and nothingness.
I had lived in that room since my creation twelve years before. I was a science experiment gone wrong, “a beautiful mistake”, they called me. I had no name, only a number that adorned my forearm, AHH-VE113. I had no idea at the time as to what those numbers meant, and I did not think that I wanted to either. The white walls made me feel claustrophobic, seeming to push in at me from all sides, sealing me inside the jail cell that was my domain. I hated it, so I ran away.

My captors would never have any idea where to find me, I was gone like their shadows at night. I ended up in a small city on the edge of the state. It was a perfect place to hide. All I had to do was convince someone to take me in. I was looking for a place to stay when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.
I recoiled in shock and terror, hoping it was not one of my dreaded captors. I quickly pivoted my body to face the hand’s owner and found myself face to face with a large pair of blue eyes. The eyes were connected to a pale face adorned with many freckles that covered the bridge of a small nose. Long black hair framed the wide eyed face of a boy about my age. I shrunk back, crouching into a defensive position.
The boy gave out a small laugh before offering me his hand. “I’m not going to hurt you, love.” he simply stated in a strange accent. My eyes widened, none of my captors had ever had an accent like that before. “It’s alright, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just saw you standing out here in nothing but your nightgown and thought you might be cold. Are you?” I tilted my head in confusion. No one had ever asked me how I was before. It was nice.
“No”
“Well, you sure are trying to catch one if you're standing about like that, love” I blushed at his words. No one had ever called me that before. “What’s you name?” He asked earnestly. “I’m Terrance!” He posed dramatically.
I cracked a smile before frowning again. What was my name? I’d never had one before. “AHH-V113,” I replied.
“That’s your name? What a queer name for a girl, or human to that extent. You know, now that I think about it you aren’t completely human are you?” he asked examining me from head to toe. I shook my head hesitantly. His face broke into a wide grin. “Well isn’t that lovely! I’m not completely human either.” he exclaimed with an enthusiasm that only a twelve year old could muster.
“What?” My head once again tilted to the side in curiosity.
“Yeah I can do loads more stuff than normal people can. Watch this!” He held out a hand and I watched in amazement as a flame flickered to life in his palm. I stepped back from him, every signal in my brain telling me to run away before this flame decided to devour me whole. I began to tremble and he extinguished the flame quickly. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked concerned.
“Fire.”
“What’s wrong with my trick?”
“Fire burns the world. It kills. It is bad.” I shivered in fear.
“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please don’t be scared.” He pleaded with those big blue eyes, and reluctantly, I found myself being dragged into trusting the willowy boy before me.
That little boy took me in. He helped me survive and for that I was truly grateful. I lived on my own now and paid for the bills with the reward money we often earned because being a hero is not cheap. I lived by myself with just a few pets that I have collected over the years so that I’m not lonely living on my own.