A/N

So this is a bit of a longer chapter, but we finally get some answers to what the heck is going on. If you have any questions, comments, critiques, thoughts, guesses, or suggestions don't be afraid to let me know. Have a good day and thanks for reading. :)

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I open me eyes to find myself on a sofa. Looking around I can tell that this was the warehouse. The sun is shining through the windows and creates the illusion of slanted golden glass. Lighting up most the of warehouse starting from the center with a pleasant warmth, making it's way out until the corners are in complete darkness. I see in the far right corner his computer set up was below a string or two of Christmas lights.

Using my left arm as a pry that's presently squished underneath my body weight, I elevate myself off the couch. As soon as I move it I feel a shooting pain, traveling like electricity, tracing all my nerves in the left side of my body and along my torso. An unwilling gasp escapes my breath. I collapsing back down and instantly cursing under my breath.

All  I did was lay there shocked, unaware of why my body is so injured and stunned from the pain. 

"Oh hey! You're up!"

Corrosion.

Each breath I take is unsteady and chopped. Ignoring my unhealthy state of breathing, I open my fat mouth to make a remark that'll not help my level of popularity. I take one breath to get me at least a few words out, as the air went in, a sharp pain whipped at my ribs. Causing me to push the oxygen out of me, then causing me more pain.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Corrosion, seeing this, decides it's a great time to let his best personality trait shine, jerk.

I'm sure he's fluent in it. 

"Still have a big mouth I see." I open my mouth, then think, 'hey this is a bad idea,' then once again close it. "Aww, the mighty Kendal brought to her knees by a little beating?" Mockery dripping from every letter, he says this in a way a caretaker would.

These words triggered the memory, he did this. Flashbacks flooded my present thoughts, zipping from one memory to the next creating a chain of events linking together perfectly in my head.

The dawning sent away the pain and replaced it with pure, unfiltered, anger.

"You." I growl out. At this he steps back out of fear, almost falling and stumbles over himself. With this face of... Terror? No, can't be. No one is scared of me, especially someone that has repeatedly beat me in a fight. 

My brain is overtook  with the hatred I have towards that green fairy. I see myself fling down my legs over the couch and stomp onto the floor, not entirely having a grip on my anger. My rash actions continue as I see myself stand up and take one step forward. I see this but it's like I'm watching through a camera, with one focus only giving me tunnel vision.

Then the pain hits.

Every bone screams out, all my muscles are hit with a stinging pain, and every joint buckles down on me. Now I feel like I'm back to living instead of watching T.V. I hear the distant anguished cry of somebody as I feel the stale air curve around my face as my cheek makes contact with the ground, every attempt to catch myself unresponsive.

Pain is the one thing none of us can escape, no matter how much we try. Whether it's mental or physical, we cannot escape it. Even when we feel we're on the top of the world the fall  is always the hardest. Even when we lock ourselves up in our rooms and block out the rest of the world. Because we either stub our toe on the bed side or we read a book that messes up your whole view on the world. Pain is inevitable. That's a fact. And sometimes pain just likes to follow us around and play us like we're instruments, until one of our copper wires finally snap.

Not yet.

My body pulses with pain, fire on the skin but frost bite making it's way out. Different species of aching and sharp pains overlap each other until it's just a raging storm of conflicting pain. The pathetic thing is, all I can do is lay there. I can't get up and ice my throbs, what I can and am doing is lay there. I allow the pain to surround me, I let my cheek get numb from the exposure to ice like cement, and I lay there because I learned my lesson that moving is just a fucking horrible idea. 

"Kendal! You idiot!"

Shut up Corrosion.

In a second he's at my side and trying to get me off the ground. Key word is trying.

As soon as he picked me off the ground he yelped out in pain, jumped back, held his arms, and dropped me. Again.

"Freak Kendal, you froze my arm." His voice is hurt and is an octave higher than usual. Like he's a dear friend that I just stabbed in the foot. The only response I can muster was just a sharp breath of trying to handle my pain, I realize that the hard floor is cold not because it's a warehouse in the middle of fall, but because liquid nitrogen is oozing out of my hands.

I look down to my hands and can only a small cloud of fog. I try to stop it but it's like my powers have a mind of there own. It's as if the pain is causing my powers to act out. Is that even possible? I knew that emotions have an effect on them, put pain?

I struggle to keep my breathing at a small, steady pace, to remain calm. But the pain is getting worse by the second, the pressure on my ribs leaves me wondering if I broke a few. "I can't control it." I wheeze.

"I wouldn't expect you to." He says with a shaky voice I wasn't aware he was capable of. While holding his forehead as if thinking is paining him. "Um... Uh... It-It must be the pain, you're in to much of it. Whenever Anomalies are badly injured, in danger, or in extreme pain our powers act up as a self-defense mechanism." 

Well then, that was a brilliant idea to beat me then now wasn't it?

I resign from talking, obvious it's doing more harm than good. Instead I go back to staying still and small cut breaths. Focused on just not screaming out in pain because that'll just be painful and useless, no matter how much my vocal chords rebel. My body starts shaking from the constant flow of liquid nitrogen attempting to get warm. Then stop spewing out liquid nitrogen so I wouldn't be so damn cold, I want to tell my body which is just silly on so many levels.

The rapid movement of my body is making the sharp pains from nothing even sharper. I hear the distant sounds of footsteps, a drawer opening and closing, metal clashing against metal, and the steps getting closer. "Kendal, hold still." Kind of hard to do that, not like I haven't been trying. Before I can protest, he flips me over, again, causing more sharp pains and throbs, I feel some scabs I didn't realize I had on my bake peel and crack, resulting in the grotesque sensation of dense warm liquid slithering down my back and sticking to my clothes. He grabs my arm to hard to not leave a bruise, and out of nowhere pulls out a syringe and not to carefully puts the needle in my arm and injecting me with whatever is in there. I squirm in protest, trying to shake him off me. But he has me in an arm bar worthy of Holly Holm.

Did he just drug me?

Did a super villain just drug me?

Oh my gosh. A super villain just injected me with something.

It's poison. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

These thoughts rushed through my brain as I tried to get away, my own pain being my own personalized chains weighing me down. But I push through the impossible pain. I feel relief as the pressure on my arm eases and I'm released, not wasting time to crawl away. My progress is slow and am making almost no progress, but what's my other options? To stay and do nothing. 

"Kendal. Kendal." Corrosion says, trying to get through to me as I wiggle away. "Kendal your just hurting yourself more." When he sees I'm ignoring him, still on the cold ground and each joint popping, he raises his voice. "Kendal! You are going to make your injuries worse! I gave you pain medicine you disease! It's not anything bad."

I continue crawling, having absolutely no plan of where I'm going or how I'm going to get out of here, I just have one objective: Get as far away from Corrosion as possible. 

Why did Corrosion think pain medicine is going to make me feel any less creaped out? Pain medicine makes people impaired, out of it, is often used to drug people. 

"What kind of medicine?" I hiss out.

He hesitates, and after awhile I'm sure that he's not going to answer. "Morphine."

Oh hell no. He literally drugged me.

He DRUGGED me. Does he not see the problem with this?

I'm out.

This information just give me a boost of energy and a whole new kind of shaking. I attempt to stand up, ignoring the protest from my injuries. I'm getting the hell out of this place. My breathing is virtually non existent, but if it's a choice between breathing or getting out of this hole, I choose getting out of here. 

"What the actual hell is wrong with you?" I ask, aware that my hands still are leaking.

"You were in pain, are in pain. What was I supposed to do? Let you suffer?" He persist, sounding almost genuinely worried and concerned. 

I huff from the energy I'm using just trying to get to the opening. "I don't know, maybe not drug me like any normal person." I say, making sure the annoyance was clear in my words.

"You were in pain-"

I interrupt him just for the satisfaction on interrupting him... And to prove a point. "Don't give me that, because you could've at the very least, informed me what you were doing." I continue walking, well, more like limping to the other side of the warehouse. 

Why does this place have to be so big?

"You and I both know you couldn't even speak. And let's face it, your pain is subsiding." He responds a little to pridefully, I bet he even has his arms crossed. I hate to admit it but he's right the pain is becoming bearable. 

I hate when people are right.

I, being me, am to stubborn to back down and be proven wrong. I continue limping towards the door, still trying to think of how I'm going to get home. 

"I take your silence as a yes." Again, to smug to be healthy for his already inflated ego.

I don't need to respond to be stubborn, sometimes silence hurts more than words. I'm to petty for my own good. I hear Corrosion shuffle in the back round.

"Kendal, please just get back over here."

I reply by just limping faster.

"We have to talk."

No we don't.

"You don't want to go out there, trust me."

Did he really just tell me to trust him after he just drugged me?

"Seriously, do you remember when I was telling you about the A.A?"

'Course I do, I just like annoying you.

"Well, yours already wore off. Do you remember what I said about the first time you experience A.A, so that your body can handle the change?"

No, why?

"When it first wears off, Anomalies sleep for awhile from how much energy they expelled and what there body just went through, kind of like an induced coma, to let your body rest. Kendal, you were out for the last three days."

I stop dead in my tracks from these words. Three days? That's not possible, is it?

"What?" I mindlessly ask while staring at the door just thirty feet ahead of me. The light streaming through is a beam of light, of escape.

"Three days Kendal. That's a long time, even for an Anomaly." His voice soft and full of gentleness, what I was sure Corrosion was incapable of.

Is it possible I miss judged other aspects of Corrosion?

"Since then there's been about three Anomaly attacks a day, they're not even robbing anything. Just creating chaos, killing people, terrorizing random hang out spots. I'ts getting bad out there Kendal, the city needs you. Needs your help." 

I take one last glance at the door, knowing I'm going to regret this. With knowledge that this Anomaly is a villain, that he just drugged me, that he kidnapped me, that he did a lot more stuff, but I can't stand not taking the chance of hearing him out on the slight possibility he's telling the truth. I turn to face him, catching the last bit of light in the corner of my eye, to shocked to feel any emotion.  "And why not yours, why me?" I question with a hollow voice. 

"I think you should see for yourself."

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I sit at Corrosion's desk, and on the screen is a frozen frame of Corrosion dragging some poor girl on a roof. Not some poor girl, me.

I feel my mouth gape open just as he pushes play. The footage starts off with Corrosion and I appearing to have a conversation. The voice over of the video is a females I recognize as Jessica Smiths, it's choppy, panicked, filled with excitement and in the background you could hear the wind whipping by. "We just got word of two Anomalies fighting in downtown Albuquerque, there they are now, bringing to you live from channel 7." Of course there's those special little words of every cliche news report. "They look to be talking-" Just as she utters the words, Corrosion blasts me in the chest, ouch, I remember that. Although at the time it was mostly just disgusting. "Never mind then. My sources from on the ground say that the green one goes by the name Corrosion, claiming that he has plans for this city. But the other one he says is Catalyst, has been protecting us at night." At this point Corrosion has just shot me dead in the stomach.  "It seems as if Catalyst is trying to talk to Corrosion, maybe she is to badly injured to fight, or to cowardly like Corrosion claims."

At this my fist ball and my jaw tightens.

 So now I'm branded a coward as my, I guess, other persona. 

Seriously, now the entire state thinks I'm a coward. But in an entirely new way... That is messed up on so many levels. 

I just tune out Jessica Smith, already having a burning hatred for her. I watch as I'm thrown to the ground from his blast, he marches to me, in a villainous mannerism I didn't know could be portrayed to look authentic and barbaric. You could see my struggle just trying to steady myself on my hands and knees, all the effort is put to waste as Corrosion slams my face in his knee, forcing me back to the roof. I look up, the camera easily capturing my every injury in HD, and if it weren't for the tacky black mask, would've exposed who I am. The camera zooms and you could unmistakably make out my plead, "please don't-" cut off by Corrosion's shot to my back. Curious to what Jessica has to say about that I tune in, "I think Catalyst, the supposed heroine, just begged for mercy..." I tune out, sure now that I am completely branded a cowardly superhero.

I flinch as I see myself kicked and helplessly dragged to the edge, knowing that if it wasn't me, I would be pitting the desperate attempt of clawing there way to stop the inevitable. I watch as I'm shot off the roof, I flinch as I see my body rag doll onto the hood of a car, my breath hitches in my throat as I hit the road. "We are cutting to the ground footage now." Is the comment when I slam into the uneven asphalt and the camera angle changes to a front seat shot of me, soon being accompanied by Corrosion. You could see the consciousness slowly leaving me, my eyelids struggling to stay half open, as he lifts up my limb body by the collar.

Corrosion opens his mouth to speak, something I don't remember him doing. 

"As I said before, I am Corrosion, and this is Catalyst." He jerks me forward at the ladder. "She has been protecting this city from the shadows for years now, keeping out the 'villains,' as we like to call ourselves." Corrosion talks in a voice as if he's holding in a hysterical laugh that's borderline diabolical, his voice isn't heartless nor empty, it's something so much worse. It's full of cheer and pure entertainment. As if he takes pleasure in what he's describing.  It's in all the wrong way, unnerving.

"Effectively making it hard to fight because we couldn't even see her. Well here she is, no longer in hiding and at my mercy." A grin spreads across his face that looks like it was scribbled on with a pen. 

"I have plans for this city that is now being put into effect, immediately. My fellow villains, come, the city is ours for the taking. Find me, and I will allow you to have a share of the city to rule." With that he flew away in a burst of green, with me dangling from his grasp.

The video cuts out.

If you can't tell, let me inform you now, that I find it hard to express myself or how to react to certain situations. Most of the time I admit it and that's my reaction, other times I just keep my mouth shut.

This is one of the times I keep my mouth shut. 

Both Corrosion and I spent the next minute in silence, I stay in the same position from when the video ended. Taking in the new reality that I'm now known as a cowardly, horribly named, incapable superhero. That now I have unwillingly become known as a superhero. That people know me, but as a superhero. Me, but a superhero. Catalyst, me, superhero. Catalyst the superhero. And all that title stands for is nothing but a coward who couldn't protect her city, who couldn't win in a fake fight against a fake villain. At least I'm half sure he's a fake villain. 

I hear an inhale taken behind me. I forgot Corrosion was here for a second. 
"So, do you see why I need your help?" He asks, in what I'm guessing is his most patient tone.

I think of how I'm going to answer this, I choose the non-sarcastic route and the path that'll finally get me answers. "Kind of. I think. From what I'm figuring you and at least somebody else came up with an over simplified plan that back fired. Is that right so far?" I hesitantly question. The reply I got was a nod confirming my suspicions, his eyes never leaving his shoes.

"And that for the last few years you've been fending of the villains at night instead of the day. From that they don't know what you look like or who you are, protecting yourself because it's only you so you're less of a target. But from that they don't know who your are, I mean Corrosion, they just knew that someone was fighting them off, very effectively." I pause for him to confirm, he does with another nod.

 I recognize this is going to take a lot of putting pieces together along with monologuing. So I stand up and start to pace while figuring this out, it helps getting me concentrate. "But something prompted you to create a plan other than blindly fighting. So you did, you and this other person, thought that you can lure all the villains in the surrounding area out of hiding. You guys thought 'how are we going to do that?' And came up with a solution. They know that there's a capable hero protecting the city, and that they won't go as long as that hero is still active. So the question arises, how are you going to make them think that the hero is no longer active? Easy. You find an unknown Anomaly and have them pose as the hero protecting the city. You publicly humiliate that person, make them look incapacitated or dead, either way convince them that the hero is out of the picture. Then you, Corrosion, come in and make a messed up speech, rambling on about having a plan to take over the city and for the villains to come find you if they want a piece of the action. Once that villain comes to you, you take them out. Correct?" He nods, ushering for me to continue. 

"Well, that was the plan, until your plan backfired and they didn't come find you. Instead they thought, 'free city with no one protecting it? Cool.' They then started wreaking havoc on the city." I pause for a second, trying to connect the dots and finish the puzzle. With the realization on his next steps, I smile and my eyes widen. Amused with his solution to his mess. And at how sorry he is going for kidnapping me.

"And you have already worked out a plan on how to fix your little mess, but it involves you remaining known as a villain. But, you wont be able to put said plan into effect for a considerable amount of time. At least long enough for you to need somebody out there protecting the city while you try to clean up your mess. And let me guess, the only other person that you know with powers is me." I hold in a laugh while saying this, this new information to rich to not boast in. "You need my help. The one you brought into this mess with force. The one you beat senseless, the one you humiliated, the one you just announced a coward. The one that you fully understand, that if I go out in public against a villain I will automatically have a target on my back, underestimated, beat senseless, and possibly killed without having any experience."

I turn back to look at Corrosion, he hasn't stopped staring at his feet throughout my entire monologue. The light out side has moved the beams of light to where they're hitting me directly in the eye, must be about noon. 

Corrosion looks up at me, his brown eyes lit in the light making them look as helpless as a puppy. He has his shoulders down, his hands holding each other in front of him. He feels bad about what he did and he is willing to beg for my help. 

Let's have some fun shall we?

"Look, I know what I did was... Really messed up. I know I shouldn't have, technically, kidnapped you, even though it was just a little bit of it. I'd hardly call it a kid napping-" I clear my throat to get him back on track to apologizing to me. "Right, and I shouldn't have announced you to the world as a coward."

I smirk, enjoying his apology and that he now needs me to help him out of his monumental screw up. "And?"

He looks almost shocked that I said this, but continues. "I shouldn't have, as you put it, senselessly beat you in front of the crowd of people." Again, I clear my throat, making sure he gets every last bit and every cause and effect of his actions. "And put a target on your back." Que my throat loudly cleared. "Oh come one that's all I've done." He looks at me with his mouth a gape and his eyebrows scrunched. 

I smile, knowing that I'm about upset him, although if he wants me to help he thinks he has to comply. Even though I'm already going to help either way.

Once he says this, I cock my right eyebrow and cross my arms. "You broke into my house, twice. Tricked me into coming to this warehouse then attacking me, switched into my P.E. class, pushed me into a ten foot deep goopy hole, used me to create a new superhero, humiliated me, and now you are asking me to put my life at risk to help buy you time to clean up your mess. While by the way I don't even have a suit or know how to fight and I don't even have complete control of my powers." I sass back at him, although now that I said that out loud I realize if I really do end up helping him, I'll have no idea how to fight, no way to defend myself let alone other people.

Am I really willing to die to help Corrosion?

No.

But if I don't help, the only person that actually has any idea how to stop this will throw his only plan away to save the city, and that wont last long from him being over powered by all the villains. Or he'll continue out his plan and leave the city to the mercy of the villains. So that leaves the question, am I willing to die for this city?

Once this question surfaces in my mind, I think back to when I thought I was falling to my death. How minuscule I really am to the world, and what my existence really contributes to this society. That there is literally the entire world out there, and I'm only concerned about myself. How selfish is that?  That my own city is out there, currently being terrorized by crazed Anomalies, and I'm debating if I should even help. 

My answer?

I am.