Jackie Rollins was proud of her little jewelry store. While it wasn’t one of those big-name brands that attracted thousands of customers every day, she did well enough. Jackie managed to turn her small shop into a business that could stand on its own two feet without the help of some giant corporation.

  She was doing so well that, in fact, that Jackie could afford to give some money to a good cause. And when Jackie said a good cause, she meant Good Cause.

  Jackie wouldn’t waste her money on some self-righteous charity that funded food banks or hospitals that gave handouts to lazy bums and other undesirables. No, Jackie gave her money to people who would actually be of use to the community. Like Equal Men United! Those guys helped protect Poppytown from the mutants!

  They didn’t fight the influx of villains that the city’s been dealing with. That was the Crusaders’ job. What the EMU did instead was much simpler. They hunted down the deviants that hid amongst the normal folk and drove them out of town before they could turn the children into “Gifted” with pornography and drugs. They even stopped mutant kids from going down the wrong path and encouraged them to act like decent, normalfolk.

  Right now, they were a small collective of like-minded individuals. But with enough support, EMU can become an official group, with all the legal protection that provides to keep the whiners and mutant-lovers off their backs. They might even get Mayor Egger to let them take a more active approach in monitoring children.

  Helping make the future free of mutants and degenerates always brought a smile to Jackie’s face. It helped her when dealing with annoyances like the one currently standing in her shop.

  “Are you sure you want something made of pure silver?” the curator asked in a clipped tone.

  “Yeah, sorry,” replied the scruffy-looking teenager leaning over her clean display cases. He gave Jackie a sheepish smile, which did nothing to assuage her bad mood. If this brat knew he was being an annoyance, then he should just leave and go loiter in a parking lot somewhere. But instead, the vagrant youth lingered in her store.

  This punk had walked into Jackie’s shop a few minutes ago, claiming to be looking for a birthday present for his mother. Now, Jackie had no issue dealing with younger clients, but there were plenty of things about the boy in front of her that rubbed the woman the wrong way.

  For one thing, the timing didn’t add up. It was a few minutes past 3pm, the school day had only recently ended, but Rollins Jewelry was a good hour away from any school in Poppytown. There was no way this delinquent was in class at the time.

  Then there were his clothes. While Jackie knew children thought it was cool to dress up like hoodlums, she knew the old and worn jeans and hoodie this particular youth wore wasn’t a fashion statement. They were clearly clothes he wore too often and didn’t wash properly.

  Lastly, his demeanor was off. The way this boy carried himself bothered Jackie. He acted awkwardly, like a fish out of water, which would be natural for a teenage boy looking for jewelry. But it felt more like he was playing a part, acting in a way that seemed natural rather than just being himself. Not to mention the way the boy’s eyes seemed to be examining everything with disturbing detail raised a red flag in Jackie’s mind.

  All in all, it painted the picture of a sneaky vagabond planning something. While Jackie couldn’t tell if this punk was homeless or just poor, it didn’t really matter since those two people usually wanted the same thing. No doubt, the kid was planning to guilt-trip her into giving him something for free so he could sell it off for drugs.

  The fact that he “needed” something that was pure silver didn’t help his case. Of course, he had an excuse for that. Apparently, his mother had an encounter with a vampire a few years ago and now refuses to leave her house without something silver on hand.

  It was a convincing story, but Jackie knew better. If this brat’s mother, whether she existed or not, ran into one of those bloodthirsty monsters, she’d be dead. This delinquent must’ve heard those vampire rumors and thought he could use them to get lucky. But even if it were true, Jackie wasn’t going to hand this leech anything without the proper payment.

  Jackie Rollins didn’t get this far by falling for every set of puppy dog eyes and sob story that came her way, which was surprising a lot. Jackie would humor the reprobate, if nothing else, than to seem polite and professional. She couldn’t just turn people away because they looked like a thug. But the second he tried to haggle or beg for a freebie, the woman would put her foot down and throw him out of the store if needed.

  Jackie ran a business, not a sanctimonious charity. If the kid wanted money that bad he can get a job since he clearly wasn’t going to school. In fact, Jackie should consider reporting him to the police, if she was right about his drug addiction then there was a chance this punk was a criminal, too.

  The young deviant raised his head with a disarming smile. Jackie gave him her practiced “customer service” smile and readied to shut him down. He opened his mouth and was about to start schmoozing her when-.

  Crash!

  The sound of breaking glass broke Jackie out of her focus. She snapped her head over to the source of the noise, which unfortunately for her, was her broken front door. A horse, of all things, charged into her store, smashing through the door, and was now heading straight for her! Jackie acted on instinct and jumped to the side, just in time to avoid the creature, but the loud smash she heard meant her display case wasn’t so lucky.

  “What the fuck?!” the curator screamed as she jumped to her feet. Normally, she wouldn’t approve of casual cursing, but anyone would be hard-pressed to say her language wasn’t appropriate for the situation. How else was Jackie supposed to react when a wild animal suddenly came bursting into her store and broke stuff?

  Sadly for Miss Rollins, the horse wasn’t done. With a hysterical whinnie, the creature reared up on its hind legs and brought its hoofs down on top of another display, shattering it like it was made of cheap wood. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the horse used the moment to raise its back legs and thrust them out into another case, obliterating it and sending shrapnel flying into the far wall.

  “No!” Jackie shrieked. But her cries fell on deaf ears, and the horse rose for another round of destruction. The curator could only watch in horror as the beast flailed about, destroying everything it touched! Somehow, the creature never missed one of her displays, as with each violent spasm, it caused the quadruped to spin in place and find new targets to smash.

  Jackie was briefly aware that the boy she was dealing with was gone. He must’ve bolted the second the horse showed up. Jackie quickly forgot all about the child as she had actual important stuff to worry about.

  The horse finally seized its whirlwind of destruction when its spinning put the creature in front of the annihilated entrance. The beast ducked its head and rushed out of the store, leaving total devastation behind.

  With the monster gone and the chaos dying down, Jackie finally had the time to assess the damage. To say the least, everything was ruined. Jackie’s once beautiful store that glittered almost as much as its merchandise was now nothing more than a pile of rubble. Worse, Jackie saw her wares scarred on the floor, and half looked crushed to powder.

  When taking in the total devastation of her life’s work, Jackie only had one sensible thing to do. Grabbing her hair, Jackie fell to her knees and screamed.

  A couple of blocks away, a certain vagabond teenager was meeting up with a golden retriever that stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

  “You’re insane,” Zoe said to Ethan. While she had been on board with the plan, she didn’t expect things to be so loud and violent. When Ethan told Zoe that he’d steal some jewelry after distracting the clerk with a horse of all things, the werewolf assumed he’d have the conjured creature defecate in front of her door or something, not go on a rampage!

  “It worked, didn’t it?” Ethan challenged with a smirk. Admittedly, Ethan wasn’t much founder of the scheme than Zoe was. It was a lot flashier than his usual thefts, but Ethan needed a lot of loot this time, so he took a chance.

  Reaching into his hoodie pocket, the villain took out his haul. A large handful of silver trinkets came out, and he gave them to Zoe for a test. The boy smiled in satisfaction when the wolf-girl flinched away from the jewelry, proving they were the genuine article.

  Apparently, silver wasn’t just a bane for werewolves, but for all magical creatures. At least, as far as Zoe knew. An ‘All-Purpose Magicbane’ she had called it.

  Basically, if someone’s body relied on a form of magic to function, like a curse that turned them into a creature of the night, then silver could disrupt that magic and seriously injure the creature in question. The silver also didn’t have to enter the bodies to hurt them, though that did the most damage. Simply touching silver is enough to damage any magical monster you're fighting, which was good news for Ethan.

  So far, he’d gotten away with stealing random stuff as animals, but if he had to steal guns and whatever was needed to make bullets from scratch, that might raise alarms.

  Simply grabbing stuff made from the special metal was good enough for him, especially since he could continue to use after the werewolves are delt with. While it was still up in the air if the lycanthropes where in town, Ethan knew for a fact that there vampires around, and the silver would come in handy. Even though the villain’s divine blood was a great defense against the bloodsuckers, he lacked weapons that could damage them.

  “What are you gonna do if that lady realizes you robbed her?” Zoe asked as they began heading back to base. “She saw your face, didn’t she?”

  Rollins actually saw the fake face Ethan created to hide his civilian identity from Zoe. The villain hadn’t felt the need to change his appearance since it was already altered, but the she-wolf naturally saw it as a risky move. Luckily, Ethan knew just what to say to ease her doubts and keep his secret.

  “That’s a big ‘if’,” Ethan replied confidently. “Even if she realised the silver was taken instead of smashed, it’d have to be after she cleaned up and took inventory, which would take a while. By then, even if Rollins didn’t forget about me, there’s no way she could hunt me down. My trail would’ve gotten cold ages ago.”

  “If you say so,” Zoe muttered, still not entirely convinced. Ethan shrugged and tried to exude as much worry-free energy as he could. The villain hadn’t been making stuff up, part of the plan was to make Rollins forget about Ethan. A combination of high stress and giving her something more important to focus on should’ve made the curator forget the strange boy that showed up.

  Should being the key word. But as Ethan was starting to realise, people just loved doing what they shouldn’t do. But that’s where his fake face came in. Worse case scenario, Rollins would send the cops after a kid that didn’t exist.

  Ethan understood that Zoe wasn’t as used to thievery as he was, and that hiding his tricks was going to cause some confusion. But, if she was going to question every decision he made, this temporary partnership was going to get old, very fast.

  When they got back to the factory, Ethan examined his ill-gotten gains. He grabbed three necklaces, a set of earrings, five bracelets, and twelve rings. Not exactly an arsenal, but Ethan could make do.

  Dividing his staff into three sticks, he wrapped the silver chains around two of them to make a set of expensive clubs. Ethan had been practicing fighting with two sticks, he wasn’t as good as fighting with his staff but it was servicable.

  If they found werewolves, the villain would wield those clubs and fight them off. But if they weren’t enough, Ethan would have the rings as back up weapons. He’d place the bands on each of his fingers and use them like brass knuckles. It wasn’t much, but it would do, though Ethan had no idea what to do with the earrings.

  “We’re really doing this,” Zoe said to herself. Her nerves made her voice wobble slightly, but the way she clenched her fists showed her determination to see this through.

  “Yup,” was Ethan’s reply as he stuffed the silver clubs into his bag. The third stick would act as Ethan’s usual staff, and it was shrunk down to a pen and put in his pocket. “So how do we go about this?”

  “Y-you're asking me?” Zoe spluttered, shocked.

  “Between the two of us, you're the expert here. I’m still new to all this werewolf stuff and have no idea where to start. So, how can we hunt down your old pack? Is there a usual spot they like to live in? Is there anything specific we have to keep an eye out for that’d give us a clue? Anything you can think of would help.”

  “W-Well… I know they like to act like normal people when they’re in their human disguises…”

  “I don’t want to sound like a dick, but that is very not helpful,” Ethan deadpanned.

  “L-Like, aggressively normal. T-they’ll only do and say what they think other people like and want to see!”

  “Again, not helpful. Half the locals in town are doing the exact same thing!”

  “S-So we should look for people who are new in town and fitting in?” Ethan wanted to shoot that idea down and treat it like the shot in the dark that it was, but the boy had to admit, that would be a good sign. Poppytown natural aversion to anything they considered an outsider would make life for newcomers difficult for a bit. Anyone showing up out of the blue and being instantly accepted would be odd.

  Ethan still wanted to press for more info, but that seemed all Zoe could offer. So instead, he sighed and allowed the matter to drop.

  “It’ll have to do,” Ethan admitted begrudgingly. But then of something else, and had to wonder why it wasn’t brought up before. “Can’t you use your nose to smell them out?”

  “I can…” Zoe admitted evasively. “But I’m not a tracker. I’ll only be able to smell them if I get close enough or have something they constantly touch. But, if I get too close, they’ll smell me first. They all have better noses than me…”

  “So using you as a hunting dog is out,” Ethan stated, earning a glare from Zoe. “We’ll just have to look and hope we get lucky. Worst-case scenario, they’ll find us first and jump us. Which won’t be ideal, but I think we can manage it if we have to.”

  “W-We can?” Zoe asked, suddenly looking a lot less confident.

  ‘Well, I can,’ Ethan thought sardonically. Because, in that scenario, the lycanthropes would most likely focus Zoe instead of Ethan, which would give the Wukong plenty of opportunity to blindside them. The villain wisely decided not to share this insight with the wolf-girl.

  “Maybe,” Ethan said instead, shrugging nonchalantly. Zoe looked at him like he just handed her a death sentence out of the blue. “Look, I don’t like that possibility anymore than you do, but we’re flying blind here. We don’t know where they are or how many of them are in town. Our best bet is to head out and find them first, which is going to be risky, but if we sit around and do nothing while they search for you, then you might as well gift wrap yourself for them.”

  Zoe said nothing but instead hung her head in defeat.

  “Now that that’s settled,” Ethan began, trying not to sound smug. “I’m going to look up anything that opened recently.” Any type of business that just opened and is in urgent need of new hires would be perfect for an undercover monster. Places like that might not have close ties to the community it’s stepping into, so it’d be easier for any newcomer to infiltrate it.

  “It’s a long shot, but it’ll at least give us a starting point. As for you…” Ethan stared at the dejected werewolf and was torn between wanting to hug her and tell her to get her act together. “Do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself.” Zoe gave a sad little nod and slinked off into a far corner of the factory. Ethan watched her go and did his best to choke down the compassion trying to tear its way out of him.

  Of course, he would sympathize with her; the Nice Guy in him could sympathize with a fallen tree branch. But now was not the time to cry and feel bad. The two of them had to keep their head in the game while hunting these monsters. If they let their nerves get in the way, they’ll be as good as dead.

  Later that night, Ethan and Zoe started their hunt across town. As Ethan had predicted, the city was mostly empty at night. Poppytown still had a nightlife, all cities did, but it was small enough that the two Gifted could skulk in the shadows with little difficulty. But even then, there were always risks involved.

  “You need a name,” Ethan suddenly told Zoe. The two of them were crawling through the alleyways when the villain realized his werewolf buddy was missing something. Ethan would’ve prefer to fly during his search since it would make things easier, but that wasn’t an option when hiding his powers from Zoe, and he needed the werewolf with him for this hunt.

  “But I already have a name,” Zoe replied, confused. She was in her Golden Retriever form, which Ethan had started to think of as her "Pet Mode," and walked alongside him. Her dog head was twisted toward him, with her muzzle twisted in bewilderment. “What’s wrong with--?”

  “I mean a villain name!” Ethan interrupted. It might be a bit paranoid, but the villain would rather not have real names be casually thrown about. Plus, it just felt unprofessional to do, and Ethan was a proper villain even if the locals were too dumb to see it. “Something to hide your civilian identity from the people we’re going to mess with.”

  “But I don’t have a 'civilian identity' to hide,” Zoe countered.

  “Yes, you do,” Ethan shot back. “It’s the girl who ran away from home and would rather starve on the streets than go back.”

  “Okay, maybe I do,” Zoe acquiesced. “But so what if people find out? It’s not like anyone is going to care.”

  “What about your family? What are you going to do if they hear that a werewolf has the same name as their runaway daughter?”

  “What are the odds that’s going to happen?” Zoe scoffed.

  “It doesn’t matter what the odds are!” Ethan snarled. “If it’s even possible that it can happen, you should take steps to make sure it doesn’t!”

  Ethan didn’t want to raise his voice, but he couldn’t help but get heated. Zoe’s lackadaisy attitude towards her own identity was irritating the villain in ways he didn’t fully understand. Maybe it was because it seemed like such an amateurish mistake to make, or the fact that Zoe seemed to stubbornly ignore the advice Ethan was handing out for free. Either way, the boy had to struggle not to scream at the girl.

  But when Zoe still seemed uninterested, Ethan couldn’t stay silent any longer. He rushed forward and spun, placing himself in front of the dog-girl and staring down at her. The way she froze in her tracks and flinched backwards meant the intensity of his gaze was getting through his mask.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Good.

  If Ethan was going to go out of his way to correct Zoe’s mistakes, he had to make sure the lesson stuck.

  “Instead of asking what the odds are,” Ethan began coldly. “Why don’t you ask yourself this: Do you want to risk it? I don’t know what your homelife was like, but it had to be pretty bad if you chose homelessness over going back, right? So tell me, even if it’s a one in a million chance that your family hears about you and figures out you and this werewolf girl are one and the same, do you really want to let a possibility like that exist? Because if I were in your shoes, I’d want to make sure my parents couldn’t find me. But I guess that’s your choice.”

  Ethan turned and continued walking, leaving Zoe to absorb his words. Part of the villain wanted to force the issue, but he knew it’d be better if the she-wolf decided on her own. Though now Ethan had to wonder if he should start planning on how to deal with Zoe’s parents. While the Wukong and Werewolf’s partnership might be temporary, it could be enough of a connection to have some busybodies come after him. Ethan knew nothing about Zoe’s home or family, but the tidbits he got didn’t paint a pleasant picture.

  “Call me Purebred,” Zoe said suddenly as she started walking by his side again.

  “‘Purebred’?” Ethan repeated in disbelief. “Seriously?”

  “It’s sort of an inside joke…” the newly dubbed Purebred said bashfully.

  “Whatever,” Ethan let out a breathy huff to hide the slight chuckle that krept out. Dumb name or not, it was still better than using her real name.

  The duo kept on walking for a bit; their first stop was a far distance away, so they were stuck on a long walk.

  “On the topic of names,” Purebred began, deciding to break the silence. “What do you call your staff?”

  “What?” Ethan asked, taken aback.

  “Your staff has a name, right?” the wolf-girl asked. “I mean, it’s a magic weapon, so it’s gotta have a name!”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Ethan replied weakly.

  “Yes, it does!” Purebred shot back with a surprising amount of conviction. “I mean, come on! You can’t go around swinging a golden magic staff and only calling it “stick” or something, it's just super lame!”

  Ethan wanted to shrug off Purebred’s comments, but it made a weird amount of sense. There was something silly about having such a powerful weapon and only calling it a staff. Maybe he should give it a name, after all, his staff wasn’t just a tool to be thrown away after it was used up. It was a token given to him by Uncle Sunny. Something to treasure and remind him of what he has to lose if he goes over the deep end. It deserved a proper name.

  “I’ll call you… Virga,” Ethan said, raising his staff reverently. Naming his weapon didn’t have the same effect on him as picking out his villain name did, but Ethan still felt a sense of giddiness over it. It felt like turning his tool into an extension of himself, something he treats like a partner.

  His good mood lasted until he looked over to Purebred and saw her looking at him with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment.

  “What?” Ethan asked defensively.

  “Virga?” Purebred said, unimpressed. “Really? That’s just Latin for stick!”

  “And?!” Ethan challenged. “All the names for Sun Wukong’s weapon basically translate to ‘magic stick’.”

  “So, what, you're staying on theme?” Purebred confirmed. The judgment in her voice was evident, and Ethan couldn’t help but be shocked at her audacity.

  “Yeah, I am!” the villain proclaimed proudly. “And it’s a better name than Purebred! You’re a werewolf, not a show dog!”

  “Well, I like it!” Purebred shouted back. “So I’ll keep it!”

  “And I’m keeping Virga!” Ethan wasn’t sure what caused him and Purebred to dramatically turn away from each other and audibly “hmph” at the same time, but it happened. Even stranger, despite being in a shouting match a few seconds ago, the mood felt oddly light, jovial even.

  ‘Was… this what it was like to have a-?’ Whatever thought Ethan was forming fell to pieces as his instincts were suddenly screaming about something dangerous behind him. The boy whirled around, Virga in hand, just in time to intercept a microwave that was flying towards his head. Ethan smashed the appliance with his golden stick, but he soon had something worse to deal with.

  “Well, well, well,” a familiar voice began. “What do we have here?” Ethan looked up and saw Poltergeist floating towards them, standing on another flying trash can lid, and with what looked like a levitating yard sale behind him. Household objects ominously trailed behind Poltergeist like the flying minions of an evil overlord.

  The effect was slightly ruined by the fact that the wanna-be Hero was using things like fridges and bookshelves as ammo, making Ethan think the white-clad punk raided someone’s garage. It also didn’t help that they were still in an alleyway, forcing Poltergeist to condense his ammo as he floated towards the two Gifted and turn them into flying balls of junk.

  Unintimidating or not, Poltergeist being here was not a good thing. Ethan and Purbred needed to focus on finding the werewolves, not dodging the knockout Deadpool. But something told the villain that the would-be Hero wasn’t going to let them go that easily.

  “What the fuck do you want now?” Ethan asked, annoyed. Acting nonchalant might not be the best play, but Ethan knew a villain should never confess to anything he wasn’t being accused of. Purebred crawled behind the villain and stared at Poltergeist in terror. Ethan did not appreciate being used as a human shield, especially since it just made the scene worse for them, but he wasn’t about to give Poltergeist an opening to attack her.

  “What do I want?!” Poltergeist repeated, clearly struggling to hold back his anger. “Oh, nothing much! Just the skin of the monster I was hunting! And I’d love it if you and this town let me do my job without getting in my way or throwing a fit! But do I let that get me down? No! Despite all the bullshit, I’m still out here doing the hard, heroic work. And you can imagine my surprise when I find you out here with the very monster I’ve been looking for.”

  Ethan could feel the hate oozing out of Poltergeist’s words. And so could Purebred, given the whimper she let out and the way she started shaking. The villain just knew this was going to get messy, but he had to try to and mitigate the damage as best he could. Mainly because he needed Poltergeist to not go hunting for the other werewolves.

  While sending the idiot after the monsters and having them deal with each other might be a good idea, Ethan didn’t have much confidence in Poltergeist’s abilities. He might be able to handle Purebred, but she was essentially a pacifist, so that wasn’t much of an achievement. But even if he did manage to beat the monsters, he might get an inflated ego and become an even bigger nuisance to Ethan.

  While the villain initially wanted Poltergeist to chip away at his hero reputation, if he was bold enough to start taking aggressive actions against Ethan, he’d become more trouble than he was worth. Plus, now he had Purebred to worry about, and the white-clad jerk might target her out of spite. Which would be bad because Ethan couldn’t cash in his favor if the werewolf girl ran out of town.

  “Who, Purebred?” Ethan asked, motioning to the quivering she-wolf. “She’s the monster you're looking for? The girl can barely rob a convenience store!” Ethan let out a derisive laugh, which probably angered Poltergeist even further.

  The villain knew he wasn’t descalating the situation, but he couldn’t just start kowtowing to the guy. That sudden change in attitude would give away that Ethan and Purebred were up to something. Plus, Ethan refused to bow down to anyone, even if as part of a trick.

  “Yeah, I’m sure this isn’t the same Werewolf I’ve been hunting for a week now,” Poltergeist snarled. “And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence you two are all buddy-buddy now after I told you about it.”

  “You’re thinking I’m with her just to spite you?” Ethan laughed. “Get over yourself, man. Not everything revolves around you.”

  “Then please tell me…” Poltergeist growled. “Why are you walking around with my monster?”

  “Well,” Ethan began as he started thinking up a lie. The one he came up with contradicted his earlier words, but if Ethan was lucky, Poltergeist would be too angry to notice. “After our little talk, I thought it over some more. Maybe I would need some backup down the line. I still don’t want to work with you, because you just scream attention-seeking douchebag, but I figured I should be on the lookout for some help. And wouldn’t you know it, I found this werewolf girl who just wanted a place to stay where she couldn’t be bothered by knock-off Deadpool.”

  The villain reached down and started stroking Purebred’s head. The girl immediately flinched backwards, but Ethan quickly grabbed her by the skull and held her in place.

  “What the hell?!” Purebred squeaked.

  “Shut up and roll with it!” Ethan hissed, flexing his fingers to make it look like he was still petting her. Poltergeist watched the act in silence. A few seconds later, he started laughing. Ethan knew that wasn’t a good sign, but he’d been ready for a fight the moment that wannabe Hero showed up.

  “This is just perfect!” Poltergeist exclaimed, throwing his arms out in a dramatic gesture. “Both of my enemies in the same place!” Ethan tensed up and tightened his grip on Virga. He felt Purebred stiffen behind him and heard her whimper in fear. Both of them knew what was coming next.

  “And working together, no less!” the white-clad goon cackled. “Man, I couldn’t get a better deal than this! Once I kill the werewolf, I can tell everyone that Ethan Sun was working with the monster to kill more people! Then everyone would hate you and see me as the real Hero! It’s just so perfect!”

  Poltergeist thrust out his hand, and the floating junk behind him started raining down on the two. Ethan jumped away from the onslaught, his agility carrying him away from the falling clutter. He briefly noticed Purebred bolting down the alleyway, putting as much distance between her and Poltergeist as possible.

  Ethan should’ve felt annoyed about the wolf-girl ditching him, but he was glad he didn’t have to worry about protecting her from Poltergeist. Because it’ll be easier to fight him without having to babysit a cowardly Werewolf, obviously.

  When the villain landed, his first move was to extend his staff and propel himself into Poltergeist. But the second Ethan got close, a wall of refrigerators suddenly appeared to shield their controller.

  “Seriously?” The wukong called out in annoyance as he dropped to the floor. “You’re just going to hide behind a wall again?”

  “Stuff it, villain!” Poltergeist spat. “I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you to Justice!”

  “Big talk for a poser who's too much of a pussy to face me head on!” Ethan shot back while he dodged a typewriter of all things that tried to hit him in the face.

  “It’s called strategy, you overrated goon!” Poltergeist waved his hands around like an angry conductor trying to swat a fly. The objects started falling faster, yet despite that, Ethan found them easier to dodge for some reason. While the attacks had increased their speed, they lost accuracy, no doubt in response to Poltergeist’s growing anger.

  “You think I’m stupid enough to get into a fist fight with a Bruce Lee movie extra?!” the would-be Hero shouted. He thrust an arm out at Ethan, and a pair of desk chairs zoomed towards the wukong, but before the furniture could touch him, the seats collided with each other mid-flight and sent them spiraling off course, missing Ethan by a few inches.

  That failed attack gave Ethan an idea. A risky and dangerous idea, but he didn’t have much time to think of a full plan while being attacked by everything including the kitchen sink.

  “Extra?” Ethan repeated with mock offense. “I’m the main character! Not that’d you know what that’s like.” That earned him another barrage of junk from the pissed-off vigilante. Using his staff, Ethan launched himself into the air and avoided the rush with ease. The villain even did a few flourishing twirls mid-air just to show just how effortless it was.

  “Y’know, I saw you on the news this morning,” Ethan added as he fell to the ground. “It must suck that you can’t even walk down the street without people calling you a villain. Though I can’t really blame the plebs for thinking that. You do give off creepy stalker vibes in that outfit.”

  “Shut up!” Poltergeist roared. He whirled his arms around, and the floating yard sale behind him started congealing. The household items started spinning together in unison until they became a literal tornado of clutter. Then Poltergeist flung his arms toward Ethan, and the faux-natural disaster was sent his way.

  On its own, the attack may have been devastating. But given how they were still fighting in an alleyway, the twister didn’t have enough room to properly spin. The object crashed into the buildings that made up the back road, destabilizing the conjured tornado before it could even reach Ethan. But the bigger mistake Poltergeist made in his rage was that he just used up all of his ammo, including the fridges he was using as shields. That wasn’t what Ethan was going for, but he’d take it.

  Observing the falling debris, Ethan focused on the floating jerk that was now hovering out in the open. Acting fast, Ethan dived into the cluster of housewares and used them to climb up to their master. He hopped from one domestic product to another, using them like a makeshift ladder. His natural agility made the task a breeze, but he still cheated a bit by shrinking himself slightly to make slipping through the mess easier.

  Poltergeist tried to force his mass of household goods to crush Ethan, but the objects could barely move around without smashing into each other. Eventually, Ethan popped out of the chaos and was flying towards the white-clad “Hero”. Ethan raised Virga, ready to strike him down, but Poltergeist wasn’t out of tricks just yet.

  Opening one of his belt pouches, Poltergeist grabbed whatever was inside and threw it at Ethan. The wukong reacted quickly and moved Virga to swipe whatever was thrown at him, but it wasn’t enough.

  Pain lanced through Ethan’s body as something small pierced his body in various places and forced him to the ground. Ethan bounced hard on the pavement, but when he tried to get up, the pain intensified and forced him back down. Ethan glanced at his injuries and saw several small yellow sticks with a pink ends protruding from his body.

  “Fucking pencils?!” Ethan snarled in shock.

  “Yup,” Poltergeist replied smugly. “But don’t worry, that’s not what’ll kill you.” Ethan turned his head back to his opponent and saw Poltergeist was holding out his hands. One was pointed at Ethan, his palms splayed like he was physically holding the boy down. That explained the pressure he felt coming from the pencils. But the real problem was Poltergeist’s other hand, which was raised towards the air.

  Glancing upward, Ethan saw the entirety of Poltergeist’s odds and ends floating above him, ready to rain down on the Wukong and crush him to death under who knows how much metal and plastic.

  “Any last words, villain?” Poltergeist sneered. Ethan felt his breath start to quicken, his instincts telling him that yes, this would kill him if he didn’t do something soon.

  ‘I will not die here,’ Ethan told himself. ‘Not to this asshole!’ He forced his nerves to calm down as he took in his options. While he wasn’t in the best spot, he wasn’t as screwed as Poltergeist thought he was. All Ethan needed to do was get rid of the damn pencils holding him down, and he’d be safe. All it’d take was a quick shapeshift into a snake or a bug so that the pencils weren’t touching anymore. Ethan wasn’t sure how his body would handle shapeshifting with foreign objects piercing it, probably not well, but the villain couldn’t worry about that now.

  The villain’s instincts screamed at him turn right now and save himself from certain death, but Ethan held back. Poltergeist was watching, his arrogant gaze locked on the prone villain, certain that he had won and that his enemy would die.

  Ethan didn’t want this jerk to know anything about his powers. Even if the boy got away, Poltergeist would still be after him, and most likely plan countermeasures against any abilities he knew the villain had. Ethan needed a way to get out of this that didn’t reveal more of his powerset.

  The wukong stared up at the clutter of death, noticing how it clustered togethere as an uneven wall of junk. Could Ethan use the falling debris as a cover to shapeshift in secret? That’d be a dangerous move, but if Ethan pulled it off, he’d be free from Poltergeist’s trap and still have his Shapeshifting card hidden. Honestly, it felt overly risky, but Ethan needed all the hidden tricks he could get, especially since Poltergeist had proven that he would be a bigger pest than the boy first thought.

  Shaky plan in place, Ethan looked at Poltergeist and readied his “last words”. It was supposed to be something quick and snarky, something that basically told Poltergeist to go fuck himself, but less crude.

  However, Ethan never got around to it. The moment he opened his mouth to spit out his defiance, a mass of yellow fur appeared and struck Poltergeist from behind. The white-clad thug ended up tumbling off his trash can lid and falling right next to Ethan on the ground.

  That’s when two things happened at the same time. The force that pressed down on the pencils was suddenly gone, and the floating pile of domestic goods started falling.

  Acting on instinct, Ethan tumbled out of the way, ignoring the pain from the sticks still lodged in his body. The discomfort they caused was worth not getting smashed by a ton of plastic.

  Poltergeist wasn’t so lucky. Ethan heard him scream and looked over in time to see the wannabe Hero raise his hands in a futile attempt to hold back the oncoming tide of junk. When the mass came down, Ethan snappedf his head away from the scene to avoid the messier parts, but still heard the heavy thud. When the boy turned his head back, he saw a small mountain of household goods where Poltergeist had been.

  Ethan stood up and took a moment to breathe. The adrenaline wore off, and the villain could feel the stinging pain of the pencils much more clearly now. He made quick work of tearing them out of his body, which wasn’t pleasant. Luckily for him, the writing sticks were new and recently sharpened, so he most likely didn’t have to worry about splinters or bits of lead being stuck in his body. Hopefully.

  “Oh, god…” a raspy voice said in horror. Leaning to the side, Ethan saw Purebred in her werewolf form staring at the mound of appliances in wide-eyed shock. “I-I killed him!”

  “I’d argue he killed himself,” Ethan quipped. His words did nothing to calm down the wolf-girl as she grasped her head with her clawed hands and started hyperventilating. The villain held back the urge to roll his eyes over the cryptid’s reaction. He wasn’t judging her freakout, but now was not the time to panic.

  They needed to get out of here, and fast! Despite the hour, their fight was pretty noisy. All it would take for one samaritan to overhear crashes and report them. The cops would be here any second, and they were the last people Ethan wanted to deal with, especially in the company of a Werewolf and a flattened corpse.

  With one last glance at the rubble pile, Ethan was about to tell Purebred to get moving when he noticed something odd. The villain wasn’t an expert on biology, but if someone got crushed by an entire department store’s worth of goods, shouldn’t there be a pool of blood leaking out by now? His knowledge on the subject was based on violent and graphic video games, but it still seemed odd that the heap wasn’t even a little bloody.

  “Purebred!” Ethan called out, making sure he was loud enough to reach the girl through her downward spiral. “Help me move this!”

  “What?!” the she-wolf responded, dazed. But when she saw Ethan start to remove the domestic wares, she was quick to join in. “Oh! Yeah! W-We should bury him! I-It’s the right thing to do…” That wasn’t what Ethan was getting at, but whatever got her moving…

  A few minutes later, the duo cleared the debris to reveal Poltergeist’s unpulverized body. Though while he may not be a stain on the pavement, the load of metal and plastic still did a number on him. Blood was oozing out of his mask, and it looked like his arms had been mangled in the crash; both of them were bent and broken in multiple places.

  “Oh god…” Purebred groaned. She turned away, and Ethan was worried she was going to start vomitting, but instead she just huddled up in a corner of the alleyway. Ethan leaned down and pressed his fingers to the side of the squashed man’s neck.

  “Holy shit,” Ethan muttered in surprise. “He’s alive!”

  “What?!” Like a dog smelling food, Purebred scrambled to her feet and bounded over to the two men. “He’s alive?!”

  “Yup. Still got a pulse and everything. He must’ve used his powers to soften the blow…” Though that was all Poltergeist managed to do, seeing the damage his body suffered.

  “So… what do we do now?” Poltergeist asked hesitantly. “We can’t just leave him here…”

  “Says who?!” Ethan asked indignantly. The pain in his puncture wounds seemed to flare up as he glared at the werewolf. “He attacked us! Asshole deserves whatever happens to him!” Purebred said nothing, but the whimpers she let out made the villain think of an injured puppy. Her pathetic demeanor made Ethan want to lash out, but he couldn’t decide whether he should smack Purebred on the nose or cave in Poltergeist’s head.

  Instead, Ethan found himself digging through Poltergeist’s pouches while muttering darkly to himself.

  “W-What are you doing?!” Purebred asked in shock.

  “Looking for a phone,” Ethan answered curtly. “We call the cops, and they’ll send him to a hospital before arresting him or whatever they do to Gifted.” Ethan could’ve used his own phone, but felt that wouldn’t be the smart move. If the cops could somehow trace or log it, it’d be a loose end that would surely bite Ethan in the ass.

  “I-Is that really the best idea?”

  “Well, I just wanted to leave him, but you insisted we do something!” Purebred winced at Ethan’s tone but said nothing else. With a huff, the villain continued his search and emptied the “Hero’s” pouches. One bag was filled with coins, another had marbles, and a third had a bunch of jacks. All the pouches had small items Poltergeist could throw, like those damn pencils. All except one.

  Ethan opened up the largest pouch and pulled out a gun. A small revolver someone could stuff into a coat pocket to act as a hidden weapon.

  “This could work,” Ethan said as he popped open the cylinder and saw it was fully loaded.

  “W-wait,” Purebred began as she stared nervously at the now armed wukong. “What are you-!” Her words were cut off by the gunshot that came after Ethan raised the weapon and started firing into the air. The werewolf yelped in surprise and covered her ears, but she still watched in shock as Ethan kept pulling the trigger, sending bullets into the sky.

  “What the hell was that?!” she called out when Ethan ran out of bullets and chucked the revolver aside.

  “Gunshots still get people’s attention,” Ethan explained. “Now let’s get out of here before whoever shows up sees us!” Ethan didn’t wait for Purebred to agree and began running down the alleyway. A few seconds later, the werewolf returned to her pet form and chased after the wukong.

  “Is it really okay to leave him there?!” Purebred asked in concern.

  “Of course not!” Ethan responded, still annoyed that the she-wolf was bringing this up. “But making sure people find him is doing more for him than he deserves! We’re not heroes! We don’t have to help people who tried to kill us!”

  “I know…” Purebred muttered. “So, what now?”

  “We head back to the hideout,” Ethan responded. “Tonight was a bust. We can try again tomorrow after I get myself patched up.”

  “O-Okay,” Purebred replied but said nothing afterwards. Ethan was thankful for the silence as it gave him room to think. Mainly about how this werewolf problem was already giving him headaches and he didn’t even find the things yet!

  Not to mention Ethan was kicking himself over what happened with Poltergeist. The villain should’ve dealt with that jerk that night instead of letting him go. At least, after tonight, he wouldn’t have to deal with the wannabe Hero for a bit. His injuries would keep him out of Ethan’s hair for a long time.

  But Ethan had to be ready to deal with Poltergeist if he ever came back. Their world had plenty of ways for someone to bounce back from anything that wasn’t fatal, and with how spiteful the white-clad thug proved to be, Ethan would almost certainly see him again.

  At that point, Ethan would be forced to take drastic measures. And if Purebred was still around to have complaints, he’d tell her where to shove them.