Two hours pass, and Elaine finishes healing up Bayani. "Sorry it took so long, I decided to heal up some of the scars that would've remained too." She smiles down at him before standing up and walking over to me, her face retracting into a scowl.
"I need to have a private conversation," I tell Elaine.
"No! You lost that privilege after attacking a ranker and getting both of us punished!" She snaps.
"With who?" Bayani asks, entering the conversation.
"You and Kara," I reply.
"Well, Elaine, my room is right across from yours. So if the conversation is held there, you can monitor by seeing if Parker leaves." Bayani offers.
Elaine grimaces; she still seems very angry with me, understandably so. She stands there, squeezing her eyes shut and tapping her feet in contemplation.
"Fine, but if you leave. I will put you in this infirmary with my own two hands, and I won't heal you," she says, jabbing a finger at me.
I nod as Bayani stands up and walks over to me, stopping right beside me. Elaine walks three steps behind us. We enter the elevator, Bayani and I near the doors, while Elaine pushes past us to stay behind.
We arrive at Bayani's room, right across from Elaine's. Bayani swipes him and me in, while Elaine is leaning against the door to her own room.
Seeing his room. It's a bed the same size as mine, and a desk with a chair on the back wall. The rest of the room is filled with bookshelves filled with books. I see partitions that seem to divide the books on the shelves by author, and they're alphabetized within that as well. I see on his desk a copy of an autobiography by…
Mr. Eun-ji?
Now, why in the world is that man publishing an autobiography if he wants to act so secretive?
Bayani walks up and places a hand on my shoulder, startling me. "I texted Kara to come up here. She'll be here in about twenty minutes." He tells me, he pauses, and looks over in the direction of my gaze. "Oh? Interested in your mentor's autobiography? It's pretty interesting. He talks about his childhood, then jumps straight to when he becomes a hero, when he's done talking about his eleventh birthday."
Ok. That tracks.
"And the autobiography was too expensive. Two-hundred dollars for hardcover, one-fifty for paperback."
"And you actually bought it?" I scoff.
Mr. Eun-ji. He confuses me. He acts money hungry with things like taking Miss Claire's wallet to buy ice cream for him and me from his own ice cream stand. But he seems like a good person as well.
"On release, three days ago. There's a chapter on you."
"There is? What did he say?" I ask as my eyes narrow in suspicion.
If he said something that hints towards the Parker identity being fake, especially after he preached to me on how secrecy is important, I might hit him.
"Oh, just how he 'discovered a boy' who has close to the exact same powers as him. And how proud he is of you. He also refers to you as a stubborn little bastard. He even wrote out a rooftop brawl you both had against the gang, and it made you pretty popular with his fans."
"Mr. Eun-ji has fans?" I say, my eyes widening in disbelief.
"Have you seen the way people talk about him on social media?" He asks.
"What in the world is 'social media'?" I ask.
"You're kidding." He says
"I'm not."
"Sonar told us you were sheltered, but I didn't think it was that much…" Bayani remarks.
"Great. Thanks for letting me know that he sat you and Kara down to talk about me behind my back."
"Not really like that. He overheard a conversation between Kara and me when she was laughing about how you screwed up swiping your card a few times at the mall. That's when he told us that."
"That doesn't make me feel better about it."
"Anyway, social media is something where you can make posts about anything, and any other person who has it can see your post and interact with it. Apparently, before you or I were alive, there were multiple ones. But now there's only a WWSHA brand one. Here lemme show you."
He shows me his phone screen, and I see a bunch of posts about Mr. Eun-ji. One user made a very long paragraph that I only ended up reading the first paragraph… "Gross!" I exclaim, backing away.
"People are odd. It's great for publicity, though. Kara and I are already building our presence there, so we have some public support when we become heroes."
"How does that affect anything?" I ask
"Heroes get paid based on personal performance, as well as public perception. Even if they suck as people, like that one hero you don't like. If they have good worldwide support through their online presence, they get some good pay."
So public perception matters. I'm sure money isn't the only benefit. If the public likes someone, it's harder to make a case against them where you won't get attacked.
Bayani swipes my phone from my pocket. "Here, lemme make you an account."
After a minute, Bayani takes a picture of me, then gives me my phone back. "All set up, you're now free to share your thoughts with the world."
"Great, gonna do that until Kara gets here. First post: 'The stuff you people say about my mentor is gross.' Post." I say aloud as I type that out.
Bayani laughs, "Oh, I'm sure they're gonna appreciate being called out."
"Mr. Eun-ji will probably be upset that I am on this thing."
"He will?" Bayani asks.
"Yup, and look. Right on cue." I point at my phone, as I see a text from Mr. Eun-ji: "Why are you on social media now?!"
"Bayani made an account for me. He's right here by me." I reply to him.
"Parker. I hope you realize that being my apprentice will get you a lot of attention." He texts back.
"K" I reply, putting my phone down as I hear a knock on the door. Bayani answers it, and it's Kara.
"Now that you both are here, I'd like to talk to you about something." I begin, before continuing: "Bayani, the man who attacked you is from a larger multi-faction gang."
"He was?!" Bayani exclaims.
"Yes. And I haven't told anyone this. But I know their leader." I tell them.
"Mr. Perfect, right?" Kara chimes in.
"You're right, how'd you guess?" I ask.
"Well, I just kinda thought that there'd be no other reason for you to rush out in anger and attack him this morning." She says.
She's perceptive, able to put things together the second she gets enough pieces.
"I want you both to help me dismantle them faction by faction," I tell them.
"Why? That sounds too reckless." Bayani says.
"I'd have to agree here. Even if they attacked Bayani, shouldn't we leave that to heroes like Elaine and Sonar? Did you tell Sonar about this?" Kara adds.
I let out a deep sigh. Crap. I didn't think this far ahead when it comes to convincing them. And I do need to do that quickly, or else they're probably gonna tell someone, which will get me in deep trouble with Mr. Eun-ji.
"I did. He assigned me a special mission. He wants me to take them down from weakest to strongest. And now it's personal." I lie.
"Oh. That actually makes sense." Bayani says, smiling a bit.
"Okay. Then let's go ask Sonar what he wants us to do first." Kara says, standing up.
"Wait!" I shout.
"Huh?" Kara turns around, looking confused and a little annoyed.
"Mr. Eun-ji would be pretty pissed off at me if he figured out I'm involving you both. He wants this entire thing to be secret. He did tell me the order to target them, though." I tell her.
"Then why involve us if you know it'll make him mad?" She asks.
"Because I can't do this alone," I admit. "I need you both. I trust you two. And I'd say you and I fight well together, Kara, the mall proved that."
There's a long, eerie silence between the three of us. The anxiety this induces is killing me. Was this entire conversation a mistake? Should I even be trying to do this in the first place?
"I'll help," Bayani says, being the first to speak up. "If a hero is running a gang like that, I can't let it stand. Ironhide would've wanted us to face that corruption."
I let out a sigh of relief that I didn't realize that I had in me. I look over to Kara, and she looks more conflicted. She looks over at her brother, seeming shocked that he agreed to this. She mouths to him, "You're supposed to be the cautious one, idiot."
She turns to me, "Parker, I-I'm not sure." She stammers.
"Give me a day or two to think. No matter my choice, I won't tell anyone anything. Okay?" Kara says, quickly opening the door and rushing out.
I feel a lump form in my throat. I know my entire existence here is a lie, but I do feel bad lying to them about my motives. But they'd guaranteed say no if they knew my actual motives.
It's petty, and I don't want them to get hurt. But I can protect them. If they get incapacitated, I'll just use the rest of my powers and wipe the rest out. But aside from that, I need to handle this as Parker, not Chameleon.
"Thanks, Bayani, for letting me use your room for this. But Elaine is probably getting impatient. I'm going to head out."
"Alright, see you later." He responds with a wave.
I exit the room and see Elaine standing there. "What the hell did you say to her?!" She barks, grabbing my shirt and pinning me against her room door.
"I didn't say anything offensive!" I shout back, physically resisting, trying to pull her hands off of me.
"Oh, really? She walks out of the room crying after a private conversation with you and Bayani, and you expect me to believe that it isn't your fault?!"
"Elaine, hands off of me!"
"Not until you explain!" She shouts, pulling me back and slamming me against the door.
"I don't know! Maybe the offhand comment Bayani made about Ironhide's ideals made her cry?" I say, frantically trying to offer any kind of plausible explanation.
"If it was just that, why would she tell me that she didn't want to talk about it when I asked her?"
"Well, last night when she and I were watching a movie. She told me that she doesn't like burdening people with Ironhide-related things." I tell her.
Elaine begrudgingly lets me go. "That… makes sense." She says gruffly.
Elaine swipes her card into her door's card reader and opens her room door, then she drags me inside.
"You're in here for the rest of the day. No leaving. I'll bring dinner up to you." She says, before leaving the room again, leaving me alone to my own devices.
For being so scared of Paragon's wrath and getting on me about compliance, she sure loves being flexible about the arrangement.
I pull out and check my phone and see hundreds of notifications coming from that "social media" app. Some chastise me for criticizing the way they speak of Mr. Eun-ji, others call into question whether I'm real or not, and others on my side. It seems I've already garnered some attention.
I wonder if I can use this to my benefit? Public support means a lot in this world, right?
I see a post from an account that I can only assume is Kara, due to the username and profile picture. I see that the post is a video of Bayani and me sparring the other day.
She recorded that?
I see the reactions to it are primarily praising my strength. Even Mr. Eun-ji himself made a comment bragging about how he trained the strongest apprentice.
I let out an annoyed sigh, and I tap on Kara's profile picture, and it takes me to her entire profile. I scroll down and start looking at all of her posts.
It ranges from her posting photos of those record things she likes, or her getting into arguments online, with the occasional post of pictures of her and Bayani.
My scrolling is stopped by a tap on my shoulder. "Stalking people now? Fuckin' weirdo." Elaine remarks.
"I was just curious! I've never used this social media thing before!" I protest.
"Whatever. Eat your dinner. I brought you back a meatball sub sandwich." She throws a long sandwich wrapped in some kind of paper at me. She then sits down on the couch.
I unwrap it quickly and start eating it. The taste of the sub brings back some of the scarce happy memories I had before Miss Claire took me in. The crunch of the bread that encases the tender and savory meatballs, the sandwich also has just the right amount of cheese and marinara sauce.
"Thanks, Elaine! Haven't had one of these since my fifth birthday!" I exclaim, I feel a smile creeping onto my face. I hop up next to her on the couch.
"What is your damage?!" She exclaims.
I recoil a bit. Just realizing that this is quite out of character for Parker. "Whoops."
"No. No whoops. You act stubborn, defiant, and defensive. You fly off the rails and do stupid shit, and then you act all anxious and scared the next second. None of your behavior makes any sense." She rants.
"Well, I could say the same for you, Elaine. You don't make any sense to me either." I retort.
Elaine pauses and contemplates. She looks over to her desk, and I see her eyes land on a photo of her and Elizabeth. She then sighs and says, "If you tell me your deal. I'll tell you mine. 'Kay?"
"Okay." I then pause. Thinking of the best way to phrase this, not giving too much away. A part of me feels like I owe it to Elaine.
"My birth family hurt me. Bad. I have permanent scars from them. My Mom took me away from them and saved me on my sixth birthday. I suppose lately I've been being reminded of them." I explain.
"Paragon throwing you through a door?"
"That surely doesn't help."
"Well, as for me. You remind me of my dead brother. And every time I look at you, I'm reminded of my own failures." She explains.
"Are you gonna reflect and be nicer?" I ask.
"Are you gonna stop being a little bastard?" She retorts.
"You're impossible."
She lets out a genuine laugh in response, "I don't know what you want me to say. You dug that hole for yourself."
I sigh, knowing she's right. My behavior since arriving at HQ has likely not put me in the good graces of anybody except for Kara and Bayani, and even that notion is questionable.
The gang, Mr. Perfect, Kara, Bayani, Elaine, and the rest of that cursed family. My only saving grace here is Mr. Eun-ji, and hopefully my friendship with Bayani and Kara.
It's only been three days here, and everything is spiraling.
I hope Miss Claire is doing better than I am.