The world was so much simpler when I didn't know him.

"Explain what you mean by that. It's a little vague for a response...we do want to get the specifics of the matter," replied a pesky investigator.

Rolling my eyes, I was about to continue when he interjected, "We are here for one thing, and one thing alone. Defeating a top tier-grade assassin, how did that happen?"

"Technically, we didn't defeat him," I answered.

"Again, Rush is out of commission." He scoffed, "Perhaps it was by accident that mere high schoolers did what senior special agents have unsuccessfully tried..."

"Are you gonna let the lady speak or not?", barked James. Glancing at him, he sheepishly shrugged. Glad to know he was still on my side.

Sometimes, I wondered why he still stuck around after what happened.

I scratched my head, and said, "Before I met a certain James, I was not mixed up in a dastardly plot to save the world, let alone have a furious assassin tailing my every move."

"That wasn't entirely my fault...", James started.

Ignoring him, I remarked, "If I started pinning the blame on him, I'd only be half-right though. The reality is I was in a rough spot when he came into my life, like between being tortured by mad scientists or dying kinda 'hard place'."

"Are you referring to your mother being murdered by AoE operatives?", the man in a grey suit inquired.

James bristled at the accusation, growing tense by the minute. Even if the man who murdered my mother could not be categorized as an assassin, it probably still hit close to home.

"Now, he certainly was, and is, no angel and still keeps secrets like bread and butter. However, I believe I grew on him and he latched onto me like some sort of parasite..."

James chuckled. "Hey, that's not necessarily true. Sometimes I'm helpful even."

"Well, you are bit of a leech at times. Like the other morning..." I growled, "Maria, how I do turn this on, it's not working..."

Palming his face, James nonchalantly stated, "That has nothing to do with this conversation right now." Looking over to the investigator, he leaned into the microphone and said, "And for the record, I am not a leech."

I joked, "Maybe a worm would be more accurate."

The investigator eyed us incredulously, read his clipboard and remarked, "Let's start from the top. When did you first meet?"

"At the warehouse," James replied.

"Yeah, but we were both at the Ambassadors of Evil School..."

"One of their schools," he clarified. "Once you hit junior high, they sort you into the Divisions. There are Division Schools from then on-Assassins, Warriors, etc. It's a little weird you came into the fold as a high schooler."

"It was my first time at boarding school," I replied.

"Could we talk about this later once you mention how Rush was subdued? That man-that assassin has taken out high value targets, and the information you are saying we already know about..."

James said, "Anyways, we developed a strange sort of bond together..."

I clarified, "Not a romantic relationship or even close."

James replied, "No, I became part of a movement to eradicate the Ambassadors of Evil and we're..."

"Thinking about leading a team of superheroes against the worst supervillains ever...eventually. We just have to join the GEAR Team at our school first."

"Again," the investigator interjected. "This debriefing is over Rush. We also heard you encountered Mockingbird?"

James said, "Blackheart, Mockingbird, Rush...we faced off against those villains...well the ones that you've met."

I clicked my tongue, saying, "Like you've met way worse...oh yeah, sorry. Oops."

"At least your father is a soldier with a conscience. Mine is The Soliticitor."

Reminiscing on my childhood, I remarked, "Before all this, I was never close to being normal, but alas tragedy hits everyone eventually. It hit James more than me, though he is a guy who talks a lot and speaks little. (Low-key burn right there) Alas..."

Tapping the table with his pen, the pesky investigator sighed. "Miss, we don't want your life story. We just want to know why GEAR changed and how it brought down one of the biggest villains of our time."

Ignoring him, I continued, "You know the story of the founding of GEAR, an organization devoted to the growth and development of powered persons within our nation's government. As of recently, I have been placed head of a new task force and you are currently assessing whether this 'poor tortured girl' can handle security clearance. Believe me, Mr. Anderson? I believe? Let me finish my story and I will tell you how we stopped Rush, got it?", I snapped.

At that point, I might have been a bit rude, but I had been deprived of food for several hours in that stuffy room until the investigator could arrive so I was a bit irritated.

Mr. Anderson cowered in his chair and sat stone-faced, which I took as permission to speak.

"GEAR changed its vision because of the new people in it, but mostly because of James. Where to begin?", I muttered.

"We met at the warehouse, remember?

"Oh, I remember! The boarding school of evil is a great place to start..."

"I went to a different one than you did though," James asserted.

"It's fine. We'll take turns!"

"Like Kindergarteners," he mumbled.

"Exactly! Like...You didn't mean that as a compliment, did you...Anyways, I think Anne Frank once said that 'We try and hold on to some kind of ideals, when everything - ideals, , everything is being destroyed." That's how I felt in my situation."

"There you go with your movie references," James replied as he chewed a random pen.

"You disagree?", asked the investigator.

"In a world gone mad, only despair is left," he responded.

"And what you guys did?", prodded the man.

"Throwing a seashell back into the ocean."

"What?"

"Rage against the dying of the light." Letting the pen fall to the floor, he let me spin the tale.

"Rising up from the ashes towards a new dawn."

https://youtu.be/qV-fp5Hu5Aw

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Author's Note: From now on, the book is a flashback in two perspectives for the two protagonists, James and Maria which will be introduced in the next chapter as way different than seen here. A few times in this book, another's pov will show up as third person; be patient, there is a reason for this.

Again, this story is being told by way of interviewing the main characters involved. [Brackets mean comments told in present day not related to flashback storyline]