A Fateful Encounter (Patreon)

Featuring Yvette and Viktor. The story will be about Yvette's and Viktor's fateful first meeting.

“I’m sorry, Yvette, but the Lower South Acheron District is the only available one still left available tonight,” Julia, Yvette’s PR manager, says to her apologetically while fidgeting with the tablet in her hands.

Yvette groans and rubs her face in frustration. “Really? You’ve always managed to secure me, at least, a middle-class neighborhood before this? What happened?” She sent a pointed look at Julia.

“I’m sorry, but I really tried my best,” Julia apologizes again, but a drop of annoyance laces her tone. “A lot of the other managers have been quite vocal in complaining about how the higher-ups are playing favorites by letting you and a few other heroes be assigned to the more affluent districts almost every night. So, they decided to switch it up a bit for a month or two and hoped the viewershi—”

“Wait, what? A month?! This is insane! How am I supposed to build a solid reputation quickly if they are going to keep assigning me to one of the seediest parts of the city?” she laments, misery radiating off her like waves.

Julia panics a bit and reluctantly brings her hand on Yvette’s shoulder comfortingly. “D—Don’t worry, Yvette! I’ll try my best to try to get us some better districts, okay? In the meantime, it’s better for you to just take it and prevent drawing more ire from the other managers and the higher-ups. Maybe you’ll still be able to catch some—”

Yvette waves her hand to cut her off. “Small fry criminals won’t be enough to go up the ladder!” she whines.

“Well… You’re already a rising star, so I think your reputation will still be fine even after tanking some shifts in the… less-affluent district. And see the bright side, you’ll still be saving and helping people!”

Yvette just grunts dismissively in response as she crosses her arms and pouts sullenly. “Who else is assigned to the lower districts other than me?”

“I know Captain Echo, Pixie, and Fortitude are since I’ve met with their managers earlier today. Oh, and also, Newton, but his manager said that he didn’t seem to mind it as much as the others currently are.”

Yvette sighs. Of course, it’s Newton who doesn’t mind much. Newton is also another rising star along with Yvette and from what she has seen so far, he actually seems to be a decent guy who cares about saving civilians. He’s friendly and also pretty charming in the sweet kind of way; most other heroes don’t really have any problems with him, and those who do are mostly just jealous or secretly pissed by his moral integrity. Yvette has seen some people in both his fanbase and hers are actually shipping both of them together as a couple, but honestly, he’s just not her type, and both of them just remain friends for now.

“How about Amethyst?” Yvette asks, her posture rigid and tense.

“Um… She also got reassigned, but I heard from the grapevine that she somehow managed to secure a better district than what you and the other reassigned heroes got.” Julia grimaces.

“What?! Ugh… That bitch!” Yvette curses out and pulls at her hair in frustration. She hates Amethyst’s guts; she’s a rival of hers who keeps trying to drag her reputation down so she can take her place instead. The additional fact that they have almost similar color schemes for both of their suits just pisses Yvette off to no end.

“I know…” Julia sighs tiredly. “I promise I’ll try to find us a slightly better district as soon as possible. But for now, you should probably go home and get some rest for your shift tonight.”

“Fine…” Yvette groans as she gets up and stomps out of the room.

Later that night… Lower South Acheron District, Elysium City.

Yvette is sitting on the edge of a short, five-story, grungy apartment building; she’s kicking her legs idly while scrolling through a smartphone, just taking a glance at what’s trending and what everyone’s talking about on social media currently.

The phone she is using is not her main and private phone, it’s the one issued by the Constellation Agency for all their heroes. It may look ugly, but it is sturdy as hell and would most likely survive harsh impacts and fights. She opens up the police report and 911 calls monitoring app and scrolls through it; seems like nothing really serious is going on in her assigned district tonight, at least nothing serious enough to warrant her coming in.

Next, she checks the bounty list; it’s a list of criminals, mostly powered, who have often caused trouble and managed to get away from the police. But of course, there’s little chance of her encountering them here in this… shoddy district. Most of them would most likely be attacking and wreaking havoc in the more affluent or populated districts to either increase their infamy and reputation or just to simply steal more valuable stuff from the more well-off population there.

She sighs out loud before putting away the phone and doing a check on her suit and equipment. Her soft strawberry pink, violet, and white skintight suit might look flimsy at a glance, but it’s not; it’s actually quite well insulated and can disperse blunt force trauma to an extent. Her weapon of choice is just a simple electric, expendable baton. Sure, some heroes like using flashier weapons, but for her, she usually lets her Illusion ability shines instead. Lastly, she checks the pouches on her hips; they contain medical and first-aid stuff in case she or some civilians get seriously wounded. But so far, there are no opponents that she can’t take out in a matter of minutes with the help of her Illusion ability.

She grabs the strawberry juice box that she bought from a 24/7 corner store earlier tonight and sips on it contentedly, sitting back on one hand and trying to just relax and enjoy… whatever view there is here. Most of the people here are already asleep by this late hour, and everything is pretty quiet, peaceful, and dark. She knows that quite a lot of people in the downtown and city centre areas would still be up and about, and she honestly enjoys the bright city bustle more than this. As if to further prove her point, the already dim street lamps flicker for a few seconds. Ugh… I hope Julia can secure me a better assignment than this shithole part of the city soon.

She contemplates whether it’ll be worth walking around the area when a loud explosion suddenly rips through the silence that was blanketing the neighborhood. She drops her juice box in surprise as she quickly stands up and glances around, trying to locate the source. Ah! There it is! She sees the smoke plumes from somewhere around two blocks down the street. She quickly rushes down the fire exit stairs and dashes down the street towards the explosion. Her heart is racing from both the adrenaline and the excitement of a possible encounter; it seems this shift would prove to be more fruitful than she had expected.

She comes to a stop in front of a small bank branch and sees a limping security guard being supported by his colleague as they both move as quickly as they can. Both of them glance up and gasp in surprise as they see her, their eyes widened. “Mirage! You’re here! Please—”

She quickly shifts into her Mirage persona. “Hey, guys! Are you guys okay? Don’t worry, I’m here now!” She sends some reassurances and confidence their way with her Empathy power, and she can see them immediately calm down a bit.

“Thank God you are here! The criminal is inside, emptying out the ATMs as we speak right now,” the one supporting her friend reports.

“Powered, I suppose?”

“Yes! I—I think he’s an electrokinetic. He blew right through the gated front door with a massive electrical surge,” the wounded one wheezes out. Well, that explains the flickering street lights earlier, Mirage thinks.

“Okay, leave it to me! You guys gotta get away from here quickly!” She shoos them.

“D—Do we need to call the police?” the other asks, glancing behind her nervously.

“Nope, there’s no need,” Mirage says quickly. Honestly, the cops will only get in the way during active situations, and she doesn’t want to share the spotlight with the mostly incompetent ECPD anyway. But, she won’t say that out loud, of course. “I don’t want them to be in danger. I’ll call them once I’ve subdued the criminal inside,” she says instead, flashing them a smile.

They both nod before swiftly going down the street the way she came from. She takes a deep breath and steps through the ruined entrance. Whatever little lights that are turned on inside flicker ominously as the glass shards beneath her feet crunch loudly. Her eyes immediately snap to the figure crouching in front of one of the malfunctioning ATMs, holding a bag open for all the money being spat out.

“I thought you are smarter than this,” the man sighs, not even bothering to face her. “Stopping a powered criminal is absolutely above your pay grade.”

“Well, I would say that dealing with a small fry like you is below my pay grade, honestly,” Mirage sing-songs in amusement as her right hand reaches for her baton. Huh, he must’ve thought I’m the security guard or maybe a responding cop.

Finally, the man turns his head in her direction. She can’t see his eyes since he’s wearing a pair of sunglasses. “Huh, really? Who are you supposed to be then?”

She’s slightly miffed at not being recognized instantly. “I’m Mirage. I’m one of the heroes.” She extends her baton, deciding to keep the electricity off this time, since the man before her is supposedly an electrokinetic.

The man barks out a disbelieving laugh. “Ha! Good one. There’s no way you’re actually Mirage. No heroes would ever choose to patrol this dumpster-hole of a neighborhood. That’s why I chose this branch of the bank to rob,” he sniggers.

Yvette fidgets a bit. Well, he’s not exactly wrong… “I don’t care if you don’t believe it. My job is to take your ass down,” she snarls, a bit agitated.

“Come and try me then, little hero,” he sneers down at her as he gets into a stance, electricity crackling down his arms.

Yvette doesn’t bother making a verbal response to that pathetic taunt and rushes to the side, making sure to make Illusion copies of herself move in erratic patterns to confuse the man. The man decides to stand his ground, not bothering to move his head, probably focused on trying to track the real Yvette with his eyes. Yeah, good luck with that. She can’t help but smirk. No one that she has fought so far has managed to do that. It’s her biggest strength in battles.

When she is sure that he has safely lost her, she launches forward towards the left side of the man along with around half a dozen of her illusions closing in around him at the same time. She raises her baton and makes sure to aim for—

“Aagh!” she yelps in surprise as she’s thrown across the room and through the teller glass window. It happened so quickly that she’s still reeling on the floor amid the glass shards, trying to comprehend what just happened.

She gasps in pain and she immediately reaches for her stomach area where the throbbing seems to pulse out from. She looks down and finds that there’s a big black and charred section on the previously white part of the suit. Her suit has taken the brunt impact of the concentrated electricity strike; the only reason she’s not injured badly and rendered unconscious is that her suit is insulated. But at this rate, she’s not sure how much more strikes it can take before it fails, and she’s not keen to find out.

How? She shakes her head; it’s no time to think about it, there’ll be more time later after she has taken care of the obvious problem in front of her. For now, she’ll assume it is a lucky guess from him. It’s simple, she’ll just have to take away the luck factor.

She conjures another half a dozen of her imaginary copies, but this time, she’s using her Illusion ability to ‘cloak herself invisible’. It’s a bit tricker and different from using Invisibility power and it takes more toll on her to achieve the same invisible effect, but she has been training and perfecting it for a while now. Her copies attack from all sides, and this time, she’s going to attack from the front, aiming straight at the man’s face. There’s no way he can guess which one of the copies is her now since she’s basically invis—

Her eyes widened just as the man points his hand at her and releases another concentrated zap of electricity; this time it hits her chest. She gets thrown off and she feels her bones rattle as she hits one of the concrete pillars. She opens her mouth to yell in pain, but nothing comes out but a gasp as the impact knocks the wind out of her.

She winces as she tries to move; pain radiates equally from her back and her front, and her whole body aches. This is bad. She needs help, but she’s also reluctant because her rivals will definitely use this to drag her image through the mud. But also… She looks down at her suit, whose front is now almost fully black, the electricity chars the once pristine white. She’s not even sure if it can take another full-on blast.

She begins to shakily reach for the agency-issued smartphone, which also has the emergency beacon feature installed that will alert the nearest heroes to come to her aid. It’ll be embarrassing for sure, but it’s either that or risk of getting badly injured, crippled or even dead; she’s totally under this criminal’s mercy.

“What are you doing, little hero?” The man chortles. “I can see you trying to come at me directly, like, twice in a row now!” He chuckles to himself for a second, as if he just heard a joke. “Well, not really see see mind you,” he continues as he takes off his sunglasses. Her blood freezes as pieces of the puzzle fall into place; the man is god-damn blind! No wonder her illusions don’t work. But that raises one more question: How did he manage to precisely blast her every time?

“H—How…” she croaks out while struggling to get into a seating position. She needs help, fast.

“How what? How can I see you and attack you consistently every time?” He pauses for dramatic effect, or maybe just to think about how to explain it to her. “I can’t see you like normal people do, but I can see you by detecting the electromagnetic waves radiating off of you and the changes in the electromagnetic field. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, missy, but it won’t work on me.” He grins widely as more electricity streams from the surrounding electronics to his hands.

Yvette’s heart rate skyrockets as panic starts to sink in. Thankfully, she had taken advantage of the man’s momentary distraction to grab her phone. She quickly taps it to unlock it, only to find out that the phone is… dead. The electricity…

“Well, I think it’s enough chatting. Now, what should I do with you, huh, missy?” There’s a slight edge of excitement under his tone. “If you really are a hero like you said, then maybe it’s a good idea to kill you and make you an example. Or maybe maiming you to the point where the agency wouldn’t want you anymore will be a better fate? Hmm… I like the sound of that. I can already see the headlines: ‘Tragedy strikes as a young superheroine’s career got cut short,’” he says to himself almost dreamily before turning back to her, electricity charge building up in his palms.

He takes a step closer to her and Yvette scrambles back futilely. She feels her scalp tingling as strands of her hair start floating from the static electricity building up in the surrounding atmosphere. This is it… This is the end of my career, my life, she thinks one last time before bracing herself for the agony. However, the man stops at the last moment and turns his head towards the entrance. Yvette hears the crunching glass chimes for a split second before the man in front of her is tackled away.

She turns towards the entangled people on the ground, a tall figure in black is wrestling with the man; the newcomer clearly has the raw strength advantage though and is trying to subdue the man, pinning him against the floor with his knee and forearm. Suddenly, electricity starts to build up again around the man’s body, and the figure in black tries to back away swiftly, but not fast enough. The man yells out angrily, discharging and dispersing a blast of electricity around his whole body. The figure in black gets thrown back a bit but manages to regain their footing.

The electrokinetic roars out angrily. “You bitch! Did you call your friends here?!” There’s a hint of panic in his voice now.

The newcomer tuts almost playfully. “What a rude thing to say to such a pretty lady! Did your parents not teach you any manners?” he chides, his voice is rich, smooth, and deep.

The electrokinetic just snarls as he sends another blast towards the man, who sidesteps it easily. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, you bitch!” the electrokinetic growls out as he concentrates the rest of the electricity he accumulated earlier into another bolt that he sent her way.

She yelps out as she tries to get out of the way, but with the aches and her wounds, her body seems to fight against her attempt. She closes her eyes, and for the second time that night, she braces for the incoming pain. But instead of burning pain, her whole body is enveloped in warmth instead as she’s tackled away. She hears a soft grunt in her right ear and the body against her goes rigid for a second before they both hit the ground; her fall is cushioned by the firm body under her.

She raises her head off the man’s chest and comes face-to-face with her savior. He’s wearing what seems to be a black balaclava paired with a pair of black tactical goggles. She snaps out of her observation. “Oh my God, are you okay?!” She quickly scrambles to get off of the man.

The man nimbly gets back up to his feet. “Yeah. I think I just got hit with a lightning bolt right on my ass though,” he groans as his left hand reaches around to rub at the sore spot. “Thankfully, my suit is insulated, so I don’t think it’ll leave a mark,” he chuckles lightly. “How about you, sweetie? You don’t look very good,” he tries to ask lightly, but concern is evident in his voice.

She shakes her head. “I’m not okay. If you hadn’t—” Her remaining words get cut off as the lights and electronics around them start to flicker wildly.

“Ah, shit. He’s charging up again. You’re Mirage, right? You can do all those Illusion thingies,” he says as he makes a wiggling hand gesture with his fingers. “Why didn’t you?”

“I did! The problem is the guy is blind!” she huffs out, crossing her hands in front of her chest defensively.

“Okay, and?” He glances around to search for a weapon, before going over to her discarded baton, picking it up, and returning to her side in just a few long strides. Yvette just realizes how tall the man is.

She looks up at him and throws him the stink-eye. “And?! And he can’t look at my Illusions!” she snaps irritably, biting back the obvious ‘you idiot’ she wanted to add at the end. This man just saved my life twice, she reminds herself. She might be a little irritated after getting blasted with electricity bolts twice in a row. “He ‘sees’ through sensing emitted electromagnetic waves; my illusions don’t emit those!”

He steps in front of her and gets into a stance, testing the weight of the baton in his hands and trying to find the most optimal grip. “Well, illusions are not limited to only visual stuff, right? You can do auditory and even sensory illusions. I’ll need you to do those. Do everything you can to distract him, I’ll try to take him out. I think I have an idea.” He charges forward to get the man’s attention away from Yvette.

“Wait—” she yells after him, but he doesn’t stop. She’s not ready yet! She tries to whip up some auditory illusions, but she’s not used to making illusions other than visual ones, and combined with her panic, she can’t concentrate at all. Her savior is still evading lightning shots, trying to find an opening she should’ve helped create. One mistake in a step and he gets thrown back through a dividing wall made out of wood a few feet to her left.

She rushes over to him, ignoring her own aches. The man groans as Yvette helps him get up, his tactical goggles are cracked open on one side, revealing his steel grey left eye and a stream of blood trickling down the side of his temple. Yvette starts to rummage through her pouches before he stops her, enclosing his bigger hand over her smaller ones gently. Her heartbeat quickens and she chalks it up to adrenaline.

“Not now. We still gotta deal with that guy there. Getting close to him is harder than I thought. I can’t do this alone. As I said, I still need you to distract him. I want him to empty his charges harmlessly and then I can get to him and neutralize his power. Can you do that, please?” he says softly, so as not to be overheard.

She nods resolutely, her brown eyes hardened as she glares in the direction of the electrokinetic still roaming freely. “Okay. I think I know what I should do to make him empty his charges. You need to wait on the sidelines though, outside the blast radius; I don’t want you to get hurt even more.” She turns towards him, pursing her lips.

“Alright, I can do that. Don’t you worry about me, cutie.” He winks with his visible eye at her, and she thinks she can see his mouth forming a grin behind the balaclava. He dashes out and immediately starts evading and rolling away from the lightning strikes. From the way he moves, she is sure he’s either a superhero or a vigilante, and since he’s here in this shitty district she’s assigned in, that means he must be a vigilante.

This time, Yvette is calm as she keeps her eyes on the electrokinetic, who’s still busy keeping track of the vigilante. She focuses on not only auditory illusions but also sensory ones. She imagines poking the man on the back of his shoulder and she sees the electrokinetic flinches, turns around, before sending a blast wildly; she feels her heart lighten a bit with hope and she keeps it up, sending sensory illusions here and there.

The vigilante chucks some stuff on the electrokinetic’s way as well, to add to the confusion. Yvette decides to use her empathy to heighten the man’s fear and paranoia, giving him a taste of the terror she felt previously. The electrokinetic begins to panic, sending blasts here and there, what he sees through the electromagnetic field contrasting with what his sensory input tells him.

It took only around a minute for the electrokinetic to snap, and he concentrates the remaining charge he has. Yvette catches sight of the vigilante quickly diving behind the tellers counter and she follows suit, getting back behind the remaining wooden wall. She hears the explosion and feels the tremors and the waves in the air, her scalp and exposed skin tingling a bit as they pass her harmlessly.

For a moment, everything is quiet except for the sound of the electrokinetic’s ragged breaths. She takes a careful peek and sees the vigilante rush out from behind the counter towards the still reeling man, taking off one of his gloves and touching him with his bare hand. The electrokinetic lashes out in panic but the vigilante steps back out of his reach nimbly, but it’s pretty visible that his movement is a bit sluggish than before and he begins to pant a bit.

The electrokinetic reaches out a hand, probably to draw more electricity from the surrounding, but nothing happens. He looks bewildered as he stares at his hand in disbelief. The vigilante barks out a single gleeful laugh at his reaction. The electrokinetic turns towards him, but there’s no fierceness left in his face or voice, only fear as he stutters out, “W—What did yo—”

But before he can finish, the vigilante socks him on the jaw so hard that Yvette cringes a bit at the cracking sound; she’s pretty sure the guy just got a broken jaw. The electrokinetic passes out cold right where he stands.

“That’s for zapping my ass, you bastard,” the vigilante mutters before doubling over slightly, his breathing coming out more heavily. Yvette doesn’t blame him; she also starts to feel the strains from using her own abilities begin to encroach on her like a brewing storm.

She walks over to the vigilante’s side, reaching over to put her hand on his upper back gently. “Are you okay? Do you need any medical help?”

The vigilante just waves his hand before standing back up to his full height, causing Yvette to have to look up to meet his eyes. Usually, it irritates Yvette, having to crane her neck a bit, but this time she feels no such thing. “Nah. I’m fine. Just need to take a breather to ride through the side effects a bit. But thanks for the concern. It’s sweet,” he chuckles and sends a cheeky wink at her and a grin, she’s pretty sure.

She blinks at him in surprise before grinning herself. “What a hopeless flirt! It has not even been five minutes since we fought for our lives!” she giggles before reaching for her first aid kit.

“Flirt? I think the word you’re looking for is charming. At least that’s what they usually call me.”

She shakes her head exasperatedly, but a smile remains on her lips. “Can you take off your goggles, please? I need to take a look at your wound there.”

The vigilante hesitates for a second, before pulling the goggles off his head and bending down. “Seems like I need to get a better pair than these,” he sighs, before glancing at her after a prolonged moment of silence on her end.

Yvette realizes that she has been staring at his beautiful grey eyes and immediately snaps her eyes away from his, focusing on the little gash on his left temple instead. “Well, thankfully, it’s not really that serious. And I agree. You should totally get a pair of better ones because you wouldn’t even have this gash if the glass hadn't broken,” she murmurs quietly, dabbing the antiseptic wipe in her hand on the open wound to clean it.

The vigilante takes a sharp breath through his teeth from the sting. “I know. But most of my budget goes into my combat suit instead,” he chuckles, slightly sheepish.

Yvette taps the man’s shoulder to signal that she’s done. The man straightens back up again, towering over her. But somehow, she doesn’t feel scared or threatened even in the slightest, even though he’s supposed to be a stranger. “What did you do to him anyway? Did you just nullify his electrokinesis?” She nudges the electrokinetic with her foot.

“Oh, yeah, the temporary nullification is just a ‘side effect’ of my ability.” He grins, before continuing, “It never gets old seeing their faces when it happens.” He looks down at her, the corners of his grey eyes crinkle. “He’ll be out for at least an hour,” he says as he also nudges the passed-out man with the tip of his combat boot.

“Well, I should call for my camera team and the ECPD for the arrest,” she sighs tiredly as she reaches for her phone. She half-wishes she can just go immediately home and sleep until tomorrow afternoon. She taps her unresponsive phone and groans. “Ugh, this asshole absorbed all the electricity left in my phone. It’s fucking dead.” She feels her previous slight irritation begins to swing extremely to near rage, but tries to bring her emotions back in control; she knows that this extreme mood swing is a side effect of the previous usages of her Empathy ability.

“I think I can help you with that… or I can potentially destroy your phone by accident,” he says bemusedly.

She is about to ask how, when she notices the electricity now arcing around his right hand. Huh. So his ability is copying another person’s ability. “Well, feel free to go ham on it.” She shrugs, handing the phone to him.

“Alright, your words, not mine,” he chuckles lightly, turning the phone around in his other hand, trying to find the charging port. “This is one ugly looking phone, no offense,” he mutters under his breath. He finally finds it. He aims a finger, and then sends a small stream of electricity straight into the phone, brows furrowing in concentration.

It takes just a second or two for the phone’s screen to light up as it boots. He hands it back to her and as she reaches out to grab it, her fingers brush against his, and she feels a slight jolt of electricity running down her spine. “Thanks,” she says softly, before clearing her throat. “Will you be staying for the cleanup? My camera team will be there and you’ll be able to get a reputation boost, you know?”

“That’s nice of you to offer, darling, but I’m not interested in those kinds of stuff. In fact, I would really love to keep my identity a secret, if you don’t mind. I’m doing this because I want to save people, not for fame,” he explains, almost matter-of-factly.

Yvette tries to find a trace of insult in the statement, but she can find none because it seems like he’s totally genuine about it. She frowns. “But you totally deserve some, not only for taking down the criminal but also saving me twice… Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I did those because I wanted to… and maybe because you’re also pretty cute.” He winks at her again.

She feels her cheeks heat up a bit, but she tries to suppress it down as she rolls her eyes instead. “Well, I’ll be taking all the credits, then,” she says jokingly.

“Feel free to do so. As I said, I won’t mind and I don’t care about it. I’m just glad I came just in time before he hurt you even more.” His voice goes a bit soft at the end, as if he’s imagining an alternative outcome where he was too late.

She looks away, a bit embarrassed about both the softness that the vigilante is showing her and the fact that she needs to be rescued. She will never live it down if her colleagues get wind of this, especially that bitch, Amethyst,who will take advantage of it. Maybe it’s a good idea to just take all the credit like he said. But still, her heart squeezes a bit in pain from the guilt. She looks down at the phone in her hand and with a few taps, she lets her camera team know her location and tells them to inform and call the police on their way here.

“Have you called them?” The vigilante’s deep and smooth voice brings her attention back to him.

“Yeah…” she sighs as she puts away the phone.

“Good. Well, I better get going before they get here.” He begins to walk away towards the ruined entrance before stopping to turn back towards her. “You’re sure you’ll be okay, right?”

She nods her head. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thank you again for saving and helping me.”

“Anytime, sweetie, if you will even still be around here tomorrow. We do make a pretty good team, aren’t we?” She can practically hear the teasing smirk in his voice.

Her heart skips a beat. “Wait, I haven’t even asked your name!” She calls out to him before he steps out even further.

He half-turns. “Well, you can call me ‘Mimicry’ for now, since it seems we have reached a point of code name basis. See you around, Mirage!” He sends her a cheeky salute before dashing out into the cold night, leaving her alone with the passed-out electrokinetic.

Minutes later…

Yvette is sitting in an empty and still intact chair in the bank’s lobby, spinning the phone around in her hand as her mind is still filled with thoughts of the mysterious and dashing vigilante who just saved her. Mimicry. She turns the name around in her mind. Even our code names start with the same two letters… She feels a blush forming on her cheeks. Thankfully, no one is around to see it.

She snaps out of her reverie as a loud commotion comes from the entrance. Julia, her PR manager, stomps in, followed by her team of cameramen. Yvette stands up from her seat and the movement catches Julia’s attention as she rushes toward her.

“Oh my God, Yvette! Are you okay?!” she yells in a shrill voice as she fusses over her. “Your suit is ruined!”

“Yeah. I’m okay. Just need some rest and some new suit.” Yvette waves Julia away.

“Alright… If you say so. I’ll contact the Tech Department tomorrow for the new suit.” She made some notes on the tablet in her hands before glancing around and finally noticing the passed-out man on the floor. She kneels down to get a closer look at the man's face. “Oh! I think he’s in the top 20 of the bounty list for this month. I gotta check again, but I’m pretty sure. An electrokinetic, right?”

“Yeah. Really? This is good news! I certainly didn’t expect anyone in the bounty list to be in this shoddy district!” Yvette says, perking up. This night has gone better than she had previously thought.

“Me too! Also, I have another piece of good news. I managed to negotiate to get you a better district. Well, only slightly better, mind you. But, still…” She trails off, her enthusiasm faltering as Yvette remains silent.

“It’s okay. I think I would still like to be assigned to this district for a while,” she says, trying to not sound as sheepish as she feels deep down right now. “You know, maybe I’ll find other unexpected bounty targets hiding out in this district.” She sighs internally. Who is she kidding, the main reason for her wanting to stay assigned here is pretty obvious, not that she’d admit it to anyone. Maybe I can meet him again… She shakes her head to dispel any further thoughts about the man. Not the place and not the time.

Julia frowns in confusion and concern. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head too hard? You really want to stay assigned here?”

Yvette clicks her tongue in annoyance. “Yes. And don’t ask me why,” she hisses irritably, already feeling a headache forming. She just wants to get this done as quickly as possible before going home. “Let’s just get to the interview and get this over with.”