What does it take to make a hero? Is it a horrifying origin story, perhaps? Something awful must happen to you so that you can be reforged into a figurehead of steel and goodness.

Maybe it’s an unquenchable thirst for justice, a drive you can’t tamp down that pushes you to heal every evil you perceive in a world.

Or maybe being a hero exists in just a few moments. A brief series of flashes throughout your life where you’re faced with an impossible choice and you still choose the right one. Then again, maybe-

“Epic, come in,” a voice spoke into his ear.

Ray lifted a finger to the side of this helmet where his earpiece rested and hit the send button.

“Epic here, go ahead.” He hated his voice. It was too gravely, too worn.

“Reckoning here,” the voice responded. “You got anything going on in your sector?”

Ray glanced around the rooftop he was standing on, confirming this part of the city was still safely slumbering.

“Whole lot of nothing.”

“Good, we have something for you. There’s a vandal tearing up the Stedson Mall,” Reckoning reported. “Empowered. She can fly and thoughtcraft hardened light. Unconfirmed reports of a minor precognitive ability.”

“She’s a precog,” Ray shook his head with a laugh. “Explains why you’d send me. We’re going to subdue her with how depressing my life is.”

“Hey now,” Reckoning responded gently. “She sees the future, Epic. We’re going to subdue her with how depressing your life is going to be.”

Ray chuckled and lowered his hand from his helmet before leaping into the air. The ground fell away beneath him as he rocketed upwards and, in a few moments, the whole city crystalized before him. An impossibly complex lattice of steel and glass formed buildings that clawed up at the sky. It was as beautiful as it was daunting. Millions of people lived down there and it was his job to keep all of them safe.

He leaned forward and felt the familiar shivering sensation run down the length of his body as he flew towards the mall. Ray never much cared for flying. The other capes he knew capable of taking to the skies found joy in it, a sense of freedom. To Ray, it felt like an exercise in precision falling.

A moment later and he came to a sudden stop in front of the mall, landing in a fashion that somehow managed to feel like a tremendous crash without leaving a crater. For a moment he worried about getting inside without breaking anything, but a large, shattered window dispelled those concerns.

He took a breath to revel in the overall quiet. The city was full of people who never stopped moving and never stopped making noise. Nighttime just seemed to make the world brighter as everyone pulled out synthetic lights. But right then, it was calm. For a moment, even a brief one, the big man could enjoy the relative solitude.

Then a loud crash came from inside and he remembered why he was there.

Shards of glass crunched beneath his boots as he stepped inside to find racks of clothes strewn about and torn. Bits of what looked like stained glass littered the area, stabbed into the walls and ceilings or just lying shattered.

He stepped through the store and out the front gate, entering a central courtyard. He was on the first floor, but the courtyard descended into a basement level, putting him on a balcony.

The predominant focus of the area wasn’t the courtyard or other stores, but the woman floating in the air. She wore a hoodie and jeans but they were hardly noticeable. Her body was surrounded by colored glass like a suit of armor. There was no rhyme or reason to the coloration, save for the glass that extended out of her back as a massive set of wings. They were a uniform red.

The woman hadn’t noticed him yet and he took the chance to watch her. She was singing to herself, a remarkably off-key version of something. Her wings folded and flexed, revealing a patchwork of glass shards that gave the illusion of feathers, as she bobbed in the air. Every now and then she would flick a hand out, sending a razor blade of stained glass off like an arrow.

Ray thought about opening his mouth to speak and even as he did the woman whipped around to face him. Blue panes of glass formed an aquiline helmet around her head, but she was clearly looking at him.

“I’m going to have to ask you to stop doing that,” Ray called to her.

“I’m going to have to ask you to go fuck yourself,” the woman snapped back the second he was done speaking as if she knew what he was going to say.

Precognitive abilities. She probably did.

“Language,” the big man shook his head.

The woman laughed in response, again acting right on the heels of Ray finishing his sentence. The sound was high pitched, and she sounded younger than he originally thought.

“Please tell me,” Ray started. “That you’re not just some punk brat with powers wrecking up a mall cause your- “

“My boyfriend didn’t dump me, asshole,” the woman, girl, growled.

“Language. And that’s a yes then, on the brat part?” he chuckled. He was starting to get a pin on her power. She could see the future, but he didn’t think it went more than a few seconds, and she wasn’t able to process it faster than normal.

“Fuck you.”

Raising an arm, she fired off a shower of razor-sharp glass. Ray stood there impassively, not even flinching as the glass struck the invisible barrier around him and shattered.

“Language,” he repeated, tone even. “And please stop doing that. You’re making a mess.”

The girl gave a smirk and rose higher in the air, fanning her wings to send a barrage of green glass knives at him. Instead of simply standing, Ray rocked forward onto his feet and launched into the air. The glass shattered into an emerald mist as he crushed through it.

Though she lurched to the side, the move had clearly caught her by surprise. Ray reached out to slam a heavy fist against the edge of a wing, connecting with a fragmented piece of glass that went flying across the room.

The girl flexed her hand and a bright orange knife appeared. It grew rapidly until it was the size of great sword, much larger than she should be able to hold with a single hand. She swung the weapon in a wide arc, aiming to cut Ray in half. The shockingly lethal attack was cut off as her arm jerked back, freezing the weapon mid-swing, a look of confusion crossing her face.

Before she could react, Ray lunged through the air towards her. His fingers brushed the tip of the sword as she moved to pull it back but immediately it froze. Ray grinned as he felt the barrier surrounding him extend to envelop the sword, putting it completely within his control.

The big man flicked his wrist and the orange weapon launched across the open space, shattering into a million pieces. The girl winced several seconds before the noise, and in the brief moment of distraction Ray reached out to grasp her arm.

She halted in the air, completely contained by Ray’s power, unable to move. Confusion, then anger, then panic spread across her face. Ray could see and feel the muscles in her body tense. Pieces of glass layered about her body tried to push her.

“Ah, so you can’t actually fly,” he noted. “You just move the glass, let it carry you.”

“It isn’t glass,” she bit, frustration apparent in her rapid speech. “It’s light. I make it solid.”

“I’m not entirely certain what the distinction is,” Ray laughed. “But you’ll have plenty of time to tell me on the way to jail.”

He let the force field pulse across her body, crumbling what glass remained into dust. The wings fell away and the armor melted around her, leaving a surprisingly slim girl in its wake. She had long, bright purple bangs, with the rest of her hair buzzed short, and a face full of piercing that simply couldn’t be comfortable.

“For heaven’s sake,” Ray sighed. “You’re young. How old are you?”

“Nineteen, fuck-o,” she rolled her eyes before he could say more. “You’re ancient. What’re you, fifty?”

“Language. And I’m not that old. And that’s not my name. It’s-“

“Epic,” she cut him off. A hint of awe had crept into her voice. “Jesus shit, you’re really him. And you are old. What’re you, sixty?”

“I just said no,” he grunted. “But yeah, that’s me. And who’re you?”

The girl tried for several long moments to squirm out of his control.

“Jackie,” she finally huffed. Her body went limp and she let herself be carried by his field.

“Well Jackie. You’re going to prison. But you’re lucky, because you have powers. So, if you’re good, one day they’ll let you join up and be a hero like me.”

His tone wavered back and forth between sincere and dripping with sarcasm.

“Like fuck am I going to join you assholes.”

_________________________________

“It’s hard to believe,” Reckoning said to the assembled crowd. “Hard to believe that young Jackie only joined us a year ago. And not under the best of circumstances.”

The hero smiled and gestured at Ray, and the assembled heroes gave a genuine laugh.

A few more than a dozen people filled the room, all of them heroes that worked alongside Ray to keep the city safe. Jackie stood nearby, piercings absent but hair cut in the same fashion as it had been a year ago. Now it was stark white, matching the uniform she wore.

“This young lady has served her time for our city, accounting for the mistakes of her past. Further, she elected to stay with us six months ago, learning and practicing under our guidance. And now, due to the remarkable speed with which she proved herself to us, Jackie is graduating to become a fully-fledged member of our team.”

With that, Reckoning stepped back from the podium and gestured for Jackie to take his place. The gathered heroes applauded the young woman as she walked forward, smiling demurely. Ray smirked at her face. She may have looked like an angel, but the little thing still swore like a sailor.

“Thank you all so much,” the young woman, as she’d grown too much in the last year for Ray to think of her as a girl any longer, said with her hands gripping the edge of the podium. She was slim but tall, with her uniform flowing down like a sort of battle dress. The design of it still allowed for hardened light wings. It gave her a very Valkyrian feel.

“I can’t possibly express enough to you all how much it means that you’ve accepted me as one of your own,” Jackie continued. She had the same high-pitched voice, but the unbridled derision had been reined in a bit.

“I know at first a lot of you had reservations about my becoming a hero. I know my start was a little rocky, to say the least. I’m still not legally allowed to enter the Stedson Mall.”

The group laughed again.

“But a lot of you haven’t just been my jailers, you’ve been my teachers. I’ve grown a lot, under your tutelage, or at least I like to think I have.

“I’m ready to help. Ready to be a hero. There’s too much in this world that’s chaotic. Rebellious. Destructive, just for the sake of destruction. Things I know about all too well. People have a habit of making you- of making us- into either martyrs or demons. But regardless, we’re needed to keep this mad little system in check.

“It is an immeasurable honor to me to be accepted, as much as all of you have accepted me, and it honestly makes me tear up more than a little bit to know that. But as I said, I’m ready now. Ready to take my place amongst you. And, as I’ve been instructed to decide on a name for myself, I’ve decided on one to honor my mentor, Epic, the man who brought me and guided me the most. In the last year.”

Ray snorted indelicately. It had taken months for the girl to say anything to him that didn’t include ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’, and even since it had been as much babysitting as anything else. She’d even forced him to listen to this speech about a dozen times as she prepared for it. For a little vandal, she was remarkably thorough with preparations.

Her speech had never involved honoring him, though.

“I’ve decided to call myself Myth,” Jackie said proudly, a broad smile cresting her face as she looked over at Ray. The other heroes in the room cheered and began clapping again as she stepped down and entered the crowd. Everybody sought to shake her hand and offer her congratulations. She was the living embodiment of a reformed criminal.

“And what exactly was that little stunt?” Ray asked when she finally extricated herself and joined him on the side of the room.

The young woman flicked her white hair and picked up a glass to take a sip before responding. She wrinkled her nose and set it down without drinking.

“Non-alcoholic?”

“Do you ever turn that power off?” Ray laughed. “Some people find surprises enjoyable.”

“I’m not one of them,” Jackie said, leaning against the wall close to him and surveying the room as he did.

“So? Myth?” He raised an eyebrow at her and she frowned.

“I thought you’d like it. Epic, Myth. We’re a god damned pair of legends.”

Ray gave a chuckle before saying, “Yeah, cause who wouldn’t love having a tyke like you grabbing at my coattails. And please, watching the language.”

Jackie squinted at him and opened her mouth slightly.

“Fuck you,” she finally blurted out. “I can swear if I want to, and you’d be lucky to have me on your team.”

“Language,” Ray admonished, careful to keep his tone bemused even as he felt his anger rising. “And listen closely, you little brat. It was my job to take care of you, okay? I am in no way eager to have to work with you, or anyone for that matter. I’m more than happy functioning on my own, thank you very much.”

“Christ,” she snarled the second he was done talking. “You’re just like Jason, you know that?”

“Hey, don’t look at me” he snapped in response, frustration getting the better of him. “I didn’t ask to take the place of anyone’s runaway father.”

The young woman’s face screwed up in confusion halfway through the sentence, and then her lips curled in disgust.

“Jesus Christ, Jason wasn’t my dad you idiot.”

She said before turning and stalking off. Ray opened his mouth to spout something back, but she was already gone, and he didn’t have anything clever to say anyway. What was her problem, anyway?

The big man looked around, eager to make sure no one had overheard too much of the conversation. He was surprised to see not a single person looking his way. All eyes were glued to various monitors set up around small event hall. The fifteen heroes and small host of staff stood silently, watching events unfold.

“Reports are coming in now of the death toll,” a news anchor was saying. “But early estimates put the fatalities in excess of one hundred, at least twenty of which were children under the age of eight.”

“My god…” a voice in the crowd said, and a number of other murmured assent.

“It’s unclear as the exact motivations of the attack, but there can be no doubt that this is the work of Purge,” the reporter continued. “Purge, whose real identity was confirmed last year to be one Thomas Moran, is the empowered villain responsible for the Kansas City massacre three years ago. He then went on a killing spree across the country, evading pursuit until two months ago when he encountered the legendary hero known as Epic.”

Ray’s eyes narrowed and he felt a number of heads in the room pivot towards him. He remember the fight clear as day. Two months and he still had bruises from it.

“Epic was able to apprehend Purge, who was taken into custody and set for trial in one week’s time. While we still don’t know how, Purge was able to escape containment while being transported between facilities, and has returned to his lethal ways with a terrifying swiftness.”

The anchor went on to talk about Moran’s history, detailing the way the man used his powers to kill people. Moran, Purge, could force a chemical reaction in people that made them, well, purge a host of chemicals and proteins from their bodies, venting them like sweat through every pore of their skin.

The process killed almost instantly but the complication was Moran’s other power. Instead of instant death, the man could discorporate into a thin dust when he touched someone and be subsumed into their body. There he could sit, riding along like a disturbing passenger, until he decided to reappear by purging himself from their body and reforming.

It was all things Ray knew already, and he wasn’t eager to rehear any of it. The big man turned and walked away from the monitors, heading to the large window set into the wall so he could gaze at his city. Purge had gotten free hundreds of miles away, but it still felt like the man was waiting out there, taunting Ray.

“You don’t need to blame yourself,” a soft voice came from behind him.

Ray didn’t turn as Jackie walked up to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around one of his and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Who says I blame myself?”

“Anyone who knows you,” she grinned and he chuckled in response. “You couldn’t have done anything more. You captured him. It was on them to keep him caged.”

“I could have killed him,” Ray muttered.

Jackie turned to look at him, and gently reached up to pull his face to look back at her.

“Raymond Pritchard,” she began. “No one is a better judge of a fight than you are. If you had thought he needed to die, you could have stopped him. But we’re heroes, and you knew you could capture him so you did. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Isn’t there?” he countered, heavy gaze staring into her eyes. “If I had just killed that bastard, then an excess of hundred people, at least twenty of them children, would still be alive.”

“Maybe. And maybe not,” she shrugged before nuzzling against him. “Maybe some other evil little bastard would have filled the void. Maybe in an effort to kill him you would’ve failed and he would have gotten away. You know you’re not as spritely as you used to be.”

Ray gave a chuckle but didn’t respond. Instead he stood there, enjoying the warmth her body offered, and stared out across his city. He was burning himself to death trying to keep it safe, and it still felt like it wasn’t enough.

“Who was he, then?” Ray asked abruptly. Jackie lifted her head to look at him.

“Who?”

“Sorry, I meant Jason. The guy you mentioned earlier, that I was just like. Said he wasn’t your father. So who was he?”

Jackie gave him a wicked looking grin. For a brief moment before she responded Ray saw something fiendish in her eyes.

“My ex.”

_________________________________

What the hell am I doing?

Ray was thinking it to himself. He looked down at the sleeping form of Jackie as he cradled her in his arms. They were covered by a thin sheet and a light sheen of sweat, despite the mild weather. The young woman was snoring in a very unladylike fashion, as she consistently did. He’d mentioned it to her once, and she’d firmly insisted he was making it up.

Light spilled in through the floor to ceiling window of their apartment. They were on the nineteenth floor, and not many buildings reached high enough to brighten the room, but the full moon made up the slack.

Jackie made a little angry mewl and scrunched up her face. She was dreaming of fighting some villain or other, something that happened quite often. He idly wondered if her powers worked while she was asleep. Did she know she was going to wake up moments before she did?

The table next to him started buzzing loudly, and he glanced over to find his phone ringing. Carefully he extend a hand to grasp for it. It was far enough away he could only brush it with his fingertips, but that was enough to shape his force field around it and drag it over to him.

“Better be good,” Ray huffed, pressing the phone to his ear. Jackie gave a little groan as if to punctuate his statement.

“Purge is here.”

“What?” Ray demanded louder than he had meant to. He glanced down to find Jackie awake and staring at him intently. He didn’t know if it was her power or just him being loud.

“He’s in the city,” Reckoning went on. “He just killed two cops in the warehouse district.”

Ray turned to tell Jackie, but she had already jumped out of bed and begun dressing. The big man swung his legs off and moved to follow suit. It took him a lot longer to get dressed than his lady friend.

“Why now?” Ray asked the phone. “It’s been eight months since he broke out. Why come back now?”

“No idea,” was Reckoning’s response. “But I’m not eager to find out what his plan is.”

“Do we know where he is?” Jackie asked as Ray was opening his mouth to voice the same question.

“We think we have him contained to a two block radius but it’s tricky, for obvious reasons. He can get out without too much trouble if we aren’t careful.”

Jackie took the phone and set it to speaker as Ray strapped on his jacket and reached for his helmet. She was already geared up.

“I don’t want anyone confronting him but me,” Ray instructed, and Jackie frowned up at him. “It’s too dangerous. Anyone else, there’s a chance he’ll just hitch a ride on them. Or worse, just kill them.”

“Ray…” Jackie started.

“I hate to admit it, Myth, but he’s right,” Reckoning cut in. “Epic’s barrier keeps him safe, anyone else runs too great a risk.”

“Why don’t we just slot the fucker from a mile away,” Jackie snarled. Ray frowned at her and she threw up her hands, storming. “Language! I know!”

A long pause passed between them as Reckoning and Ray stayed on the line.

“You’re still seeing her,” Reckoning finally said. Ray couldn’t quite make out the tone of his voice. A mixture of disappoint, concern, and contempt.

“Don’t start this.”

“She’s half your age.”

“I know.”

“It’s going to end badly.”

“Worse than that, I’m sure,” Ray grumbled as he hung up the phone.

Twenty minutes later the couple landed at a police perimeter around a pair of warehouses. Ray fell out of the sky with a crash that left a small crack in the pavement. Jackie, as expected, was a little more delicate.

“Has anything changed?” the young woman asked.

Red and yellow panes of hardened light, the glass she was able to summon out of thin air, formed an intricate suit of armor around her body. It was layered and segmented, offering a remarkable amount of protection without restricting her movement at all. Her helmet was the same vaguely aquiline form it was the first day Ray had met her.

“He got hostages,” Reckoning frowned. “Not sure how. Four of them, he dragged in there with him.”

“Do you have a megaphone?” Ray asked, and a nearby cop handed one to him.

“Thomas Moran.” His growly voice was magnified many times, echoing between the buildings. “This is your only warning. Come out with your hands up or we will be forced to engage you with extreme force.”

A heavy half-minute passed with no reply before Ray nodded to his companions. The three of them started forward, Ray taking point. Slowly they approached the warehouse, red and blue flashing lights of the police perimeter casting disturbing shadows all across the large walls.

The warehouse was designed to store shipping containers, and had an equally massive set of sliding doors. For a brief moment Ray thought about using his power to pull them open before moving towards the normal sized door to the side of it. It was locked, but that did little to impede the heroes. Ray forced the door and quietly opened it, then walked inside. The warehouse was dark around the edges, and mostly empty. The center of it, however, was brightly lit by the moon, streaming through a skylight. Ray braced himself for the worst, watching for traps and ready to search every dark corner.

Instead, all he found was Purge sitting in a chair in the center of the room. He was facing the large warehouse door but had turned his head to the trio, a sickening smile on his face. He was alone, surrounded by four bodies contorted in rictus laying in piles of a disturbing white gel.

“I was wondering when you’d get here, Epic,” Purge sneered. His oily voice strong-armed the silence of the warehouse into submission. The man had short hair slicked back with grease as if he hadn’t showered in weeks.

“I had to assume they’d send you,” the killer continued. “Too dangerous to send anyone else. They might get a touch sick.”

“They wanted to bring the hammer down on you, Tommy,” Ray feigned a smile. “But I wanted to bring you in personally.”

“You killed them,” Jackie quietly breathed behind him.

Her eyes were focused on the bodies surrounding Purge. One of them was young, thirteen at the most. It was hard to tell in the state they were in. Ray turned sharply to look at her, frowning.

“Myth, stay focused,” he growled but Purge had already turned to look at her.

“Had to, sweetie pie,” the serial killer shrugged. “You lot have me right cornered. Thought about hitching a ride on one of them. But I’m guessing you have some quarantine procedure to keep me from getting out that way.”

He looked from the corpses to Jackie, smile never fading. He lifted his arms slightly, raising his shirt up to reveal a stain of blood on his abdomen surrounding a small hole. The motion didn’t make the man flinch, although the wound looked extremely uncomfortable.

“Truth be told, love, one of those officers clipped me. I’m not sure I could get away right now to begin with. Shame. All that trouble getting back here to just lose it all on day one.

“So I’ve decided to surrender myself into your care as the heroes you are,” Somehow his already impossibly large grin widened and he raised arms up as if they were cuffed. “You have me. I won’t put up a fight. Take me to jail.”

Ray clenched his fists, the leather of his gloves making a slight scuffing noise, and tightened his jaw. Reckoning didn’t seem to react at all, but Jackie started to visibly tremble.

“You fucking killed the hostages,” Jackie repeated, her voice raising to a shout towards the end. Purge’s gaze dropped to the bodies and flickered back up before he shrugged.

“I couldn’t just let them live,” he explained. “I have a reputation to maintain. And if they were still around when you guys got here, you might have done something rash. Seemed safer. I mean I’m going to prison anyway.”

“You’re fucking insane,” Jackie stepped forward.

“Myth,” Ray barked, blocking her path.  “Contain yourself.”

She glared at him, but halted in place.

“Ooh, she’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” Purge practically purred.

“Shut it, Moran,” Ray snapped.

The big man started forward, watching Purge carefully. Ray himself was essentially immune to the killer’s powers. Purge needed skin to skin contact, and the barrier Ray maintained around his body would prevent that. Still, he expected Purge to make a move with every step. To reveal some trap or another.

But nothing happened. Ray closed the distance and lifted his hand, resting it on Purge’s shoulder. Effortlessly he pulled the man out of the chair and into the air. Purge just stared back at him. Grinning. Why was he always grinning? Ray turned and started back for the door.

“You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”

Ray froze.

“Ha. I could tell. You can see it in the way you two act. Interesting.”

His helmet suddenly felt heavy. He tilted his head up to glance at Purge, but the killer was looking at Jackie while he spoke.

“I think I’ll kill her slowly,” Purge went on. “Not with my power. She’ll be the first one I go for after I get out. And I will get out. Prisons can’t hold me, we both know that. Epic. Your name doesn’t fit you.

“You’re a hero, Epic. You can’t do anything meaningful,” his eyes flicked down to Ray.

“Heroes are bandages. You use them to cover a cut and hope it goes away. But you can’t do anything to keep the bad men from cutting everything to ribbons. Right now there aren’t a lot of bad men. Not a lot of truly dangerous ones. I’m a killer, but I can’t kill the whole world. Not with my bare hands certainly. I’m coming at it with a knife, when what I really need is a cannon.”

He paused and then looked up at Jackie again.

“I’m going to kill your girl, Epic. I’m going to dance through a whole bunch of people’s bodies until I get to her. And then I’m going to cut her up, nice and slow. She’s going to be in agony. She might die of the pain before the blood loss. But I’m going to make it clear the whole time that it’s your fault, you know. It’s going to be so much fun.”

Purge was right. The thought flitted through Ray’s head unbidden. He would get out. There was no way to truly contain the man. Ray was the only one who’s power could consistently beat the killer, and he couldn’t be around all the time. If Purge got to Jackie when Ray wasn’t there…

Ray felt something go taut inside him as he listened to Purge. Something he didn’t even know was there, stretching to the extreme, trying to contain him. He’d never been a particularly angry person. Never been one give in to his emotions.

His eyes met Jackie’s. She was staring at him, troubled. Then her eyes went wide, and she shouted something at him he couldn’t hear.

He’d never been an angry person. He’d never had a reason to be.

Ray twitched his finger and Purge folded in half the wrong direction. There were a series of impossibly loud snaps as the man’s back broke in multiple places. One moment the killer had been grinning madly, eyes wide and twinkling with sadistic delight. Then he was gone.

The world felt a little bit safer to Ray. And that thought horrified him.

_________________________________

Jackie sat in the lobby of the hotel, watching the news intently. Ray was finishing up paying for the room, putting the wad of bills back into his pocket and moving to sit next to her. She took his hand without looking and gave it a squeeze.

“-the leader of the local group of heroes. Tough as ever, he was unharmed when the rogues made their escape.”

It was the same anchor from several months ago. This time he was joined by Reckoning, the man looking as regal as he always did, if a bit more tired.

“Thanks,” Reckoning took over. “But they weren’t intent on harming anyone. We have no reason to think that Epic and Myth wanted anything other than to kill Thomas Moran, the man known as Purge, before making their escape.”

“But your team is still pursuing the pair as if they were villains, is that correct?”

“It… is,” Reckoning grimaced. “I hate to admit it. The pair were friends of mine. But now they’re murderers. Our system has a process. We, as the good guys, have to be above petty vigilantism. We aren’t judges or juries, and we can’t be executioners. When one, or two, of us goes off the handle, it’s all our responsibilities to bring them in.”

“Frankly,” the anchor said, “this raises a lot of troubling questions. Epic and Myth both were known for being remarkably difficult to harm. Some question if you actually can stop them, and what it will mean if they continue killing.”

“So now we’re serial killers,” Jackie scoffed, making sure they were out of earshot. Her face was set in a scowl.

“Maybe they’re right,” Ray admitted soberly. “Maybe we should just start putting black hats in the ground. Killing Purge…”

His voice trailed off and he pulled her hand up to kiss the back of it. The motion made her turn her head to him.

“It felt good,” he finished the thought. Jackie blinked a few times before nodding at him.

“I can’t say I disagree. And that worries me.”

“Guess our days of being heroes are at an end. Sorry you didn’t have much time at it.”

Jackie shrugged.

“You were always the reason I stayed,” she said bluntly. “Besides, what does it even mean to be a hero?”

Ray thought about that for a long moment. He thought about personal tragedy. About always standing up for what’s right. About seeking to reassert justice in a world gone mad.

He thought about a lot of things before he finally responded to her question, with a tired laugh.

“Fuck if I know.”