Wannabe Superhero

With my body under her control, Ary waves a hand over my face as she mutters something. The next moment a mask appears over my face, probably to prevent the Order from knowing my identity.

"Comfort her," I instruct Ary as she begins to move forward, and she does so reluctantly. She moves forward, stopping behind the woman before gently petting her head.

"Do not worry," my mouth says with a voice that is not my own, "I'll get your stuff back."

The woman is startled, as she turns back to see who just spoke and touched her, but before she could fully react Ary has already moved on, not wanting to waste too much time on this task. Once we are out of sight of most people, we begin to run, far faster than the average person. It does not take long before we catch sight of the man.

Alerted by the sound of our running, the man turns around and sees us, and I'm not sure if it is because of our mask or the way we were running, but he quickly reaches into his pocket and brings out a gun. Ary controls my hand to reach out as she speaks, "Arante!"

The gun is pulled out of the man's hand and toward mine. Ary grabs it and tosses it away as she quickly advances toward the man. She begins mumbling, and with each word she says the power within me moves. The man, who was originally shocked by the sight of his gun flying out of his hand, turns around and begins to run away, but it is far too late for that.

My hand is raised and the following moment he begins to mimic its movements. First, he is slammed into a nearby wall. Then he is raised a few feet into the air and slammed down to the ground. This happened three times, and each time I inwardly wince. That is bound to hurt. Surprisingly, even though he stumbled a few times, he managed to land on his feet each time.

By this point he starts screaming, but Ary simply raises my free hand and makes a small motion. All the sound coming from his still moving mouth just vanishes and silence surrounds us. He is then pulled toward my waiting hand, which then clamps down around his neck.

With him standing this close, it is easy to see the fearful expression on his face. He has met something he doesn't understand, something that seems to want to hurt him, and that terrifies him. If I hadn't seen him callously rob that woman not too long ago, I might have felt pity for him, he just looked so miserable.

Ary brings my face close to his. "Bring out everything you stole from that woman. You have six seconds."

For a moment my words don't seem to register with him, then he begins to act quickly, emptying out his pockets. The woman's stuff arranges themselves and fly into my open hand while the man looks on scared and… was that awe? Seems like I just changed this man's entire worldview. Yes, magic is real, and there are people who can use it. Like me.

Ary lets the man go, but before we leave, I tell her something through our mind-link - something that is only formed when she possesses me. She turns to the man. "The next time you do something like this, things won't end as pleasantly as they did today."

Then we run away. It doesn't take us long to find the woman and give her back her stuff, and as I watched the look of pleasant surprise appear on her face, I knew that I had done the right thing. Before the woman could say anything, we were gone.

"That was awesome!" I said to Ary later on. I had regained control of my body and the mask was gone to wherever Ary had summoned it from.

"It wasn't bad," Ary said lazily.

"See," I say, "it feels good to help others."

"No. I just enjoyed scaring that man."

That was unexpected. I mean, Ary had always had the look of a fairy so some part of me expected her to be good and like doing good as a result. To be honest, I am not exactly sure how exactly to respond to her confession. Immediately I recall how she just handled that thief, and to be honest she hadn't needed to be so heavy-handed with him. I begin to get worried.

"You like scaring people?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It feels good."

I hesitate a bit before asking my next question. "Do you also like killing?"

"No. If people are dead, I can't scare them."

"Oh." Relief fills me. I have no idea why but the moment she admitted she liked scaring people, my mind immediately jumped, and I began to wonder if she was a psychopath who also liked stuff like… killing. Now that I know she just likes scaring people, I relax. I can handle that. It might be weird, but I don't know much about her and her kind so who am I to judge.

"Hey Ary, why don't do this more often?"

"Do what?"

"You know… fight crime and stuff. We can be like a superhero duo. We help out people who need help, and you get to scare as many criminals as you like."

Ary is silent for a moment. "Am I the one going to do all the work?"

"As long as I can handle it, I will. You just need to train me well."

"Fine. As long as you're doing most of the work."

"Great!" The gears of my mind begin to spin as I start trying to figure out the specifics of how we will put all this in action. "Ary, that mask you summoned earlier, can you teach me how to summon it. It'll be a great way for me to hide my identity, I'll just need to figure out what to do with my hair."

"That's my Artifact."

I could immediately tell that it had something to do with magic, and as a result my curiosity was stoked. "Artifact? Like some kind of magical device? What does it do?" Silence. "Ary?"

"Yes, you can use it."

"You didn't answer my questions." Silence. "Ary. Arry!"

"Too many questions. Don't feel like answering."

"Fine. I'll ask you later then."

I stop talking as my brain continues trying to figure out how exactly I'll handle my new superhero adventures without anyone catching on to me. I don't want to be like those superheroes in the movies who have barely started out when all of a sudden, a dozen people figure out their secret identities.

When I am close to home my mind shifts gears. Ary had mentioned before that it was risky using magic in public since an Order wouldn't like it. Through deduction it wasn't hard to figure out a couple of things. Like the fact that I'm definitely not the only magician out here. If I actually decide to follow through with being a superhero, then the chances of me running into them are pretty high. And judging from Ary's statement they probably wouldn't think well of my actions.

In the end, this line of thinking ends with a question. Just how powerful are they? If I were to come face to face with one of them, how well would I fare? I decide to ask Ary.