Chapter 4-Nyx

June’s worry was for naught. She could tell from the Matthew’s expression that he had failed, even without reading his mind. Nyx wasn’t there.

Shadow had noticed his crestfallen appearance as well. “I’m so sorry Psychic, I was so sure she’d be here-”

Matthew cut her off with a shake of his head. “No, Shadow, you were right. She was here, not long ago, but now I’ve ruined everything. She’s gone.”

For a moment, there was silence. “What happened?”

Matthew sighed, and told them.

~

“So Nyx is in Florida?” 

“Not for long. What do you think she’ll do when she hears a mutant’s after her? Stay put and wait for us? No. Our trails gone cold, she’ll be long gone by the time we track her there. This is all my fault.”

“We can still go to Florida, at least, I can get us there in a second. Maybe we can find her.”

“Needle in a haystack. She has millions of people to hide in, how are we supposed to find her when she’s got a psychic block on?”

“We have to try at least! Has the woman called Nyx yet? You might still be able to stop her.”

“I refuse to meddle with the minds of the innocent. You know this, Shadow.”

“Surely you can make an exception--”

“No.” It was Slayer who answered, before Matthew even opened his mouth. “If you can make exceptions to rules whenever you feel like it, they are no longer important or binding. No longer rules at all.”

June agreed with him, but turned to Matthew anyway. “You should at least check if she’s made the call yet. See how much time we have.” A pause. “Or I can do it.”

“I’ll check.” Matthew closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, searching, searching, until he alighted on the mind he had met just half an hour before. A moment passed in silence, then two.

His eyes flew open. “Oh. My. God.”

~

Nyx felt nothing of the incursion. She was gifted in sensing such things under normal circumstances, perhaps, but what about this day had been normal?

She was downstairs again, shooing straggling customers from her store. When everyone left, she could close up shop, lock the door, and flee for her life.

Five customers left.

Her mind could not be more far off as she rang up the purchases. Where could she go? Abroad, this time? Perhaps. She should have fled the country years ago, to be truthful.

Three customers left.

But she had incurred the wrath of superhumans from all over the world, and there was no such thing as jurisdiction when it came to the agendas of superheroes.

One left.

The bells on the door tinkled as the door opened and shut.

Zero. 

And Matthew was standing in front of her. 

Could he still be ignorant? “If you do not leave right now, I’m calling--”

“Nyx.” It wasn’t a question. He knew.

“Psychic.” And with a single fluid motion, Nyx brought out her pistol and pointed it at his chest. He didn’t flinch. 

“A gun, Nyx? Why bother?” He looked at the weapon with a mild curiosity, like a child evaluating some strange new toy.

“Insurance.” Nyx was surprised at how steady her voice was. “If I feel even a touch of you inside my mind, I’ll fire.”

Matthew raised his hands in mock surrender. “By all means, if it makes you feel safer, hold me at gunpoint.”

“Don’t play.”

“Never,” he said, smiling slightly. His casual manner made her uneasy.

“Are you here to kill me?” Then stop flirting with me, and get it over with, she couldn’t help but think.

“Oh Nyx, why on earth would we kill you?”

“We. Who’s with you?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was alone?” He actually was flirting. Was this how it was going to go? This was how it was going to go.

Nyx smiled back at him. “No.” 

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Who’s with you?” she asked again. “Diplomats, lawyers, or muscle?” Are you going to talk to me, try me, or kill me?

“All of the above. Except lawyers, though, I don’t tend to enjoy doing business with them.” We’ll talk to you first, and if we don’t like what you say, we’ll kill you. No plans for a trial. Yes, Nyx could play this game. She just didn’t want to.

“Why are you here, then?”

“I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

“What are yours?”

“I couldn’t find you for years. I didn’t recognize you when I came in. I still don’t recognize you.”

“You want to know why?”

“I assumed you had a psychic blocker. But I can read your mind just fine. I just don’t recognize it.”

“My mind changed.”

“How?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Why are you here?”

Matthew walked towards her, towards the desk that separated them. 

“Don’t move,” Nyx said, gesturing with the gun. He did not stop.

“Oh, Nyx, you can’t shoot me. Even if you could get a round off before I stopped you, there’s three metahumans outside that would tear you apart for killing me. You’d accomplish nothing.”

“There are worse things than death.”

“Is that how you justified what you did?”

“I did many things, Matthew, but I never killed anyone.”

“Only did things worse than death, then?”

Nyx smiled. “Ask Steven and Anthony. Ask Slayer, for that matter.”

“You can ask him yourself.”

“He’s here? And you said you weren’t here to kill me.”

“Slayer’s here for my protection, that’s all.”

“Did he get that memo?”

“Would you like to ask him?”

“Maybe later. Why are you here?”

“To ask for your help.”

“Please.”

Matthew’s playful smile was gone. “I am serious, Nyx. You have no idea of your impact, even now.”

“I don’t care about my impact. I just want to put this behind me.”

“You must of known that was impossible.”

“Of course it was!”

“Then why--”

“Because I regret it, Matthew, I regret it. I grieve for the years I stole, I regret the violence, the sadism, the tortures, I regret the how, if not the why. I’m sorry, is that what you want to hear? Because I am. Sorrier than you could ever know.”

“The how, if not the why,” he echoed softly. 

“I regret what I did. It was wrong, it was evil, I see that now.”

“But.”

“But I still believe that the world is not ready for the battles of superheroes and villains.”

Matthew was quiet for a moment, deliberating. “After you…left…many of us scoured the earth, searching for you, revenge in our hearts and minds. I was among them, in the beginning. But soon it became clear that you weren’t going to be found, and life settled back into how it was before. It was then that I began to see your effect.”

Nyx stared at him, and said nothing.

“Nothing unites like a common enemy. You had us all, together, hero and villain and civilian alike. With some, the rivalries were too bitter, too ingrained to be forgotten. But with others, we bonded, and when it was over, they came to our side.”

“The Guardians ranks swelled to twice their size! The Protectors ballooned, the Society of Darkness broke apart, the Malevolent Marauders retired! The others were still too angry to notice, but I saw what had happened. We had you to thank.”

Nyx smirked at that. “Did you come here to give me a medal, then?”

“No Nyx, I came to recruit you. The Guardians need you.”

“Why?”
“Because you were right. You did everything wrong, but in the end, you were right. The world is safer without supervillains.”

“And heroes.”

“Perhaps. The point is, we need your help. Its a cycle, you see: we imprison the bad guys and they just break out again and again. But if we had you, you could de-power them. Make them harmless, save the world from their future of their destruction. You could redeem yourself, make the world safer without hurting good people. You wouldn’t have to hide anymore.”

The room was silent but for the whirring of a fan. The two friends turned enemies stood on either side of Nyx’s desk, staring at each other, the counter stretching between them as both a barrier and a bridge, a challenge and a truce. Nyx chose the former.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Before I even go into the absurdity of the proposition of me stealing the powers of whoever you decide deserves it, you know I could never rejoin the Guardians. Half of them would kill me on the spot and the other half would have the decency to try me first. Besides, you act like I’d be a member, when you’d only end up locking me away in some room until you need me; you’d never trust enough for more than that.”

“Nyx, you talk as if the disappearance ended yesterday. Trust can be rebuilt. Wounds fade, hurts heal, grudges are forgotten.”

“Not these ones.”

“Are you sure? There are three metas outside, ready to forgive. Let me call them in.”

“No.”

“They won’t hurt you, Nyx.” A pause. “They’re coming now.”

“They’ll kill me.” Her voice was strained, terrified. “Matthew, stop them.”

There was a puff of purple smoke, and a shadow.

“They won’t hurt you.”

There were three of them, and she knew them all. They stared at her with unrecognizing eyes. 

Shadow turned to Matthew. “Is that her? Is that really Nyx?” He nodded, and her purple face went pale. It’s okay, Shadow. Stare into the face of the devil, she won’t bite you, Nyx thought. Her fear was gone--what was the point of fear, now?--replaced by the arrogance that came so naturally, even after all this time.

“Shadow,” she said, smiling unpleasantly, “I wondered why they brought you along. I suppose they would need some sort of transport; you always were nicer than the bus.” She knew she was provoking them, and yet she almost wanted them to attack her. They deserved their vengeance. “Slayer, you’re looking well.”

The giant man’s body was covered in a nasty collection of scars, evidently unaffected by his healing factor. Under all of that, however, he was looking much younger than when Nyx had last seen him, thanks to the constant healing that regenerated his body to the point where he barely aged at all. He smiled at her without mirth, flashed his knives, but said nothing.

Nyx knew what he was thinking. She hadn’t given him all of his scars, but she had given him most of them, and he would take any opportunity to return the favor. He restrained himself though, for now. “Matthew’s got his dog on a tight leash, I see.” Slayer did nothing to acknowledge the insult. “Very tight.”

“Nyx.” The voice, the tone, the grave face that accompanied it, reminded her of the old nightmare. No, no, don’t think of it. You haven’t had it in years, just don’t think of it.

“Nyx,” June repeated, her voice soft, delicate. “Put down the gun.” 

The gun. Nyx looked down at her hands, still grasping the pistol with white knuckles. She’d forgotten about the gun.

She considered arguing. She might insist to keep the gun, for her own safety. But that was silly. In a room of metas, what power could be found in a gun? June could block any bullet, Shadow could dodge, and it wouldn’t even hurt Slayer. It was a liability, then, not a safeguard, not insurance. Nyx put down the gun.

June was visibly relieved, and Nyx didn’t understand it. What did she have to fear from a gun, with psionic hands that could pluck a bullet from midair? It wasn’t the gun June feared, then. It was Nyx herself. Even now, she scared them. She could use that.

“Thank you Nyx.” Her voice was soft, but wary. The voice you use on the suicidal.

“Come with us.” Matthew’s tone imitated June’s. “Please come, Nyx. We’re ready to forgive.”

Nyx stared at Slayer, looking for some glint of malice or insincerity, but he merely nodded, agreeing.

In that moment, she wanted it to be true. She wanted to be forgiven. She wanted to play the hero again. But she knew she couldn’t.

“Do you remember the little mad scientist who stole our powers and trapped them in a gem?” she said. “When Slayer smashed the gem, they were freed. But the one that was destroyed, it wasn’t the only one. He had made two others, three little gems in total. We took the other two as trophies, and brought them to our base. Years passed, and I came back to that base. I did what I did, and when I was done, I took some trophies of my own. I took the gems.”

“They looked just liked emeralds in the daylight. I took my two gems and made them into jewelry to disguise them. Two rings, two golden rings with emerald stones, upon which I stored all the powers I stole. It would have been overwhelming, truly, to hold each power within myself.  I stored them away in the rings, as both a relief and a safety net.”

“A night came, years later, when I regretted. A night my eyes opened and I saw, for the first time, what I had done. I made a plan. I put all of the powers, all of the abilities and memories, everything that I had stolen, into a single ring. And then, I broke it.”

She paused. This was a true secret, one of the ones she had wanted to tell that therapist, though by now she had realized she would never get the chance. For a moment, she regretted opening herself to Matthew, but he had to know. He had to understand.

Matthew took her silence as a cue for him to speak. “What did you do with the second ring?”

“I did not trust myself with my powers after...everything that I’d done. So I put my own powers onto the second ring, separate from the rest. And then, I gave it away.”

Matthew’s face hardened as he realized her meaning. “You don’t have your powers.”

“You wondered why you couldn’t find me. Why even now, you don’t recognize me. You were looking for a metahuman.”

“But you are not a metahuman,” June finished softly.

“Not anymore.”

Matthew’s frustration was showing. “So you are useless to me!”

“Matthew--” Shadow’s hand was on his shoulder.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Nyx said, smiling. The easy arrogance was back, the arrogance that defined the Nyx they still hated and feared.

“Where is the ring?”

“I don’t know.” It was true. She had an idea where it might be, but nothing more.

“You said you gave it away. Who did you give it to?”

Nyx said nothing, but Matthew, impatient and frustrated, was already in her mind. She could almost feel him sifting through her memories, though she could do nothing to stop the invasion. He knows.

“Of course. Anthony has it.”

He knows. 

~

They left her. She wasn’t sure why--it was quite likely a trick--but they were gone. No more Guardians, no more metas. It was unsettling.

She had to leave. If they had found her, other would be on their heels, and they wouldn’t want to talk. And the Guardians would come back. She was sure of it. It was possible that, even now, someone was still watching. They had told her not to leave; it was likely someone was left behind to enforce the order. Or maybe not. Matthew--Psychic--knew her mind now, and could find her anywhere she went. Her only chance at disappearing again would be to get her hands on a psychic blocker before Matthew knew she was gone.

She waited until the dead of night before slipping away, her already packed bags stuffed in the trunk of the car. She drove on and on, without looking back, leaving Natalie Jones behind forever.

~

The shadows of two men could be seen as they shifted through the gloom, their murmured words inaudible to all but themselves. The windows of the darkened room offered a brilliant view of the city below, lit up in the dark of night, but neither was interested. All of their focus reserved for the task at hand.

They paused only for the sealed door ahead. The taller of the two lined his eye up to the retinal scanner and punched in an elaborate code, revealing the high security room. He lead the other to a safe, placing his finger on yet another scanner to unlock it. 

The small box inside seemed rather ordinary, but the man removed it gingerly, as if it would fall apart or explode any minute.

“Is that is then?” the other man asked, peering at the package. He sounded almost nervous.

The first, as a way of response, removed the lid. Inside sat a ring, a gold loop with a single green stone. It was ordinary, at first glance, and at the second, not. Perhaps the gem could have been mistaken, in day, for a particularly brilliant emerald. In the dark, however, one could not mistake the faint glow that revealed its synthetic origins.

“Now what? Do we break it?”

“I don’t know. I still don’t understand why you want to do this.”

“It’s for the greater good, I assure you.”

“Is it? Or is it some twisted form of revenge?”

“Just do what we came for, Evanston. Need I remind you of your son’s situation?”

Anthony glared at him, noticing the hint of venom in the other’s eyes. This was not a man to push, he knew. 

He took the tiny gem into his hands. He could almost--was he imagining things?--he could almost feel the power it imprisoned within. 

“Just don’t mess this up, okay?”

Matthew smiled. “I know what I’m doing.”

Anthony placed the gem on top of the safe. He was the smartest man in the world, he knew this could go wrong in one of a hundred different ways. But when Psychic told you he knew what he was doing, you believed him.

“God, I hope you do.” And with that, Anthony brought down his fist with a superhuman strength upon the stone, splitting it down the middle, releasing its contents into the world.

~

In a high rise in Chicago, just a floor away from the pair of conspirators, a little boy turned over in his sleep and began to have a nightmare.

~

In a parking lot in Ohio, a young woman felt the familiar sensation of power rush into her fingers for the first time in six years. She cried at the feeling, and all it entailed, until only anger remained.