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“Good,” Nick muttered. “Okay, so in the outline of my real-person fanfiction,This Is Where We Scorch the Earth,there was going to be a point where I—I meanNate Belen—was going to help—”

“Oh my god,” Gibby mumbled. “We’re doomed.”

“—was going to helpShadow Star defeat Pyro Storm before they lived happily ever after.”

“What is he talking about?” Bob asked Martha.

“I have absolutely no idea,” she replied. “I think it’s a Myspace thing.”

“What’s Myspace?”

“It’s like Ask Jeeves.”

Nick felt like he was dying a little inside, but he pushed on. “Part of the plot would have eventually led to Pyro Storm capturing Shadow Star, and I—Natewould have needed to come save him.”

“I can’t believe you made Seth beta read this,” Jazz said. “In hindsight, that was a terrible decision.”

“In hindsight,many decisions are bad,” Nick said through gritted teeth. “But we don’t dwell on them because they help us to grow as people and learn from our mistakes.”

“Huh. So,youmust have done a lot of growing lately—”

“Gibby!”

“Right. Shutting up now.”

If they survived whatever came next, Nick was going to need to look into getting new people for their superhero backup team. The current roster was severely lacking. “As I was saying, Pyro Storm was going to capture Shadow Star, and Nate would have come in to save the day. But seeing as how everything I’ve ever known is a lie, we don’t need to worry about the whole saving thing and focus on the part where we capture Shadow Star instead.”

“He’s never going to let that go, is he?” Bob asked Martha.

“Probably not,” Martha said. “Teenage boys need to compensate for their shortcomings somehow.”

“What was the plan?” Seth asked, voice crackling through the speakers. Nick watched as the dot on the screen moved slowly around Burke Tower. The fact that his best friend and potential future boyfriend wasflyingwas not lost on Nick. He was going to have to asklater if he could ride on his back as Seth flew around. He was owed this. Big-time. He decided to put it aside for now because he was sitting near Seth’s aunt and uncle, and he didn’t want them knowing he was thinking about riding their nephew.

“Just to be clear,” Nick said, “I haven’t written it yet. But I did have it in an outline which had bullet points. Everyone knows that a good outline has bullet points, so I think we’ll be fine.”

“Dooooomed,” Gibby moaned.

“I believe in you, Nicky,” Seth said, and Nick thought back to the chubby boy on the swings, chocolate pudding on his chin. “If you think it’ll work, we have to try.”

“You need to burn away the shadows,” Nick said into the mic. “That’s his superpower. He can manipulate any shadow. You need to burn so brightly that all he sees is light. At least long enough until the pills wear off. Do we know how long it takes?”

“Too long,” Seth said. “We have to stop him now.”

“The bracelets,” Gibby said thoughtfully. “The ones on his wrists. They have LED beams. Get rid of those and he won’t be able to make new shadows. At the very least, it’ll slow him down.”

Bob leaned toward the speaker. “That level of power has gotta be strong, Seth. Stronger than anything you’ve ever done before. You need to keep it out of the city if you can. Can’t let people get hurt.”

Seth laughed, though it sounded strained. “Like when we first started?”

“You got it, son,” Bob said. “Just like when we first started. But you’re not like that anymore. You have control now. I don’t need to worry about getting my eyebrows burned off these days.”

It boggled Nick’s mind, this history that he’d grown up alongside but had never known about. He had so many questions, but he’d save them for later.

“And what then?” Jazz asked. “If Seth’s able to get him in a place where he can stop him, what happens next?” She looked troubled. “You said we won’t kill him, and that’s good. But what happens to him?”

Nick thought quickly. “That’s not up to us, is it? If he’s done all these things, if he’s hurt people before, then he needs to answer forit. We’ll turn him over to the police. Cap and my dad will know what to do.”

“Do you think his dad knows?” Gibby asked. “I mean, if Simon Burke knows how to make Extraordinaries, don’t you think he’d know about one living under his own roof?”