Binding Oaths – Chapter 2 | Arc-1 Aeneas 3

It ended as suddenly as it had started. He hadn’t been able to make out anything except for a few flickering lights. Shane imagined anyone that wasn’t a speedster would have had a similar experience. Aside from that though; he didn’t feel any worse for ware. But could easily see how it might be a less-than-pleasant experience for someone susceptible to motion sickness.

He was about to ask the DVA agent where exactly they were, before he got a good look at his surroundings. The interior looked like the love-child between a circuit board and aluminum foil. Square indents ran along the ceiling harboring only what he could guess to be incredibly large light bulbs—the glare being too intense to make out any real detail. Shane gaped slightly before remembering himself and taking a calming breath, the air had a sterile hospital feel to it. And there didn’t appear to be any windows in whatever section of the building they were in.

‘Well then, this definitely confirmed my suspicions that they had a Tech Super.’, Shane thought as he tried to examine traces of what looked like electricity pulsing through the walls.

“Impressive isn’t it?”, Maria called back; she was already heading down the hallway and toward an intersection. It was circular with four different paths, one of them leading off to what looked like an elevator. “But the team can explain the obvious Super technology later. The rest of the Interns aren’t here yet; but your Mentor and two other team members are already back from patrol.”

He’d caught up at that point and was following her down the second to right hallway. A smaller version of the front door awaited them at the end of it.

Without so much as a knock, Maria swung both doors wide open to reveal what looked like… a meeting room. Albeit one with weird futuristic walls and lights. The center of the room was occupied by an oval table surrounded by sturdy looking wooden chairs. What really drew the eye however was the massive screen placed front and center on the far wall.

Shane could hear the low hum of machinery coming from a doorway to the left of the room, but his focus was firmly on the three costumed individuals looking up at the screen. Which was displaying what appeared to be live footage of DVA operatives containing and setting up transport for a boy who was emitting a green gas from his skin. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.

From the panicked look on the gaunt teen’s face and there only being DVA operatives around; he was likely a Powered.

Shane had mixed feelings about Powereds; those that had inhuman abilities, but lacked the conscious control of a Super. They were dangerous, vastly more numerous than Supers, but Shane still felt pity for them all the same. As a Hero, Intern really, he would inevitably be called in to deal with Powereds that have completely lost control. So he thought his attitude of pity and sympathy would serve him well, certainly better than the blatant attitude of superiority he’d seen expressed by others; Supers and humans alike…

Shane banished his errant musings as he focused on the figures across the large hall in front of him.

The one on the left had on the classic skin-tight black fabric for Heroes that could shift. But even without the suit, his milky white eyes framed by almost bleach-white hair would have been an immediate give away to his Super status. Shane guessed that he was “Terram”, one of the two known Shifters on the team.

The tall figure in the middle had on purple segmented body armor with black highlights and a lavender cape that flowed down to her calves. Shane would normally consider such a long cape to be a death wish for any Hero that wasn’t a strongman. But he’d seen news clips of “The Crusader” fight and knew that cape was anything but a liability.

Last, but definitely not least, was the man to the right; “Spectrum”. He was leaning against the table and bouncing an orange ball of energy between his hands. The tall Hero’s costume was a minimalist white ensemble with cuffed gloves and calf-high boots, but no cape. The only exceptional part of it being the rainbow highlights which contrasted with his almost steel-grey hair.

All three of them turned toward the duo as soon as they stepped into the meeting area.

“Hey, great guardians of the city, your new Intern decided to be all dutiful and arrive a few minutes early.”, she quickly ushered him halfway into the room before quickly turning back. “Try not to scare him off before the other three get here.”, with a wave and slam of the double doors she was gone, presumably back outside to some other fake business front.

“So, is this the DeSoto kid?”, the Hero in violet armor asked in an airy feminine voice. She floated through the air and landed near him without so much as a thud.

“Nice to meet you ma’am, you can call me Shane.”, he reached his hand out and was surprised to see her glove unclasp itself and float off, revealing a calloused hand that gave a firm shake.

“And you can just call me Rikki for now, ‘ma’am’ makes me feel older than I already am.”, she says as she pulled back and waved the others over.

“I’m Hugh, you probably know me as the guy that turns into an eight-foot tall alien.”, his expression was surprisingly amiable despite his honestly disturbing looking eyes and sharp features.

“And you’ve already meet me, Shane.”, Spectrum ended his shake with a hearty pat on the back, his considerable(although non-Super) strength almost making Shane stumble. “Now that you’re on the team, you can call me “Jack” like everyone else.”, he said before another sound came from the TV behind them.

They’d all finished up their introductions just in time to see the DVA operatives, currently decked out in Hazmat suits, finish clearing the rest of the gas from the area and guiding the scared kid into their signature black-and-white van. They looked plain, but those vehicles could hold almost any Super and they always had a Nullifier on-hand encase extra protection was needed.

After the action was over, the screen then switched to a detailed map of the city with police and accident reports scrolling down the side.

Shane was a little overwhelmed by the obvious wealth and resources of this team. He’d looked into them enough to know that they were one of the more well known teams in Brooklyn, but that definitely didn’t account for all this. Unless he had seriously underestimated the average wealth of a modern Hero team. But he resolved to ask about that later, he was sure the other Interns would ask the same questions and he didn’t want the mentors to waste time explaining the same things twice.

No, instead he would try and get some practical knowledge about what would be his new home for the next few months.

“Well, since my soon-to-be teammates won’t be here for a while, any of you guys feel like taking me on a tour of the training room? It’s where I’ll be spending most of my time, so I might as well get familiar with it.”, Shane was mostly kidding when making that proclamation. His time in the HCP had thoroughly broken him out of his habit of just burying himself in training everyday.

“Sure thing kid, but I think you should go with Rikki for now, she knows it best and should make for a good warm-up partner if time permits.”, Jack gestured to the armor clad woman just as her gauntlet finished reattaching itself.

With no apparent effort, the lavender Hero suddenly floated a few feet into the air again and pointed to the door on her left. The door then swung open, supposedly, via the same force that moved her her gauntlet. “What do say, Shane? You feel like having a little sparring session before the rest get here?”

The eager smile that split the young man’s usually reserved face surprised everyone but Shane himself.