Chapter 17: Leap of Faith

 

It’s going to be fine.

“Oh god. I’m going to die. This was a terrible idea. I’m actually going to die.” Eric stood on the edge of the building and looked down, which pretty much everyone who has ever had to jump off something would be able to tell you is a truly terrible idea. 

You’re not going to die, Amy giggled. First off, we’re bonded. We can walk away from a lot of damage now. Uh, I would prefer not to, though. From this height it would still uh…

“How bad?” Eric asked, trying not to think about it. 

Okay, remember how when you were a kid, you were in the front seat of your dad’s car and someone threw a tomato at the windshield? 

“Eueueuugh,” Eric said. 

Well that’s point number two, right? We can fly, Eric. You are not hitting the ground until we both agree that we want to. Amy was positively bouncing at the idea, he could tell, and a part of him really didn’t want to let her down. And he really did like the idea of flying. He just didn’t enjoy the idea of, well, tomato. Do you want me to give you a push?

“No,” he mumbled, “I’m good.” He turned around and walked away from the edge. Amy simply regarded him patiently. In talking over the past few days, they’d established some ground rules. First and foremost: while neither of them could hide their ‘loud’ thoughts, private thoughts were private. They were each their own people. 

Second rule was similar: Amy wouldn’t make Eric do anything he didn’t want to, and in return, Eric wouldn’t ‘use’ Amaranth to change his body without her consent. “Trust me,” she had said, “It’s for both our benefit.”

So when Eric walked away from the edge of the building they had slowly made their way to the top of, Amy didn’t know what to expect. Well, she couldn’t hear, anyway. When he spun on his heel and broke into a full sprint, she whooped in his ear like an excited teenager on a roller coaster. It was the only way he was going to make it off the edge, every fiber of his being screaming this was going to be the end of him. On the last step, he pushed as hard as he could, knowing that this was the one his muscles would clam up the most at. 

There was a moment of weightlessness. Floating in the air. Just the summer breeze, colder this high up, the sun beating down on him, the sounds of the city far below. Then it all started moving again and gravity took its hold of him. 

“Now!” He shouted, and Amaranth enveloped him. The ground was rapidly approaching but as their wings unfurled, their descent slowly tilting upwards, the air beating against their face. Fall turned into glide. Glide turned into—

We’re flying!! Amaranth shouted excitedly and did a pirouette in mid-air before beating their wings to gain altitude. When they were like this, Eric found that his body wasn’t not his, but it was like they had shared control. He got the sense that he could choose not to let Amy move, but also that there was no reason to. Like she was guiding his hand in a dance. 

And dance they did. Flying took some getting used to — there was no instinct in either of them for how this should work — but Amaranth was apparently quite strong. They were figuring it out together. Doing a barrel roll to the left, weaving right, just barely but not quite hitting a large sign, don’t worry about it, it’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine, how are you?

In time, wingbeats turned from a stutter into something that came almost naturally. Tucking the wings in slightly to the body, then extend them again for the push down. Gaining speed was easy, they just had to dive and then pull up, although they made sure not to practice that too close to the ground, just in case. 

“How high do you think we can go?” Eric asked. “Like, birds can go high but…”

Birds are a lot smaller, yeah, Amy said, I was thinking that too. How about for now we don’t go too high above the tallest buildings? 

“Y—yeah,” Eric said, suddenly realizing what they were doing. It was strange, when they were in flight he could just sort of let his body take over and let the sensations do their thing. When he thought about how high up they were, fear started to creep back in. He wasn’t in the mood to let it, but maybe he needed a break. 

Oh! Amy said. Speaking of breaks, I think I have something figured out! Fly at that building over there? She pointed his attention at a smaller apartment complex. Just slow down a bit in front of it.

“Uh,” Eric said, not really wanting to smack into a wall, even while slowed down. 

Just trust me. Alright, well, if she put it like that, not doing it would just be mean. Eric beat his wings at the last minute. He saw his silhouette, a shadow cast on the building, and marveled at just how big his wings were. However, he’d made sure to still keep a little bit of forward momentum and smacked into the building. 

He had expected his forehead to bounce off the concrete, to feel that unfamiliar stinging numbness of having something hit his mouth (familiar because, as a child, he had walked into his fair share of lantern poles). Instead, Amy had held out her hands and they’d just sort of bounced gently and now clung to the side of the building.

“Huh.”

Right? I figured out how to do it last night.

“Wait, when?” Eric asked as he carefully pulled his hand away and put it back up against the wall. It was a bit like velcro. 

You were asleep, so I just kinda… she pulled a hand away from the wall again. Ffft. 

“Cool,” Eric said. He tried moving around and found it fairly easy. He’d expect more tension, gravity to play a bigger part, but for the most part it was not all that dissimilar from just being crouched on the ground. Just stickier. 

Yeah, I found out that I’m already lowering your mass significantly, but I can also kind of move the center of mass around pretty easily. You good?

“Good?” Eric said, carefully peeling his feet away from the wall and putting them ‘under’ him, although up and down were becoming nebulous concepts. “I’m doing great!” He pushed as hard as he could, flinging himself away from the wall, doing a flip in the air, and unfurled his wings. It took him a full second to realize that the ‘Wahoo!’ he could hear was his own. It was just freeing beyond belief. 

He was soaring! He had never soared before! He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so unburdened, so free to just be without expectations or anxiety. Even the fear was… Well, it wasn’t gone. It was there, but more as spice, the fact that he was fully in control of himself. Eric – no Redshift – was a god damn superhero!

They flew lower to the ground and saw people turn their heads to look at the streak of red and gold. He slowed down just a little bit to wave and wondered if people could see him smile from this high up. Could they see he looked like a girl from this distance?

Question. They picked speed back up, flying over the city doing loops and drifts and spins and flips and whatever else they could think of. At some point we’re going to, I’m assuming, make a public appearance where we talk to people. 

“Uh, yeah”, Eric said as he landed on top of a flagpole, shaking his wings out for a second. He hadn’t really thought about it much but yeah, that was very likely. 

Well, how are we introducing ourselves? Amaranth asked. I mean, yeah, Redshift. But then what? I think going by ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ is probably best, not in the least because your mom will be watching every news broadcast you show up in and that would be some explanation when you get home. But then what?

“What do you mean, then what?” Eric asked as he looked down at the street. Seeing people from this high up was weird. Neat but weird. 

People are going to think you’re a girl, Eric. Does that bother you?

Ah. He hadn’t really thought about that either. Being perceived as a girl was definitely good as a secret identity, but he would probably have to be okay with that secret identity being so different from, well him. “Uh,” he said, “um. I’ll have to think about it. Hold on.” He pointed. There was a truck in an alley. People were carrying things. 

Maybe they’re moving?

“There’s glass on the ground by the window,” Eric said, tensing up a bit. 

Maybe they’re just clumsy. 

“They’re wearing balaclavas.”

They’re cold?

“It’s like ninety degrees out.”

They’re stealing.

“They’re definitely stealing.”

Now what?

“Say hi? Scare them a bit? Like, people don’t want to mess with a superhero, right?” He unfurled his wings. Trepidation was coming over him but the idea of not doing anything didn’t sit well with him either. He had power. Not using it to stop someone having their belongings stolen felt wrong. 

I’ll keep us safe, Amy said. But don’t do anything stupid. 

“We’re sitting on top of a lantern pole hundreds of feet up,” Eric pointed out. “But I get your point. I promise not to provoke anyone into violence as best as I can.” With that, he dove, throwing himself forward in a corkscrew motion just because he could and he needed to get rid of the building nervous energy. As he slowed his descent, his wings grazed the sides of the alley, and he landed with more grace than he expected to on the back of the truck, turning around to face the two men who looked at him in stunned confusion. “Hey, guys!” Eric said. “Bit hot for those masks, isn’t it?”

One of them, wearing a black balaclava, was clearly a bit faster on the uptake. Brainiac! Amy piped in. Brainiac put down the stereo he was carrying. “Who the hell are you?” The other one – Let’s call him Gray! – quickly stepped back. 

“So cool of you to ask!” Eric said as he stepped off the side of the truck. Amy, picking up on his intentions, made sure to make him as clingy as possible. Standing horizontal to the two men was clearly messing with their head a bit. Good. Keep them on the back foot. “You can call me Redshift!”

Brainiac took a step forward, squaring his shoulders. “Go home, girl. This doesn’t concern you.” His attempts at being intimidating were being somewhat diminished by the fact that he was holding his head at a forty-five degree angle to look her in the face. If Eric remembered right, mask on, his eyes were a shiny even gold, with no visible pupils. That probably didn’t help. 

“I don’t suppose I can persuade you to stop the whole thieving thing, right? I promised I wouldn’t interfere in violent crimes.”

“Um, I don’t think stealing counts?” Gray said, holding up his hand. Redshift waved back. Brainiac looked back at his companion with exasperation.

“Breaking and entering is a violent crime, actually. All burglary is,” Eric said. He’d given a class presentation on crimes once. He had not been the most popular kid in his middle school, that was for sure. “For the purposes of federal prosecution and sentencing, anyway.”

“Promised who?” Brainiac said, clearly trying to wrest control back of  the situation. “Did you promise your mommy you wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“Um,” Eric said, “yeah. I love my mom. Like, who doesn’t? When was the last time you called her?” He put his hands on his hips and gave a disapproving glare, hoping his raised eyebrows translated through the mask.

“Shit,” Gray said. “I should call Mom.”

“Who are you?” Brainiac said, taking another step closer. He was within grabbing range now. “Whatever your name is, girl, just look the other way.”

“And just let you steal from the poor people at…” he looked up at the building, “...okay, bad example.” The bright yellow logo was hard to ignore.

“Big chains don’t care if you steal from them, kiddo,” the man said. “It’s a writeoff for them. So just leave. This is a victimless crime.”

“You are literally taking something from someone, though,” Eric said. “Even if it’s a big company. I can’t just let you do that.” 

Brainiac rolled his eyes. “You can do a lot of things, girl. Consider this Big City 101.” His fist shot out a lot faster than Eric would have given him credit for. He looked like the kind of big lug who went for a haymaker, but he moved like someone who had a boxing bag at home. Unfortunately for him, Eric and Amaranth were faster and stronger. He caught it.

“Ah,” he said and jumped off the side of the truck, holding on to the hand, doing a twist in-mid air. There was a very unfortunate crunching sound as Brainiac’s arm bent the wrong way and Redshift landed in front of his friend. “Oh shit,” Eric said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” To the man’s credit, he had the energy to swing with his other hand. Eric blocked it with so much ease it was like the man was moving through glue. A smack on the side of the head, and Brainiac crumpled to the ground like a wet house of cards. 

Gray turned and ran. 

“Shit,” Eric said, looking at the man on the ground and then at the other one running down the alleyway. “I’m going to get in trouble for this, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Penumbra said from the top of the truck. “You are.”