JUNE 23RD

0852 EST

"You really are sure about this, aren't you?"

The blonde haired girl stood before Tristan, caramel colored eyes staring back at him with apprehension. Her platinum hair waved softly in the breeze and with her dark clothing, she nearly camouflaged with all the shadows she was standing amongst.

"Yes, I'm sure. And for the last time, will you stop giving me that look?" Tristan replied in exasperation. His backpack was slung over his shoulder, and with one hand he maintained its strap while using the other to run a hand through his dark hair.

The girl before him bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I just think we should stick together instead of splitting up. It would be safer." She shifted her weight to her other foot, folding her arms over her leather jacket.

Tristan sighed, taking a step towards her. "You know we're literally fire and ice, Liv. Our whole lives have been filled with us wanting to be closer but we always have been opposites and we always will be. It's safer for both of us this way. Aaron would have wanted-"

At the mention of his name, Liv looked down. "Can you please not bring him up? It isn't exactly easy for either of us to be talking about him in the past tense." She said in a low voice.

Tristan shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. Liv could be insufferable at times. Opening his blue eyes, he looked at her intensely. "Are you sure you want to stick with your plan? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it's virtually impossible. Aaron isn't alive. He's dead, Liv, and you know it. We saw."

Liv's blonde head snapped up, matching Tristan's ice blue gaze with a fiery caramel one of her own. "I know he's out there!" she snapped. "And I'm going to find him."

For a moment, neither of them said anything. They matched one another's gaze, sizing one another up, before Tristan took a step back in defeat. "Fine. Go off on your doomed rescue mission. I'll be here, actually making a difference with my abilities." He turned on his heel as the sky darkened, walking down the sidewalks of Brightbay City with Liv in the dust.

Tristan shot awake, taking a deep breath. Realizing that he had dreamt that encounter from his past for the thousandth time, he groaned and buried his face in his hands. That was over a year ago, he shouldn't still be dreaming about it, like he wished he could have gone with her or her with him.

He glanced at the clock, seeing as he had eight minutes to be down in the cortex for group training. Tristan took a deep breath and got out of bed, preparing himself for the day. He pulled on some workout clothes after taking the fastest shower of his life, and was in the process of brushing his teeth when he heard a blast.

The sound resonated throughout headquarters loudly, and Tristan thought he could feel it in his bones. He snapped into his battle senses and bolted from his room, his heart pounding. He knew what that sound was. It was the sound of an energyball leaving someone's control. He'd heard it multiple times on his own account, on Bristol's, on Priscilla's. He just wondered what was happening.

Dashing into the cortex, Tristan skidded to a stop. He looked around quickly, spotting the faint glimmer of a closing portal and felt the unsettling radiation that came from Priscilla's asterokinesis.

"What was that?" CJ suddenly appeared beside him, looking around intently.

"I'm not sure." Tristan said, scanning the large room. There didn't appear to be anyone suspicious, until he spotted Priscilla standing behind a pillar, her back to them.

"Yo, Priscilla!" CJ called upon spotting her. "What's the big deal?"

Their caretaker suddenly took note of their presence and she stepped out from behind the pillar. Some of her fiery hair had fallen out of its bun in the process of whatever attack she had executed. Her eyes fell upon Tristan and her expression changed. "Tristan. Come here please. I believe you may know who this is."

Tristan looked at her in confusion, slowly walking towards her. He didn't trust Priscilla and his senses were telling him to turn back and run. But he found himself walking over to their caretaker and finally looked behind the pillar.

There, sitting against the column, was a platinum haired girl with caramel eyes. Tristan's heart stopped. "What're you doing here?" he asked in a low voice.

Olive looked up from her huddled position on the ground, looking up at him with fear in her eyes. "I...I don't know." She said scratchily. She sounded like she hadn't spoken in months and had just used her voice for the first time.

Her clothing was the same as the last time Tristan had seen her; a black leather jacket, gray jeans, tall black boots. However, there were tears and rips all over the different fabrics. Mud and blood stained her jeans, and her blonde hair was matted. She looked as if she had found her way out of a jungle she had been living in for the past year.

More footsteps sounded from the hallway into the cortex. Tristan looked over his shoulder and found Bristol and Avi. Quickly, he turned back to Olive and knelt down to her, his heart pounding.

"What?" Olive asked, looking at him in dangerous amusement. "You aren't going to introduce your friends to your sister?"

~~~

Olive's arrival cast an unnecessary additional layer of mystery to the atmosphere of Union's headquarters. After stating her identity as Tristan's sister, Priscilla took her in for a minor interrogation-although Tristan was positive it wasn't minor-and was soon released.

Tristan found her easily. She was wandering the hallways after her interrogation, a bleary look in her eye. She saw him and the look faded. "Tris, I thought you were above lurking in hallways."

Tristan ignored her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her over to him. "What are you doing here? Are you joining us? How did you get here?"

Olive gave him a bored look. "One: I don't know. Two: No, I turned down Priscilla's offer. Three: I don't know." She folded her arms. "Really, if you're gonna be this invasive, you should perform the interrogations."

Tristan ran a hand through his hair. "Then why are you still here?"

Olive sighed. "I'm here for rehabilitation and training. After my memory and strength improves, I'm gone again." She said.

Looking around quickly, Tristan stared back down at his sister. "Do you remember anything at all?"

The guarded look in Olive's eyes disappeared. "I...I remember running. I remember a voice but I don't know whose and I can't remember what they said. It was dark and storming and I ran here and the next thing I knew, I was inside the cortex." She said. "But beyond that, I have no clue."

Biting his lip, Tristan asked a risky question. "Did you find Aaron?"

Olive opened her mouth to answer, but the misty look in her eyes came back. She looked behind him and saw someone. "Bristol, right?"

Tristan's eyes widened and he whipped around to find the very Elemental Empress walking down the hallway towards them. She nodded, running a hand through her long brown hair. "Correct. And you're Olive, right?"

"Call me Liv," Olive shrugged. She looked back up at Tristan. "That goes for you, too."

Tristan took a deep breath. "Liv, I think you should go see Priscilla. She'll show you the ropes to living here."

"Why, Bristol shows up and suddenly I'm no one?" Liv teased. She looked at him with an amusing look. "Alright, I see when I'm not wanted. Have fun, lovebirds."

Tristan would have turned her into a popsicle then and there, but his insufferable sister darted around a corner. He turned to Bristol, hoping his face wasn't flushed with embarrassment.

The brunette, however, looked at him with pursed lips and suspicious eyes. "She seems nice." Bristol said simply.

"Try living with her," Tristan grumbled.

"Oh, I'm assuming I have to. Is she joining us?" Bristol asked, taking a step towards him.

Tristan shook his head. "The Union remains a quartet. She's only staying for as long as she needs to get her memory back."

Bristol nodded. She nudged her head towards the hall and Tristan accepted the invitation to walk. "Were you two close?" She asked, looking up at him.

Tristan looked down at her, into her brown eyes. For a moment, he was too distracted to say anything but shook himself out of his stupor. "Sort of. She's a pyrokinetic while I'm a cyrokinetic. Fire and ice. We tended to argue a lot and it ended badly but-" He stopped talking. His father wasn't exactly a topic he wanted to discuss.

"But what?" Bristol asked.

"Nothing," Tristan shook his head.

"Obviously it isn't." Bristol pushed.

"Why do you want to know so badly?" Tristan said in defense.

Bristol glared at him. "So you're allowed to know my secret but I can't know yours?"

"No, you can't because my secret doesn't revolve around my abilities." Tristan retorted in a hushed voice.

Bristol squinted at him suspiciously. "But it's still a secret. I deserve to know."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Will both of you either shut up or take this somewhere else?" Another voice responded. "I've had to sit in on an interrogation for the past hour after rudely being awoken by an explosion and the last thing I need to hear is you two bickering outside my door."

CJ stood in the doorway of his bedroom, bleary eyed and messy-haired. His gaze flickered from Bristol to Tristan, begging them tiredly to shut their mouths.

"Sorry about that, CJ." Bristol said, shooting a pointed look at Tristan. "Tristan's just good at causing unnecessary trouble."

Tristan looked at her wildly, his sapphire irises turning an icy blue. "Am not!" He blurted.

"Are too," Bristol rolled her eyes, turning on her heel and walking down the corridor. "And both of you are gonna miss our training session if you don't hurry up." She called before turning a corner and disappearing.

Both boys gazed after Bristol, silence between them. Finally, they glanced at one another awkwardly.

"She's something," CJ looked back down the way Bristol had gone, a small smile on his face as she leant against his doorway.

Tristan ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, yeah. A real something." He grumbled. He cast one last look down the hallway before following Bristol's path down to the cortex.

That day was proving to be stressful to say the least, and Tristan was eager to train so he could relieve his worries through his abilities. However, as he was about to turn the corner into the cortex, he spotted Avi in the doorway of the control room.

"Avi? What're you doing?" Tristan asked, stopping in his tracks.

Avi pressed her lips into a thin line, waving him over urgently. "Come here." She hissed. "Now!"

Tristan looked down the hallways before joining Avi at the control room doorway. "Yeah?" He asked.

Avi didn't answer him. Instead, she grabbed him by his arm and dragged him into the control room, shutting the door swiftly behind them. "Priscilla's been up to something." She said and darted over to the opposite side of the room, the one with the video screens reporting camera feeds of headquarters' surroundings.

"Define something," Tristan asked, following her over to the dashboard that she was hacking away at.

Avi straightening up a bit, but kept her eyes glued to the screen. "Something, a thing that is unspecified or unknown." She reported, glancing at Tristan impishly.

A smile tugged at Tristan's lips. "You know that's not what I meant but okay." He laughed. He walked over to her and gazed into the screen she was in front of. "So what has Priscilla been doing?"

The footage showed their caretaker standing in the woods along the banks of the river. Curls of light were leaving her hands, and a sort of vaporous fog began to form at the bases of the trees before her. Priscilla dropped her hands back to her sides and the mist faded. She picked up a clipboard and wrote down some notes before heading back into headquarters.

"I am not entirely sure, but it appears that she is using her abilities to create a sort of fog surrounding headquarters. It could be for defensive purposes, what with the villains coming back." Avi said, although she sounded unsure.

Tristan knit his eyebrows, watching the footage play again and again. "But if she denies their return, why would she set up a security system?"

Avi bit her lip and shrugged. "It is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. But I just wanted to inform you in case it turns out to be something sinister." She glanced at Tristan.

Tristan nodded and let out a breath. "Today keeps getting more and more intriguing." He said, turning on his heel.

"What do you mean?" Avi called after him. "Do you mean your sister, Olive?"

Tristan froze. "Yeah," he managed. "She's a good part of it."

"She is an intriguing case," Avi agreed. "I performed a scan on her memories to try to jog them but there was nothing but dark shrouds. Whatever she went through, it is all in her mind but locked away and I do not know where the key can be."

"Great," Tristan said. He needed to change the topic and quick. "Are you coming to training?"

Avi shook her head. "No, Priscilla wants me to keep working on Olive to try and get information."

Tristan sighed. "Well, alright then. Keep us posted on any developments."

"Certainly," Avi said brightly.

The sounds of Avi clacking away at the keyboards on the dashboards was as much of a goodbye as he was gonna get. Tristan backed out of the control room and headed down the hall to the cortex.

He was greeted by the noises of CJ and Bristol sparring. Atop the training platform, inside the glass walls, Rapid and the Elemental Empress were duking it out. Tristan leant against a nearby pillar; he couldn't interrupt their training until one of them had won the sparring match.

Bristol blocked CJ's jabs and kicked his legs out from beneath him, falling to the ground to do so. The speedster collapsed and rolled back onto his feet. "Nice try, Vandeviere." He huffed.

Bristol flipped back into a standing position. "Thanks, Stone. It was a better try than all of yours combined," she noted, hands on her hips.

CJ cocked his head to the side. "I wouldn't be too sure about that," he smirked a bit. In a sudden move, he struck, lunging forward and grabbing her wrist. CJ flipped her over and she hit the platform, hissing a bit at the impact.

Bristol tried to push herself up but in an instant, CJ was on top of her with his forearm to her neck. "I won," CJ said proudly.

The brunette narrowed her vision, pursing her lips. "In your dreams." She scoffed. "Get off of me," she laughed a bit.

"You know you like it." CJ said teasingly.

Tristan watched as Bristol's amiable expression turned into a deadly visage. "You have three seconds to get off of me, Stone." She said in a gravely low voice.

The speedster's smirk melted into a terrified visage as he scrambled off of Bristol. She made a face at him as she stood up, sauntering over to the dashboard. "Thank you," she noted as she rose the walls of the platform.

Seeing as their session was over, Tristan walked over to join them. He put a hand on CJ's shoulder as he paced over to the sidelines for a water bottle. "Dude, I'm surprised she didn't slap you." Tristan laughed.

CJ's cheeks turned red. "Yeah, so am I. That's why I did what she said so quickly."

Tristan clapped him on the back before calling Bristol over to join them. "There's something I gotta tell you guys," he said.

"What is it?" Bristol asked, taking a sip from her water bottle. She ran a hand through the flyaway strands of her dark hair that had escaped her ponytail.

Tristan opened his mouth to tell them what Avi had showed him, but the sound of heels on the hallway floors shut his mouth. "Speak of the devil," he muttered.

Priscilla entered the cortex, clutching a clipboard to her chest. In her wake was Liv, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. Her platinum blonde hair was newly washed, but she still wore the same mudstained boots and the same hazy look in her eyes.

"Bristol," Priscilla called. "There you are."

Bristol glanced at Tristan and CJ before stepping towards Priscilla, who paced over to them with Liv in tow. "Yes?" She asked.

"I want you to give Liv a tour of headquarters and show her how the training processes work. She is a pyrokinetic and I'm hoping that you can show her some of the ropes." Priscilla said, glancing at the training platform.

With a quick glance to Tristan, he saw that Bristol's eyes were filled with a bit of panic. She'd be busted if she couldn't control fire in the face of an actual fire controller.

Tristan stepped to her side. "Or I can help Liv out. She's my sister after all." He said.

Liv squinted at Tristan, and Bristol beside him. "You two a package deal or something?" she asked.

Instantly, Tristan's face fell. "No! It's just-Bristol's in the middle of training with CJ and you're my sister so I should be the one to show you around."

Priscilla gazed at him suspiciously. "That won't work. I have a task for you and CJ, regardless."

CJ paced over to join Tristan and Bristol. They formed a sort of barricade, supplying one another with their strength and unity. All they needed was Avi to make a literal stand against their mysterious caretaker and Tristan's amnesiac sister.

"What kind of task?" CJ asked carefully, his hazel eyes filled with suspicion.

"Oh, an important one." Priscilla said with a sly smile.

~~~

"Grocery shopping. She sent us grocery shopping." CJ said with a huff.

Sure enough, the 'important task' that Priscilla had assigned him and Tristan was indeed shopping for groceries. The two boys were walking down the streets of Brightbay City in an aggravated nature.

"Some important task," Tristan scoffed. "Send the superheroes to pick up a few frozen pizzas and produce."

"I'd rather be taking a chance with Bristol and the tour." CJ said, shaking his head a bit. There was silence for a moment before he spoke again. "She's actually pretty nice." He said softly.

At that, Tristan looked at the speedster beside him quickly. "Yeah, and so are velociraptors." He scoffed. "She's temperamental."

CJ sighed. "I thought so too, but I think that's just because she's so guarded. She's an ocean of mysteries but a calm one." He got a bit of a dreamy look on his face but a confused look from Tristan wiped it away. "So where's the grocery store?" he stammered.

Tristan looked away from him suspiciously before looking down the street. "It should be-look." He whacked CJ's arm and pointed ahead of them.

At the end of the street at the corner, stood a man in a trench coat. He checked a device in his pocket, looked over both shoulders, and waited a moment. However, he radiated a nauseating resonation, like suddenly Tristan was getting seasick.

Then it clicked. That was Psyche, and he seemed to something out of the ordinary. He looked around before hunching down and making his way down the opposite street.

Tristan glanced at CJ and nodded. "Who needs groceries right now anyway?" he smirked.

CJ matched his smirk. "Shall we?" He asked.

"We shall." Tristan said, a devilish smile on his face.

Together, the boys dug into the pockets as they dove into a nearby alley. They pulled on their masks; if they did encounter their opponent, they still needed to keep their secret identities safe.

"Ready?" CJ asked, part of his face shielded from his black mask.

Tristan nodded. "Let's go." He grinned and the two boys bolted out of the alley in the wake of their enemy.