The socially awkward villain's furry superpower

Meraton drove them into a parking lot and then stopped in front of a toll booth, where Teddy yawned.

Meraton rummaged through the cup holder for a while, found a card, and swiped it on the screen of the automatic gate.

After the barrier gate was raised, she drove past several rows of cars, passed through another checkpoint, and then went down to the next level.

"There shouldn't be many people here."

Teddy isn't afraid of narrow spaces, in fact, quite the opposite, but as they drove deeper into the parking lot...

She still felt as if the ceiling was pressing down on her.

There's concrete and pipes everywhere, but hardly any trees or anything like that.

Meraton pulled the car into a parking space, parked it, and said, "Okay, let's go." He then began to unbuckle his seatbelt.

However, Teddy was faster. He unbuckled his seatbelt and jumped out of the back seat, his boots landing with a thud.

Sienna got off the bus last, but that's alright, she had to make a proper entrance.

Sienna reached out her hand to Teddy, who took it, and the two of them got out of the back of the car and followed Meraton forward.

They came to a door that looked very heavy. There was a keyboard next to the door, and Meraton pressed a few keys on it.

Then the buzzer sounded, and the door opened.

"Keep going straight ahead," Meraton said as he pushed open the door and went inside.

Inside was a long corridor with pipes running through the ceiling and a light every few steps.

Their shoes made a clattering sound on the floor until the door behind them slammed shut.

This corridor is really boring, but at least it doesn't smell like gasoline like the parking lot.

There's another door at the end of the corridor, which requires several keystrokes to open.

Teddy originally thought there would be more tunnels, after all, a proper secret base should be like that.

When the door opened, it turned out to be an ordinary corridor with white walls and a plastic floor.

Before Teddy could even look around, he felt Sienna's hand tighten around his neck.

Two men walked towards them.

They were dressed in white and gray uniforms, wearing motorcycle helmets with masks, and carrying guns.

However, with the guns holstered on their waists, they didn't seem particularly threatening.

Both of them wore badges on their shoulders and chests, with small maple leaf patterns and the word "HRF" on them.

“Merrington,” one of them said, “is right on time. Come with us.”

Teddy held Sienna tightly as they followed behind the two.

They lacked the aura of heroes, but their bright uniforms were never a good sign.

The brightly colored uniforms, like the vividly colored frogs in nature documentaries, imply that making a move against someone wearing such clothes would be a serious offense.

They followed the two men through several unremarkable corridors and into a much larger room.

The room has many doors, and on one side there are a dozen chairs and a whiteboard.

There were also many boys and girls wearing white and red uniforms inside the room.

"Please have a seat," the guard said before leaving.

Some seats were already occupied.

One of them was a "charming female warrior" I had seen in the alley. Her uniform had changed slightly; it now contained more spandex material and some neon elements.

There was an empty seat next to her, and next to that was a boy wearing a dark trench coat.

He had bandages wrapped around his head and hands, and was wearing large goggles. Teddy thought he looked rather strange.

A woman paced back and forth behind the last row of chairs. She wore a tight-fitting orange-yellow uniform covered in dark brown spots.

Only her mouth and chin were visible on her face; the rest was covered by a smooth helmet with cat ears.

There was one last boy, squatting on a chair that looked like it couldn't possibly support his weight.

He was a burly man, covered in metal armor decorated with gold stripes.

He was wearing a fully enclosed helmet, which looked like a large metal barrel with a face shield in the front.

He was so big that he took up two seats, and his two hands—armored hands as big as Teddy's head—were resting on his knees.

“Good heavens, that thing looks like a brick outhouse,” Meraton muttered.

Teddy frowned. "Why would anyone want to live in a house made of shit bricks?"

Sienna gently patted Teddy's head. "So—well, what should we do now?"

Meraton pointed to the back of the room, where there was a window on one of the walls.

"I'm going to the lounge to have some coffee and chat. You guys, find a seat, listen to those boring instructions, and try to make some friends."

“Oh, oh, I… I can try, maybe it will work,” Sienna said.

Teddy patted her thigh. "You can definitely do it, boss."

Teddy wasn't quite sure what was going on.

Sienna wanted to become more deeply integrated into the group of heroes so that it would be easier to betray them when the time came.

However, Teddy didn't like being stuck in a room with all of them.

Even a bear wouldn't provoke an entire pack of wolves by itself.

However, Sienna is very clever, so she must have known what she was doing.

Teddy reminded himself that even if these people were eventually proven to be despicable capitalists or something, he should never offend them.

Sienna and Teddy chose seats in the back row, near the big guy in the black and gold armor.

The burly man turned his head, the armor scraping against his neck. "Hey."

Sienna visibly swallowed. "Hi—hi."

“Hey!” Teddy responded immediately.

"So, who was it that just said I looked like a brick outhouse?" His voice was cool, deep and hoarse.

“Merrington said it,” Teddy said, “but it’s a silly statement because you don’t look like a house, you look like a person.”

The man snorted. "Quite interesting. My name is Killer."

Teddy agreed. "That's a cool name," she said. "I'm... the boss, what's my fake hero name again?"

Sienna shifted in her seat. "Hmm, Ursa Minor? A lot of people use that name online."

“‘Ursa’ means bear, right?” Teddy asked.

Sienna nodded. "Yes. Ursa Minor is a constellation made up of a group of stars."

"That's so cool," Teddy said to the Killer. "That's right, I am Ursa Minor. I can turn into a bear."

He nodded. "Pretty impressive, I can really punch people hard."

Teddy snorted.

She can do it too; it's nothing special.

Bears are known for their incredible striking power.

She'd bet she could beat the killer in a punching contest any day now.

Moreover, although his name is cool, in the end he's just a hero.

Teddy was about to ask the Killer if his ability was really just to beat people up—from what she knew about superpowers, they were usually much more complicated than that—but then a strange-looking man walked into the room and headed toward the whiteboard at the front, so she swallowed her words.

Sienna gasped.

Teddy, however, was only focused on staring at the man.

He wore a large helmet with a mask that resembled the compound eyes of an insect, and a pair of movable metal tentacles protruding from the top of the helmet.

He was wearing a lab coat over his pajamas, and on his feet were a pair of fluffy moth-shaped slippers with antennae dangling from them.

Unlike most heroes around him, this man wore a name tag around his neck.

Mothman

Exemplary level, Level 4

"Who is that?" Teddy asked. He guessed it was an important person; only important people could dress like that and not be disliked.

“That’s Mothman,” Sienna said. “He has a lot of superpowers and has been in this business for a long time. He’s a celebrity here.”

Teddy shrugged.

He's just a big-name hero. Right now, he's probably too powerful for Sienna to handle.

However, we still need to keep an eye on him, just in case he does something underhanded.

Mothman cleared his throat. "Hello everyone," he said. "I am who I am. Now it's time for introductions. Next, let's talk about something important, okay?"

He tapped the whiteboard, and a bunch of text appeared, including a city map with a red line running through it.

“This is our city, right?” he asked. No one answered for a moment.

"Yes, that's right. This is the route you'll be taking. We'll give each of you a cell phone, so don't lose it, those things break pretty easily."

He gestured to the side, and a box appeared out of thin air, then fell to the ground with a clatter.

He stared at the box again; it was already open, and several cell phones were scattered on the ground.

Teddy snorted.

“Yes, that’s right,” Mothman said.