Enhanced & Empowered

“Oh my, that’s adorable,” Someone sneered from behind her, followed by a chorus of cackling.

Stacey Ryker didn’t look up from her notebook and continued drawing.

The girls kept on. “You do realize, to be in the League, you have to actually have superpowers.”

Still ignoring them, Stacey continued to sketch a superhero that looked remarkably like herself.

She was poised for a classic superhero landing, with perfect features—no ridiculous proportions of a wasp waist or buxom breasts. Completely, totally real. Just like the City’s own League of Heroes.

What she wouldn’t give to be among their ranks—to be empowered and help others, confront bullies, and stop feeling so helpless. She’d always wanted to do something extraordinary.

Plus, she’d be able to figure out why her mom went missing nearly 4 years ago. Stacey knew, deep down, that her mom had left because of her, but Stacey had always wanted to know what had actually happened. The League had the resources she needed. She just needed a way in.

The harassment continued, derailing her current train of thought. “Oh I know. You could be the Loser of Lameness with the power of being lame! And having a mom that turns invisible!”

Alissa, the girl who was doing the taunting, grabbed up the notebook. She tore the drawing from it and shredded the paper into pieces.

“What the hell!”

“It’s not that good. You didn’t even give yourself boobs,” Alissa said.

God, sometimes I wish Alissa would get struck by a bus.

Stacey sighed and scooped up the shreds. The gaggle of girls trailed away. They’re the real supervillains.

The bell rang as Stacey finished taping up her drawing, tears brimming.

She picked up her health textbook and the new Tenacious Trio comic lying on top of it, shoved them in her backpack, and started home.

When she stepped outside, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. A block or so away, she heard screeching brakes, but just headed in the opposite direction.

She chocked the screeching noise up to a typical traffic occurrence and walked home to her dad’s enormous house.

Inside her Den of Solace, AKA her bedroom, aptly named after the League’s headquarters, Stacey slumped onto the bed. Her backpack slid from her hand onto the floor. Stacey took a look around the room and sighed.

The room had a superhero theme. The walls were purple on one side, electric blue on the other, representing Quantum Spectacle and her rival, CryptoJack.

The entire east wall, the one with a window, was covered in tall, black bookshelves, the shelves lined with crates of an immaculate collection of Tenacious Trio comic books. She had some important issues on display stands, and other superhero memorabilia like photographs and action figures lined the other shelves.

A purple, silver, and black bedspread covered the mattress, and the pillowcases had a symbol of an atom emblazoned on them—Quantum Spectacle’s insignia. QS was Stacey’s favorite League member, able to control any kind of matter with her mind.

The bedroom was Stacey’s sanctuary, and as she scanned her collection, a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. The stories she escaped to, they always made her feel better, and it helped to have a group of real role models to look up to. They helped her sometimes forget about the pain of losing her mom, who had vanished without a trace, like a whisper in the wind.

Sometimes, she imagined Quantum Spectacle taking her under her wing, showing Stacey what it meant to be a hero. But that was a far-flung dream—it’d never come true.

Stacey wasn’t Enhanced. She had no powers.

She was tugged from her reverie when something on the floor caught her eye. A comic book had fallen off its stand. Stacey picked it up, inspecting the sleeve. Everything was okay, so she put it back.

As she did, her phone pinged – a League sighting alert!

She turned on her TV, flipped to the news, and saw the reporter finishing up the story of an accident. She didn’t see much more than “Bus Accident Injures Girl in Midtown” before the newscast switched to coverage of the Electric Arrow versus the Tenacious Trio.

She didn’t think about the accident and turned up the volume.

The Trio were battling nearby – perhaps Stacey could get a good view of the fight from her window! She could see all of them: Snowstorm, SaberLeaf—even Quantum Spectacle!

With an excited squeak, the girl dashed to the kitchen to grab a snack. On her way back, she stepped into the bedroom doorway but was suddenly thrown off her feet, launched backward by an explosion.

After a few moments, she groaned and got to her feet, relatively unscathed. Stacey bolted back into the room.

Much to her dismay, comic books fluttered through the air, pages still drifting toward the floor. Her black bookshelves had blasted apart, and wood pieces lay scattered. Glass crunched underfoot. Dust covered everything, and Stacey coughed, choking on it.

Her entire Den of Solace had been destroyed by something in moments, but what? Or more precisely, who?

For it was a who—Stacey could see their unmoving body on the other side of the bed, their booted feet barely visible through the dust. Stacey didn’t even take a moment to be upset about the destruction of her room.

With caution, she stepped forward, clenching her fist. If it was a supervillain, she needed to be on her guard.

Her hand relaxed the instant recognition dawned on her. She’d recognize that mottled purple, blue, black, and silver supersuit with the white atom symbol, anywhere—it was her. The Trio’s leader. Quantum Spectacle.

She’d landed in Stacey’s bedroom!

Only, landed wasn’t quite the right term. Crashed, more like.

Stacey’s elation vanished when she saw the state of the hero lying there. Icy dread chilled the girl's bones.

Bruises battered QS's skin; cuts covered her face and entire body. One long slash trailed down her torso from the top of her sternum to her navel.

Her facemask had been knocked askew, and as Stacey looked upon QS’s face, she felt a sudden spark of something—was that familiarity?—before readjusting the mask.

Stacey felt for a pulse; it was faint, but it was there. Thankfully, QS was alive.

The girl surveyed the hero’s injuries and sprinted out of the room, careful not to trip on any debris. She made a mad dash for the bathroom to seek out the first aid kit.

Without thinking, she stopped by the fridge for more bottles of water before returning to the injured Quantum Spectacle’s side.

Stacey fell to her knees and helped prop the hero up against the side of the bed. A groan escaped QS, and Stacey noticed there were glass shards in her hair.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” Stacey said as she put a water bottle to the hero’s mouth. QS shrank away, unsure and in pain.

“Trust me. Let me help.” Stacey urged to get QS to drink.

Somehow convinced, the hero relaxed in an instant. Stacey helped the woman drink some and then cleaned off the serious wounds with the rest. After that, she set to work disinfecting, applying salve, and bandaging them up—just the way her health class had taught her.

When she was unrolling the next piece of gauze, a hand in a tattered, dirty white glove reached toward hers. QS had regained her bearings, likely due to the sting of antiseptic. Stacey stopped and met her gaze.

“That’s enough, kid.” She said, not much more than a whisper. “I’m fine. No help—"

QS stopped talking as she got to her feet. She staggered, collapsing against the desk. With one hand, she caught herself.

“…Necessary.”

Stacey winced when the hero fell forward.

QS threw her free arm back behind her, channeling her telekinetic power to warp the air molecules into submission, and launched into the sky through the massive hole she’d created.

More papers and dust whirled around, leaving Stacey coughing, caked in the stuff.

“Jeez, not even so much as a thank you?” Stacey remarked to no one in particular. “And you trashed my room… Great… Dad won’t be happy…”

When John Ryker got home a couple hours later, he looked exhausted. The color had drained from his face, and the bags under his electric blue eyes had only grown. He’d been looking worn and ragged for days. Very little sleep would do that to you.

John threw his jacket over a chair as he walked inside. “Oh, you’re home.” He sounded cold, disappointed by that fact.

Stacey nodded, drying off her brunette hair with a towel, having changed into pajamas after a shower. “So, hey, something kind of happened today…”

John glanced over at her from where he stood by the kitchen counter. “Not another fight? Stacey, I don’t have time to go down to the school—

Stacey cut him off. “No, I meant here. The Trio—her dad perked up at that—were fighting Electric Arrow today. One of them crash-landed here.”

John leaned forward on the marble countertop, interest piqued. “What? Which one?”

He couldn’t have cared less about the actual crash landing. He seemed more interested in the hero herself. “It was amazing, Dad. Quantum Spectacle—she needed my help. She was hurt, really badly, and I bandaged her up, the way my health teacher taught us!”

John stood back up, stroking his closely trimmed beard. “Quantum Spectacle was here? In this house?”

He’d ignored the rest of Stacey’s story. Stacey was almost hurt by that, but she was used to the way her dad behaved. Their conversations had been empty and one-sided the past few years, not much more than small talk. He’d never been quite the same since her mom had disappeared.

“Yes! Right there!” She pointed through the doorway to her now-demolished bedroom. John strode over, a frown on his face as he looked inside.

“God, what a mess… She did all of this… She was here…” John mumbled, trailing off, but then changed the subject and smiled thinly at his daughter. “Well, at least the house is covered in case of super incidents.”

He laughed at his comment, and then his cell phone rang. John walked off without another word, disappearing into his office.

Stacey watched him, frowning. If only her mom hadn’t vanished, the relationship with her dad might still be intact.

She shook the thought from her head and headed down the hall; she’d have to stay in a guest room until someone cleaned up the damage QS had caused.

Stacey went to sleep that night dreaming of fighting alongside the Trio, but in the end, the dream turned into a nightmare.

CryptoJack had somehow swayed her over to his ranks. His long black cape, decorated in a motherboard pattern, billowed as he stood there facing an army of manipulated machines. Those machines were giving off an eerie blue glow.

When CryptoJack turned to face Stacey, however, he didn’t have the masked, chiseled face of the mastermind hacker—the genius who could make any machine sing.

No, instead the supervillain had the face of her dad—

Stacey bolted upright. Her chest pounded from the nightmare, and sweat beaded down her face.

What the hell? Your dad’s not a supervillain. He just works for DynoBox—their storage software isn’t evil. He’s not…. He just… works a lot.

Despite the self-reassurance, Stacey didn’t risk going back to sleep.

She crawled out of bed, her Quantum Spectacle-patterned pants settling around her ankles. She walked down the hall to her wrecked bedroom and pushed the door open.

With a slight creak, it eased open. She stepped inside, careful to avoid the glass shards. The streetlights outside cast an eerie glow.

Stacey noticed she wasn’t alone. Someone was standing near the hole in the wall, and Stacey could see a white cape flapping in the nighttime breeze.

“Y-you came back.” Stacey said.

Quantum Spectacle turned around. “I did.” A slight pause. Then, “Nice PJs, kid.”

Stacey stayed on the other side of the room, listening to her. The voice was soft, almost comforting, but there was a steely tone to it that put Stacey on edge. “Why?”

QS continued. “Earlier, when you said, ‘Trust me,’ I felt like I had to, like I had known you all my life.”

Stacey said nothing as the superhero kept speaking.

“I owe you one—a big one. And, I was impressed by the way you behaved. The League should take a page out of your book if you ask me.”

Stacey wasn’t sure what that meant. “Huh?”

Quantum Spectacle beckoned her over. Stacey moved closer, not taking her eyes off the superhero. “You must know what I’m talking about—that determination, the fearless way you reacted. There was a complete lack of hesitation there—you did the right thing without thinking, instead of running the other way, even when it scared the shit out of you. Not a lot of people would react that way, kid.”

Stacey shrugged, hands raised. “I saw a person in need. Surely you would have done the same.”

“You know, I’m not so sure about that. I was busy protecting the city. No time to hand out Band-Aid,” QS said, a breeze tugging at her wavy, brunette hair as it fell over her mask. Her gaze returned to the night sky.

Stacey didn’t believe what the hero had said. “You’re a superhero—don’t you help people in need?”

“You would think, but sometimes things don’t go as planned—like getting hit with a hyper-explosive arrow and getting blasted through 2 blocks of buildings, into this bedroom,” QS chuckled. “We’re getting off topic. There’s a reason I came back. I don’t like having unpaid debts. Doesn’t do well in this business…” She trailed off for a moment.

“I want to offer you a chance to join the League. I see some potential, and we’d like to begin recruitment—nothing official yet, but some courses and tests. You wouldn’t be fighting CryptoJack tomorrow or anything, considering you’re still underage. But we could use those powers of yours, if you’re worthy.”

Stacey blinked, rubbing her ear as if to clear it. “I’m sorry? I don’t have any powers.”

QS turned, placing her hands behind her back. “Now that’s not true. You’re pretty damn persuasive. Not just anyone could convince me to calm down like you did. You’re obviously Enhanced, kid.”

“What?! Of course I’m not. I mean, I’ve always been good in debates, able to see all the angles and argue for any side, but it’s not a superpower. That sounds, well, super lame.” Stacey explained. QS laughed at the pun in the last sentence.

“Nonsense,” A low, feminine tone said from the shadows. “I know an Enhanced when I see one. And those powers of yours, we need to get a handle on them before something terrible happens. The ability to persuade—that’s powerful. Just imagine what Jack could do with that. What we could do, Q. We need to start testing her immediately.”

Stacey whirled around to see another hero striding forth, this time one with vibrant red hair and a fierce gaze. She donned a two-toned green catsuit. There were two swords on her back beneath a rope of thick vines.

Stacey’s eyes widened. “What… whoa… SaberLeaf!”

The other hero winked at her. “In the flesh. Thanks again for saving Q’s ass. And don’t mind her rudeness. She’s a little brash—getting your ass kicked will do that. Oh, sorry about your room.” SaberLeaf gestured around her.

QS scoffed and leaned against an intact piece of wall, crossing her arms.

Stacey’s gaze shifted between them. “So, you’re saying I have powers?”

“I could sense something earlier. There’s a very real possibility,” SaberLeaf said.

QS nodded. “It’s a good thing I crash-landed here.”

Although Stacey was overjoyed by the whole situation, she couldn’t believe them. “I-I’m no hero.” A hero wouldn’t have made her mom leave. “I’m just… me.”

“Nonsense, you saved my life. And you’re Enhanced. Just who are you, by the way?” QS asked. “Never got your name.”

When Stacey tried to utter the answer, the words got a little jumbled together. She tried to say “Stacey” followed by “Ryker,” but they melded together into “Stryker.”

Both QS and SaberLeaf smirked, exchanging glances.

QS whistled, impressed. “Damn, did you just come up with that? Talk about a killer superhero name. Stryker. Striking fear into all villains near! Now that’s a tagline.”

Stacey laughed, not bothering to correct her. “So, uh, how do I join?”

SaberLeaf smiled a knowing smile in QS’s direction. “Oh, it’s a bit of a long and grueling process—but if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

Stacey’s smile faltered. “O-oh…” She knew it wouldn’t be as simple as putting on a supersuit and fighting evil, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about that look the two had exchanged.

QS and SaberLeaf exploded with laughter.

“We’re joking, kid. Sort of,” SaberLeaf said with a grin. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Here, kid,” Quantum Spectacle said, proffering a folded piece of paper. “Not a bad plan. I have a few modification in minds, but if you get in, we could definitely make that work for your uniform.”

Stacey took the paper and unfolded it. It was the taped-up sketch she’d drawn earlier.

Wrapped up inside was a matte black card stamped with silver lettering.

Quantum Spectacle’s business card fell into her hand. She now had a direct number to the Den of Solace.

Stacey traced her finger over the embossed “Q” and looked up, but the heroes had already vanished into the night, gone like a whisper in the wind.

Stacey looked down at the drawing of the hero, then up at the night sky.

Feeling empowered, she smiled—it was time to do something extraordinary.