[Deleted]

Day Six.

Braedan sat upon one of the many benches in Union Square, coffee in hand, and looked from rooftop to rooftop, waiting for the distinctive blur of pink to appear overhead. For the past six days, he had spent the majority of his days here while sitting, waiting, and managing the Arena from his phone. If the infamous Gravity Girl were to be found anywhere in San Francisco, then it would be here. Or so he had been informed.

Gravity Girl, more popularly known as Sunny Slater, was a fascinating individual. Her Instagram stories and Twitter feed both read as the inane ramblings of a teenage narcissist with a shopping addiction, yet her face was everywhere. With only her image, Sunny Slater made more money than Braedan could dream of pulling in with the Arena. Maybe it was the American voyeuristic fetish for hyperluxe, unobtainable wealth that generated her popularity. Maybe being a “hero” had its perks. Regardless, the teenage social media queen possessed one of the preeminent abilities of the post-Event era, and Braedan hungered for it.

Telekinesis was invigorating. Pyrokinesis was deliciously dangerous. Teleportation was liberating. But they weren’t perfect. They all failed to provide the one benefit of true power: invincibility. To have bullets fly away from your body. To fly without restriction. To barrel through concrete and steel as if it were paper. That was power, and money couldn’t buy it; it could only be stolen.

Braedan’s thumb clicked the pen in his hand, forming the rhythm to a song only Braedan could here. A battle march. He sipped his black coffee, carefully surveying the area and waiting. Sunny would fly into the square at some point. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but she would arrive. After all, how could she resist? Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Cartier, Jimmy Choo, and Tiffany’s were lined up around the square between slightly more pedestrian shops. It wasn’t a secret that Sunny Slater enjoyed shopping and pampering; it was never a surprise to see her on 5th Avenue in New York, and there had been numerous sightings in Union Square over the past months. But Braedan couldn’t blame the girl. He had nowhere near her wealth, and even he had been unable to resist the temptation of Brooks Brothers.

The new navy suit was a nice change of pace.

A rush of wind burst overhead, but there was no blur of pink. Only a blur of black through the air. Braedan stared, puzzled for a moment, but a smile crept upon his face. Pink or not, the figure now hovering over the square was Sunny Slater. A vague recollection of this color change occurred to Braedan, but he didn’t dwell on it. Gravity Girl was here, and Braedan was hungry for a new power.

His coffee fell to the ground unceremoniously, and Braedan began jogging over to where the teenager was landing, pen in hand. He pushed past the growing crowd of awestruck tourists and obsessed fans and waved a hand overhead, pen still clutched in his fingers. Braedan reached into his suit jacket, pulled out the small notebook inside of it, and prepared to act his ass off.

“Gravity Girl! Gravity Girl! Can I get an autograph for my daughter?!”

[Sunny Slater]

"Like I am gonna buy everything!"

SQUEEEE, SHOPPING!!!!

Things were finally looking up for Sunny. Her arm was fully healed, meaning that she could get back to proper work, and debut her new black costume in more than promo shots (and that she could get said promo shots redone without the cast). Not that the cast hadn't tested well with audiences and helped get her sympathy, but now she had to get back and show some real strength. She'd been working on her power poses too and it was all looking good. The new limited edition black suit Gravity Girl dolls were on sale soon too, and she was already planning her triumphant return to her pink outfit. She missed it. Black worked for her dark and edgy mourning period, but nothing looked as good as pink, especially with her blonde hair and girly personae. Plus she'd been wearing the lavender perfume for a while now, and she desperately wanted to switch back to her girlier scents, but remained dedicated to lavender being her 'gothic' scent to go with black outfit.

She landed with a satisfying click from her stiletto heels, cape settling behind her. Of course she always went shopping in her costume. She loved the attention it got and the people asking for selfies and autographs. She absolutely adored being the centre of attention, and the popular local hero. Of course, some people were fed up with seeing Sunny descend from the sky every weekend and spending a small fortune, and even kept their heads down to avoid her, with only a polite cough as they inhaled the far too much perfume she wore that surrounded her like a cloud. But Sunny didn't concern herself with them. No. She was here for the fans, and she loved engaging with them.

Especially when said fans involved a cute man in a Brooks Brothers suit approaching her. Sunny was, despite her wealth, fame and popularity, notoriously bad around boys. She just had no idea how to speak to somebody who didn't consider make-up one of the four elemental forces of the world (this was also why so many girls disliked her; it was almost universal). So she smiled, a little bashfully, brushing her perfect hair behind an ear, and then approaching, trying to speak to him 'adult to adult', which was difficult because despite Sunny's age she felt very much a child still, especially with her short size (despite the heroic efforts of her heels to make her taller).

"Oh, like, sure, I'd love to!" She beamed to her new fan. "Who shall I make it out to?" She asked, unclipping a pen from her utility belt (a vital gadget, of course, right next to her lip gloss and compact). The pen still had pink ink, but some things she would never change. She leaned over ready to sign the book, smiling pleasantly.


@braedon

[Deleted]

Naiveté was an unsurprising trait for a superhero; it was, after all, the reason they were “heroic.” Heroes were inherently foolish, looking for the – capital G – Good in everyone around them regardless of what their better judgement might be. It was why the attacks had resulted in fewer arrests than perpetrators: the enemy could be living next door, and a true hero would never suspect a thing. That blissful ignorance, so inherent to a hero’s identity, was the reason that the Arena thrived and Braedan was swimming in money. Anyone could fight or bet, go home, and continue a normal life the next day. Except for those brief moments where the fighters clashed, the crowd roared, and the Arena physically manifested, Braedan and his operation were invisible.

In truth, Braedan nearly pitied Gravity Girl’s innocence. Her latest attempt at gravitas faltered when paired with her bubbly personality, painfully affected speech, and all-too-eager response to his request. Obviously, the poor girl suspected nothing, and it was a struggle to prevent laughter from bubbling up to the surface every few seconds. Luckily, Braedan could disguise his buried laughter with a cordial grin. He did so, smiling up until Sunny Slater’s head was bowed, eyes on the small notebook in Braedan’s hand. With her eyes off of him, Braedan’s enthusiastic smile fell into a smirk, and he placed a gentle hand upon hers.

“Cumhachd,” he whispered.

A flash of light burst from his palm – the excess energy of the conduit pouring out into the world as light, and Braedan’s eyes narrowed cruelly. He stepped away from Sunny and appraised the sensations coursing through his body. Braedan felt taller, grander, stronger… An energy, wild and intoxicating, consumed his nerves. Static electricity seemed to course through his muscles, and Braedan was aware of his body: not its parts, but its very existence. This new sensation, whether of muscle or mind, was Gravity Girl’s power, and Braedan gently flexed the new strength. Instantly, Braedan unsteadily lifted from the ground, his body tilting back slightly as he struggled for control and balance.

The energy, the power, the sheer possibility… It was intoxicating. Nothing yet had compared to this.

Inch by lethargic inch, Braedan drifted away from Gravity Girl, his shoes barely floating above pavement and limitless power coursing through him. The assembled crowd began to back away as confusion and concern set upon them. Braedan dropped his notebook uncermoniously to the ground and stared into the eyes of the young hero before him.

“And to think… Such power is wasted on you…”

[Sunny Slater]

"Like I am gonna buy everything!"

SQUEEEE, SHOPPING!!!!

"Cuma-huh? How'd you, like, spell that?" Sunny asked without thinking when he first whispered to her. But suddenly, something happened that she couldn't explain. There was a burst of light, and suddenly Sunny was aware of something happening. This man was pulling some kind of trick on her. She could see the flash of cruelty in his eyes, a flash of cruelty that suddenly made her scar on her stomach hurt as it reminded her of the look in the eyes of the woman who had nearly killed her. Here she was again, trusting somebody, here they were again, showing their cruelty. Their evil.

Perhaps it should of broken her. Sunny sure had tried acting like it had, with her black outfit, her (rather pathetic) attempts at being dark and edgy, and so on, but she realised, despite pretending, here she was again, being trusting, being friendly, and being betrayed. She realised it didn't matter what she pretended to be, who she tried to be, Sunny, at her heart, she was, well, sunny. She liked people. She liked being friendly. She could never be dark and edgy. She could never NOT trust somebody.

But right now, that didn't matter, because right now, whoever this was, was doing something. He was flying. And flying with what looked suspiciously like Sunny's own powers. Had he cloned her powers somehow? Was that what that flash of light was? Well, all the POPULAR heroes in TV and film had an evil duplicate, right, with the same powers as them they had to beat? Well, if that was the case, this could go down as one of her greatest victories! It was time for a big Gravity Girl showdown! Her big comeback heroic act after being injured!

"I'll, like, totally show you what that power can do!" She quipped back. She'd, uh, ask them to take out the 'like' and 'totally' if anybody filmed this, and played it back on the news, or worse, on Instagram! She prepared to engage him, and...

...jolted slightly? What the...? Where were her powers? The flying? The battling? What was going on!? She tried again, but when she reached out to feel her gravity field, nothing was there, and she just sort of ended up standing awkwardly on the ground.

"W-what have you done to me!?" She asked, suddenly terrified, realising with creeping horror that her powers had GONE.

@braedon

[Deleted]

The force of gravity pulsed around Braedan’s skin, enveloping his body in a dense field. Particles of dust and pollen in the air drifted down and were repulsed away from him; the crowd and amassed onlookers also fell away, stumbling and shuffling away in fear. Braedan laughed at Sunny’s epiphany in a deep, resounding belly laugh. He stared into her eyes and willed himself back to the ground; a thundering crash rang out, and the concrete shook beneath Braedan’s feet. The earth had cracked beneath the mass of gravity surrounding him. Slowly, Braedan walked forward, each thundering step shattering the concrete and sending a subtle tremor through the square.

“I’m, like, totally teaching you a lesson,” Braedan replied. Laughter framed his words, and a cruelly satisfied smile held to his face.

Without warning, he reached out and grabbed the edge of Sunny’s costume, bunching it up in his hands and pulling her close. Their noses were almost touching as he bore his eyes against hers. This ignorant, self-serving woman was a symbol of everything wrong and ruinous with the world: unchecked capitalism, the cult of personality, deified idolatry, and the worship of power over humanity. His eyes narrowed, and his grip tightened further. The homeless, the poor, and the forgotten suffered, yet this woman and "heroic" friends did nothing. They didn't care to see the cracks that their fellows had fallen down. Braedan had crawled his way out, carrying others with him. The Arena, distasteful as it was to the average person, provided financial security for those who could otherwise find no work in a gentrified city like San Francisco. Braedan, The Booker, did something. Unlike the great and wonderful Gravity Girl.

“You, Sunny Slater, are a waste of space. You are a vapid, empty shell of a human being.” Braedan, holding tight to the wrinkled edge of the Gravity Girl logo, pulled on the bright, burning power that was now strung throughout his body. His body lifted up off the ground, and Braedan held tight to the woman, pulling her up with him. Braedan’s muscles strained slightly, but her weight wasn’t something he couldn’t handle.

Braedan extended his arms, holding Sunny a negligible ten feet off of the ground with him, and grimaced.

“You’re nothing without your power… Just a pretty face and nothing more.”

And Braedan dropped her back to the ground, his face twisting in a smirk as he remained suspended in the air, looking down upon Gravity Girl.

[Sunny Slater]

"Like I am gonna buy everything!"

SQUEEEE, SHOPPING!!!!

Panic flooded Sunny's features. Without her powers, she was, well, powerless, completely incapable of defending herself. She took a step backwards as he approached intimidatingly, but before she could do anything, he had swept her up by the scruff of her costume (did that man have no respect for the craftsmanship of her costume? Her fashion designer would be devastated!).<p>

She squirmed feebly in his grip, but it was pointless. Sunny was the type of weakling that made your average weakling like like Arnold Schwaznegger. A spoiled life of luxury had left her without the muscle mass to open her favourite hand cream without assistance, let alone have any fight in her when grabbed, especially without her powers. He taunted her cruelly, although Sunny had ready plenty of mean comments on her Instagram feeds and on news articles about her calling her 'vapid' (like, as if!) so she had learned to ignore that particular insult, because as far as she was concerned it just meant she was really pretty and knew how to look, as she said, really pretty... But the drop?<p>

That was more of a problem. Sunny shrieked as she fell, and she would of broken an ankle on landing for sure, as there was no way to stay on her feet in her ridiculous stiletto boots, had she not gotten lucky and one of the heels snapped clean off on landing, sending her toppling over backwards instead. She landed painfully though and yelped, looking up helplessly at her attacker as he floated above her.<p>

She looked around at the panicked crowds, several filming her getting her butt kicked helplessly again. She had to do something. But what?<p>

Her eyes fell to the cracked ground. She had never cracked concrete beneath her feet in her life. But she had grown in to her powers, and he had just stolen them. Clearly he didn't know how they worked just yet. And if that was true, maybe she could use that to her advantage. Not to fight him, but to make him fight himself...<P>

Speed. That would be his weakness. By manipulating her gravity field, Sunny could potentially make herself 'fall' in any direction at terminal velocity at the drop of a hat. It was how she flew. However, there were catches. Firstly, there was actually no 'acceleration' period. She'd go from still to 200 mph almost instantly, unless she controlled it, and that took a lot of effort to get used to and react to. And her reaction times were still only human. In other words, if she wasn't careful and didn't know what she was doing, she'd fly straight in to a wall.<p>

But perhaps most critically was her speed limit. There were no hard and fast limits on how much Sunny could manipulate her gravity field by, but she was restrained by being, well, human. She could push herself beyond terminal velocity if she wanted, but she'd instantly black out and crash to the ground. Her powers could take it, but her body couldn't. She had to learn to control her speed.<p>

Something he wouldn't of learned yet.<p>

"Okay, okay, so you can like totally fly. But how fast are you? 'cause the cops are gonna come, and if you don't know how to, like, move quickly with my powers yet, you're gonna be, like, totally screwed!" She yelled up. She wanted to see him try it, to accidentally jump from standing to over 200 mph and crash in to the nearest building or black himself out. That would at least take him out for the time being...

@braedon