I wasn’t sure how to react. Lucidity had given me such a good impression of the Sentry, I thought everyone on the team would be at least a little like her. Instead, a latino girl that looked about two years my junior was calling me meat, and the other two guys were straight up ignoring me.

The two guys were in costume, while the girl was in casual clothes. That was how I could guess at where she was from. That and how she spoke, what little I heard of it was really telling. She had long brown hair that I was having trouble matching to the profile of the Sentrys that I’d seen online. This girl likely had a costume that concealed their head entirely.

The giant sitting on the beanbag wore a leather jacket that seemed bigger than he was. There were spikes coming off his shoulder and the elbow of his other arm, giving him an asymmetrical look. There was a patch on his back that showed an artistic “F” covered by a red denial symbol. He wore a modified biker helmet and had the visor up, but he was still facing away so I couldn’t see his eyes.

That one I did recognize. He was Muffle, and had powers that affected sound in his vicinity, as in it completely erased all sound passing within a certain radius. Now that I thought about it, that would be what the circle of duct tape was for.

The other guy in the room was also someone I was able to recognize from the Sentry’s online profiles. Collage. A bombastic personality that stood out from the crowd with his iridescently coloured fatigues and rainbow coloured SWAT gear that instead read SENTRY. The colours matched his powers, as he had the ability to shoot concussive beams of coloured light from his hands. He was the next in line to be captain of the Sentry, being the second eldest in the group at the moment.

“What’s your name?” The girl on my left asked.

“Uh…” I really should have thought about that.

“He is undecided at the moment.” Zephyr stated.

“Got a placeholder?” The girl followed up.

“Placeholder?” I echoed. “Wait. Shit, that works.” Given how the test between Orcus and my powers had gone, it was perfect. I didn’t like it.

“Cool.” The girl said, entirely unenthused. She turned back to making her meal, which she seemed much more invested in. “Well, Zeph said you’re a telekinetic. That makes you the second to join in the past month. This kind of good luck can’t last.”

“Good luck?” I echoed once more.

“We’re growing instead of going through turnover.” Collage interjected. He pressed a button and the screen he was using winked off. “We’ve taken on three new Sentrys in the past six months. It’s been that long since we’ve taken a casualty.”

“Of the mortal kind.” The girl muttered.

“While true, let’s not be pessimistic.” Collage stepped up to me and offered his hand. “Collage. Colourful soldier with the finger guns to match. Soon to be captain of the Sentry.”

I took the hand and shook it. “Placeholder… I guess. I might come up with something better.”

“Please don’t. I love Placeholder.”

“It’s meh.” The girl stated.

“Muffle?”

The giant extended his arm and gave a thumbs down.

“We seem pretty divided. Only you can decide, Placeholder.” Collage said seriously, then laughed. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, think fast. Hazing.” I noticed too late he had a finger gun pointed at me point blank and that it was glowing a suspicious pink colour. A beam of the same colour shot out from the extended digit and hit me before I could even think about moving.

The force of the beam pushed me back a few meters into the door behind me and winded me. When I came to my senses, I was looking down at the floor and all I could think about was how grateful I was to the floor for being there to support me. Really it was the only reason I was able to stand at such great heights. That’s right we were in a high rise, and near the top of it too. I realised my hand was resting on the carpet. Through it I could feel the footsteps of everyone on the floor. There weren’t that many, but I realised how awesome that really was.

I stayed like that for… time. There was a warmth in my body that swelled up from the depths of my stomach. My heart was pounding, I could feel it both in my chest and in my ears. When I looked up I saw three immensely attractive people looking back at me. Something was wrong.

“What have you done to me?” My voice was strained. I wanted to be saying something else. I wasn’t about to let myself do that.

“Hey, that’s better than the last one.” Collage commented.

“You traumatised her, Collage.” Zephyr responded stoically.

“Her? We’re talking about a guy here.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Collage laughed and knelt down in front of me. He extended a finger again and let it glow pink. I stared, utterly mesmerised.

“This here is my love beam.” He said conversationally. “It induces feeling of, you may have figured it out, love. Quite useful in stopping fights with Villains. I even managed to get three of them to reveal their identity to me without asking.”

“And each of them now have a vendetta against you.” The girl added. She’d moved from the kitchen to a desk and was eating a sandwich.

“I’m not concerned, they’re all in the megahold. The only way out of that will result in them burning up on re-entry.” Collage gestured dismissively towards the girl, then offered me a hand. This time to help me up. “Anyway, good job taking the beam. The last few times I used that the fresh blood we got all kinds of creepy confessions. That’s good. It means you have an effective deposition against whispers.”

“What…? I don’t.” Collage was distractingly handsome. I needed a distraction. “Whispers?”

Collage gave a slight sigh. “You gotta get educated, man. That kind of stuff is essential when figuring out how to defeat Transhumans.”

“You have me at a...” I tore my gaze away from Collage and looked straight down at the floor before finishing. My thoughts simply refused to order themselves. “Disadvantage.”

Collage laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “Whispers are powers that influence you, simple as that. Should wear off in a minute or two.”

I wanted him to do that again.

“As refreshing as these shenanigans are,” Zephyr interrupted, deadpan. “Maybe you should all introduce yourselves.”

“Gotcha. I’m Collage, brother.” Collage introduced himself.

“I’m Snowflake.” The girl said around bites. “Don’t call me a special snowflake or I’ll freeze your balls off.” She took another bite.

“I thought you didn’t use that name out of costume.” Collage interjected with a grin.

“I wash getting to that!” Snowflake snapped, still chewing. An awkward silence permeated the air as she finished the mouthful. “Call me Elicia when I’m out of costume. You don’t need to take a dig at me every single time, Collage. I’m eating.”

“And that’s Muffle.” Collage pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Here’s a tip. He can hear you, you can’t hear him or anything within the circle. We call the circle the Quiet Space.”

“Makes sense.” I commented. Muffle waved at the mention of his name. I waved back before realising he still wasn’t facing us. “Hey.” I followed up.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just watching something.” Collage assured me. “That’s pretty common. Though, are you familiar with the Sentrys that aren’t here?”

“Somewhat. Just what I could find online.”

“Gotcha. That’s more than the last one, so I can’t complain. But to be safe, aside from the beautiful costumes and faces in this room, you’ve also got Orcus, Voidling, and Sting as the Sentinels in charge. There’s also Meretha, but she’s not a fighter. In the Sentry you’ve got Blinker as our Captain.

“Heirarchy goes something like this: Sentinels on top, then Blinker, then me, then Unshaken, Muffle last. After that it’s a democracy for everyone leftover. That’s Snowflake, as you already know. Satellite, our little Lucidity, the new kid Slingshot, and now you.”

Collage’s pink ray still hadn’t worn off. It was lesser, but I was becoming more and more able to focus. “Slingshot wasn’t on the site. How new are they?”

The door opened behind me and Collage gave a short laugh. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear.”

“Zephyr.” A new person said. I turned and skipped a breath. The new one was a girl around my age, maybe a year older. She wore a long denim jacket over a grey skintight bodysuit. It was form fitting and looked thin, I could see the bumps marking the outlines of her undergarments in the cloth. The same piece of fabric came up and over her head, leaving her piercing eyes, spectacular nose, and entrancing mouth exposed while still concealing the rest of her probably flawless features.

“Unshaken.” Zephyr responded with a nod. And the girl strode past like nothing could stop her. Unshaken spared me one glance and gave me no heed as she made her way to another side of the room and disappeared into another room. Being ignored didn’t usually bother me, but that hurt.

Collage brought me back into things. “How was it you two?” He was addressing someone else. I turned around and what I saw made me lose my breath again.

She wore a striped red and yellow bandanna over the lower half of her face, and had brown tinted aviators covering her eyes. Her blonde hair was tied back into a braided ponytail. Her costume consisted of maroon leggings and a long sleeved top that looped around the thumb and middle fingers. Over that was a matching orange vest and skirt, and the look was completed with dark red leather boots with several straps going up the side and ended above the knees.

It was much more modest than the costume Unshaken was wearing, and the girl was definitely younger than Unshaken, but not by much. I’m not sure why I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Just below where my tunnel vision ended was another, shorter but more familiar heroine who responded to Collage before the red and orange one could.

“Booring! Sting was just doing reconna- reconnasense on some hideout the Courtesans are maybe using. He just wanted me for some thermal goggles. Unshaken almost beat him up for that.” Lucidity’s energetic babble pulled my mind out of the gutter and I was able to focus on the conversation. Collage’s pink beam had seemed to have had a resurgence, I couldn’t put my thoughts in order enough to say anything.

Collage had no such hangups. “Quiet day then. Well, girls, I’d like to introduce you to our new rookie. Call him Placeholder. Replacement name pending. Placeholder, meet Lucidity and Slingshot.” He leaned closer and continued in a stage whisper. “Lucidity is the kid.”

“Hey!” Lucidity pouted indignantly. “I’m Twelve and two months!”

“Hi there.” Slingshot raised one hand for an awkward wave. My thoughts were washed away by the sound of her voice. I wasn’t able to respond right away.

“Say hi.” Collage gripped me on the shoulder -yes- just as things were dragging on.

“Hi.” I repeated reflexively. Unable to shift where I was looking. Dimly. Very dimly, in the back of my head I was grateful for my power to change colours hiding my present expression, or lack thereof.

Zephyr breathed a heavy sigh. “Collage was messing with the new recruit.”

“Collage!” Lucidity walked up to the man and poked him in the waist. “Blinker said. No. Hazing.” She punctuated the sentences with more pokes.

Collage couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I really can’t help myself.”

“So he hit you with… you know.” Slingshot gestured with a finger gun.

“Uhh… yeah.” I replied dumbly.

Collage abruptly stood up with a serious expression. “Zephyr. Outside.” He spoke with such a dramatic change in tone that even I looked towards him. He was looking out the window where a thin white mist was cascading down the outside of the tower.

“Cloud.” Elicia muttered.

Not for the first time, Zephyr breathed a heavy sigh. “And it’s almost time for Jagmikh as well. Sentrys! Battlestations!” She ordered. “Slingshot, you’re with me. Lucidity, your job is to get Placeholder to safety. They haven’t tripped any alarms, so it’s unlikely they came from below. Take him to the basement. The rest of you pair off and cover each other. Your first priority is to restrain and arrest any villains you find, then to find out their intentions. Go!”

That all said Zephyr left, leaving the door swinging as Slingshot followed, fiddling with something on her boot as she walked. As the door swung a slight breeze picked up and both Zephyr and Slingshot lifted into the air and disappeared beyond the door left. Zephyr’s legs lost their colour and shape before she was out of sight, and there was a loud bang shortly after she was around the corner. Elicia took one more bite of her sandwich, showing no urgency as she stood and wandered over to the door Unshaken had went through, plate in hand.

The trance I’d been put under was brought to an abrupt end with a flash of yellow light and I was suddenly tazed. Collage gripped my chin and made me look at him, then sighed when he saw my blank face. “Placeholder, you’re with Lucidity. Get to the basement and stay there, run from any villains you run into.” The second part was directed at Lucidity. “Muffle. With me.” And he was out the door.

“Okay…” Lucidity took a breath. “Placeho-”

All sound was cut off as Muffle walked past us. The silence was eerie. The man passed in silence. He was a giant, easily twice the height of Lucidity, had more than a foot on me, and was broad enough that he had to angle his body as he stepped out the door. Then the sound came back.

“-at way we won’t be caught out by any villains wandering the floor. Let’s go.” Lucidity finished, unperturbed by the interruption Muffle had given. She eagerly turned and ran into the door. Literally into the door, it was closed, and she vanished as if she was walking through air.

I was left to blink in confusion. Clearly most of the message had been cut out by Muffle, but this didn’t feel like we were going to safety like Zephyr ordered. Before I moved out through the door, Lucidity came walking back out with several gadgets hanging from her bandoliers and what looked like a ray gun one hand that was pushed towards me.

“That’s not stun. That’s not stun. Aand, that’s stun! That’s what I was looking for. I should really update this stuff.” She pushed the ray gun into my stomach when I didn’t grab it. “Anti-grab membrane, villain detector, um… flash, flash, flash, and smoke, and love. Check.” She was pointing at things on her bandolier as she said names. Of course, I didn’t recognise anything she was talking about, apart from the flash grenades. The villain detector was a handheld screen that was lit up with eight clustered red dots.

“Ah! too much range.” Lucidity checked the villain detector again and fiddled with it. When she let it hang again, there were no longer any blips on the screen. She looked up at me. “Ready?”

“I’m quite lost.” I admitted.

Lucidity shrugged. “Everyone feels that way at first.” The twelve year old gave a confident grin.

“What Collage hit me with isn’t helping.”

“The pink beam? Oh, he’s going to regret that.” She stomped over to a wall and pushed her hand into it. Exactly like she had with the door. Lucidity fished around for a little bit the pulled out a megaphone. She pushed a button, took a breath, then yelled into it.

“Collage, what did Blinker say about hazing the new people!? He’s still getting over it!” Then she tossed the megaphone aside with a giggle. “Only Collage heard that. Blinker has been on his case about the whole beam thing ever since I showed up.”

After using something like that on a twelve year old? I couldn’t imagine why. I decided to change the subject. “Weren’t we supposed to go somewhere?”

Right on cue, Lucidity’s villain detector started beeping. She checked it, suddenly business. “They’re right outside. We’re going that way.” She pointed at a third door in the room and we both started booking it.

“How do you have a villain detector?” I asked as we went.

“Because it’s useful.” Lucidity said as if that explained everything. She pulled the door open and the same white mist as outside started to spill out into the room. “So we aren’t going to be able to… we can’t see far in the mist, so we’ll need to stay close as well.”

“It dampens sound as well.” I observed.

“How’d you figure that out?”

I shrugged. “You’re quieter. Seemed obvious.” Actually, I figured it out using my sixth sense. The moment it touched skin I felt fewer vibrations coming from the air, and the ones I did feel had less volume. Normally my ability to sense the forces on the air was useless, given that it could only tell me about the air that was touching me. I was surprised to find it revealing something, but that was a bit much to say given the situation.

Lucidity nodded. “Of course.” She scratched the back of her helmet. “Really obvious Luci. Really obvious. Uh...” She looked at her villain detector. No blips.

“Just like Muffle, huh.” I looked around as far as I could, which wasn’t far. Visibility was cut so short I couldn’t even see the opposite wall of the hallway. “I still don’t get how the villain detector works.”

“It works because it works.” Lucidity explained exasperatedly.

“And this?” I pointed at the phaser I was holding. “Phaser set to stun?”

Lucidity gave an honest grin. “Obviously. Oh, that’s right. I need one too.” She knelt down and reached beyond the floor. After a moment, she stood back up holding a similar phaser. “Well, with my villain detector keeping an eye out, we should be able to see them before they see us. Let’s get to the elevator.”

I shook my head. “I thought you were the techo in Graceland. I’m getting the feeling I was wrong.”

“Techo? Pfft, nah. I’m not one of those boring boffins. I’m much better. Espec- Darnit. Especially when we’re in the field.”

“I can’t imagine there are too many inventor types your age for you to socialise with.”

“The only techos in Graceland are villains. Other than that, I’m the powerhouse of invention. But I’ve got a question, what’s your name?”

“Mmm...” I stopped myself and tried to make it seem like I was just pondering. It didn’t seem like Lucidity noticed. “The Sentry is calling me Placeholder for the time being.”

“What!? Boo. That’s lame. Your name should like, be inspired by your face.”

“Excuse me?”

Lucidity stopped and headbutted a wall, then turned around revealing that her mask was now completely black, and had two grey motes for eyes. “Spoooky and mysterious.” She lowered her voice to stress the point.

“Huh.” I’d forgotten I looked like that. “Any suggestions?”

“Oh! I love this. Mystic Man! Colour Master! Hold on, Collage might not like that. Eh. How about something dark… The Abyss! Wait- what are your powers?”

“Telekinesis and y’know.” I smiled as I gestured at myself. “The colour thing.”

“Oh, you’re like Slingshot. She just joined up too. Can you fly like she does?”

“I’ve tried.” I admitted. “It ended with me face down in the dirt. That dashed my aspirations of becoming a hero at the time.”

“How strong are you?”

“Strong enough to make Orcus struggle.”

Lucidity gave an impressed whistle that was muffled by the mist. At the same time I noticed nearly imperceptible vibrations run up my leg. The only thing stopping them from being imperceptible being my ability to perceive forces.

“How’d you do it?” Lucidity questioned me eagerly. “Make Orcus struggle, I mean. He can literally break through concrete walls. I’ve seen it.”

“I uh, kept a chair in one spot. It’s why I’ve let them call me Placeholder.”

“Placeholder’s lame, use Lockdown instead. Or Master of Touch.” I winced. “OR. Use Divine Wall because you stopped a demon!”

I let out a chuckle and shook my head once. “I’m not religious.”

“Oh.” Lucidity lost her momentum, and the bubbly conversation slowed. “I’ll keep thinking.”

We walked in the white cloud for a while.

“We’re here.” Lucidity eventually broke the silence. We had arrived at the lobby of the floor. There were two closed elevator doors in front of us. “Wait a moment won’t you?” She touched the wall next to an elevator and passed her hand through.

“Aren’t you going to...?” I trailed off as I pressed the elevator button. It didn’t light up, and the display above the door remained blank.

“Cloud’s mist disables all electronics in the area.” Lucidity explained with one hand through the wall. “All electronics are kaputz at the moment.”

“Okay, so you’re telling me that Cloud is a guy who makes clouds.” I checked.

Lucidity laughed. “Yup.”

“And that his cloud scrambles electronics. Haven’t we been relying on your villain detector?”

She waved her one free hand dismissively. “I stopped using electricity ages ago. This villainous sensor is powered by friendship.”

“Really!? That sounds like something out of a kids show.”

“I saw the ponies do it, and I can do it too!” Lucidity retorted defensively. “But just to check.” She withdrew her had from the wall and unhooked her villain detector. Lucidity took one look at it and gasped.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I forgot to make the friendship version. I’ll be back with something to open the door. First-” Lucidity pushed the villain detector in and out of the wall, and it immediately started beeping. “Eep! Hide Lockdown! They’re around the corner.” and she dove through the wall. Leaving me alone in a corridor I could barely see in.

“Well, that would mean the jig is up.” A male voice rang through the cloud.