"Are you always in a cranky mood or is that comfy chair getting to you?"

Stasis rolled her eyes, standing up from the standard obsidian plush chair given to police officers at the station. Technically as a member of law enforcement, she should be used to people pushing her buttons, but at the moment, a creaky chair would spell out disaster if it collapsed under her weight.

She wasn't fat, but the chair only had patience for a hundred pounds or less.

Cursing the day she ever became a City Hero, she faced the ignorant twerp goading her on, and clearly asked, "Are you going to make the phone call or let me do it?"

"What?," Macho Man replied back. His seemingly-disinterested cousin taking up the job of a mute mime for the day since being captured by his Kryptonite.

I mean, what else could you call the person who could deactivate your powers in two seconds flat? Popcorn nuggets?

"You're a minor in a police station. Its standard procedure to call your guardians."

"B-But," Macho Man stammered. "We're not here for me."

"Doesn't matter. So will you break the news gently or let one of these upstanding...," she trailed off, now pointing to the non-Mystic cops, "give notice with as much subtlety as someone shooting into a crowd."

"I'd rather take my chances with the stray bullet," he answered before briskly getting up and heading to the payphone in the middle of the station.

"Now that he's gone...What in the world were you smoking, Seismic?"

"Cataclysm."

Biting her bottom lip, she cared little for his correction of his new alias.  "You're lucky the company's not pressing charges so I'll let you off with..."

"They're not charging me?"

"Your little publicity stunt got the media in a frenzy. There's a lot of angry people out there because of their actions. Their lawyers already have their hands full as it is...A mob almost descended upon that place before you showed up. Especially after your cousin leaked those documents proving their dirty deeds..."

"He has nothing to do with this; you see, he was just here to pick me up..."

"Save it for the judge. I don't need nor want your lies," snapped Stasis.

"Then why am I still here?"

"City equipment was damaged during your tearing down of that office building."

"Oh, do I pay a fine?", he asked like endangering the lives of others meant nothing.

"Ok. That's it. Let's list your transgressions, shall we? You tore down an office building, got a minor involved in your villainy, and then you dragged the said kid into a police station..."

"He's my ride...you recall I can't drive right."

Was he testing her after so many years apart? She responded, "We're friends, of course I remember."

"Our friendship ended the day I killed your family."

She sidestepped that landmine and sighed, running her rough hands through her ebony locks. "Regardless, I'm giving you a warning as the Interim City Hero."

The older Fujisawa perked up. "You're not assigned to this city?"

"No. I drove two hours to provide assistance because a certain Geodetic Mystic needed to be stopped before he caused even more damage to public infrastructure than some city equipment loss."

"Your ability's useful for that at least," taunted Makoto Fujisawa.

"Stop doing this."

"What?"" He paused from clicking the pen he picked up on the way in. "Is this what bothered you?

"You blame yourself for what happened before..."

"Before?" Makoto tapped his chin with his index finger, feigning being perplexed.

"It was a structural collapse! The asphalt mix wasn't properly done...the rain poured in by the droves..." She paused to look at him properly then having not done so beforehand. "It would have happened anyway."

"Still my fault," he related, eyes daring her to say otherwise.

She quieted down, and pursed her lips. "You couldn't help it-you had a seizure."

"And now I'm paying for it. Excuse me Stasis, I have to leave. Work for a living if you can't tell."

The end of the phone conversation becomes even clearer as the two stray away from each other.

"Mom, it was just a couple of parking tickets...don't worry..." If they found out his cousin was arrested, he would have to move to Japan along with them.

So he lied about owing money to the parking meter...because that would mean way less trouble.

Mommy Fujisawa says, "What can we expect? A teenager...leaving him alone in the US..."

Daddy Fujisawa says, "He's almost an adult, he'll pay the fine and it'll all be over."

"I'm glad you have your cousin to take care of you now-he's a hardworker and practices medicine as a nurse...you're in good hands."

Yes. A supervillain is definitely the hands you want to leave your kid in.

Hypothetically, if his parents discovered that their nephew was Cataclysm, they would move their son to Mars. (Japan is still way too close for comfort.)

Criminals were cast out of the Fujisawa family tree. No questions asked.

Come to think of it, both criminals and manga artists received the same treatment. Look no further than poor Uncle Kei-what exactly did happen to that mangaka?

All he knew was that if he ever contacted Uncle Kei, he might be stricken from the family tree as well. Better not to take any chances of that happening so he just let the lies kept piling up.

Until he was eighteen. Then who could care whether he was a supervillain or not?

The law? Pssh. Stasis enforced the law, and even she was powerless to stop them.

"We have to go, Hikari. Stay safe."

"I promise I'll..." The lines goes dead before he can continue his endless stream of lies. One day, he would probably drown in them. Until then, his parents will hang up without saying I love you.

Japanese tradition demands it, he mused. When he was younger, a tiny stature made him believe that mom and dad were the trees he could rest safe under.

Now, he knows that isn't the case.

They can't give him enough shade to grow under when they're never there. His father would rather die working than be in the house for more than an hour while his mother...never got the memo that parenting meant less vacations.

As a result, they always went on company-sponsored cruise ships without him.

Without Makoto, he might have resented them. It was his cousin who let him see the other side of things; reassuring him that they did care about him...in their own way. Working hard to sustain their only child is the way they know how to love him.

That man could console everyone but himself.

His personal life was a giant dung heap that kept being rolled around by an enthusiastic dung beetle.

"Please talk to him, Kari."

Case in point: Stasis. (Formerly known as Poise, Positron's sidekick. He reminisced her picking up his doll-like body as a child, and affectionately calling him Kari-a nickname that stuck to this day.)

"Talk to him? I can certainly do that, but will it be pertaining to what you want? Maybe not."

Which made acting like an entitled schmuck hurt Stasis a lot more.

"He won't listen to me."

"That's none of my business," he commented. Waving his fingers condescendingly, he dipped out of there and sprinted towards his car outside hoping it did not get impounded yet.

"Why me?", Stasis cried out, hitting the shoddy desk with a thud. Her hand instantly recoiled from the impact; cheaply made softwood still hurt quite a bit.

Government taxes at work.

The police officers glared at her outburst though. A whole station had been interrupted by the 'lovers quarrel' as the gossiping cops dubbed it.

She mumbled out a sorry, hoping that all would be forgotten soon when the Chief strolled by her desk.

"How you holding up there, Sheriff?", asked this City's Police Chief. She'd met him before back in AMP's (the American Mystic Program-government agency overseeing Mystic City Heroes) Sidekick Academy's Midwest Campus. To sum him up in a phrase: the old geezer lived with the motto-the devil knows more from age than from being an actual devil.

That meant he wasn't scared of anyone, especially not a snot-nosed Mystic gone rampant. He saved her from a scary encounter back when she was still in training.

Although rude people existed in society, (Mystics were no exception), from experience she knew that this Chief was genuinely nice...at least to those who played fair.

Too bad not everyone shared his viewpoint-that all crimes directed against another human was pointless. That would make her and the Chief's job a lot easier.

The Universe however had other plans it would seem.

_______________________________

Author's note: Macho Man is a villain sidekick, but he's the protagonist so in his narration, he paints a lot of people in a bad light, including the City Heroes and respective sidekicks. I don't know if anyone in this story (except maybe one dude) is a completely reliable narrator.

Finally that chapter is done! Now I can get back to the good stuff...action. (Did I mention action's one of my favorite genres? This story will have its fair share of it.) This was important to introduce Stasis and develop Cataclysm as a character.