Chapter 5: The Training

"Lightburst, we need to talk."

Lightburst spun around, startled by the voice that came out of the shadows. A figure melted out of the darkness, cautiously approaching her. He was young, perhaps close to her age. The face mask he wore made it hard to tell for certain. His form was athletic, his movements confident. He wore a black and gray mask that concealed most of his face, though it left an area around his mouth and chin bare. His bodysuit was likewise black, with the gray symbol of a bird on the chest. A gray belt lined with pouches sat around his waist. A black and gray cape swirled around him like a flowing shadow. Gray boots and gloves completed the costume. Lightburst thought he looked familiar, but she couldn't think of his name. Erin would know; she was the expert on costumed heroes and villains.

"You're..." she began.

"Blackbird," he finished for her. "Don't be alarmed, I just want to talk to you."

"Okay..." Lightburst hesitantly agreed. She landed on the rooftop and turned her aura down. Now that she had a name to put with his costume, she knew pretty much who he was. He was a costumed hero, one of the good guys, but she couldn't think of anything else she may have seen or read about him. She wished Erin was here to fill her in on who he was.

Blackbird warily glanced around, frowning slightly. "I'd really rather not talk to you out in the open like this. Do you have a headquarters or base of operations we can talk in private?"

Lightburst looked down at her feet. He was making her feel like even more of an amateur than she was. A headquarters? She had just gotten her costume not even an hour ago! And she was still learning how to use her powers.

Since she didn't have a headquarters, and Blackbird wanted to talk to her in private, where could she take him? She thought about that for a brief second. Then an idea came to her, one that Erin would love.

"I don't really have a headquarters," she said, looking back up at him. "But I can take you to the next best thing," she added with a smile.

"I can't believe Blackbird is actually in my apartment!" Erin nearly squealed in excitement.

Lightburst smiled at her as she picked a can of Mountain Dew out of the fridge for their guest. She shut the door and turned to look at her friend. "So who is he? All I know is that he's one of the good guys."

Erin had to take a moment to calm her racing heart before answering. She was more excited than Samantha had ever seen her. Erin had been a complete geek about costumed heroes and villains for as long as she could remember. She had scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings about them. Her bookshelves were lined with books about them. She had a ton of VCR tapes of recorded documentaries and television appearances by them. She was a walking encyclopedia of all things heroic and villainous, which Samantha was real thankful for lately, since she knew next to nothing about any of them.

"He's the sidekick of White Owl," Erin finally answered once she had collected herself a bit. Even so, she was speaking very animatedly about him. Samantha guessed that he was probably one of her favorites. "He's the leader and one of the founding members of Team Supreme, too. Do you think he's here to invite you to join them? They are a group of teen heroes, after all."

Lightburst shrugged. "I don't know what he wants yet. By the way, what are his powers?"

"Him and White Owl don't have any. They're just really trained well and they have these gadgets that they use."

Lightburst nodded, and started to go to take the Dew to Blackbird, who was in Erin's bedroom. As she got to the kitchen door, she stopped and turned back to look at her friend, a quizzical expression on her face.

"White Owl is a guy, right?"

Erin nodded.

"Um, a guy hanging out with a kid who has to be around our age? Dressed in skintight costumes? I bet that has to get people gossiping."

Blackbird laughed. "No, contrary to popular rumors, White Owl and I aren't gay lovers banging each other in the Owl's Nest," he told the girls. "White Owl is married, actually. Real sweetheart of a woman. I like her a lot."

Erin listened to one of her idols in rapt attention. Though Blackbird was initially reluctant to discuss things with Lightburst in front of her, Lightburst's assurances and Erin's likable personality won him over. He liked her and she asked him some very smart and observant questions about other heroes and the villains. Some of the questions he couldn't get too detailed with answering, but he graciously answered each one as best as he could.

Samantha sat on the edge of Erin's bed. Erin lay next to her, flat on her stomach, head propped up on a hand, listening intently. Blackbird had declined a seat, instead leaning casually against the wall by the window. He sipped at his Mountain Dew periodically.

"What about you?" Lightburst asked, not believing she was getting the nerve to ask this question. "Not to get too personal, but do you have a girlfriend?"

Blackbird looked at her, grinning warmly. "Not right now, no."

Samantha blushed and looked away, her face repeating his smile.

"What about Whitestar?" Erin asked. "There was this rumor that you and her were an item after she joined Team Supreme."

"We were dating for a bit," Blackbird admitted. "But not any more. Just friends." He privately wondered where the hell she was getting some of this information. He had thought no one outside of the team knew that him and Whitestar had dated. He bet anything it was the Clown, telling all this stuff on his blog. He made a mental note to speak with him when he got back to the Team Supreme base.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I wanted to talk to you about something kind of important, Lightburst."

"Sure," Lightburst agreed.

"To start at the beginning: I've been keeping tabs on you with a couple of the other members of Team Supreme for almost a week. One of my contacts in the police force had alerted me to possible superhuman activity in the woods upstate. I spoke to him after you gave him your statement. He could tell you were hiding something, so my friends and I started watching your public appearances."

"You've been... following me?" Lightburst asked, very upset by the notion that someone or someones had been watching her.

"Not to where you live or anything, no," the young hero hastily replied, trying to assure her. "Just whenever you appeared in public, one of us was on the scene as quickly as possible. We stayed hidden and kept out of your way. We wanted to make sure you didn't get in too far over your head and to observe you for a possible invite to join the team. We've done the same thing with some of our newer members, which worked out really well."

Lightburst nodded, relieved. That didn't sound as bad as being followed home. She was actually touched that she had someone looking out for her, just in case things went bad.

"Is that why you're here?" she asked. "To invite me to join your team?"

"Not yet," Blackbird admitted. "To be blunt, you still need some training, which is why I wanted to talk to you tonight. I wanted to offer to show you the ropes and give you some training."

"That is so cool!" Erin excitedly leapt off her bed. "She will, she will!"

"Erin, please!" Lightburst laughed. She looked back to Blackbird. "Thank you, that's really sweet of you. I'd like that."

Blackbird smiled. "Great. When and where do you want to meet?"

"Tomorrow night? Same rooftop?"

"It's a date," he told her. He opened the bedroom window, and removed a small, metallic grappling hook from his belt. A strong rope line was tied to the hook. With a swing born from years of practice, the youth threw the hook through the air, catching it on the edge of the rooftop across the street. A quick tug on the rope, a smile and a wave to the girls, and Blackbird swung off into the night, vanishing into the darkness.

"Oh my God, that was too cool!" Erin cried out in amazement, throwing herself back onto her bed. "I am soooo glad you're a costumed heroine. You have got to introduce me to all the other heroes you meet! If you can, bring Doctor December over sometime! I'd love to meet him!"

Lightburst was only half paying attention to her friend, though. She stared out the window for a moment, silently wondering if he was as cute beneath his mask as she thought he was.

.

Lightburst met up with Blackbird the next night and every night thereafter. Several weeks passed with the same routine: They would meet after dark, would go to a park or an empty warehouse or building, and he would train her. Under his guidance, she rapidly gained experience in using her powers. She became more and more dextrous in flight. Her aim with her energy blasts grew in leaps and bounds, and she even learned to narrow the beam to pinpoint precision. Thus, instead of blasting something with force, she could burn at targets if she wanted to.

Sometimes on the weekends, they would meet during the day, when she (and, she assumed, he) didn't have school. The weekends were when they would be out in public, foiling crimes such as mugging, car jackings, and bank robberies. The two of them were starting to appear together in public so often that the tabloids were starting to declare them "an item", which Lightburst didn't mind one bit. There were times during the week and on the weekends that he couldn't make it, because of his own duties with White Owl or the Team Supreme. She really missed him a lot on those days.

She felt that the two of them were getting closer, but she had to admit to herself that she knew next to nothing about him, and vice versa. She didn't even know what he looked like under that mask of his, even though she had stopped using her aura to make her features vague to him. He would talk to her about working with White Owl and Team Supreme, about the heroes he had met and fought alongside, and the villains he had fought against over the years. But the two never discussed their personal lives. He didn't ask and neither did she. She had a suspicion that it was an unwritten rule in the world of costumed heroes: "Don't ask, don't tell" sort of thing.

It was during one of their training sessions that she discovered a facet of her powers that she didn't even know she had, and it was thanks to him that she found out about it. He had been asking her about her aura, how bright it could become, and so forth. While she was telling him about it, he looked at her thoughtfully.

"I want to try something," he said. "Instead of brightening your aura, try using it to absorb all the light in here." He gestured at the overhead lights that hung in the room, illuminating it.

She started at him curiously. "I'm not sure if I can. You want me to make it dark instead of light?"

"Exactly. You may not even be able to do it, but we won't know until you try."

Lightburst shrugged, then concentrated. It was hard not to will her aura to go supernova bright, but she tried. She closed her eyes and imagined her aura consuming all the light in the room, making it pitch black inside.