บท 7: Chapter 7: Starlight

Not even 10 minutes later, Mike stopped his charge near a decent sized race track, where the two speedsters, A-train and shockwave, were going to race eachother. Mike quickly got in without anyone noticing using Phase Slash and let his two comrades out of the bag.

Afterwards he turned it upside down and aired out all the carbon dioxide the two had left inside. Butcher was, surprisingly, only slightly dizzy, while Frenchie just took off the helmet and looked completely fine.

Mike nodded in approval and said "You're quite a trooper, Butcher. Only slight dizziness from traveling at near light speed. Granted, it was only for a few seconds, but still, a person adapting to such extreme is impressive."

Butcher took in a deep breath and said "You can suck me off after we get some V. For now, hugh, we split. I am going to oversee everything with A-train. Frenchie, you go with Mike and find the junky's locker room and his stash. Frenchie watches, you get the stuff, Mike. We clear."

Mike nodded his head and said "Decent plan. Let's go Frenchie, we have work to do!"

Butcher quickly followed the crowd and got to the stadium to watch the coming supes, while Mike snuck thorough the ventilation to reach the locker rooms and Frenchie watched out for any supe activity.

"Say, Monsieur Mike, how do you teleport, ey? You aren't a supe, so why can you teleport?" Asked Frenchie through the walkie-talkie.

Mike shook his head and said "It's not teleporting, Frenchie. The most powerful skill of a blade dancer is Phase Slash. The most basic explanation I can give on how it works is, that you have to swing your weapon and move it's and your weight around constantly, so you nearly reach negative mass and dance said negative mass around you and the blade, causing you to move at near light speed. It is an almost impossible technique to grasp for both the spirit and the arcane schools of power and is what separates a good swordsmaster and a blade dancer.

This technique is also the reason why I have only met 2 legendary blade dancers and over 200 chronomancers."

frenchie nodded his head continuously, while staying vigilant. Mike kept crawling for a few minutes, before seeing the locker room and jumping down.

He quickly skimmed through the contents of A-train's bag and he suddenly heard the door unlocking. He quickly fixed everything up, but he couldn't Phase Slash, as his axe was in the backpack he left with frenchie. *Shit! Why didn't Frenchie warn me? Got to think fast! Fuck! I'll pretend to be a speedster.*

With his mind made up, Mike came up with a course of action. He ran up to the door and barely stopped as a woman stood in front of him. "Woah, sorry bout that miss. I didn't see you there."

A beautiful blond wearing Amazonian armour stood in front of Mike, as she gazed at him and couldn't utter a single word for a couple of second.

Mike raised and eyebrow and said "Miss? Miss, you okay?" The young blond snapped back to herself and she said "I'm sorry. I didn't know someone was in here. Say, do I know you?"

Mike laughed "Probably not, but I'd love to get to know you, miss?" The blond stared at the young asian in confusion and asked "You don't know me?" The young man smiled a bit awkwardly and said "Don't take any offensive to my question, but should I know you?"

The blond shook her head and said "No, no. It's nothing much. I'm not like a celebrity or anything. You know, I'm just the new member of the seven. A pretty small group of heroes. Nothing special."

Mike nodded his head "You're right, I probably wouldn't have heard of such a small group if it only consists of 7 members. Well, with someone as wonderful as you leading it, I'm sure it will achieve some fame one day. The name's XLR8, I'm a speedster."

The blond woman chuckled at the young man's banter and extended her hand "Starlight of the 7. Say, would you like to join me for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria?"

Mike nodded his head and said "I would probably regret it for the rest of my life if I said no. So I guess I have some time for a coffee."

---

"Um, Monsieur Butcher, I think we have a small problem. It seems The walkie-talkie we gave to Mike has been accidentally turned off and he was discovered by a supe. He is trying to play it off as if he is also one of them and the woman called starlight isn't letting him off."

Butcher fumed out and said "How the fuck did that happen?! Frenchie, you were on watch and how the fuck did he turn the thing off? Does he not know how to use a walkie-talkie?"

His eyes lit up, as it dawned on him "Of fucking course he doesn't! They cunt's mates use magic and technology more advanced than Vought! Of course he has no idea how to use a bloody walkie-talkie! He probably turned it off instead of ending the bloody transmission. Keep watch Frenchie. If he gets burned or someone is about to discover him, get him out. Your top priority is getting the damn backpack on your back to him! He is barely worth 1/5 of himself without that backpack!"

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"Say, starlight, you aren't like most supers, you know?" Mike said with a bit of astonishment.

Starlight was confused about the statement and asked "How so?"

Mike simply shrugged and said "Supers are a bit... Temperamental, to say the least. Some become more aggressive from their powers, some completely lose the will to fight. Hell, I've even met one guy, who randomly becomes racists once every week, but you are the first supe who became kinder because of her power."

Starlight blushed a bit at the compliment and said "T-thank you. Most people just tell me my act is great or that my vigilante character is good for TV. You're the first person to say that to me."

Mike chuckled at her shyness and asked "What's it like being in the seven? As I said, you're one of the only normal supes I know. The rest are quite volatile. How are the other 6 in the 7?"

Starlight got a bit quite at that question and Mike read her like an open book *Something happened. She is attractive and a newbie, possible sexual harassment or straight rape victim. Who could it be? I don't know much about Vought as an organisation, much less the 7. I need to figure out who they are and play her to get me information.*

"I don't really want to talk about it." Mike sighed and said "It's okay, being not a native here, I have faced my fare share as well."

Starlight looked surprised "You're not from America? But your English is so fluid!"

Mike chuckled "Thank you for the compliment, but not, I'm from Asia, if it wasn't obvious enough. Though I am grateful for you not showing blatant racism."

Starlight cringed a bit at that and said "Oh god, I'm so sorry about that. You came to us to become a super and had to go through that?"

Mike laughed "It's fine. I can take it, but this country really does have a problem against people not from here. Hell, even some people from here are discriminated against. I hope to one day get into the seven, maybe then we both can bring some peace."

Starlight smiled and stirred her coffee a bit "Ya, I'll most definitely fight to make America a better place."

Mike nodded at her and asked "Say, what do you do around here for fun? I've barely been here and making friends isn't my strong side."

Starlight chuckled at his remark "Could have fooled me. I personally like to go bowling."

Mike got confused by her words. His translation enchantment had mostly adapted to english, but it seemed like synonyms were mixed up, so it translated for him as 'bowl using' and confused him. "Bowl using?"

Starlight looked at him in confusion before shaking her head "*Right, foreigner!* Have you never heard of bowling?"

Mike shook his head "Can't say I have. Say, would you mind showing me this... Interesting sport?"

Starlight chuckled "Such an eloquent way of asking me out on a date. Put my number in your phone. I'll call you and we can meet up at a later day." Mike smiled and took out his phone "Sounds good to me."

Mike quickly put her number into his contacts and picked up the check. Starlight quickly grabbed and and shook her hand "No, no, it's okay. I invited you out, so I'll pay for it. You didn't even order anything but some water."

Mike smiled at her and said "Well, if not money, I'll pay you with a bit of advice. Don't wear that costume again, you don't deserve this punishment."

Starlight slowly looked down at her revealing costume and nodded her head at the remark of Mike. All she could do was just nod her head and say "Ya."

"It was nice meeting you, Starlight. Can't wait to go bowling."

Mike quickly left before she could recover from the shock of his words. *With my image deeply imprinted into her mind, she won't forget this conversation or me for a while. I guess her backlash was simpleness or something. Quite an interesting backlash. I wonder if she is an unstable variant, or something else entirely?*

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A.N.

Mike hates supers, but he won't mindlessly kill them. Using Starlight will bring him more benefits, so he is doing exactly that. If someone feels like complaining about how Mike didn't straight up kill starlight, give me more stones! Chapter 9 is literal schadenfreude.

You know the drill. 69 power stones and I give extra chapters. C'mon people, I'm at chapter 17 right now and we've barely released the 7th one! Give me stones, so you get more content. The story's good, I promise.