Your Power

Frankie ran out onto the field to hug her sister, a motion Shori didn’t really see through her helmet as her neck tilted down. The shame was hitting her already- and she didn’t even know yet that he’d seen.

“That was crazy! You practice one morning and that’s what you get from it?!” 

“I’ve still got…” She heaved. “More to me, huh…?” The smile on her face was an earned one in her book, but Frankie didn’t think she needed to have “earned” it at all.

“You always had a lot to you, you’ve got everything.” She made sure to hug her a bit tighter this time. “Why should you have to prove it?”

Katie shook her head. “I dunno.” She admitted. Tara and Gen and Nate were all around her now, the whole gang congratulating her anyway. In all the fuss, she didn’t see them coming either.

<I might have to animate something like that soon. Impressive.>

Frankie’s attention was stolen the fastest, but everyone in the room was looking at her within the second. There stood Studio Rogue’s one-and-only Hiromaki Miyano… and right beside her, Dr. Joseph Arrow.

“Sensei!”

Sensei Joseph Arrow.

The older pupils hurried to talk to the man. The gentle elder looked worse for wear, but they couldn’t notice that under all the hype. At last Shori finally saw him and promptly hid her face under the baggy sleeves of her robes.

“A-Arrow…?”

It couldn’t be helped with how many people had something to say to him that Tara would be left behind, or so they thought. But as soon as he could make his way through the crowd, they were the very first one he spoke to.

“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.” He stepped up to the young adult vigilante.

“I… I…”

“What’s the matter? I’ve got all these freakin’ kids around me and I can still speak, you go mute since I last saw ya? Come here.”

Tara leapt into the old man’s arms, crying.

“Cripes… this is what I get for getting involved in a life.”

“I didn’t think- I didn’t think I’d ever-“

Arrow twitched. “Calm down! You’ll ruin my trickery. Those hands of yours still working good?”

They nodded in his arms.

“That’s just great. And this-“ To Gen’s surprise the old stranger abruptly looked to him. “Don’t tell me. Is this that boy you were so broken up ove-“

Tara pinched the doctor.

“Ow! Okay, okay. Times change, I see. Glad you’re doing well.”

Hiromaki sighed, albeit with a smile. She looked at how confused the Americans were… and Nate Cavefield, for that matter. He avoided her gaze, trying his best just to blend in with the crowd like he always did.

“Why’s Joseph Arrow here?!” Katie wasn’t much less bewildered than her sister beside her, having known about the guy already.

“What’s… who is this guy?” Frankie wondered aloud.

“A huge weeb who couldn’t leave this place behind.” Chuckled Miyano.