What Is A Hero?

August 3rd 2020 
Maria sighed “Ugh looks like my phone doesn’t get the internet here, we should fix that.”
Her eyes turn to Thread Count expectedly before telling her friends “I’ll go look up stuff on the store's wifi and come back with the info on the team. You two can keep hanging here.”
The familiar look of the Sanctuary around them. It is another dimension's abandoned book store. The house was nice but it was good to have more than just their home to hang out. Graffiti on one of the walls Maria put there with all of their names. It was well kept thanks to Thread Count the cultist assistant from Wolfe island who tends to it.
Thread Count gives a nervous smile and then follows Maria heading off to look up how to set a wifi network up.
Elena smiled at EliZe, she was clearly honestly happy to be here but also trying to piece together her words to sound  “Gee, looks like it’s just the two of us, that rarely happens. How are you feeling about all this hero stuff? I’m excited but like I wouldn’t expect it to be your kind of place..”
EliZe sat on the ground, her black and gold cloak splayed out around her as she hugged her knees to her chest with a pair of limbs that at second glance were not her arms. In her hands, she held up a comic book that she was paging through. She looked up at Elena. “Huh? Oh! Yeah. I wasn’t too sure for a bit either. I hadn’t thought about it before? Doing a hero thing. It made sense the more I thought about it though.”
'''
She grinned her sharp teeth bare and held up the comic book. It showed a two-page spread of a group of people in spandex standing around a woman, who held her hands to the sky, tears streaming down her angry face while cursing the heroes for foiling her plans. “Superheroes don’t get paid, but I would get food every time I’d defeat a supervillain!”
'''
Elena nodded her head taking a seat beside her looking over the comic. She muses briefly “I guess it is win win for you, big team are all teens right so they probably would be feeding you just by doing their thing. Then you get to stop villains and get their meal, that makes sense.”
She grabs a comic of her own and flips to a picture of an amazon woman with a fox girl tied up “Personally, I just want to protect this time. To feel like I am doing something, my whole life I was never a hero like her, I was always the side character at best.”
Elena let herself get a bit lost in thought since she was adopted she was raised to be as normal as possible, now she was anything but. She was sitting in another dimension, in the future, she was fused to another woman, she got to be openly herself, and was having a casual conversation with a god. It was amazing, it was something she never wanted to leave, weird was so much better than normal. Being a hero was another step away from being normal. 
EliZe’s grin faded as she listened to Elena. Her stare was blank, a look of confusion. She didn’t always understand Elena. Part of that perhaps was that they hadn’t had as much time together as she’d had with Maria, and that these past two months most of Elena’s time with EliZe had been while merged with Maria to form Fearless--their combined super powered self. A fusion. Yet part of it was perhaps that Elena was also from another time, one that was much harder to see or understand without being in it.
'''
On the other hand, EliZe did understand the concept of someone feeling like they weren’t doing anything. It was a very nourishing concept, though it tasted rather bland. She wrinkled her nose and rose up from her spot, folding the comic book closed. She trotted over to Elena with too-large steps for someone her size and carefully flung her arms around her waist, hugging her. “You’re not a side character to me, Elena.” She muttered.
'''
Elena giggles “Gosh you're really nice for someone who feeds on fears.”
The woman smiled gleefully “Honestly, I don’t feel like a side character anymore, I mean I am Fearless now, and I mean that like our hero name but also like, I am not afraid anymore. I bet I would have been a whole mess of tasty food for you before I got over here.”
Elena’s arms rest carefully around EliZe looking her in the eyes, taking a moment to appreciate her good friend, these two months they might not have had a ton of alone time but she had been able to see what Maria saw in EliZe. Not just the beauty of the body she crafted but what made this basically demonic person so charming. 
EliZe’s eyes blinked sideways as she stared back into Elena’s eyes, not sure what she was finding there, but feeling like it was something to appreciate nevertheless. “Nice people can be frightening too.” She said, though she didn’t feel the need to elaborate further.
Elena leaned back letting herself lay on the floor “I hope Thread Count has been cleaning this.”
The retro girl moves her ponytail explaining the rest of my thought “It’s like, imagine you were in a small cage with blinders, then that cage is the world and everything inside of it is the limits of the universe, everything you can see. Like now I have left my cage, I can break the rules of it, every day of my life is spectacular. I just want to make sure this world stays that way, even if it has it’s problems that Maria could go on about. I just, I am glad to be here with you.”
EliZe looked around the floor. It was dusty. She motioned with her hand and the dust began to stir, moving along the floor in waves as it gathered up in front of her. Parts of the store were still dirty--from things beyond sand or ash or dust--but that was for later.
“I haven’t been in a small cage with blinders. I guess the world was a cage for… a time? But the world was me, so it wasn’t really a cage. Unless your body can be a cage? But it wasn’t really a body either. It’s a confusing metaphor. I understand wanting the world to stay in a cageless metaphor though.” She nods fiercely. “It’s good to have you here. I’m glad you’re here too! Now, is this more clean?” EliZe gestured at the floor. In front of her all the dust had compressed together in a tight ball.
Elena listened attentively to EliZe not even noticing the dust moving. It wasn't until she had it pointed out that Elena would realize how dirty where she had been laying was before.  Elena blushes a bit saying "Gee, it's really swell of you to do that."
The woman leaned her head towards the portal "I don't know about her but I know feeling like my body was a cage or more so a prison.  It was a mix of feelings and I was alone in figuring all of it out. I am glad there are so many resources now."
She holds up a comic with two girls kissing on the cover “I managed despite but it’s nice to see. I hope we can make you feel like you're no longer in a cage, after all Maria seems particularly good at blowing those up. I am glad we both have them.”
EliZe nodded. “It’s no good for anyone to be in a cage. You can’t do things while in a cage! You can’t clean floors or kiss girls or fight supervillains in a cage. I’d just get bored. I’d get hungry if everyone was in cages. People should be free to be themselves. How else are they going to mess that up if they’re not free to do so?”
She walked towards a bookcase and put the comic she had been reading before on the shelf, between two similar-looking old volumes with scuffed backs. She traced her eyes and fingertips in different directions over the other books on the shelves as she walked slowly past them, almost gliding in her movement. “Speaking of free, what stuff is a superhero free to do? What kind of things should be brought along to prepare?”
'''
Elena giggles, gosh, EliZe was always thinking about food but who could blame her, it was all she really could do before she became human. The girl was just a big powerful being that ate from others and got to talk to people every now and again. Elena wondered what made EliZe like hanging out with them so much, apparently neither was a great food source, after all they were named fearless, failure didn’t mean much to either, what made EliZe like them? 
Elena put her hand on EliZe “I mean I think we can help people be free by being heroes, not sure how but maybe.”
She rubs her chin and tries to think of an answer for EliZe’s last question saying “Heroes weren’t really a thing and not at all an in thing for girls to think about when I am from, so I don’t really know any more than you. Maria gives a pretty negative impression but I think we should just bring communication devices and some other emergency type stuff. I doubt we have a lot of issues, after all you're a god and as Fearless me and Maria are like unbeatable. ”
Elena flips through the comic seeing if it would have more answers but the exploits of Aphrodite and The Agents Of Love left more questions than answers. Elena asks “”Is there anything in particular you wanna know.” 
“Communication devices and emergency type stuff… got it.” EliZe noted. She scrunched up her face a bit in thought. “I don’t know… if we’re going to be superheroes fighting supervillains… what makes a superhero different from a supervillain? Humans have fought throughout time over many things. It doesn’t matter for my purposes why one person fights another, but understanding someone’s reasons for fighting might help in helping them in that fighting. Then we can figure out what stuff we need to bring, too.”
Elena rubbed her head “I was raised by white people in the 50’s you probably don’t want to know what I was raised to think about crime. I trust Maria way more than myself on this one, should I call her in?”
The woman rubbed her arm and tried to think about this, it was important, why was she taking the role she was in? She didn’t have to do this, she didn’t have to take this approach, so why did she want to do it. Was it just because it was what people thought was right? 
Elena explains the feelings buzzing in her head  “If I had to say, it’s what people think of the person. Like people do crimes for a lot of reasons, most of them are because the world is hard. I mean if I had powers back then, who knows what role they would cast me in. I guess we should be ready to be compassionate? Beating our enemy matters if we are protecting others but we don’t need to hate who we’re fighting, if we can learn what they want maybe we can get that for them, or maybe they will be friends and lead us to a better path forward?”
Elena leaned against a wall, this stuff was so complicated, things were easier in black and white but she had seen all the messy shades of eldritch purples and the soft blue locks of Maria. People called her a Super Villain, yet she was the nicest person she had ever meet, people called EliZe evil, yet she was a ball of wonders, it wasn’t going to be simple being a hero, but that’s why it was important that she tried to be one, she had to at least try to understand.
“Compassionate?” EliZe turned the word over in her head. “Com-pahhh-show-net…” She turned the word over in her mouth, her tongue waving around like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man. “We can show them net! We don’t need to hate them,” she nodded in agreement. “Hatred just tastes bad. There’s no point to it. It just makes things bad. Some bad things can feel good. Some people feel good when they’re afraid. That’s what I heard [REDACTED] say once, I think. Ooh!”
EliZe held up a book she’d found. ‘How To Make Friends And Influence People’ it read on the cover. “If you want them to be friends, this might be a good resource. And if not…” She held up another book, which appeared to be titled ‘The Purpose Of Heavy Books’. It was so thick it almost didn’t seem to fit EliZe’s hand, and indeed her fingers seemed to be stretched longer than usual to accommodate it.
Elena giggled, between the two of them they both seemed to not know a lot, but they were friends and they had each other so it should always work out anyway, right? 
Elena tries to explain compassion saying "it's not a net. No, it's caring about your foes lives and understanding."
The woman tried to explain further “It’s like, if Maria stole something from a store, heroes might attack her but like if she had no money and needed to do it to eat, then like to have empathy would be like...to understand that she did it for food and help her get food., I guess?”
Elena rubbed her head, gosh why was this so hard to explain, all of this was so complicated. The girl just knew she wanted to do good and that’s what heroes saiad they do. Maria was willing to go along with it and EliZe was down too, so Fearless would be a hero. This was important; she didn’t want to become something she didn’t like. EliZe had her really thinking and it was probably a good thing.
'''
EliZe turned over Elena’s words in her head to try and understand them. She knew of stealing, of course. It had happened so many times in human history. Stealing food was very common. So seeing someone who was stealing food meant that she should understand them and help them? Elena seemed different from many other people. Maybe that’s why out of the three of them she especially was set on being a hero.
EliZe put a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “I’m trying to understand. I think I understand. It’s like that thing that people seem to talk about when it comes to heroes… You have a good moral comp-ass.”
Elena nods her head looking cheerfully at EliZe it seems she might have managed to make her words make sense after all. She puts her hands on EliZe’s back “Yes, I think you got it!”
She was very clearly happy. Swaying a little bit, feeling proud of her ability to explain something she wasn’t even too sure of. Elena adds “We’re new to this, all of us. We’ll figure it out together. As long as we have each other we’ll end up okay. After all we can quit at any time if we don’t like it.”
The retro gal asks “Anything else I can help with EliZe?”
EliZe ponders the question for a moment. “No. Not at this time. Just having you here is okay.” She squeezes Elena’s shoulder gently, leans in, and gives her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Like you say, we’ll figure it out together. Maybe Maria has more ideas, if she found something with the internet.”
Maria appears from the portal right on que “Alright, I got notes on the big team in this journal, we should have everything we need to know to stay safe.”
She looks over the two and smiles “You two hugging something out or just being affectionate?”
She plops down onto the ground beside them leaning against a bookshelf looking over the two patting her boots she gets herself comfy.
'''
As Maria asks them, EliZe demonstrably hugs Elena closer and puts her head against her chest. She puts on a pouty expression. As the punk girl sits down besides them, a pair of tentacles slip out from under EliZe’s cloak and drag her and Elena slightly closer to Maria. Another pair comes up around Maria, only gently touching her, as the three girls get shoved together. EliZe looks at Maria, her eyes gleaming as if on the verge of tears. “Hug us?” She says, as if it's a rhetorical question.
Maria joins the hug wrapping her arms around the two closing her eyes and saying “Thank you EliZe.”
Her grip was strong, firm but protective. These two are the only people other than Laura she felt like she couldn’t afford to lose no matter what. Even her ex who she got broken up about, wasn’t as close as she felt to these two. Just being there hugging them, it was something special. 
Elena’s hug was softer, warmer, like a blanket making you feel koozie before bed. This was her family, for the first time she felt like she had family. Sure had had love back in the 50s but never something that truly felt like family. Her heart was racing, Maria taught her what these kinds of feelings could mean but she never imagined she would feel them so strongly. 
For this feeling both would do anything, for this feeling both would become heroes, for this feeling both would be Fearless.