Super Powereds: Year 3 Read Free

one, he began keeping an emergency container of whiskey on him at all times. Hershel was easy-going, not stupid.
    “Hurry up!” Gus yelled from the arena. “We need you to check the saddles before tonight’s show!”
    “Hurrying,” Hershel called back, throwing his already pained body into motion. This hadn’t really been the sort of training he was anticipating when he asked his mother to find him a teacher, but if the protesting in his muscles and smaller waistline on his pants were any indication, it was certainly yielding results.
    Roy was less optimistic about their situation, but then again, what was new about that?
    *              *              *
    Sean Pendleton looked around the room anxiously. It was strange; there was a time when he’d have been filled with comfort to see so many masked faces perched atop flamboyant costumes. Then again, he would have been wearing one as well. Nothing so ostentatious, obviously, as Subtlety Heroes tended toward more muted color schemes. When Sean had been Wisp, his outfit was done in black swirls and soft grays. It didn’t have built-in armor, like many of the others, so it was thin enough to wear under street clothes when need be. The mask and gloves he’d been able to carry, but the real issue had been the boots. Those boots were a pain in the ass. Not that any of that mattered anymore. Wisp was gone, and Sean was dearly hoping no one recognized his lean face as the one that once been under a mask.
    There were other people in regular clothes dotted amongst the Heroes. Some were liaisons for the Hero community, some served purposes best left unspoken, some were lawyers kept on retainer in case they were needed, and others were people who had walked away from the spandex and action some years earlier. Among them were Mr. Transport and Mr. Numbers, talking to a petite woman and a large man, both wearing suits that matched their own. Another un-costumed individual, Dean Blaine, walked through the room and sat in an uncomfortable folding chair next to Sean. Both of them were now facing the stage, a moderately sized, elevated platform with a white screen hung behind the podium.
    “Feeling awkward?” Blaine asked.
    “How could you tell?”
    “Let’s call it Hero’s intuition.”
    The others were filtering into their seats as well, an unstated yet understood signal telling them the presentation was about to start. Sean noticed a few of his fellow Lander professors among them, though he was less familiar with the clusters of Heroes they were speaking to. That was understandable; one always had a deep connection with the fellow graduates of their class. It was impossible not to, they’d scrapped and battled and trained alongside one another until only they were left standing. That sort of experience bonded people in a way that was nearly unbreakable.
    Even when one might fervently wish to break it.
    “Thank you all for coming,” the keynote speaker said, stepping onto the stage and taking his place at the podium. Charles Adair had also come out of costume, choosing a fine gray suit instead of The Alchemist’s attire. Blake Hill was a few steps away, adorned in the deep black shades of his Black Hole costume. Though they were not the ones who had called and organized this gathering—at least, not officially—they had been recognized as the people most suitable to lead it, given their relationship to the subject matter. Sean might have been able to think of people who knew the subject better than Blake Hill, but Charles’s expertise was beyond reproach. Not that many people here knew why.
    There was a gentle electronic hum and an audible clicking sound before the screen behind Charles filled with a familiar image. It had been all over the news in the past weeks, the subject of many round table discussions and piles of speculations. It was of a man perched atop a floating hunk of rock, a woman at his side, and a recently freed prisoner at his