Chapter 22
The next afternoon, the team met in the firehouse. They were in casual clothes, except for Amina and Bulldozer, who were both geared up to go out soon.
Blaze was the last to walk in, a petite dark-skin man with him. He was cute, with a bright happy smile and big dark eyes. He wore skinny jeans, an over-sized sweatshirt, high-top Chucks, and had a canvas messenger bag slung over his shoulder. A thin, black leather band encircled his throat, with a small charm dangling from the center.
“I’m here to design some superhero logos,” he called out excitedly.
“I couldn’t stop him,” Blaze said. “Seems like he got a call from someone,” he flicked an annoyed glance at Aiden. “Suggesting that the team members all needed personalized symbols.”
Aiden grinned. “Youcouldn’t stop him? He’s gotta weigh what? A buck twenty soaking wetwithlead weights in his shoes and you couldn’t stop him?” He shook his head. “You are so whipped.”
Blaze shrugged, not at all bothered by Aiden calling him whipped. But the smaller man at his side protested.
“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’ve put on some muscle since I started training with you.”
“Of course you have, Danny boy.” Aiden pinched Danny’s cheek, which earned him a disgruntled swat. Laughing, Aiden ducked out of the way and turned to Mike. “This guy was a villain magnet a few months ago. He decided to learn some self-defense techniques so he’d stop getting kidnapped every five minutes.”
“Yeah, apparently I was like catnip for bad guys.” He stuck his hand out to Mike. “Hi. I’m Danny, Jordan’s boyfriend.”
“Mike. Nice to meet you,” Mike said as he accepted the handshake.
“To give you all an idea of what I can do I’ll show you how I revamped Blaze’s logo.” He sat down in one of the chairs in front of Caleb’s work station and took out his tablet. “Caleb, do you mind if I hook my tablet up to your big screen?” he asked, pulling out an HDMI cord from his bag.
“Not at all.” Caleb tapped a few keystrokes and one of his monitors changed from a view of the Mississippi River to Danny’s home screen.
Danny’s dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Okay, I don’t even want to know how you did that.” He stuffed the cord back in his bag, then tapped the screen to open up the image file for Blaze’s logo.
“I like it,” Helios said.
“Thank you, Helios. I didn’t change the bones of the design. Just jazzed it up a bit. Aiden, since you were so eager that you called me in the middle of the night, we’ll do your symbol first. What ideas do you have? Something with stars? They’re in your name and on your mask.”
Aiden froze at Danny’s question. From the blank expression on his face, it was clear he hadn’t thought of what he should have for a symbol.
“I guess I should have thought of that when I called you.”
“Yeah. But I’ll let it slide since you teach me cool self-defense moves.” Danny tapped his tablet pen on his lips for a few moments. “How about...” He trailed off without finishing and started sketching.
With Danny’s tablet cast to Caleb’s monitor, they were able to watch as he drew. From the mention of Aiden’s Stardust mask, Mike thought that Danny would sketch out something that included it. But instead, he’d drawn two gold sai crossed at the blades with black stars inside the space where they intersected.
“What do you think?” Danny asked once he finished the rough sketch.
Aiden nodded in approval. “Nice. I like it.”
“I’ll polish it up and let you see it before I do the final render.”
“Thank you, Danny. You’re the best.”
“That’s one down. Mike, you’re new, right? Let’s do yours next. Tell me about your powers.”
“I shoot a solar wind blast from my eyes.” He thought about what else he could add. “It’s green, if that helps.”
“Oh, that’s cool. I can definitely use green as a color, but I need something more for your symbol. How’d you get your powers?”
“They’re from the northern lights. I was stationed at the Arctic circle when it happened. “
“At the North Pole? How about taking the North Star as your symbol?”
“That could work.”
