The snowball wasn't rolling. It had been three weeks of dragging myself between beaches, staring at the salt water and waiting for a miracle that wouldn't come.
I'm as weak as human kid. I can't just walk up to a Supe and attack them, and I certainly can't ask to taste their blood. I'd be arrested, or worse, killed.
It's just like the universe hates me. How can I get the snowball rolling? It's literally impossible. It feels like I'm rolling a boulder up a mountain, not a snowball on snow.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" A voice drifted in from the surf. A man in a ridiculous green-scaled suit emerged from the water,
"Snowball," I muttered.
"What?" the man asked, doubting what he just heard.
"You're The Deep." I said it like I'd been waiting my whole life for this moment. "The Emperor of the Seven Seas."
One look. That's all it took. Back home, reading the intent of my own kind was a lethal game of chess, a constant struggle against minds as closed and cold as deep space. But humans?
Humans were open books. Their biology was loud, their insecurities leaking out of them like a scent. One glance at this man and I could see the bottomless need for praise vibrating in his chest.
The man coughed, puffing out his chest and looking at the sea as if he were trying to be humble and failing miserably.
"Actually," he said, looking embarrassed but clearly loving every second of it, "it's Lord of the Seven Seas. But, hey, emperor has a nice ring to it. You okay there, kid? You look like you've had a rough time."
"It's nothing," I said, dropping my gaze to the sand and making my voice as small as possible. I stood there, radiating the kind of misery that makes humans feel like they need to do something or they'll be 'bad people.'"
"It's alright, you can tell me," he said, stepping closer. He put on his 'Hero Face,' the one they use for the cameras. "You know, in the Seven, we don't just fight crime. We help people. We're like... a big, super-powered safety net...for...people."
"It's just that... my mom died of cancer recently," I whispered. I didn't actually know what 'cancer' was, but I'd spent enough time in alleys to know that when a native says that word, other natives stop talking and make a specific, pained face. It was a high-tier pity-trigger.
"Oh. Wow. Yeah," The Deep said, his heroic posture deflating into awkwardness. "I'm sorry for your loss... Happens to the best of us. Real bummer."
He cleared his throat. "So uh, what kind? My cousin had skin stuff and Vought does work with the lung ones. Was it blood or something else? What stage?"
This is a classic human defense mechanism. When faced with a tragedy they can't fix, they attempt to "bridge" the conversation with a legendary family member who suffered from the same thing.
They do this to satisfy their social obligation so they can move away from the awkward topic as quickly as possible.
I couldn't let him cross that bridge. If he related to me, he'd feel he had done his part and leave. I needed him stuck in the discomfort.
I blinked at him.
I had no idea what a type or stage was. I assume these were categories of cancer. If I had to guess.
"It was... skin stuff and Parking Cancer,".
The Deep froze. He stared at me, his mouth slightly open. "I'm sorry... what? Parking... cancer?"
"Yes," I nodded, making my eyes go even more watery. "It started in the garage. The doctors said it was very aggressive. She couldn't find a spot... and then she just... she was gone."
The Deep blinked slowly, his brain clearly short-circuiting. He looked at my scarred face, then at my rags, and he probably decided I was just too traumatized to make sense.
"Oh," he whispered, sounding even more uncomfortable than before. "Wow. Yeah. The, uh... the garage ones. Those are... those are the silent killers. Damn."
"Then I lived with my sister. But she died as well. A truck ran a light in the rain. They said she didn't even have time to feel it. Thank god."
"Oh." He shifted his weight, looking at the water as if hoping a dolphin would swim by and rescue him from this conversation. "Two of 'em. That's... that's a lot of death, kid."
"Now I live with my dad."
The Deep looked around the empty beach, his brow furrowing. "Live where exactly?"
"I don't know. I was supposed to meet him here yesterday. He told me to wait by this rock and he'd be back with food. But he never showed up."
"Jesus Christ"
I waited.
The snowball is snowballing.
"I think... I think this is all my fault,"
The Deep immediately took the bait. He stepped closer, his "hero" instincts firing. "Whoa, hey, kid. No. No way. You can't blame yourself for a truck, or... or the garage stuff. That's just life, man. It's not on you."
"It is, It's because I'm weak. I couldn't protect them because my power went away. If I had been strong, I could have stopped that truck. I could have saved her."
The Deep froze, his eyes widening. "Wait. You're... you're a Supe? You have powers?"
"I did," I said, "But they're dormant now. They went away."
"How is that even possible?" The Deep asked, looking bewildered. "I mean, Once you've got 'em, you've got 'em."
"I don't make my own power. I'm a duplicator."
The Deep's entire demeanor shifted. His chest puffed out even further. The idea of being "copied" was the ultimate compliment to his ego.
"You mean... if you had some of my blood... you'd be like me?" he asked, his voice hushed with awe. "You'd talk to fish? "
"Yeah." Thankfully, Aldrich knew some of the famous Supes' powers. He knew that this idiot had other abilities he needed, like durability and super strength. If he didn't know that and had to go through all of this just to talk to fish, he would have punched him in the face.
That was the kill shot. I could see it in his eyes. He wasn't thinking about safety protocols or Vought regulations anymore. He was thinking about how cool it would be to have a sidekick who was a literal clone of his own "greatness."
"Kid," he said, looking down at his hand and then back at me. "If a little bit of me can save a life... and make another supe... then I'd be a pretty shitty supe if I said no, right?"
He looked around the beach for something sharp. He found a jagged piece of an oyster shell half-buried in the sand. He picked it up, looking at me with a goofy, heroic look.
I watched the shell press into his thumb. I watched the first bead of deep, concentrated red appear. The snowball wasn't just rolling now. It was a goddamn avalanche.