The spotlight of a circling helicopter lit up the plaza as Daniel crouched behind a hedge just out of sight.  On the other side, the White Financial Trust building loomed up into the night sky.  He had gone looking for trouble, and he had certainly found it.  To think that he would come across Caduceus and his minions in the middle of a bank robbery on his first ever attempt at heroism.  He held his breath and steeled his resolve, getting ready for what he knew he had to do.  This was his moment.

“Stop right there, evildoers!”
Daniel stood up from his hiding place, glaring across the ruined courtyard to the line of mutants even now filing out of the bank’s entrance.  Immediately, he felt each of their bulbous eyes turn towards him.  His skin grew hot under his whiskers as a deep red blush worked its way across his skin, and doubts began to surface once again.  Perhaps the leotard hadn’t been such a good idea.

Still, it seemed fitting.  His grandfather had been a circus strongman, and that’s what he was trying to be, wasn’t it?  A strong man.  Certainly the rabbit charm had had some… side effects, but he was determined to use its gifts to do some good.

His train of thought was broken by a sound from the still stunned, motionless line of mutants.  They were ugly brutes, misshapen hunks of muscle and bone only barely recognizable as human.  Each one had the same expression, disbelief mixed with amusement.  Alright, Daniel decided, the leotard was definitely a bad idea.  He should have listened to Annie.

Presently, one of the largest thugs stepped forward.  He had a face reminiscent of a children’s art project, contrasted by muscles like slabs of granite and a massive cowl of bone covering his upper body.

“What did you just say?” the mutant growled.

Daniel gulped, and his ears twitched in agitation, but it was too late to back down now.  “I said stop right there!  What you’re doing is against the law!”

“Oh yeah?  You a policeman?”

He paused.  The mutant had, surprisingly, made a very salient point.  Did he have any authority to stop these people?  What they were doing was obviously wrong, and the city’s most beloved hero already worked as a vigilante, but…

“No, I’m a hero.”

He said it in a firm voice, and the act made him feel better, more confident.  He clenched his fists and raised them threateningly, his long ears now flattened against his skull.

“A hero?  A little bunny rabbit hero?  That’s hilarious!” the mutant laughed, then rushed forward without warning.  His first swing almost caught Daniel off guard, and he ducked just in time for an arm with the dimensions of a steel beam to cut through the air above him.

“I’m not a bunny!  My name is Hopper!” he answered, swinging up in return.  Daniel’s fist caught the mutant right where his bone cowl met the skin, and actually lifted him off the ground.  He stared in disbelief as the mutant tumbled backward, landing with a crash in a heap on the ground.  Had he just done that?  He knew the rabbit charm had made him stronger, but this seemed a bit extreme.  The mutant was almost twice as big as he was.

Said mutant was even now picking himself up, an angry scowl twisting across his distended face.  Of course that wouldn’t be enough to take something like him down, but at least Daniel now felt he had a chance.  With a roar, the creature bounded toward him.  It feinted left, and Daniel realized his mistake as he ducked to the right and met the thing’s other fist coming down like a hammer at his side.

The impact sent sharp pain running up and down Daniel’s ribs, and he felt himself lifted off his feet this time.  Something clicked inside his mind, some animal instinct he didn’t know he had, and he twisted in the air.  His new, furry ears pointed straight up as he landed on the ground.  Gingerly touching his side where the mutant had hit him, he found to his surprise that it barely ached.  It felt as though he’d taken a tumble and might have a bruise later, but nothing like the bone-cracking, incapacitating pain it should have been.

“The heck are you?” the mutant growled at him, raising its arms for another charge.

Daniel barely managed a smile.  “I’m not sure I know at this point,” he said, crouching down and gathering strength in his powerful leg muscles.  At the same instant, the two of them burst into motion, flying at each other over the cracked concrete of the parking lot.

In the kitchen, Edda paused buttering her toast and took a long look at the television set displaying the local news in the corner.  The manor had culinary staff to prepare her meals, of course, but if she wanted a late-night snack like this there was nothing for it but to slip into the kitchen and make it herself.  Finishing the job before she gave the report her full attention, Edda alighted on a chair at the table and watched the story now being displayed with interest.

A big, tall, even huge man with a pair of white rabbit ears bobbing out of his head was facing off with an equally large mutant.  That was certainly something you didn’t see every day, even with all the strange happenings across the city in recent months.  The rabbit man’s ridiculous circus leotard really brought the absurd scene together.  Edda smirked.  From the look of the area, they were outside one of her father’s banking trusts downtown.  Caduceus and his goons had been hitting those hard and often lately, not that she particularly cared.  Still, Oliver White’s similarly relaxed attitude toward the robberies had been a surprise.

The crunching of toast in her mouth drowned out whatever the reporters were saying, but she wore an amused smile as she watched the rabbit man duke it out.  He obviously wasn’t a very skilled fighter.  Not that Edda was an expert, but even she could tell that the punches he was throwing out were slow and clumsy.  Luckily, the big mutant seemed to be just as inexperienced, and it was quickly turning into a contest of pure strength.

She paused long enough to hear the anchor make some corny comment about the rabbit man looking strong enough to “leap over a building in a single bound”, then got up to retrieve some juice from the refrigerator.  When she returned, the leporine hero was smashing the mutant repeatedly with a car.  Edda frowned.  Clearly her trip to the fridge had caused her to miss some key part of the fight.  She had to admit that was impressive, though, peering at the display over her juice glass.  It took some serious muscle to move a car, much less swing one around as an improvised weapon like that.

The mutant finally stopped moving, though even from the news copter’s distant camera she could see his broad back still rising and falling.  Standing up, the rabbit man was wearing a grin, but that expression soon faded as he realized that the rest of Caduceus’ men had already escaped.  Edda almost laughed, but she cut it short lest she wake up anyone else and her late-night snack excursion be discovered.

The police were surrounding him now, and he looked at a complete loss for what to do next.  She almost felt sorry for him, but this was the whole reason people didn’t just up and try to become superheroes all the time.  Burning Sol aside, the city didn’t take too well to vigilantes throwing their superpowered weight around.  As the rabbit man was being escorted into a police car, Edda judged the show to be over.  She returned her dishes to the sink and, not bothering to clean up the remaining evidence, slunk back to bed.

A mix of emotions battled for Daniel’s attention as he rested on the cold police station bench.  He was embarrassed, certainly.  Not only was he still blushing from being seen in public wearing his grandfather’s strongman leotard.  That had been decided the moment he made that choice for his costume.  He was also ashamed that he hadn’t thought about the obvious consequences of his actions.  Sure, Burning Sol got away with vigilante justice all the time, but he was also beloved by the people of the city.  An unknown figure like Daniel; rather, like Hopper, couldn’t expect the same amount of leniency from law enforcement.

At the same time, he felt elated.  He had done it.  At least, he had done a bit of it.  Caduceus’ minions got away with a lot of the money, but he had put one of them down for the count.  A big one, too.  The thrill of defeating what seemed like such a superior opponent, of really getting to stretch the limits of his new power, buzzed about his mind.  It was almost enough to make him forget about the embarrassment.  If only the power didn’t come with so many side effects.

He was saved by decided what exactly he should be feeling when a voice called out from across the hall.

“You’re the bunny man?  What am I asking?  Of course you are.  Come on in.”

The officer who beckoned Daniel into his office was a tall man, well-muscled and with a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on his nose.  Not only was it night by now, but they were definitely inside a building, so the choice of fashion seemed odd to Daniel.  Still, considering his own outfit, he didn’t feel like he was in any position to comment.  With a nod, he stood up and entered the room opposite.  Settling down in a wooden chair, he watched the other man cross around a desk and lower himself into a much more expensive leather seat.

The nameplate on the desk read “Lieutenant Guy Aguado”.  Daniel’s eyes flicked down to it, his ears twitched involuntarily, and he looked back up.  It seemed natural to him that someone who looked like this would be named “Guy”.

“First off,” Officer Aguado started, waving a hand vaguely at Daniel’s chest, “What’s with the… getup?”
“Is that an official question?” His answer came out a bit faster than Daniel would have liked, and he made an effort of will to push down the cocktail of emotions he still had bubbling around.

“Not exactly,” the other responded, leaning back a bit and peering over his aviators.  His eyes were a remarkable shade of green. “Think of it more as my own curiosity.”

Daniel hesitated, but didn’t see any reason not to answer.

“It was my grandfather’s.  He was a circus strongman.  Er… I thought it would be fitting if I wore it for my first heroic act.  I’m strong, so it was kind of an homage.”

“You’re strong.  That’s an understatement.  Witnesses say you picked up an entire car and beat a mutant with it.”

He had done that, hadn’t he?  Daniel smiled.  “Yes, officer, I did exactly that.”

“So that’s assault with a deadly weapon and destruction of property.”  Without changing his expression, Officer Aguado wrote something down on a notepad in front of him.  Daniel’s smile froze, and what felt like an iron ball started to grow in his stomach.

“That’s what now?”

“Assault with a deadly weapon and destruction of property.  Look, I don’t like Caduceus’ thugs any more than anyone here, but they’re still technically citizens.”

“That’s… not good.” It sounded lame, certainly, but Daniel couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Not good.  Not good.  No, it isn’t,” Aguado heaved a sigh, then seemed to think of something and pointed at Daniel’s head, “The ears?”

“Real.  Um… I found a magical rabbit’s foot charm and, well, something changed.  It’s part of the same package that let me pick up that car.”

“You’d be surprised how much of that sort of thing we’ve been hearing lately.  A rabbit though?  Really?  Don’t answer that.  Anyway, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“A proposition?” Again with the lame answers.  He was supposed to be a hero, wasn’t he?  Did Burning Sol ever have to put up with this kind of thing?

“We can spin the whole thing as self-defense.  It’s still not going to look great for you, because of the car, but the big guy did attack you first.” He nodded, poking at the paper in front of him with his pencil.

“That sounds good,” Daniel mused, “but you said it’s a proposition.  What do I have to do?”

Aguado grinned.  With the aviators hiding his eyes, and his hair slicked back, he looked every inch the roguish good guy cop.  Daniel had to wonder if it was intentional.  He decided that it probably was.

“There’s an administrator from the government, just arrived in town yesterday.  She’s been sent to put together a state-sanctioned ‘Superhero Team’.  The first of its kind,” he shrugged, still smiling, “I guess they’re trying to get at least a little bit of control over everything that’s been happening.  You know, since the meteor.”

Daniel did know.  It was the biggest event in recent history, and suddenly “magical” superhuman powers had erupted throughout the population.  It was absolute chaos until certain powerful people took it upon themselves to become “heroes” and keep the others in check.

“I’ve been ordered to keep an eye out for any superhumans that might be a good fit for the team,” Aguado continued, leaning forward for his next statement as though imparting a well-kept secret, “You seem like a decent guy, Daniel.  If you join the team, one of the founding members, I’ll do everything I can to let you get away from this whole ugly business scot-free.”

“Hopper,” Daniel responded quickly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Hopper.  It’s my hero name.  If I’m going to join this team, I think I should go by that and not Daniel.”

Aguado paused for a moment, then laughed, flashing a set of brilliant white teeth.  “That’s it?  I don’t need to do any more convincing?”

Daniel found himself smiling as well, and decided that, despite the poor circumstances of their meeting, he might just like this man.

“You’re offering me a free pardon, and a chance to legitimately do what I was going for in the first place.  Why the heck would I refuse?”

“Good point, good point,” Aguado chuckled.  He scribbled an address down on a piece of his notebook paper, tore it out, and handed it to Daniel.  “Go to this address tomorrow.  If I call later and hear you didn’t show up, expect to be back here in cuffs.  Got it?”

Taking the paper, Daniel realized he didn’t have any place to stash it.  Blushing a bit under the white whiskers on his face, he folded the parchment and slid it as surreptitiously as he could under one of the straps of his leotard.

“Crystal clear,” he said, then paused once again, “Er… What now?”

Aguado spread his hands magnanimously.  “You’re free to go.  In fact, I think your wife is already here to pick you up.”

Once again, Daniel felt that strange confluence of emotions.  Certainly, he was eager to see Annie again.  He always was.  At the same time, however, she was definitely going to have some strong words to say about what happened tonight.  Thanking Officer Aguado, he stood and stepped out of the office, ears drooping only a little as he made his way out to the waiting room.

“I told you you shouldn’t have worn the leotard.”

Annie scowled at him from the driver’s seat, but there was a shine in her eyes that he knew very well.  She supported what he was doing, he knew, even if she didn’t wholly agree with the way he had gone about it this time.  Even at this time of night, he noted, she was dressed sensibly.  Of course, Annie wouldn’t let anyone at the police station see her at anything but her best if she could help it.  That devotion to her own standards regardless of the situation was one of the things he loved most about her.

“You were right,” Daniel raised his hands in surrender, nodding his head and causing his ears to bob in rhythm, “I admit it.  Freely, and under no duress.”

“You’re darn right I was right.”  She seemed mollified now, and they sat in silence for a moment before she spoke again.  “So this ‘Superhero Team’ you’re joining, what do you think you’ll wear for that?”

Fingering the address paper still stuck under the strap of his leotard, Daniel suppressed a small smile of relief.  If she was asking that, she was as good as giving her approval to the whole idea.  Not that he had much choice, but he had always known that Annie was smarter than him.  Having her support on it made him feel a lot more comfortable with the idea.

He found himself smiling as he admired her brown hair, cut in a sensibly short length, and those dark eyes of hers, always so keen and knowing.  Daniel smiled to himself, but then found himself falling into a stupor.  He still hadn’t answered her question, so he shook himself back to awareness.

“I… hadn’t actually thought about it,” he admitted, “Have any ideas?”

“What about a suit?”

“A suit?” Daniel was momentarily taken aback by the idea.  What kind of a superhero wears a suit?  Of course, he wasn’t doing too well at being a traditional superhero so far.

“Yeah, that brown one you used to wear at work.  It’s very you, don’t you think?” She was smiling now, eyes moving between him and the road in front of her.

“You have a point there, and... it’s not like I have many other options.  I’ll go with the suit until I get a real costume, alright?”

“Mhm,” she grunted in response.  Something about it suggested that she wasn’t entirely convinced, but Daniel was too tired at this point to really puzzle it out.  His ears were drooping, and so were his eyelids.  His first day of crime fighting had definitely taken a toll on him, compounded by the fact that he wasn’t used to being awake at such a late hour.

“Superheroes don’t fall asleep in the car,” Annie teased, noticing him fading off.

“Oh shush.  You’re the real hero if you can get me home.”

The next morning, Daniel awoke in his own bed with little recollection of how he had gotten there.  He stretched, careful not to disturb Annie sleeping beside him, and was greeted by a dull pain in his side.  Superpowered rabbit charm or not, it seemed he still had to deal with the consequences of getting hit.  At least it was just an ache, and not the agony that taking such a hit should have left him with.

Rolling out from under the covers, he padded softly over to the bathroom and availed himself of a quick shower.  Standing in front of the mirror, still half asleep and methodically brushing his teeth, he noted how strangely specific his transformation had been.  His ears had migrated to the top of his head and grown a coat of fur; the most obvious change.  They bounced up and down a little with the motions of his brush.  It seemed the slightest motion was enough to send them jerking around.  The sensation of them jumping this way and that was still alien to him.

He was thankful, at least, that he had started growing out his hair after leaving the company.  It was a shaggy mess now, but it at least covered the spots where his ears used to be.  Otherwise, he thought he might look a bit uncanny.  That was another thing.  The charm had turned all of his hair a stark, bright white, as though to match the puffy ears now on his head.  This wasn’t the hard silver of old age, but rather a snowy white one might find on a rabbit’s coat.

Rinsing his mouth, he turned his head right and left, studying his reflection.  At first he had been worried that the white hair, and his trimmed beard in particular, gave him the aspect of an old man, but he managed to convince himself that wasn’t the case.  He was still young, at least by his own estimation, and not quite into middle age.  Still, he wondered sometimes if that was just him being hopeful.  Annie had been notably tight-lipped on the matter.  He felt he wasn’t ready for old age just yet, not when he was starting a new chapter in his life like this.

It was a weekend, so he was careful not to make much noise as he selected his clothing and changed in the room.  His hand hovered over the leotard for a moment, now hanging primly in his closet.  Had his wife washed it last night?  Daniel couldn’t imagine why she’d do such a thing, given her loathing of the garment.  Shaking his head, he moved a few other items to the side and selected a brown corduroy suit, just like Annie had recommended.  He still wasn’t convinced this was proper attire for an aspiring superhero, but he did admittedly feel more comfortable in it.

Whipping up a modest breakfast in the kitchen, Daniel ate alone and with a touch of nervousness.  He hadn’t ever done government work before.  Was this group going to be military in nature?  Would he be expected to go through drills, to wear a uniform, or to make reports?  He could do all of those if he had to, he thought, but the uncertainty of it left his stomach unsettled.  Not finishing the meager meal, he made sure to clean the dishes before stepping outside.  With a breath of cool morning air, he headed, for the first time, to the address Officer Aguado had given him.

A short walk later and Daniel sat in an austere waiting room.  More than just spartan, it looked as though someone had just started moving in and hadn’t had time to finish.  Piles of boxes were still stacked neatly in the corners, and a handful of chairs were the only furniture visible.  None of that particularly mattered to Daniel at the moment, however, because sitting across from him was a skeleton.

He was still trying to figure out how he felt about it.  Certainly, it was frightening to see a set of human bones walking around.  On the other hand, it had just calmly entered and sat down across from him with a polite little wave.  Hardly a necromantic monstrosity.  The skull’s permanent grin even seemed more playful than morbid, but that might just have been his own thoughts projecting onto it.  Strange events were indeed on the rise in the city since the meteor had struck, but even so, this was a bit…

Too stunned to wave back, he only managed to raise his eyebrows an offer a feeble nod in return.  The skeleton grinned at him.  No, it always looked like that, and he chided himself to stop assigning emotions to that unchanging expression.  It pulled a portable whiteboard and a marker out of… somewhere, and began to write.

Perhaps he hadn’t yet woken up after such a tiring day yesterday, and was still dreaming.  Daniel leaned a bit to the left, then to the right, but he was pretty certain.  There was nowhere the skeleton could have drawn the whiteboard from.  It’s not like the thing had pockets.  Leaning back in his seat with a small sigh of defeat, his eyes locked back on the skeleton’s sockets, then traveled down.  It was holding the whiteboard out, facing Daniel, and presenting a message that had been scrawled in surprisingly neat and elegant handwriting.

“Hello.”

“Er…” Daniel hesitated, but he didn’t want to be rude.  Maybe this skeleton was going to be interviewing him for a spot on the hero team?  He was still half convinced he was dreaming, but even so, he couldn’t afford to make a bad impression.  “Hello,” he finally managed, “I’m Daniel.”

The skeleton grinned at him again, then turned the whiteboard around and wiped the message away with a scratching sound like a coin dragged over concrete.  It wrote something else and turned the board back to him.

“Stupid name for a rabbit.”

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched instinctively.  Now the skeleton was insulting him?  He was already on edge from having a literal monster right across from him.  How had this situation gotten so far out of hand?  Fighting off the urge to snap a reply, Daniel managed a professional answer.  “Are you interviewing for the hero team?”

Again the scratching sound, following by the squeaking of its marker as the skeleton wrote another message.

“Nah, I’m here to join like you, dum dum.”

“I… see,” Daniel mulled the idea over, then asked the inevitable question, “You are going to be a superhero?  A skeleton?”

The answer took a bit longer to come this time, but eventually the skeleton spun its board around.

“Makes as much sense as Bunnyman over here, doesn’t it?”

He sighed.  “Are you going to just keep abusing me?”

Very quickly, this time, it wrote a single word.

“Yes.”

Daniel opened his mouth to respond.  He wasn’t the best at clever comebacks, but this undead twerp was really running down his patience.  Before he could get a word out, however, the room’s only other door opened.

“Daniel Montgomery?” a woman’s voice called for him and he stood, eager to have a distraction from his interaction with the skeleton.

“Yes?”

“Come on in.”

“So your chosen hero name is Hopper,” the woman stated, looking at a sheaf of papers in her hand, then paused.  “Oh, I should introduce myself too.  My name is Bethany Harlow.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Harlow,” Daniel replied.  He adjusted his tie absentmindedly.  This felt like a job interview.  Not exactly what he had expected when he decided to become a superhero.  The woman across the table certainly looked like a government official.  Her dark hair was done up in a neat ponytail and she wore a sensible navy pantsuit.  A pair of slightly smudged glasses hung about her neck on a lanyard.  The edges of her sleeves did look a little frayed, and the garment itself a mite rumpled, but Daniel decided not to comment.  Her gauzy eyes showed the signs of someone who wasn’t used to being up so early in the first place.  

“Just Beth is fine,” she responded absentmindedly, still reading the paper, “Why don’t you tell me about your powers?”

“Of course.  I’m, well, very strong, and I can take a hit,” he nodded to himself, then pointed at the two white fluffy ears extending from the top of his head, “I’ve got very good hearing as well.”

“The general ‘super strength’ suite, then.  Not the most original, but always very useful.”

“That’s right.  I can also jump very, very high.  That’s why I chose the name Hopper,” he continued.

“And the origin of your powers?  I assume it has something to do with…” she waved her hand in a vague motion he was becoming familiar with.  She meant the ears, of course.

“Also right.  I, well, I should start from the beginning I suppose,”

Beth nodded and set the papers down.  She placed her hands on the desk in front of her and smiled encouragingly.  Now that he had her full attention, Daniel felt a bit more at ease as he continued.

“My aunt is- was a treasure hunter, you see.  I come from a strange family.  Anyway, she passed away a couple months ago and left all of the ‘treasures’ from her adventures to me.”  He paused for a breath, then began again, “A lot of it was the kind of weird stuff you’d expect.  Carved wooden masks, sinister totems, giant seashells, all sorts of things.  More than enough of it was the real deal for me to quit my job, though.”

“You quit your job?”  Beth raised her eyebrows.  “You don’t seem the type.  I mean, as professional as you look now.”

Daniel silently thanked Annie.  The pressed suit he now wore looked excellent on him, at least according to her, and he was just grateful he hadn’t tried to show up for the interview in his grandfather’s leotard.

“I probably wouldn’t have, except for the next part.”  He hadn’t told many people about this, but the evidence was pretty hard to hide.  “One of the treasures she left me was a lucky rabbit’s foot charm.  You know the kind, like you find on keychains.  Anyway, when I touched it, I felt sort of a jolt, and then I started to change.  My ears moved to the top of my head and grew until they looked like a rabbit’s, and all my hair turned white.  I think I got a little taller too, but it’s hard to tell.”

“This was after the meteor struck?”

“Yes, not long after that.”  Daniel remembered exactly where he had been when the news of that event had reached him.  He imagined most people did.  It was one of those events that would change the whole world, he remembered thinking at the time.

“We’re still not sure exactly why, but after that event, a lot of ‘magical artifacts’ around the world suddenly started actually working.  You’re not the only person I’ve spoken to who got their powers from something like that.”

Daniel paused.  This was the first time anyone had offered an explanation for what had happened to him.  He had figured it was somehow connected to the meteor, but it was strange to think that similar things had been happening all over.  Seeming to notice his hesitation, Beth continued.

“That’s one of the reasons ‘superheroes’ stopped existing just in comic books and came to life.”

“Right.  Sorry, I just hadn’t really considered that I might not be the only one in that kind of situation.  Anyway, I didn’t exactly want to go back to work looking like a rabbit, and I did have enough money to retire on.  I decided to try to put the powers that came with it to use, and become a hero, like Burning Sol.”

“I’ve heard a lot about him since coming here.  Are you a fan?” Beth had a glint in her eye now.  Daniel presumed that even if he wasn’t a fan, she certainly was.

“Not exactly, but one of my daughters is.  She loves superheroes, and she gave me the idea,” he answered.

“You have daughters?”

“Two of them.  That’s, well, one of the biggest reasons I chose to give the hero career a shot.  It’s a chaotic world out there after the meteor hit, and I wanted to do what I could to make it a bit safer for them.”  Daniel felt another blush rising up his neck and settling beneath his whiskers.  He wasn’t used to talking about such personal matters with anyone but Annie.

“That’s sweet,” Beth smiled, flipping back to the first page of her paperwork and checking a few boxes, “Well, Mister Montgomery.  Hopper.  I think you’ll be a great starting member for this team.  We’ll need a tank, anyway.”

Daniel wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.  “A what?”

“Oh, you don’t play many video games, do you?”

“No, not really.  A tank?”

She waved her hand vaguely again, searching for words.  “It’s like, a big guy who gets right up in the enemy’s face to distract them from his allies.”

“Ah,” Daniel nodded, feeling more confident in that explanation, “I think that’s something I can do.”

“Great!”  She slid the papers over to him, “This is government work, so we’ll have to go through all the usual legal hoops.  ID, references, all that.  I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem, but I can’t say the same for the other applicant out there.”

He made a face.  “The skeleton?”

“Think it has a driver’s license?”

“I see your point.  I’ll just get out of your hair, then.”  He stood from the chair and reached across the desk.  Beth grabbed his hand with her own and pumped it up and down.  Her grip was surprisingly firm.

“Come back tomorrow with the paperwork if you can, Mister Hopper.  I think we can find a place for you on this team.”

Clutching the paperwork in one hand, careful not to let his large fingers crease the pages, Daniel stepped out of the office and back into the waiting room.  As he’d feared, the skeleton was still there, waiting for him.  He made eye contact with the thing’s sockets, and it immediately began squeaking its marker across the whiteboard on its lap.  Daniel stifled a sigh.  He’d hoped to just slip out without going through this again, but it didn’t look as though that was going to happen.

“Did you get the gig?” it read.

“I think so,” he answered, not even sure why he was bothering to reply.  He always did have trouble with this kind of person.  It was like his own polite nature was running up against a brick wall.  For that matter, was “person” even the right word?

“I just have to fill out this paperwork,” he waved the sheaf with one hand.  Once again, the sound of marker on board filled the room.

“Careful, you’ll put someone’s eye out with those sausage fingers.”

As soon as Daniel had read the message, the skeleton turned its whiteboard back around and began writing another one.  It seemed like this one was a two-parter.

“Not mine, of course.  Guess I’m lucky.”

Choosing to ignore what seemed to pass as humor for the pile of bones, Daniel began making his way to the door out once again.  He stopped as a thought occurred to him.

“Come to think of it,” he reasoned, turning halfway back around to the room’s other occupant, “How are you going to apply?  This is a government position.  You’ll need I.D., and references.  Things like that.”

Squeak squeak went the marker.

“A skeleton must keep its secrets.”

He frowned.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

Before the thing could answer once again, the office door opened and Beth stuck her head out.  “Er… ‘Numbskull’?  I guess there’s only one person that could be, huh?  Come on in.”

It stood, but before making its way to the office, flashed Daniel one last message along with its ever-present comic grin.

“See you again soon, teammate.”

The paperwork wasn’t anything Daniel hadn’t handled on countless other occasions in his previous job, and, with a little help from Annie, he was back the next day with a full list of references.  Infuriatingly, the skeleton had arrived before him, along with a new figure Daniel hadn’t seen before.

This newcomer sat alone, in the corner of the room, steadfastly refusing to look over at Numbskull.  He was slender, wearing an earthy brown cloak and hooded cowl covering his face up to the eyes.  The top of the hood was fashioned into a semblance of a bird’s beak, with two glaring eyes painted above it.  Daniel thought the whole thing looked a bit corny, but it did at least go with the rest of the man’s leather costume.  Choosing to heed the stranger’s wisdom and ignore the skeleton, he walked over and sat across.

“Was I supposed to bring my own costume?” Daniel rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, offering the other man a smile, “I didn’t think we’d gotten that far yet.”

Across from him, the hooded figure gave him what appeared to be a dirty look at being disturbed, but it was hard to tell with the majority of his face covered.  “I find it pays to be prepared,” he said, shortly.

“Well, you’ve got me there.  My name’s Daniel.  Er, Hopper, that is, assuming I’m approved to be part of the team.”  Daniel stuck his hand out, but the hooded man just stared at him, eyes wide and incredulous.

“You’re revealing your secret identity that easily?  Seriously?”

Daniel frowned, but kept his hand out.  “It’s not exactly a secret.  Not like it’s going to take people long to figure out who the guy with the white beard and bunny ears is.”

The other man snorted and leaned back with his arms crossed, making no move to take Daniel’s hand.  He withdrew it, finding himself annoyed once again.  Were all of his teammates in this thing going to be so insufferable?

“I think it’s pretty unprofessional,” the hooded man said, looking down his cowled nose at Daniel.  “My hero name is Gearhawk.  I won’t be giving you my real name.”

“Fair enough.  I think my own Hopper is pretty obvious, but why Gearhawk?”

He leaned forward, and Daniel thought he could see the tracing of a smug smile underneath the cloth covering the man’s face.  “Because I turn like a gear and strike like a bird of prey.”

“That’s… very vague.  Don’t you think you should come up with something catchier?”

This time it was Gearhawk’s turn to frown, evidenced by the irked crinkle around his eyes.  “I doubt you have anything better, ‘Hopper’,” he said with a slight note of disgust in his voice.

“...Yeah, I guess not.  Look, we’re obviously not getting off on the right foot, so why don’t you just tell me how long you’ve been waiting and I’ll go talk to Numbskull over there.  At least he seems good natured when he makes fun of me.”

Gearhawk shrugged, shifting his weight back once again.  “A half hour.  Bethany hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said, then stood and walked over to take a seat next to the grinning skeleton.  Just as he’d expected, it retrieved the same whiteboard as before and wrote out a message.

“Back for more, eh bunnyboy?”

“Bunnyboy?  I thought you called me ‘Bunnyman’ yesterday.”

“You’ve been demoted.”

Despite his better judgment, Daniel opened his mouth to respond, but was saved by the arrival of Bethany.  She opened the door, a large backpack slung around her shoulders, and looked quite surprised to see the three of them there in the waiting room.

“Oh!  You’re all here already,” she said, swinging the pack down onto a table and unzipping it, “Sorry, I’m used to working with the government.  It takes forever to get anything done, so I’m usually the first person anywhere.”

“Is this all of us?” Daniel asked, looking curiously at the large black binder Beth was drawing from out of the sack.  She motioned Gearhawk over and waited for him to skulk to a nearby chair before answering.

“Hopper, Numbskull, and Gearhawk.  No, Mort isn’t here, but you guys will meet him later.  He’s at his day job right now.”

Gearhawk scoffed.  “You’re hiring a hero with a day job?”

If she was bothered by his affect, Beth didn’t show it.  “He’s going to be working more in a support role, so he won’t usually be going on patrols with the rest of you.”

A squeaking sound announced that Numbskull had something to add, and the other three patiently waited until the skeleton turned around its whiteboard.

“That’s what we’re going to be doing?  Patrols?  Sounds boring.”

Daniel wasn’t as surprised, but he did have to admit that it wasn’t the high-adrenaline, villain-smashing action that came to mind when one thought about superheroes.  Surely Burning Sol didn’t spend his time on patrols.  In fact, nobody ever seemed to see him until something big was already happening.

“Boring it might be, but remember that you signed up for government work.  We have to do things by the book,” Beth responded, pointing to the large black binder she now held.

“That book?” Gearhawk voiced, looking at it dubiously over his cowl.

“This book,” she affirmed, setting it down and opening it up.  The thick text crammed on the pages inside reminded Daniel of his old desk job.  He was familiar with that type of policy manual, but hadn’t been expecting to see another one so soon.

“That’s the second reason I wanted you all to gather here today,” Bethany continued, “Both so you can turn in your paperwork and so we can go over this.  This is going to be your bible.  It lists all the things you can and can’t do while you’re on the job as a government-sanctioned superhero.”

Daniel nodded, understanding.  “They wouldn’t be able to organize something like this without promising a lot of oversight.”

“That’s right.  You can expect every move you make to be scrutinized based on these rules in here.  We’re the first group of this type, so we’re going to be walking on thin ice.”

A clicking sound drew their attention.  Numbskull was clicking its fingerbone on the whiteboard, upon which it had written a message without anyone else noticing.  It was a single, simple word.

“Ugh.”

Beth just smiled.  Her patience was really starting to impress Daniel.

“This is all in the agreement you signed when you did the application paperwork.  You did read it, didn’t you, Numbskull?”

The skeleton’s shoulders raised and fell in what it took him a moment to realize was a breathless sigh.  It produced a stack of surprisingly neat, creaseless paperwork from somewhere on its person.  Daniel craned his neck, but again couldn’t see where it had pulled the objects from.  Still, he was agog.  This irreverent skeleton thing had the proper credentials to apply for a government job?

A second thought occurred to him, and he figured that he shouldn’t be so quick to judge.  His own awakening to superpowers had changed him, as evidenced by the floppy white ears on his head.  There was no reason to believe that others couldn’t have undergone even more extreme transformations.  It didn’t help his patience that the skeleton was such a prick about things, though.

“Thank you,” Bethany said, smoothly sliding a folder out of the backpack and the stack of papers into it, “Do the rest of you have your papers?”

Daniel had his own folder, of course, and Gearhawk soon produced a much more rumpled stack, both of which were safely delivered to Beth.

“Excellent!” she clapped her hands once, pushed the papers back into her pack, and then turned back to the binder on the short table, “Now, of course, I don’t expect all of you to remember all of this.  That’s why I’ve shortened it down to just two simple rules.

“Number one!  Never harm civilians.”

Those assembled all nodded at this.  This was what they had expected from these kind of rules.  Not harming civilians seemed like the most obvious of groundwork for a hero.  Beth took in their expressions.  That is, she took in Daniel’s expression.  Numbskull was grinning as usual and nothing penetrated Gearhawk’s cowl.

“I know what you’re thinking… I think.  That’s obvious!  The most basic of basics for a hero.  You’re right, up to a point, but this doesn’t just mean you can’t hurt innocents out on the street.”  She tapped the binder a few times for emphasis, “Unless someone has been officially marked as a villain by the government, you can’t touch them.  This means no mundane bank robbers, no thugs bullying old ladies in the parks, nothing like that.  You can intimidate these criminal types, and try to scare them off, but unless they’re officially a villain, you can’t do anything that might hurt them.”

“That,” Gearhawk said with a terse note in his voice, “Is going to make it very hard to do our jobs.”

“You’re not wrong,” Beth agreed.  “The policy will probably be relaxed in the future, but since we’re just starting out, we have to be as careful as possible.  Fortunately, anyone who belongs to a ‘villainous organization’ is also considered a villain under these rules, so henchmen like Caduceus’ thugs are fair game.  We’re grandfathering you in under this precedent, Hopper.”

The others turned to look at Daniel, who merely shrugged.  “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said, hoping to turn focus back to the book.

“Right.  Rule number two, and just as important, is no killing,” Bethany continued.  Daniel wasn’t sure, but he thought he noticed a slight nod of thanks for helping things along.  “Our responsibilities don’t include passing death sentences on villains.  Get it?  No matter what they’ve done, they get a fair trial and punishment under the law.  Once we drag them in, and make sure they’re safely restrained, our job is over.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t use force.  We’re dealing with supervillains, here, and someone like Caduceus isn’t going to just let us waltz up and take him in for questioning.  Just… try not to be excessive.  Avoid any permanent injury or death, and we’ll probably be fine.  It’s still a gray area, I know.”

Numbskull took a moment to add something to its whiteboard.  “What if they’re really really asking for it?”

Beth chuckled.  “I shouldn’t even have to answer that, but not even then.  I don’t think we’ll have to worry about you, anyway.  This is more for Hopper and Gearhawk, whose powers can actually do some damage.”

The skeleton’s marker darted back and forth once again. “Are you implying that ‘skeleton’ isn’t a deadly superpower?”

“Yes, I am.”

Bethany stared at Numbskull for a long moment, and the skeleton’s eye sockets gazed back.  Then, with a small sound of bone striking bone, its jaw fell open in an expression of morbid surprise.

“Anyway,” Bethany continued with emphasis, turning her head away from the display, “The biggest point is that this organization was created to deal with supervillains.  You know, those crazy do-badders with powers beyond human ken.  We’re not intended to take on burglars, muggers, or any other type of mundane criminal.  Leave them for the police.”

Daniel thought this new information over.  “So by extension, you’re saying that the police aren’t capable of dealing with superhuman threats.”

Bethany sighed, as though she had been avoiding the issue until he brought it to the forefront.  “That’s right.  The police can deal with the occasional super who pops up with limited control over their power or no idea what they’re doing, but the big names, like Caduceus, are just beyond what they’re able to handle.  That’s why we were was founded.  The Bureau of Superhuman Affairs, or B.S.A.  None of you should know that acronym, because up until now, we’re a secret.  In fact, you guys are more of a… trial run than anything else, but don’t think of yourselves like that.”

Gearhawk snorted.  As before, Daniel couldn’t see his expression except around the eyes, but he felt safe in guessing that the man had a low opinion of the police force not being able to deal with superpowered threats.

“We’ll be working closely with the police,” Beth continued, the binder of rules lying open before her forgotten for the moment, “Some of you have already met our liaison, Lieutenant Aguado.”  She punctuated this with a glance at Daniel that he hoped the others missed.  He still had some complex emotions connected to that whole situation.  “If they run into a superpowered problem they don’t think they can handle, they’ve got authorization to call us in.”

She clapped her hands suddenly, causing Numbskull, who seemed to have dozed off at some point, to jerk its head up in surprise.  Having no eyes or breath to judge by, it was hard to tell if the skeleton had actually been sleeping, or was just joking around as usual.  Could it even sleep?  Daniel didn’t think it was likely.  What did a skeleton, with no bodily systems, need sleep for?

This line of thought was interrupted by Beth’s next comment.  “We’ll go over the rest of the rules later.  As you can see, there are quite a lot, and I don’t know about you guys, but I want to get on to the exciting bit.”

She fished around inside the backpack and produced three polished silver badges.  Each medallion was formed in the shape of a shield, and had the initials “B.S.A.” raised on its surface.  Behind these was a stylized square of what appeared to be fabric engraved on the metal.  Daniel originally took it to be a flag, but on closer inspection he realized it to instead be a cape, with its ends clasped together above the initials.

“We don’t have costumes for you three yet.  Actually, we only really need a costume for Hopper, since Gearhawk has his own and Numbskull is a skeleton,” she amended, handing one badge to each of them.  Hopper clasped it to the lapel of his corduroy suit.  He then watched as Gearhawk pinned his to the breast of his leather shirt and Numbskull just sort of wedged it in between two ribs.

“In the meantime,” Beth finished as they all fiddled with their new accessories, “These badges grant you limited authority to work under the B.S.A. name.  We’re going to spend the first day out on patrol, then we’ll get Hopper measured for a costume, and finally we’ll work out an actual schedule.”  She beamed at them.  “Any questions?”

“Could I get a copy of that rulebook?” Daniel asked.  He wasn’t entirely comfortable with how Beth had just skimmed over the hefty volume, reducing it down to just two simple rules.  If he was going to be a government-sanctioned superhero, he wanted to do it right.  More importantly, he didn’t intend to have another legal snafu like what had landed him in front of Officer Aguado before.

The woman gave him a withering look.  “You’re not going to be a rules-lawyering type are you?”

“One,” Daniel raised one thick finger on his right hand, “I don’t know what that means, though I think I get the general idea.  Two, aren’t you supposed to be the government agent here?  I’d expect you to be a bit more strict about the rules.”

Numbskull squeaked out a contribution and turned the whiteboard toward them. “Flopsy has a point,” it read.

“Are you ever going to call me Hopper?”

“Probably not.”  That note, at least, seemed to him to be honest.  He stifled another sigh and decided to drop it, turning back to Beth.

“I was chosen for this position,” she said, seeming a little miffed by his calling her out, “Due to my excellent qualifications and open-mindedness toward superhumans.  Not because I’m good at pushing papers.  To answer, yes, you can have a copy.  You’ll all get copies, of course.  That’s how the government likes to waste paper.  But just follow the two rules I set out, use your common sense, and you should be fine.”

Daniel nodded and she stood up, not bothering to return the binder to her bag as an eager smile once again slid onto her face.  “Now, who’s ready to patrol the city?”