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Chapter 39
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Judy rubbed one arm and nodded to her. Exhaustion was apparent in her eyes, as much as anyone might have seen if they bothered to look.

Mai Took the invitation and sat on a free space of her daughter’s bed. The Swan Diva posters and the superhero themed stuffed animals were all still in fine condition, which made her hint at a smile before turning her full attention to Judy.

“As you know,” Mai said, “the Grandts are moving in a couple days.”

“Yeah?” said Judy.

“They needed as much help as they can get to pack and unpack. Being their friend, I decided to help them.”

“OK . . . ?”

“Which means I’m going to be leaving for a few days. I know, it’s last minute, but I managed to buy the one ticket for myself. I looked, baby girl, I really did.”

“Stop. Could you please not call me that anymore?”

“What?”

“Baby girl. I don’t like it.”

It wasn’t just the request itself. The way Judy had said it grated on Mai’s nerves. Still, she knew that her daughter was that age. Mai was a lot like her nineteen years ago, in some ways.

Her older sister of sixteen odd years still wasn’t letting her live it down.

It’s OK. In twenty years I’ll do the same for Judy.

Mai said, “That’s fine. Anyways, I tried getting you a ticket so you could come with and at least spend time with your friend. It might be a while before they get internet at their new place, so it’s not like you can come that way.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” Judy said.

“Judy.” She reached out for her daughter’s hand, but waited in hopes that Judy would take her hand, or show any sort of warm reaction. All she got was a lukewarm stare. “Hey, I know you’ve been having a terrible time these last few months. I wouldn’t wish the worst of it on anyone.”

“Denise and I haven’t been talking a whole lot lately. I feel like she’s been avoiding me.”

“No, I don’t believe that’s true.”

“Everyone has, ever since the thing with Stone was over. Everyone hates me. Now you’re leaving me.”

Mai pulled her daughter toward her. “Nobody hates you. Look, when I get back home, I’ll treat you to anything you want; a dinner, a movie, your choice. I’ll need you to be strong for me, OK?” Finally they hugged. “There’s more that I would like to share with you, but it will have to wait. Goodness knows I've been waiting to share some good news for a while.”

Something she was waiting to tell her child for so long.

Psi Wizard was unloading a box of supplies when the base entrance chimed and Pixeletta stumbled in. She felt tired, and looked it, but Psi Wizard wasn’t going to say that.

Not in those terms at least.

He said, “Did you have a long day at school today?”

Pixeletta shook her head. “It’s Summer Break, right now. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t need powers to know when someone needs a good night’s sleep. I just want to be sure you’re doing alright.”

“I’m fine!” She sat by the stone table. “OK, no I’m not. None of the heroes I teamed up with in the last few months are available right now. My mom’s out of town to help Denise and her parents with their move. I don’t even know if she still wants to be my friend. And it feels like the League is drifting apart. I bought a new diary to replace the one that went missing, but I can’t seem to write in it. Nothing feels right, anymore.”

“Your old diary’s missing? Huh. Well, as for everyone doing their own thing, that’s just life. Only a select people have any control over what everyone does, and some of them learn to control themselves while letting everyone else go. The only thing you can do is have faith in things working out for the better.”

“Maybe.”

“Though, you are right about the League looking smaller these days. Rampart’s off to work on something big on his own. Mortar went to a technology convention to try and tell the developers of this thing,” Psi Wizard held up a cuff designed to nullify the powers of anyone wearing it, “that the design is heavily flawed to the point of being dangerous in the long run, and he could do better in his sleep, though I think he really just went there to nerd-gasm over the new developments. Walter’s up and vanished without a word. War Lagoon is busy with work and heroics when he isn’t sleeping. Princess Undercut is working extra hours to cover for a martial arts retreat where she’s hoping to learn new moves. I’ve been picking up extra hours myself. And we all know what Adamast has been up to. Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to the hunter who was with us?”

“You mean Dissarap?”

“Yes, him. I haven’t seen him since before . . . Oh. Wait a second, I’ll be right back.”

Psi Wizard ran to the storage room where Mortar left his tools and spare supplies. He had a feeling something was here that shouldn’t have been. After a moment of skimming through the shelving rack, Psi found a book wrapped in a cloth. He hustled back to the meeting room and set it down on the table next to Pixeletta.

He heard Pixeletta let out a gasp after she unraveled the cloth around her old diary.

“I’m not exactly sure why it’s still here,” Psi Wizard said, returning to the box of supplies.

“What is it even doing here?” Pixeletta asked.

“We needed it so that Mortar could perform a tracing spell. Your mom brought it over, and I thought one of you took it back already.”

The lights flickered. “Did you read any of this?”

“No, we would never do that.”

“Liar!”

“I’m not lying.” He wasn't sure he liked where her mind was going. No, there was no doubt it was going into a dark place.

“Oh, so what? Mortar could do a tracking spell this whole time and never thought to use it until Denise and I were both taken by Stone?”

“It isn’t like that. Wait, what are you doing?”

Pixeletta crossed the room and short corridor to the base’s computer. She wasted no time connecting her power to it, both arms turning to light and fading before the surface of the machine, and she glared angrily at Psi Wizard when he caught up with her.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t overload this thing and blow the base sky high,” she demanded. Her eyes glowed with light.

“I can think of plenty,” Psi Wizard said.

“Well don’t try using your power on me, because I’ll just do it instantly.”

“I wasn’t going to. Pixeletta, Judy, please. Mortar Mage couldn’t do the spell properly unless he had a strong enough connection to the person he was seeking. He said it was something like drawing the third line of a triangle.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“Because I’m a terrible liar. You should know that by now. Judy, you make it sound like we’ve been against you this whole time when he haven’t, or that we've been using you. We’ve spent months marveling over your strength as a person, going as far as to practically spoil you because we all thought you were worth it. You were saying and doing things at your age most of us wouldn’t have the courage to do until more recently. Every one of us thought of you like a little sister.”

There was no reaction from her. At least he still had her attention.

Psi Wizard said, “Yes, people move on in life. People even anger each other left and right with things they thought were right at the time. Nothing we said or did was aimed at hurting you.

“Have I ever told you about my mother? My brother and I always thought she was a cold and heartless bitch who only raised us because she needed to. When I told her I wanted to help people for a living by becoming a doctor, she said I was making a mistake. Over the years I learned more about why she was like that. I realized that she did more for us than any other kid we knew, and more than we realized until it was too late.

“Imagine coming home to find treats you never asked for, and learning that more than half of them didn’t come from your equally distant, but certainly more caring, father. Imagine seeing all the little things she did while you weren’t looking, just to make sure your world was both safe and comfortable. Imagine learning that your mother was trying hard—I mean really, really hard—to contain her powers around you, because no one really taught her how when she was your age and she didn’t want to hurt you.

“When I graduated from med school, I thought no one in my family would come. On the day of the big ceremony, someone grabbed me from behind and said that she was proud of me, even if my choice was a dangerous one. I looked back and saw the tears in her eyes. If only I had known that would be the last time I saw her before she ended up in a coma.

“But she didn’t do it for a thank you. She did it because that was her only way of showing that she did care. To me, she was the greatest superhero ever, and I want to be able to tell her that. Her way was messed up, and possibly wrong, but her heart was in the right place.”

“It isn’t fair,” Pixeletta whispered.

“Life rarely is. That’s why we never give up, because someone we care for needs to know what fairness looks like. The people we help or love need everything we can give them. We're heroes because we want the world to be fair for everyone else.”

“Wyatt? Do you have one of those cuffs handy? I don't think I can trust myself.”

Psi Wizard opened his mouth to as why, but he saw Pixeletta raise a hand and heave through her oncoming tears, bolts of white and blue still connecting either hand to the computer.

He grabbed a cuff and prepared to snap it on.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

She nodded. Then, in an instant, Psi Wizard joined the cuff to her wrist, and all signs of her power vanished. Pixeletta collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

He hoped that any dangerous effects that Mortar had mentioned would take a long time to show, if ever at all..

Pixeletta said, “It feels like I’ve left a part of myself behind.”

“There, there.” Psi Wizard handed her the key to the cuff. “Remember that, if you ever need your power again, it’s right here. Plus, we have to wait for Mortar to get back with a better cuff. You know he can be a handful.”

She huffed. “Your jokes are so bad.”

“I know. I love them. Now come on, let’s get back to the other room. You know, I never did ask, on the day you were abducted, why didn’t you take anyone with you?”

“I did. I brought the only person I saw here.”

“Who was that?”

He probably should have pieced it together before the words left his mouth. Psi Wizard and Pixeletta reached the meeting room where the answer was walking in from the entrance.

Dissarap.

Judy saw the hunter, and squeezed Psi Wizard’s arm out of reflex. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Nor did she know where Dissarap had gone two months ago.

Blaze followed closely behind Dissarap and said, without missing a beat, “Sup, guys? Look who I found just outside.”

“Yes, thank you,” Dissarap said.

“You’ve been a while,” said Psi Wizard.

“Long story. I had to take care of some things in California. I’m back now.”

“Did these things require you to go missing when Judy’s kidnappers suddenly arrived?”

“What do you mean?”

Blaze could probably feel the growing tension in the air like Judy could. No one needed to be a medium of any kind to pick that up. Blaze stepped away from the entrance with a hint of a grimace.

Psi Wizard said, “Let me describe a jigsaw puzzle with a few absent pieces, and maybe you can put it together for me so I don’t have to do anything rash. Judy here was told that we wanted her to be teamed up with at least one person at all times, though we didn’t tell her at the time that it was because someone was after her. Then she goes to the bridge colony in Shiva Bay to meet her friend, and the placed is sieged. Judy and Denise were snatched from the watchful eye of someone who was supposed to be there.

“Then, when I use our bands to summon the League members who weren’t already here, only one never showed up. When we got to the place where the girls were held, there were a lot of people there. It was easy to lose anyone, regardless of whether they wore psy-blockers or not. Someone shot her friend, but none of us saw who it was.”

Dissarap swallowed hard. “A shame about her friend. Tragic. Blaze might have mentioned what happened to her. Before I came in, I mean.”

“Her friend is alive, by the way. So, about the day you were supposed to be watching Judy’s back to make sure no one took her: what happened?”

“Fuck it. I don’t have to take this.”

“You don’t have to stay. In fact, I think you should go.”

“Fine, but I’m keeping this as a souvenir.” Dissarap indicated his band. It looked like the ones worn by the founding members of the League, but it had no control over the base’s functions. The hunter walked back to the entrance.

“Go right ahead,” Psi Wizard said. “Computer, if the asshole Dissarap shows up again, shoot to kill.”

There was a clicking sound in the base computer’s speakers. The hunter took one last look back at Psi Wizard, and left.

Psi Wizard looked at Judy, and said, “Are you going to be alright?”

“I’m tired,” she said. “I think . . . I think I need to get some sleep.”

He smiled at her. “Alright. Blaze, would you mind walking her home?”

“You trust me after all of that just now? Damn, mang.” Blaze asked.

“Do you need me to enter your mind and prove it? That would kind of defeat the purpose. Not something you want to do when there’s nothing fishy going on.”

"No, I'm already on it. Just say when."

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Epilogue
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Judy talked with Blaze while they flew a short distance above the ground. Well, she pointed out directions while Blaze talked about his love of sports.

She could have ridden the internet and emerged back at her house if not for the power suppressor on her wrist, but that had a habit of messing with her sleep more times than not, so she was at least glad to have friendly company with her.

They touched down near the entrance to her neighborhood so that Blaze and Judy could walk the rest of the way. They stopped when two young women came near who were out for a stroll.

Assuming the signs that Blaze was wanting to get his game on with these women, Judy assured him that her house was just within reach already.

She walked up to her house and mused at the other hero as we walked off with the two ladies into the unknown. The other hero

Judy took a deep breath, and entered her house.

It was unusually dark, even for sundown. She reached for the light switch after putting up her keys, but it wasn’t working. That was when it registered that someone was in the dark, watching her.

“Who . . . ?” she began.

Patrick emerged from the darkness. “Finally home, are you?” There was a slight slur to his speech, and a stench of beer on him.

She grabbed for the key to her suppression cuff, but Patrick grabbed her too quickly. Patrick pinned her on the ground with a slam.

“Little Miss Perfect, huh? Come back from a kidnapping, the man responsible dead, and everyone thinks you’re a hero?” He put a hand on her neck, and another grabbed at her skirt and panties. “Everyone thinks you’re something that you’re not! Well, if you think you’re a perfect woman now, then we’ll have to prove it.”

“No, stop,” Judy cried out, but her neck was hurting. She flailed and tried to attack to no avail. She needed her keys. She needed to unlock her cuff. Her keys had fallen just out of her reach.

However, as she quickly found out, the pain had only begun. She had to keep fighting, but she felt her ability slipping away as something else was forced in.

Dear Diary, June 16 –

I heard it was nice.