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Parker had been out with Dani that night, and he'd stayed later than he should have, which meant sneaking back in through the window. For such a militant school, it was less difficult than Parker would have thought to come and go after curfew. Jaimie had taught him how to remove and reattach the bars the first night they moved in together, and the knowledge had proven to be incredibly valuable. He hadn't quite put the bars back in place yet. It was cold, and Parker wanted to grab a shower that night. He was never good at fighting for a spot in the morning, and more often than not, he either ended up late to class or with his head in a toilet.

Slipping back into the room with a head of wet hair, Parker noted Jaimie had returned as well. "Hey," he said, adjusting his navy blue sweatshirt and pulling the drawstring on his gray pajama pants tighter. Living with Jaimie had been one of the best things that had happened to Parker all year. The kid wasn't the bullying type, and he wasn't the clingy type. They just kind of did their own thing and were civil to each other, if not friendly.

Normally, that 'hey' would be the only greeting, but in the dimly lit bedroom, Parker could not help but notice that Jaimie looked like -- well, total s**t. "Whoa," he said, putting his basket of shower stuff on his desk. "Jaimie, you look like s**t. What happened?" It was a little too late in the day for the grass stains to be the product of some Hillworth-forced sporting event.

It wasn't really like Parker to care too much about the well-being of others. Sure, he didn't enjoying seeing people be physically injured, but he wasn't exactly going to throw himself in front of a moving car to save them either. But this was Jaimie. This was his roommate. It didn't hurt that the explanation he gave was kind of interesting.

At least to a boy who had had his a** handed to him by a Negaverse agent (the third one he'd met in the last six months) a few weeks before either. "You got in a fight?" he asked, opening his bottom desk drawer and stowing the shower basket in there. Jaimie didn't seem like the type to pick a fight, at least not to Parker. "Was it someone from Hillworth?" What Parker wanted to ask was: was it one of those over-powered psychos? But he kept tight-lipped.

Jaimie seemed to be perking up, which was nice. "I think I have my ice pack around here," he said, crossing back to the closet. There was a little cooler in the bottom where Parker kept sodas and, because of his tendency to get his a** kicked, ice packs. He pulled out the coldest one toward the bottom and then held it out to Jaimie.

Taking a seat on his bed, Parker pulled out a small black comb and pulled it through his hair. It was getting long, and pretty soon, Parker would need to have it cut. "You know me," he said, yanking the comb through a snarl through a snarl. "I get my a** kicked on a regular basis, usually by our dear classmates." That wasn't exactly true. Parker didn't really get beaten up typically. He just got pushed around a lot: books knocked out of his hand, dirt in his bed sheets, water poured on his homework. He had run his mouth to the wrong people enough times to be a marked man. It started in freshman year, and by now, he had more or less come to terms with it and learned to deal. The cooler of ice packs, for example...

"I'm glad my arm is out of the cast," he said, rubbing at the bare skin of his once-casted wrist. Parker had never told Jaimie the full story of that night. He'd been in the hospital for a day so he assumed the boy knew not to bother him about it. "I'd rather have a run of the mill nutball than one of the powered-up psychopaths. I can handle a drunk guy with a broken bottle just fine." Senshi and Negaverse were both problems for society, even though some of his more recent encounters had begun to make Parker appreciate the senshi a bit more. It didn't mean he liked them; he just liked when they showed up to save his life. It was hard not to be grateful for that, as much as Parker tried to stay irritated.

Parker held up his arm, now free of the bulky black cast. "I can't say I miss the cast," he said. "I got pretty good at reaching itches with a straw though." Or several straws. One day, it took Parker three straws connected end-to-end to reach a particularly nagging itch.

The powered-up psychos were an annoying itch too, one that seemed determined to rankle Parker at every turn. "I have such great luck," he said, smirking, "that I've run into every possible thing that goes bump in the night." He raked a hand through his hair and found another snag. "I dunno. I've met more than I would've liked to, on both sides. I mean... two weeks ago, I got attacked by one of the ones they call Negaverse." Parker had no idea how up-to-date Jaimie was on the news so he approached the subject gingerly. For all the mayhem going on in Destiny City, some people still refused to believe that the terrorists were anything other than normal kids pulling dangerous pranks. Some even thought it was overzealous gang warfare.

Ever since the redheaded Negaverse agent had reached into his chest, Parker had stopped questioning the reality of the situation. "And then a girl, one of the others, the senshi, she showed up. And I made it out fine." Mostly fine. A few scratches, sure, but nothing like his last Nega encounter. From time to time, he still had nightmares about the purple-haired one.

Parker thought of his own photos of senshi, but said nothing about them. He was more interested in the photos that Jaimie's friend had. "Wow, photos? I wonder if I could see them. Maybe the ones I've met are in there." And it might help him glean some more information for himself too.

Parker apparently didn't feel as lucky for surviving the Negaverse encounters -- yes, plural -- as Jaimie believed he should. It had never occurred to Parker how bizarre it was that he had actually survived so many close brushes with them. After living a life full of disappointment and loss, it just didn't seem particularly noteworthy. He had survived, that was that.

"I've met... a few," he said, eyes widening slightly. "The first time was what put me in the hospital. There were two of them, two of the senshi, and then this other girl. She was a strange mix of both of them, definitely not on the senshi side but she looked like them. She had on a black dress, kind of like I've seen on some senshi, but she was fighting against them, taunting them. Everyone was pretty focused on her too." A pause. "Simon and Franz were there too." That night was terrible, and Parker frequently had nightmares about it. But time had passed, a lot of time. In that time, he was attacked by black monsters and saved by senshi more times than he was willing to admit. Parker had been desensitized to the bizarre quality of it all. And he hadn't even realized it.

Parker made a mental note to look up the video. And then he forced himself to remember what the Negaverse agents looked like. "The Negaverse..rs? The last one was a redheaded girl. She had a plastic bow and arrow. I actually thought she was some cokehead trying to whore herself out for cash... right until she attacked me." It felt odd to speak about this out loud, but with all the insanity going on in Destiny City, it probably was not as strange as it seemed. "The ones before were a guy and a girl. The girl was..." Terrifying? Psychotic? Vicious? Nightmare-inducing? "She had purple hair. A lot of it. She attacked me with jumper cables. And the guy was a redhead too. I didn't get a good look at him." If he saw them again, Parker thought he might be able to identify them.

But for all all the super-powered people he had met in Destiny City, not a single face had ever appeared familiar to him. Not once. Sometimes, he would stare at strangers on the street, trying to pick out the face of the ones who attacked him, or even those who helped him. He never found any of them.

"A squeaky hammer sounds more welcoming than jumper cables," he said, determined to show how terrible his situation was compared to Jaimie's. Pity parties were kind of Parker's thing. He pulled the comb through the ends of his hair. "I wonder how many of them are out there," he said, putting the comb back on his desk. "I've seen them on the news sometimes, but I've never seen the same one twice."

Jaimie had a point about the appearance thing. Parker didn't talk to anyone about his own encounters, not really, but he'd seen plenty of testimonials on the news. Hair colors might be the same, but what they described never sounded like what he had seen. Was it possible that there were an untold number of Negaverse and Senshi lurking in their own school? The thought bothered Parker. It would figure that he would end up in a school of super-powered meatheads with no power of his own to speak of.

Typical.

When Jaimie mentioned pepper spray, Parker laughed. A picture of Franz wielding the stuff popped into his head. He glanced back to his roommate and knew the boy wouldn't be able to understand. "Franz tried that. It didn't end well." No, pepper spray was useless. So far, running had turned out to be Parker's best bet. Flail and run. Those were your options. "If I have a target on my head, a little pepper spray won't help." Was Jaimie right? Was Parker just as prone to meeting this super-powered people as he was to his general misfortune? Great. He'd be dead within the year.

"Is it really so weird to have encountered them? It's on the news so much... have you?"

Some guys had all the luck. And those guys weren't Parker.

He nodded along with Jaimie, but inside, he was shocked the boy hadn't seen any -- not even one? Maybe Parker was oddly prone to encountering them. He certainly lived a lifestyle that put him more at risk, coming across town sometimes late at night from computer repairs. Almost every time he was attacked that had been the case. His new hobby of hiding it trees to snap pictures was no better. For a moment, Parker considered the fact that he might have a death wish, but quickly brushed it away.

It occurred to Parker that this was one of the longest conversation he and Jaimie had ever had. It wasn't that they lived together badly -- quite the opposite, actually. Perhaps they both just enjoyed a little silence?

Clearing his throat, Parker did his best to continue the social atmosphere. "I've never seen one with a mask, just uniforms." He shrugged. "How's the ice pack? I might have another. You look like someone kicked your a** through a window pane and then pulled you through the grass by your hair." Parker laughed. Was that funny? He thought so, apparently.