Starlight (Book 1)

36: Temporary Heroes

As it turned out, finding a name was hard.

Around half an hour had passed, and we'd gotten nowhere. I was throwing cursory suggestions, all of which Jax refuted.

"Apollo," I said desperately.

"Who do you think I am?" Jax was staring at a list of Astral City heroes and villains on his phone, scrolling between them. "I only said Ares was passable because that's the God of war. I can't call the God of war lame."

I sighed and crossed the name from my list. "I was thinking of Apollo... like the space missions, but whatever. Suit yourself."

"Wait, actually," he started, "move Apollo to the maybe list."

Switching pages, I pencilled it in underneath Silver, which he hadn't totally rejected. I had first tried Mercury, a name I was certain he'd like—but that was apparently too girly. I'd put Mercury on the maybe-list anyway.

"Have you ever noticed that every single villain has a horribly bad name?" He kicked my forearm, causing a streak of graphite to form on the page. I suppressed him with a glare. "I mean, think about it for a second."

I took a second. "What about it?"

"Well"—he paused; either for effect or because he didn't actually have a point in mind—"look at Phantom Shadow. Phantom is just a word. That means, like, basically a ghost. And then you've got Shadow, which is one of the synonyms for the word phantom." He looked at me. This time it was definitely for effect. "He may as well have called himself Phantom Apparition, or Phantom fucking Phantasm."

"Right," I said, slowly. "Do you feel better now that you've got that out of your system?"

(Silently, I crossed the name Ghost off my brainstorming-list. Besides, Echo had already claimed it.)

"No creativity," Jax went on. "None of them. Not one."

"It's a good thing you're not a villain, then," I reminded him. "Having any luck with that list, Meteor?"

"No," he said firmly. (At this, I skipped my two following names, Asteroid and Comet.) "Superheroes are narcissists."

"Perfect match for you, then," I replied. He glared at me. I glared right back. "Seriously, though, there's not even one name that you like on that list?"

He shrugged.

I tapped my pencil against my temple irritably. "Fine. Are we banning all cosmic and astrology-related names from the list? That'll save us some time."

"Sure," he conceded, "but where does that leave us?"

"Absolutely nowhere."

"Without a name," he added.

"Is that really a bad thing? I mean, you could just tell Echo you're working on it. You're Anonymous-and-indecisive."

I could have sworn he genuinely seemed to consider this. "That's not the worst. But then I'd have to commit to being Anonymous forever, and I think the novelty would wear off eventually."

Of course he liked the name I'd suggested as a joke. "I think we're getting there. Maybe we have to look at words related to your powers..."

***

It had taken a full day for Jax to decide. We were waiting in the queue at the drive-thru of a fast food place across the street from Pleasant Park, and I was getting antsy.