Anna’s car was still in the garage when Izzy went to leave.  He could have found her, let her know, carpooled with her.  He recalled the stupid commercials their PR rep had talked Lady Sapphire into doing, “Sapphire is the new Green.”  Baltimore wasn’t that far, but even an awkward hour in the car together wasn’t worth being good role models trying to fight global warming or whatever.

So he made the trip alone, beating her there and waiting for her, keeping an eye out for her little gray Toyota.  The Legend had to smile as she pulled up.  He recognized Lini’s handiwork immediately; the breakaway windbreaker and track pants that were the chilly super heroine’s signature undercover look.

“Incognito, eh?” he asked.

Anna whirled, startled.  She looked liked she was ready to rip off her clothes right then and there.  She glared, recognizing Izzy as pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against.  “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to help,” he said.  

“I don’t need your help.”  Her hostile tone was fair.  He’d been avoiding dealing with her since he found out she’d visited the Sea Witch to try and learn her magic.  Her good intentions aside, it was such a reckless, stupid, idiotic move, he had to wonder how he’d placed so much faith in her, laying everything on the line and even killing Aegis to protect her.

“Probably not.  But Lady Sapphire told me to come along, so here I am.”

“Well, you can tell her I don’t need a babysitter.”

That wasn’t fair.  He hesitated, wanting to explain.  Maybe she did; he’d told her to join the LC so she’d have some oversight, but that’s not why he was there.  He just wanted to blurt it out, ‘I killed Aegis.  It’s tearing me up, and I can’t take the hurt look I get from Stephanie back at the LC every time I see her, I need to get out, I need to do something, and I need to fix things with you.’

He didn’t though.  “Still your job, you’re running point.  I’m just here to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

His frustration mounted.  “Look, I’ll hang back, but I’m here-”

“Israel.”  She never called him that.

“Yes?”

“Go home.  I’ve got this.”

Izzy started walking, not fighting it.  He couldn’t resist a passive aggressive “Have fun,” as he walked past, not looking back.

He made his way back to his truck and got in, taking off his hat and hanging it from the rearview mirror.  “Home is where you hang your hat,” he told himself, satisfying the compulsion.  The Legend leaned into the back and dug around the floor until he found another shirt, a black turtleneck.  He shed his vest and shirt quickly and pulled on the turtleneck, hugging his muscular torso.  It was time for plan B.  He pulled a pair of noise cancelling ear buds out of his glove compartment and threaded the cord down his shirt before tucking the buds deep into his ear.  He snapped his fingers a few times, satisfied that he couldn’t hear anything, and then plugged the headphones into his phone and turned on a recording app.  

Snap snap.

The sound of his fingers clicking together was crisp and sharp in his ears.

He slipped back out to the streets and set off.  It didn’t take him long to find Anna again, trailing her from a distance as she made her way after into back alleys, carefully interrogating drug dealers.  The enhanced microphone in his phone picked it all up, and he had to admit, she was good, her initial awkward interactions quickly smoothing over as she subtly used her power, leading them into giving her the answers she wanted from the dime bag peddlers.

Izzy tailed her to a warehouse near the harbor, watching from the shadows as she stripped down to her costume.  She whipped out her baton knocked on the door, and he pointed his phone forward, leaning in to hear her tell whoever was behind the door to open up.  It opened, and Siren stepped into the door.  Izzy couldn’t hear what she said next, but a second later a chubby man came out and shambled off down the alley.  Izzy shrunk deeper into the shadows, flattening himself against a wall, and the man walked by without seeing the Legend.

The door was closing, and Izzy sprinted for it, pushing off the wall with a blast of energy for a speed boost.  His fingers caught the edge of the heavy metal door just before it closed as he dove forward, and he froze, listening for a minute.  When he didn’t hear anything, he slipped inside.

Shouting and fighting came from down the hall.  Izzy hugged the wall, listening to the unmistakable thud of bodies hitting the ground.  There was nothing for a few minutes, and just as he started to move again, a gunshot rang out from down the corridor.  

“Shit,” he whispered, already running, jumping over two prone forms on the floor.

“Drop your guns!”

Izzy stopped short and took a few steps back as he heard Siren call out, followed by the clatter of metal hitting concrete.  She wasn’t dead.  

He turned on the camera on his phone and used it to see around the corner, watching Siren fight off five men.

She was good.  He’d forgotten just how competent she’d been as a fighter in her peak during her first stint on the LC.  She might have been even better now, faster in her lighter armor than she’d been in her youth, her situational awareness and instincts honed much finer now.  Siren rolled backwards over a table, kicking one man in the jaw in the process.  She landed on the other side and kicked the table forward, slamming it into three of them, and in a flash she’d flipped back over it between them, grabbing the table as she came down on the other side and pulling it down with her, trapping them all under it while she launched herself at the other two.

She was definitely right.  She did have this.

Izzy didn’t even feel the urge to step in as one of them head butted her in the face, and she dropped to the floor, blood jetting from her nose.  He knew she’d be able to handle herself, and that she did, jumping back up, driving her shoulder into his gut as she rose, spinning and kicking him back as he stumbled backwards.

One by one, she took them all down until they stopped getting back up, and she leaned on a table, recovering.  She wiped her bleeding nose and spit blood.

A crash came from the door.  Izzy slammed his phone back into his pocket and sprinted for the wall at the end of the hall.  He grabbed an external water pipe and used it to climb straight up the wall, shoving a ceiling tile out of the way and vaulting his body up into the ceiling.  He spun around and pulled the tile back into place, leaving just a crack so he could see who’d just burst in.

The military had been trying to make super suits for as long as he remembered, probably since Aegis and Lady Sapphire had first really started trying to create a public team of enhanced heroes back in the 50’s, if not before.  Despite everything the Legendary Consortium did and all the work they put into working with the government, their leash was never quite short enough, and the average Joe’s in Washington were always trying to make a way to level the playing field.

Izzy had seen all sorts of prototypes and failed projects, clunky suits that looked liked they should be used for diving explorations and not trying to fight people that broke the laws of nature.  This thing was sleek.  Its feet were still heavy as it walked down the hall over the downed drug dealers, but it moved easily, the smooth, black, featureless mask moving back and forth.  Luckily, it was focused on the people on the floor, because Izzy knew there was a good chance that mask housed some state of the art sensors, night and/or thermal vision, and his hiding space in ceiling probably wouldn’t do him much good.  

But the battle armor didn’t look up, and it kept moving into the other room.  Izzy carefully pulled his phone back out and pushed into the crack in the ceiling tile, angling the mic towards the room.

“Silver Centurion?  The name’s Siren.”

Izzy adjusted himself, trying to get a better vantage point.  The room they were in was tall, and the hall he was in not so much, and the wall extended up on his left, keeping him from crawling out above them, forcing him to eavesdrop through the door.

“I know you can hear through that thing.  I just want to talk.”

“I’m not much for talking.”  Its voice was masked.

“That’s too bad.  This is a conversation you’re going to want to have.”

“Not interested.  Thanks for taking care of these lowlifes.”  Izzy heard the heavy suit moving back towards the door.

“Wait!” Siren shouted.  

Izzy closed the ceiling tile a bit more and held perfectly still.  The suit walked back into the hallway and down towards the back door.

“Doesn’t taking them out earn me at least five minutes?”  Siren asked, following him.

“I said thanks,” the figure in the suit said as it walked back outside.

“Hey.” Siren called after it as she followed.  

Izzy gave them a moment and he dropped silently back through the ceiling tile and landed in a crouch, listening.

“Hey, asshole!”  He couldn’t argue with her assessment.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

Izzy crept up to the door, using his phone again to peek out into the alley.  Siren was right in front of him, between the Silver Centurion and the door.  Izzy started to slink backwards when it said, “Suit yourself,” and with a roaring sound, activated a jetpack and flew up into the air.

Having seen enough, Izzy turned and walked back into the warehouse to find another way out.  He’d let Siren sort this out.  It had gone really well, all things considered.



The motel bed was decidedly uncomfortable as Izzy lay on it, staring up at the water stained ceiling.  A spring was sticking up into his back; the Legend sprawled on top of the sheets.  It was a convenient excuse for his insomnia.

He barely slept unless he could pass out from exhaustion, and then his sleep was restless and haunted.  

He shut his eyes, willing unconsciousness upon himself.

“Nothing about this is easy for me, Israel.  I truly regret what is about to happen.  I want you to know that, and I wish you’d given me an alternative.”

His eyes snapped open, and for a second, he could almost see the afterimage of the immortal man standing by his bed, Aegis’s deep voice echoing in his mind.  His talk with Stephanie had earned him no reprieve from his guilt.

The air was chilly as he made his way to the ice machine at the end of the motel.  He’d neglected to bring the ice bucket, and he plunged his hand into the ice, holding it there until it was numb and then pressed his frigid hand against his sweaty forehead.  Purple and dripping wet, he stared at his hand, making a gun.  He pressed his icy fingers against his temple, and cocked his thumb, mouthing ‘pow.’

He stared again at his hand, curling it into a fist.  No.  There was no taking the easy way out.  

His phone was buzzing on the floor when he got back to his room.  He flipped it over with his foot, seeing Anna’s number on the screen before the call ended.

“Calling to ask if I made it home alright?” he asked, glad for once for the petty bitterness that washed over him.  The phone remained on the floor while he went into he bathroom and took a cold shower.

When he came out, still dripping wet, a towel around his waste, his phone buzzed again.

One missed call and voicemail.  That was one long message.

“Izzy, you dick.  I did it.”  She was drunk.  Very drunk, her words slurring.  “I did it all on mine own, I din’t need you.  I got shot.  Right in the side.  But I still kicked ass!  An’ the robot didn’t wanna talk to me, but tha’s okay, I’mma go back out tomorrow night, and every night, ’til it’s got no choice but to talk ta me.”

She stopped.  He was happy for her.  He really was.  He almost hung up, but he kept listening, waiting of the click, and she started talking again.

“I couldn’t save her.”  Her breath hiccupped.  She was crying.  “There was a chance I could have brought her back.  Macy, I’m-

“Shit, you’re Izzy.”

Anna, you fool, he thought as he continued to listen.

“We don’t get ta tell people they can’t be heroes.  That’s not our job.  Mebbe they stole that armor, and tha’s bad, but I’m going to find out.

“I deserved that much.”

She was an idiot, and she was very, very drunk, but she was not wrong.  He listened to the thud as it sounded like she dropped her phone, and in the distance he could hear the faint but unmistakable sound of puking.  He kept listening to silence for several minutes until he heard her picking back up the phone.

“Macy, Macy, Macy,” she was muttering.

“Oh Anna,” he put his forehead in his hand.  “Don’t do that.”

She hung up, and he resisted the urge to call Anna’s sister, to tell her to not answer, but by that point it was too late, and it wasn’t his business.

He lay back down on bed, not bothering to get dressed.  Sleep came to him quickly.