It's Not What You Know... [Elaine]

Ace kicked back in the chair, deflecting the sun away from his eyes. Here he was, sitting in a diner, drinking a milkshake like he was an ordinary person. Ordinary was not Ace, not that you would have guessed it by looking at him. He looked like an ordinary teenager, you couldn't tell that his shoulder bag housed enough tech to down a technophobic elephant. Ace had spent the last several months incognito, so to speak, as far as most of the general public knew, he had disappeared off the face of the earth. The bright eyed, mysterious but generally normal Max Brokedell had appeared, Ace had taken the name from some police documents he stumbled across while creating his new identity. Ace used Max as a cover, to deal with some slight problems he'd developed since his last adventure. After the unplanned visit to Japan he returned without his signature powers, the things you kind of need to be a superhero, but he had a family now. To be fair, it wasn't the "Reunion picnics and come around for christmas" type of family, but it was a family all the same, this gave Ace a lot to think about, so he decided to recluse from the superhero-ing scene.

Ace slurped on his milkshake, he could never seem to make the things last, they were always gone within about five sips, he glanced at the milkshake, he was about half way through, Ace pulled a face that could almost be interpreted as disappointed before casting his eyes back to the clock on the wall, six fourty five, it was too early to take to the rooftops and too late to start wandering around the area aimlessly, he decided to stay for one more milkshake. Ace rather enjoyed his time as a civilian, school bullies were a lot less intimidating when you had faced more scary threats during breakfast. The homework assignments still annoyed Ace however, there was something counterproductive about using your own time to complete something that you could just have easily as done in the time you were analysing the thirty-six things in the article on the day of the Austro-Hungarian Arch-Duke was assassinated somehow contributed to world war one. It was still, however, an enjoyable time. While he was a civilian, he learnt a few things about his powers, that they weren't totally gone was the first thing. Ace suddenly had fantastic reaction times and could learn things faster than a monkey pressing buttons on a space shuttle. Ace figured that a few powers must have latched on, he had a sort of sixth sense, not like talking to the dead, but seeing things when he wasn't looking. That, coupled with his reaction times, made a hell of a combination.

Ace span the straw around his glass, "Come on" he murmured under his breath, before reaching for his phone in his pocket. Ace, of course, was not the kind of person to sit down for months on end, after a short while he started not sleeping, he had caught up on all the rest he could ever need, he needed action. He started taking up small cases, mostly burglary and other small cases, they were enough to keep Ace occupied for a month, then he moved up, investigating murders, attacks, slowly moving back into the realms of crime fighting, as cheesy as it sounded, Ace loved every minute. That's why he was here today. He was killing time for that night, he was staking out a drug ring, not necessarily a successful drug ring, but a violent one, Ace didn't want more people dying, so here he was, mostly armed with a camera, a revolver, his magical tech skills and a milkshake. "This could only go well" Ace murmured through clenched teeth, before finishing off his milkshake.