Mike Mathews
July 27th, San Diego public library
Mike had spent the last two days in a relatively unusual way.
Normally, he’d look into future internships, developing his powers or just generally mill about and relax, these past two days however had him fully investing nearly all of his time into practicing to fight and learning about magic of all things the latter of which, is what had eventually led him into the library. Even in today’s modern world of technology, finding actual, valid information on magic was like pulling teeth and in the rare cases he actually found something, understanding what it was saying was an entirely different challenge. Now he was sitting slumped deep into the back of an old, dusty and albeit surprisingly comfy armchair trying to decipher a ‘A collection on the study of otherworldly magic’.
He didn’t think even for a moment that he could use magic himself, for one thing there are few super powered mages for a reason and for another the whole idea of spending decades relentlessly studying a field he may never be able to use didn’t really appeal to him. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny the real reason he was so suddenly invested in this: Hex. Mike liked understanding how his powers worked, he liked learning about physics and reality to better apply his own abilities. Yet along comes some angsty merlin-wannabe who can apparently and takes his shield, linked together stronger than steel, and just, liquefy it. No change in energy, no change in matter, nothing. All of its structure and strength just, gone. After letting out an audible sigh at the memory, Mike slumped deeper into the chair and partially onto the floor ‘if people can do that, then what use do my powers even have? And what use is learning about the world when we clearly don’t understand a damned thing about it?!’ After forcibly shaking the thought from his head, Mike dragged his tired body from the chair and stretched his stiff arms while stifling a yawn. In the end, all he could really figure out was that the different magics mostly acted like they were tapping into different pools of energy and when harnessed, could have different effects on reality. Whatever the hell that meant, Mike had no idea, but if there was some structure to it he’d eventually figure it out and hopefully be ready for it. As he went to put away the folder of papers and reports, a small buzzing started to come from his phone and after digging it out of his pockets he saw a simple message on its screen
“YB team meeting”
Later that day, Wonder Tower
All in all, Mike had entered the meeting optimistically. Sure, the past few days with the team had been rough, borderline traumatic even, but he figured that there was no way it would keep going the way it had been. Maybe Naja had found out about Roy’s vigilantism comments and was now rightfully getting ready to lay into the team. While the idea of getting into trouble wasn’t exactly fun for Mike, the chance that everyone would have some sense knocked into them before they did something crazy for a change, did brighten his mood somewhat.
But then Roy told everyone what was really happening. Pink Hair tried to be rational and calm. Some new guy was curious about info. And Mike, Mike was pissed. He was upset that they had gone alone. He was dumbstruck that they didn’t consider backup. But he was furious that when things went bad, Mars had left Kiris behind. While the others talked, that little voice in his head that stopped him from doing stupid shit seemed to go mute and as he turned to look at the source of it all, he found Mars unwilling to even face the others he had so gracelessly screwed over. That was the last straw.
“Well if no one else will, I guess I’ll say it." Mike suddenly called out "Congrats Mars. You broke the law, got caught doing it, stabbed your team in the back and abandoned the one person on this Earth you’d be able to trick into helping with it all. And all in the span of one night to boot.” He said without taking his eyes off the so called ‘genius’ daring him to meet back his gaze.
“And you know what?” He eventually added, breaking off his stare to turn it towards Roy “Why don’t we just forget about Kiris? I mean, if Mars thought it was worth leaving her for the intel, then who are we to question his genius intellect? I bet his brilliant mind has already calculated this through better than any of us ever could! Heck, he’s probably even got a speech written up to disown her from the team already!” Some part of Mike knew that Mars was hurting, it might have even considered how the team was feeling too but he wasn't listening to it at this point. After everything they had been through, 'to just leave her?'
No, Mike had let a lot of things go recently but this was something he wasn't going to let slide.
