A/N

This one isn't too eventful. Most of the stuff that happens is the character's catching up with the reader (with the exception of who Jon really is and Jax's real motivation).

"You're telling me you knew him before his incident?" Uni asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

"Yeah, he works at the same place my cover up job is. We're...friends outside of the Industry," Ashlie whispered back, hesitating. She was sure Nick couldn't hear their discussion, but she was walking on a tightrope; one wrong move and everything would fall apart. "But he isn't involved with anything aside from that. Not that I know of, at least,"

Dawn sat there, looking a bit puzzled. Although you couldn't see his eyes underneath his opaque visor (it was a tactic all three of them use; none of their costumes showed their eyes), she could already tell that he was calculating.

"We'll discuss it later, I think we all need some time to think about this. We know he's after him so it's up to us to keep him safe until this whole thing dies down," the technician stated. The three agreed, ending the discussion there.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

They were talking about him, Nick knew they were.

The three heroes were whispering among themselves, their voices quiet enough so he couldn't understand. But it only made sense they were talking about him; why wouldn't they? They would have questions, but he wasn't sure if he would be able to answer them.

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was tense and unmoving; even though he could see the city down below, it felt like they weren't going anywhere. It wasn't the first time he was in an awkward situation similar to this, but he wasn't prepared for it. He had too many questions and too little answers.

What were they going to do with him? How was his life going to change after this? What was he going to do? Why does the villain want him? Was he going to miss work? But most importantly...

How would Ashlie and Jon feel about this?

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Jon felt sick to his stomach.

He managed to slip back home, which luckily wasn't too far away. The streets were still deserted, so he was able to go unnoticed. The office worker sat on his bed, contemplating his actions.

"What am I going to do? I have to tell them," he thought out loud.

He always had his suspicions on what was going on when he passed out, but he never imagined something like this.

Who? Those friends of yours? They'll probably hate you. After all, you just tried to kill both of them.

"Wait, what?"

The girl? She's the dragon.

He froze in place. That was news to Jon. Was Ashlie really Scorcher, or was Jax just messing with him? He wasn't quite sure how to react; he was in shock with that revelation, but that would only make things easier to turn himself in. And at the moment, he had substantially bigger problems than learning one of his best friends was a superhero. It would've been kind of cool.

You're taking that better than I expected. Well, I didn't hurt her; stupid girl kept dodging my attacks, more than usual today. 

"What did you do to Nick?" Jon knew that the spirit was hellbent on killing his friend; he was the only person he knew who could touch the amulet without getting hurt.

Hm? Oh, nothing really. I probably scared the living daylights out of him, but aside from that, I'll just have to wait for next time.

"There won't be a next time. I won't let you take control after that!" He grabbed the amulet, wincing at the pain in his hand. It burned, but he wasn't going to let it control him ever again. He yanked at the string, making it big enough for him to slide it over his head.

But when he tried to lift it off, an unbearable pain went straight through his palm.

"Fuck!" Dropping it in an instant, Jon looked at his palm, the pain fading away.

He had large cuts, from the tips of his fingers to the upper half of his palm; the area that had touched the amulet. Although none of them looked too deep, he couldn't ignore the blood coming from them. The crimson liquid dripping down his wrist, staining his bed sheets a drop of ugly red.

"W-what the hell?!"

Did you really think you could take it off? You never learn, do you?

This wasn't good.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Matt took a deep breath, standing in front of the door to the questioning room. He wasn't very good at interrogation, but the civilian might be more relaxed if someone as non-imposing as him were to question him. He had everything he needed, and that meant he didn't have anything planned.

He kept his phone in his back pocket. If anything went wrong, he would get a call so he would have an excuse to leave.

With one last sigh, he pushed open the door, light filtering into the relatively dark room. He shut the door behind him, the only light focused on the man sitting down across the table from him.

He thought Uni's description was the worst he'd ever heard, but it wasn't too far from reality. Sure enough, a young man with dark chestnut hair and thin framed glass was there.

"Hey!" Matt cheerfully said, taking a seat from across from him.

"Uh, hi?" He responded, looking more curious than confused.

"My name is Matt and I'll be asking a few questions. Could ya answer honestly so my friend Davis over there can record?" He informed, pointing over to the opaque glass window. His coworker, Davis, was behind it, ready to take notes.

"That's the point of questioning. I'm Nick, by the way," the informant smiled slightly before continuing on with his questioning.

"Alright, Nick. Tell me a bit about yourself," something simple would be fine, he needed him to get comfortable before asking the hard-hitting questions. It also didn't hurt to know a bit about him.

"Like what?"

"Your family, your job, I don't know, your hobbies? Favorite color, even!" Nick thought for a moment before answering.

"Well, I moved here by myself a few years back and my family lives back in my hometown. I don't get to talk to them often, except my brother. I'm an office worker; it's nothing too special. I can play the piano, but that's about it. I used be into video games, but I don't have enough time anymore," The caramel brunette pushed this information to the back of his head; it won't be too important, but he might need to use it sometime.

"My family lives out-of-town too, but I haven't heard from them in a few months. As you can see, this is my job and I don't really have hobbies that I have time to do. Work takes a lot of time up," Nick looked at him with mild surprise.

"It must be pretty exciting working in a place like this," the shorter male replied.

"Nah, even with superpowers, it's kind of boring. Probably more boring than a normal desk job," Matt didn't want to go into details, keeping it as vague as he could.

"I literally just deliver documents everyday, the only thing that makes it semi-interesting is my friends there,"

"They must be real interesting. What's their names?" This was what he was looking for. If Fool's Gold was after this guy, it would have to do something with who he knows.

"There's Ashlie. She's about my height and has reddish hair. She's really out there and outgoing. It's something that I admire about her; she always seems a lot more confident than the people around her. Then there's Jon..."

Matt had stopped listening at that point. He knew that Ashlie worked a desk job as a cover up and Nick looked like he could be around her height. She also had red hair. No, it must've been a coincidence. There were probably a hundred Ashlies in the city.

"So, yeah," Nick had finished his sentence, snapping Matt's attention back to him.

"That's cool. Don't really have friends here, I mean, there's Davis but we're just coworkers. By the way, what's this Ashlie's eye color?"

"Teal. Why?" He wasn't prepared for this. It was a minor surprise to Matt; it wasn't anything that he expected, but he knew what he was getting into when he started the questioning.

Then why was his finger giving out?

Matt had relatively good control of his power; it almost never inconvenienced him. However, when he was caught off guard or greatly upset, it always activated. Even if it was just a small surprise like this one, it would still activate and wouldn't stop for a few hours.

Unfortunately for him, his power let him change the consistency and flexibility of his bones. He could bend his wrist completely backwards if he wanted to, but it never affected his neck or head.

"Thought she was a girl I went to high school with. We were friends for a year when she moved, but she had brown eyes, not blue," by the time he managed to formulate the lie, his whole hand had lost its rigid structure. He held down his wrist with his still structured hand, making sure it looked inconspicuous.

Before either of them could say anything, Matt heard his phone starting the ring. Carefully, he took it out from his pocket, taking a look at the caller. It was Davis. He turned his phone completely off, the ringing suddenly cutting off.

"Sorry about that. Well, it was nice talking to you, Nick. We're done here for now, but we're going to have to keep you here until the higher ups decide what to do, capiche?" the brunette pushed in his chair with one hand before exiting the room.

"Sure, but, that's it? I thought there would be -" Nick's confused expression the last thing he saw in the room before he shut the door, cutting him off midsentence. By this time, his entire forearm had lost its structure.

Davis was waiting for him already.

"You heard that too, right?" He asked.

"Yeah. He knows Ashlie personally," Matt answered. "I think we have the answer we need," 

A/N

You know that scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets where Harry's arm looses all of its bones? That's kind of like what happens to Matt, except it starts to spread to his entire body except for his neck and above.