"Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them."
― Edgar Allan Poe

Serenade pulls into a parking spot alongside a series of buildings in the eastern part of Empires, near the coast. Serenade does not utter a word as he steps out of the vehicle, practically slamming the door closed with a restless sense of anger bristling along the edges of his body. Tommy scrambles to follow after him, nearly slipping when his feet touch onto the sidewalk due to his exhaustion over the long day. Tommy regains his balance as he watches Serenade walk into an alleyway without checking to make sure that it isn't part of some gang's territory. Tommy frowns at his carelessness as Tommy rushes after him. Unlike Serenade, Tommy makes certain to study the graffiti on the wall. He isn't sure which gang it is until he sees the golden star. This is the Sheriff's territory. The Sheriff is an old grouchy man who is classified as a vigilante but is more akin to a veteran unable to distinguish the streets from the warzones they used to run around. Tommy has spoken with the Sheriff a handful of times, and all those conversations were concise enough that Tommy still isn't sure what the Sheriff stands for.

"Vendetta, come on," Serenade proclaims, standing at a brightly red painted metal door. Tommy glares at the villain, slowly climbing the three cement stairs. His legs burn from the effort, and he realizes belatedly that he's definitely going to crash soon if he doesn't do anything. Tommy's frown deepens as that thought circulates through his mind. He doesn't voice it as he follows Serenade into the dark hallway. Serenade doesn't flick the lights on, but Tommy's goggles can quickly adjust to low-light situations. Most people in the business worth their salt know to carry around some means of seeing in the darkness.

"I have some business I need to take care of. Stay here until I come back," Serenade informs Tommy as they enter into a dimly lit room. It is a small room with a barely used couch against one wall and a television directly facing it. Besides that, the room is barren save for some doors along the walls. Serenade turns away from Tommy, going back down the hallway they came from. Before he leaves, he turns on a light switch. Something in the walls groans from disuse. The overhead lights sputter to life like the beginning sparks of a fire. It fills the room with just enough light that Tommy can tell the walls are yellow, but not enough light that he knows the exact shade. All he can see are patterns bending and weaving across the surface like tangling vines. Tommy traces his fingers across one of the blobs of color that mimics a flower as the red metal door slams shut with a heavy thud.

Although the couch tempts him like a seductress, Tommy immediately begins pushing open the doors along the walls. The first one leads him to a dark supply closet that he makes a mental note of and moves on. The next door is much better for him. It's a half-bath with a tiny sink and toilet paper rolls still wrapped in plastic. The room is covered in a thick layer of dust, and Tommy has no clue what this place is supposed to be used for. When he first saw it, he thought it would be a safehouse, but nothing screams safety or practicality. He objectively knows that safehouses aren't supposed to look like their namesake, but Tommy knows this place carries no precautions.

Tommy decides it isn't worth his consideration as he closes the bathroom door behind him. He instinctively locks it, knowing that he's about to have a necessary but horrible time. He could decide to leave the lights off, but he needs to be able to see what he's doing for this. He barely notices the way his hands tremble as he finds the light switch. Another groan fills the air, but the bathroom lights are, unfortunately, much brighter than the main room's lights. The mirror above the sink shows him his appearance with perfect clarity, not a single smudge against the glass. His hands continue to shake as Tommy takes his goggles off, folding the temples to the lenses. Tommy looks back at the mirror, and he completely hesitates.

His eyes have always been a brilliant blue. Ever since the day he was born, they were so painfully bright that even his parents admired them for the first few days of his life. They were like the sky of a gloriously clear day, like the ocean in the shallower parts, like the lapis lazuli stones that the guild collects for their various projects. No matter how beautiful they are, Tommy hates them. They remind him too much of his past. He knows a little boy who had eyes just like this, and that child... Tommy hates that child more than anything else in the world. He hates that child more than he hates Reverie, more than he hates the Syndicate's leaders. He hates that child for being stupid and foolish and naive and not realizing the worth of what he had when he had it.

The next part is trickier than removing his goggles. His hands are no longer trembling, but his very soul is. He reaches up to unclasp the back of his mask. The wires come undone beneath his meticulous fingers. Tommy's hands travel further down, and he messes with the mechanism that keeps his mask attached as a precaution should a villain try to remove the straps. Tommy and the person who made his mask are the only people who know about the secondary mechanism, and Tommy hasn't seen the guild's tailors since he was first issued his costume. If his uniform tears, he fixes it himself, and he hasn't allowed his mask or goggles to fall into disrepair. If he truly has a problem with them, he'll get Ankh to fix it. Ankh doesn't know about the secondary mechanism, though, because Tommy's never explained it to him, even when the Ace of Diamonds prods about the guild's technology.

Tommy hears a clicking noise, and his mask slowly presses off his face. A puff of air releases alongside it. Tommy brings both of his hands up to his mask before slowly pulling it off. There is a red line surrounding the outline of his mask. That pales in comparison to the small scars that form around his jawline. They are faded from years of letting them heal, but they won't ever go away unless Tommy literally rips the skin off. Tommy presses his fingers against one of the longer ones, remembering the exact circumstances of this one. All of them came from Reverie, but there's a different story behind each of them. Tommy knows them all because pain has a tendency of cementing lessons into his mind.

Tommy lets the mask drop into the sink with a dull thunk. He pushes air out of his chest. It's rather dizzying to be breathing natural, cold air instead of the filtered, lukewarm air that his mask pushes through its multiple cylinders. Tommy grips the edges of the sink, looking down at his mask and goggles as they bring a splash of color to the ivory white porcelain. Tommy can feel his powers swim right underneath the surface. He could bring the sink crashing down into the ground, so heavy that it shatters the tile. Tommy doesn't do that. He would like to believe that it's because he doesn't want to get hurt, but he's long-since given up caring about his own well-being.

His first point of evidence to this claim is the packet he pulls out of a pocket attached to the side of his thigh. It is a nondescript white packet, similar to his food packets but much smaller. Tommy tears open the packet. He shakes the contents into his opposite palm. Two gray pills fall against his skin. Tommy hardly looks at them as he throws his head back, letting the pills drop against his tongue. He grimaces as he forces himself to swallow them dry. They go down like needles, scratching his throat muscles. Tommy lowers his forehead into his palm, waiting for the pills to take effect. It will only take a few moments, Tommy knows because those pills are practically his lifeline.

Every hero carries the pills with them. They're meant to invigorate a hero if they are getting tired in a dangerous situation. It's comparable to caffeine, but that isn't a one-to-one. Tommy's specialized pills are meant to bring him back to wakefulness. It's a piss-poor remedy to his sleep-walking, but it's one that the guildmaster approved of. He was the one that authorized Tommy to take those pills. The only problem with them is that Tommy was going to crash tomorrow. And when he did, this would be the first time he would be sleeping in the apartment with Serenade. Dread was the easiest word for what bubbled in his stomach at the thought. Tommy wishes he could just continue digesting the pills until sleep was a far-off memory. He can't, though. They're not a perfect substitute for actual sleep, just a small boost of energy to last him a little while longer.

Tommy throws the packet away, not really caring if someone sees it. With the pill starting to take effect, Tommy starts to put his mask back on. He clicks the second mechanism first before pushing the straps together. With his mask back in place, he picks up his goggles. He unfolds them and nestles the bridge along the nose. He looks up at his appearance. Because of the red tint, his eyes look more purple than blue. Because of his mask, no one can see the scars. He is no longer Tommy; he is Vendetta. The past and the present because there's no future for someone who devotes themself to revenge.

Tommy leaves the bathroom before he gets any more flashes of his past. He shuts the door, moving on the next door in the line-up. He is met with a metal staircase spiraling downward. The weirdest part is the light and sound that come floating up as if someone is down there doing something. Tommy is curious, and he has his weapon and powers ready for whatever he might be faced with. Tommy even pulls his staff out, letting it expand as he takes the first steps down the staircase. The light becomes brighter and the sound sharper as Tommy descends to the final step. Instead of another barren and dark room, Tommy finds a large gym brightly illuminated with hundreds of training equipment devices littering around the mats.

That isn't where the sound is coming from. Tommy walks alongside a wall of mirrors as he approaches another room with a door swung wide open. Tommy peers into the room cautiously, and that cautiousness is soon replaced with awe. He is in a large room, much larger than any gymnasium Tommy has ever seen. The walls are painted bright blue with white puffy clouds along the higher bits, and there are several rings and blocks in different colors and heights in the room. At the first ring, staring up at it, Phil stands with a clipboard in his hands. Phil notices motion from the corner of his eye. He whirls around to face the intruder, and he ends up smiling brightly when he notices that it isn't an immediate threat.

(Tommy will never believe himself not to be a threat. Not just because he has formal training and an extreme tolerance for pain, but because he knows he ruins most things that he touches. Every relationship he's ever had was destroyed because of him, even the toxic ones. What should have made him happier only cemented the fact he was alone. Reverie might have hurt him, but at least Reverie didn't hate him. Tommy doesn't want to be hated, even when he's a threat to anyone who spares him their kindness.)

"Vendetta! Good timing. I was just about finished with this. I've made you a training course. It's mainly to augment your ability to fly using your gravity powers, but there are some weights in the other room if you wanted to test that," Phil explains swiftly, walking over to Tommy. The hero puts his staff away, knowing that he could easily take Phil with his fists alone. He doesn't want to threaten the poor man.

"What the fuck, man? We met like... fucking yesterday. How did you make all this shit in one day?" Tommy asks, eying Phil warily after he finishes assessing the room. Reverie could do something like that with his superspeed, but he would never make Tommy an entire, personalized training room. Reverie and Tommy would train in the main gym like everyone else, though the two of them were in there for way longer than anyone else. It was only until Inferno came to get them that they would leave.

"Well, I didn't start this from scratch. I modified a training course for Azrael," Phil says the name sheepishly, looking away from Tommy. At least someone respects Tommy's hatred for the supervillains. But Tommy doesn't want this conversation to end so swiftly. He likes Phil, the average person in the world of villains for reasons Tommy knows he won't be able to hear in his lifetime. Tommy prefers Phil over the other members of the Syndicate, at least, except maybe Jolt and Enderwalk, but Tommy refuses to consider them members of the Syndicate for his own sanity.

"Is that your job? The training coordinator? You make this shit for the villains and they pay you by not killing you?" Tommy asks, gesturing towards the whole room. With how much he knows about the villain's superheroes, he suspects that he could set-up their training courses himself.

"Something like that," Phil partially agrees before tilting his head towards the first hoop. "Why don't you give it a go?"

Tommy grins beneath his mask. He races towards the first hoop, his fingers interlocking to allow the red caustic light to spread over his body. He pushes his toes off the ground to launch himself into the air. He shoots through the first ring without any problems, but his momentum keeps him rising towards the roof. Tommy throws his head and shoulders forward with enough force that his body twists in the air. His feet touch against the roof, and he pushes off the blue paint with enough force to send him towards the ground like a bullet from a gun. He goes through another ring, and he turns his gravity back on. He lands on one of the blocks. He barely manages to catch his balance. He jumps off the block, going backwards to swing through the ring that he missed moments before. He nearly touches the ground, but he switches his gravity back off as he presses against one of the blocks. Using his shoulder and then arm and then fingers, Tommy is floating back at a diagonal to float over the ring. He continues rising in the air. He twirls around in the air, throwing his body weight around to gain momentum in various directions. He isn't sure which ring to go through first, but that decision is made for him when one of the closer ones begins moving. Tommy takes it as a challenge as the ring swings back and forth like a pendulum. Tommy lifts his hands up before throwing them down, and he starts moving forward. When Tommy estimates he's in the right position, he switches off his gravity. He passes through the ring. He touches his fingers together to let gravity reclaim him as the ground rushes towards him. He presses his hands to the top of the block as he rolls to stop.

As he settles, the caustic light spreads to the block underneath him. His balance abruptly shifts as the block begins to rise above the ground. Tommy makes a garbled noise as the block pitches forward, his weight knocking the block off course from an easy ascension. Tommy immediately snaps his glider open, letting himself land gracefully on the ground. He turns around to see the block hovering uselessly in the air. Phil rushes over to him immediately. The man barely glances at the floating block as he reaches Tommy. Without even thinking about it, Phil grabs Tommy's arms, looking across the hero's body for something. Tommy is confused until Phil utters a painfully unfamiliar phrase, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Tommy lets out, shifting uncomfortably beneath the attention bestowed upon him. Phil sighs in relief, another unfamiliar thing, as he looks up at the block. Instead of being upset that Tommy ruined his course or lamenting that Azrael would have his head for such a disturbance, Phil lets a smile spread across his face. "You can remove the gravity of much heavier objects than I first anticipated. I thought it was up to your body weight."

"What? Fuck no. Weight means fucking nothing when I just cut the chains of gravity," Tommy explains to Phil. He realizes as he's talking that he's never had an in-depth conversation about his powers with anyone, not even the guildmaster or Reverie. He didn't get his powers until after his family was dead (obviously, since they were the catalyst to his awakening as an esper), so he didn't get to tell them about it. "It's the other way around that has limits. When I make things heavier, I can only make them twice as heavy as they already are. It's fucking bullshit, but I can't figure out how to do anything else."

"Huh. I heard that you could make things heavier, but I didn't quite believe it because I've never seen you use it," Phil replies thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as he looks around the training room, probably thinking up ways to enhance that part of Tommy's powers, too.

"I can imagine. I don't really do that media shit. People have seen me flying around cause I'm fucking awesome, but... My fights are usually private. My most public fight was probably..." Tommy trails off despite knowing the answer. Minotaur was his most public fight. It was his first one, too. It was the reason he became A-rank in the first place. It was a big milestone that everyone congratulates Tommy for. Tommy doesn't like thinking about that fight. "I don't know what it was."

Phil frowns, obviously catching the gap in Tommy's words and the sullenness in which he utters the second phrase. Before any words of comfort can be shared, a voice calls out from the doorway. "Come on, Vendetta, it's time to get back to the apartment."

Tommy and Phil look up to see Serenade standing up there with his arms crossed. Tommy glowers, but Phil smiles rather lovingly. Tommy isn't ready to unpack that, so he accepts Phil's goodbye with a simple nod. He starts walking towards Serenade, already knowing that it was going to be a rough night.