Summus Proelium

Okay, okay. I had to check Adrian’s house. Maybe he was home sick and just hadn’t been able to call in. I couldn’t panic too much yet. I could check his home. Of course, to do that, I’d have to know his address, and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t tell me at the office even if I asked nicely.

So I had to find another way to get the address, and I had to do it asap. Because if he really was in trouble, every second counted. But how? How was I supposed to get something like that?

The custodial office. It was down in the basement with a bunch of storage rooms. I knew that much, though I’d never actually been down there. There was an unlabeled gray door just behind the east stairwell. According to plenty of other students, that was the door the janitors used to go down to their office. If Adrian’s address was going to be anywhere, it was there.

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure they’d object to a student just walking in there. And that was a conversation I didn’t want to have, especially if they decided to call my parents about it. I needed an excuse in case… or rather, when someone saw me.

Thinking quickly, I glanced around carefully to make sure no one was watching before looking down. Unbuttoning the black blazer with Cadillac Preparatory School written across it, I pulled it off and focused on part of it to make a spot of white appear in an uneven circle, so it didn’t look perfect. Once there was a big blotch of white, I tucked the blazer under my arm and headed for the door to the basement.

It wasn’t locked or anything. The door opened easily as soon as I pulled at it, and I quickly made my way down a narrow set of stairs. There weren’t supposed to be any students this way, so the whole place was a lot more bare bones. The stairs were concrete, the walls were unpainted, lighting was barely sufficient. It was all just as much as they needed, nothing more.

At the bottom of the stairs was an ugly hallway with lime green walls and an orange floor. Seriously, who did the color scheme for this? It was just gross. I was absurdly tempted to just fix it for them. There were also stains all over the place, as well as chipped and broken bits of wall. It stretched on in both directions away from the stairs, with a bunch of unlabeled doors. There was, however, a white arrow on the wall ahead of me pointing to the right with ‘office’ written under it. Good enough. I started that way.

As expected, I barely made it six steps or so before a man in a custodial uniform came around the corner ahead. Seeing me, he quickly walked over. “Hey, hey, son, what do you think you’re–uh, oh. Sorry, miss. What are you doing down here? You shouldn’t be here.”

Adopting an apologetic and somewhat mortified look, I held the blazer up. “I know, I know. But um, someone spilled something on my jacket and… look at it. I was hoping you guys might have something that could get it out before I have to tell my parents that I need a new one again.”

Blinking, the man took the blazer, staring at it. “What… this looks like paint. What happened?”

I shrugged. “Dunno. I was outside and it was sitting next to me and someone spilled… something. They didn’t stick around long enough to ask. Does that mean you can’t get it out?”

Seeing the hopeful puppy-dog look I gave him, the man grimaced. “I… I dunno. But fine, come on. Just don’t touch anything, for the love of God. I don’t need one of you kids getting hurt down here. Stay with me, let’s see what we’ve got.” Turning on his heel, he walked back the way he’d come, turning my blazer over in his hands as he muttered about why a kid had paint.

Following the guy down the hall, around the corner, and through an open door on the right side of that second corridor, I found myself in a simple break room. There was a card table in the middle surrounded by several chairs, a long counter across from the door with some boxes on it, a fridge and microwave to the left, and another doorway next to that. Meanwhile, on the right side of the room there were several large metal cabinets and another long table with more boxes on it. There was also a second doorway. The custodian I was with went to one of those cabinets, opening it up before starting to dig around inside. I could see a handful of cleaning bottles, rags, and other things like that. He was turning bottles around, checking for something that might help.

While he was doing that, I took a couple steps further into the room, glancing through that open doorway next to the fridge. It was an office, with a desk and an old computer. Perfect.

Unfortunately, if I was going to use it, I had to make sure this guy was busy. But how?

The doorway next to where he was working. Looking that way, I saw a storage room with a bunch of stuff piled up in there, including more cleaning supplies.

Mouthing a silent apology, I pointed at a couple of those industrial-sized bottles of cleaning solution, sending a bit of red paint to them and another bit to the floor. One second later, I activated the paint, sending those bottles flying down with a loud crash. Cleaning stuff instantly soaked the floor, pouring out rapidly.

“What the– damn it!” the poor janitor who was helping me blurted as he stepped over to see what that sound was. He set my jacket aside and quickly moved to grab a nearby mop.

While he was busy focusing on that, I silently slipped into the office. Moving as fast and silently as I could, I stepped to the computer, shot a tiny bit of black paint near the numpad to mask the sound, and typed Adrian into the search bar. It took a few seconds, but a few files popped up. I clicked the one labeled employee information.

I didn’t have time to read it. I just control-f’d my way to Adrian’s spot, made sure his info was on-screen, and took a quick picture with my phone. Then I closed the file and stepped out of the room. In all, it took me about twenty seconds or so.

It was almost too long. I barely made it out of the room before the janitor looked over at me. “Hey, look, kid, you probably shouldn’t be in here. Hang on.” He stepped out of the storage room, moving over to take my blazer from the table where he’d dropped it. Then he grabbed an orange spray bottle from the shelf. “Spray this stuff on the spot and rub it in with a clean cloth. Let it sit for about five minutes, then do it again. Run it under cold water until it’s soaked through, then spray it one more time. That should take care of it. Hopefully. When you’re done, give that bottle to the nearest custodian. Okay?”

I agreed, taking the bottle before quickly fleeing. It wasn’t like I actually needed it, but I sure wasn’t going to tell him that.

Once I was out of the basement, I walked quickly through the hall while glancing at my phone to find the picture I’d taken. There it was, Adrian’s address. His name was there too, Adrian Perez. I typed the address into the maps app of my phone and got a hit of about fifteen blocks away. Okay, I could do this. I just had to get to his place as soon as possible. Like right now.

I didn’t want to attract attention, so instead of running through the hall once I grabbed my bag from my locker, I sort of speed-walked until I hit the nearest exit. That took me out to the side field, where I picked up the pace, moving past some people who were studying and eating, then started to jog once I reached the grass. Finally, I was running across the back field, ignoring a few of the people out there who called out or waved. I just had to keep moving.

Reaching the nearest empty alley, I took a second to drop the bag and crouched behind a dumpster. Unzipping the bag, I started to yank my costume out. Changing right now felt like wasting time that I didn’t have. But on the other hand, I could move much faster if I could actually use my power. And that meant keeping my identity secret.

Besides, if Adrian was in trouble, I doubted a few seconds right now would make that big of a difference. I just had to hope that… well, I hoped for a lot of things. I really hoped he was just sick. Please, Adrian. Please just be so sick you couldn’t call in.

Once I was changed, I slid the helmet on my head, snapped the front of it down into place, and then looked up. The building I was next to was about five stories high, with no fire escape or anything to climb. Not that I needed it. In fact, maybe I really didn’t need it.

“Alright,” I murmured under my breath before pointing with both hands. “Let’s try it.”

With those words, I shot a spot of red paint from both palms. The first time I missed entirely, overshooting the roof. Then I adjusted down a bit and tried again. That did it. There were two spots of red paint right near the top of the wall. After that, I just turned my gloves red and activated the paint.

It worked. Holy God did it ever work. I was instantly yanked off my feet, and hurled upward. A startled yelp escaped me, even though I thought I was expecting it. I went flying five stories into the air before crashing into the wall where the paint was. It didn’t really hurt. I was only moving fast enough for it to feel like I had fallen a little ways. It still stung a bit, and I would’ve lost my grip to really fall if the paint hadn’t been doing all the work. But there I was. No running up the wall, no aided super jump, I just used my paint and went straight from the ground to very near the top of a five story building in the span of a couple seconds. Holy crap!

Shaking off the amazement, I scrambled over the edge of the wall and onto the roof. Giving my phone a quick glance to orient myself, I looked the right way. There was another building around the same height and not too far apart. Then another beyond that one that was a little taller, and so on.

“Okay,” I announced aloud, checking to make sure my voice changer was working. “Let’s do it. Skate out now.” On command, the wheels of my pace-skates popped out. Then I pushed off, skating hard for the edge of that roof while silently telling myself I was insane.

Reaching the edge of the roof, I put purple stars over my legs while readying myself. At the last second, I used the extra strength the purple paint gave me to leap over the gap between the buildings, five stories up. My arms windmilled a bit as I flew through the air… before landing smoothly on the next roof over. The fact that it worked so well almost made it not work, as I very nearly spun out from my own surprise. But I caught it, thinking about Adrian as I pushed off again for the next roof.

That one was taller by a few stories. But I was ready for that. Skating faster across the roof, I went right to the edge and jumped once more. This time, I snapped my hand up, shooting out a spray of red paint. Unlike when I’d skated along the wall of the room last night and run out of paint, I didn’t make a huge blast of the stuff. Instead, I shot out two thin lines, just enough for my wheels to hit. Because I didn’t need to be exact. The second I got close enough and activated the paint while turning my wheels red, they instantly snapped to the right spots on the building.

That was a bit jarring, and I grunted. It was going to take some getting used to. Suddenly, I was skating along the wall of the building. To my left was the long drop to the ground. To my right was the roof. And I was skating on a pair of thin red lines, right toward the corner of the building. My skates maintained their momentum, carrying me to that edge so fast I almost didn’t react in time before hitting the end of both my red lines, and the building itself.

But I did react. At the last possible instant, I managed to shoot a bit of blue paint right at the edge of the roof, sending myself flying as my skates hit it. My hand pointed across the street, and I shot a spray of red that way, hitting a building there before activating it. It took a second to kick in, a second in which I was literally free-falling off the side of the building I’d just been skating across, and toward the busy street below.

Then the paint kicked in, and I was yanked through the air, shooting right toward the building. Below, I could see a few cars slowing down, drivers sticking their heads out to look in confusion. But I ignored that, because I had to focus. Focus… had to time it just right…

Now! Before I actually reached that building on the far side of the street, I changed the color of my gloves back to white, disabling the yank from the red paint. At the same time, I shot another pair of thin red lines along the side of that building, while shifting my skates to match it once more. Just to be on the safe side, I painted a couple orange stripes across my legs.

Again, it worked. It fucking worked. My body was snapped around in mid-air so that I hit the side of the building feet first, the orange paint helping me absorb the impact. Then I was skating once more, moving right along those thin red lines as I used the momentum from my trip through the air to keep myself moving even faster.

Then I hit the edge of that roof. There was another building right across from it that was only slightly taller. Even better, there was an antenna sticking up above that roof. As I reached the end of the building I was skating sideways along, my hand snapped out to shoot yet another spot of red that way. It hit the antenna, and my suddenly-red gloves took me sailing toward it.

I cleared the roof, raising my legs at the last instant to avoid slamming them into the wall before turning my gloves white. As the connection with the red paint on the antenna was cut, I dropped to the roof, landing on my wheels as the momentum kept me rolling onward.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! I’d done crazy stuff before, especially on the skates. But this? This was… this was…

This was so fucking cool!

I eased up on the paint a little bit then, skating to the edge of that building before jumping to one across from it that was near enough for me to make it without much help. And that was basically how the rest of my little trip to Adrian’s place went. I skated across the roofs, along the sides of buildings, jumped from roof to roof, and so on. I used blue paint to propel myself higher, red paint to yank myself around, purple paint to boost my jumps in conjunction with the blue, and orange paint to absorb what should have been damaging falls.

Through it all, people noticed. I heard a few horns honking, and a couple onlookers waved. Maybe it was silly, but I waved back. Worried as I was, terrified as I was that something bad had happened to Adrian, I still waved as I passed them. It just felt like the right thing to do.

Before nearing the place in question, I made sure to be less obvious, sticking to the top of the roofs instead of along the walls. I stayed low while skating across the last roof before Adrian’s apartment building, pulling my skates in entirely before dropping to my stomach at the edge of the roof. There, I peered over to look down at the building in question.

Right, it was a building. The roof was several stories below this one, and the place didn’t exactly look like it was in the best shape. But I also couldn’t really tell anything else. Which was obvious. I had to get inside, to Adrian’s actual apartment. According to his file, it was apartment 5G. And since that was a five story building, it was on the top floor.

The roof was empty, so I backed up, took a running start, and used a bit of purple to boost myself in a jump that way. Orange rings along my legs shielded me from the damage as I landed in a crouch on the roof in question.

“Okay,” I murmured to myself, “stealth mode.”

My costume turned black. In broad daylight.

“Stealth mode is easier at night.”

Still, I was able to get to the roof access door and test it carefully. It wasn’t locked. Probably so that people could come out here and smoke or whatever. Either way, it worked for me. I slipped in, carefully making my way down the stairs there.

The sound of voices reached me, and I stopped abruptly before reaching the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah,” one voice announced, “they’ve got him down at the motel. No luck so far.”

Another voice incredulously retorted, “Does this guy want to lose one of those little ankle biters?”

The voices were coming from down the nearby hall. Very, very carefully, I kept my head low and barely peeked around the corner. Two guys. They were standing near one of the apartment doors, facing each other as they spoke.

“He says all he did was drop the guy off at the bus station. But the bosses don’t believe him. They think he knows something else and just needs a little motivation to bring it out.”

The second guy shook his head. “Shit man, I’m glad it’s Ted in there with those kids and not me.”

“Got that right,” the first agreed. “Course, it’s bad luck for those kids in there.

“Because the second the bosses call and say to make an example of one of ‘em, he ain’t gonna hesitate.”