Chapter 1 - Life:

“This time, for sure,” I mumbled whilst sitting on the wet grass, staring at the night sky.

I wasn’t the only one, of course. People always gathered outside on nights like these. All just to have that minuscule chance of gaining superpowers. What was it? One in a million or something? It didn’t matter. There was always that chance that I could flip my life around by becoming a super.

Just imagining it made me grin. No more flipping burgers, no more getting shouted at by the manager for someone else’s mistake, no more living in a tiny apartment and still struggling to make ends meet.

“Agh, hey!” I gave an angry eye to the guy who just shoved me.

“Move it! I can’t see the sky from here!”

“Shut up! I can barely see it either!”

What a douche! Was he trying to deny me superpowers?! Oh, I would fight him for that any day!

“I said move, you ugly bitch!”

Ugly? Ugly?! Now he crossed the line!

“Who are you calling ugly, you-” I was interrupted.

The sky lit up and the familiar whistle sound reached my ears. Both me and the guy instantly forgot about our conflict and stared at the sky, hoping to spot the green comet.

The few tense seconds felt like hours. Just staring upwards, trying my hardest not to blink. If it happened while I blinked, I would have never forgiven myself.

Finally, as my eyes began to water from the soft wind blowing into them, I saw it. It flashed through the sky in an instant... and it was green.

I sat there for a second, mesmerized, in utter disbelief. I was so used to seeing it be red, that even though I was hoping for it, I wasn’t actually expecting it.

Everyone perceived a different color. Red meant you weren’t lucky, no powers. Blue meant you already had powers. And green meant…

I snapped out of my frozen state, shot out of my sitting position, and turned around. I wasted no time sprinting back home as a huge grin formed on my face, the rude dude completely forgotten.

I had powers! I had powers! I couldn’t believe it! I was free! I could quit my job! Give a middle finger to my manager!

And then! And then...!

Become a Supervillain!

In my excitement, I neglected to pay attention to my surroundings and ran through the street when the lights were red. And naturally, there just had to be that one truck driving through the same space I intended to run through.

I noticed it way too late as I turned my head toward the glaring headlights and the blowing horn. My life flashed before my eyes. Or, uh, something flashed before my eyes... because before I realized it, I was on the other side of the road, watching the truck drive by.

Once again, I fell into a daze. This time, though, I managed to snap out of it quicker and continued running back home, my grin widened so much it began to hurt.

That was a teleport! I could teleport! Holy crap, that was like the best power I could have gotten! I could get in, steal whatever I wanted, and get out, leaving the heroes none the wiser!

I was certain this much grinning would leave my jaw hurting tomorrow, but I didn’t care. My life would change from now on. No more being a bottom-feeder! I would live comfortably as a supervillain and nobody would stop me!

I restrained myself from using my power again until I reached my apartment. It wouldn’t do to out myself already. Well, the truck driver saw me… but he was probably too tired anyway. Yeah, if I was a truck driver and saw a random girl run in front of my truck only to vanish, I would think I was just imagining things.

When I finally reached my place and locked the door behind me, I leaned on the door and looked around my room as my beating heart and my breathing gradually calmed down. The grin on my face just refused to disappear though.

Millions of thoughts ran through my head. The first one I stopped at was testing my powers. What separated the lowly hoodlums from top tier supervillains wasn’t how strong their powers were, but how well they handled their powers.

So, experiment number one. Teleport across the room. I tried to summon the same feeling of urgency as back then, trying to imagine myself on the other side of the room.

And I succeeded. I found myself looking back at the entrance of my apartment from across the room. I began to grin again until I noticed the dim glow following me. It went from the spot where I stood to my new location and slowly dissipated as I watched it.

Dang, I left a trail after teleporting. That meant I could be tracked, which made my teleport significantly worse.

I chewed on my fingernail with a frown. I thought about how to counteract this weakness, but nothing immediately obvious came to mind.

“Ah damn!” I threw the keys I was still holding on top of the bed, but I seriously didn’t expect what happened next.

The keys turned into a ball of light that flashed through space instantaneously, before turning back into keys and stabbing themselves through the mattress. I stared at the keys through the slowly fading trail of light.

“Oh shit.” I was more than just a teleporter. Or rather, I wasn’t a teleporter at all. I made things... accelerate?

My grin returned. I could work with this.

---------

I wasn’t dumb though. No, I knew better than to just dive into robbing places right away. Sure, I wanted to flip my manager off and quit my job already, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I didn’t intend to waste it.

So, for the next week, I’d done some research on the local heroes and brainstormed ways to deal with them. For most of them, escaping would be trivial, unfortunately, I’d found out that they had access to a teleporter jammer. One of the inventor heroes made it.

Now, I was almost certain that my power wasn’t teleportation, but a very quick movement. I still couldn’t discount the possibility of that jammer working on me, however.

“Dammit...”

If it worked on me, I was powerless, if not, I was invincible. There wasn’t any way to find out without actually trying to use my power whilst under its effects though. And it wasn’t like I could just walk up to the hero headquarters and ask them to help me test it.

I froze up as a thought hit me.

Wait a second… I could go there and ask them to help me test it! I wasn’t a known villain yet! I could infiltrate their ranks, find out all their dirty secrets while I was at it, and test whether the device would work on me! I could destroy them from the inside without them even realizing it! And then I would live comfortably as a villain and there wouldn’t be any heroes to go after me!

I smirked. It was time to plan this out.

Chapter 2 - Expectations:

When imagining a superhero meeting, it had to be inside some secret base with high tech appliances all around and a holographic screen in the middle of a fancy futuristic table, right? Well, not this time, apparently.

After I contacted them, I was invited to their base for an interview. But the base was more like a mansion with a sprawling garden surrounding it. I was pretty sure the only reason this garden existed was Rosepetal, the plant themed inventor hero working in this city.

But I digress. The interview wouldn’t take place inside the building but in the garden. Wooden benches and a picnic table. Sure, why not. I didn’t need a fancy high-tech interview room.

Of course, since I planned on eventually turning on them, I needed to suit up for the job interview to hide my identity. It took me a bit, but I managed to slap together something alright looking in between sleep and work shifts over the last two weeks. All while doing more research on the heroes and testing my powers. I might have sacrificed some sleep in the process, but eh, sleep was overrated.

But anyway! The costume. It was a yellow skintight suit with vertical black stripes (vertical, because horizontal ones make you look fat). I wore a cute black and yellow skirt over it and covered my face with a balaclava painted yellow, my blond ponytail hanging outside of it.

I looked great. Even the onlookers thought so as evidenced by everyone staring at me as I made my way to the hero mansion. Yup, just perfect.

As I arrived at the gates, I rang the bell and waited for a second before a robotic voice greeted me. “Hello, how can I help you?”

“Hello. I’m… Blink. I’m here for the interview.”

“Acknowledged. Please wear this around your neck and you can enter,” the voice said as a drawer shot out of the wall. It contained a lanyard with ‘GUEST’ written on the tag.

“Umm, okay?” I grabbed the lanyard and put it around my neck as instructed.

“Please make sure not to lose the guest tag or you might get hurt by the defense mechanisms.”

What? Was this thing some sort of protection charm?

“O-okay.”

The gate creaked open and I stepped inside. I was in enemy territory now. I wouldn’t be fooled by the pretty flowers and innocent-looking trees. Anything, even the grass here, could have been one of Rosepetal’s creations.

I made my way through the garden until I spotted my two interviewers.

A large man with his arms crossed, dressed in only gray pants. His entire head was encased in a metal box, only letting his eyes peek through. Of course, they would send Gatekeeper to meet me. Even though every plant in my vicinity could have been weaponized, he was still the best safety net in case a fight broke out.

Next to the towering man standing guard, a woman was sitting on a bench next to a picnic table with her legs crossed, looking in my direction. She wore a crimson cloak and a domino mask. Her wavy brown hair extended up to her shoulders.

So Monarch was the other person, huh? She was smoking hot, that was for sure. Even more in person than in the pictures. Damn, were they going with psychological warfare?

“Oh hey, she’s here!” The woman waved at me.

I waved back and made my way to them. Monarch stood up and offered her hand. I shook it. Her grip was strong and confident. It instinctively made me not want to fight her. Especially not when I was in the middle of enemy territory.

“Welcome. As you probably know already, I’m Monarch and this is Gatekeeper.”

“Hello, you can call me Blink, for now.”

She nodded and motioned to the bench. “Make yourself comfortable.” We both got seated and she continued. “So, Blink, you said you wanted to join the Astrith Defenders?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And why is that? Why do you want to join us?” she said, narrowing her eyes. I suddenly felt as if I was put under a magnifying glass.

“I… um, I went over my options after getting my powers, and thought joining you would be for the best.”

“Really now? Why not use your new powers for selfish purposes instead? A lot of people go with that route instead.”

I paused for a second. What was she talking about? Did she want me to become a criminal? What the heck?

“It’s… uh, not right to do that?”

Her eyes narrowed even further. I felt them boring into me. Had I said something wrong? Were they going to arrest me on the spot before I even got a use out of my powers?!

“Exactly, it wouldn’t be right,” she finally said whilst closing her eyes.

Had she been testing me, somehow? Had I passed the test? I was bewildered.

“Now, what do you think being a hero entails?”

“Well… fighting villains, stopping disasters, that kinda thing, right?”

“That’s not incorrect, but emergencies and super crimes don’t happen that often, and for regular crimes, there is still the police. Most of the time, you’ll be in the base training, helping test new devices, writing reports, and going over other reports.”

Wait, so, being a superhero was mostly an office job?!

“Not what you imagined, hm?” She smirked, probably noticing my shocked expression.

“Not really...”

“So, do you still want to be a hero, knowing all that?”

It wasn’t like I would be doing this forever. I was only infiltrating them. Right. As soon as I got what I wanted, I could kiss the dumb paperwork bye-bye.

“Yeah, I do.” I nodded.

“Alright, then.” She stood up. “Let’s move onto the next part of this interview.” She began walking away through a nearby hedge arch. Gatekeeper silently tagged along. I stood up and followed them.

We arrived at an empty circular space surrounded by hedges. It almost looked like an arena.

“So,” Monarch began as she turned to face me. “As you’ll be joining us, we will need to know what you’re capable of. You mentioned you are a teleporter. Mind showing us?”

I nodded.

Of course, I didn’t intend to show them the full extent of my powers. It wouldn’t do to show your whole hand to your enemies. The fact that I could use my power on objects would be my trump card.

I concentrated for a second and then blinked a few meters away. They both turned to face me again.

“Interesting.” Monarch nodded. “What’s your range?”

“About thirty meters.”

Another nod. “Not that bad. How often can you do it?”

“Well, there’s some cooldown… the longer the teleport, the longer the cooldown.”

“Mhmm.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are there other aspects of your power?”

“Well, I dunno. I’m still learning.” I shrugged.

“Alright. There will be further tests later. For now, why don’t wake take you for a tour of the base?”

I smiled. My infiltration was going smoothly so far.

“Sure.”

Chapter 3 - Manager:

If I had to describe the base in one word, it would be: ‘maze’. The place had no predictable structure. This door led to a corridor, this elevator only went up to the second floor, these stairs went underground. For an outsider like me, navigating this place was a nightmare. I honestly didn’t understand how people didn’t get lost all the time in here. Were all heroes masters of navigation or something?

Anyway, the two heroes showed me around and introduced me to the other heroes. I had already done my research on most of them, although it seemed like there was another newbie other than me.

It was a girl in a plated azure armor. A helmet covered her face entirely, only letting her long black hair flow behind her. It looked quite impressive actually, although I had no idea how she was able to see.

“Hey, I’m Pearl; I’m also new. Nice to meet you,” she said with enthusiasm and extended her hand.

“I’m Blink. Likewise.” I smiled and we shook hands.

After the introductions, I was escorted to my room inside the base. The guest tag was also taken off of me, and I got a strange mobile device instead. Besides functioning as a protective charm like the tag, it also had a holographic 3D map of the building saved into it and a GPS app to boot. It was a godsend in this forsaken labyrinth.

For the rest of the day, I was free to wander around and explore the base, the hero work would start the next day, they said.

And so, I made use of that. I wanted to gather as much intel about my enemies as I could before I turned on them. Anything that couldn’t be easily found on the internet was valuable information.

“Hey Blink!”

My information gathering was halted by Pearl.

“Hi.” I waved at her and put on a fake smile.

“Are you looking around too?”

“Yeah. It’s really confusing around here. I’m trying to make sense of it.”

“No kidding! It’s a total maze!” She giggled. “Wanna look around together?”

“Um, sure.” I wasn’t too happy about it, but outright refusing might have been suspicious.

But when I thought about it for a second, she was the only hero I didn’t have any information on. Touring along with her gave me the perfect opportunity to extract that information.

“So, why did you become a hero?” I started with an innocent question.

“Oh, I always wanted to be one! I dreamed of getting powers since I was little, and when I actually got them a few weeks ago, I was super excited!”

What ball of energy this girl was. Perfect. Those were the easiest to extract information from.

“What about you?”

“Hmm? Ah, well… I went over my options when I got my powers and thought becoming a hero would be for the best.”

“That’s great! There’s a lot of people who just hide their powers and keep living their life.”

“Yeah, I… couldn’t do that. I’m kind of just barely scraping by and becoming a hero--” or rather an undercover villain ”--is my ticket out of poverty.”

“Oh… I’m sorry to hear that.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “I feel really dumb now. My reasons are kind of stupid compared to yours. You really needed this, but for me, it’s just fun.”

“No… I mean… it’s fine.”

Somehow, I ended up giving away about myself more than I learned about her. Well, not ideal, but… I didn’t really mind. It was a bit of a relief to tell someone about my situation and have them sympathize.

We continued exploring the base, visiting the cafeteria, the training room, and even the workshops of the various inventor heroes. Naturally, we also talked quite a bit during our tour. I learned that her power allowed her to create this crystal-like matter, which was pretty durable, and also opaque from one side, while completely see-through from the other side, somehow. That’s how she could see through that helmet, she made it with her power.

I learned other things about her, too. She had a pet cat named Ruffers, liked the color turquoise, and her favorite food was cherry pie. It was… kind of nice just talking about random things with her. It’s been a while since I had a friend…

Ugh, no! I was going to betray her later on! I couldn’t get attached now!

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After the little tour, I had headed back to my crappy little apartment and my mood instantly dropped. I didn’t want them to know my identity since I still wanted to have a private life even after I became a villain, and staying in the base overnight would put me in danger of revealing my identity. But I simply hated this apartment too much.

I made a decision. During the tour, I got to talking with one of the inventor heroes about a device that could modify your body… which was simply perfect for me. Once I turned on them, I would steal the device, fix myself, change how I looked, and then take on another identity. If I did that, it wouldn’t matter if they knew my current identity. I never liked the old me anyway. No matter how much I tried, I always felt like a fake.

It was time for a change.

I called my manager, flipped him off while he couldn’t see it, and said I quit the crappy job, before calling my landlord and telling him I was moving out. I stuffed my bag with some clothes and my meds, before waltzing out of my apartment and heading right for the hero HQ. This infiltration would be a long-term mission, I decided.